A BOOK OF POEMS

by John WorldPeace

Copyright 2000 by John WorldPeace
Houston, Texas USA

All rights reserved

For those of you who are so inclined, please email your comments to: JohnWorldPeace@aol.com

A merry-go-round
goes round and round

And horses and tigers and
rabbits cycle up and down.

Round and down
Round and up,

The world outside is
a continuous blur

And I am a
continuous line.

PROLOGUE

GLASS

Red glass beads
in a yellow glass jar

sitting on a
green glass table

Inside a stained glass
room of a white glass house

Resting on
a blue glass
marble

Suspended in an
Indigo glass Universe

SAILORS

We are sailors
on a blue marble
within an endless sea

Surrounded
by infinite vessels
moving just the same as we

We know not fully
how we came to be
on this ship

All we know
is that we awoke
from a dream
and gazed out
into the magnificent vastness

THE MAYAN RUINS

We race out to
explore the stars

and seek out
worlds unknown

Far Far
away
we project
our

tiny craft

Yet on the Earth
lay the ruins
of all we
shall ever

find so far away

LOVE

FOREVER IN BLOOM

Forever in bloom
Love

Love is
forever in bloom

Love is forever Spring
when all that
is the Universe
channels through
the loving
Mother Earth

Love is man
and woman

Love is the
eternal celestial
bonding

that is
forever in bloom

MERGING

The broken pieces
of two broken
lives come
together
in casual
regard

Time comes and goes
and interesting
interceptions
manifest

Then as if by chance
one to the other
each notices a
mending

The broken pieces
come together
while the
mending seams disappear

Day by day
the miracle continues
the rebirthing light
creates the whole

From the cocoon
of broken pieces
caressed by love's light
time

Emerges a butterfly
of perfect love

Emerges one butterfly
from the pieces
of two broken
lives

MUSIC

How can I write the music
of you immortal soul

how could I ever
write what I hear

I hear the whole Universe
singing in perfect harmony

I feel the Universe
in perfect rhythm
when I feel
your wonder

I meet you in the Universe
and expand and integrate
and merge with you

We expand and contract
and touch and turn

The yellow star filled light
opens up the indigo void
and we bathe together
as One
in the Golden Light

We come together touching
each atom to each
each particle to each
so that all that we are
touches one to the
other

How magnificent it is
to send my conscious thoughts
bonded with yours
racing from atom to atom
and part to part
To race to each instant
of our being
like frenzied etheric bumble bees
gathering the energy
from each tiny infinite
bonding

Off we race
hand in hand
touching, sailing, speeding
darting, turning
loving, loving, loving

And back in this reality
on this earth
in this room
I remain locked
in your close embrace
wanting never
to let go


BUTTERFLIES

Candlelight
flickers on the wall
while butterflies
dance above our heads

The rhythm
of life
surges and
flows between
you and me

The love builds
then flows
expands and
releases

Over and over
'round and 'round
we float
and turn
in magic spaces

The butterflies
multiply with
each gentle
surging

while Heaven's
fairies' light
comes to join
the dance

Eons and
time immemorial
comes and goes
as we
love and caress
on these
inner planes

