Jonathan Douglas Dowdle was born in Nashua, NH and has traveled throughout the US, he currently resides in South Carolina. Previous works have appeared or are appearing in: Hobo Camp Review, 322 Review, The Opiate, The Write Place At The Write Time, Blue Hour Review, Whimperbang, After The Pause, Midnight Lane Boutique, Visitant, Adelaide, Blue Moon, Bitchin' Kitsch, Pif, Mojave Heart, North Of Oxford, Vox Poetica, Blue Mountain Review, Furious Gazelle, HCE Review, And The Big Windows Review. Symphony From The Splinter At The Bone (#6-10)6
I search for a word to become a sun; For a word to become a sun that lights The path to tomorrow; chasing away Blankets of darkness, peeling back Layers of dust; It is necessary, for life's time is short; Why weary the heart in wasting it Upon hearts who believe in the eternity of Whatever their plight? Sooner give me Your face and laughter, We may call them a church and a bell, A house of a thousand prayers; It is necessary for laughter to endure; For tomorrow to remain a winged thing That will follow this moment; That will ask the heart to take flight with it, To move beyond the illusion of comfort, Into comfort's true touch and embrace. I search for a word to become a sun; A burning prayer, or a star, A single word that will light my path Into tomorrow, and a deeper awakening; Where my heart may also once more be A bell and a church Singing out one thousand prayers That offer, like your laughter, Comfort's true touch, and embrace. 7 Time grows fiercer, and we grow fiercer, With the heat of a world burning Back on our tongues; We wait to eat through down to the marrow; To release the words at our bones; To free the body for a moment for the Soul's expression; Time grows fiercer, and memory seems Only a weight, a chain of bones Singing out while the wind blows Through their entanglements; Time grow fiercer, we grow fiercer, With the heat a world burning; Burning down to ashes, So we have something To rise from. 8 I cross boundaries, to shape a word against My spine; to shape your hand back into being A simple hand; absent of thought; Like a leaf that drifts across the skin To leave the nerve singing; I want to feel the passage of your motion; To rise deep from the well; To call out like a star Burning back into being. I cross boundaries, because Otherwise I would only be a brute Shaping you out to meet The past, the fallen days, I would Be seeking to replace old seasons With the fire burning in your eyes; I would be stumbling toward my death; Rather than burning away my life. If my touch returns you to feeling Deep and safe at your core; if You can build a house from it; a place To rest your heart and prayer; If my touch awakens you To bring the world back into your eyes, To build a future with what I have spoken, With what you have heard Then yes, I cross boundaries; If only to leave a momentary life for this thought That you rise and grow deeper Into your own rising spring; That you grow beyond survival Into the breath of your own life; Even in my absence; that by singing a single Spark back into the fire; You sing the song of burning at your bones Just to shine on. 9 At last, at times; there seems There is no more change; all thoughts Turn wooden as puppets Left to dance on wires; Understand, please; In the absence of transmission between You and I, there is no you, Nor an I; We have become too often as Only metaphors of memory; Sooner I would wake up Something new in myself, and see A new feeling burning Each day, brighter In your eyes; But you love the feel and weight, The desire of the wooden world Beneath your feet; You chase change without changing; You chase a reason only To remain the same, creating what you Cannot gather any longer; The same faces as wounds, There are no words between us, I live and die as a metaphor of Something dead upon your breath; A fetid word or phrase, Wooden, wooden world, I leave you for the fire, Brighten the center of the darkness; Call it another invitation For the sun. 10 At times, I wish no more Than to be grow into a tree, Sculpt out into a shape that feeds At the roots, nourished by the best That falls from your skies. Place inside your chest; The beating heart I have already seen Pump furiously, with light, Awakening eyes, like stars To testify against The night. What I cup within my palms For you to taste; is not something I have etched out as creation, But seeds I have gathered From your own words; and kneeling, Prostrate, long To return to you. At times, seeing your beauty; feeding From the falling drops of rain; I grow deeper at the root, and stretch Toward the sky, hoping I can grow large enough To return, to return Your beauty to your beauty.
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