The Mythos of Time

Where to begin is not a point of origin or an age of history we know

It's an emptiness, a void that a string of notes and stones falling as so

 

 

 

TBC...

 

 

 ©Iggy 1996

Shipwreck

If once the long ago closed in to a present cloudy sky, shifting into storm, crashing aground

Then truly there was spoken a word, maybe unheard, of the sea under sun's halo and moon's crown

Outside the shores of Ebura, the sunken mast cracks and seagull sleeps and in silence, awakes

Inside the cover of night and shadow, the waters carry to deeper keeps, and even deeper gates

But the gateway reveals hidden ships, whether the storm took them or they sailed up from the south

We'll go into uncharted land from uncharted seas, in a vessel made of leaf and twine, wood and vine

Raising sails against the winds, of stature so strong, a gentle whisper yet powerful is the ocean's song

With the waves wild and gray, the uncharted way, a log of pages written henceforth of heroes drowned

 

Dazzling mirage of luminous waters that drenched the abandoned ruins of sand in the north

The sails lowered, and drifting ship to coast toward the distant grey sharply peaks offshore

Magnetic pull of pole upward and afar, winds heedless and gathering speed like a shooting star

Ocean's surface carrying the ill-fated drifting oar, and traces have moved many degrees from bar

The mantle of sea floor, and the shield of coral lines the reef of seagull call, heard on the waves

Back from an age we yet lived, a different world underwater, seen down below watery graves

The silent chambers given to the lure of the blue, smitten and sunken, with a finality of high sea

Drifting signs of abandoned ship and left to fall the loose yardarm twice repaired, 'ere the eve

Hidden from sunlight, and the stir of oncoming wakes made by salty mist and whispering rain

Undercurrent surge distorted the secret, flooded wooden plank, spar shattered, rendered unmade

Ill winds, vast cold valley smooth, held fast the sense of doom and following upon lofty sails

Starboard lanterns aligned, a torn sail defied the freak storm to harbors where low sun dwells

And on the port side, anchor, bell and wheel shifted over gateway, the passage can be used again

If ship's features can be moved by shifted tides, passing through knowing when, encountered then

The tide is how time was designed in ancient days, and will turn back between dune and space

In hourly flight, navigate while deep under with silvery eyes, drawn into the current's pace

Guardians of trench and underworld watch from each point of their compressed ocular scope

The sea has placed itself over basins bottomless afloat, and still sunken ship settled over a slope

The wave now broken, glimpse a dense hiatus close to the shore of airy realm, it is known

The ship was in distress from even before, long ago, the damaged vessel creaked and moaned

And water realm took more than day for night of the sand, and sails with, upon ghostly helm

Wherever seagulls soar and disappeared in isle's mead, is a place subdued by earthly shell

A mirror of ocean reflect a world combined of heavens overhead, the ship rests but on this side

By chance, sailed into storm never to emerge from under a dark vaguely blue shadow, they hide

 

Yet one can find the drifting pieces of a tale, long since dead, beckon with murmuring low tides

Hear the way of sky in a calm shade, to turn gusty and to the call of night, and heed lost seasides

The starlight over quiet depths, and the shipwreck is washed away in hues of blue and white

Settling further out to deeper drop offs, the shipwreck floats under typhoon, with open deadlight

And off the coasts of scorched sand and summer's haze, the shore belies the lonely days upon

In the surf the trees sway, and away the ship still remains while grazing seafloor, boat long gone

Only the drifting oar, and splintered wood afloat can be seen oft times from some silent deck

As if staying, hovering in the waves, over the body of the sturdy amphora cargo of a shipwreck

©Iggy 2000

The Second Shipwreck

Not very many listen to the island winds, or ocean out there, slowing to a still air

Its deep retreat has perked the jungle's ear, moving gradually like the song of Altair

Gone under to fathomless hold, the crew of the sleek gray ship abandoned what was left

Days and nights flow together in another long course as water and steam softens sunset

Rumors told of island sunk, tides reversed, but night under clear skies should be my view

Off the bow a strange call rang out, but not of bell or distress, no sign of phantom crew

Listening again, for those who did, hidden ire, and fierce tidal swells coming in fast

The scattered reed, thick below the surface of angry waters clinging to anchor cast

In the glistening row of flickering lights, sunken ship visible for the outline of rails

If they could breathe the fog as easily as swimming along beach in form of torn sails

Their cloudy visage and frail hands could bank upon the fallen tree logs inland and rest

The faint subtle whispers on the wind of tragedy echoes louder, as the dark waves crest

The aura deep with glow, although proper navigation was heeded in ocean's end domain

But at night, that night, be it another matter altogether in mariner's way, they may remain

And they did call out, in song they named their destiny to sail on, all have been longing

Underwater realm rising, toppling high peak, now a distant road, their voices still calling

 

Middle sea, north beckons from obstructing continent, and the guardians may greet us

For legends stay close to Macedonia and gods who find lost explorers, as they meet us

Unknown corners in trapped waters as abstract as their borders oddly disappear from sight

The sounds of soon coming tides whirl downward, the loss of zeal, against gods we fight

Knowing the briny solitude, once strong wooden spars faded and now they only drift

To speak in ways of the sea, in the timid turn of time came a weak cry vaulting as sails lift

To know the ship is far below, a silent curse, seafarer's tale, sturdy sail have been my rhyme

Leaving the last remnants of sunken ship to this, our abode, they spoke gravely yet sublime

The ship was stressed, the weight exceeded limits and the spirit of adventure held to gold

Alas, it couldn't hold, and the story aligns as others never forgotten as heard or once told

Cavernous depths touched by the laughter through the same waters of each warm cay

Sun pierces through hundred foot hidden anomaly and keeps alight the Olympian bay

