song of a man who has come through

 

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!

A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.

If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!

If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed

By the fine, fine, wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world

Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;

If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge

Driven by invisible blows,

The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,

I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,

Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?

What is the knocking at the door in the night?

It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.

Admit them, admit them.

~ D. H. Lawrence

from The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence

phoenix

Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,

made nothing?

Are you willing to be made nothing?

dipped into oblivion?

If not, you will never really change.

The phoenix renews her youth

only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down

to hot and flocculent ash.

Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest

with strands of down like floating ash

shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle,

immortal bird.

~  D.H. Lawrence

the white horse

 The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on

and the horse looks at him in silence.

They are so silent they are in another world.

~ D. H. Lawrence

from the unknown

However smart we may be,

 however rich and clever or loving or charitable or spiritual or impeccable,

 it doesn't help us at all. 

The real power comes in to us from the beyond.

 Life enters us from behind, 

where we are sightless,

 and from below, 

where we do not understand. 

And unless we yield to the beyond, 

and take our power and might and honor and glory 

from the unseen, from the unknown,

 we shall continue empty.

~  D. H. Lawrence

when

When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, 

when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, 

we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we do not know ourselves. 

Cool, undying life will rush in, 

passion will make our bodies taut with power, 

we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, 

we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.

~  D.H. Lawerence

go deeper

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,

love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock

molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.

And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.

For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths

out of sight, in the deep living heart.

But say, in the dark wild metal of your heart

is there a gem, which came into being between us?

is there a sapphire of mutual trust, a blue spark?

Is there a ruby of fused being, mine and yours, an inward glint?

If there is not, O then leave me, go away.

For I cannot be bullied back into the appearances of love,

any more than August can be bullied to look like March.

Love out of season, especially at the end of the season

is merely ridiculous.

If you insist on it, I insist on departure.

Have you no deep old heart of wild womanhood

self-forgetful, and gemmed with experience,

and swinging in a strange union of power

with the heart of the man you are supposed to have loved?

If you have not, go away.

If you can only sit with a mirror in your hand, an ageing woman

posing on and on as a lover,

in love with a self that now is shallow and withered,

your own self–that has passed like a last summer’s flower–

then go away–

I do not want a woman whom age cannot wither.

She is a made-up lie, a dyed immortelle

of infinite staleness.

~ D. H. Lawrence
from The Complete Poems of D.H. Lawrence

song of a man who has come through

.

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!

A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.

If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!

If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed

By the fine, fine, wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world

Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;

If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge

Driven by invisible blows,

The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,

I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,

Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?

What is the knocking at the door in the night?

It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.

Admit them, admit them.

~ D.H. Lawrence

from The Complete Poems of  D.H. Lawrence

many thanks to poetry chaikhana

conceit

.

.

It is conceit that kills us 

and makes us cowards instead of gods. 

.

Under the great Command: Know thy self, and that thou art mortal! 

we have become fatally self-conscious, fatally self-important, fatally entangled in the cocoon coils of our conceit. 

.

Now we have to admit we can't know ourselves, we can only know about ourselves. 

And I am not interested to know about myself any more, 

I only entangle myself in the knowing. 

.

Now let me be myself, 

now let me be myself, and flicker forth, 

now let me be myself, in the being, one of the gods. 

.

~ D.H. Lawrence

.

Go deeper

.

Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths,

love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock

molten, yet dense and permanent.

Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.

And lose sight of me, the me whom you turbulently loved.

Let us lose sight of ourselves, and break the mirrors.

For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths

out of sight, in the deep living heart.

D.H. Lawrence
photo: Kilauea lava lake

in timelessness and nowhere

.

Home again. But what was home? 

The fish has vast ocean for home. 

And man has timelessness and nowhere. 

"I won't delude myself with the fallacy of home," he said to himself.

 The four walls are a blanket I wrap around in,

 in timelessness and nowhere, to go to sleep.
.

~ D.H. Lawrence

.