An Anthology of Perception Vol. 1: 40 Years Through the Lens of the Here and Now

By Kurt Philip Behm

For over forty years Kurt Philip Behm
has lived within the magic of the
Perpetual Present. It has inspired all of
his writing, and has allowed him to both
see and write about the truth contained
within every moment.
Once acknowledging this truth within
himself and accepting its presence, he
started an inward journey that time,
and its deceptive handmaidens, the past
and future, would have only denied.
His message is to live not only for today,
but this very moment, knowing that this
moment is all that we have, have had, or
will ever have again.
Living within the magic of its Perpetual
Present will then free our souls, guiding
us on a path toward becoming all that
we were truly meant to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481711517

Kurt Philip Behm

Best selling author and renowned poet, Kurt Philip Behm, has been writing both poetry and prose since 1971. In this sixth installment of his historical fiction series, The Sword Of Ichiban, William Broderick Simpson III (Cutty) takes a radically new and dangerous approach to turning the tide of World War 1.

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© 2013 by KURT PHILIP BEHM. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/21/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1153-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1152-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1151-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902050

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Book Four

Book Five

Book Six

Smoke Beyond The Council Fire

Addendum &Terminology:

Dedication

I want to thank the Muse for staying with me for so long, and never abandoning me during moments of confusion or struggle. Your voice continues to grow louder inside of me as each day unfolds.

You have seen me through the most joyous of moments and the darkest of times.

I cannot imagine my life without you…

‘Writing neither poetry nor prose

you stared into the night

Beyond intellect and passion

you combatted all fright

As the things that had left

you returned once again

Their moment now eternal,

neither beginning nor end’

Introduction

Since 1972, many aspects of my life have evolved and changed, but one thing has remained constant.

I have spent all of those years in the only true dimension available to any of us—‘The Ever Expanding Perpetual Present.’

The instantaneous and momentary realization that all of existence is ‘HERE AND NOW,’ has been the guiding principle in my life. Its knowledge and acceptance has been the liberating concept that has set me free.

I am thankful that this insight opened early for me, and pray that its life force stays with me always. Writing within the ‘present tense’ has connected my thoughts unbroken and unreferenced from those very first words until the present day.

Don’t just live for today! Life today because it is the ONLY day you will ever have, have had, or will ever have again!

BOOK ONE

September 1972-June 1973

Release your mind

from all binding expedience

And harvest in the crops

of your insanity

(West Philadelphia, Woodland Ave, September 1972)

My blessings be not many

that unquestioned,

I may leave my name

To travel unsung odysseys

in mirrors,

. . . as the lion roars

(West Phila: September, 1972 inspired by reading Don Quixote in Spanish)

Simplicity

not necessarily unity

Larva dwellings

many sorrows

(West Philadelphia: September, 1972)

Lynn, if only we could have been

what we were

My ego, never able to hang

in your closet

As you wrapped me away in my fear of

Delilah’s revenge

It was our game Lynn,

not yours or mine

With Satan as the time keeper

I found your body in the darkness

Trying very hard through your words

not to laugh

Naked seasons now tell the story of

our dirge

Conjunctions, caught in the rhythm of

love’s waste

Concealing temples where the Magi sit

still waiting for the dawn

(West Philadelphia: September, 1972)

Between stimulus and response

lies a hidden connection

One of tragedy,

and incarnate desire

(West Philadelphia: September, 1972)

Only Regina’s curse reveals

the doors,

Whence you knock,

open,

. . . and then fear

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

The end lies in the guts of

the beginning

Resting in some future

bile

Where the scourge of orphaned

tigers

Balances on cartwheels of

untaken chance

Bleeding in prisons of

anonymity,

. . . waiting for a name

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

Only vision could feed the hunger

inside Raphael’s prison

The crystal vortex of deception

becoming like Sonoran gruel

Spewing out darker contrasts,

. . . or then believers

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

Love destroys what sex begins,

as playgrounds and schoolyards

hide the true nature of the King

Innocence bleeding,

within the deep warm incision

of a preternatural beginning

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

Purify the garden Michael

with your saviors staff

Pierce the hedon dungeon with

Angel madness

Call from Satan’s halls your

lost legions

Move the waiting demon

from our soul imprisoned

Join the dream and dreamer

with a voice unrivaled

And cast redemptions spark

into the silence burned

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

Clandestine appointments reveal the

altars of subterranean kings

Above, open land mirrors the varicose

wandering of a prodigal and naked desecration

The birth and death of a promised misdirection

now after then before, lingering in-between

Reflecting only empty shadows in the

Creators eye

The judgment of the wicked lying suspended

above darkened and trodden valleys

Curled with hidden teeth for

blaspheming travelers, cursing only their own

Damning themselves inside the saving light of

a new and first beginning

Which blesses the waiting and sleeping virgins

where they lie!

