by Cauble, Don
and inside her house
an ocean gave birth
to a seahorse,
fire split the sky,
and he touched the moon
with hands like the lifting
of stones.
Death of the fly
The room was crowded.
Kabir, Bosch and Issa traveled without walls
and I was shown through inner circles.
In time, said Kabir,
all your questions will be answers.
So I poured more wine,
and then came a knock on the door.
The Magician entered the crowded room.
In his hands he carried a body.
No wonder you're late,
scowled Issa...
Dragging a corpse!
To others, the mind is a chain,
replied the Magician, looking wise,
but for me, it's a golden key.
Bosch remained silent.
He saw into the man's heart
and knew how he burned to free his mind.
This all seems so strange, I thought;
What about the body?
Splendid! cried Issa.
Ah...agreed Kabir, the night is chilly.
Even Bosch smiled.
The Magician understood
and turned, at once, into the fire.
The last man standing
The miser opened his jewels
and stared into a burning hole.
His wife lay on a couch of gold
and gazed into the open sea.
Men came and went
through her outer chambers,
where a sleeping princess
sang childhood songs to a golden serpent
that danced in her head
so no man could open her heart.
A priest kept the keys in his fist;
A judge with no mercy handed time
to the workers who froze in motion
each step of the way;
and within a cell,
no larger than his soul,
a man with one eye opened a hole
through the darkened sky.
On his chest, he painted a sun;
and over his genitals, he placed a throne.
On the throne,
a king waged a never-ending war
with his three sons;
for in his heart
a torch blazed for the princess,
but she feared his reason
and hid herself in the secret folds
of her golden couch,
where the serpent ate at her heart,
and the miser gathered the pieces
in his pocket
and offered them to his wife,
who laughed as the king died in her arms.
The priest swept the floors with his cross.
The judge threw his book to the fire.
The three sons emptied the sea in rage,
and inside a burning hole,
they found a poet with a golden key,
till at last,
with nowhere to go,
the one-eyed man opened his heart
and the jewels in his mind shattered to glass.
Out of the tomb, a child of light
For those still
in the Circle,
circling the sky
Here comes the sun
It wasn't power, It wasn't God, It was truth we were looking for. Under our noses...inside our heads...beneath the covers...between the sheets. Three sheets in the wind. The wind that turns the Wheel of Fortune and misfortune. The duality of experience as seen thru the eyes: vision, magic, and poetry.
The Seeing Eye.
My poetry refuses to become anything more than seeing. The eye catching the hand. The wheels on fire burning lovely flowers that open the eyes. (Which One?) Mystery, illusion, reality. It's all poetry, so what!
Zen, Magic, Maya, all fire!
Everything goes. Giving us the Gothic, Frank Lloyd Wright, mountains and rivers without end. Poetry wipes out the false bottoms, cleans away all your ghosts, then sends you on the Way, laughing, leaving those with telescopes peering into your dust and circling the ashes.
Out we come, in we go.
Be high, be miserable, be whatever you want but don't confuse it with the Way. Will you buy and sell lost gold mines? Jerusalem Revisited...A Journey thru Horrors and Other Joys. Or, I can't read this map!
Perhaps a Gurdjieff, a sudden shock, even a kiss, might wake the sleeping, but you can't wake the dead. (Give 'em a watch and they'll stop...always, always.)
The fire that remains
When you flow, there's no circle. Know that you and It are one. (It's name slips me.)
Just flow with It. It's the last word. Before birth. Then comes death only seconds later. (Do you disagree? Fine with me. This is the way, an ordinary day. This is no song, this is subterfuge...)
It's an old Indian trick, doing away with Time.
Far as the eye can see, far as the mind could Go–there's only truth, there's only poetry. Poetry is a matter of seeing, naturally. Abracadabra spelled out. The mind concrete.
The poet must kill himself each step of the way. That is, the image of himself. He must let go all ideas of self, the false gods, the elusive angels. He must show us where he is, TOTALLY, without gumming the air with fantasies, visions, or hallucinations. But don't confuse this dying with suicide. Will you take the ring for the gem?
The mind's a wonderful thing but don't mistake it for the moon.
The lower mind thinks, the Higher Mind sees, and this mind keeps both in hand. Tarot sees the Game but is Tarot a game? (No, she's a nice Lady who has a white cat named Tasha.)
Nice game she plays, Yes! No!
No wonder you can't see, you're always looking!
Everything depends on This.
You can look within and without. The man who looks within is no wiser than the man who looks to the trees, the stars, the cathedrals, for his God. To bring the search within you is more sophisticated, to be sure. But you're still looking. For something higher, something separate, something other than you.
There's no higher hocus-pocus.
There's no need to mystify life. Life is mystery.
Don't listen to the Buddha. Look thru his words.
See the Yogi hold his breath and the Poet his nose.
Poems are tombstones for those on the way out.