All time and life
suspends as we
lock in this immortal embrace

Oh beloved one
how majestic is our
bonding
how magnificent
our merging

Come now
take my hand
travel with me
on the celestial
blissful path

Join with me
until day
becomes night
and Infinity
is no more

DREAM

I had a dream
that we visited
a flowered meadow
on a starry
moonlight night

And as we strolled
hand in hand
breathing the
fragile fragrance

I raised my
eyes to the Heaves
to see a billion
stars

I thought
about the essence
of your body
and the
light in your eyes

I thought about how your gentle self
embodies all the
beauty of the Universe

KISSES

Kiss me awake
each morning
and I will be
your slave

I will do your
bidding
and I will
love you like
never before

Kiss me asleep
each night
and I will
come to you
in your
dreams

To grant all
your wishes
and love
you like
never before


COSMIC DUST

I know not
the origin of
your cosmic dust

I know not
the birthplace
of your soul

But I know
it was
in the
rarest
parts of
the cosmos

For there
could never
be another
you

THOUGHTS ON PEOPLE

CLOWNS

Clowns marching
in a parade
brightly colored
and gay

The audience
stands aside
with children
held fast

Lest they
become
clowns in a parade

BILLY


I dance the dance
of mortal man

In deformed body
with half-wit
brain

I am the forever
child of my
father and mother

I will never
be a man

I am a life
of moronic repetition

I am a human monkey

Yet on some special days
I touch the ivory keys

I play the old old songs
that I once heard

to children who laugh

and to adults who silently
clap and release
the all knowing
tears

OLD HIPPIES RAINBOW FAMILY

We are the wild ones
crazy and free

We travel the earth
in a loose band
of eccentricity

The world moves on
in its routine
way

While we watch
in wonder

Fools with
open eyes

We survive
on the edge
of freedom's
bliss

Watchers of a
world more
insane

than we

THE RAPE

I was a lamb
and he
the black
heart

He entered
my temple
and forever
scarred

my inner
sanctum

Within his soul
he retains
a stolen
part of
me

He lives in a
land

where I can
not go

Into the pages
of immortality
is written
his heinous
act

of which
I can not yet
let go

The days come and
go

His body now
locked in a
cement and
iron cell

and my pain
locked inside
his dark
soul

EMOTIONS

What is sorrow
what is joy

Can there be pain
in a child's
toy

All That Is
has been before
and comes again

but nothing is ceaseless
not even the
rain

Lighting claps
and thunder rolls
and sometimes
raindrops fall

But sooner or later
comes back the sun

and from the
tears of sorrow
comes the
Spring

THOUGHTS ON NATURE

SHADOWS

I saw a shadow
the sun made

I saw a shadow
a cloud erased

I saw a shadow
the moon had made

I saw a shadow
a shadow made

LIGHT

Through my eyes
through my glasses
through the window
through the tree

through the sky
through space
off the moon

I saw the sun's light

reflected

MOTION

Snakes gliding
through the grass

Birds sailing
in the air

Fish moving
through the water

While we go
bumping alone

EARTH

The cracked earth
calls for rain
that will not come
for a while

The child
calls for its father and mother
who have never
been away

TURTLES

Turtles die in the same slow
silence in which they live

They die here and there
among the trees and along
the banks of creeks

Gathering hickory nuts
I noticed an abandoned shell
beneath a berry vine

An empty shell
the only witness to
the life that slowly decayed

as it had slowly lived

SPARROWS

Tin foil on the ground
common sparrows all around

gathering straw
for some lofty home

Forty-nine
gathering straw

one gathering tin

They go about
their business
one and all

gathering tin
and
gathering straw

SEED PODS

Brown seed pods chatter in the Fall breeze
Leafless limbs dangle the small rattles
as they await the next Norther
to free them and send them
to the hibernating earth

Geese fly in from far away roosts
Thunder clouds gather over
the horizon

My being attunes to the coming Winter
its messengers of change
chattering among leafless limbs

FLOWERS

Yellow flowers
climb up the wall
on ropes of leafy green

From the dirt
they spring
climbing, climbing
walls and fences

Up and over they go
to places beyond my vision

From the opaque dirt
they come

and behind the
opaque wall
they disappear

VINES AND TREES

The clinging vine
holds fast dead limbs
while the
March wind
sways them both

The tangled web
of ensnarling vines
reach out
to cloak
virgin limbs

The grand old tree
awaits its death
soon to come

For twenty years
or more the
relentless vines
have slowly matted
their prey

I stand
and consider
a few swings
of a sharp ax

I can kill
the grandfather vine
and save the grandfather tree

The winds blow
hard at my back
and side

as I turn
and walk away

THUNDERHEADS

The thunderhead climbs high
and mighty into the
twilight sky

Its power is great
and within its great inner hall
natural fire ignites

I click my fire sticks
one to the other
calling the silent electrical
fire to flash about the
mighty one

I click, click, click
my fire sticks
and I feel the magnificent
energy build

Then at the proper moment
I bend down
and drum my sticks
on the sacred bone

and thunder rolls across the landscape
toward my transient home

The sacred bone
the rolling thunder

Big Medicine
Big Thunder

RAIN

The ghosts of the ancient ones
march in sheets of rain

Closed ranks pass through the meadow below

They whip tree tops and bend long grass

Some think it is the wind
but I know better
because I have my visions
and they never lie.