As it passes for the hours in between, the ship will sail beneath if only in current's grip

Much has been broken down for the force of the sea, and for lesser tales about the ship

Unspoken is the beauty of the layered sea where star given to the quiet deep, cannot drown

The tear in your eye because we stand in sun's halo and moon's crown, far away and down

©Iggy 2000

 

The Mountains of Wrath (Montis de Īra)

Far back behind the outlines of rock and treacherous terrain over a deep hidden place

A guide was stirred from beneath a sunken river of fire, its magnitude such as the solar blaze

The anger came from a buried heat that sought to find the twelve gates and torch the plain

And up in gathered swirls of smoke and ashen colored embers fading, quakes and peril claim

 

Fuming far below layers of ground that lay in a dream of clearest jasper, a guide knows the path

Coasts flank the land between two oceans with a hollow sea flanked by two lands as drawn by wrath

Where Atlantis fell, and sank, evenly as slow as its doom, guided nowhere while treading away

Then arising from depths, to the coasts beyond any account of memory in just a mesh of gray

Behind the fallen range of mountain of center mass, beyond the fallen stones of massive pearl

And all behind would succumb to dead zones of stillness below foundations of gems of world

A way one desires to go while seeking the other planes, paths that are never taken beyond the sun

I've went away into hidden grottoes, some I know by name and I see through ways, and fast I run

Three ways to all four directions was something louder than storms, the quiet shook of deathly span

Crossing past the dark unknown mile, while a golden rod measured still its dominance of its land

Lowest sound underground continued around, the shoals beneath waves of ages echoed relentlessly

For they ran under and through ways never traced, and wrath they stirred tremendously

Arch warriors as messengers would not mourn those who fled as unheeded as stone and wall

Messengers conjure only the words to warn, the mountains buried by design, by empire's fall

Where mountains rose up, they were taken down from the hand that wrote the names of twelve

But earth buried the upper way, as safe as woven gold, and in heavy current over molten shelf

In that hand that summoned the mountains to stand as guard, it wielded a terrible wrath

And in justified force, brought mountain ranges from earthen mixture into sunken path

A guide now making haste to speak of earth and fire and sea, came to lead beyond molded clay

The surface sinks where boiling deeps allow, shifting the buried oven to severed root to fray

A piercing bolt shatters the sky, as told in ages of old, the sign and siren call through a maze

Giant mass folded square, again a guide strides forth awakening the essence of wrath in his gaze

Underneath a thousand ranges, pointed breaks through from the base and we know not how

So that a thousand sides round the twelve sides fill with elements of glass and silver upon its brow

In the encompassed thunder and wind, the deep fires burn like a whisper, and hillside trees sway

Inner fire tunnel ways speed through without a break in their course, another gate was made

All the anger from a chaotic blast was then subdued, by that which held mountains of hidden light

Clearing paths and unearthing maximum thermogenesis for those able to intensify mood and might

The mountains, the key to upheaval of buried earth, exposed and cooled, and wisdom its source

Being the last path from below forged from above, broken frames of time for the hour in its course

And ice poles setting a border to encompass all to be lost and to die in a frozen mass

And no guard stood in any created path, even as waters were lost in a dead hazy pass

 

Aim arching far, a monument hides inside the outward obelisk of element subdued, and used

In open gaps of time the guide warns of destruction built up to flooded gorges that lava fused

A single strand of lightning warded off whatever evil spell may have been spoken and cast

To look from afar, on such a place with eyes that see no land, and no sound of waves' splash

Mountains fully grown from darkness itself, rage and fear alas, but the guide and hand that holds

Drew the power away and gave no gem or sand of sea, when darkness cannot sustain its tones

I set out  following the guide, but knew the ancient ways long standing, and deep fires smoulder

The dark deep captured mass already laced with creator's flair and strength of celestial shoulder

 

Ages passed, past days counted and numbered here, past eons of arms yet unclear, unseen

Contrast in mirrored illusion levels off, the pinnacle stabilizes as root of pillar and root of tree

Waters vast until clouds return with them over a thirsty desert, and sometime having no path

For the guide walked and wandered, I'd seen him from far back, in fire waves of the aftermath

Raging just below the surface, there towers over the world, the mountains of wrath

 

 

©Iggy 1999

I Am A Storyteller

Once there was a time, once upon a time, as it is told

We lived on myths, tread over buried ages all the days of old

In the firelight, the direction of the moon may not tell the time

Eager listener, a long hour is but a phrase of mine

Close your eyes and drift along as light grows dimmer now

Smaller bulbs of willow's nocturnal cover burn, in its arched bow

Where could I be? Looking over the distant open of a deep shade

The moon hangs, yet on closer look is another narrow way I face

It was well hidden by bricks of earthen color and cold

A small moon hangs in a characteristic midnight of what I've told

Quiet fantasy, unsung mystic, may have seemed empty where I stood

There suddenly light filled as fire, in a familiar crackling of wood

The mystic lord and magic knight kept a corridor closed

That would lead to a treasure room filled with gold and prose

But the treasure of gold was in the eye, the other in one's mind

A hallway glazed and tempered by furnace, but no words to find

 

I'll weave the journey in what I tell you now, a way back through halls

Open chambers full of time, following a written message on tunnel walls

But it is a story, a journal, a scroll of past events kept long by the sages

And murky shadows have harbored over these seamless ages

The scribes had written on high, now given to the buried deep

When fall fades the warm underground shades amble along asleep

In no direction they keep, in no awareness of time, wandering slow

Outside castle and downhill the countryside of long ago

But a legend speaks, and a touch stirs the air, many a tune is there

Carried on by trees fair and waves made by clearings of nowhere

Above paths of earthen way, you'll hear the chords, echoes seem faint

One chord low, one flows, and a third that crescendos with no restraint

 

Far up past clouds I sang with you, soft in the night's coldly lit moon

Heed that night's hidden grounds stay ever beyond the name of Lune

And the story speaks of solid bridges, rigid and old, collapsed and gone

They are present in shattered disarray, here is part of the tale I have drawn

What had happened that brings such an outcome to slow footsteps to a grind?

