"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 the mountain
  I am afraid to climb
The ropes and tackles
  Are in abundance.

In perfect shape
 My body and mind
Not a weak link
 In the expedition.

But when the mountain
  I dare to climb
The ropes and
 Tackles are tangled.

In ill shape
 My body and mind.
Weakness as a
  Spell does bind.

Hopes and dreams
  Of tireless youth
Spend fast in
 The spiritually aged.

Strength  the glittering
 Cloak of youth
Fades in weakening
  Jaded resolve.

But in me all common
  Traits dissolve.
The bucking steed
  Will ne’er be tamed.

Pigeon-holed  the
 Misfortune of other souls
Has not been allowed
 By my rebellion.

But this resolve is
  Not without price--
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 sometimes 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.