RAINBOWS

When I see a
rainbow in the sky
why do I think
it's just for me

Why do I think
that God has sent Her
angels to make
a rainbow
just for me

Would She have made it
had I not came to
that special place

didn't She really
make it for all
to see

I know She did

My heart fills
with joy
to see a rainbow
in the sky

My soul expands
when I see one complete

Heaven's gate opens
when I see two side by side

Why do I believe
that these rainbows
are gifts just for me

as big as the sky
a message of Love
from God aboveIn truth, I know
that this beauty
was not just for me
although I was one of those
to whom it was lovingly given

The gift of earth
and water
fire and sky

The gifts of God
the beauty of it all
manifest in a
rainbow

just for me

NIGHT

Silent night
tiny cats
alight

Mystic night
a Harvest
moon burning
bright

Starry night
other world's
pinhole light

Sleepless night
second sight

HARVEST MOON

The Harvest Moon in a Halloween sky

The eve of all saints day

The coyotes cry

The earth and its many wonders
man and his many visions

I traverse the Heavens above
and walk the earth below

And in my sleep I travel the dimensions
of forever more.

SHADOW

In this time and place

the many lights
I know

cast shadows
of me no matter
where I go

Whether it be the
sun by day
or the moon
and stars by
night

Whether it be
electric light
or candle light

I cast a shadow
everywhere I go

This body
absorbs the light
which strikes
it

so that

if I chance to look

I see my
silhouette

cast on some
other space
within my
reach

Many are the
entities of stone
and flesh

that know me
only by the
shadow
that I cast

only by the
light
I have
absorbed

NIGHTTIME

THE INDIAN PRAIRIE

My body longs
to return to the Indian Prairie
to breathe the spiritual air
to awaken as the rising sun
purifies my body
with its golden
light

I miss the prairie night
with the countless stars
and white moon

In the quiet of the prairie night
I can merge with the oneness of the Infinite
the harmony from
near and far

I release my spirit to the
Great Light and travel
the starry night
as my body
lays in perfect
communication

with its Mother the Earth


The rising sun and the starry night
those are times of the living

I long for the Indian prairie

MIDNIGHT

Midnight comes
and I awaken
from an illusive
dream

The natural quietness
of the woods
beckons me to walk
the darkened earth

I pull on my
boots and move
naked into
the star filled abyss

Down the lane I go
careful to avoid extended limbs
with sticky spider traps below

The earth beckons me to lay
upon its lap

and the Heavens
call me outward into space

I tilt my head
and cast my eyes
far into the infinite universe

I look into the magnificent
realms of distant worlds
and other eyes trancing back

My mind awaits a message
from my soul

I await the knowing
that called me from
my sleep

I merge into the mystic night
and explore one pace at a time
under the vibration
of never ending light

Soon my eyes begin to burn
for sleep
and I return to the security
of my bed

My conscious mind has gathered the obscure message
and now gives way
to that other realm
where all things
are known but only
dimly remembered

THINKING


RIDING THE WIND

I ride the wind
and sweep forth on its crest
down hills
and up thunderheads

Breaking free
I pierce ahead
untouched by the atmosphere
around the world
I move

I am a thin vapor
alone as I think
from here to there
from beginning
to end
and back