Attentive listener, 'twas the grottoes underway with no path any could find

It seems all is dead, passed on, and well outside that realm's frame

Disconnected distances unseen, they were outside the dark, aflame

 

Remember the ages deep beneath, the grip of war fleeting and tenuous

Ages erase and beyond the solid, the battle is sensed far more strenuous

The tale I bring now is of past glory won and peace that prophets tell

All your slightest hopes that fell, I've held them in such a deep well

 

Forgotten places and a memory of something I never heard played

Dimensions high or low, but it's always there, the memory had stayed

We all share the same realm, we reach back away, I speak and I regale

Of my path that I journeyed forth, and where my part is in the tale

If there was no doubt, and nothing dwindled to naught

The door of the unknown may drone on with no thought

But the iron holding fast, a sinister feeling keeps it all locked

An ancient willpower that dove into fire, where angels walked

Eternity vague, certainty pale, deep down once great realms sleep

Up from the depths, harbors their defeat, it's still a familiar keep

It takes form in a faraway edge that never connects, it may seem

Down from the darkness, a world upside, have you seen this dream?

If there is a demand to surrender secrets, the edge misleads our trust

Here and there I've slowed my steps to do whatever it is I must

The mystic and the magic knight have guarded a realm and its name

Their gaze sharp and crystal clear, whatever the ages may claim

 

Under the light of day hides the air of the past never gone

But the light finds a way through, reading the walls out yon

None can say it's too different now, the faded ages claim somehow

Abundant moments of centuries cleared, stones of gray lay now

From rooted willows and rolling shadows the corridor stands bare

Speaking that I'd come back, find this again, but time subdued the dare

The corridor still silent, in the murkiness of thought, well hidden

Absorbing darkness, a dull harbinger to echo something forbidden

If you go down this way to the ledge, brave listener, your senses keep

Shake off the feeling of fear, unease, doubt and pain, and of sleep

I speak of an iron door when it fell, an echo of emptiness continued

Loudly echoing until it too, faded to whispers misconstrued

Out on open lands the fog rolled in, the way beaded like light rain

The knight rode past in a hurried flash, of a time that time can contain

Torchlight reveals long settled stones and all thereon inscribed

Following the message written on tunnel walls, I have ere described

 

To reach out and the words may form and utter words in my mind

If nothing amiss befalls the twilight line of the horizon behind

Our voices bounce around and in answer, our questions as well

And walking outside the dark is a place I will bring a story to tell

 

The way away out and beyond, is to go down further and find dead space

Carrying clouds, hardly a visible path wound, navigating as if in a maze

Sounds muffled creep along, it was hard to find the buried secret gold

But it's the secret of old I hope to hold, given in words I'd told

 

And a place of song so clear, talking, singing softly close to my ear

Quiet tunnels deep and unheard, in a labyrinth unstirred, are near

The mystic telling tales with long pauses, with sighs, rivals mine

For the mystic lived in all those ages, while for elsewhere I'd pine

 

Under the light of star and moon, the hearth kept fires alight

As in a woven cocoon, wrapped away from the sinister night

But out on surface of lake, river and moss, flowed an ocean wind

Count it as a wish, like stars or oceans of fish, let a dream begin

 

In halls there blows a whisper of night, new moon out of our sight

In magic strings and hours in a glass, alas there would be far off light

And if one speaks the tale, the mystic foretold the casting of the spell

Let the strokes of a pen forever mark the wisdom of an uncertain farewell

That age and that realm began to fade almost as it came

The dread that was spoke in dreams but never said, had no name

So softly the story flowed, lofty the senses embraced the romance

In firelight and gatherings of folk, merriment and laughter and dance

But in a while I stood in a dim and long hall, against a wall I'd lean

Yet had I never halted, then never to see that which had passed unseen

Somewhere in a soft candlelight I was able to speak of what was before

Of what eluded the magic knight, what happened in past days of yore

A song in the east, moon in the west, and God's fire just the surface below

A keeper I was called to, from beyond the blue, out of what stories bestow

Great lands and desolate sands over a kingdom no script found redeeming

Perhaps an answer, curious listener, everything has meaning

The fire has gone to ember low, keep them aglow, and I sense no rain

I give you the moments again, and hours hence, all my heart can contain

Because I am a storyteller, I will say that the tale I spoke may seem to fray

Pieced together as I shall always be a storyteller, from so far away

 

 

©Iggy 1989

With notes added to the work dated in 1998/1999/2001

Behold The Darkness

Turning my eyes up into the night, and stargazers alike follow its turning

Vast sea of small lights aflame to rival from far back, the sun's own burning

Stars glow but against shadow they mimic mere candles with distinct sharpness

Quiet falls and calms everything for everything beholds the darkness

And to a window I bring a candle that renders a dim glow

And to a window I focus through the obscurity moving slow

 

Wander within this realm of soft unseen fantasy, let your fingers find

The blanket and hide your dreams beneath it in a treasure secretly bind

You must understand the spell of how the night brings a far off starkness

I find the dreams I long for when the stillness beholds the darkness

How can I fear what is sweetly strange and hallowed like a shrine?

How can I misunderstand the harmless even shade so fine?

