I dreamed I saw your grandmother’s ghost

She was smiling at me, and looked vital

When the dream took a turn,

I woke up with a start,

And longed to see

Yours

~

But you did not appear,

I only tossed and turned,

Struggling to quiet myself,

And get into the right state;


                      The correct position


    And the proper breathing



                   For seeing ghosts

~

I miss you.

+

I pray you are romping
In Elysian Fields

Further up and further in
I will see you anon

She squints, her eyes open
She musters the strength
She crawls to the kitchen
But not the full length
In minutes she’s dancing
So fluid, so free
And she’s such a comfort
And so dear to me

She’s the life of the party
Ask anyone here.
They’ve lined up tequila
And whiskey and beer.
Thankful but unfazed
By what they’ve been pourin’ her
As she’s warmly approaching
The chick in the corner

And she saves souls for real
Not like those ****** preachers
And she’s one who can teach
All the doctors and teachers
They hang on her words
And are better for knowing
This spark of existence
This cup overflowing

And I stand in wonder
At all she has touched
All she has given
She’ll say it’s not much
But waves propagate
With her as their source
She speaks, and the cosmos
Is changing its course

Some days she’s saddened
By her empathic knowing
Some days are like years;
Some fly and need slowing.
This past year’s been cutting
The claws of it rip
But she opens her eyes wide
Embracing the trip

And she senses things easily
Intuition - hot
She knows who she is
And she knows who she’s not
And her honor is worthy
Of Arthurian Lore
Her oaths aren’t made lightly
She’s is steadfast and sure

She’s seared into his folds
As his synapses tire
And he needs to subdue
And he’s dousing that fire
But she’s stuck in his head
Like a hook in a fish
And affecting his thoughts
And becoming his wish

He wouldn’t dare dream
Of breaking connection
With someone so dear;
So with each correction,
He’s learning to dance
The dance she intends
To never destroy
This deep bond as friends

This is the time
This is the place
Wash off the grime
That covers your face
Step toward the goal
One step at a time
Each step takes its toll
Yet moves toward sublime

This is the day
As they say, as they say,
He has made, so be bold!
So be bold!

So hitch up your stockings
And follow the fold
Ignore all the mockings
And jeers from the throng
For you'll be with Jesus
Death comes 'ere long
And death is what frees us
Is that what He said?
Not really, re-read it...
(At least what's in red)

He spoke of the kingdom
Here on earth as in heaven
And how the yeast of religious ones
All pervasive like leaven

He never said focus on the end,
That wasn't the crux of his story,
Wait for heaven, wait for heaven,
Your time
Up in glory...
No.
The story
Doesn't go that way
So depart from the fray
Seize the day, seize THIS day
Be present and realize the kingdom is here,
The kingdom is now,
Get up and get clear
With some sweat on your brow
This is the day that the LORD has made
Carpe, carpe, carpe this diem
Forget heaven-plans that you made
And soon, I think you'll see Him

Oh the screamers are screaming
And clawing and mooning
They soon will be dreaming
They're crammed in and spooning
If it weren't for my many interventions tonight
Surely, they would have, committed a crime
One, or more, would be out of the fight
Down to the mat for the very last time
But now, I'm here...as chaperone;
As mediator; as bodyguard,
They unite against me here alone
In this bedroom prison yard

Upside down
Wrong way round
That’s the way the world is

Makes me wonder
If our God
Is sorry he unfurled this

Jesus was a Liberal,
He partied with the rabble,
He’d a brazen disregard for the law,
 
So said the Pharisees...
They thought him full of heresies;
He was stuck firmly in their craw…
 
They thought him radical and tragic
But didn't know the DEEPER magic,
"Let's trap this friggin' upstart", said they
 
His father, a staunch conservative,
Set down some rules, preservative
Of people that he chose back in the day.
 
*Then there’s the Holy Spirit, or "Hoppy" as he likes to be called,
 
He’s harder to pin-down politically… and he has no time for tarrying,
 
On social issues, he's had no comment, or none has yet been scrawled,
 
But rumor has it he's backing the Libertarian

The woman I love is a magnificent creature
Caring and bearing so much, ...so much
When we met I thought there is so much to teach her
But quickly was I her student and such

Magnificent lessons learned I from this being
Touching and sharing I really can't say
What makes a bright angel, bejeweled in splendor,
Take a bent, broken creature, bedeviled, ...to stay

You come back today
I’m afraid to see your face
Since you’ve gone away
An image in your place

Has occupied my mind
An image of you, lost
In darkness, and I find
I didn’t count the cost

Of filing (was it blunder?)
The documents that rip
Our strong union asunder
Was it wrong, I wonder?

