in the shallow of “halfway” – an untitled poem by Khalil Gibran


“Or do you need more?”


Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life
and do not die a half death


If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent


If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance


Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes


Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you nowhere
Half an idea will bear you no results


Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time, yet in the same space
It is you when you are not


Half a life is a life you didn’t live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know
To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you,
and they strangers to you


The half is a mere moment of inability,
but you are able for you are not half a being.
You are a whole that exists to live a life,
not half a life.

– Khalil Gibran

play possum

i’m fine

nothing’s wrong

i just really love this song
gives me the blues sometimes, is all

a snake, a possum, a doe and fawn
on the roadside killed, again, i saw

i heard the breaking news story
i’m awfully raw, so please ignore me

this world can be so cruel and wicked
of course, my tender heart’s afflicted

my glistened eyes, lump throat, quiver lip

you think they’re for you? well, that’s rich.

all lies, and also, all true.

Open

I walk bare

out in the open

on borrowed land|stolen

to be returned to the people, to all be-ings, to them

with my bones or ash interred, one day

the Sun, Moon, Rain, Wind, Clouds, Sky and Stars
kiss me at all hours

did you see me open up
this Autumn?

after a Summer spent crying,
wet, yet fruitless

spent Spring wading into lies instead of soft blossoms and new grass
Winter approaches, maybe the frost will kill this disease,
for good

For now, I bathe

nearly naked in sunshine, cold rainstorms, wetland pools and moonlight

unapologetically

|out in the open|

unabashedly

baptising
my face,
hair,
and eyes,
my breasts
vulva
and legs,
my lips,
throat,
spine,
and my wild heart

ceremonially, first
with wine, like Magdalene, anointing and anointed,
in the name of the mother, Sun and holy ghosts
|cabernet henna|
then, with rainwater from the willow’s edge, like Ophelia,
lying in the woodland and meadow, flooded
to cleanse or drown [to be, or not to be]
in the name of the Moon

|I ponder the stone cistern laden with glacial deposits and ruminant bones|

the woodland is abundant with new mushroom, new overnight growth

[puhpowee]

the hint of ancient circles supplants my judgment with instinct
and overrides decorum with new delights
| and old delights, revisited |

an aged grapevine is rooted deep, climbing, trailing, snaking
hidden in plain sight, everywhere
and I’ve intuited It as Ol’ Scratch,
I take a hatchet to quell Its influence, here

You,
Your windows are not true eyes
Your lamps are not enlightenment

So, bless the dark

of the night

of the country night sky

And the Moonset

of my moon

it’s been decades,
but
this place wants to birth or impregnate me,

and I want that too
i want it to

|I come here and open up|

 

 

The Bottom (RV)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/isawnyu/5885591721/in/photostream/
The Well at Kom Ombo AWIB-ISAW: The Well at Kom Ombo A deep well at the Ptolemaic temple at Kom Ombo, which functioned as a nilometer. The well is also thought to have been used in the ritual worship of the crocodile. by Iris Fernandez (2009) copyright: 2009 Iris Fernandez (used with permission) photographed place: Omboi (Kom Ombo) [pleiades.stoa.org/places/606346]
 

 

Get to the bottom of this.

This, means You
Get to the bottom – of Your Self

Do you have to be thrown
down the well
through loss, by the grave, or near-grave

What if
instead,
we pulled the rug out from under ourselves
to reveal the formidable trap door

What if we climbed down into the dark cellar, willingly

to enter our infinite interior
to touch the well
the ancient aquifer within
where the gods reside and respite with our Twin Selves,
our other-halves waiting for discovery

This infinite, eternal presence
be-neath our weathered houses

What if we willingly descended
Into it
Unto it

And we learned to crave the Original Dark
and its companionship

Where we delve deep into our imaginations, dreams, nightmares,
That connect us primally
to the pool of imaginations, dreams and nightmares of every one,
Of every being that ever existed

Collective Unconscious
made Self Conscious

The dark, deep well
we may all draw from

Pour out your false light
reveal the truth:
the unbearable emptiness of being

Cup your hands
Or wade into the well
Deeper and deeper
submerge, swallow
you’ve been bone dry for so long
Do you see that now?

Baptize
The only way
To rebirth yourself
Into something worth birthing
Into something worth being
is by this sacrament, anticeremonially, un-ceremonially

Knowing now the bottom is
The only place where alchemy happens

Where wine is turned into eternal water,
instead of that story first told to you, by them

And the mystery
the wet, deep, dark becomes you,

Envelops you so completely
You want to drown beautifully

But you must taste the bitters of the surface
Swallowing down your thoughts
Before you drink of the All

To finally collapse in on yourself
Into beautiful nothing
becoming nothingness

Prima materia

In coniunctio

Drenched in Mystery
quenched with Truth
imbibed with Revelation

Reborn
for an endless moment

The perpetual well
archives your eternal experience
as the deja vu

Memory though will evanesce,
even as droplets cling in the hollows of your vessel

Now that you Know
Truth and Mystery
Exist
so near, just beyond,
yet
within you,

Reascend resplendent
Reemerge humbly

the Gods send a daily postcard:
Wish you were here.

 

Lamentations of Birth and Exultations of Re-Birth: An ode of the birthed and mothered on Mother’s Day

Lamentation and Exultation

I am spirit
Though not pre-conceived;
I was conceived; and pro-created;
I contained knowledge, and
I was known
I did experience,
and I remembered; but
I was then birthed, and
I became human; so
I was mother’d;

I was mis-guided;
I was injured,

I was mis-judged; and
I was so scarred

I became ignorant;
I became blind
I forgot experience;

I became animal
I fell asleep and
I became unknown;

I too conceived; and
I pro-created
He too was spirit
He too contained knowledge;

I birthed him ignorance
He too was experienced;
He too remembered
I was the witness; but
I was still blind’d

I was still sleeping;
I then mother’d, and
he became human,

I then mis-guided,
I then injured,
I then mis-judged
I then so scarred;

I saw the death of one dear before me;
and then,
I remembered;
I was re-wakened,

I became un-blind’d;
I sought my [lost] knowing
I reclaimed my experience;

I forgave the mis-guidance
I so sought forgiveness;
I forgave the mis-understanding
I so sought forgiveness;
I forgave the injury
I so sought forgiveness;

I understood ignorance, and
I so sought re-knowing:

Those who are born are meant to be born;
Some who are born, though, choose to be born;
Most who are born though, have no choice to be born;
Most who are unborn; are not meant to be born
Not meant for this time; not meant for this World;
Those who have birthed, those who have fathered, have re-pro-created error;

Still there are Those who were sung into exIStence
Those are the Ones who chose to be born;
Now those who were birthed, not sung into existence, must will to re-member,
must choose to re-birth, to become re-known;

I re-membered mySelf, re-birthed mySelf
Now,
I am beginning to become re-Known.


Jesus said: “When you see one who was not born of woman, prostrate yourselves on your faces and worship him. That one is your father.” – Gospel of Thomas (15)

Jesus said, “The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same.” – Gospel of Thomas (4)

Jesus said, “Take heed of the living one while you are alive, lest you die and seek to see him and be unable to do so.” – Gospel of Thomas (59)

A woman from the crowd said to him, “Blessed are the womb which bore you and the breasts which nourished you.”
He said to her, “Blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, ‘Blessed are the womb which has not conceived and the breasts which have not given milk.’ – Gospel of Thomas (79)