In the wake of shadow, deeper than night, the sudden awareness ominous

In a sphere of what holds thunder, we can wonder, for the half world in darkness

A power deep and unknown in height, seems to circle only one half the domain

The gods stay close enough to redeem the hours or the essence of my name

The grounds pull in what the image of night says is old but keeps paths anew

I behold the darkness with a belief that seems unreal and untrue

Ever darker growing, the twilight rolls on barely glowing, I cannot explain

Pulses of the day slowing, air whispers lowly, under a cover that is the same

Moonlight clings to my heart, the connection between solar stark, lunar dark

Gives but a glimpse of the cover of night in what could really be afar

Gates of prophecy unknown, uttered or carved script, no demons dare guard

I come and go there and they keep their distance, they're of no regard

Underfoot there exists gulfs massive and hidden from under the sun's light

But I've brought fire with me in only what I've known in this world's night

Forest tunnels leading to a grotto of an ancient recluse, long forbidden

But in the power of the forest alone, it cleared away what was hidden

The oaks belonged to a world much younger, but steady on they kept hold

I've laughed in the face of dread, it finally rested softly, because I behold

In this fanciful flight that I now tell with the odd recall of an old emotion

The candle glows and shows again a bluish light, and never is heard a notion

That the sun is silent for the lack of proximity to this spinning sphere's sight

Somber dark thick and still grasping to hold the wind to reign over the night

Dark is the giant behind the stars and behind them dark will hide

Deeply hidden shadow, the darkened sky blankets the other side

 

Its touch slowly turns to frost, a darker hour that was never known to any clock

Silky shade caresses hollow beams, midnight will hang and drag for time to mock

It cannot be counted properly, I behold the darkness without the words to tell

If I dream it all, if I walk under moon to behold part of heaven which could be hell

And to a window I bring a whim silent thought that gathers many thoughts

And to a window past the gate, we had walked in a night that is never lost

© Iggy 1990

The Deep Of Dreams

How frail and thin was the night? I thought I had laid down to rest and to wonder.

But was I fully asleep if what I see is true? What walls of disillusion are laid for me?

If what I see is true then it's dimly casting a light, in corners beyond the rain and thunder.

What are those deceiving scenes of hopeful peace in a dark world which I always see?

Around me there is not a soul, not another, this the deep well, the deep of dreams.

 

Could I imagine that I fly when I leap? Very deep and much too dark to fly down.

Then a sense of falling from an endless edge, though I never felt the solid touch of a ledge.

Almost in constant apprehension and a hope that someone would intervene now.

Crossing some torn mountain that lay in shreds of rock, that lead away to wild hedge.

Like a poor, crippled figure of grains of sand, misguided and quiet, I fall asleep.

 

The sense of anxiousness that was bringing me dread, has now abandoned my mind.

I kneel to look at the trail, bowing my head I search backward for the hidden secrets lost.

The trail changes and rises high, I reach its way, but it's in the past where there's no time.

In fading blue, where am I to go, what am I to do? Fragile stone for a step cannot be crossed.

Not even aware and hardly knowing, I cross another gap outside a sheltered keep.

Staggering landscapes and onward halls find me the only one, dark mist woven into the air.

Nothing is pressing me, but nothing settles me, not a sweet slight tune, not a word to soothe.

Seeking with painful effort for something as if it was my quest to find, but was never there.

Dread slopes, hills of rolling misshapen earth, a river that never unwinds is how things move.

In the fragile images of a dream, it's a mightier realm connected to layered worlds in beams.

 

Twelve statues stand in a chamber with a hollow glow, some are dark and some are bright.

A recollection of a faded victory from long ago, now in burial of old, now enshrined in ark.

Six for the day, six for the night, and five more when all is blithe, and when moon is slight.

But too often that hour is gone like the forgotten night, yet midnight holds all in the dark.

From far away a whisper is heard when one cannot hear one's own word, the silence heeds.

Do I believe there's a lamp behind the moon, or is the moon what shields the light from behind?

The eerie plane of a strange paradise, mystified and weary, I regard the hour and for sleep I wait.

Thin as air are the colors yet they never fade, while the same light bends in a dim room I find.

Welcome or forbidden, it sadly slips away with the gray and it escapes to what is an open gate.

Silent and cautious, the sense of apprehension returns and I think sleep has taken what it needs.

 

In a world familiar, in a world foreign and alien, of place and path I'm set on unknown quest.

Unnerving is the cunning cloaked scout that means no harm. A guide that leads without a face.

In a world where my hands have no hold, any question is muted, my words have no jest.

The tale now is that the time counted is time measured that can only lead without a trace.

Into the past one can go, but it's not remembered as the time long ago, it moves like the sea.

Grasping the clouds around my head, radio signals elude me, and soon they come to never be.

But something else beckons distantly and its words pass me by, but a master knows the phrase.

A master who knows where to find the bottomless sea that holds the treasure of dreams.

Set before me like a hundred mountains and a thousand seas hence, the mass is but a haze.

Scarce yet provoking, the vision leaves no doubt but deep confusion, if only it is to me.

There's something uneasy about the way the sun casts itself, and it doesn't burn the same.

Somewhere is something I must fear so much having walked a beaten road of broken will.

And when I finally reach the shore I touch the cold of ice that hint of hidden sign and name.

Lost and forgotten, doleful I try to carry on. Are my dreams I hold what these dreams kill?

Seldom is the hour if I find them again or its shores I reach, I awake to find it was a dream.

Day is still long nights it appears to be, they come to my own realm of mist and grounds of green.

Adrift they fly, they glide by and never regard my cries and time falls outside the dismal realm.

In the anomaly of a crowd, I see them all but only some see me, I am one who is often unseen.

Never standing with those who fall into false belief, and so lost is the way, a ship without a helm.

The dream of home I have never seen, it seems unreal, until the time comes again to dream.

When the wind can bring a storm but not a yielding air, a world of feasts of madness and fear.

Still from all of that I stray, seeking only a place where the world isn't empty and dark.

