Prose from December 2015: Endings and Beginnings

Endings and beginnings haunt the chamber.
turning the fragments over, were they even ever interwoven?
you can make yourself believe through timidity and angst that they were
receding into the noiselessness now, and the empty halls remain.

Preludes and epilogues reveal the sender.
first night in this house when a plague of dreams beleaguered.
chief among the eidolons, a skeleton pharaoh unable -
to rise from his underground asylum
- impenetrable palisade; his immutable and sacrosanct enclosure.

Departures and arrivals in a river of mirrors.
tall windows in the top of the castle tower, i just had to unlatch them
frustration like sweat in the eye - stings, pulls at the edges with a tentacles grip,
the fingers slip and the psyche shifts.
white snakes with orange stripes before a river - uneasily in the tension
waiting for the crossing
gather the choices folded into dice - into a cup tossing.

Inceptions and cessations begin in the earth and wash into the ocean.
no place at the table anymore, get packing.
if you see, please keep space for a passing recondite like me
- but I no longer expect it; am I zachariah in the tree?
easter pants got muddy playing in the street, animal child free.
keeping the ears turned, still looking for the fading beat.

Initiations and eggresions dissolving the boundaries.
my nakedness no longer alarms me, be what is raw is much more easily.
jump the gateways with a childhood ease.
these eyes no longer belie what is revealed beneath every existence.
happening always now, all the moments in unison -
to be a breaker between the stratums, not all that it is cracked the corn
to be.

-E Tajchman Dec. 2015

Charcoal Self Portrait from Age 17, Poem July 2014

The self portrait below is me at age 17. Three aspects of self, with the shadow self grabbing from behind. This was a frustrating time for me, like many people. The poem is written and edited July 2014.

"Between The black ink shining as it dries, and the pink morning light fading from your eyes, between the dried root finally cracked and broken, and the hoots from the owl awoken. Between the dried paint on my fingers, and the feint whispers echoing in my soul that linger

A memory stirs of when a few strands of her auburn hair hung over her eyebrow. I hope she remembers to use all ideas from all moments. Seeking the shiners in her every where now.

Whole world optional alone rolls forward, from the breath of a clenched brow when the pharaoh hound returns the favor. The world and everything inside of it seen on the shelf yesterday. Every small moment glued to the walls carefully"

-Ed Tajchman

Charcoal Self Portrait age 17 by Ed Tajchman. 

Neither Here Nor There

Am I the sky or a tree? 
Am I a bird or on my branches they be?

Can I fly or do I have earth binding roots? 
Am I free or part of the absolute?

-Ed Tajchman

Frequently Strange Chronicle Part 17

Floating effervescence burns in the chest. Burns like a white light penetrating into the soul. Bars of white light rotating around the heart, turn. Close to purity, strength remains in the shadows. The more you draw in, the more you can't shake it. The lean, drawn-out expanding, and thinning energy body. Mind mixes it up maximizing attempts to draw in new sounds. Jump and duck, twist and dodge, wake up and be close to the pure wave again. Balance begins to rotate in ways you must try to know.

Guarding those who do not even attempt to know where they are. Eyes closed, intentions interrogated, to no avail and they repeat the rounds remaining reminiscent of fading indications. Regurgating ravenous views vehemently, the passed out mind morosely went about it's dreaming. The passing awareness still out of reach and desperately trying to know it's grasp.

Pound the ground with my frozen lungs, up above hung all the ways of knowing fear. Counted and measured out every plan crossed out, still no doubt of the way through empty space. No doubt it's empty, create from the purified vantage point. Insignificant everything almost overwhelms all but the most dug under trains of thought. Tantalizing terrible twists causes collapse of the expanding possibility.

Frequently Strange Chronicle Part Eight

Tingling reminders grip lovingly the way things are. Creeping cartwheels in the mind slip menacingly into view. Trying so hard to slow it all down all the time, the ape paused on the plains with his knuckles in the grass. Gasping for breath he knows how the real freedom feels now. All this time drinking tea insisting consistently, when the struck-down tree's roots still had shoots for a new spring.

Flopping features of failure belong in every unwanted corner of the mind. Redesign the way thoughts work. Structure's perfect spinning still can't get the heart right. Without feeling the design is a shell. The body holds the soul, the heart holds the universe. The heart is in the minds of all the dreaming ones in all worlds believing in love. Holding on to redemption.

Gargling gorillas gorged on the rivers flow. Mountain top snow knows the pulse of the rain dancers. Sinking releases the predetermined nightmare. Dive in not pulled through. Head first hallelujah not a frantic terror. Won't let go the transformable me. Won't relinquish the collapsable renewable way of being now Honesty feels crushing in it's way.

-Ed Tajchman