Are you glad that we two met
in someone's dorm room -
alcohol and youth and us,
strangers in the night?
A course of pain and pleasure,
inexorably
set - do you regret we're not
strangers in the night?
Wounded by its lack
Distrustful of it
Inured to its absence
In thrall to its allure
Fooled by its simulacrum
Estranged from it
Paralysed by fear of losing it
Inexorably exposed to it
Resolved against it
Consumed by longing for it
A scholar to its foreign texts
A slave to its compulsions
Compelled to search for it
Forever
Hopeful
There are unexpected
and rare moments
when you can
approach and stand
on the rim of yourself
and almost feel
a strange gravity
inexorably drawing you
and all of creation
in towards
a centre point
that is nowhere
and everywhere.
Other times
the best you can manage
is to cast a thought
into your own silence
and hear its sad echo
answer back.
Meanwhile,
in the fading light,
flocks of pigeons scatter
above central square,
exploding in a burst
of flapping wings
unknowingly on their way
to nowhere
and everywhere.
You stop for no one, dear, you made it clear. No rank or caste of any stripe can twist your arm to force your hand to a procrastinating pause.
I thankfully attribute your plodding tick tocks to your gentle generosity, but why are you so inexorably steady so by the time you chime, you leave little space to ponder on how fast you really flew?!
If only money could bribe any of your subordinate segments, if glittering gems could soften your mechanical demeanour…You made it clear - you are not for sale and your pace is non negotiable.
I hold you dear as my constant companion in my relentless journey as I respectfully bow to your ambiguous grandeur of grace - you give it all for a long while and then you take it all at once.
You stop for no one. You made it clear.
Streams flowing into a river
ebbing and flowing
rising and falling
The river separating them
back into streams
Many lives merging
into one lifeline
accounting for everything
and nothing
at the same time
Personalities rubbing, chafing
inexorably blending
in psychosomatic asynchrony
yet linked inextricably
with heaven
Streams flowing into a river
The river separating them out
back into streams…
Back from the desert and loving it
both the visit and the return.
The powerful plane deiced in Chicago.
Brittlebush, difficulty distinguishing acacia from ironwood.
Mesquite, and plenty of paloverde.
A good jazz band in Phoenix, their own style, no apology.
Could you also love your cancer? The vicious attack of a hedgehog
cactus?
The winter storm that kept us on the tarmac three hours
followed us home. Used to be
when weather made the headlines, that was good news.
No more. Those melting icecaps and incoming meteors.
Some pray, some stay still, some keep playing.
Anyway, notwithstanding inexorably expanding or otherwise rapidly
contracting universes
I saw cercocarpus, phainopepla, tomentilla, saguaro, and a great guitarist.
Prayers were answered.
("Anagogical Moments Merit Badge", 2011, original oil)
Ineffable
No matter what you think or say
About reality, the true nature of Life
Or mind, or God
You are wrong.
And that is simply
Because what is real and true
Is more subtle and immediate
Than we can ever say.
Doesn’t mean there isn’t a truth or reality
Just that it is always beyond thought
And thus speech;
Always, and for everyone.
And this makes you wonder
What is it then we use our superior primate minds for?
Mostly to divide and conquer it seems
Certainly not to live in peace and harmony.
Meanwhile birds sing, bees gather nectar
Children laugh and elders sigh
The world turns, beautifully and inexorably
And we are here to simply notice and enjoy.
(9/7/24)
Headlong you rush towards your
perceived, intended destination.
Eager to reach the journey's end.
Forgetful of an indifferent grave that
awaits with a cold embrace of dirt
offering scant, uneasy comfort.
Speeding, racing, hurtling through
the hours, days, months, years –
inexorably pursued by relentless time.
Oh, intolerant, weak creature!
How you are haunted by this
undeniability:
Dying
You are, from the moment of your
birth.
("Anime", 2019, original encaustic)
Behold, A Pale Horse
Death comes quietly
Inexorably in the light
It has always been like that
And always will
Waiting with more patience than can be known
Lurking at the edge of sight
Flitting in and out
Sometimes consoling, sometimes not
And in its own way
My oldest and truest friend
Certainly outlasting the rest
Waiting ever patient
For one more kiss
And last embrace
Whispering to me,
I will wait for you dude
Until the time is right
And then carry you away
With honors.