Sometimes out there, though surrounded by deathly tone I hear, a tone softly melting away

  the hardest voice of judgement in my ear.

If chambers of shrine and hall are empty I'd bring candle and wreath for a simplistic mark.

How I have known, I've learned to explore, and with such the skill, I've mastered the dream.

 

Everything is too troublesome to remember and memories are so dear, one can lose the way.

How frail and thin the night, it strays near the mind's edge, flowing shallow waters over a ledge.

Return me to a place, home was it? If only in a day or an hour that in my minutes fade away.

But I can be spared the doom of whatever may be hidden in darkness, earth and sea to dredge.

I think I hear someone talk of the deep, mystified and with ease, I fall asleep.

 

 

© Iggy 1990

Working titles for this body of work were 'The Depth Of Dreams' and 'Lost And Forgotten Dreams'

Once Upon A World

Inside a shell, my fire is deep and closer to core and hearth.

But upon the wind, and the top of polar sea I'm a beacon of melting ice.

Giant hills rise, small stars fall, this is the moment I mark.

And plates become pages of stone, as leaf is my design in seasons twice.

Moon in soft eyes before I awake to winds of forceful sighs.

The ultraviolet pulse that keeps a rhythm of time,

Like a bottle of sands, a sand mass inside glass, a mirror for both sides.

Embers in shallow wells, and healing rain to low fields of mine.

Thunder sounds deafening blasts and quake, in a blink of the eyes.

Day, dawn, dusk and night, lightning quick, lightening break and tides.

 

They fade into sleep when I seem fainter and cold and I make myself fade, too.

From ice the thawing ripple of pond in mossy mold is a place found in solitude.

Rapid streams down the treachery of slope and peaks touch the colors of midnight,

For a long span of eon, edges of sea far away held in an image captured by light.

 

Blue is an echo of frost, I sense its foreboding drifting around my feet.

Under faltering clouds, unsettled mist and stem of unknown root finally meet.

For quiet moments in peace, the back of the sky falls into sleep, behind cosmic hands.

My eyes are open but my head is in bewilderment, and racing through strange lands.

Distant moonlit clearings where I keep shards of quartz, pieces of gold,

To sunken grounds where path fell to those strange trenches, those places so deep.

Under vine, I'll sense portions of life out on storm-scarred hold.

The world has designed more than riddle and puzzling chasms could one defeat.

The wish was true, the void a lie, back to the first page the world did speak.

Inside a shell, an echo is the sound that traces around,

Heard past the giants where stone mountains crumble under a sand time.

Within what is home, in eternal flight, wherever the echoes abound.

Quickened and exaltation at length, islands dive into polar seas' icy clime.

Oddly palm of hand extends watts in aura's light, aura's shine.

 

In the past, what was before, on aimless tracks unknown and uncharted view.

While live pieces of star and flame buried in years of what one recalled or knew.

Sailing ships and wheels of twine set out to no purpose, no dream, only strife.

The grim echo faded yet, and flame and star I see has come with new life.

 

I'll guide you through passages of flame and ice, surely once, maybe twice.

Both somber dark and living gleam, of pages that never cease written by the wise.

With all the white glare, with all the ranges of heat, the reason hidden in a sea.

I know, I understand, I became, I am, always to become, always to be.

 

I was once a mere flame, watching the gray of sky and cloud and clime

In a shell with fire deep and glow, once upon a world, once upon a time.

©Iggy 1988

Enter Hyperborea

I move around giant leaves, hung from prehistoric trees
I watch upon a buried small trove, and silver web wove
Forgotten crumbling fortress abode left for time, nevermind
Why have you a shadow in your eye, past window dimly by?

Silent watcher, fearless archer, wary traveler being alive
I once advised to set all those faded relics of sorrow aside
Reflected like the water of your tear, but they never died
I was drawn in, but I was in a fog of vertical oceans wide
I thought that they would blend with the horizon aligned

Dusk swelling toward an ancient door, in forgotten lore
And the dust settled then, slowed time in grotto and den
Doubt moves across your brow, knowing the here and now
Open gates, this is where destiny, fate and legend awaits

Ahead you'll see the fall, and ahead you'll hear every call
Thinker of thoughts deep, easily tell me dreams you keep
Restless thinker so deep in thought, and spoken was not
Sit by over here, close enough to hear a whisper so near

I'll tell you a thing of ancient doors and forgotten gates
I've seen and heard visions and songs gliding in the haze
A gloom of a yesterday was hard on me and I cry, our fates
My soul rides an air above a point, and hovering it stays
Slight the sound of cricket, maybe only a breeze in shades

Recall the storm in a bygone night, and it was like a sigh
Striking it was, when moon falls, and ocean climbing walls
The wild was brushing the skies, and a wisdom in your eyes
Going back to tidal wall, seven seas long, seven drop fall

The way the sands had drifted into remnant of an old shore
Passing through another ancient arch designed of a past war
The gate on this passageway is fallen on broken stone floor
And here I know you won't forget the secrets, knowing more
Walking slowly past you know where to go now just as before

I can give you such a thing and I will try to make it so
Share my heart's realm of life that I would possibly know
But as I see, before I came to this tale I tell, so curiously
I can follow you hence, because you gave all of this to me
If I breathed new air beneath fortress old, it sets me free

Finding I'm standing alone, lost ruins and relics of stone
You went the way I came from, this side still the doldrum
Just below the surface and edge, broken promise and pledge
Solemn in the span of ancient field, nothing upon to build

Frozen in a time I've never stood before, weakens the door
I'm soon to flee swiftly to escape, of this ancient landscape
I go with you unseen behind, you're gone to nowhere I find
When you turn around to be near, I am the silence you hear

