on being conscious:

5 January 2023 by 10 Comments

From a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice, une entité mystérieuse by all accounts, best known for his Meditations, selections of which I’ve been tinkering at these past years. This one skates the edge of profundity and platitude in characteristic, unsettling Maurician manner:

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On being conscious:

–We are dewdrops in the dawn

Of sunshine on the thirsty lawn:

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We are sparks that fly

Through deep and darkening night sky

Till rainclouds quench us.

 

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Having spent time recently in Thailand I was able to reconnect with Philippe de Saint Maurice and go through some of his Meditations.

These two haiku on consciousness are part of a longer sequence called revelation realisation, but they stand well alone.

I took the photo on Bang Niak beach on the Andaman coast of Thailand last month (December 2022).

For those interested in epic literary hauls, translations of the Meditations are coming along fine and will be shared in Book Seven of The Dark Gospel; I’m sharing the odd snapshot and highlight as I proceed.

Filed Under: haiku, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, poem by freddie omm, poetry by freddie omm, the dark gospel, writing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii

17 October 2022 by 3 Comments


A poem by Ummidia Quadratilla, on learning that the family’s seaside villa in Pompeii (now known as the Villa of the Mysteries) has been destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, Translated by Freddie Omm:

Sweet home, bodies loved

Before the ash and pumice storm:

Thoughts, loves, lives, buried

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Words too crushed to speak

My loss through lasting love now

Silence covers all—

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Busts, scrolls in libraries,

(Like grapes left liquid in the press)

Some burned, crushed, some saved:

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We can only wait

For the centuries to come

To uncover us

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Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, poetry by freddie omm Tagged With: , , , ,

Rotterdam, Bright Monday

20 April 2022 by 2 Comments

Rotterdam in spring

sun’s eastering glow—winter’s

in shadows, past us,

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Past us, waking fresh

soulsakes, godsakes born in light—

burning bright Passion.

 

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Poem and photo by Freddie Omm

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Notes:
– Bright Monday is a name for the Monday after Easter.
– This haiku chain is based on a Meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice—albeit the original was written in and about Jerusalem soon after the Crucifixion.
– In this poem, as in Port Vendres (September 2021), “godsakes”—and their relations, “soulsakes”—are again evoked. Godsakes and soulsakes are aspects of being human, according to the Tabernacle of Gaia.
– The central wording of the haiku chain—“past us,/Past us”—contains the idea of past selves, as well as the more literal idea of winter now being in the past, in Rotterdam’s hemisphere, at least.
– “Passion” refers both to Yeshua’s Easter narrative (Christ’s Passion) and to the passion all humans can feel, regardless of religion—the word is rooted in suffering, with a transformative tendency toward regeneration (or resurrection).

Filed Under: easter haiku, freddie omm, haiku, haiku chain, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, Philippe de Saint Maurice, poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry by freddie omm Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

winter solstice—yule 2021

21 December 2021 by 3 Comments

the shortest day is swallowed by the longest night

and though the time is festive we can close the darkness out in sleep

until we rise again to greet the waking light

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last night’s cold moon is waning gibbous and the town shines bright

and while the spreading mist and frost grow thick and deep

the shortest day is swallowed by the longest night

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we walk this world we wish for warmth and all that’s pleasing to our sight

but nightmare deepfake monsters of perverted dreams disturb us in our sleep

until we rise again to greet the waking light

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O pity our poor planet filled with foolish deathly viral agents mired in their own shite

they rave and squall around our godforsaken earth and even as we weep

the shortest day is swallowed by the longest night

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but there’s a ruthless aimless tenderness in nature’s creatures and in you that rare delight

we find when we’re alert to each mere moment whose uniqueness we can keep

until we rise again and greet the waking light

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now in the southern hemisphere the sun shines at her height

but we are locked in dark and where the shadows creep

the shortest day is swallowed by the longest night

until we rise again and greet the lengthening light.

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freddie omm

Filed Under: freddie omm, nature unveiling herself to science, poetry by freddie omm, solstice, villanelle, winter poem Tagged With: , , , ,

here

14 January 2021 by 4 Comments

I followed a path

thinking that it led somewhere

but it’s ended here—

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It isn’t the road

not taken so much as the

untakeable road—

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Follow my advice:

don’t follow a path—choose the

made up, pathless ways.

