Tuesday, November 19, 2024

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.
Out of formlessness the ground is made, where does it lead to?
Although it's not within any known place, are you going soon?
But soon is the moment stalled by the unknown sacred ground and really,
  it should go south, and the stillness of tone is lighter in such a deep route.
 
When the night is spoken and shades the stillness in yet humble timbre flow
Hours silent in measured rustling of chime and whir of wind in fire's glow
And the rising of element in the form destined and designed.
As though nowhere came to fall and throws out far off time.
But as it is, far away and quickly amiss, I walk in steps as a guide,
  connected to overhead sky, and of that I recall the phrasing in the tide.

Waves in layers, beats of life, pulses recollect the edges of shrill call.
The edge expanded, formed inside the stillness, and let the sharp key fall.
Upon a bridge giving a long path as if it were a place to follow.
No time was counted and in that span came a light white and hollow.
It echoed back and formed around edges then seen in the mists,
  and the phrasing was fixed and absolute, yet soft as any reeded flute.
 
 



 
 
 
TBC...
 
 
 ©Iggy 1996

Wednesday, November 13, 2024

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

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

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

Monday, November 11, 2024

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