We see outside of time and inside towards the firelight
If the winds mock and rush past marble of a lofty height
Something stirred untying a lock of ribbons golden light
That what belongs to forgotten gates to open on the night
Not a sun or moon of rich color hue, put yarns into sight

The door ahead, afloat on airy fog but rests in lava bed
Canyons of murky moon half, sands of dusky moon draft
What we see of clime, outer rift yet another hand of time
Forgotten fortress appears, once the icy wind disappears

In the wake of tide is wreathed of salt and silken thread
Stay fast alert and then so sleep between peace and dread
Waters are sad here because tears line their pooling waves
Three linear beams finely tune eight songs below the shades
Along they tread in time lingering past doors of the dead

And here is where the doors lead, of all paths in between

When we can find the way back, for this way and for that

Ancient is yesterday, forgotten must be undone of decay

Area span moves in one place, but stays allowing a way

© Iggy 1990/1994

Working titles for this body of work were 'Ancient Doors And Forgotten Gates' and 'Enter To Exit'

Exist

I've been summoned here, Naphtali connected to the signals I keep
Time is a repose, slowed to sleep, and disconnected from the deep
It was silence but now a bleak murmur floating on the grid line
I call it web and vine, air and void, counting three, six, and nine
Outside glass-like gate existence is never under slumber's spell
A freely moving sail, above the hours, entranced by moon so pale

Name the sad moment a long lament, it extends, asteroids will find
The mercy of gravity remains, trailing behind, stable orbit unwind
A force that never dies, I keep at random speed somehow by choice
I merely exist whispering from far away, and subtle is my voice
I found the iced sphere on the last roundabout and it's now lost
For the same stellar course crossed never changes but the frost

Endlessly I find thousand endless journey
Is silence something even you cannot keep?
If I merely exist, amusingly I am bored
My view through this long window, turning
Surrounding the majestic titan of amber deep
Fountains in radion where beta rays soared

In an awkward circle of orbit, and as far as the eye can see
Reaching a state of solitude for me, remain unknown I'd be
In distress and radio path clearing away the dusts of time
If I exist, I knew the sign, a path through peaks I'd climb
But so disregarding is it now in obscure distance below
If I just exist just to know, languid it feels, and so slow

A hunter I am not, a hunter is not my name in red glow
But lava pools of fire poured low, magma stirred below
If I exist, I can't tell if it's too late, so unsettling now I fear
In lunar shade awake and near, a signal once again I hear
Emerged they sail upon waters that reflect reddish skies
I muse within a strange realm in its rise, with weary eyes

In this what is called night, I wander along
The terrain is unmarked as it is yet unknown
Made by nature's surge and era's end so pale
As to exist, a moment spoken through ages long
Inside a furbished theme, outside frequency tone
Of giant fragments nova made it's a flowing tale

I merely...exist, and all of a drone it seems
I hear nothing outside of continuing beams
And often they faintly and weakly glow
Over and out, your answer is very slow

 

 

© Iggy 1994

Spirit Force

Origin, I cannot say if I remember your slightest embrace
As there is no recollection of that, let alone your face
Are you alone? I wander the forest, I tread the night
Indeed, it is I, who watches only the smallest light

Is it my years that bring to me no recall, in my eyes?
Is it you, Origin, who had found the fabled paradise?
Where I watch from an outside wall
A low wind murmurs, and that is all

Origin, I cannot say if I remember a smile of your face
There must be dragons to slay, and castle to scale
Because I sense a kingdom in ruins and conquered place
And so there must be deep oceans of darkness to sail

Origin, I grasp and I do try to guess
That out there in the distance immense
You catch the echo of a word
The edge of my verse unheard

In the strange night or in the point of its eclipse
I stood among dark ones, amid the shadows of night
I knocked on doors asking in the shade of warships
But unseen I fade back away, my hands clutched tight

Whether the splash of sun on mountaintop
Or in earthen stone, my light burns hot
In so many a night, so many alone
Holding nothing but flesh and bone

I mirror life in ways that reflect dense distant suns
A flame dancing past the elements of expanse I trace
I turned to find you saying greetings from the high ones
Saying no goodbyes in a dream instead of empty space

Origin, quietly I will say
Only a question, if I may?
Where falls from the forest tree
The living spring it used to be?

The brush, weed and thorns have made my skin as bark
In the rains of clouds far below the roof of sphere
Deep down I tell you what I see, and I hold your mark
If just in a single drop that such is manifested here

Origin, are you blue? Do you remember me from a star?
The ages have made deep trails that lead away afar
And small ripples or waves in a sea
Origin, are you alone? Or is it me?

What burden do I carry, so long a time, I cannot say
I hear in my soul what instructs me to give it to you
But out of fear I stay silent, passed times that betray
My life and ages past have known the same, heavy but true

I would love a mere glimpse even if it is in vain
I would try to ease the wounds of those in pain
A hint of ways to spark dreams
For whatever to them it seems

Now floating the clouds seem dull as the night draws on
I turn to gaze longing for a half-forgotten idea of home
A page or two of a story with no single command to belong
A thousand more the heavens bear, treading along the glow

And your thoughts all the wise have longed and sought
Worlds, and realms of magic, you alone have wrought
In your hand caught, you already know
Of the hosts, my fire is like the snow

Who are they that build winds that sweep, and willows weep?
Faraway crystals that sparkle through a telescopic glass?
Upon the waking bough there's promise of bloom and leaf
Alive in a flame we weave, on top of cloud's soaring mass

I know your ways, springing the waters of peace
When I'm a pale flame, you name the veil of seas
Hidden in waves, bleak is the lair
But to others, nothing is there

Do you draw me from grief, as beams settle in empty room?
If comes the crash of avalanche you understand hopes I keep
And if a shadow of shadows descend you brush away the gloom
With you in quiet speech, I vaguely hear memories that sleep