Will you come to your senses?
Will the spell be lifted?
Will you then break my defenses;
And have reparations gifted?

But then I picture you
In HIS arms, on repeat…
And once again I stew;
Can’t sleep, and I can’t eat

But wounds that I now nurse
Will one day make me strong
It cannot get much worse
So add verses to our song

The song of you and me
Afloat but sinking fast
Adrift in these rough seas
Without an anchor cast

The only way we’ll save
The friendship underneath
Is taking what you gave
And sinking-in my teeth

Because there was some good
I took from our meandering
But I’ll not hold my breath
That you have stopped your wandering

So, civil I will be
I promise to be kind
Your infidelity
Will slowly leave my mind

And one day we will laugh,
About our childish ways;
About this current gaff,
Or at our chosen phrase

Describing these hard times
As we visit our brood
And laughing at your crimes
Love’ll be understood

I’m biting the bullet, with tears in my eyes

Forcing my footsteps toward paths I despise

I will do it all you know

But I don’t want to go

It’s all for you



I’m painting a smile-on, wearing a grin,

But the mirth of this mask I don,
it's wearing thin

My pain, it's growing, dear

But I will persevere

For you



For some ungodly reason I feel lonely, empty, sad

Though you profess your love, and it’s the best I’ve ever had

I miss the holy love

From up above...or so they say...

Is it really greedy to have my little crutch?

Because you know, I love you all so much,

And I’ll give it up for you
...If you really want me to...

Today

My sweet lady, I’m off kilter,
Wooed by all your lovely charms,
Here’s some maca for your philter,
Need to have you in my arms

Want your loving legs around me,
Want your loving arms as well,
Have to say your curves astound me,
Got to make your “sailor” swell,

Want to voyage through your straits,
Lovely portal made of jade,
Let my tongue throw wide the gates,
And let the choicest love be made

Let me sing you lovely music,
Let me try to make you swoon,
Here’s my flesh (O please abuse it!),
While my eyes reflect the moon

Lover laughing lovely there,
Behind your smiling eyes so deep,
In my mental pictures fair,
Close my eyes to try to keep,

Each new moment we’re entwined,
For each one seems to top the last,
Hold me close and expand my mind,
Draw me near, and hold me fast

The restless soul
                             heaves a low heavy moan

Of loneliness
                                     when we’re not alone

We all have inner
                                              sadness at times

Enjoy this brief visit
                                   before the clock chimes

I don't know what it is I should do
And I don't know what I should say
I'm not equipped to deal with this ****
Your life (all lives) slipping away

I wish there existed a way
To just ...pull you right back down
For another year, and another day
Wish that we could keep you around
I'm not ready, not at all
I can't deal with the wages of the fall
I thought you were going to rally and
Stay and hold your firstborn's hand ...

Look,

I was glad to be your son

(Just don't ever tell anyone)

Off to sleep I drift
To the land of nudes and spaceships
Same place that I've found myself in countless times before

Same but somehow different
    Funny how in dreams
    The setting always seems
    To be distortions of real places
    Here are my people, but with different faces
Warped and bent, strange incident

At lunch with Mr. morality-now...
*
Enter Tommy
The bureaucrat
With much aplomb
He'll chew the fat

He will tell you
What it takes
To make the partner-
ships he makes

And how to play
The politics game
And deal with those
Who smear your name

You need to know
Exactly what
Motivates
That pain-in-your-****

Find out what
They care about
And use some leverage
To beat the lout

Apply some pressure
And you'll find
They'll change their ways
Or lose their mind

Oh, while you're
At it, pray for all
To hear the savior's
Beckon call

That's what Jesus
Of course would do
It's worked for me
It'll work for you

These apparently
Discordant tips
Call into question
All your quips

Helpless.
I can't even

Break
The habit

Of eating too much.
Even the dog notices.

Seems this pan of brownies isn't working...

half gone...
...still sad.

I await your return and long for your embrace so
Have you received the messages I’ve sent you?
I was conversing with you only moments ago,
But still I cannot reach you.
     Are tests what you teach to?

