carry your heart
with love's full bounty
feed everyone you meet

the black rain
pushes incessantly
against
the window

great dull gray streaks
spread
the ephemeral sun
into
pallid false reflections

ridiculous faces
touching ***** white
wisps of clouds

a narrow
uncertain light
falls heavily
upon a page
I have written

crossing out
an unneeded,
superfluous
word

the room
is illuminated
with a golden
bright appearance

reflected in
four varnished
corners

of the table,
which catches my eye

I look at it
and the faces melt

the whole room is like that
nothing left but great dull gray images
even the cold ridiculous sky
is like that

this diminishing light;
I can no longer write with courage

William Blake and wife played Adam and Eve
In their English garden, totally ****.
His neighbors were shocked and morally peeved.
Such escapades proved outrageous and rude,
Till his poems made his scared public believe.
He showed their mind-forged manacles were crude
Facsimiles of mankind’s true freedom.
His strategy, both Romantic and shrewd,
Found Eternity in sand’s finest sieve.
The doors of perception caused him to brood
On the spirit’s want in a world bereaved
Of sustenance. Infinity: soul food.
From Heaven and Hell, he would never leave.
Adam and Eve romped, always without shoes.

Barcelona pays lip service to Spain,
Which tries to claim the city’s favorite son:
Gaudi, architect of modernista fame,
Whose wavy designs of nature, faith are one

Thing that will never turn this Ciutat tame.
His mystic genius saw geometry’s sun,
Which shines through all his creations the same,
Whether secular or sacred. He’s won

The heart of Catalunya, his primal aim.
Yes, Catalan: Forever will he be one.
When the old folks dance the Sardanes plain.
They raise hands so independence will become

The new reality for them, not Spain.
The fight for Catalan prowess is never done.
The people yearn to stand free of Spain's chains.
Gaudi inspires their struggles to be won.

Michelangelo's Pieta shrinks
Behind glass.
Bernini’s canopy shimmers
In wavy brown.

The sculptors face off
Like boxers in a ring.
Each punch plants
A terrible dent in
White marble.
A squeeze of a hip here.
A dip of a head there,

Stone can wrinkle
Like time. Light
Can emanate from
Wood, gilded
In geometric designs.

Death laps across
A mother’s lap.
The divine turns human
In a litany of flesh.

Formless blocks of stone
Ascend to the dome,
Met by a descending dove.

Perfection in art.
Love bounded by love.

Poetry wrestles with pain,
holds on tight for art's blessing.

Do not succumb to restlessness.
Another journey will not drain the ocean
or clean the sky.
Another mountain will not reveal
the rooftop of the world.

You have your own mountain within.
It pierces the sky, buoys on the sea.
Climb it in solitude, in inwardness.
Rest in exertion.

You will find adventure, joy --
a pilgrimage to heaven's gates.

Climb, and you will find the face of God.

Brittle branches claw
the blue-gray sky.
No figs wiggle in the tree.
Barren like Old Testament
women, clinging to their ancient
age, bereft of an heir to bless.

Jesus curses the tree's
emptiness: Bear fruit
of die! Who sinned?
the disciples ask: the tree
or its seedlings? Neither,
Jesus, proclaims. I curse

to show the glory of God.
As always, his hearers stand
amazed, not understanding,
stomachs growling for figs.
None to be had, they march on,
hoping to evade God's glory.

The night is bright
with colored dreams
flitting between synapses unseen,
cinematic fragments of my
overflowing netherworld,
dancing on the big screen of my brain

Beauty affords no comfort
When you lie miles
Away from the nearest castello,
Where the owner serves
50-course dinners
For 50 euros apiece.
He hums Puccini
As he dishes the ravioli,
Recommends strong red wine
From an earthy clay pitcher.
The white tablecloth drapes
My lap. I dare not stain it.
He is missing a button,
Hits a high note, leaves
And returns.
Filled to unconsciousness,
We down the fiery limoncello.
Good for the digestion.
Good for scouring the esophagus.
Beside us a former
Olympic swimmer stabs
Her potatoes.
Her children stare down
With distorted faces, inured
To the feast,
Imagining a beast
To torment.
Their potatoes grow cold.
A Puccini aria plays in my head.
Lucca, his hometown, looms
On the star-spewed horizon.
Even beauty is no match
For la dolce vita.

