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UnspokenHow pure, your being.
Misfortunes like drifting snow,
And still you are warm.

When grey packs of misery
hound me, I picture your smile.

My familiar,
silence. A shadow dancer,
the partner for me.

Why bother questioning?
He dances flawlessly.

Mirror

Motionless, the pool
has trapped the vault of heaven,
spread before my feet.

CadenzaSuppose each one of us older than the stars,
suppose that we are other than the ragged beggars we seem,
suppose that our engulfing slumber, our inner darkness,
is constantly erupting with the vanity of dreams.

Consider those uncounted aeons swallowed in the oceans
of that virtuality, where we, the ever drowning mariners,
must cling to the absurd shapes we call reality.

Will we, unknowing captives, ever be free?
Has liberty become our cage of captivity?
Oh yes, we writhe, our nakedness become despair.
as our frenzied touching reveals that nothing's there.

Willing FleshFlesh the means, spirit the end,
yet still the unintended. While deep
embedded in the pulsing rhythms
of the body's routine life, it transcends
physicality, flourishing in realities
never imagined before. Spirit is the key
to unlock the heavy door, to make
the great discovery of joy.

On The PodiumThe art of conductivity
as the maestro explained,
is that the man with the baton

serves as a lightning rod,
earthing intuitions from god.

AfterwordFunerary goods
always include coin to pay
the ferry man's fee.

What if we had always been wrong,
If none waited by the river?

The end of the line
had ever seemed likely
to leave the traveler

abandoned in empty space,
no hope of resolution.

Stranded 2

The end of the line
had ever seemed likely
to leave the traveller

abandoned in empty space,
no hope of resolution.

Passenger

Beyond the window
her past slides into the void.
The train gathers speed.

The Ladder Of JacobJacob dreamed. Though we may know nothing about what kind of man this father of patriarchs was, the record of his dream has been preserved. We have no way of knowing if this was indeed ever a dream that a man experienced. The story has him traveling alone, so artists have portrayed him. In the ancient text he settles for the night, resting his head on a stone.
As he sleeps the vision unfolds, he sees a ladder that reaches toward heaven from the earth, a ladder by which angels are ascending and descending.

He hears the voice of god, so he believes. The god tells him how remarkable he is. We might understand this vision as an allegory of his

Hypnopompic

A key too rusted
to turn, a door once solid,
now rotting away.

As sentience stirs again,
the dream's images decay.

Pioneer

The power of flight
begins with a child's fantasy,
the world left behind.

Air Force Revisited.

Flying fortresses,
dense enough to deflect light
yet insubstantial

Water drops suspended in
the high, thin air, wind sculpted.

(Originally:

Flying fortresses,
solid enough to impede light
yet made of nothing.

Water drops suspended in
the high, thin air, wind sculpted.)

Ladders

The rungs rise and fall,
the direction is decided
by the starting point

so the climber discovers:
The way up is the way down.

Storyville, Bordello Sketches1

Girls, pale skinned and nubile,
who by candle light might pass,

women who lend a joint a little class,
a suggestion of sass in the swing of the ass,

these were the gems the madams looked out for,
girls who could turn sad guys into would-be Casanovas.

Still the punters knew that the dollar was always king,
their dollars could buy them any pretty thing

in the room. They also knew that black girls
had learned what they had to do for a necklace of pearls

and stockings of silk. So the guys played make believe.
In the first light of dawn nobody was deceived.

2

The Storyville madams
hired piano players, even bands
to help the gir

After Life

Hollow cranium
- an abandoned cathedral,
a meaningless space.

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Shot

He out-stares the lens.
Unblinking digital eyes
won't overawe him.

He's a man not to be caught
so randomly. He's still free.

Juxtaposed

Two people, blinded
by their inner lives, passing
close as galaxies.

Pioneer

The power of flight
begins with a child's fantasy,
the world left behind.

ColloquyWhere, I asked, does the sun set?

Have never heard? It's swallowed by the Western Sea.

But how then can the sun rise?

Child, your dazzled eyes are too easily misled,

How can a hero rise again after he's dead?

Yet I see what I have seen. Are so many heroes then,

that they're extinguished every day?

You have seen what you have seen,

we faithless creatures can only watch and pray.

For Jason

A scene through the eyes
of a cosmic traveller.
Each new world unique.

Prestidigitation

The cards tell too much.
When the joker has escaped
where is certainty?

Shuffle the deck as you will,
are you sure you'll never lose?

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Foreshore

by *AlecBell, Mar 24, 2011, 3:59:21 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Haiku & Eastern

Picture, if you can, in this elemental setting, a solitary child, so tiny, so distant against those rearing rocks, that you cannot certainly determine the child's gender. Not that that detail is of any consequence, what you see is an animated speck fearlessly approaching the edge of the ocean's ancient dream.

The child's brief and fugitive experience discovers what language has yet to teach. Nothing in the world of this tiny he or she is more than a moment old, yet that fragile moment can swallow this ancient world whole.

Rock has forgotten
time's beginning. Still busy,
the tide gnaws, the rock erodes.

Foreshoreby *AlecBell

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Haiku & Eastern

The form of this piece is a haibun, devised by Basho, the great originator in Japanese poetry, who created the Haiku.

Many of my watchers will be familiar with my love of this simple, epiphanal form. Yet its spareness and economy have a price.

The Haiku, you might say, can realise "the standpoint of eternity." For this Ying, Basho supplied his own Yang, preceding the epiphanal moment with a narrative in poetic prose, characterising the world within which the epiphany blooms.

The Haiku with which it ends was written a commentary on Red Cliff by *guille1701. I felt, though there was more to say, hence the haibun.

You can see the deviation at full size here:
[link]

I'm sorry, dA is not allowing me to upload Guille's picture as a preview image. I shall try again when its tantrum is over. In the meantime, I can only apologise, and ask you to follow the link.

25/03: The preview image issue is now resolved! I have refined the opening paragraph in response to helpful comments from :devcrimsonthenody:

The Artist has requested Critique on this Artwork

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*TheMadMulatto Apr 9, 2011

This is something I've never thought of before.

I'm glad I get to see this.

*AlecBell Apr 9, 2011

So am I, Michelle. Thank you

*beeinthebottle Mar 24, 2011 Writer

This is exquisite. I read it when you first posted it this morning, but clicking the link and going to another page to see the photo didn't have the same impact. A child, any child, no matter what gender -- standing on such a stupendous cliff, perched over a never-ending ocean.... I dunno. I don't have words.

But you did.

*AlecBell Mar 24, 2011

Thank you

~RawPoetry Mar 24, 2011 Photographer

absolutely wonderful! Such vivid imagery for such a powerful scene, very well done.

*AlecBell Mar 24, 2011

Thank you!

~pseudometry Mar 24, 2011 Writer

Lovely piece, Alec. You make time and inexorable erosion seem beautiful rather than frightening!

*AlecBell Mar 24, 2011

Thank you, Jamie.

Although time and erosion partake of both beauty and fearsomeness, we can allow the aspect of beauty to dominate sometimes.

~pseudometry Mar 24, 2011 Writer

Indeed

!CrimsonThrenody Mar 24, 2011

I love the second stanza. It's progression is beautiful.

Personally, I found the first sentence to be a bit rocky, and perhaps it is partially due to word choices. They seem to make it more choppy than the following sentences.

But that is, of course, my personal perception on the matter.

It is an excellent piece, and I quite enjoyed it.

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