Poems by Allan Hayes Book 3

Poems

The Soul Within Book 3

Allan Hayes

Visit the Song Again

Dedicated to Wallace Stevens

If the shadow of sleeves in the wind

Is cast over the sea,

And the voice fades into air

The moment the song was there

It was yours to feel.

It was the singer’s and yours

In the same breath.

And there in the swell of salt

On the oceans rolling back

The notes were brought to tune

While being made.

Where they went

Offers up no purpose.

That they sail over the sea

Is their physical reality.

And if the lilting masts equip the heart, Or hint of adumbrations of a crafted night,

Find your places in the calm

That is your calm to feel

It is in you, fresh as salt, Quiet as the water under

The gently rocking boat

Where deeper dreams can be cast for.

Out of the water that

Sluices through your reaching palms

Pull at the song again and let it pour

Through the many channels back to the source.

Meaning never lasts.

It drains into the sea

Let it go. Let it flow away

And start again making it yours

Who are you pale Ramon?

Why does the mystery

Of the sound of your name

Carry visions of the soul floating?

The Swamp

Dark night in the swamp

No moon. No sound. No movement

Only the silent stillness moves

Under the darkness where

Something swims with movements unannounced

Pale green beards of Spanish moss, Hanging cobwebs of unseen beings

Things here don’t show themselves

But when you feel them, they won’t go away.

Gnarled roots reach down into the mud under the black water

Deeper than the bottom

Into the depths of Hell.

The gator’s golden eyes, unforgiving

They see where you are.

They know where you are.

Then sink below to enter unaware

The bare boat glides between branches

Becoming snakes that merge back into darkness

As you feel the sinews slither and wrap

As sibilant transformations slowly slide

Pay heed, the goddess manages

The ferryman’s transition as Ophelia floats above into eternity

Wrapped in a dress of the filaments of dreams

No boundaries here to guide you as transition helps you slide into your soul.

As you swim in the dark to Find your way back home

Awakening

I awoke on planet Earth, And tried to put something Of what I saw into words. Of what I felt so you could feel.

I’ve spent some time in A spinning solar system preening the wings of imagination and looking around to understand.

Looking at the changes

In the positions of the stars, Not much has changed since I’ve been here, on one hand, and on the other,

earth is flying apart in this little blink of time.

In the beginning it was eternity, but now, in the blink of an eye I feel the stars are fading from inside I feel the stars are young and I am old.

A Poem is a Door

I hand a poem to you

Oh come inside, the words are fine

I made this poem just for you.

I think my chosen words will strike your heart.

This word means this, I’m sure you see.

It is the green river, the pale green bay

No the duckweed mystery pond, no Malachite in moonlight shimmering

If it says the fire is hot, you see the burning house.

I see the forest fire glowing in the wind, or

The pale Turner sunset where

The sun drowns into the horizon

The water’s cold and deep it says

I see the anchor wedged to bottom rock

Kelp streaming in the flow

You see the lake, I see the sea

Dark as a dungeon down in the silent trenches

Deep as the glowing strangers beyond the surface light

This line sings with words of speed.

I see the cheetah race the wind

The hummingbird is here and gone

As silent jets leave silken streams of white

It speaks of flying, oh such a thing

Pelicans in formation slip into the wind where

Above the net the acrobats with reaching hands

Fall down into the net to fly again

There’s mystery here to salve your soul

The hanging fog in forest light

The crack of thunder’s burning bolts

The distant peal of bells at night

Where shrieking eagles fly into the dusk

At night the wave is blue with flame

And silent shapes that move within

The phosphorescent trails of life

Bring radiant presence deeply felt

This poem brings a world of thought I feel the meaning spread within There’s more here, yes. I know there’s more I’ll dive in deep and read again

See the silken pale night heron fly across your dreams so soft it isn’t there it seems I felt this too and I know why We know exactly what he means.

The Here and Now

To quiet our desperate searching, calm it down

Just live in the moment, that’s where you should stay

That is what the ‘wise man say’.

The mind is always in a swirl

Of past and future, ceaseless whirl

Close off the flood of constant thoughts

Don’t let your mind take you away.

That is what the ‘wise man say’.

But the river is a puddle if it has no source

It will cast away its visions of the sea

It takes all the laboring of years

To really know the treasure that is here

There is no magic in the here and now

The past, the future are not in the way

It’s only by an act of the full mind

We feel the meaning of this place in time

If you only live in the moment ‘I man say’

You are wasting the depth and fabric of your life.

Swim in the flow and eddies you have lived

To feel your life and what it has to give.

