Breathing in,
this holy seethe,
an etheric reflux
of fierce fire and starlight,
which has kept me in tow
and fasting thrall
to my dreams
for as long as I can remember.
When I was a budding young sorcerer,
new to the world, I knew all the right spells by heart,
and understood, not through intellect or common logic,
but through a felt-sense, the natural course
of my relationship to the elements,
and to the mutable feast
comprising my worlds within.
I twinned, and then I split,
watching a consortium of fragments
move out into time and space,
satellites orbiting the Grand Guignol of life,
each with a different set of needs
and demands,
yet sorcery remained,
at the hidden luminous heart of it all,
my deadpan and mentor,
my best friend and cosmological lynchpin.
Sorcery, even when I wasn’t looking,
or perhaps especially when I wasn’t looking,
taught me how to boogie to private drumming sessions,
and deeply trust and abide in lyrics untranslated to mortal claims
and everyday thought;
Sorcery, behind my back, showed me a path into and through
fated woods where tall dark trees
moonlighted as metaphors
while simultaneously maintaining their realness,
and I was lulled into marveling at the memory of silver,
as it fell from leaves like filigreed fingers of rain.
Sorcery asked me
to look beyond my need for control,
to cede the smallest view in a windowless room
for the edges of cliffs that petitioned my plunging,
parachuteless, into an immeasurable unknown.
Sorcery asked me to gamble on the infinite.
Fear often held me in check,
or stuck voodoo pins
into the doll-sized effigy imagined by me,
but sorcery would swoop in like gangbusters
to break up energetic knots and kinks.
It might have been easier
if sorcery would have assumed the form
of a snow-bearded wizard with the requisite daftness,
intrigue and ancient-infancy, but that wasn’t the case—
It was form-less, a feeling, a gauzy ball
of glowing green light pitted in a gut-rooted squall,
it was a calling, to not see but intuit
the mirrormask Buddhasmile
painted across the moon’s featureless face,
it was faith of epic yet subtly fine-tuned proportions.
When sorcery talks to me, or rather when I am given a chance
to translate its ciphers and glyphs, it says things like—
Mapless wayfaring is not for the faint of heart,
or, Wonder is your spiritgiven privilege, do not squander it!
It is then that I do my best to relax and surrender,
to give myself wholly over to something much bigger than mortal-visioned-me,
and the power comes in recalling the naively wise felt-sense
of that budding young sorcerer who knew all the right spells by heart,
and who, to this day, remains in thrall to the holy seethe,
equal parts fierce fire and starlight.
By risk of wonder,
magic teeming in the air—
Claims, in thrall to dusk.
Where were you last night,
my dreams asked of my silence—
Between worlds, I longed.
Wayfaring, through dreams,
the most golden trespasses
called me to follow.
To swing and sync, tuned,
Music’s inviolable guide
to dreaming, in time.
Immutable lore,
lucid is as lucid does–
What dreams become you?
Happy birthday, Little Prince!
77 years ago today (April 6, 1943) Le Petit Prince was published in France. This star-carved gem of a book, which remains one of my heart-play favorites, bestowed a timeless message that continues to echo with goldenness and unimpeachable truth: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Posted in Artwork, Books, Prose, Publications, Uncategorized
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Tagged classic, happy birthday little prince!, heartvisioning, his name is Prince, John Biscello, Prose, tending to a rose, The Little Prince, true gold
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We matched distances—
parallel tracks of chilled air,
merging warm in touch.
Syncing into tune,
we whistle past the graveyard—
Stars, moon, all that jazz.
I.
Remember that nouns, verbs and adjectives
are made-up things. Crows, on the other hand,
are real to life, and winged.
II.
Place a walnut at the edge of a curb.
Wait for a crow to swoop down
and take the bait.
Then, watch how it connives
to get inside the tough-to-crack walnut.
Capture this episode of savvy and desire
by snapping a series of photographs,
and when the crow flies away,
with or without the walnut,
reflect upon the nature of theft,
and which one, you or the crow,
is the guiltier of the innocents.
III.
Tape a pair of children’s scissors
to your nose (trying not to sneeze)
and run around outside while
cawing with deep religious conviction
until your throat is air-chapped and hoarse.
Then, stop singing, and look up
toward the clouds with a longing
that courses from the roots of your silence
to the edge of your scissors,
and feel yourself a bated crow,
winging its way home.
IV.
Whoever
coined the term “bird-brained”
obviously
mistook a mirror
for a crow
upon which he projected
humanly erred measurements.
V.
When you see a crow
bopping like a pogo legend of prehistoric bop
along the runway of coarse pavement,
do the same,
and enjoy an immediate upgrade
in your relationship to ground
and self.
VI.
Stare at a crow,
flying or perched,
and wonder why
the crow isn’t moved
to write about you.
VII
1..
2..
3…
4..
5..
6..
7..
8..
Nine—
There’s been a murder,
with the usual suspects
framing a most fearful symmetry.
VIII
Envision the crow
on a Roman or Florentine vase,
a Renaissance icon and model
emblazoned in the annals of artistic cryogeny,
then reflect upon how you were not there
when ______ fell,
or _____ was lost forever.
If possible, make direct eye contact with a crow,
and walk away feeling,
A) ashamed of the fact that you exist, or
B) strangely absolved of something or another.
IX
Train a mercenary cult of bees
to chase away crows
that have assumed the semblance of coven.
As the crows soar into retreat,
amidst a cacophony of cawing and buzzing,
think of witches, and how the world,
by grievous turns, cruelly mistreated them,
then do your best to call back the scattered crows
so as to seek a forgiveness
which cannot be given.
X
To eat crow
is a phrase synonymous
with raising the dead
to have poor table manners.
XI
Crows and chimps
are considered equals
in terms of relative intelligence,
yet only one of them
can fly into the air
to shit on the head
of someone upon whom
they have been patiently waiting
to exact calculated vengeance.
XII
Between this world,
and the next,
the status of liaison
may be claimed by a bird
that you denounced as a liar, thief and pest.
Be mindful now
so as not to be led astray
later.
XIII
In a wheat-field
screaming yellow,
the memory of bones,
and the reaped lore of crows,
as bred into gospel
by a force of nature
reckoned Van Gogh.
John Biscello 