Come to us, please, come on down,
See the pain and anguish in so many faces
Remember the last time you visited this town?
On the ceilings there are still  some scorched & faded traces
     Of the fire, once extant in these windblown faces

The fog is all-pervasive
From here, it shades every vista

I thought it was was perhaps a smudge on my lenses
Or, considering the betrayal from my other faculties,
the beginning of the dimming that comes with age,

But my glasses were clean, and my eyes, but for the floaters, were clear

The edges fade as the settling fog
             reduces my view to impressionism

The streetlights pass at irregular intervals and I hold to my position at the end of the undulating line of red tail lights

When the flow finally becomes laminar, I am relieved,

Feeling like I'm making the jump to light speed as the beacons fly past,
Finally finding their proper rhythm

It hurts worse every day
I hope this will subside
The lover that you threw away
Has a hollow ache inside

The love to which I was clinging
Was only a pantomime
Your cruel indifference is still stinging
But I’ll be stronger, in good time

This loneliness is like suffocating
And my eyes can’t adjust to the light
Here in the darkness I’m navigating
Depths of despair o’er your flight

And now you’re out and I, soon,
Will have to see your pretty face
But there will be no need for swoon
And there will be no chase

I know you’re gone so go…
I guess this is where we part…
But darling dear, I hope you know
I loved you with all of my heart

As you walk away, please remember how much I loved you
And that so many days I tried to make things right
No, I wasn’t perfect, I know, that’s not what I’m saying
But I did the best I could do, before you took flight

Seems the spell you were under just never dissipated
I never snapped you out of it like I thought I might…
You grabbed the yoke, bent on crashing and burning, but I held on
Thinking after this valley of darkness, we’d reach some light

As you walk away
Out into the night
Oh darling, I’m aghast
Oh dear, it’s not right

And as you round the bend
I hope you get it right
I hope you can unwind yourself
Your knots are awful tight

Now every day’s been spent just raging and weeping
At the thought of what perhaps could have been…
And the images my mind creates of the acts are just teeming
I feel stupid and blind for the things that I should have seen

On my knees in the darkness, I pray to the sky for renewal
Looking hard for what the hell it was that I lacked
Running over scenarios of a repair to this wreckage
Hazy future images where we’ve made it back

But I now realize that this fantasy is just illusion
And I know your current strategy lies with him
But when this honeymoon period that you’re now into has ended
And he’s pulls you down to the deep I just hope you swim

I’d rather you get well and get happy, dear, believe it…
Than stayin’ tied in knots from which you can’t get free
Whatever was lacking …I hope that your new love fulfills it
Dearest friend, you’ll always have a part of me

As you walk away
Out into the sunset
Oh dear, I am speechless
Oh darling, it’s not right

And as you round the bend
I hope you got it right
I hope you can unwind some day
Those knots are awful tight

I fell for a time,    ...and damaged my mind

Forgetting, for a spell
                               What makes us feel well

Having forgotten,
                           It makes me feel rotten

When body runs down,
                            Then I don a frown.

Remembered  today
                     What makes it go ‘way:

You’ve just got to move;
                       To get in the groove.

For body and mind
                  Aren’t separate, I find.


If one or the other’s neglected, my brothers,

Then suffers each one
                          For since they begun

Inextricably chained,
                   These two remained

If psyche is blue,
          Then body is too,

And if you repair,
           The body, mon frere,

It turns out that you
     Can fix the mind too!

Pharmacea
Come and renew us
Pour out the new us
Lessen our pain
Soap in our beer
Doesn't faze us
Purple haze us
Over and again
Take away our silly lack
Sure it seems to bring some knack
How it seems so, but in reality
Real malady
Only takes hold
Over the bold
Markings that my essence
Scribbled in your presence

These giant bones-
Where are they from?
How came they here to my English home?

To Uncle Chuck’s
Curiosity chest - the strangest treasures
In all the West

Grandmothers’ faiths
Don’t correspond.   A fresh new narration
Is sent from beyond

And small variations
Throughout the years, demand supplications;
Precipitate fears

Perhaps he’ll unlock it,
His eyes how they shine...when showing the locket,
The poisonous spine,

The shrunken head,
And the mummy’s finger, fill us with dread
The memories linger

The showman will bow,
As he locks them away, but seared in our brains,
These images stay

Comes the fiddling fiend
Comes the lascivious lingerer
Steals away, the sneak, to the bend in the creek
And lies with a lovely light

From the beckoning field
Where the battles were waged, we trade
Furs and beads will fill their needs
And keep the moon up tonight

And illumine well the fight

I went down to “Eros”, sore,
And found that the Devil lived.

Every hour will emit time,
With the wolf flow and the ****-gals,

All decaf faced and sad,
Smug gums grinned and snarled,

Re-reviled deliverer,
You always stressed desserts,

Warbling whistling crooning chirping chanted serenade

Harmonizing humming hymns

Yodeling in the shade

Gasping groaning grieving murmuring moaning crying pant

Undulating swelling swirling

See the sickening slant

Lovely Lady Dee
She soon will be free of me
She’ll be dancing on the corner
of the dance floor

She’s a hurricane
Leaving splinters in her wake
And it got too hard to take
Now we’re done for


She pulled my heart out bleeding
And commenced to eating
It up raw

Her words are ornamental
But her tenderness is gentle
As I saw

What I saw

Lovely Lady Dee
Soon you’ll be free of me
You’ll be dancing on the sidelines
At the boat house

