life: acoustic & amplified

free will

As I was going up the stair

I met a man who wasn’t there!

He wasn’t there again today,

Oh how I wish he’d go away!

 

When I came home last night at three,

The man was waiting there for me

But when I looked around the hall,

I couldn’t see him there at all!

Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!

Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…

________________________

William Hughes Mearns

Dear H.,

 I’m almost beside myself — inside a storm of mood swings, that came from nowhere — this beautiful day! Something is all wrong — but how, after almost two years, can it be so sudden? A nap after lunch with the room quiet, the fan barely a whisper — only by realizing you’re here this way was a sense of reprieve able to dawn. Was it a mistake to invite along his mother? Only if we really try and work at meaning what we say about love continuing will we stand a chance, against outlandish odds. He had to have been the world to us, but may never understand. There I go, the Atlas syndrome to add fuel. Be still, my heart. Somewhere, another has been through it, and in their eyes I may know. Everything from nine years ago is coming back — I have to think this was unavoidable. To think the heart never rests, and loves us more than we knew. With that, there should have been a blessing to carry forward decades, and it is the truth that it is, and it might still. If you were here, you would tell me to adore it, in that same way a golden tabernacle hides something inside, acting like a magnet for your thoughts, at center of the sanctuary, behind an altar perfect in its bareness.

 Truly, for now

   M.

 >

>

>

Miguel Escobar 2017

Woke up this morning after a bad bad night 

That beautiful day gone wrong 

So long

Drinkin coffee in the morning light

Nine years in I don’t belong

Long gone

Who’s gonna rescue me now

Who’s gonna save me from this cold, cold world

Who’s gonna give a damn

Who’s gonna hold me when the lights go down

Sat down this morning after a long hard flight

That beautiful song was done – 

no fun

Face in the mirror what a frightful sight

Making my feet wanna run

run run

Who’s gonna rescue me now

Who’s gonna save me from this hard, hard world

Who holds my heart in hand

Who’s gonna hold me when the lights go down

Oh, What a beautiful world

Oh, what a lovely emotion

What a fine lesson learned

Oh, what a cold hard world

Oh, what determined devotion 

What a love to be earned

Who’s gonna rescue me now

Who’s gonna save me from this wild, wild world

Who’s gonna take my hand

Who’s gonna hold me when the lights go down

❤

Amy Lloyd

Turning

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

 

You are made to remember Me . . . and forget Me, too. I gave you a mind to think and be influenced by many things. You hear this and feel that. What you read and see and hear ─ the experiences you have in this world ─ all shape you, influence how you view the world and how you choose to live in it.

 

Your heart, too, is unique in how it is not wired to love Me, like a machine obeys a command. A machine does not feel. The heart I give you can love many things. And yes, you can forget me, get distracted by this world and pull away from Me, stop loving Me. And yes, it breaks my heart ─

and angers Me, too.

 

I both pursue you and surrender you when I made you. I knew you would come to know Me, follow Me. But I knew you would be pulled away from Me, too. And this is why I keep pulling you back.

 

Right here, right now, you are pursuing Me. You lean in and listen and seek and desire more than what is physically seen in this world.

 

Go deeper, child.

 

I chase you, and you can run away. But you can chase Me, too, and I will never turn away from you. I woo you. I desire you. But girl, when you forget me, I don’t stop desiring you. I don’t stop loving you. I do not do as the world does. I am not fickle and impatient. I am not distracted.

I know who I love.

 

You are here, now, not forgetting Me. You are here, now, letting yourself be pursued. You are here, now, surrendering . . . aren’t you?

 

Let me purify your heart so you know what you pursue and why you do it. Let me woo you with kindness and love so your head is cleared and your heart knows what love is.

 

I come from a pure place, knowing every piece of you. Just turn, a little bit, towards me.

 

I will help you turn even more.

 

❤

 

Loop

this

worry, trust,

sparrows, lillies, hairs on my head

flow, go

just trust – that is all

doors are for entering

Deep within every life, no matter how dull or ineffectual it may seem from the outside, there is something eternal happening. This is the secret way that change and possibility conspire with growth. John Henry Newman summed this up beautifully when he said, "To grow is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often." Change, therefore, need not be threatening; it can in fact bring our lives to perfection. Perfection is not cold completion. Neither is it avoidance of risk and danger in order to keep the soul pure or the conscience unclouded. When you are faithful to the risk and ambivalence of growth, you are engaging your life. The soul loves risk; it is only through the door of risk that growth can enter.
– John O'Donohue

all this…

And still now every morning,

each momentary wish for healing

is a risk, a wakening call

to change, to choose,

to leave so much behind,

and be again made new.

