The Speaking Voice: Poems, Prayers, Thoughts, and Stories

By Lucian A. Tower

I have walked many different paths, in several different countries, with many different people that I called friends and loves. Several times I became lost to my direction, and I had doubts in the Omnipresent Sacred Spirit, God, Allah, and hundreds of different names throughout time and even now. I have seen valleys of depression filled in by the crumbling mountains of stress, and I have seen crooked paths straightened, changing peoples lives. I knew these changes because I lived with and passed through the valleys, mountains, and crooked paths. This book has poems, thoughts, and a story or two that I have been writing for many years as I recorded what I have seen, what I had dreamed, and what my imagination gave to me. My Faith, my Hope, my Prayers, and my Imagination, are what I hope may help someone else in reading and enjoying these scribed experiences. Poetry, prayers, and imagination are at times hard to understand without the experience from which they came. It is a gift, and a work of love to all of The Great Spirits People. Mitakuye Oyasin! Aho!

Luke Two Spirit Tower 2013

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503577565

Lucian A. Tower

I began writing song lyrics, short stories, and poetry some 48-years-ago. While I was in high school, during the 60s, I had the privilege of meeting Poet Laureate of the United States of America, Mr. Robert Frost. He spoke with me discussing my writings, my poetry. He told me to keep writing and reading, and as I continued I would learn so much more, and eventually become a published poet. I have continued writing lyrics, short stories, and poetry. I am now 63-years-old, and I have been published. I have always told other poets and writers to keep on writing, and learning about the many different styles of the written arts. I have also spent 35-years as an entertainer, singer, song writer, and also a musician. I have worked with Tom T. Hall, Billy Jo Spears, Red Sovine, Bobby Bare, and Kitty Wells. I have also played with Rhythm Blues Entertainers too, The Four Tops, The Platters, The Sherelles, and Visions ( Mark Farner, of Grand Funk Railroad, and the survivors of the Lynard Skynard Band). We were an International Country Rhythm Blues Band, and played together for several years. The way I see writing poetry is a likeness to a photograph of a moment, a dream, a place, a thing, a memory. Life comes at us in many ways, sometimes in many different ways at once. It's the situations that arise, the masks some people wear, the way they talk and rub shoulders with everybody. These things make up the poetry I write. When you sit down and look at life you'll find it's much bigger than just us. This is poetry, lyric writing, short stories, journalism, actually all the arts. I have found all things good in writing, even when I'm turned down by an editor. It's all learning, and enjoying what I do. I choose a photograph, a moment, a dream, or a situation and I write about it. I create a picture with words. I live a simple life as a disabled veteran of the U.S.M.C., and of the Vietnam War. However, I am simply me, and I don't try and say I'm someone else. Who am I? Well I'm a human being who loves the arts. My message to you all who reads this is KEEP ON WRITING, KEEP ON KEEPING ON.

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Copyright © 2015 by Lucian A. Tower.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/12/2015

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Table Of Contents

Together

Dancing Meadow

The Beating Drum

An American Indian Prayer

Sacred Mountains, Lands, And Hope

What Is This Blood

The Eye Of Heaven

I Laughed

For Love Is Everything

She Came To Me Walking In Beauty

In The Winter Shadow Of The Mountain

A Testimony For Whom Will Read

Secret Journey

Bitter Tears Prayers

Thoughts From The Light Of Heaven

The Way

The Trail Of Anger; Prayers

The Journey Of An American Indian Woman And A Cougar

The Purple Gown

Multicolored Light

Two Spirit #3

It’s The Little People

The Grays

The Wind That Moves

Love Shown Me The Way

As The Thunder Being Comes

The Gift

The Prayer Of Wanagi Nupa

Beyond

A Shadow In A Life

Metallic Lightning

Insight

A Warrior’s Prayer

I Wrote In My Diary

Two Spirit

Oneness

On Your Heart

An Emotional Trickster’s Breakdown

The Trail Within

She

The Trail In The Life

The Wind

The Messenger

Followed By Shadow

Promise

A Days Walk From Here

Prayer On Bear Butte

The Vision On The Plain

The Guardian

What Makes A Warrior?

I Would Reason With You

Reading Shadows To Flight

Beside The Still Water

Living Spirit

My People

Two Spirit Tracks 2

From The East

You Do All This

Let It Be Forever

The Warrior

On Your Heart

The Rabbit

She Is Beautiful

A Visit From A Maiden

The Silence Of Knowing

Fancy-Shawl Dancer’s Moccasin

A Lakota Bear

The Circle

What Of The Spirit Love

To Have A Home

The Cave

Heyoke Plea

The Meeting Of Ally Two Spirit

You Cried In Your Sleep

The Last Journey

A Premonition Of Change

Imbibing Assumption

The Wolf You Feed The Most

The Grizzly Bear And The Warrior

Together Fly The Doves

The Way To The Circle Of Life

The Path Taken

The Stone Walls

A Wind Blowing

Tunkasila

There Are Many

Here Comes The Night

The Love Of

I Was Sitting Remembering You

To my People, to all my friends,

to all my acquaintances throughout the Earth.

Always walk in beauty, and love one another.

Mitakuye Oyasin! Aho!

Luke Two Spirit Tower

Introduction

I have walked many different paths, in several different countries, with many different people that I called friends and loves. Several times I became lost to my direction, and I had doubts in the Omnipresent Sacred Spirit, God, Allah, and hundreds of different names throughout time and even now. I have seen valleys of depression filled in by the crumbling mountains of stress, and I have seen crooked paths straightened, changing people’s lives. I knew these changes because I lived with and passed through the valleys, mountains, and crooked paths. This book has poems, thoughts, and a story or two that I have been writing for many years as I recorded what I have seen, what I had dreamed, and what my imagination gave to me. My Faith, my Hope, my Prayers, and my Imagination, are what I hope may help someone else in reading and enjoying these scribed experiences. Poetry, prayers, and imagination are at times hard to understand without the experience from which they came. It is a gift, and a work of love to all of The Great Spirit’s People. Mitakuye Oyasin! Aho!

Luke Two Spirit Tower 2013

QUOTE:

And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell, and understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a Sacred manner the shapes of all things in the Spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being.

Black Elk

Wacasa Wakan Oglala Lakota

Together

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By: Luke Wanagi Nupa Tower

One step — one journey,

One breath — one prayer.

One moment — one eternity,

Of tears or deep care.

One hand — one purpose,

To help or push away.

One man — one dreamer,

Or a worker who’ll stay.

One woman — one lover,

One mother — one house.

One friend — one opponent,

A confidant — a spouse.

An embrace — a beginning,

One beat — one drum.

One family dancing circle,

One daughter — one son.

One community — one nation,

One people — a new start.

Voices raised and hands together,

One Medicine Wheel — One Heart.

Dancing Meadow

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By: Luke Wanagi Nupa Tower

A breeze…

passes through the trees

bordering the dancing meadow.

A breath of winter chills…

frosting white crystal,

little lilies of the valley,

dancing, jingling, rhythmic trills.

The Beating Drum

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By: Luke Wanagi Nupa Tower

MITA KOLA comes dancing, he comes dancing,

moving his feet round and round.

Each step a beat of the drum.

See he comes! See he comes!

MITA KOLA is dancing, he comes dancing,

in a Circle round and round.

Each step a beat of the drum.

See he comes! See he comes!

MITA KOLA is stopping, he is stopping,

to listen to the sound, to the