Poems
The Soul Within Book 2
Allan Hayes
Contents
1. Lions of Darkness
2. The Boy of Wind
3. River’s Mouth
4. Panamint
5. Jasmine
6. Dorymen (A song Poem)
7. She Takes me Under Moonlight (A song Poem)
8. The Channel
9. The Forest
10. It’s Cold Watching the Stars
11. Fires in the Heart
Lions of Darkness
In the darkness the females wait
An ancient growl the cold of fright Lions of darkness rule the night
Night's heavy feet know the earth where everything is on alert
Movements in the dark are old the giants move where no one goes.
We are all orphans in the dark. Side rivers flowing filled with mud
Feel their entry lake of dawn.
Entwined, the limbs and branches grow and tangle with the stars between.
The flowing herds of Zebras roam
Glowing grass, lonely chill
A lion skin draped over bones
We know the part of this that’s home.
Watchful eyes of liquid stone, Grasses move beyond the sound
flowing without wind. Come together things we feel
Now on the dark plateau of dawn
A piece of wind
A nose has eyes
In the dark
You hear the cries
Things take place
They always have. Things take place
They always will.
Dreams are made in the dark of night
When things we fear
Awaken.
The Boy of Wind
There was a boy who held his breath and let his mind go near to death.
One bright spring day while still just learning he went that way without returning.
I can’t seem to craft one bright line to catch the meaning of the young boy’s dying.
In the sun, his head was a cup that spilled its contents back out of this world.
If Icarus fell to the ground and was suddenly there by your feet Would the summer be as warm, Would you sleep as deep?
Can a few words, cups of the best of the well, quench the mind burning above the boy’s absence.
There were no musicians in attendance, just children waiting for his resurrection. No heraldry of angels praised the passing, he just held his breath then left without asking.
His mind dissolved like a million leaves falling, Shimmering to the ground where they lay so still.
He walked the line between life and death, So the tension would gain him an audience.
To accomplish this he used no wire, No physical device, just inner fire.
The boy lay like leaves upon the ground While his friends waited for him to come around.
The children stood in dumb amazement, Perhaps I have come to my final attainment
There is something unsettlingly wrong. This performance I fear is a little too long.
How could a performer, so committed and exact Disappear off curtain not to finish the act.
For awhile perhaps he lived inside, but then turned the lights out And went to visit the other greats in his profession.
There is nothing more alone than being with what’s left of someone when all of them is gone.
River’s Mouth
Here at the mouth of the river
I feel a huge loneliness at how simple life is.
Panamint
Out on the vale in the quiet time
I sit on the alluvial fan falling away
Emptiness has a quiet depth Distance beyond sight
Where nothing is trying To be anything
It is here, that's all And all it really is Or needs to be.
Desert is a feeling in the mind Of openness beyond protection
Where the soft sibilant wind
Brings deep feeling
With no meaning
Here the stars fall like rain and become grains of sand
The desert has been here a long time But is not waiting for anything
It is not lonely, it is not empty
It is a warm wind touching you Without asking for more
Jasmine
The clouds moved by on Windy Hill, Off the beaten path, by the thistle thicket, There under the moving grasses and reddish soil, Laying back against bedrock, as far as shovel could go, Jasmine lies quietly looking up at the world she left.
Why is life a thing that comes and goes?
How did she feel that morning after The operation meant to make her well To feel the swollen heavy heat of her body Fighting for the life that was coming Full with her spirit strong and out of pain.
Could she know when she stretched her Swollen body through my fingers And lay down her cheek It was not meant to be.
The fact was simple, she had to go And leave the pain in this place here And be somewhere else.
We loved her so a hole fell into the heart, An emptiness that echoed without end.
It wasn't a philosophic feeling about death, A groping with the mysteries of time, Probing the vast landscape of questions And shadowed answers about spirit and the beyond, It wasn't about death in general.
It was Jasmine's death, her death, The one she had that morning When she stiffened up and died inside the body she was in. We swaddled her in the sleeve she loved,
Wrapped firm and strong, her head gently poised and looking up, And lay her in the ground on Windy Hill, Where now she stares up through the dirt to the world she loved, Sings with the wind, and softly watches The clouds and stars go by.
This is Jasmine's death, no other. And it holds a simple beauty That will always be.
Dorymen
On the fragrant sloping sea
The Dorymen are singing, Their voices fall on the grey wide water. Down below the cod are dreaming.