Virginia Road

Little peddle fire engine with glowing sparklers blazing

The ribbon of smoke and fire was engine enough to Take me down the cracked and broken sidewalk

To conquer all that dared challenge the way

Dark in the mystery of night

Down by the hedge with flashlight glowing plucking snails a penny a piece

Treasures of the night, glowing jewels for a mighty hunter

In the dark garage the elegant Plymouth parked

Where mysterious objects lined the studded shelves

Things to be marveled at before slipping out

The squeaking sliding door to sneak away

Out by the fence in the back, covered in hedge

Beyond the rose garden where peaking through You just glimpse the enemy’s yard dimly

A scout on a mission to be captured with one false move

Unseen but sensed monsters lurk laughing

As they spit and foam eyes ablaze

Mocking the very temerity of This challenge from a wayward knight

In the old house the smells of rituals waft and the Ticking grandfather clock chimes marking the passing hours

Ever slowly knelling loud to say Time in steady march moves on its way

Now I linger in a dream of time passed by The fire breathing dragons have vanished with The glowing snails that lit up a child’s night

And I am left longing for the simple joy of That hallowed place, now forever gone

I yearn to have again that simple joy that Filled my soul each day,

And be free from the endless maze of questions

Where satisfying answers never come

Mono Lake

From the pale peaks of the Sierra rim

Chill air falls onto Mono

With the violence of release

And the calming of release

Alkali flies flitter, wriggle and hum

Along the ragged sandy edges

Of the azure briny shallows

Below chalk white tufa towers

You are the white ghost

Submerged in the amnion brine

The sun sits frozen above the peaks and Time stands still to give eternity a rest

Unending acres of twitching brine shrimp

Dance at the surface where turquoise water

Reflects the gently drifting clouds

Hanging in the ancient cirrus sky

The silence of Paoha has no ears

A quiet deeper than no sound reveals

Your heart’s rhythmic slow swishing

Singing the sibilant pulse of life.

The mammoth gazes with quiet gentle eyes

The moon kissing Mono with a pale glow

As in the grass the Saber Tooth

In stealthy silent cunning patience lies

Here at the white encrusted shore look out

To the edge of the Milky Way where

Stars circle gently overhead deep in the past

And you stand at the center of right now

At dawn a crazed wind works up waves

And pitched to the brink they roll

With frothy crests that buck with manes of salt

As if far out at sea they churn and moil

The rising sun ignites a bush with golden light

This time next year the bush will not be here

The stars themselves will seem the same

But they’re not really there where they appear

Permanence itself lingers in a calm

Then moves along its way not looking back

It seemed though briefly this might be the place

Ah yet at least perhaps I’m on the track

Toilers of the Sea

A painting by Albert Pinkham Ryder

Through ragged waves the boat toils

Toward the paint thick waiting moon

Through cracks and fissures in the layered paint

Simplicity the channel into the deeper thoughts

Laid down by a blind man yearning to see

Feel the painted moon’s pull toward the stark horizon

Nothing here really but the eyes of a man’s heart

Yearning for the wind to fill his sail

Smell the salt and feel the warm night wind

Wafting from the dark encrusted paint where

Smeared clouds hang in a heavy weathered sky

Over a man heading somewhere beyond the darkness

Feel the night escaping from the paint

A frozen vision bursting into life

Entering the land of visions to be where

Simple ambiguity blossoms in the mind

The heaving boat pounds through the craquelure

This journey in the darkness must be made

Though little here than dabs and smears of paint

And yet we feel everything we see

Here is a soul merging with the paint

And as the dancer merges with the dance

This soul’s journey now has time to surge

Into the paint thick sea forever free

The Tarpit

Dark water glistens over soft black tar

From the moon piercing beams through the pines

Out of the mist moaning cries signal

The struggle for life playing out in the night

Animals in hunger and in thirst

Wade into the inviting silver surface to Drink of the fragrant darkness in this

Alluring pond seeped from the source of Lethe

Stealthily they move silently toward

The inviting odor of ripening flesh

Where saber tooth and all its favorite prey

Are layered slowly in a dark strata of death

A cloud of hovering souls hangs in the mist as Bellows in the night convey the slow surrender

And the dying give in to the sticky tar

Excepting the embrace of unforgiveness

Stand at the edge of the beckoning water

We are all drawn into darkness at the end

Come to me the water says

Come to me and be at peace

A barely visible silken ripple

Spreads in quiet circles in the dark

An owl calls in the humid endless night and then

The sound recedes and then the silence reigns

Dream Yacht

The old man sits in his tangled overgrown yard

Under a safari hat slouched in a lounge chair

An unfinished bone white sailing yacht

Dwarfing the tiny white house

When he goes to bed at night, he says

Why visit space, the moon, the stars?

Everything we make of them is in our heads

Out there is nothing. I will sail the seas

The towering yacht sits on a rack in the grass

But with night in dreams it ventures out to sea

Pounding over the windswept water

Toward a pale golden rising moon

Sailing windward through an angry sea Or close hauled to the wind

He gives a wide berth to all the Imagined ships passing in the night

No listless doldrums here

To luff the sails and still the yearning heart

Trim the sails and grab each gust

Forward fast or the devil to pay

No time to dally, so much to see and feel

Before the approaching dawn uncasts the spell

Next morning in the stiff and frosted grass

The majestic yacht sits poised

Ready for journeys yet to be dreamed

Adventures to be found following the wind

We will go together and taste the salty spray

With cracking lips and crusted eyes

One more day in the grass is all I ask

One more night on the sea

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