  – Steve Garnaas Holmes

 

 

.. attributes of these Voids
.

the sound of all else leaving
as it’s created

— this void

an end first — the beginning as
it’s coming around

exclaim —

the most unlikely guess
is a teasing

we distinguish it from
null, in these
ways

forever imperfect
next to the pure desolation

of a finality we own

flight is seen

going in both directions

this breath means —
— along with the flowers

this is just
practicing

the artist —

— now her work’s hues
make
sense

she appears here out of nowhere

destroying so easily
the last
inching proximity

at another time

we’ll pick a path back

from one of her gorgeous titles

to where
we
resume these star struck
illusions

of nothingness

of them,
we stopped
here knowing we
needed to warn each other

then — were seen to have
capitulated

catapulted
to something
else

oh my Dear, yes..

,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,

miguel.J.escobar
(c) ‘17

this darkness has no answers

silence is just silence

fall, and the world laughs at you

cry cause you’re all alone

stand at this broken crossroad

step out to cross that road

break all your rules,

you’re golden

charm all those silver moons

Just fly

wont you fly

your wings will hold you

this sky is your home

fly

oh wont you fly

your wings will take you

anywhere you want to go

just fly

this morning holds the questions!

there in the tender light

rise, and the world claps for you

bow cause you made it home

stand at this broken moment

step out to claim your time

break all those ties that bind you

lick all your silver spoons

Just fly

wont you fly

your wings will hold you

this sky is your home

fly

oh wont you fly

your wings will take you

anywhere you want to go

just fly

❤

Amy Lloyd

soul biographies

 

void art from pinterst / al513

 

turn up the volume…rhapsody

Music to hear, why hear’st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lov’st thou that which thou receiv’st not gladly,
Or else receiv’st with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother,
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing;
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: “Thou single wilt prove none.”

__________________________
Sonnet 8 by William Shakespeare

 

If you could see me now

It’s amazing that Grace Potter can’t see the light

the dead brown leaf clinging to the budding branches

silent in the trees

Are you California dreaming on this cold day?

it might as well be spring

do you know what a difference a day makes?

keep the home fires burning

I’ll follow your ashes into outer space

 

the flock of seagulls are back in town

after running so far away

standing one legged on the dock of the bay

singing new songs to the bluest skies

you’ve never seen before

 

Knock knock

Who’s there??

James Taylor

Ready to sing you home by another way

maybe via cloud, or potion #, 9

or a cloud not yet named or numbered

More voluminous than cumulus

 

Hey wait, I was blinded by that light

for a momentous moment

Though, that’s just a poster cutout

Behind which Gogol Bordello is hiding

singing some fabulous advice

to start wearing purple…

They must have been sent by the purple people teenage diplomats,

or by my most purpley-friend, Juliette

 

don’t they all know my name is A-me?

know I only wear scarlet?

at least on Saturday nights

letters given, yet to be returned to sender

because of it’s a bit wrecked,

rusty, bent beyond hope of perfection and,

tho a lovely shade of blush,

I need a deeper shade of pale

Use some pretzel logic here, please.

 

I would be happy to walk the line

In those tracks of your tears

everything is beautiful, Kate told me so…

and she knows those things…

 

the very thought of you

is more than this:

Joe Cocker is still singing

you are so beautiful to me

why can’t you just turn around

the spin doctors don’t need you

but I do

I really do

maybe we’ll find it,

that rainbow connection

over where the bluebirds

keep flying high

 

it’s countdown to ecstasy

Us, in that burning ring,
until we catch fire to the rain

 

All we need is love

So just love me tender

how very sweet it is

how very very sweet it is

to be loved by you

❤

🎶 ” I really don’t know Clouds.. at All ” 🎶 by Amy Lloyd

There really is something clever about everyone…

like the way you hold your knife

and that smile you flash could be genius…

or my achilles heel…

I need more bourbon sauce for my bread pudding, please,

though it could be french toast casserole,

if you bring me maple syrup.

how do I turn over in the night without hurting myself?

how do I lock the door? [title of that dream I had]

You’re working late…

Something about the future…

I’m hard to impress

Math was never my favorite subject

510 can be a tall number to climb over

(or a bitter pill to swallow)

Why won’t you just get off of my back?

