IN THE FULLNESS OF TIME

In the fullness of time
when these rolling premonitious eyes
are sealed shut
and this mouth corked
the heart in its canopic jar of earth
endlessly rocking
feet facing west head east and
face like a flower furled
and the eagle flies slowly past casting
its cold eye
and the oceans rising

In the fullness of time when
velvet ceases to speak to its wearer
hair no longer falls over shoulders
buttons no longer go through their suitable slits
wheels cease to rotate
and no one’s feet quite reach the pavement
and owls cry over vacant lots where
papers blow making that
blowing paper sound that wrinkles
space into time and time into
space and crickets
fiddle to no one

Where we go on because we must
with our loose sail hanging at the mast
into that volatile mist
making out the namesake of He Who has
made all this
each glint of pin in the air
each pin of air whose point stabbed through
nothingness makes every something stir
each anywhere

Earth a ball that rolls on its own in space
whose waters stick to it and thick clouds
cushion it
like a sunbeamed jewel heading endlessly
home in the
fullness of time
leaving us out of it

Oh God so far out of it after our
mortal involvement with it
strong-arming its ratchets and its gears
its circles and its squares
we always at the point of liftoff or the
point of pushed down
among its cypress lawns

In the simple fullness
with no time at all
when the sublime simply
takes over
and leaves this life blind and that one
fully sighted as if
for the first time

O shield us with Your Compassionate
stream

and wake us from this
rock salt dream of men and their fine

moan

and take us endlessly
home

10/28/2007 (from The Sound of Geese Over the House — in progress)

THE SLOPE OF THE MOUNTAIN

The slope of the mountain is its gift to us
or else it would be perfectly sheer

The lightning-storm clattering this way and that
with its quicksilver electronic bolts
is a peace signature when the sky clears

Wheels rotating faster than the eye can see
like the nearly invisible velocity of minnows
is their utter stillness in the two
worlds with silent reverberations in both

The madman who swings an axe in the marketplace
running amok after a mild-mannered lifetime of
niceties and simple courtesies is the
world cleaved in two and each radiant
half like a wound translated into two
foreign languages both expressing pain

The end of the world takes place in a
breath-beat before the beginning
its chorus of blind singers on rooftops
serenades every tragedy that ever befalls us
like teams of horses falling
gradually through the air their eager
destination thwarted

The sign of sound is its careful articulation
a gasp instead of a shout a crying out in
high-C instead of a low croon in a
cheap dive

I kiss the back of the hand of the initial impetus
I stroke the living flame into a blaze from a
lone spark in the heart put there
personally by Divine gesture

We shall not have lived in vain if we can
see this in the blink of our life that we’ve
been given shedding
radiant hairs blindingly bright
a sweet embrace on a mountain slope
in a lightning storm that’s over faster than the
rotation of wheels like a controlled madness
brought home in the glance of a loving eye
somewhere just before the fierce

dawn of the world

            8/5/2002 (from Through Rose Colored Glasses)

I’ve taken down the poems from Ramadan Sonnets (with the exception of Love, in video and written form) which I posted every day of the month of fasting. The complete series of poems, with many not posted here, is available in book form from The Ecstatic Exchange, at Amazon.com, or other web bookstores, including the printer, Lulu.com, or “direct from the author” by contacting me by email: abdalhayy@danielmoorepoetry.com. Thank you.

THREE ANGELS IN MY BACK GARDEN

One day three angels came into my back garden and
stared at me through the window
one was red one was black one was yellow
and their voices sounded like bells

They stood as a trio of lights trembling in the air
their gazes were purple beams so fine
they were more like ultraviolet rays
but then their gazes became molecular highways through the normal
and anything might travel on them to my door

The three angels rippled expectantly though didn’t gesture for me to
join them nor refuse that possibility
we simply existed in two spaces separated by a window
that would otherwise be one
me inside the house looking out
they in the backyard garden surround by variegations of green
looking in

And while this wasn’t actually a vision or
visitation it was an inspiration in
words that came unbidden and opened a
viewing perspective in my imaginal mind
bubbles up from the heart animating it
then the mind figuring out or waiting for an explanation of
who they were or what they did which was
faithful to a reality that not only
could have happened there on the grass in the
shadows of the fence under blue sky
but actually did and is still happening in these
written lines as they turn to form a circle of
sparkles almost disappearing as they
rotate hand in hand their long bright
Technicolor peacock-feather wings
whisking through the air making truly exotic flowers
bloom to firework fullness as they turn I didn’t even know were
there until

some of the sky descends and the earth seems to
bend upward as if for a kiss
and the three angels all turn their faces once more to
look at me and now’ve become more
glance than features more eye light than
physical delineation until actually they’ve
disappeared altogether leaving only the
garden scintillating with an unbeforeseen
brightness described now where
before each leaf and tendril-curl existed in its
own light each grass blade trembled in breezes

Now the garden is brought to life by
an ecstatic exhalation of amber-hued breath so vast
each whale in creation inhales it as it surfaces and
circulates it through its huge bulk as it dives back
into sea darkness

thankfully serene

8/8/2002 (from Through Rose Colored Glasses)

LOVE

Love is a nectar pressed from a
silvery grape
plucked from the Unseen
just hanging ever so slightly
over the Garden wall into

this world. The vine has
many delicious souls incorporated into its
maze. The arbor is the place for
bells. Each touch of wisdom’s
wind matures the grapes, and their
fermentation is love.

We cannot talk about love in the street-digger’s ditch.
We can’t talk about it
hip-deep in mud, with the
stink of the
world on our clothes.
Then it is only the loud
laughter of
quick relief, not the

arduous journey.

We have to talk about love in the
place where the
pure drunks congregate who know the
bell-clear Name of the
Beloved, and are
not afraid. It is a
place of proclamations, and
lack of all restraint. It is a
place where the next world’s boughs hang
close to the earth within
easy reach.

Slender herons fly across the silhouette of love’s foliage
at angles in a white sky.
Love is a scent that has
the gaunt-eyed standing at
newly opened doors
begging for
audience.
Love weaves hair into Renaissance knots
with tiny neon flowers
only the wisest bees
discover to sip its nectar.
Love is a terrible wave only the
most intrepid navigator
dares enter. Let us not

talk about love. It
cannot be mentioned in the
marketplace. In the
boardrooms of America
love has gone astray, and the
object misplaced.
Love is a harsh master
jealous of duplicity. Love is a

lone eagle proud on a harsh rock.

Love is a faint glow in the distance on the
high seas, but
enough for the
lone survivor. It is the

pocket of calm between two
rough sheets of sandstorm.

It is the
sandstorm itself.

It is a taste that will test the taster
who gives up all doubts and takes a
leap that leaves a chasm
forever between what he
once was and what he has
now become. Time turns the
gulf into a canyon so wide
there is
no turning back. Love is a

mysterious guide on a mist-filled mountain path
that winds around severe peaks, and
passes caves cut into the
liquid rock-crystal of dream. But it

goes past them.

There is no animal capable, in all its
animal innocence, of
embodying the
full dimension of love. Love is not for
the lower beasts, even though their
loyalty partakes of a
portion of its sea.

No space of creation is without it. Even in the
darkest depths of the sea.

It drives us on.

It takes hold.

It brings some into the
land of a foolishness so
wise only
few understand its
language. Birds
understand it. They stitch the

daylight skies with its
syllables.

The brilliant
light of silence
knows it.

The hopeless lover with

moist eyes

knows it.

23 Ramadan (morning)