Burning Breath
by Jerome Sewell, he/him
Burning Breath is a reflective peice of poetry that brings together inner city traumatic experiences and the healing impact of meditation; culminating in a journey of transition into healing from emotional scars. It has been put together by screenwriter, article writer and novelist Jerome Sewell who has gone through these journeys.
Website: https://therapeuticproductions.wordpress.com/
Burning Breath
He stands in the dark of night,
shadow cast downwards,
luminescent like moonlight,
floods open to overwhelming sorrow,
his heart leaking, sore, an aching wound; soft and tender,
penetrative and deep,
As dark thoughts overtake him,
Floodgates pouring,
His mind recoils into prayer;
Prayers celestial in standing,
Lifting thoughts to high heaven,
Demons erupt in clouds,
Light glistens from his white gown;
knees touching the ground, head bowed,
So he recoils,
fastened in focus to heaven,
‘Oh God, please give me strength, for my soul cries out to you’.
Thoughts hold his throat,
like the choke of a strangler,
His brother screams; howling,
His mother’s tears, desperate,
Now homeless,
Where will they go,
For a matriarch of a household fell,
His stepfather standing,
Decrees echoing,
For the son must lead his pack,
As an old lion is flung into burly dungeons,
Belmarsh,
Visions juxtaposing against life,
They pursue him,
and blackened night overshadow his young form,
Times of villains, glory, war and bloodshed,
Amidst burning fire,
Gangland conflict,
On days he sits,
Amidst stories of hood legends;
Young days of reckless thefts, untold crime,
New to moments,
Letters from old fathers, stained by cells,
The moments sow time,
They travel,
His incarceration,
Misery and despair amidst Love,
Broken hearts,
Pain and bereavement,
The devil’s game.
Smoke of a past clears into sight,
A mind’s eye revealing drug dealers,
They threaten his family,
Caged,
Bleeding pain from veins cut,
Opened by a cruel world,
Memory after memory takes hold,
Robes become whiter,
Prayers are firmer,
A Muslim scholar once said:
‘There were men in the hadith that in times of war even when arrows would go through there skin would not break the focus of their prayers’.
Desperation increases,
And so his hymns;
Salvation,
Only among those at the mercy of their sustainer,
‘They say it is to Allah that we belong and to Allah that we will return’.
‘Know that I am the lord and be still’.
distant impression.
Deep in meditation,
mind stilled and body folded,
A realm where dimensions of time slow,
I find myself resonating,
penetrating peace,
thoughts inwardly silent,
a comfort within stills my soul,
putting me at ease within,
an ease not felt within weeping trembles that troubled me,
quelled with numb drugs,
As I sit, thoughts move,
appearing, rickashaying and speeding across blackened space,
An immovable stone grounding me,
anchoring my focus,
Each thought moved,
cut downwards by swords guarding my mind,
in the silence of the moment;
a silence as deep as the endless oceans,
each intruder imposing on sacred grounds,
swiftest attack,.
My mind is the katana of life.
Do you feel I earned my rank?
Did I fight for a just cause?
A cause decided by heaven,
far above me;
Destroying confines,
Releasing relentless light,
It Breaks through,
Zen is destructive,
mediation is destructive,
The monk penned,
And so fire surrounds Fudo Myoo,
fire breaks my admitted cage,
tearing, Crumbling fetishes,
in a material life,
inwardness, ‘immovable’ in distant impression.