Come out, come out,
It’s true out here.
Release your grip on tiresome truths
Release your fears which strangle you
Shake off the wrappers, the grime, the dirt
Speak from your heart
It will never hurt.
Mara Juliet Edwards (nee Goodwin) is an artist and poet. She studied at Sunderland gaining a BA hons. (2.1), in Fine Art. Her paintings and drawings are a celebration of colour and an act of praise to the Creator. Mara's poetry is an outcome of a deeply spiritual experience. They are a celebration of new life with a glance at the world through new eyes opened by the Redeemer. I hope you enjoy her work. All work published on this blog is copyright (c) Mara Edwards 2008
Come out, come out,
It’s true out here.
Release your grip on tiresome truths
Release your fears which strangle you
Shake off the wrappers, the grime, the dirt
Speak from your heart
It will never hurt.
How far can this go, this self-righteous deal
The days of danger lingerly stroll like a balancing act
of ice and fire, salt and steel
There’s nothing here for your soul
It spreads out before like poisonous mud
It grips you in and clogs up your blood
There will come a time when we will all have to cry
We will have to cry before we die
Some are dead already they say with a moan
Some moan already they say with the dead
I’m here now down on my hands and my knees
But they would rather be dead than turn their keys
Oh I could howl all night
I could howl at the moon, at the stars and sky
I could howl with you
I could howl into the air
My howling would find no reward
except myself feeling sad
I shall cry but my tears can not be seen
I shall sing but my voice will not be heard
This is a world of iron and steel
This is a world where death is the only word
I am free, so free, yet I still slightly fear.
I can walk this land and yet I don’t see you.
All is so clear and shameless out there,
But here with you it is stained and bitter
Filled with your fear and filled with your want
You don’t see me but you think you do
I know so, you look away with self reassurance
It’s not me you see, you see a face
The one you used to know
How can I be here when I’m not?
I am up there in the stars with the love
And the care of His Hand
This place betrays me
It leaves me dying
I die so badly, I cry free my chains
My chains crash and crash and crash on the floor
And there I float shining pure
I’m free again with my enormously quiet heart
So open to your scathing tongue
I’m free, I’m free, I’m free, yet I
Slightly, ever so slightly fear
How can I go on?
I am a bell full of secrets
I am a sea full of charm
I am the grass so long and caring
I am the river so smooth and daring
I am the streams so shiny and clean
I am the bubbles so fluffy and meek
I am the air so clear and sweet
I am the rocks so great and awesome
I am the soil so bright and burning
Quick, I am off into the night to tell of my tale.
I am half spirit, half woman
I float each hour with miraculous movement
I display twirls with my arms
I flick off air with my lashes
I taste the damp cold breath
I sit open-eyed at the balmy stone air
The light bulb’s glare and the glows which abound.
I sit here like a boulder.
I am pursed up tight.
I can unwind and gush like a river
My limbs can fall like branches through the air
I feel them not
They hang like feathers
Am I alive?
My mouth open wide
My fingers are long, they hold the pen
The pen which writes
Who is writing?
Is this me?
I know not
I am half spirit, half woman.
I see the dots, the splashes, the splots.
I see everything out there.
It all seems to stare and bow down like bells of steel and cold stone and rocking branches, brick and gold.
I see it all.
It rises and rises.
The sky is velvet with a hollow voice
The hollow voice smiles
The voice reaches out
It says fear not
It says, stay true
Follow me and you will make it through
I am half spirit, half woman
If I love I will love all the way through you.
I have finally climbed and climbed,
I have finally dragged myself up,
I have contorted and twisted and squirmed myself free
I have pushed and thumped and wrenched at my cage
I have kicked and shoved the gates open wide
I have shaken every fear inside
I have rattled and rocked my sides down
I have leapt myself out of my skin
At last I see the deadly sin.
God has set me free.
I sit here surrounded by blood and bone
Myself stares out dumbfounded
Straight ahead the carnations sway and
Bow their heads with steady charm
All saying hello and yes, we know
We are each of God’s great secret
The beauty in the elegant leaves
Which stride upwards leaves me crying joy
The only pain I feel is of those not like me.
They hurt me with their words
I shrivel and die like a crying babe
My mouth out-stretched and set wide
And through the pitch of moaning wail
I feel a beam of calm and quiet
All will be alright again
The Hand of He is on my brow
How can I fall? Go on be strong
I can not go on down this road
And yet I must , I can’t turn back
How can I face the daily toil, the blackened face,
The cruel, so cruel heart, the angry lies,
The expecting faces and hungry, grabbing fingers
Stretching out to me?
I am alone
I am vulnerable and quite clean
I can not bare witness to this ugly smog
It makes me coil up and die
I die so badly I make myself pure again
I sit here surrounded by blood and bone
I can not get out, yet I yearn to
I am still
I am empty
I can be nothing
Why must I see your pride and self importance?
Why must I see your ugly side?
How can I be here when I want to be there?
Yet somehow this must be fair.
It seemed so strange in here.