I return home
with a sudden jolt
to this body
I have been given
for awhile

I know not why
I escape
or why I come back


SITTING

I sit in my chair
the center of my Universe
I trance
I watch
I think

I am in control
I may move, I may not
I will do as I will

When this body
dies
I will continue
to sit in this chair

and when this chair is gone
I will sit
it its memory

trancing, watching, thinking

THE FIREPLACE

Snowy flakes upon the earth
fiery logs upon the hearth

The cold dark caresses my back
As the yellow flames heat and spark and crack

Eyes trancing upon the fire box
Mind struggling with mental locks

The night passes and the fire dies down
My body's asleep and my soul's dreaming sound

THE TIGER

The clear glass tiger
stalks across
the Universe

His etheric being
is made of glass
but his essence
is the
hunter of the
night

What a commanding
spirit
so much power
manifesting a pure
spirit of light

I feel your presence
as you go silently by
you are about
the business of
your destiny in
this time and place

As you move along
in the Universal etheric jungle
I watch you go
marveling in wonderment
at the glass tiger
that you are

RELIGION

Among the shaded trees
I noticed the men
in ancient robes
of white

Two were seated
one stood

One speaking
two listening

They discussed
the world and
its affairs

focusing on the
eternal despair

They were the great
spiritual fathers
and they were confused
about the great
division they
had created

They were men
of different times
and races

of different visions
and different places

They could not solve
the riddle of why
one God

chooses to make war
upon Him/Her self

WAR

ON THE VIDEO

The big drums of war
beat the occupied ground
half the earth
around

On the video
the battle unfolding
skirmish by skirmish
round by round

The hired killers
of the sanctioned
war

On the video
the air show
that masticates
blood and bone

Soldier soldier
play your deadly game
kill your brother
forget his name

On the video
the sun goes down
night blasts lightening
from the ground

On the video
on the Video

THE AMERICAN/IRAQI WAR


The reality of the
Dictator of the many

Classes with the reality
of the President of many more

Two worlds collide
and war lets the
blood of each and
every side

The great destroyer war
mediates the cultural
collision

Each calls upon the
same God

Each manifests
their destiny
of blood letting

No matter the outcome
both lose

In the end
peaceful co-existence

But the heterogeneous seeds
will never become
a homogeneous race

And the many faces of God
may never be
known as One

HOLY WAR 91

I am Hell's brigade
on the run

I am dead
even as I breathe

If I survive
the killing fields
I will be returned
to life

but for now
I am one of
the living dead

Holy War 91

and my father
Holy War 42

and my sons
Holy War Too?

I have come
to kill a demented part
of the dark skinned race

I abandoned my morality
as I exited
my father's home

I kill and destroy now

rape and pillage
and burn

I explode their puppies
and crush their kittens

and treat with contempt
all that is alive
in this foreign place

If I am dead
I shall live
among the dead

I have abandoned my life
and become
Hell on Earth

I am the grim reaper
and I lust after
the enemy
blood

THE VETERAN

When I was a
young and handsome man
with enthusiastic
solid dreams of home
and children
wife and peace

I was drafted
to fight a patriotic
war

I said goodbye
to family and friends
and met and made
new friends who
were blown up
in War's hell

I won the metals
of valor and bravery
and grave wounds

and I survived the
mortal hell with
punctured body

and traumatized soul

The hopes and dreams of
youth eventually appeared
but not to a naive
young man

It was to the battled
scarred veteran
that came the
children wife and
home

I never forgot
the destroyed friends
I knew

I never forgot
the men and
women and
children too

I killed with
bomb and bullet
and blade and
hand

The years have
allowed few days
of inner peace

even the birth of my children
came with broken joys
and suppressed fears

I have lived through
the times of remorse
for my murdering
acts

and times of anger
at my fathers
who dictated
the sacrifice

of my life

I have received the
Veteran's accolades
in holiday parades

I have reunited with others
the same as I

the possessors of
war's hollow eyes

Now in my antique body
I contemplate my life
in my remaining days

focusing
on that war
so long ago
away

THE UNQUIET GRAVE


Among the sea
of carved and
inscribed stone

rumbles the
unquiet grave

Just below
the ubiquitous
grass

calls out
a troubled soul
from within

its' metal
crypt

"I am the drum beat
of senseless war

that pounds the walls
of my unquiet
tomb

with the rest of
my life

that had no where
to go"