vermilion sky bleeds
into my heart as
traveler crosses Sonoran Desert
dappled with saguaro cacti
he bends his head in fatigue
or prayer
turquoise bleeds
into vermilion
from this London outpost
I cannot reach him
I cannot teach him
isolated and cold
I can no longer write
with courage

vermilion sky bleeds
into my heart as
traveler crosses Sonoran Desert
dappled with saguaro cacti
he bends his head in fatigue
or prayer
turquoise bleeds
into vermilion
from this London outpost
I cannot reach him
I cannot teach him
isolated and cold
I can no longer write
with courage

Like flowers on a hillside, mountains turn their faces each day
to follow the sun. The radiance from their foreheads proves
irresistible. It is Agamemnon’s golden death mask. By afternoon,
the gray countenance beneath the finely hammered gold
turns green. The peaks are envious of the blumen that beam
the same brilliance throughout the day

Mountains vainly yearn to reproduce themselves.
Avalanches create one pseudo-answer. But they
are messy, ugly, out of control, leaving body after
body in their wake. They destroy life, not create it.
Some mountains have had their DNA tested --
double helix of stone incapable of even rudimentary
cell division. Solitude, loneliness attack
their dreams. They sternly stand guard over the very
flowers they envy. They are virtually immovable, all-powerful.

Weather wraps itself around their mute witness, stirring
up storms. Titanic overseers, they claim a streak of divinity in their
gray strata. No one dares question their beliefs. But I do,
whenever Gatsby’s green light turns pink. The shame they show
reflects hubris, overreaching their place in creation. What
they envy is not color, motion or beauty. They lust for life.

Pink turns to fiery orange. Not only is their DNA lacking,
but so is the color of sustenance: blue. By nightfall, blue turns to
black indigo. Mountains crane their heads together, bow to
the missing sun and dream about biology. But they know from
whispers of those who have climbed them that they are out
of their element. The wind gusts; they sigh. Below, deer graze
in quiet, green pastures. It restoreth their souls.

guild houses wrinkle in canals
bicycles ring as they rush past
tulips dapple tiny window frames
the city murmurs at this early hour

Van Gogh's paintings swirl
through my head the last
to paint true transcendence
cyan yellow black black crows

advance a street
I weep in Anne Frank's house

Beauty affords no comfort
when you lie miles
away from the nearest castello,
where the owner serves
50-course dinners
for 50 euros apiece.
He hums Puccini
as he dishes the ravioli,
recommends strong red wine
from an earthy clay pitcher.

The white tablecloth drapes
my lap. I dare not stain it.
He is missing a button,
hits a high note, leaves
and returns.

Filled to unconsciousness,
we down the fiery limoncello.
Good for the digestion.
Good for scouring the esophagus.
Beside us a former
Olympic swimmer stabs
her potatoes.
Her children stare down
with distorted faces, inured
to the feast,
imagining a beast
to torment.
Their potatoes grow cold.

A Puccini aria plays in my head.
Lucca, his hometown, looms
on the star-spewed horizon.
Even beauty is no match
for la dolce vita.

Osip Mandelstam writes his final poem
on stone. Other prisoners in the Soviet
gulag swing leaden sledgehammers
to crush rock. Every hundred pieces
equals one crust of bread. Pulverize
till you drop earns a damp pinch of salt
thrown over your shoulder.

Mandelstam's stomach rumbles. His empty
crime: mocking the great Stalin in verse,
manufacturing metaphors of cockroaches
lengthening the tyrant's mustache:
now a thick, furry barrier to free speech,
now a bristly edge of the black hole that
devours all hope, that ruins all rules of art.

Osip entertains Pasternak with his militant work.
Boris cries, "What you read... is not poetry,
it is suicide." Freezing in thin clothes in a
Siberian camp, Osip vows he will never bow
to the soulless rule of the Bolsheviks. His pen
will penetrate stone, he proclaims, sculpting
anti-symbolist verses as a monument to freedom.

