Long Layers Poems
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(An Abenaki Legend)
Prologue...
After the reptile people had been devoured by fire, ice and flood, Kloskurbeh the ever creating Spirit, sighed, and thought about the worlds he had made across the multiverse, how his breathe had brought life to so many beings. Layers and layers of reality seeded into existence, but many had failed to hear his voice and in the end they had withered.
Legend...
One day in the Dawn Land
a boy came walking.
Many times the boy passed through me
without seeing
eventually I placed a question into his heart.
The boy explained to himself
that he had been born
when the foam and spume
of the sea were heated by the sun.
The next dawn, a girl appeared -
she explained
that she had come from the earth,
a green plant had bore her as fruit.
Time passed, the Dawn children
found each other and rushed to
be together, many morning babes where born,
and by the works of their hands and minds
they thrived.
Then hard times came (as they always must).
Famine came, meat was hard to find.
The mother could no longer feed her children
and she despaired.
I saw all this,
I prayed to Sophia the Great Womb Mother -
for yes even I am created from woman
and all souls are thus female.
I knew also that Nature once seeded, must not be
altered by any good intentions.
The woman ran to the river
wanting to drown her sorrows, the waters rose,
almost submerged she cried out
to whom she knew not what.
Then as her tears flowed, between her legs
green shoots came forth, she felt them, then wadded
back to the river bank to see.
Looking upon this miracle the woman had a vision.
She returned to her mate, and demanded that he
kill her and plant her bones in two piles.
Horrified he objected, but she explained her vision to him.
She insisted, so it was done.
For forty moons her partner stood over her bones
and sorrowed much.
Then one morning the piles sprouted plants.
one was maize the other root tubers.
The Great Mother had seeded Her ‘Will be Done’
upon the soul of the earth.
To this day children are fed by the Earth Mother
and the dark womb of Sophia
where all light and nourishment emanates.
The Algonquin people (after a good catch),
still bury a fish in the fields to honor, I Kloskurbeh
and my Great Mother.
The air was metallic,
it had the taste of long spilled blood,
the smell of copper pennies.
A red-eyed sky prowled through bare trees
wind-smears sizzled over steel pylons,
a galvanic hissing ignited unseen frights.
Heat and cold were deranged
by magnetic layers of madness,
there was a fizzle of white noise in the hedgerows.
Fractions of atmosphere separated,
flew away.
Feral conditions ransacked the horizon.
Day and night grew weary of each other.
Experts talk of systems
and patterns,
explanations always come
after the land is mauled,
hearts wounded.
No one saw it leave,
it did not move on
it moved inward to rattle flesh and bones,
it remained as zones of uncertainty
as days and nights grow weary of each other.
After the electric storm
cats were found in other parts
alive
but forever haunted by daylight.
I drank the blood.
Shuffled up to the altar,
pearly white shoes scraping over
faded white tile dirtied by the footsteps
of countless sinners.
(I knew, even then, that that same grime already claimed my soul.)
I accepted the golden chalice with shaking
hands and brought it
ever so gently to my lips.
It tasted like poison, but I drank the blood.
I’d never feel so holy again as I did that day,
wholly pure in untouched white satin,
bursting with life and joy
and the light shining from the proud eyes of the parishioners.
But the light of their spirit would soon curdle in my veins
from the hatred of false goodness.
I pored over page after page,
dutiful scholar I was,
and found nothing but tongues lashing like the Romans
they should’ve disdained,
not mirrored.
Every biting indictment corroded the gleam of my soul
until the only light remaining
was the reflection of that glistening chalice.
I am not the one who bit the forbidden fruit,
and yet the sweetness of its juice mixes with
the blood on my dry, cracked lips,
crimson trailing down, down,
down my ashen face.
A stain of my humanity.
A stain of Your hands.
I drank the blood.
The transplant attacked my system,
draining the life from my eyes
until I was left pleading You to sop up
the few lasting drops with a pitying rag.
Merciful as You’re written,
I begged you,
knees bloodied and scarred,
to transform me.
Make me whole
or dismiss me to the depths.
Fix me,
or allow the scourge and fire to purify me
for ever and ever.
I called into the night for year after year
before I realized it was as vacant as I was revolting.
Was I right?
I may never know,
but I do know something inside of me broke those days,
shattering me from the inside out.
I try to escape, peeling back rotten layers,
but it courses through my veins
steady and permanent as my beating heart.
