I think I can go now
I can’t think of anything more
I have left to give you
and having given you
everything I have to give
I think I can go in peace
not to leave you alone
that could never happen
but to take a deeper
place in your life
from within your heart
where I have wanted
to live always with you
since before we met
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 9:02 PM UTC
Sitting in the full moonlight
I realize it has always been
a question of which gods
I will follow and which gods
I must leave behind
if I am ever going
to get home or anywhere
and realize I am the one
who is making all this up
out of the creative power
of my own ideas good
and bad and can when I
get willing and ready become
a real human being
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 12:09 PM UTC
Cold days I’ve always loved
to sit outside in the sun
letting the sun lie down
across me like the dead
body of my sweet friend
and marvel how it still
warms me his garment
of pale light laid over me
which is his body now
he has grown intangible
but clearer and seeps
into me and fills me
like the earth I am
nothing without my light
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 11:44 AM UTC
1. Athens
Over the restless stones of the Parthenon
the hurrying footsteps of Athena
pursued by Poseidon down
the narrow ***** streets
past our still-arguing parents
past our still harrowing childhoods
we remember going away from here
quickly carried on the salt breeze
the swelling falling away of seasons
wanting what was never enough
forgetting what was never enough
green we said just give us that
and maybe the blue would be enough
but when they took our mother away
we cowered and when our father
was drowned we stood silent
the green watched and what we
thought was the blue became
a whole millenium a conflagration
finally the boat turned into the harbor
and we went up among the dark trees
we have come back to listen
to what the stones are listening to
we are listening to that
2. Sounion
So we sailed past Sounion
our sails holding and letting go
of the little gusts of light fading
and washing over us
we could feel our weary thoughts
slipping from us now our hearts
holding the darkness close like a mirror
an emptiness we wanted to love
and then Mycenae’s hill’s scant shade of
one tree the hot breath of Perseus
the stillness of shining stones
from wherever the enemy comes
he must scale this height
taste the blood of Agamemnon
on the thyme-rinsed breeze
to what god do we sing now if not
the hidden one known to these hills
in these bodies how many
broken columns will have to be
raised again and in that place
where only thresholds remain
dividing the green grass inside
from the green grass outside
how much labor to become no one
to step right past ourselves and speak
at last out of the merciful
into the pure silence
3. Patmos
The petals of the flowers on her dress
as she stands in the bow of the ferry
rounding the last trace of Samos
make me remember Pythagoras
said music heals their turning
and rippling in the wind now
more intense then quieting
and I can either watch those
petals or these waves and feel
what the night has made of me
a mood like that one house there
on the hillside of the far shore
only an eternity of lapis between us
or I can hold the mountains up ahead
the boat’s slippery progress toward them
the sea sloshing as we cut through it
feel how these islands were formed
from all these pictures all these sounds
so it hardly matters right now
if we ever get to Patmos
if we ever climb the steep hill to the cave
where the terrible words were spoken
or see the view John saw or dream
of spending a winter in that
abandoned windmill there
because right here and now
watching the petals on her dress
it hardly matters much at all
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
All Parzival wanted
from the Fisher-King
was lodging for the night
he was on the shore and
the somber king was out
on the water in his boat
richly attired but fishing
apparently in the twilight
*at the end of the cliff
turn right and go up the hill*
from then on those words
became his motto
but how could he
have healed the king
a boy who up till then
had only taken
what he wanted
no idea how to give
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 6:49 PM UTC
One morning after childhood
the mosquitoes were just gone
and childhood returned and I
could run right outside
without fear of being devoured
by those piranha of the air
it was like the barbarians
and in fact no one was coming
so the sun could stretch out fully
over the cool flesh of the grass
mostly weeds the way flesh
is mostly desire a part of
the will of the world
in which for a few moments
I felt completely secure
ridiculously secure
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 4:44 PM UTC