The Dorymen pull on the cod
As the sea mists close around them. Through the fog the mother ship Searches for her children.
Back on the ship they salt the cod, And pile them high in the hold. They ride the rum to oblivion, And the moon is old.
The Dorymen call to their wives in their sleep. The cod fish hold their places. The moonlight sinks in the ocean Without leaving any traces.
The cod fish drift with minds of glass, They have no sense of Dorymen. They’ll be here this time next year, As they’ve always been.
She Takes Me Under Moonlight
(A song poem)
She takes me under moonlight
Into the frosted fields
Footprints in the night
Are cold and damp
We wander in the mountains
As the sun is going down
You can hear the distant thunder
In the dark
(chorus)
Time comes around the corner
Finds you standing all alone
And you’re wondering
Where the time has gone
Frozen in the sunlight
Standing at the waters edge
We walk across the ancient fields of rain
Wind blows through the canyons
That are dark until the noon
Where we wander
Caring little what’s beyond
Time comes around the corner
Finds you standing all alone
And you’re wondering
where the time has gone
The journey is a long one
The path will never end
She helps you walk alone
Right by your side
The place that you are going
You will never really know
Many came this way before
And they all tried
Time comes around the corner
Finds you standing all alone
And you’re wondering
Where the time has gone
The Channel
Against the ragged shores of Orcas
Pushing over the deep channel
A heavy throb rumbles on the water
As the tugs guide the big ships out to sea.
In the deep-water canyon the prawns wriggle And invisible halibut lay in quiet patience.
Cormorants dry their wings on shore rocks
Blue Heron slide by against the shadowed trees.
Blue jellies flow ashore with the wind
Strewn along white beaches with drying sails
And below tentacles dangle and wave
In the cold living darkness
Overhead geese wedge through the wind
Calling out over the black water where Rain dances on the surface and the tugs rumble along Behind the churning tankers
The Heron stands at the water’s edge
Eternal every second posed in timeless stillness. Deep down shrimp click and snap Their rain song in the darkness of the canyon
The tugboat pushes and the big ships rise and wallow As they move towards some distant time And leave the channel’s mysteries Alone.
The Forest
There is a wind tonight in the forest
Trees sway and creak, Branches bend and needles shimmer
Yet there is a calming stillness in the motion.
The conifers stand aloof. Hear them sing with ancient voice
And the chorus of mycelium sings of Eternal layers of slow time.
The mycelium tangle and twine
Talking to the reaching trees.
Owls hear it in the silence
Crows watch on the swaying branches
I walk among the fallen branches
The tripping vines, and look around. The screech owl is silent There are times for carefulness.
See the moon slinking through the Dark crisscrossing branches, Moving slowly a little here, then over there Until the dawn.
Just behind the dark the feeling dwells. Deep in a world you cannot see. Shadows move in swaying light And the breath of trees is damp.
Dive under the forest floor
Swim through the talking roots, Feel the deep interconnections
That make the world work
Look
up and see the wind
Everyone is home here.
The cedar talk to the ancient ones
A bee bends a flower down
It’s Cold Watching the Stars
Buffalo Bill Went drifting by In the deep dark water
Beneath the sky
Calamity Jane
With skirts a billowing Found the experience Rather chilling
The miner searches With his head face down He doesn’t know That he was drown
At the surface the stars bounce away Down here a merry-go-round of the dead We hold our places on display
In this silent dance where the currents flow
You called out names like Buffalo Bill But you don’t really know us. We’re just dead people floating by At six hundred feet under the sky
In icy darkness, we’re much as we were When we stopped being Part of the air and became Part of the water.
Fires in the Heart
The circus animals have lost their ladder, And stay in the well of the heart. The poetic fire is chilled in the wind And we know where things are going.
It’s not on a stone vase we see Where stone relief portrays the truth Mournful melodies provide relief, But even beauty won’t save the day.
Even the finely crafted lines Of the greatest poets with all their skills Can’t freeze aging as it hurries on The fires in every heart will chill
It is more real to live in life, And feel ripples in the stream Than drown in the eddies near the shore Or cling to the rocks in fear of dreams
So hard we hope and try to pretend That old age is a glorious time. When the life well lived the cup will fill But we know the cup will always spill.
Embers shimmer in the dwindling light The fire flickers in the wind
Until all is still and try as you might The last coal dies to burn again.
