Rose Colored Windows

by John-Philip Penny

From their beds

  And you make a sound

  Like the leaving

  Of the sparrows

  The Children Sleep

  The children sleep

  The lovers rest

  The clocks unwind

  The sun it sets

  The cross is raised

  And the pain reborn

  From the graves of regret

  From the turning thorn

  The hearts expand

  And then withdraw

  These open wounds

  Touched with awe

  These arms stretched wide

  On brand new hills

  That move the water

  Till at last it's still

  For the end seems blind

  But draws its strength

  From the argument of time

  Which has no length

  And time is a prayer

  In its ordered research

  That sweeps out the stable

  For His coming rebirth

  I Move Towards It Slowly

  I move towards it slowly

  Weaving in and around

  Towars the distance

  Of certain Monastic ambitions

  Hands spread the disorder

  And draw it back in pattern

  Like lilies seen

  In a distant field

  I haven't the stomach for fasting

  Or weaving baskets

  And I'm not kept awake at night

  By the blemishes of the world

  I am generally content with my pay

  I have no wife to quarrel with

  And no children to drag me from sleep

  To invent me into a different man

  I just want to forget something

  That I can't remember

  As I work all alone

  On my wretched little life raft

  The Warmth Comes On

  The warmth comes on

  This energy spellbound in a room

  Someone chimes a bell

  The sound begins,

  But seems never to dissolve

  I see now the sense

  Of using the bell as a tool

  For the students of enlightenment

  Every voice blurs together

  During the chanting

  As we try to touch

  The shining part

  Inside our forehead

  Scented smoke lifts itself to the ceiling

  Everything has a

  celebratory funeral air

  Where parting thoughts

  Are given golden exits

  And where colorful

  Preparations are made

  For the arrival of the Buddha

  Whom we will kill

  I Opened Myself

  I opened myself

  To the art of all occasions

  As finally as death

  I needed proof

  That reality is more

  Tender than harsh

  But I have found

  That harshness is the rule

  And tenderness,

  Only the exception

  Now I have sworn away

  What I will never restore

  Truths I shed

  Like old styles of dance

  And I have reaised a barricade

  To encircle myself

  I am done with

  Dead words

  And with philosophies

  That bury our deepest miseries

  Like old fossils

  I resurrect them

  To hang from

  Gentle wires

  In the dark museums

  Of my heart

  I long for the rules

  That make a man free

  Because I have no energy

  To create them

  I am away from

  The flock

  That strives ceaslessly,

  Unaware of itself

  Because it is just itself

  I am always only in

  Movement

  Towards myself

  But never there

  I want to touch water

  Without losing my

  Reflection

  Because I am

  Dying all the time

  Like a flower aside,

  Getting too much light

  There is an art

  I have found,

  As final as life,

  That turns into itself

  To find the sun

  From The Deep Wells I Draw You Up

  From the deep wells I draw you up

  Into my thirst, into my longing

  I see you draw a wrist through your hair

  And I want to become that wrist

  I see you in an afternoon's sun

  That shatters blossoms above

  And comes down like honey

  And I want to be that sun

  I see you in the rain

  It's hands touch all of you at once

  Pressed close to every part

  And I want to become that rain

  And every breath draws us nearer

  Until we breath as wave and wind

  Unitl I become everything that touches

  And you become everything touched

  Barely Yet Accustomed To Summer

  Barely yet accustomed to summer

  The autumn comes

  As all along the promenade

  They slowly pass

  Elegant silk ladies

  Of soprano composure

  And men with top hats

  Who move in baritone

  And spread out over leaves

  The lady's dress trains go

  Shifting in form and color

  Like peacock's tails

  And from the waist

  The men ever-so-slightly bend

  To subtle glances slipped

  From behind a blushing fan

  I Have Resigned Myself

  I have resigned myself

  To a life of poetry

  The reason for this

  I did not find

  In perfect books

  By perfect men

  Or in the eyes of things

  My father killed

  It came to me

  In visions I could

  Not prove

  With words

  I could not get

  My mouth around

  Here Is My Inner Peace

  Here is my inner peace

  That on a plate to you I give

  Like John the Baptist's head

  That never begged to live

  Here is the flesh from my body

  And here are my ashes to dirt

  Here is my hand in your mouth

  And here is my hand up your skirt

  Raised higher, higher that heaven

  Up here on my raven's perch

  Lower your eyes to find me

  Or give up the bloody search

  Though Unaware Of All But You

  Though unaware of all but you

  I will not drag you through my empty spaces

  Burn all my candles, or struggle in vain

  And though chains may hold me

  My singing body will never be

  Crucified to any door

  No flower may bloom

  No shrieking gull draw near

  Without first being contracted to my song

  This is the beast that moves

  Slow as winter fish,

  And that speaks the length of the sea

  And these are the creaking orchards I sit in,

  While I skate my little words

  Over the surface of your frozen ponds

  Amen

  This word is a stone

  In the water of my tongue

  Amen

  There is no saviour

  For the perfect flesh

  No redemption

  For the uncorrupted

  I am shattered and still

  Under this dark blossom<
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  But silence has never

  Broken me

  And words never

  Shown me the light

  So amen

  Both light and silence

  Are just birds anyway

  Caught in the thorns,

  Wings spread

  I Am Waiting For The Light

  I am waiting for the light

  Your light

  To be given

  Waiting like clouds await rain

  Like forests await autumn, and spring

  And as the mother awaits the child

  Here is my dark song

  I am waiting for your song of light

  And for the empty houses of the heart

  To be filled at last

  Empty Of The Raven, Empty Of The Dove

  Empty of the raven, empty of the dove

  Empty of the hatred, empty of the love

  Empty far away, empty in your sight

  Empty of the words, that fill the dark with light

  Empty of the hunger, empty of the thirst

  Empty of the blessing, empty of the curse

  Empty as a vessel, dried up in the sun

  Empty as a basin, where the waters do not come

  And now I come a-kneeling

  With my hands upon my face

  And my little begging bowl

  Stretched out for your grace

  And now I come with prayers

  And now I come without

  To offer up my heartache

  My burden and my doubt

  The Morning Started Early

  The morning started early

  Through your hair.