Expanding the walls won't get you thru the doors. (There are no doors, there are no walls.) You can't afford to become a museum or a side show. Not with backyards crumbling around you like crazy and the Unknown waiting to blind you like a huge sun, if you stop to be blinded.
Sort thru the leftovers, if you wish. There MIGHT be some life. It's a little soon, you can't leave 'em just yet. As you explain how Duty or the Law or Investment keeps you chained to the past.
It's not fair!
Make this into an epitaph, only don't stop moving. (It's nice to be moving, now there's nowhere to go.)
Here lies...but then again!
Don't give up in despair, give up in Joy.
If you must give up....
West of east, full circle out
October returns and closes the earth.
I've come to you thru the fires.
There's no mind, no time, no space. There's no Fool, no One to fool. The trap is illusion; freedom, illusion.
Truth is both and…
You need one to conceive zero. (But whence cometh the One?) You are the one.
The poem is shaped by a man's spirit, and comes pulsing thru all his bodies, into consciousness.
The 3rd eye opens the sky.
I saw the eternal in the night, I saw this moment in the light. (Two mirrors endlessly facing each other.) There's no past, no future, we're only moving thru, don't you see?
Remembrance of you
Journey to Greece
1972-1975
§
In the beginning
there was you.
Then there was light
and I saw you.
—David Pendarus
"The Delicate Ribbons of Light That We Are"
Author's Note: All the poems and prose selections in "Remembrance of you / Journey to Greece" first appeared in my novel, This Passing World / Journey From a Greek Prison; AuthorHouse, 2006.
Please visit www.thispassingworld.com to find out more about this novel.
Before
Before the breath,
there is you.
Before the 99 names
of the Essence,
before the Divine Mother,
before birth and death,
there is you.
Before time and space,
before earth, fire, air and water,
before the cosmos,
there is you.
Before you is the sea,
within you the road.
Before both sea and road,
there is you.
Monemvasia / 1972
I knew we would never meet again
For Christine, white-skinned Swedish tempest
in a black dress and a voice like honey
You wanted the center, but it gave you no peace.
You wanted my eyes, but they left you no reason.
I have seen the angel inside you,
ashen as your final transfiguration.
I have traveled your world with its smoke
and mechanical heart.
Still, your dark glance—blonde as the moon's edge—
took me in a moment.
Blame the ghost that unraveled the play.
Everyone dies in the end. Or so it seems.
Believe in the Fish: golden as myth;
more slippery than wet stones.
Believe in the stars and everything under the sun.
Believe in the Sea. Believe in the Self.
Believe whatever you want. It doesn't matter.
I hear yapping dogs in your teeth.
I see a magician's trick in your hands,
and I see your unfaithfulness at the drop of a hat.
I see your plunging neckline pinned to a veil,
and your unborn child in glass on a stone.
I see you in light and rock,
and in the middle of the road I see you.
In the fire and smoking eucalyptus leaves,
I see you;
and in the shadows,
and in the hours my love cleans house,
I see you.
But already you have merged as a dream
into my heart,
and I lie here in the dark,
a stranger to myself.
Greece, 1972
A single flame lights the universe
It is night.
A single flame lights the universe
and my love lies sleeping in the quietness of our room.
It is an immense room
in a timeless land by the sea,
and the air is warm and still, and only the light,
only the light softly covers her beauty.
I gaze into the night and milky-white galaxy.
I see a star dying in the vast calmness,
and my heart returns home,
without hesitation, but with joy,
and comes to rest in my love's moonlit arms
and in her gentle breathing.
My eyes gaze upon her beauty.
I look and look and am not filled.
(Her beauty is elusive, unborn; never will it be exhausted.)
I am breathless with her beauty.
I look and look and am not filled.
I see her playful treasures hidden in dreams
and gifts washed from the sea.
My love, she dreams as a child dreams
of green trees shining and shining
and of golden summers gathered in her hair.
The blue, jewel sky universe embraces my love,
rosy dawns awaken her,
and purple rim rainbows come to rest at her feet.
My eyes gaze upon her beauty.
I look and look and am not filled.