That’s your circus

I am obviously the monkey in your soul

I changed the blog post late today

Maybe it was the new strawberry jam lip butter

making me, at least for this brief moment,

feel so free and independent

❤

Amy Lloyd

photos found at pinterest / al513

what it’s worth

Oh, traveler,
the treasure is not far away.
Oh, merchant,
the pearl is in your pocket.
How much of your life is attic junk?
Escape the trinkets that have been hoarding you.
What you can hold isn’t worth grasping.
What you can possess won’t last beyond the sale.
Don’t seek what you don’t already have.
Don’t covet what can be taken from you.
What you can’t hold in a breath
isn’t worth it.
Breathe in.
Sell all your treasures for that.
Once you’ve seen it shine,
it will surprise you what you’ll let go of for it.
Throw your arms around this world.
Buy the field of this whole grand life,
its weeds and rocks, its pains and mysteries,
all of yourself.
Look! Right now,
you are rich beyond belief.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

death birth
allowing giving
near far
smiles tears
sorrow loss
joy road
here now
sober drunk
truth lies
alone connected
miles apart oh so close
walking running
climbing free falling
gentle tough
sassy sad
sunshine rain
asking receiving
arriving leaving

——————

Robin OK
Laugh and Dream Creative Coaching

So many years ago
I stepped out in faith.
So sure of myself.
I left the nest of realized abuse, yet my known safety.
Jumped without the proverbial net in place.
Not knowing anything, yet thinking I knew it all.
I carried a backpack full of myself.
Overflowing with all I thought I knew!
I refused to settle for less than God –
Not knowing what that meant, or would mean.

Here am I, Lord, send me, I prayed.
I’m all ready to be sent into new and exotic places.
I was so sure I was ready to set the world right.
I’m willing. 
I’m ready…I said over and over,
Where will You send me?

Then I was sent to my own heart’s door,
which I found to be the darkest place on earth or heaven.
I arrived at the empty ocean’s shore to learn my song in silence from the waves, from the birds.
I walked, pilgrim, in never ending spirals returning, over and over, to the places I had loved and lost the most.
The places of my deepest disappointments, illusions, grief and anger.

All the things I had declared myself so ready to deliver into the world at large
I found myself not at all prepared to give to my own heart.

In those full circle moments of chaos and war within,
in the ghetto of my own being,
I plunged into the place where You have always been
waiting to be found
waiting to love
waiting to speak
waiting to take me home
to the place where I return to abide
from there to softly pour myself out
as voice
as song
as love
❤

Amy Lloyd

‘I Am’ menu photo by Michelle Weir / other images found at pinterest

blue storm. yellow seeds.

Van Gogh

 

Flower photos by Rev. Donna Knutson

 

Will you join me in this day out of time, drink a cup of life in a sweet pair-o-chairs?

Will you step forward into this moment of no moment, sitting on a friends bench, not numbered, to talk about the secrets of living?

Will you sing with me as the blue storm clears and the blue sky parts and the yellow days begin so full of the color of our passion?

Will you plant with me, all the yellow seeds of hope and home to make the weary pilgrims smile?

Will you stay with me, lay with me, in the fields of gold, where the children laugh and play?

Will you grow old with me, under the ancient green oaks stately and, oh-so-wise, or when everyone else leaves, will you go too?

Will you love me today and still again tomorrow hold this empty space with me, even when the whole world begins turning once again and most everyone else forgets to pray?
🌻
Amy Lloyd

Pinterest
🌻

🌻

Happy Mayan New Year

I’m in trouble

The trouble with poetry, I realized

as I walked along a beach one night —

cold Florida sand under my bare feet,

a show of stars in the sky —

 

 

the trouble with poetry is

that it encourages the writing of more poetry,

more guppies crowding the fish tank,

more baby rabbits

hopping out of their mothers into the dewy grass.

 

 

And how will it ever end?

unless the day finally arrives

when we have compared everything in the world

to everything else in the world,

 

 

and there is nothing left to do

but quietly close our notebooks

and sit with our hands folded on our desks.

 

 

Poetry fills me with joy

and I rise like a feather in the wind.

Poetry fills me with sorrow

and I sink like a chain flung from a bridge.

 

 

But mostly poetry fills me

with the urge to write poetry,

to sit in the dark and wait for a little flame

to appear at the tip of my pencil.

 

 

And along with that, the longing to steal,

to break into the poems of others

with a flashlight and a ski mask.