(4/20/24)
Let’s have an election
Mr Putin bravely said
Sadly any opponents
Seem to end up dead.
I want a democracy
Yet I’m accused of lying
But how can I help it if
Opponents keep on dying.
Over in Israel Mr Netanyahu
Seems to take full pride
As his sanctioned terrorists
Carry out their genocide.
They seem rather unwilling
To look at facts and learn
From that known old adage
A trod on worm will turn.
Over in America it appears
Democracy will take a thump
As masses mass to support
The apparently senile Trump.
The Champion of the West
Coming under world fire
For falling under the spell
Of a convicted fraud and liar
Our local ruling hypocrites
Intend to raise their pay
As the necessity for food banks
Increases each passing day.
Sunak boasts thing are improving
But doesn’t seem to understand
His was the party in power
That brought chaos to this land.
Over the world people starve
As world temperature rise
Essential polar ice caps
Inexorably decrease in size.
Nobody really much cares
About the catastrophe ahead
Why worry about events due
Long after they’ll be dead.
There is that damp pressure
pushing against your skin
on those thick,
fog congested mornings
when the light
is almost absent
and you feel walled in
and alone
being deprived of distance
with the world shrinking
to a size little more
than what is measured out
by a few shuffled footsteps
from where you stand.
There seems nothing beyond.
And yet,
disorientated and carrying
all your doubts,
you push on,
nurturing a sense
of being drawn
inexorably towards
a somewhere,
measureless in distance
from the circumference
of yourself, but just
a mere breath away.
All of our songs and stories
are written to hold the shadows at bay
but each evening long dark arms
unrelentingly slink across the land
ever so slowly and inevitably
they blossom out of the receding light
Their arrivals are foretold
prophets penned of their ashen fingertips
that cast our fleeting moments into dusk
our theaters of light to shade
and our pain and sorrows to silence
A loud clamoring presents itself
shouts and screams fill the air thickly
louder and louder it grows
until the clamoring yields
to a crescendo of cries and prayers unanswered
they slam up against the encroaching shadows
as though to ward off their inevitable arrival
A fool's errand
For the night alone bears silent witness
and scribes solemn and eternal testament
to the beauty of all ephemeral things
"Alas, such endings must come
for you see all things do perish
and all things inexorably decay"
And in just this way we arrive
to write our songs and stories
filled with beautiful new beginnings
of art and love and hope and joy
pages and pages hence
that hold the shadows at bay
Time passes inexorably
never late or early
does not expand or refund
any time...
Many golden suns have fallen
looking back and my heart calling
Petals pressed, moist dew falling at night
Explore another path, mountain peaks snow white
Autumn's symphony is already forgotten
beauty's dazzling array wrapped in cotton
The journey is difficult, snowstorm predicted
threads of despair, the cold bites wicked
Time hasty steps a frozen look in the eyes
the grip crumbled as thin paper, everything has its price
In this tranquil journey, perfectly for rest
with bated breath, sleep at my breast
Beneath the silver milky way
- silent whisper; you are so inexorably far away
I stand …
my toes
wriggling in cold sand
(pigs in winter mud)
sun has set
bloody and shimmering like abalone
the sea stretching from me
to the reach
shadowy and forlorn
but the horizon, still bleeding -
flaming and dripping like hot ambergris
and fading like brume
before a breath …
oh, those dark secrets
the unspeakable things this immeasurable
abyss has been witness to -
heroes and horrors
relentless power
second only to its boundless beauty
a cold like the deep of space
and a heart known even less than
the heavens
yet life abounding …
why …
why do you possess me so?
why is my being
so inexorably drawn to your
troubled depths?!?
why am I so fond of this feral fear?
I will stand here
in a million different bodies
for a million different reasons
on a million different days
and still
your hushed and haunting voice
will whisper me
from the black of your belly
your mad mystery,
begging …
“come”.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 17, 2023
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