Backbeat of love

I am after-images of tears that drowned in their own wetness
Stars
That exploded into their own light
Unknowable images race across the back of your eyeballs
Formed into a picture book
With skies and mountains and burning deserts
And melancholy and love that sears...
And seems to paint a lonely traveler
Sliding down a time line
We are fairy tales
Dancing
Slipping through the slipstream of mind

Less tangible than thought
Are the things it creates

This dream of hope and fear that had been with me my entire life

Was never separate from me

Chased me like a hungry dog 

Preceded me along the trail

Those rocks I tried to avoid below 

Those looming boulders above 

Perched on the cliff 

vultures waited patiently 

To greet me

After I was crushed 

By this unavoidable beauty

That untied my hands 

As I was trying to clutch the rainbow

And swallow the colors...

Dreaming of treasure

Longing for love’s embrace

Fearing that I would dissolve in it

I had been dancing with my shadow 

Terrified of the light 

Moon and sun disappeared

All stars were lost...

My leftover map 

Crumpled on the path

Like forgotten flowers 

Wilting in the searing desert heat of no tomorrow 

No signs were left

In that trackless land 

My heart was pierced

My arteries and veins were slashed 

The ground was saturated with blood

Dissolved the very earth 

That sky crashed into

My breath was sucked out

In a vacuum so vast 

It erased itself

This sublime emptiness

A terrible beauty 

That cannot be found 

Or lost

Consumed me 

As I fell into its maw

Losing all hope 

And fear 

And dreams of

Another 

Day 

Or 

Night 

No one lives in this bottomless abyss

This placeless place

No one can leave 

No one can enter 

There are no ways to extinguish light

Or dark

Tumbled up on the beach like a piece of driftwood

Blackened with fire

Bleached with sun

Twisted into the shape of waves

Of sea and sand and shimmering light

Nothing remains 

Nothing was lost

Love drank all and everything

Time lost her shadow

The center of the dream was always empty 

There never was a mountain 

Or path 

Or someone to climb it 

There is a sublime ease 

When no one is sailing uncharted seas

Rocking gently without wind 

Or waves 

Or sails

Or rudder

Or ship

Or distant shore.... 

Sky mirrors sea

Sea mirrors sky

No one is in the middle 

When there are no sides 

wind and tides

carve my breath

in hollow caves

in empty shells

I can hear the song

of no one

of everyone

dream of moon

slides into sea

coming from nowhere

going nowhere

never home

never not home

morning light reaches over the canyon 

spider web catches a tiny white feather 

wind ripples this elegant tracery 

in-breath

out-breath

...and we dance with our shadows on the terrace

of winds

it feels like there is no here nor there...

 just a flowing of color... and shape... never lassoed with words... 

amorphous diaphanous transparent edgeless sourceless reflected light dancing swooning into and through itself... vacant and empty beyond conception... 

and yet full, bursting, exploding and dissolving simultaneously without time or non time, with what I have to call love...

love falling in love with itself...

Vines twist and twine 

Looking for purchase 

To grasp the sun

And sky 

Arc of infinity reaches out

To touch its own

Mystery

Touching my own fingertips 

I wept 

That nothing can be known 

Or grasped 

Is the beauty 

The love 

The wondrousness I longed for...

Looking for a gap between here and there 

The space in-between the in-between was broken...

No one fell

Looking for nowhere 

No one landed

Or wept 

Or walked along the river

Bathed in infinity 

a thousand miles rushed through my heart

infinite footfalls on a journey towards home

had disappeared

the journey itself was home

all is home

when there is no one 

who can enter

or leave

this hush without edges

washed away the line between sorrow and joy

between my heart and yours

washed away time

and its afterimage

all burned

consumed

in love's infinite embrace

this breath this tongue these lips sing

the lyrics of my life

this song paints a flowing image of a someone to have a life...

a singer, and someone to sing to....

you know me as a thought dream in your mind-stream

and you exist as a daydream wandering through mine.

our stories twist and twine together into a sublime chorus 

of one of two of many of none...

I can feel the wind and sun and moonlight in your eyes

all the stories you have longed for and loved

and all the stories you thought were ugly and horrific

I can hear your story as it sails through the sea of dreams

swelling and unfurling and bursting and receding... 

flowing into the edgeless-ness it never left

as does mine...