Bottoms up
Now, it's barely light outside. I'm in the kitchen with a warm blanket wrapped around me. Our little kerosene heater helps, but not much. I woke early and couldn't get back to sleep. I kept thinking of how every culture has created a myth to explain the origin of the world. The Greeks certainly had their turn at it. The Hindus, the Egyptians, the Chaldeans. the Semitic tribes, the Mayans, the Toltecs. None that I knew, however, satisfied me. The teller of the tale could explain the elephant holding up the world, but not the tortoise holding up the elephant. None could explain Before the beginning. Like the scientific Big Bang, they all began and ended in a lot of noise. Both the Great Cosmic Mother and the Father Warrior Creator had failed us. The time has come to heal this fracture and move on. Time for a new vision, a new language. A language that once more captures the essence, the heartbeat, the mystery. A process we could participate in, that would bring balance and wholeness into our lives; not a creation of distance and control and domination. But who am I to tell the tale of how the world came into being? I come from a cultural tradition that's mostly interested in the origin of money and power and how to keep score with it—not in the origin of self—if the "self" exists. Perhaps the self, too, is just another myth. Just our values at the moment; just our fluid, ever-changing—or rigid—beliefs; our likes and dislikes that come and go like buddhas on the cosmic sea. Somewhat like scientific truths. Science shackles itself to the edge of this planetary ship with self-measuring lines of timid consistency, afraid of falling over the edge. Most of the time anyway. And am I not like this myself? Longing to know the truth, but sticking like a barnacle to the familiar and comfortable and to what I can see and hear and smell? Lazy as a summer day, I am. Narcissistic as a full moon. Pompous, arrogant, full of pride. Ready at the drop of a hat to defend the rightness of my beliefs, the back of my neck bristling like a junkyard dog. As a lovely friend of mine (and a spiritual healer/teacher) once said to me in a fit of laughter and exasperation, "David, you're the most prideful motherfucker I've ever known!" And I've been known to betray myself for something greater, someone more perfect, more intelligent, more beautiful, more anything, than I am. All these grand flaws I admit to. So, who am I to receive this vision? This new language? Again I ask the darkness. But Spirit will not be put off. The answer comes quickly. Who am I not to respond to this vision? Who am I to deny the calling of Spirit? The words and images keep coming like sparks suddenly released from a burning log. They persist like the hum of a Jew's harp in a master's hand. But, before I share with you my masterpiece, let me share with you another shiny pearl from the necklace of my lovely friend and spiritual healer—a necklace that you can bet charmed me, even disarmed me, so that she could work her healing energy through my thick skin down into the marrow of my bones. This one I even put on a sign and taped to my small oak desk.
DO WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST.
Something Henry David Thoreau once said to her, I believe.
Being honest with myself and others scared me the most. To express my innermost feelings, without the distance of philosophy as a buffer, terrified me. You might think truthfulness would be a burning ambition for a poet. Or at least my best intention. But truth can live behind so many veils and in so many hidden places. There are many doors to the truth within us but the digging shovel or the battering ram will not open these doors. I have learned that most often the very doors that look and feel like devouring monsters, once opened, will reveal the most exquisite and gentle truths about ourselves. Whereas the doors that seem to offer us the greatest escape, these doors contain the very monsters we fearfully, continually, seek to avoid. Life is strange that way. You have to desire truth with your whole heart. Then you must court truth as a lover. With vulnerability and honor. With fearlessness and purity and quietness. With a tightrope balance
of boldness and sensitivity. With deep trust and intimacy and commitment and hard work and perseverance. And certainly not with hands like dissecting shears. Or with a heart sticky and possessive as flypaper. Or with a mind like a steel trap. Or a mind like my own that yakky yaks all the time. Especially when it's cold out there and I'm in a warm bed and putting off the inevitable. Angelina stirs and smiles in her dreams. She sleeps in the nude. I sneak my head beneath the covers to kiss her a few lingering times. She moans softly. Half-awake now she cradles my head to her heart. Ah, such womanness, such playfulness. I want to stay longer. I want to enter her. As if to find the origin of the world in the solid fact of her body. But the urgent call of Spirit will not abate. I slip from our warm bed and the circle of Angelina's arms. I tiptoe past our Divine Mother and into the kitchen. I make a cup of coffee and sit at the kitchen table. I start to write. Images flicker alive in my hands like tiny candles. They seem to have a life of their own.
Suddenly I stop.
I hear the muffled voices of fishermen passing beneath my kitchen window. Then quietness. I hear the Aegean Sea. Always I hear the sea! Like an ancient lullaby at times. At times like an angry tyrant. At times like a lover knowing my innermost thoughts. And at times like a good friend, steadfast and true.
Speaking of good friends, Eden Maldek should be here. Eden likes a good story and tells even better ones, if you know what I mean. Like Bubu, he enhances the details with a keen sense of drama and emotional exuberance. He lies a little too, I suppose. Anything to give the tale more power. Eden looks so serious and intense and philosophical most of the time. Like a man with a great mission to accomplish. Like Moses in the Old Testament. Or a fourteenth century alchemist, dabbling in the Secret Arts. And he's secretive, like a pirate. Eden has this great curiosity and fascination with the dark energies. He likes to live in the shadows, to observe and to draw power from the darkness. Living on the edge this way gives him the illusion that he's able to go beyond his own limitations. He thinks he can draw specialness from the darkness, and in this way create an image that's larger than life, in the same way you make huge frightening shadows on the walls with your hands and fingers. This allows him to maintain a certain aloofness and a feeling of invulnerability. Even his physical appearance supports this larger-than-life image—his long, dark hair, sometimes wound in a single braid behind his back; his barrel chest; the intense, almost Mongolian look in his eyes; the coiled energy around his body. I saw him the other day down by the harbor. He came ashore from the passenger boat that stops by once a week from Athens. I'm seeing things of course. How could Eden Maldek be in Monemvasia? But for that brief moment, I swear….