I cannot claw it out, no matter how I try,
for I drank the blood.
The precious ladder rested precariously on a pedestal of literature
Sorted by width of their spines the book podium was high and wise
It needed a few steps of non-fiction itself to give rise for learned ascent
John had carefully read the fool’s guide to DIY storage procedure
It was his own book for a fact and he had glued the pages together
History had been tucked away on the top shelves four meters high
Somehow forgiven and sometimes forgotten and he needed a reminder
Night time and his insomnia shone so to better make use of the hours
He climbed onto layers of plinths and smiled when the clock struck
‘I must dust off the buggers up there’ and he stretched for the pinnacle
The book worm reached for volumes of memories fit as a twiddle
Pyjamas slippers woollen cap on his head for it was dreary and cold
Just as he extended his recognition of how to stay sanely balanced
Harmony failed him and the whole library collapsed on his shoulders
He hung upside down from the outmost rung of the mindful contraption
One book in hand he smiled giggled and chuckled at the novel perspective
But now there was no way up nor down suspended in midlife’s equilibrium
Finally the whole thing crashed but he was safe in appreciation and laughter
It dawned on him that if you can’t climb to the cusp the mountain must fall
‘Learn from mistakes’ and the tome in hand was ‘Rise and Fall of Civilization’
23rd April 2019
Scars can be the sky
The unpleasant pleasantries before I ever tried to please,
One's initial impression,
Pressurised to press against my very mind,
And selfishly dissolve my very sense of self
But scars can be the stars
A dancing dissaray of swift strokes
coordinated like a swift's inordinate slicing flight
In their cumulative crowd, countless in their layers
Swallowing the serene sight of the stationary sky,
Beautiful and bountiful, fizzling- fading out with time
And scars can make up the moon
A collected culmination crisscrossed into a crescent
Calling the collapse and crashing armageddon,
b'tween self and selfless sabotage.
For as tainted tissue fades with age
The unfused flesh skirts the sea of scorned'n scarred skin
A sea of reds, whites, purples
Red as the ragged retch as fresh flesh is surfaced
White as the teeth of a two faced sheep gnawing on a frail fawn
Purple as the bruised hue hailing the eve of the eventide.
Select solitude calling the collapse and sudden relapse
For selfish selflessness hath torn my scorn'd soul to shreds
See not past the unsteady smile marring my malformed maw.
Though, see to it that,
My scars may make up the night
But I will shine unselfishly as myself, during the day.
7//9//2026
Mutilaem K.M.P.
I searched...and as i looked around,
All i could find was abuse to be found,
I got so tired of digging to see,
Searching this inner cause that caused them to be,
Scared of love...scared of life,
Penetrating the very cause of their strife,
The war of their souls..a multitude of worries,
Layers upon layers of pain in the making,
I thought this was the only way..to truly see,
To sit through the pain so that love had a lead,
That maybe the example..the harder we try,
That will draw out the love and give it a chance to survive,
I had to leave phony and fake in the dust,
The pretend smiles and waves i knew i couldn't trust,
I loved the lesser, and i accepted less,
Because the blessings were in the storm and put my heart to the test,
On my walk the other morning…the moon wasn’t quite full yet…
and I was lucky enough to see her about an hour before she set.
A cloud formation…one I hadn’t seen before…appeared before my eyes.
Layers that started on the ground and rose like a stairway to the sky.
I’ve always wanted to visit places…like Jupiter, Venus and Mars
so I altered my morning walk and climbed that stairway to the stars.
Each step was wonderful…(I’m glad I took the stairs…not an Uber or a cab!)
because it allowed me to interact with a lion, a bull a rabbit and a crab.
I visited with the crab for a while…surprisingly he had a lot to say…
The rabbit, lion and bull were in a hurry because Orion was heading their way.
I met Orion on the next step…he stopped and gave me a thorough inspection…
And when he asked if I’d seen the rabbit, lion or the bull…being a vegetarian…
I pointed him in the wrong direction.
I met Orion’s dog, Sirius, he was big…but I had nothing to fear…
because Sirius, like most dogs, loved being scratched behind his ears.
I met Casper and Pollux, the Gemini twins…their story captured my heart…
and even as close as I was to them…I had difficulty telling them apart.
After visiting Cassiopeia, Vegas, and spending time in the little dipper
as across the heavens I roamed…
I realized it was probably time…for me to head back home.