I can feel your broken hearted beauty

as it is mine

cascades of water

rippling through water

journey of light

can never be captured

time lost its rainbow

all its colors bled 

not even a faded picture remains

time... tomorrow ...yesterday ...now 

simply names

for an old feeling

I can no longer find

there is no center to this dream

no one fell off the edge of nowhere

there are no edges

no one to fall

yet beauty falls into beauty

love swoons into its own embrace

through our arms

our hearts

our lips

that mouth these very words

that seem to capture beauty

seem to hold this love

seem to paint a thing called time

but seems is the key ingredient in this sumptuous meal

that will be over before you're done

first light

finch song

a thousand rivers pour through my heart

a thousand dreams of night

evaporate into the dream of morning

singing itself

just

like 

this

my heart was burning with a wanderlust

for love

for completion

for the sweeping away of cobwebs

from a home I never left

empty trails and distant clouds beckoned

as they dissolved into empty promises 

I dreamed of moons and suns and winds soaring

across sky and sea and the wetness of my tears

seasons passed

always blooming

always wilting

always a weary traveller

hungering for yet another road

looking for a place to rest

I knew not for which I searched

I realized I was the seeking...

I could not find not anything inside

who was moving my feet

or beating this trembling heart

and the avalanche of fear that had buried me alive

and crushed out all the light

when I was very small

finished its job

and I found that there had never been a path

nor a mountain

nor anyone to wander

no tomorrows to promise yet another rainbow

to follow

no yesterdays to sing of a traveler

who wandered

looking for love

love a dream

like you

like me

yet after the journey collapses

the path collapses

the ground collapses

the goal collapses...

such unbearable weight of spaciousness.... 

an unutterable beauty of light exploding into light

space into space

emptiness into emptiness

love into love

just 

like 

this

when the song is over

I am breathless

wordless...

words do not exist

that dissolve sound into silence

and silence into sound

that sing of flowing echoes cascading through echoes

eyes are oceans of endless reflections

of sky pouring into seas

and seas falling through endless skies

there is no stable point from which to view

this life flowing in and through these lips that drink it

as life drinks me

I am the scent of intoxication

this love that has no edges

cannot be found

or lost

there is no thing which can survive this conflagration

of all worlds

of all words

they crash and burn

melt into a river of a thousand suns

evaporate into pure spaciousness

empty of space

empty of emptiness

ancient songs

new songs

whisper love's unsung name

primordial songs

have no words

what can be felt

but not uttered?

you know this all encompassing love song

sometimes its lyrical refrain pierces the cloud of words

that heavy blanket of knowing

and you become the song of tears

the symphony of wonder....

the dance of starlight's reflection on ancient seas

flows through your eyes...

the unfathomable mysterious depths

reach up and grab you

your heart plummets  

down down down 

vast endless skies fall through you

as you fall

up up up

the empty horizon wraps itself around you 

and stretches you until you are so thin

thinner than air, than space, than emptiness itself...

there is no you nor vastness

your heart explodes and implodes

it is no longer yours 

it never was

there is no chest big enough

to hold all this love

there is nothing but this flowing dreamscape

no one to surf it

or drown in it

simply the ache of aliveness

dancing with its reflection

in your star lit eyes

you know there is no solidity 

no place to land

no one to land

no one to free fall

no one to let go

or hold on

what would you hold on to?

everything you try to grasp

is like cool evening sand running through your fingers

like life

like time, an empty shadow

preceding you

following you

unweaving itself

like all ideas 

like you

like me

like that woman on the train

you see weeping

through the window

as the freight train of your life

and anyone to have a life

crash

no one followed or made

the footprints of your life

all lines are made with sand 

in sand....

even these lines and squiggles 

singing this story

of you and me and empty dreamscapes

flowing

willow tree in the wind 

river hears its echo 

who dances on the roof of silence

with the death of time, 

there is no before or after love

hot dusty day

thin piece of wire

bent into a heart

rust on his fingers

I long to send you this song

without words love letters cannot be written

by the sea

the sky

wind pours through the mirage of burning sands

empty sidewalk hums the melody 

of lovers walking

flame of burning shadows

dances on the sidewalk

fueled by the desire to share

the wonder that forms me

into an empty wire heart

breaks into infinite echoes

I pour myself into an envelope

of sky

and ricochet your reflection across the canyon

so you can see your tender delicate beauty

wind soars through its shadow

unfurls its empty wings

time forgot the melody

our footprints disappeared

into the backbeat of love

a million suns exploded

from within

from without

I lost my shadow

as it erased me

I could not retrace my footsteps

or find a place to go

or rest

a bone chilling scream was heard in this dark beyond darkness

a howling for light 

for love

it came from everywhere 

and no where

this is everyone's heart breaking

this is a losing of everything

everyone I loved and had loved

all memory

all tomorrows 

all hope

all fear

all love

this is your ultimate aloneness

more intimate than these words in your head

or your deepest darkest moments

there is no where left to hide

moon howls at its own reflection

and you are just an echo

no one would choose this evisceration

no one can

and it serves no purpose

other than a life of sublime seamless ease

empty of hope and fear and a need of next

loving everyone and everything

knowing that there are no people

nor love

there are rivers of tears

for no reason

an all consuming awe

love beauty joy sorrow merge

and there is no one at the center

of this swirling dream scape

no one weeping

or singing this love song

to you