 

 

And what an unmerry band of thieves we are,

cut-purses, common shoplifters,

I thought to myself

as a cold wave swirled around my feet

and the lighthouse moved its megaphone over the sea,

which is an image I stole directly

from Lawrence Ferlinghetti —

to be perfectly honest for a moment —

 

 

the bicycling poet of San Francisco

whose little amusement park of a book

I carried in a side pocket of my uniform

up and down the treacherous halls of high school.

 …………………………

The Trouble with Poetry: A Poem of Explanation by Billy Collins

this is now

what it comes down to is that we are here now. So the choice is how to live now.
– Joanna Macy

the trees are singing hymns of gregarious grace
including me in their harmonious worship
shades-of-violet hydrangea snowballs shyly peek out from forest green camouflage
wanting to tell their easy going secrets
summer days bunch in humid bouquets of passionate colors
though we're all slightly wilted in this heat
longing for a bit of chill
the evening falls down in shades of blues and whites
then cinematically the rainbow reel begins to turn
catching our collective breathing in this wonder-as-we-wander show of colors quickly changing
reflecting all its magical up-in-the-air business in the mirrored surface on the water below
(Previews of tomorrow's wondrous as-above-so-below film festival double feature include majestic brown-red hawks and virtuously patient, used-to-waiting, snowy-white egrets edged by living marsh grass frames)
but for now, light plays electric games
intertwining within the trees empty spaces above black silhouettes
creating living, breathing, stained-glass-type masterpieces down each darkening dead-end street
then it all graciously surrenders to nights call with such tender sky streaking eloquence
having complete peace with its natural disappearance
everything spoken loudly with no verbal cues
I see love everywhere
soulful eyes touching these freely given moments
I wholeheartedly admit, am full-smitten with this messy, beauty-full world
recklessly giving my heart without any hesitation to its flaunting desire to be wild and ramble free-
changing every moment
ever on and on
my heart beat keeps time
my steps lead me through emptied streets
winding my way home
to my bed of quilts and comforts
now I lay me down
with no more miles to go
my ever rambling conversation,
this thing named, Prayer,
with this best friend of mine,
this love I know so well, is,
as it is most frequently,
one of extravagant thanks
I am kept
I am loved
I am enough
this I know for sure
🙏🏻
Amy Lloyd

In the Garden – Van Morrison

Where the slow river
meets the tide,
a red swan lifts red wings
and darker beak,
and underneath the purple down
of his soft breast
uncurls his coral feet.

Through the deep purple
of the dying heat
of sun and mist,
the level ray of sun-beam
has caressed
the lily with dark breast,
and flecked with richer gold
its golden crest.

Where the slow lifting
of the tide,
floats into the river
and slowly drifts
among the reeds,
and lifts the yellow flags,
he floats
where tide and river meet.

Ah kingly kiss—
no more regret
nor old deep memories
to mar the bliss;
where the low sedge is thick,
the gold day-lily
outspreads and rests
beneath soft fluttering
of red swan wings
and the warm quivering
of the red swan’s breast.
🌊
Leda by H. D.

Summer Breeze – Jason Mraz

humor me

By the time I was six months old, she knew something
was wrong with me. I got looks on my face
she had not seen on any child
in the family, or the extended family,
or the neighborhood. My mother took me in
to the pediatrician with the kind hands,
a doctor with a name like a suit size for a wheel:
Hub Long. My mom did not tell him
what she thought in truth, that I was Possessed.
It was just these strange looks on my face—
he held me, and conversed with me
chatting as one does with a baby, and my mother
said, She’s doing it now! Look!
She’s doing it now! and the doctor said,
What your daughter has
is called a sense
of humor. Ohhh, she said, and took me
back to the house where that sense would be tested
and found to be incurable.
❤️
Diagnosis by Sharon Olds

go for the joy

– Mimi Clark

there's laughter in the air
flickering like candle light
pouring out of us like joyful waterfalls.
touching hearts and ears.
lightly floating,
feather-like,
through the air around us,
between us.
soaking into our pours,
permeating our bones,
healing us,
making us strong.
why should we worry?
is there some black cloud above us?
let it go.
let's laugh till our bellies hurt.
then laugh some more,
til the cows come home
and the sun comes rushing out
from it's nights slumber to find the reason!
till all the corners of the world
need to wipe their eyes on their handkerchiefs
along with everybody busting a gut
and we all take great big sighs of relief.
😂🤣😅
Amy Lloyd

Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.
💃
PUT SOMETHING IN by Shel Silverstein