REINCARNATION

FIRE

I watched
the hungry fire
read a book

It devoured
the unremarkable tome
page by page

turning each
black

then vaporizing
them

What a voracious
reader
the fire

Its memory
must be total

for in the reading the pages disappear

I write words
that I retrieve
from intangible
spaces

and one day
all too soon
the fire
will return
them

to the place
from where
I borrowed
them

DEATH'S DOOR

The doors of death
are shallow and deep

For some a mere second
no time to prepare

For others an eternity
a journey begun too soon

A million deaths
we each die

A million doors
crowd our futures

Some are shallow
some are deep

FATE

If I have been
reincarnated
on my Universal
rounds

How many bodies
have I left
rotting
in the
ground

How much
flesh and bone
have I left
sealed up
in tin

Millions and Billions
of planets and
moons

hold my remains
in metallic
cocoons

Ashes to ashes
and dust to dust

I chose the cleansing fire
at the end of this
euphoric dream

ARMIES

Armies of the dead
fill new ranks each day
And one day soon
I'll be a new recruit
in the ranks of the Army dead

Blow no trumpets
when I enlist
keep no somber face
march my body back to the earth
in the ranks of the Army dead.

Cry not my friend
for me or you
for all that now lives
will rejoin us
in the ranks of the Army dead.

Armies of the dead
fill new ranks each day
And one day soon
I'll be a new recruit
in the ranks of the Army living


THE CANOE

The canoe
slowly glides
through silent
dark deep waters

At the helm
alone
I dip my paddle silently
into the waters
of life

gliding myself forward

The Universe
crowds in upon me
in this place

All things
vie for the attention
of my trancing
mind

I move
from camp to familiar camp
a journey I took
as a restless child

a journey I take
as an awakened One

This place
this river
is so crowded
with vibrations
I wonder at my
ability to traverse

The energies
are thick
and overlapping

So many worlds in one space
and so much depth
to each place

I glide through
dark waters

my conscious thoughts away

my being
merging
gliding
moving

THE EAGLE

The Dark Eagle
climbs high in the sky
on vibrations of heat
she soars above the earth

I leap
and find myself a
vantage point
above her crown

She feels my presence
but only by sense
I carry no physical weight

I connect with her being
and become
all that she is

I stretch out to the
tips of her wings
and absorb the sun's heat
on her back

The hot wind
passes her crown
and warms her spirit

She soars
with eyes fixed
in a contemplative trance
but noticing all
that moves on
the earth's floor

Two being
has this magnificent one

The physical being that
hunts from the arid sky
The etheric spirit that
trances during this
high riding

I connect
with her spiritual being
and she connects with mine
but we use her body
her eagle

She is all that I am
our spirits are equal

She is not I
and I am not her
but our spirits
come from that same
reality

We do not communicate
there is nothing to say
In this space
we are all knowing
but concentrating
on the ride

We trance
seeing Infinity
seeing all the earth
with our spiritual eyes

Riding upon the eagle
She is the trip commander
she steers the body
she stays attuned to
the revolving earth

We observe the earth
but we intercept
the Infinite

The noise of the earth
is far away
only the wind
dully sings
over slick feathers

Only the rush of air
calming as the silent
rivers flow below
a space of peaceful
flowing

We soar and glide
and soar and sail
hours pass
then the magnificent bird
dives on her prey

Violence comes
screams
and pain

I break away
and the eagle's spirit
returns to guide
its host
at this critical moment

I do not say goodbye
nor does she

Like two very old friends
We go our separate ways
without the formal
farewells

We return home
from whence we came
renewed and pure

THE PYRAMIDS

In the ancient forever past
in the dark stone corridors
down stone ramps
proceed the
pharaoh's
death attendants

