George Nicholson

What is a poem?

What is a poem?
Soul inhaling spirit through words
Etheric wingless flight.


A Simple Tome

And her eyes ingested the words
Amidst the sirens the wailing the bloodletting and the fury
Her imagination wafted to the truths of a bigger story

A simple tome

The thoughts the dreams the insights of an ancient soul
A bard a lover a sufferer of this selfsame journey
Three thousand years hence and still speaking

Still her eyes ingested the words
Amidst the bombings explosions and roof beams collapsing
Her ears spun songs of a wholly different tomorrow

Trembling fingers clutching her lifeline
Nor force nor soldier nor battalion could tear it from her breast
For her heart had imbibed the message

Amidst the fear the lies the disintegration the desecration
Three thousand years hence and still speaking
The thoughts the dreams the insights of an ancient soul

A simple tome


This Damask Moment

Whence this filigree of fragrances one lavender
one smoldering one musk?

Silken cool like an ominous wing half opened
daring the urge to flight

Out upon the temple terrace wet footprints
soon bridge the infinite

Who crafted her timeless majesty with such acumen
grace and aplomb?

Who chiseled the lushness of her lines sans tool
by mere act of touch?

Who spun the rainbow loops secure that
clasp her cascading gown?

It is she who dispenses the emerald jewels
that quicken into birdsong

It is she who offers stolen glimpses from
behind the diaphanous curtain

It is she who marshals the only tour of duty
worth conscripting

So who forged his cunning his urge to conquer
his cold riveted intellect?

Who implanted his eyes of prey and extruded
his voice of thunder?

And who hammered his heart shut and his loins
full of impotence and lies?

Time to heed the fallen limbs shorn of bark parched
by the midday sun

Time to gather the honest petals still supple
still bursting still longing

Time to recognize that this damask moment
is fragile as a dragonfly wing


Simply for the Being

Eyes within the silences
Inhale the hearth of soul in pastel arcs of
feathery dove draped dawn
Scan the towering cliffs of crumbling truth pencil thin
and ever smudging
Engrave the fragile cross hatched song upon the shorelines
of watercolor love
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being

Ears within the silences
Toast wafting fragrances ambrosial
Skip moon beams pebble low atop the vein of
pulsing dreams
Levy destinies interminable in footsteps counting fewer
counting slower ever counting
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being

Nose within the silences
Scans far long forgotten recesses rendering
detailed mobius memories
Shatters the shimmering mirror of winter light
brittle crisp and amber slanting
Ice fishes the depths of clarity hoisting free the frozen swans
of tortured indecision
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being

Tongue within the silences
Searches ceaselessly restlessly for those quicksilver elixirs
born of ecstasy
Houses countless tomes of scripture stripped bare of gold leaf
to expose the yearning
Dances with the selfsame simple joy within the mouths
of saints and reprobates alike
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being

Fingers within the silences
Glide grazingly over crest and hollow seeking the one
without a second
Wash the feet of the broken other in so doing help heal
this suffering planet
Rest unnoticed within moss soft steeping shadows
replete with delicious possibility
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being

Heart within the silences
Hosts the banquet feast of unstruck chords
dancing between the breaths
Peddles no vice but the void of all desires all aversions
Proves spirit&8217;s incommunicable point through the
dimpled act of gently smiling
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being

Voice within the silences
Prophecies the mysterium eternal the conundrum
of all conundrums
Telegraphs only durable values and essences between
the lines of recorded history
Scatters storyteller wonders to the winds of time daring poesy
to light the light of lights
Simply
Simply
Simply for the being


Perched Among the Eagles

The whirring drones of the distant neighborhood lawn mower
The lilting arcs of an idle robin&8217;s mid-afternoon song
The lapping reminders of a tide turned somewhere in between

&8220;Variations dear children variations one and all&8221;
Old Silver Crow&8217;s words still echoing across the ages
&8220;Variations on the theme of the One Glorious Great Song!&8221;

For three golden endless summers we were apprenticed
Bathing our burgeoning dreams in the sacred waters of wonder
Perched among the eagles shaping flints we kissed heaven

The south canyon wall petroglyphs still bear the testament
That subtle alchemy of calling spirit via stone and spark
No messages to the future merely pure and simple communion

Even as the rust ridden age of Kalic iron proceeds
Even as the hair turns white or is mysteriously plucked away
Even as the bone carriage sinks in proof of Newtonian Law

Even as the shadow dissolves under ominous Aeschyles skies
Even as the ear deafens to the chorus of Munchian howls
Even as the ether jams to the glut of swirling wireless babble

Some things will never change and offer signs of hope

The whirring drone of the distant neighborhood lawn mower
The lilting arc of an idle robin's mid-afternoon song
The lapping reminder of a tide turned somewhere in between

Perched among the eagles shaping flints we kiss heaven


About the Author

George J Nicholson – An accomplished nature photographer, graphic designer and poet living and working in the Mid-Hudson Valley of New York, George Nicholson is currently at work on a number of books that showcase his recently refreshed, conscious relationship to Gaia, the spirit body of our planet. Among them: Astarte, a chapbook of poetry that contains works written from the perspective of ancient indigenous peoples; and Aphrodite's Winter Mirror, which presents examples of poems that literally "sprang to voice" upon the photographic capture of evocative and mysterious Winter imagery.

Words and photographs began flowing simultaneously for George in the early 70s after a series of undergraduate encounters with mystic-poet-photographer Minor White, then in residence at MIT. Echoes of the Ancient World as they inform modern life, the sacred mystery of Symbols and Archetypes and the processes of Transformation are the key themes evident as undercurrents throughout his work, regardless of medium.

George has self-published the chapbook First Light; he also hosts the blogs Lens Upon the Clouds that journals remarkable cloud formations and Parking Lot Reveries that documents photographic reminders that city dwelling is lush with affirmative wonders of the natural world. At the age of six, George was unwittingly introduced to Dante's Divine Comedy and the haunting illustrations of Gustav Dore by his uncle Chris and considers this biographic tidbit to be the inciting incident at the root core of his creative calling and process.

George currently resides in Kingston, New York and can be reached at georgejnicholson@me.com.

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