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

I believe that I

will never be

Allowed to live as one,

and free

As in the garden, mushrooms

grow

Where ants displace them

row by row

To live, to die,

to live, I mean

But only birds then know

the stream

That begins and ends

to us a place

Can God redeem a human

race

That becomes what it would

most avoid

An object,

. . . creator of the void

(West Philadelphia: October 1972)

Blindness,

pastes the day in darkness,

robbing night of her biggest jewel

Induction

of the souls miscarriage,

dreams trapping odors of all misgiving

Rhythms of despair,

the sunken mire of lights displeasure

welcoming the hooded Centurion

Kneeling

before the serpents tongue

as if praying to a friend…

"Sylvan cities

Chained in laughter

Free your virgins"

(West Philadelphia: October, 1972)

When Kings are boys

they think like men

Promising each other the

reinforcement of their number,

. . . jackals do too!

But Kings as men grow pale in the color

of their disappointment

Mancurse as savior, lying in

rich pulpa, dying from the

pheromone of his lies!

Like an infected butterfly

coloring the night with its vision

Silent wings telling of now

dead stories, and what’s not to be remembered,

. . . or ever said again

(West Philadelphia: November, 1972)

Indian cholera,

masked in white morning,

the plains and valleys forever tell your story

The Hawk never flies in

your direction,

. . . your line is broken

(West Philadelphia: November, 1972)

Laughter is the seed of future knowledge,

. . . before we grow

(West Philadelphia: November, 1972)

On summer days, we played in fields,

and hid from him in the cover of big trees

In winter, distance forced him into

silence

Spring, brought us the promise of fresh captivity

and the protection of a wish

But in the fall, when our sheets could feel the mocking of

his laughter

We listened, to something only you could

hear

You smiled at me, as I tried to guard the bed against

my fear and hold you tightly against my chest

. . . but by morning you were gone

And as I lay beside your still and quiet body, feeling the coldness

of your disappearing shadow

I thank the trees, the distance, and the spring’s promise,

. . . for once loving you and I

(West Philadelphia: November, 1972)

Death stops at the mirror of

self reflection

Only the living enter

here

Your father’s inheritance

bleeds out with your exit

To live,

. . . or again die

(West Philadelphia: November, 1972)

Enter my harem babe

we give stamps

Grade A,

slide a little babe

Crawl, males always die

but some drones live on

Making me feel, what I bet you

can’t

And you wont, will

you babe

Captive virtues fortune, you

wanna steal it, but from who babe

Keep your candle, you can’t touch

my darkness

Your desire weeps, but you can’t

fix it,

. . . can you babe!

(West Philadelphia: November 1972)

Masked intruder

rented garage

Whisper in my

ear,

. . . ‘change for a ten’

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

Writing,

the line was trapped on paper

Cast out,

never to return

Banished son of

birth’s revival

And father of our loves

tomorrow

Tell of light’s all seeing

counsel

Dancing life’s dichotic

cadence

Curse and bless the pulpit

cauldron

Die the limits of your

line

Stand left of wind in

virtues odor

With blindness share

a magic shadow

At depths that force

all light to exit

Of sounds below

and fallen grace

Till Narcissus calls you to

his mirror

Endowed in pools of

new believing

With freedom from inscripted

madness

Through eyes that never

close

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

Cradles,

sheltering life’s release

and loves beginning

Feeding indentured

on the promised

lie

Shadows,

death mourning all wonder

retracing a memory

Ego,

chasing the past

in carnal delight

Schooled,

by anointed rhetoric,

rhetoric,

rhetoric

Threats,

of ruined heritage

and cities laughing,

city slaughter

cradles choking

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

Thunderous Creon

hear our wonder

Baiting fortune, share your fate

within our pen

Ladders, dead altars of

polymagic

Where your unclaimed virtue once absolved

war, and the letters of our soul

Now children there purgate, dying in unspoken light,

singing out your treason

Swallowing their fat tragedies,

unwritten and whole

Then to hide beneath a smoother stone, where

the lizard remains unconquered

To one day prey upon the lies you’ve told

and on your redemption, feast

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

The prostrate lizard

hated savior,

crawls the crooked road to the city

Figures, sinking with the light

bending your prayers,

. . . watching the sun

Light retreats

as shadows leave,

emptying space for a new awareness

It’s rooted madness

telling again and again,

how far you’ve come

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

People in place

roles procreate

Brothers in madness

sisters of late

Bring me extensions

I know them by name

The ceiling is altered

our lady’s escaped

Legacy’s now, are offered

in jest

The gates holler ENTER

Hippocrates test

The moon and the planets

by gravediggers done

Cold nocturne epiphany

orphans of sun

Canopy shelters, and

deeds to a name

The forest is waiting

your season now lame

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

Spinning circle,

going nowhere

Captive moment,

defining time

Vibral temptation,

pointed whispers

Stolen slime,

. . . five and dime

Artist lies, blue spaying eyes

dungeon of her friends disguise

Pandora’s game, different planes,

the moments best while she’s at rest

Encapsuled in her

Greek subpoena

A vomiting countenance,

a beggars meaning

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

You sired my birth

Father,

. . . BUT I AM!