As I started down the stairway…to the very spot where this entire adventure began
The clouds said, “Wait a minute…we have another plan.”
They gave me two options…I could float back down on a cloud
she’d be a safe and steady guide…
or just as they formed a stairway…the clouds could create a slide.
I’m happy with the choice I made…and just for arguments sake
I’m curious to know…which option would you take?
I resemble the boulders, the years, in my courtyard fenced by hatred,
where mountains and pyramids grow, layers of danaids,
fragments of fate scatter, death dances,
and in the past, my memories bite, I melt
a necessary star, from the shadow of last night, gone and lost,
in a crypt embedded, on a present peak of moment,
eternal circle, dry, delusions burning in futile attempts...
because I've looked at her only once, in the dawn of open dream,
decided, exclusively festive, naked and deep,
mad, having a single dimension, a promise,
finally, the immense depth, which awakened my hunger,
lord, deciding me, just as you are, my ugly one,
to tear from you at once, another blonde fragment of girl!
I am the most from the little I've ever been in absence,
your dark light darkens me with its black and translucent light.
You, the perfect imperfection of eternity,
you are my most distant close one,
my coldest love, hot as the frozen flame,
the ice flower that withers through blooming,
your absent presence makes me disappear through appearance,
you are everything from nothing that becomes something from all without emptiness,
a birth so dead it kills lives born in you,
the bitter salty sweetness that heals me through sickening...
you are my gentlest torture with harshness and violence,
my first last encounter with the separation that unites us,
my highest love, low as the sky buried in heaven...
In me withers a blooming so dead it gives birth to life,
I am an absence so present I fill my voids with full emptiness.
Life is the embodiment of the unique existence,
the construct of universal elements destiny decides
to manifest distinctively with the divine essence
in the unparallel trinity of body, mind and soul.
The self-obsessive free-will ever seemingly dormant,
envelopes the body-mind with a transient illusory veil,
obscures the decreed destination God ordains,
l need to reach, for I should submissively at His will.
Beneath the surface of perceptive mortal senses
the mind creates all the dreams it desires to see.
Haunted by fear it invents the unreal apparitions,
succumbs to the superstitious spell of surreal spirits.
In the alley of time my soul wanders with life of blunders,
frailty future casts shadow of despair on my innate nature,
that is consumed by the tormenting darkness,
turning my spent spirit into Tamasic nothingness.
I search disillusioned for a glittering pathway to escape,
liberating the essence from the elements of desire,
until in the mindscape sprouts the sagacious sense,
not to be allured by the mirage of Rajasic impermanence.
I travel unshackled out of the dark abyss of despair,
on an inward journey through the layers of consciousness,
perceive in the soul the radiance of the divine beacon,
illumining the corridor leading to the abode of delight.
The ill-conceived venture of the errant mind
finds the gloomy dead end in the introspection path,
that’s when the door of the inner sanctum opens,
where the lotus blooms suffused with the divine gleam.
The soul shines with astral radiance in my deep space
with the flaring brilliance of the billion suns.
In my self-searching odyssey at the edge of eternity
I recognise the divine galaxy that turns me into a living light.
*
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The day is winter with snow and wind,
hiding homes and streets and the trees and rivers,
all is veiled in layers of ice and snow,
the cars and buses stopped and all is closed.
Within many homes,
warm fireplace's glow,
as the snow continues to fall,
and the temperature is colder than the North Pole,
beyond,
frozen windows.
Cats within homes are curled in balls of soft fur,
without a care for the weather,
and firelight flickers in rooms cozy,
and there is solitude and peace,
within Victorian homes,
there is concern for homeless, the old and feeble,
alone.
Heat and plenty of food is essential,
but as we know many within the city do not have this,
and what of the poor birds,
the wild animals,
the stray cats and dogs
living outside.
Airplanes and trains are not moving,
drifting snow and ice making it dangerous,
people stranded,
far from home.
The clouds hang low, heavy and white,
and the snowflakes come, flake after flake,
trees bend and branches break, blocking streets,,
while a bitter wind rattles windows,
threatening to break in
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_______________________
March 08, 2022
Poetry/Verse/Winter Storm Forecast
Copyright Protected, ID 03-1437-399-08
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France
Submitted to the Standard contest, You're A Weather Forecaster
sponsor, Matt Caliri, Judged 04/10/2022