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freddie omm

january 2021

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with apologies to robert frost’s road not taken

– the poem is based on a meditation of Philippe de Saint Maurice

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, omniscient narrative, online poem, poem, poetry, poetry by freddie omm, postmodernism, selfhood, the dark gospel, Uncategorized, writing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Mistletoe

9 January 2021 by 2 Comments

Mistletoe clusters

On tall bare wintry poplars,

Pale, poisoned berries

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Sowing witches’ brooms

With Saturnalian seed

To spread love’s shrouding

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Solstice potency:

Nurturing nest, fast food for birds,

Spring’s bees, butterflies

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But all’s veiled, still, now—

This short midwinter moment

Death’s reared in beauty

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Breeds life in sticky

Clinging, skeletal branches,

Mistletoe clusters.

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Filed Under: freddie omm, haiku, poetry by freddie omm, winter poem Tagged With: , , , ,

when we make love a billion cells break free (villanelle)

13 December 2019 by 11 Comments

when we make love a billion cells break free

our bodies flowing fluid like disgendered

creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

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although we’re only human too and so quite ordinary

we spiral into plasmic dust as spores sprinkling our eggshell world

while making love a billion cells break free

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in some identities we hardly see

among us – beside, within, beyond us – enraptured,

creatures of great beauty rising upward gloriously

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like stars that gleam and glow in space and transiency

like birds in deep still forest undergrowth unheard

love is made perpetually so billions of our cells break free

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our love in life is that which lets us be

ourselves in an intensity of moments scattered

creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

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we find new freedoms freeform ecstasy

now top and out of mind and sight no need for thought nor any word

when we make love a billion cells break free

like creatures of great beauty growing unbound gloriously

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griffith park

LA

Filed Under: be..., cosmic cycles, creativity, love poem, Love poetry, love poem, meditations, by philippe de saint maurice, online poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry by freddie omm, villanelle Tagged With: , , , , , ,

surf

21 June 2019 by 5 Comments

Meditations of Philippe de Saint Maurice, which I’m editing and transforming into haiku, will be published by Mad Bear Books. The Meditations offer insights into spiritual growth. I’ll be posting a few in advance here, interspersed with other work.

The first was gulls.

The second is surf:

our loves are dolphins

weaving wild unwinding waves

in and out of sight

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our sentiments are seals

on rocks submerged in ocean

slicked in ceaseless tides

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our thoughts’ sea lions

flap and flip on cold bare shores

to breed in rookeries

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our lives’ deep mysteries

will swim and sink and drift through

phosphorescing seas

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like drops in quick waters

loves, thoughts, lives are liquid

flowing surfing beings

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freddie omm

june 2019

text by freddie omm, header pic by pagie page, footer pic by daniel h. tong

Filed Under: haiku, haiku chain, Love poetry, love poem, poem, poem by freddie omm, poetry, poetry by freddie omm, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , ,

ghosts of cheyne walk

20 January 2019 by 4 Comments

one night in London

I saw the ghost of a child

behind my old house

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dressed all in white

from another century

in the basement well

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I watched a while

– she was absorbed in herself –

diffusing through light

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a veil of darkness

her little body lit up

void translucent shades –

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face expressionless,

quite absent, as if her spirit

had drained her hereness

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flowing past in light

like the sun’s in moony night

shining chimera –

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I could not read her

state nor story from her looks:

she stayed still, mute, slight,

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radiating calm

acceptance between us. I waved –

then went up to bed.

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next night, another

ghost came through the bathroom wall

into the sitting room

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whilst I sat talking

with my ex-girlfriend’s mother

sure I was mad, drunk

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visions and sirens

called me, but maybe it was

the ghost of our love

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the evening after

I’d seen that blank ghost daughter

in not to be light.

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Omm

freddie omm’s Sicilian Haiku will be published by Mad Bear Books in 2021.

Filed Under: ghosts, haiku, haiku chain, poem about cheyne walk, chelsea, london, poem by freddie omm Tagged With: , , , ,