"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen."

Young, we understand
the world, but not ourselves.
Old, we understand
ourselves, but not the world.
Between falls the mysterious
and baffling substance
of our lives. Confusion
marks any real life
of consciousness.
Certainty is the lie
we believe in to smooth
the transition. Death
is the period that punctuates
the end of our sentence,
when we finally know
what we really know
in silence.

Kiss me Goddess.
I want your tongue
in my human mouth
filling it with words.
I want your breath
in my lonely lungs
inspiring me.
Haptic Lady,
I want your legs
around my waist
urging me to creation,
undulating ecstasy.
Make me dizzy
with your passion
and I will sing
your holy songs
to flawed creation.
Oh ****** Muse
of the holy body
and the broken,
profane heart,
come with me,
and laugh aloud
when you do.
We will name
our children poems
and send them
into the mortal world
where they will
walk in beauty
and make us proud.

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."*

The bullet that missed
on a sweltering 1972 day
remains the bullet
you fear the most,
the bullet still at large,
circling your life,
seeking a second chance
to lodge in your heart
that like all hearts
cannot stay lucky
forever.

Never enough.
Never enough of anything.
It's always running low,
running out.
Money, energy, time.

The fuel gauge
threatens empty.
The bank balance
teeters and tips
into the red.
Almost out of smokes, and there's
one last shot
in the bottle.
The car tax expires
in two days.

You've been
exhausted
since forever.
You can't kid yourself
that you're young any more.
Clocks tick
just to **** with you.
It's dark, but
not as dark
as it gets.

There are no right answers.
The sky rejects the birds, turns them
over to gravity,
embedding them in the concrete and dirt.
The grit refuses to become a pearl,
just as the wound refuses to heal
and the flesh eats itself.
The market sees a sudden spike in
sales of Champagne and cyanide.
Coordinated efforts seek and fail
to curtail the rising tide of violence
in the nation's dreaming.
You realise that this crude, barbaric language
that you can't understand
is your own.
Beauty glitches and pixelates.
Frightened, furtive confessions of love
are unheard over proud, visceral
proclamations of hate.
Tongues divorce mouths.
Every now and then, a voice
inside your head says,
'Thud.'
The measures of sanity become
more quantifiable and
totally arbitrary.
The horizon
tightens
like
a noose.

It doesn't matter if this is wrong.
There are no right answers.

When a mountain
   I dare not climb
the ropes and tackles  
  are in abundance

In great shape
  my body and mind
Not a weak link
in the expedition

But when a mountain
  I dare to climb
the ropes and tackles
  are often misplaced

Out of shape
  my body and mind
Weakness as a
  spell does bind

Hopes and dreams
  of tireless youth can
be all but forgotten
  in the spiritually aged

Strength   the glittering
  cloak of youth can
fade in weakening
  jaded resolve

But in me common
  traits dissolve
The bucking steed
  will never be tamed

Pigeon-holed the
  misfortune of other
souls   has not been
  allowed by my resolve

But this determination
  is not without cost
The foothills of youth
  are far removed

by erosion caused by
  unstable belief systems
washed away into
  the Sea of Ambiguity

A distant mountain
  I often see
(distance   the deceiver
  of proportion)

Challenged at the foot
  of the formidable sight
halfway climbing
  only to slip and fall

Does this mountain
  need to be climbed
Do youthful dreams
  need to be fulfilled

When these dreams
  are all you ever had
you wake up falling
  or climbing higher

Driven by dreams
  and gifts and talents
that rage like a river
  in the driest desert

calling home what
  must come home
holding on to what
  must be fulfilled

Obstacles that have
  become landmarks
seem to fade
   into obscurity

like threats that
  always remain empty
laughing at what
  used to bring tears

I remain standing
  through all these trials
not unscathed
  and a bit weather beaten

halfway up another
  formidable mountain
making up for lost time
  from a major fall.