  Detail by detail

  The child restores itself

  Next to you

  In its sleep.

  I am almost gone.

  I was almost never here.

  I have no artifacts

  To prove that I lay awake

  To watch the strange hands of

  The wind all night

  Wondering how they could resist

  Touching the moon, just once

  To see if it is warm or cold

  Every movement you make

  Seems to bring you more sadness

  And the child is always so

  Undisturbed and still

  Like an unrung bell

  Speak or be silent in sleep

  It is all just the tearing of

  An insect's wing

  You are there

  As slow in waking as

  Stars in their celestial beds

  As I draw the curtain of

  Birth from my mouth

  And try not to struggle

  And try not to be hungry next to you

  I Have Dreamed Of Hiding Away

  I have dreamed of hiding away from the world,

  To learn the verses of light

  To learn with hands, small inner hands

  What moves this bursting sap

  This slow moving through my body

  We shift and bend the contours of the heart

  Into prismatic shapes

  And we summit each wave

  And fall to each depth

  As persistant as wave on sand

  But how can I tell you

  What will not leave the tip of my tongue

  That I may never have the skill

  To publish the full book of love,

  Or impoverish myself to those heights

  It Has All Become The Deepest Of Echoes

  It has all become

  The deepest of echoes

  It has all become

  About style

  And about who created who

  And who killed what

  But until you are

  As smooth as stones

  Beneath me

  I will not force you

  To answer

  Consult with a

  Dream if you must

  Even a partial one

  Or a torn seagull

  Pool-eyed beneath a

  Half wave of sand

  Bring me a sunbeam

  Or a waterfall

  In your palm

  But do not carve me

  Another heart into a

  Beach stone with a pin

  Or bring me a

  Polished victim list

  That ends my work

  You know that I

  Said goodbye

  Twelve poems ago

  And that every

  Word since then

  Has been a lie to

  Take away what

  You wouldn't give me

  And that every

  Word before then

  Was a lie for what

  I could not receive

  Lift Up Your Eyes

  Lift up your eyes

  To where birds of prey

  Linger for a moment

  Circling, and tilting their wings

  Above the chosen kill

  Now fear and dread take hold

  As fallen veils reveal to holy men

  The sign of empty purpose

  That smears itself across the

  Dark stable's door

  Below, the rivers of deluge

  There in the wide valley

  Where meadows once sang

  Now parched land upon parched land

  Endures the beasts in their dying caravans

  And thirstily too we wander

  With throats dry and hunger deep

  Past the burning fields

  And past the burning men

  Dancing on their cosses of fire

  Now whose hand is that

  Touched in the darkness by mistake?

  And what brides of red are these

  Paraded on the naked threshing floor

  As children with faces of pale play their games

  Empty upon empty we hang

  As empty as the spaces between the turning worlds

  As the nameless grace is named

  And the longing hearts are replaced

  With the distant remains of echoes

  And dried to bones, the rivers and the clouds

  Now rises flames, now risen ashes

  The sky finally succumbs to the darkness

  As the stars all fade away

  Like tiny sails on the horizon

  And the sun and the moon no longer rise or fall

  To reveal the ghostly faces to one another

  With their eyes like empty wells

  Or the pillars of crumbling salt

  That the leaving rains have left behind

  I Move To You

  I move to you

  Like the sea moves to the shore

  Always returning, with every exhale

  And like the waves

  You wished me whisper

  So I made my voice into softly crying grass

  Then you wished for me to find you

  And so like a lost child

  I searched all my life in your arms

  Then you wished for music

  So I trained my fingers and my voice

  Until the winter's silence was melted into spring

  You wished me to be guilty

  So I chained myself to you

  Like a prisoner to a tree

  You wished me to be clay

  So I threw myself on the ground

  And breathed the breath of Adam

  You wished me to be blessed

  So I took up the dark mantle

  And prayed in disipline by your side

  You wished me to surrender

  So I took up arms against you

  And threw them down again at your feet

  You wished me to praise you

  So I wrote you beautiful ballads

  Where the Knights all touched your hair

  But the silence of your moving

  And the flight of the holy dove

  Are too perfect over the river of the flood

  And the stones I have
tied to my ankles

  Tear like a scar through the sky

  From the wings of a graceless bird

  I Do Not Wait

  I do not wait

  For weeds to bloom

  Or for lost Empires

  To reclaim their

  Shadows

  I only wait for

  The moment

  When you will

  Undress yourself

  In some other

  Man's mind.

  Why Not Dance Here Awhile?

  Why not dance here awhile?

  Why not dance to this playing dirge,

  To these tamborines and drums?

  The Great Death is upon us

  The cities are burning

  And the whole world is coming down!

  Dance and laugh at death

  Who is smiling to himself

  In the torchlight

  Smile right back

  And hang onto life

  By a lute player's string

  Then glide past the children

  All piled in their heaps

  So high they block out the sun

  Now their laughter is all ended

  No longer tinkling

  Like little golden bells

  Swirl and twirl

  Upon your toes

  For the time is near