Heaven's Bells:

If our picture is our world,
Does the sum of our minds' eyes weigh on the scales of fate,
Does the sound of tears and wailing ring true in your heart,
Or is it the sound of laughter,
Maybe still the sound of the small sigh you can not hold in,
When one you love reaches your arms?

Can you see whales and hear their song,
Trying to understand what is said in the eons,
Beneath rolling waves of grey white blue,
Will you remember the connection,
That souls of different shapes must share,
When the Bells of Heaven ring,
Is it above the sky or beneath the sea?

When angels stand before you,
Will you picture cold lonely places,
The thousand thousand sad poems that seem to reach you,
Or the one kind word that seems so small and foolish,
Until you look it in the eye and it calls your name,
What responsibility do you bear,
For the things your imagination chooses to see?

When you are the Albatross floating in the sky of dreams,
Do you float over beaches filled with visions of Normandy,
Or lovers lost between sand and blue and palm fronds,
Cold ice at the top of the world,
Or silent dead boiling seas.

Skies of black or blue,
Warm hand or cold point of spear,
Shackles or joyous choices,
Raucous creatures or barren sands,
Red of Mars and Venus,
Or Earth so blue and green,
Guard your visions well.

They are the key to Heaven's Bells.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/30/2003

Author's Comments:
How we collectively see the world has great weight
upon how the world is in our lives. Think upon that deeply.[/b]
_________________
Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to the Universe. Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls. Loving words can work miracles.

Legend of the Crystal Tree:

They say it existed bfore the time of men,
Some pre-dawn era when magic was the only cognition,
Before reason crossed the threshold of belief,
And before wonder could fall to "sense".

It was a thing of unimaginable beauty,
And the creatures that saw it lived with shining eyes,
All the days they were numbered in the Weave,
The Glow never left their eyes...

Druids once danced under it's light,
On the night of Winter Solstice,
When days were short and they sought warmth,
Fires that burn from the heart out are still hard to find.

The primitive barrows begged the Stars and Gods for food,
Seeking any power to help them survive,
Their small numbers braved the dark North in the night,
And only by it's light could they grow.

Kristallklarbaum - The crystal-clear tree,
Made of magic and light and pure water,
Clear as carved ice and gloriously alive,
Hidden deep down in the last baugrundhaus of the Anchients.

Lovers would disappear into the snow,
Winds howling like mad spirits desperately alone,
Only to return with glowing eyes and bear the Kinderstark,
Children of ferocious strength and heart and ability.

They would sing a soft melodic tinkling song in their dreams,
And speak in whispers of a glowing tree of light,
Deep in a sheltered cave surrounded by mighty stones,
Through which ran a frigid clear mountain stream.

They would say how the wind sang through it's branches,
Ringing like Yule bells in the night to guide them to shelter,
And whisper of the soft warmth under it's branches,
And the fierce desire that overtook them uncontrollably.

Such couples always married and never separated,
Their love lasting a lifetime and seeming chosen by forces beyond men,
Their children performing heroic deeds and near miracles,
And this is how those few survived and grew strong - even mighty.

If you wander in the far North hand in hand,
If you hear the winds howling like mad spirits amidst blinding snow,
And you suddenly hear the song of Kristallklarbaum on the wind,
Playing to the Universe on Winter Solstice eve...

...may you come home with stars in your eyes.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/27/2003

Author's Comments:
Happy holidays - with love.

The Flying Mejishuns are really whooping up a big shew!

HEAVY-LIFTING VERSION OF DELTA 4 TO TAKE TEST FLIGHT
----------------------------------------------------
In a Cape Canaveral hangar, a rocket of monstrous proportions and power is
taking shape. It will be unveiled next month, rolling to the launch pad to
prepare for a demonstration flight that will test its knack for lofting
hefty cargos into orbit and potentially one day ferrying humans to the
space station.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/19delta4heavy/

It's about time I got back to the castle! Too much mejikal buffetting around the Hallooween this year. The eklipz of the moon and all that bloody red in the sky, what wild petrterbations and gyrations and suchlike!

At any rate, the dragon's snoozing in the moat, and life is good. I've got my saxophone all repaired up by the Brass 'n Leather gnomes, and it spouts offf beautifully. Take a look-see:

Simple Brass:

The feel of it smooth in my hands,
The taste of reed in my mouth,
Some piece of life I abandoned far too long,
Battered and old,
Touches of green on gold I'll spend days,
Stressing to find the natural flow,
Remembering infancy and desperation to speak,
It's right as rain and hard as hell,
Wavering cracking squeaking,
Like a teenager trying to sing,
But none of that matters,
Not if I can strike a true note at will,
Someday I'll have different words,
The kind that don't push pictures,
But will break your heart and leave you loving it,
Simple brass but it gleams in spots,
One more bit of polish,
In every hard-earned breath.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10/16/2003



Author's Comments:
A touch on picking back up a saxophone after 29 years. *Grin* The sax in the pic is mine - webcam shot. I decided to call it Bello - Italian for handsome and a good play on what that word would mean if it were spelled differently (add a "w") and in English. *LOL* It also takes a bit of "brass" to play it in front of others...

What Is The Wind?

The wind is jubilant,
Like flags whipping furiously,
Like a saxophone played so sweet,
It blows your heart out your back,
Just like Junior Walker and the all stars,
Super blue sound howling in the night,
Fountain spray bent at an angle,
As you lean into it feeling elemental,
Moved and barely anchored to the Earth,
Part of the chill blowing night,
Like maybe you really could fly any second,
But that's not all the wind is,
The wind is hard to see,
It touches everything with an invisible hand,
Breath of God or wanton gift of the Universe,
It chased half of Illinois down the street last night,
Blew the siding off my house,
Too bad I couldn't have caught it,
But I can't hold lightning either.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/14/2003

Author's Comments:
We had winds from 30 - 50 knots yesterday -
for about 12 hours. Man, you should have seen the flags
flyin!

Arista Decca:

She was born into a molten pot of brass,
Stainless steel hair falling in tune like silvery wires,
Blue diode irises in her shining golden face,
A voice like an angel from a jukebox,
Always on pitch,
Sleek brass breasts and stainless blouse,
From the silvered crease of her brass britches,
Down to the chromed wing tip high heels,
She was a metallic siren,
Born to inspire dreams she was innocent of,
Creation of a modern-day Geppetto with a jazz man's soul,
She would take flight to the stage,
A vacuum tube glowing through thin brass,
Right there where every gal has a heart,
You'd see it glow when someone she loved lit her up,
Man oh man could she sing,
Sweet and everything like the best piano rolled sax you ever had,
But all she wanted for Christmas was to be loved,
Ever since they fired her up she'd been used,
Some piece of conversation some thought,
Or play my request Baby,
But look out she wasn't taking any fingerprints,
In rude places hard to polish,
And if you knew her long you could tell,
Her copper-gold alloy lips had heating elements built in,
But her Blues Angel flew off in a blush,
After Daddy Geppetto welded her up,
A stainless gilded Iron Man,
And she got to flip his switch,
On her twenty fifth Christmas morning,
And if you never saw sparks fly,
You should have seen that tube glowing in her chest,
'Cause man it was like a blast furnace gone nova,
Dang near made Iron Man melt,
When she sang "Merry Christmas, Baby" -
With a five tenor sax accompaniment,
And two harmonicas on wings.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/14/2003

Author's Comments:
Inspired by the famous Elvis gold lame' suit - and an
imagined sighting of a gold lame' boot at the mall.