I've known the significance of shine I try to cast
I am one who keeps a fire, blue middle flames last
I cannot say if I remember you ever being here
Maybe in deep memory unlike numbers of year
I would ask if I knew what words to pray
But this recollection will never go away

© Iggy 1993/1994

Working titles for this body of work were 'Ghost', 'Eidolon' and 'Origin (Father)'

I Have Walked Through A Thousand Years With You

I have walked through a thousand years with you, surely even more
I have seen the traces of time dwindle and storm again, as if before
I have walked alongside in a thousand years with you, even many more
We have been connected but from far away as if in legend and lore

We may surface from such a depth of waters from the deep
 ocean that had been the waves of our lives
Or ascend from valley, then grazing the surface of a sphere
 that hides behind light to slowly appear
Somewhere in our path, somewhere ahead, rather than from a
 distant echo, rather than from unknown skies
Through the ages long, so drawn out as if bound by the gray
I have been in a book of time on a clock of moments gone
Through endless hour and quick dreams of a faraway
Through a thousand ways, even more, each road was long

I have endured alongside you, everything you've known, my friend
But there are places where I wanted to get away, places I've fled
Though I watch from a thousand remote miles, your journeys I attend
That maybe one day, someday we'll reach another gate in paths we tread

I've walked unknown miles and still go on in an uncertainty of destiny
But I have walked through a thousand years with you, and so even more
It's just such illusions are clear to me, they draw near yet I stand as a sentry
I've gone through a thousand years in a blaze, in solitude, and explored

We may descend onto grounds of darkened mass covered in
 shadow that lives but is for most, unheard of
Soon we have battles to face, side by side, toward the tide
But somehow in our path, for a moment, we'll share a
 whisper, a knowledge that we know each other in pure love
Through the days that drag on long beyond the moment that repeats
I have kept a close thought that the oddity of time never knows
Through another thousand tides upon sands of warm island retreats
I will tread again under wind and storm, wielding starfire flows

Where there has been only silence here, a thousand years are counted
On a plane of stars and nebulae I have heard the sound of spiral rain
On a phantom ship on dark waters I've spied the times we doubted
Then having walked a thousand years, there was patience in the pain

I've walked unknown lengths, and I've no desire to cease if you still go
Upon your brow I see, etched memories of lifetimes, you must remember me
And though we do walk through a thousand years, the age doesn't show
Something from deep within has burned, we remain young, wise, and free

We may cross all of the mountains, forests and deserts in
 the primal spirit to wander and venture under the sun
Soon we'll walk together inside a song, the same land we'll
 survey and name gates and paths we shall go along
Upon our path, now almost viewed ahead, we'll smile for
 knowledge we've amassed, that we are a mass and one
And through time and times with you I've walked and quickened the pace
Through the hours that wind relentlessly, the story it is certain and true
I have come through a thousand years, even more, where fiery stars race
For I've seen the shine in your eyes, sensed the bond 'tween me and you

I have walked through a thousand years with you, even more
I've seen the traces of time disappear and weathered storm
I've walked the thousand years with you, with love all the more
We've been connected in a faraway as if we're from legend and lore

©Iggy 1999

Omega Outpost

They say it's unheard of when finally hours are long past solitude
Like a difficult and deathly course of intense fire and such
Across the breadth of nearest star's longitude
In the silent drift, a way of fate I've known so much
This is where the outpost ceased receiving distant call
Closed off and barely any gravity, a sense of a sustained fall

Where to begin, it's been a long recorded draft in dimmest light
The presence of someone else who knows the signal at last
All is quiet and everything part of the night
That I arrive to the place closed off from the past
Omega was named for something meant to allude to an end
But what was the finality? A connection to a final signal to send?

Abandoned and lost the forgotten landing lay as an echo of my sigh
Going through archives of battle becoming a circle of no end
It seems completely dead and no one is seen on nigh
The outpost serves as a release that nearby worlds defend
And where nearby worlds fought for its place, here I find a way
And maybe a desperate retreat beyond the darkness of dismay

Omega brings the goodbye, they went on knowing that they spoke
Even so from one of the worlds when there was nothing more
They had gone and every last connection broke
The last treaty when there had been nothing left to explore
Omega had been waiting throughout, an unexpected call to return
What the outpost witnessed, what secrets it held there, to learn

They say it's unheard of to be placed at distant reaches vast
The outpost silent and a subtle desire of long needed rest
Omega is a turning point, a call and it is past
Out here in endless open space, the stillness of such a quest
If no one returns to this place, the post fades to an end
And only I hear the remainder of signals they used to send

 

 

©Iggy 1999

A List of Titles

This entry is just a list of works of poetry I haven't posted yet. The dates on any piece that may have more than one date is indicative that I started to write something, and set it aside until a later time. I still have lots of papers to go through, although sorted, I'm doing this manually. All of these have only ever existed on physical paper and pages.

~

Ancient Alley (1990)

Misunderstood Mammoth (1990)

Kingdoms And Castles (1993)

Behind The Web And Beyond The Veil (1993/94)

Ein Kleines Mädchen Das War (1994)

Wolfhollow (1994)

The Harbors Of The Silver Sea (1998) 

Realm (Somewhere Else) (1998) 

Where Stones Have Crumbled, Time Had Fallen (1998) 

A Place That Sleeps (2000)

The Water Riddle (1988)

The Fire Riddle (1993)

The Wind Riddle (1993)

~

This list isn't entirely complete as I have untitled pages with mere working titles, where I finished the poetry but hadn't given a name yet. There's also two short poems I had written in 1980 but I didn't begin writing such things again until around 1988. But I have written songs, music and lyrics throughout all of this time. It's just that with poetry I can tell a story with hints of song.

