Rumi was a great man,

But as the fire that burns in but one hearth,

The Gala Hall remains damp and cold.

The soul
Is seen beneath a face of glass
With eyes looking up
As
Beads of water from clouded skies
Dispersed across the pane.

Were I not in love with you,
The rivers would run dry--
The grass, grown gold with age
Where hills rattle with the cry
Of those blades

I would I were in love,
And float upon your mists
Travel to far lands
And lost to all your minds

With you my love,
I would dance
Wither my voice away
Calling upon your name--

The pungent fruit of tropics,
The shining jewel of cave
Your voice guides me as a dog
Garnering the scent

I would lie upon the fields
And tell you how
Humans are like tulips

Bright buds dancing in the wind

You smile, and it was good.



Love I will span the gaps between the world
I will fill the empty oceans
With thoughts of you
I will leave no electron unturned
No atom unexcited
In the prospect of knowing you

Do not give up on my spine,
On my bones,
On this calcium

On vital thoughts
And serious winds
Do not walk away from the field
And leave them in the rain.

The sand that creeps around the rock
The base of that column, lonesome
The valley, splayed in beige and flaking
Sands,
Fallow and constant--
The cold marble, weathered and soft
And lost is the rigor of its shape.

In old age it has grown pale,
White, cracked, sinking into the grains
And I watched with solemn gaze
between the tightened gasps of breath
Thinking in good time to watch
The sinking of this fated tower
Upon the rustic sea of rock

And I watched.

Pompey, the last vigil for our Trojan souls
With no way to mount this feeling
And guide it to the pastures of the east
Or comprehend the rudiment
Of the west--
What phoenix keeps the desert in its crop
And feeds these grains to hungry beaks?

I could not satiate these thoughts,
The burning of my heart that dripped
From the embers of that bird, aloft

Pompey, for your sake--
Do not give your name
This place, the knaves, the cruel
Failure of council
Will be our end of days
As it knew yours.

Please forgive us,
We have no place to run
No Coptic King nor Ptolemaic ring
No sigh but sin within this vein

We are legion
Humming the prayers of heroes sung
When Quaestors rap upon the snare
For tides of valor left in blood

We are the mist of that
Coagulated stuff,
Bound upon the rock
And left to Love.

Why do we call it a "Performance Review"
When we aren't putting on a show

Why do we call it "talent acquisition"
When nature didn't gift us to them

Why do we call it "workplace culture"
When it's an artifice of art

Why do we call ourselves "employed"
When it's for anybody but the will of God

Why are we stuck in this
Why are we cursed to "field operations"
Why are we lost in "development cycles"
Why are we living for "benefits packages"

Why don't we curse the steel stakes?
Why don't me make our own?
Why get lost in knowing quarterly reports
When there's autumn leaves, spring trees,
summer heat and winter's snow?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Where your presence is given overtime
Instead give your presence over time
To the love of the one
Who built gardens for us
And will gift us away from the pain of this world
Don't trust any who say it can be here
Don't trust those who say paradise is a product
When we are the product of paradise.

In the valley,
It is grassland and heat--
And God cooks the worms and the water beneath
Hides from his sight.

But there you are with me,
The smell of flesh and insence
The perfume of love and word
And this valley is no longer
Than a longing for you.

Would you step with me on these
Quaking soils
Laughing along warbling streams
Dancing on heated sands
Tracing likeness in the leaves
With me?

Hidden beneath the cloudless sky,
The air breathes life into this valley
And leads towards the sea.
You and me,
We together know where these
Sorry summits go--

To the sea,
You and me,

We trace our paths along the floor
Depressions and empty spaces where our legs were raised together
Where we moved together
Where we touched down to earth
Were we felt safety in its breast
Enough to clasp our hands as one
And not be unbalanced

Love,
This valley
The pathways
The mouth that ends our gaze--

This is but a grain of sand
The love I have for you
Is that ocean, cooled and new
On our bare skin it will tonic
And find rest in every section of you

And me,

I will be warmed by your body
I will splash between your fingers
I will glide along your hips
When you push against me

Fall into me and know that between the alien air,
Stand the safest sands
You have place to rest your feet
And buoyant,
Float your greatest vessel along the tip of me.

I love you.
It is this.

Rotate
Clack!
Rotate
Crack!

Rotate
Shhhzzck!
Rotate
Click.

Rotate
Ow!
Rotate
Wow!

Rotate
Rotate

Snap-
Out.