Each carries
memories of this earth
in bars and boxes
of gold and silver

Slowly they move
each and all
as music permeates
the sacred walls

flutes and
bells and chimes

The familiar
cats of eternal life
cry out

Each
moves to his place
of honor
forever to be
sealed in stone

They give their bodies
assured of rebirth
in a new life

They morn for
those who must continue
to bear the weight of
this heavy plane
I watch the procession
I remember the walk
I come to my place
in the golden chair

I rest my golden box
upon my lap
and prepare my
soul for its
freedom

I watch
those who come after me
take their stations

As in the life of our beloved
we shall seat out bodies
forever in his presence

The doors close
and huge stones
seal this magnificent tomb

Oil burns in the golden lamps
as each soul prepares
to cut
the silver cord

They await
I rise up
with the golden
box in hand

I look at each
I say goodbye
to each missing none

I nod my head
and each bites
the bitter pill
then one by one
they release their
soul

I walk about
placing each one
in his life position
my steward assists

He returns to his place
and takes the bitter
pill between his lips
I reach out

I look at his soul
through his black eyes

We say farewell
and he sets free
his spirit
His body slumps
I hold for a
moment then
stand

I gaze about the chamber
that rests in perfect silence

in perfect beauty of
all this earth
calls worthy

I begin to
cover the lamps
but instead move to my
chair
Long I sit
in contemplation
of this life
I have completed

and in consideration
of the pain of
rebirth upon this earth

This life has been full
it has held and touched
all that was dear
4543 BC

Now I prepare
to lay it aside

I feel all who
have gone before
calling my light
to join them
in the journey
home

I cover the four lamps
and leave the fifth
at the center burning

The stones are cold
but the room is warm
I linger a bit longer
not afraid
for I know
the door
so well
I have been here before
at the end of life
with the choice
to linger a
moment more

I remember
Yahweh
in the other
star system

I remember
its exquisite beauty
I remember

In this room
merge two dimensions
two lives so
far apart

I linger in
the memories
until I can no longer
hold my companions

I bite the pill
and begin to
float upward

I watch the room
below and I watch
the other lights
follow mine

We leave the
solid dark of the pyramid
and traverse the
light blue sky
We travel
out of this dimension
as we move
out of the atmosphere
and into the
Universal night

It is only then
that I turn
my being
to my magnificent
cocoon of
perfection

I return to the Light
from whence I came
and to which I
always return

The light that was only
two at first light
I return to the
billions that are
of me
that are my
true life

I enter
the large
opening forever
again marveling
at the magnificent
beauty of Light

THE ROSE NEBULAE

From the Universe
of the many wonders
I glide from
end to end

A particle of knowing
slowly traveling
an infinite
path

I appear
momentarily

yet it seems
like forever

I am less than
dust in the
concept of
space

I see the wonders
I touch
Infinity

I appear
and disappear

Everything is infinite
All is beauty

I am recognized
as a rose
Yet I am
All

I am a particle
of knowing
manifesting
as a
rose

I have traveled
in and through
the infinite
All

I have been perceived as
many things
yet I am
never what
I am
perceived
to be
I come forth
as a rose
in this dimension

I remain until
this portrait
is dust

I remain
for a thousand
year moment

and then I
travel on

EPILOGUE

THE UNIVERSE


Out of the mighty
Universe
churning

rumbles the thundering
of new things
coming

My attention
resides in the
wake of unseen
thunder rolling

I awaken
from my conscious
knowing

for a moment's
pause on this
Universal plane

The forge of the Heavens
collide hammer and
anvil

As old worlds
explode
and new worlds
rumble

THE GREAT HOOP

I am the
great hoop turning

I am the
Universal furnace
burning

I am change
going round

I am endless
waves of cycles

I am
I am not

The roaring
Universe sends
me on my
silent
rounds

I change my path
at every
intersection
of the
rings

From cycle to cycle
I swing

EVERGREEN


Evergreen,
that is what I am

I am ever growing
evergreen

I never observe
a season of Fall
or Winter
but only
Eternal Spring

I am
Eternal Spring
green
growing

Forever so I
have been

And forever
so I shall
be

Life and being
are evergreen
to me