The Go Away Island

Before the day awoke, there was a spinning wave in the water

All going under the wavy forces of tide, the pull of moon and sea

No one heard me say; send away the shadows, way out farther

Alone I notice the reeling image of the go away island, the palm tree

Standing ashore in the sea, an island I have about my knee

 

Last of the many nights it's been a long, dread cold winter

Then the warmth came in slowly as I recall, as the palm would know

An island that I've known where some fruits were bitter

If an angel walked on the sand, or ancient land, it's now long ago

But did he see the oat grasses, or the coral reef of the island at all?

Did angels tread byways of this place, gone away under crumbling wall?

 

Out on the high seas, the waters collide with storms in resistance

But had the cliffs of rocky slopes stood in upper floors of the ocean

They would have formed crystal shores on islands in the distance

The sun reflects against a glass or a shell my palms held, in calm emotion

Toasting from the go away island, yet I ask, and hide but wear no mask

 

The tall grass inshore waves around, in a shroud of light I was walking

Where may have stood the messenger, could have easily been close to me

By the torches of glistening walls of stone, we were silently talking

Muttered above the waves, words almost formed inside echoes of the sea

To escape the go away island, where each indigo night falls and strays

Would be an escape of an unknown depth of either the sea or sky's ways

Tides close in around the shores, far from the hour clouds form

The glassy horizon settles in layers of green-blue on faded gray bland

But a shine sparks through when stars bid the cloud to spark a storm

The winds seem to stay out beyond and lightning follows the command

The sharpest blue and island so pale, showing age in its withered trail

Sandcastles crumble in the grip of my hand to loosen my soul

Driftwood of fallen tree in this far away place under the night

My longings go in all directions and with the waves they roll

It seems to hold no breath, an island that just doesn't seem right

And tiring motions of the island heed no touch of change, wind or tide

It just drifts away, slowly away, like a stalling root, and with it, I ride

 

Stranded in the tale and the ocean moon is eerily forsaking

Where the messenger stands is now out of island's reach

I've strained to see any sign of ship on water's edge breaking

Or from the edge of skies within my view from isolated beach

The go away island hosts the will of roaming vine, mocking time

Sitting silently, watching all of the sky, vague as an unseen window

Between me and it, there's a sense of something never dying

An isle of long sleepy retreats on eve's gate, on wind high and wind low

How does one open the way, a passage the island is denying?

A hidden crater surrounded by the go away island, then the tide comes in

Buried corridor out past the sands, island's center, the unknown hides dim

 

Far off, and stretching out to the sea is the long sweeping palm tree

And sometimes the sands shine with starry mimicking to my surprise

When the evening falls and fire's light glows, I recall songs sung to me

Burn the dark world down to faded ashes, to lift the shadow off my eyes

But in peace, the ocean and the mist makes up the only view I see

 

My head bowed in thought or recall about the beginning of the age

Strange stone on the beach, wooden chest of silks, gold and cotton

Imagining wonderfully arranged realms of peace, written to no page

And back out to the sea, any journey from the past, forgotten

For angels I cannot call out any name they may be known by anyway

Another lost island adrift, with giant leaf and twine, another go away

Gathering pieces of tropical storm from waters stirred, I am thinking

From far beneath the ocean floor an eerie sense arises, in the light

Another tide comes and goes with no tidings of the island sinking

A deep sense of knowing never known by the darkness, by the night

No cover for the fallen in the fray, falling past what was cleared away

I wonder if the island sleeps so deep or if it can sense anything, at all

I look out on the sea, the hour goes by, and so does the day at length

Will I stay here on the island when it finally goes away, with it will I fall?

I long to touch another light or hold a hand, longing but lacking the strength

Hope seems almost passing in hours, in a sad way, and I am here, I feel

For long spans of time in timeless dwelling on the go away island still

 

Many days it is void and empty, and nothing floats by

Hope seems almost passing in hours, almost ages ago, in a sad way

But hope's not afraid, my touch is gentle and kind

A reminder of quiet drops swelling from my eyelashes, I would say

The forlorn land, quietly the island stays each grain of sand

 

In a dream once I begged to turn away from sand's burning dunes
The appearance of closest star brightly lit, scorching flames
Brings about another dream of the arid plains under sky's fumes
Stoic I stood not knowing if the dream was real or whispered names
A lonely dock lay dimly not so great a distance from me, on water tame
It moved only with a wave and slightest wind, like it I felt the same

The ocean beckoned for every while and then, withdrew within
Any solid figures under sails are neither here nor there
Gully tides rush so, and rush one after the other again, wisp thin
Long tides form out so far they diminish passing shore so fair
In the deep blue, there are stronger forces pouring through

In island song, chanting I speak slowly and clearly in tones
I've watched the sea's rage emerge from its depths of cold
The island has many returns upon greens of path and smooth of stones
When I sleep there are still the spinning waves in dreams I behold
The far off distance, the far off I cannot see, somehow
The island I'd let go if I could only be there now

Splendid tremendous storm that descends then climbs the skies
And palms shudder as they, too, sense the night on the way
Languishing, like the clouds as they thunder their goodbyes
They have but moments to grow and rise, and ages to sway
They stand in a breeze off the sea, just an islander like me

The go away island feeds no soul and numbs any other hope
To put claims on this place, sea's mock paradise, is foolish boast
So here and now I gaze from the island that whispers in its scope
Oddly relating a tale I already know, coldly settling on its coast
While all the time and all the same it appears to be calm and warm
It's something of a hidden world bound to be the target for a storm

The go away island is a haunting ground that fills one space
But if I flew away and I conquered the mass of the sea
I'd yet hold, carrying island's troves, but with great haste
The shell and the palm, just an islander are they, like me
Where I will go, my memory is fragmented though, I do not know

©Iggy 1994