Thee Portals of Paradise

Poetry, true poetry, begins in the heart, rides luminous shock waves into the dark, and brings light to our shaking continent. Fred Marchman - artist, seer, gardener of earthly paradise, rishi gone-beyond, maverick bronco buster riding bareback his Blakean colt - opens a shimmering path into the visionary cave of deep-speaking Angels, that most holy womb "accessible but unassessable," that "Garden where thee Spring gushes," that place which, ultimately, we have no name for but to which we arrive in moments of trance (thus, "entrance"), or while moving body and bones in prayer, or driving the road in carefree, spirited Kerouacian tomfoolery, or during moments of solitude, purifying the soul inside those "Golden Chords of Harmony" that heaven occasionally grants us.
Like a spelunker, Fred shines his light down through rough-walled fathoms to make brilliant the waiting welcome mat to the "Heavenly Inn," the source of the divine breeze, the "Beautiful Wind," the breath of Heaven that lights the wick of inspiration and brings shakti-divine female energy - to "Thee Cozmos." Through his inspired song, his unique sole serenade, his unstopping middle eye, his fast-hand calligraphy, his pastings and pinups, Marchman takes us through the jeweled dawn, the sunwashed portals, along the path of higher consciousness - to give us entry into the "Throne Room" of "Radiant loving Holiness & Heartfelt Happiness." As the book opens and the pages turn, we too open, turn, spin and join the esoteric dance of an American sufi, a Mobile-lite, an alchemic maestro from the American South - one knowledged in the esoteric ways of Blavatsky, the poetry of Dante, the etchings of Blake, the lectures of Watts, the revolt of Siddhartha, the architects of Angkor Wat, the Duende of Lorca, and, certainly, the Swamp-boogie queens, Sir Bourbons of Honk, and steel-guitar strummers of the sultry thicklands of imagination's Delta. - Yes!

John Brandi

Quandry, NM

Epiphany (January 7) 2001