(West Philadelphia: December, 1972)

Poem found on my Father’s writing desk (Winter 1973)

A song of death is sung so sweet, it lulls us in some deep

and compelling sleep, we live a life of meaning and purpose, and die bravely, but all is not what we propose,

and such is Death

Life is vibrant and exciting, full of promised things,

forthgiving perhaps success,

and such is Death

Death seems stagnant and inevitable, with not much hope

of circumvision, but fulfilling,

and such is Death

Life is meant to give, to live, to love, to accomplish, but to

love and be a man fulfilled is real life,

and such is Death

My throat is dry, and life is passing, not in anger do I die,

but in tragic wonder,

and such is Death

I am gone and life lives after, what I have meant to life is an

answer I am after,

did I succeed

and such is Death

(Rosemont Pennsylvania: Winter 1973)

Hail dragon statue, unborn sentry, son of the

altar kings

Administer the tonic of your fathers disease and

viral wanderings

A mothers marking has left no

stain

Beneath still Icon feet, immortal vengeance slithers

in unmasked factions

Still placenta and sainted laughter become your harness,

while cold blanket virtue stains your avenue of descent

Stolen legions and indentured freedoms commence your

motion,—limbo is waiting

Soft newness dies in visions shadow, warnings now speak of

other times

Eternity locks on fates tomorrow, as lovers die, spawning

insurrection

Sunday riches and cultured pearls, a last novena, the judgment

of the Fathers has begun

Clear cancer falling from concrete eyes, marks an orphans path

to the city

Babies burn in friendships tithed, as buildings weave in

the darkness

Silent basements wait, pray, fear,—distortions clamor for

loves unmaking

The stone tongued creatures, vestiges of our mother’s funeral,

gather in the town square

Blood oozing from stannic agony, Sodom’s promise, children

of Lot

Viewers of the other world, reap in fury’s eye their just

reward

Granite caldrons of burning flesh now harbor the deserted

archways of a forgotten son

Statues baptism, fathers cry, the fire frees the time of

your creation

The gates have opened, the soul uncensored,

never having lived, now free to die

(West Philadelphia: January 1973)

Visionary’s promise

what’s never seen

Believers die invested

in lives that wait

Junctions of immunity

and sweeter air

Take on a mutilated oneness

we call the truth

(West Philadelphia: January, 1973)

Ravished Wakan Tanka

your people cry,

but never question

Only thieves and fools

seek explication

‘All fire around us,

your breath inside us’

As white turns into black

and ash to dust

(West Philadelphia: January, 1972)

A baptismal of shame hangs over the beggars entry,

washing the crystals of a hungry Jehovah

Canon shot fodder, weird entombment, articulate sandmen

waiting before the tide

Creatures splash, Creators wash, a Yazidi cries the song

of ‘The Seven’ in angelic rhyme

Lost Hydra ears, the good captain captive, the flag

remembered, endemic Judas, a knocking scalper

Pawning stolen choosers scars, etched into the tillers

throne

Resurrecting a savior long out of date, before the

final monsoon season,

. . . and flying high

(West Philadelphia: January, 1973)

Every second, an infinity

happens,

. . . in relativity!

(West Philadelphia: January, 1973)

Trees of the legend,

sleepy killers

Shielding the days night

from the blinding sun

Luring bright deception into

their arms open wide

Exposing what darkness

with its truth, must then shun

(West Philadelphia: January, 1973)

The reasons dropped from my hand to

the pen unbroken,

. . . as light in a bend

(West Philadelphia, February, 1973)

The Prophetic Gunfighter

The poet kills time like a prophetic

gunfighter

Drawing words to shoot a faster enemy

with syllabic armed fire

Ultimately triggering the one shot

that releases both himself, and then you

Destroying the temporal with an

assassin’s vision

Striking all excuse terminal, from the lack of

times grasp

Killing with transcendence, any other moment

except now!

(West Philadelphia: February, 1973)

Station walker, ingratiate terminal goer,

lifer

Seeking shelter in the two-eyed fancy’s,

protection from the one in-between

Moist psychiatric caves hiding him in

neural adjustment

As life splits into

one

Rented city reasons presenting him to the

world

An apocryphy of stolen fears and damning rivers,

confluent with his souls disjunction

In seminaries, and on signposts of graduate air,

he hides from God

Begging Hosannas in mediate collection, surely,

. . . ‘two souls are then better than one’

His glass house freezing, he stands a vector,

cut, with apotheosized bandage

Melting unaware in the

winter sun

(West Philadelphia: February, 1973)