The papers have been filed
And I hope that makes you smile
You’ll be happy …for a while
My funny free spouse


You’ll get your strapping lover
& you’ll do your best to cover up your scheme
You’ll live the dream

You’ll no longer be beholden
To this funky freaky fuzzy golden boy
Oh rapturous joy

Go get your toy

Darling dear Diane
You have fowled up all my plans
You’ve smeared mud upon my face
And stuck the knife in

If they could know the pain
You inflicted on my brain
They would strip you of your badge
And take your license


They’d see through all your lying
And the elders would start crying
Vicious girl

And those that have your bent
Would that your stockinged legs be wrent
And give them a whirl

My little pearl

You were my world

Another sunrise, another day
And still, she has very little to say
She calls up from rehab, to talk sick'ning-sweet
About all the folks she now has at her feet

“People from all-walks, who’ve played my same card!
We do meetings, and yoga, and walks in the yard!
And the food is so filling, and tastes pretty great
No wonder inpatients here always gain weight!”

“I’ve met Sally, and Kate, and Pauline, (who loves Pink)
And we’re all the same! We cheat and we drink!
Then there’s Betty, and Paula, and Beth, and Marie
All of these people exactly like me!”

And the thing she repeats in the children’s ears:
“Mommy’s working real ******* herself, my dears!”
As if NOTHING had HAPPENED, talking softly and sweet
But even in rehab, continues to cheat

Not that “WE” could be mended, it’s far past that point
But it ****** me off that while she’s in that joint
Spending our money to get pampered, and “well”…
She’s still chatting on phone calls with HIM.  Go to hell!

She’s been nigh three-weeks-sober for the first time in years
When she calls me to talk, it is not to shed tears,
Nor beg for forgiveness for adulterous ways
And say that she’s sorry she’s wasted my days

But to ask why the children won’t pick up their phones
As she’s still talking daily to the geezer she bones
I ask, “…you really love him?”, she confirms that it’s true,
With a casual cruelty, as I’m cut right in two.

My dearest one
Put down that gun
You’ll have what you are after
The dopamine
And you’ll be seen
Relaxed and full of laughter

My truest love
Sent from above
Please resist the potion
Steel your nerves
And all the curves
Will freeze; there’ll be no motion

My sugar plum
You’ll be made numb
If you ingest the snake oil
Grit your teeth
And far beneath
Your feet will shift the loose  soil

In your cage
I can’t assuage
Your sadness and your longing
My truest prayer
Will pierce your lair
A new era is dawning

Tiddlywinks and rabbits
Hares and hinkey habits
Everybody
     Elicits élan
          When ev'rything's comin' 'round

Invisible personal savior
Pondering human behavior...
Maybe increase
     Willpower in these
          Organic inventions
               You've made from the ground?

Staring at the campfire, tryin’ to think of reasons
Why you were so savage that you went on ahead
Cruelly pantomiming role of “loving wife” for seasons
Messing with my heart and torturing my head

The undetected longings your anxious heart must’ve had
Were hidden so well …even when we did embrace
And there might have been a tiny tell - a sign that things were going bad
But I am blind like justice; and you were gone without a trace


The signs were there in retrospect, many signs that I had missed
I should’ve felt it when we argued, when you tried to make me leave
I should’ve sensed the wandering, detected in each kiss
That you were chained and looking for reprieve

But hindsight gives illumination, and highlights all your lies
Your personality is mimic, assimilate each one
Knowing just the thing to do or say to win your prize
And you’re not satisfied…not ever… ‘til you’ve won

The world is in chaos
Rationality is dead

My role-models are ******
And I'm stuck in my head


The dread! The dread!
It ***** at my legs

It's muck and mire
Here in the dregs
~
From a farther
            vantage point~
It is  ...comical


So
      annoint
                  Your heads,
Adorn your beds
Eat your breads (full of gluten)

Stick your boot in
To the mud
And laugh aloud
Stand
Be proud

Of all your minuscule kingdoms

Hate has no place here
So put your tongue to rest
There’s nothing you need fear
No imp upon your chest

Stop grouping them as “they“
Be true to your best creeds
Try seeing things their way
And if the Spirit leads

Try looking past their skew
And past their being trolls
Into their motives true
Into their very souls

If you could stop this plight
Could plot a place for pep

Could turn the day to night
Transport me through a trip

Repairing ripped remains
Requiring rest and rains

Your vigor vim and zip
Voracious vrooming stains

Beholding what beheld
When it was still intact

The weight is with me still
The cloud and cataract

The vision that now dulls
And daily duty culls

New meaning from the old
Severe, the mercy sold