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'