"WOLVES IN THE JASMINE GARDENS"

some of my Writings for you to read

S t e p p i n g   A s i d e

In broken promises
in the company of strangers
in a new city
in a dark room
in a church
in a secret side lane outside a friend's apartment

I have heard sometimes the whisper of a name
that hangs delicate like spiders webs across sun-filled garden passes
undisturbed by the walking noisy multitudes
What would I bring you along these paths?
What good would I do treading down these avenues?
But only to disturb an ancient silence, a new peace
a heavenly truce that ties sky to earth?
What could I bring you friend that would justify my
tearing the web
breaking the fast
loosing the ties that keep
time good between the hours of waking and sleeping ?
Is there any reason for my being so blatant and bold and
mercenary?
Who would hear my confession then?
For the murder of the quiet, the rape of the silences
The publication of the everlasting secrets?
Who would absolve me friend as I trod these paths bringing it to you?

Seeing this
Smelling this
I stepped aside and found another place
other than
in the company of strangers
in a dark room
in a new city
in secret side lanes outside your apartment
I walked back upon my steps
and found a life
still and breathing barely
air like the lotus leaf trembling on the surface of a tropic pond
Walking backwards I stumbled on a string of lace winged nymphs
strewing their star dust across the meridians of the old ones
and it smelled of yet another rape
yet another outrage
Oh how I live !
and
I live perilously
stepping on a place
of broken promises
of one to another
and if not that then to another
one people tricking another
people
I step and tread unknowing into my own doom
I give thanks to God for he has always seen fit to open me to the hurt
and then to shield me from the spirits, haunting and darkened
and roaming like hungry ghosts - for they are
and to let me walk in the interstices
between this and that
for this is the secret, is it not?
Knowing when to stop
Knowing when to pause
Knowing how to listen out for the name…..
as it floats across the path, across the traveler's face
mistaken for the wind
Sometimes
when you least expect it, it enters in by the left ear
and you hear it, you remember it
you know it from before…..
in the secret places

T h e   O t h e r   E n d   O f    T h e   W o r l d

And the other end of the world was a wonderful place, a place where we had music flowing, water trapping to the rhythm things that take us forever to be free....birds of paradise uncoveted by the desires of consent, pools of liquidity moving into the sun, showing off and unashamed, dreaming of two by two being four and all the other common men or uncommon greed, taking time and space to discover the trouble of self discovery, the pain of being up and down and alone and in concert with another one or two or three, the company of elders respected and loved....the terrible affair of living now and not then - future or past....swirling into and out of love and lovers past and present, learning the future, distilling what went before and went behind and what went wrong....and we all sat unafraid and unabashed in our proximity and were all right amazingly...heroes all brave and nascent in our new ages of birth and birthing....such was the dream had on the top of the cliff where time stands still breathing like a tambourine just shaken out into the dust of the road passed by on carts antique and not useful, music pressed into the leaves of sea wind that streaked his hair with samarkand and alma ata , memories kept secret by the hermit that showed us where to look for the other things also kept hidden, things that should also have been kept hidden, but were made known to all listeners at the other end of the world at the other end of time, where the bass rolls off the easterly like in a market like in a place where trade flows easily and shamelessly, nice to know that it existed in a dream, taken to the limit burning like the sun, back to the wall, at the top of a cliff, turned around and almost inside out like a flower opened by a hungry child, gorgeous in its privacy, shy in its calling, outrageous in its melody......played again and again on different instruments like a canon trembling close to the heart, one with the soul, nearer than the mouthpiece like a moth to a flame broken wings singed by happiness and the two of them just flew off bold and unafraid and looking for that ending at the other end of the world at the other end of the story...

~ the backdrop of this page is a detail from one of my paintings ~ 

Five In The Morning

It is five in the morning
And sitting, blank staring at the screen
Where chicken scrawling 'cross the white my words fall
Heavy
I wonder about how deep you sleep
I breathe in air that is crisscrossed with yours
somehow
The sunflowers are older
the room is darker
the morning threatens to come with emotions fatigued by too many things
and too many hesitating moments
how lives are filled with the sweet and sour of bravado and uncertainty!
how lives are lost in the small hours of the morning,
turning away from what is healthy and honest
in the pursuit of beauty and skin
stupid even in old age
the sign of our kind
the mark of jonathan's arrows to david
one fired after the other
farther and farther
and how far do we go before we realise that
home is where the heart is
that simplicity is not the same as stupidity
that the rain in the morning
is both a lullaby and a weeping...
And I wonder
How soundly you must sleep
while I try to find links with my life, in my work
how houses rise and are occupied !
how also does music and word rise and fill us up like naked air !
It is five in the morning and the morning threatens just around
the corner
and I would really rather be in a house of rosewood and teak beams
alone and far from electricity
not up all night
looking for alternatives to
the natural order of things
but just breathing in and breathing out
and lying close to the other
also breathing in and breathing out
in secret concert with me
it is five in the morning
and i fall into the arms of sleep
so reluctantly
craving another sea of love
not slumber

 

 (all writings are by Mark Chan, and are the property of The Hermit's Cave & Mark Chan)

dance in the light of the Full Moon

~ Tao and My Music ~

~ Tao for the day ~ 

to Personal Info,  Music,  Song Files,  Email me

or follow My Links

or go back

(HOME)

email Mark