At first it seemed so strange in here
I feel the smile of a thousand eyes
Never alone for voices surround
Which beckon and call and sing to me true
They sing the whisperings in the air, and of the glassy hue
My hands can lie like paperweights on strong stead ground they grow and throb with pulsating life and time
which allows them to spread and rise so big
The perfect skin so miraculously fine
Let them gently take all that’s good and try to leave the past behind.
My bliss is my heaven
I can go there anytime
I just sail out and see my glory
My path unfolds
It shines forth all sorts of treasure.
Stop time
Stop time
Please, before you all die.
The clocks are ticking away
Your life dies before you
Your egg-timers are set
They are pouring now
Slowly
Surely
Watch yourself go
Go on
Go on
It is time to rise
Come from that mist that strangles your eyes
Your eyes, poor eyes
Poor, poor, poor, eyes, oh so poor eyes
Your eyes are slaves to your body and mind
Give back your eyes
Go, save them
Put them right back where they belong
They won’t hurt you
Go on, step from outside your eyes
Climb through your lashes
Pull yourself through each lid wide
Stretch them right back and out you must ride
Come on, come out from behind those sad eyes.
Peel back the tide
Open forth the skies
Let in the moon, the stars, the frost
Let in the night with its colossal head
Feel its mammoth arms folding around
Feel the warm breath from each star
Feel the dance, the joy and the stirring
See the face of the wondrous one calling.
My flesh may decay but my light burns pure like a torch
My hair may turn grey but my light is like a flame
My feet may slip but my eyes burn so bright they alight
My soul is as young as the sun
My flame as clear as the moon
Let me burn
Let me burn unto You
Let You consume my flame
Every last drop You must take
Take me please
Hurry
Hurry
Take me
I’m all aglow and there’s no other place I must go.
The sound of silence is food for my ears
The sound of silence crashes my ear
I found me in the solid air
All that glitters before my eye like
Stardust always passing me by
Waving, dancing, motioning on
My giant hands perfect my art
My giant hands work day by day
Guiding paint on paint and brush
From the deep down delving of my heart
To the cottony canvas fresh like snow
Which stands before waiting to know
What timeless piece I shall paint
What thickness, thinness, I shall stake
What brush, what knife, what finger I use
What sort of mood will I infuse
The wings cut patterns in the air
The branches seize time to still
All will be peace when you see your own good will.
Come with me
I’ll lead you through the doorway of time.
I’ll lead you on to where you could never see before
Please, oh please
Come with me
When the last kiss is plucked from my heart
I tremble graciously like a vine and upward
Through my trembling I graciously shine
To the song of a higher verse
My heart is a molten pot of poetry
You stir and you stir till
The ripples reach the lower depths
Like a pebble thrown to sea
I leash myself into my fathom depths
Where darkness sings with birds
And there I kneel before you.
I see my feathers, spring and joy.
All these feathers and all these birds and this unfilling cupful of joy melodise with crashes unto the waves
With wind song on the mountain
The keys of raindrops on the lake
And the colours inside the fountain
I find myself like a burning torch like pool of nothing
Like a longing, flowing, gurgling brook
Like a deep, cool river running.
My riverbed is firm and true
My waters long to rise
To rise and rise till they are rainbows in the skies.
Once they rise, they rise so high
I’m left up in the skies
But once again you may stir
I shall reach my fathom bottom
And there I stand under my rain
And under my shining song, and thunder clashing.
You are not true
It is your false thought
It conditions you
Behold, awake
It is a new day
Wipe the embedded crust of deceit from your eye
Clean wide your mind
Stretch towards the bird’s wing in the almighty sky
See how the trees salute you in their mysterious gathering
Beauty in every trace,
every leaf every, crackle, every pin drop
The glistening gold embedded in rock
The manifest patterns of silver and truth
Those with the heart feel the thing
Those with good heart hear the bird sing
The bird sings for those with humble heart
For those with needless prayer
For those who want no more
His song glides smoothly into the heart
And swells and grows with purity and truth there.
Cast off your fog
Lift out your self
See, behold, this wonderful sight.
Let us bow down to God
Let us see our last days through.
You see me, yet see me not
I am simply not here
I stare out of myself, out of my abashed, wide, cold eyes
My eye-lids flicker, I feel their close
I live not in this world
I feel closer to the souls
The beauty of this world had slipped me by
Now it brings cold tears to my eye
The crisp air cuts me in the street
I am bound by my feet
My feet hurry but I tread faster
I almost leave them behind
What can I do?
I can do nothing
My heart has grown
My love overflows
All I can do is shed my tears
To the snails and flowers before me
The night slips into the day into the night into day
I know not of it
It all rises as one before and after
I know not of yesterday
I live now
I can only see and feel now
I remember you not
I can feel your love, only those who purely love
A false love I can see, I see it clear
It shines over at me in a spotlight near
But a pure and true love too, I see it clear
It shines over at me in a spotlight near
But a pure and true love too,
I see in great diamond shapes which dazzle and glorify my soul
and pour into myself till it is whole
and then the joy is so ecstatic
I cry and cry like a babe.