On the icy steppes of Siberia, a political prisoner
named Dostoevsky begins The House of the Dead.
In it we can read the tea leaves of Osip’s destiny.
Shivering, emaciated, he volunteers to carry stones
to a construction site. His thin muscles aching, he
says, “My first book was called The Stone, and the stone will
be my last.” He pitches a pinch of salt over his shoulder.

Others laugh as he gathers his poems in a rock pile
of remembrance. He succumbs to heart failure,
exhaustion. History faintly records that Stalin *****
stones as he lies in state. The dust on his mustache
spells, “Find, praise Osip.” But as soon as he swallows,
the letters vanish into the void, and the endless
parade of lock-step pomp and circumstance begins.

I take my paradise
Where I can find it.
Sacred or secular,
Stationary or ecstatic.
Penitent pilgrims pack
The width of Las Ramblas,
Marching headlong toward
The burgeoning square
Of Cataluyna, scurrying
Forward for fountains and buses
To whisk them away
From themselves.
The burden of identity weighs
Heavily in each backpack and bag.
The sun brilliantly burnishes
The crowd, beaming with
A child’s hunger for toys.
Nothing changes
Except the country beneath
Your feet.
Tourism is purgatory
To the undirected.
No map, no plan, no
Rescue from impulse.
All roads lead home
Whence you came.
Before the closed
Doors of the cathedral,
Catalans circle, lift arms,
Hop, twirl and dance.
Raised hands
Signal liberation, unbrokenness.
Separation sends an inferno
Spiraling downward, singeing factions
Of language and race.
Yet a divided Spain paints
Its face as united,
Coyly cooing behind
A splayed, perfumed fan.
The perfect picture
For the uninitiated cruise
Ship crowds.
We cool our heels at the
Statue of Columbus,
Still ready to sail
Under mistaken,
Prevailing winds.
O America!
How far you drift
From these tapas bars
And tainted streets.
How far from the graffiti-
Filled neighborhoods.
No space uncovered.
The gritty lust for color, figure
And form.
Self-expression turned
Self-indulgence.
Tourists queue to grab
Their fair share.
All is exotic in Mediterranean
Barcelona.
Gaudi erects his towers
In wavering waves of
Nature and faith.
Inside Basilica La Sagrada Familia,
Construction workers
Slowly hammer his corner
Of paradise into place.
Christ hangs naked
On the cross.
A sacred blue light soothes
Our burning feet.

Soon, the great reversal comes: a stone by day, a river by night,
the woman from the humid country begins to stir at twilight.
The river swirls, the volcano shimmers, the eagle on her belly
soars. I take her hand as the river flows faster. Tonight, we will
bathe together under moonlight. We will sacrifice to Shiva;
she to the destroyer; I alone will embrace Brahman, offering
jewels of fire. In the morning our hearts will turn to stone.
I will search for her, prayerfully, along the side of the road,

Gaudi hedges his bets
Against the future.
More than one hundred thirty-five years
Of building the infinite
La Sagrada Familia.
A stone mason’s nightmare.
An architect’s dream,
Painted by de Chirico.
Faith and nature intertwine.
Brown earth smears the facades.
Nativity and passion morph
Into angular designs.
A lizard, a leaf, a cross, a dove.
Bejeweled pillars bend and rise.
Crowned towers reach and climb
Spiral staircases to the heavens.
Chapels pray for silence.
Tourists pray for photo-ops.
All views turn inward.
There is much work to be done.

The vine curls on the trellis,
snaking toward the sun.
Soon the grapes will ripen.

But now I am weary and my mind is dark; I can no longer distinguish right from wrong. I need a guide to point my way.... And yet -- and yet you have forbidden the shedding of blood.... What have I said? Who spoke of bloodshed?
-- Orestes, "The Flies" by Jean-Paul Sartre


1.
Ever the wisecracking bully,
Zeus trips atop Mt. Olympus
and tumbles into the Greek
borough of Argos -- a bumbling
deus ex machina sans any
working machina.

At last upright, he shouts,
"Look, Hera, no hands!"
then turns to mock Orestes
for his lifelong exile from
this, the city of his birth. Orestes
picks his teeth with his broadsword

and yawns. He has returned to Argos
to avenge the killing of his father,
Agamemnon, mighty general
and king, who led the long, dark
charge in the endless war against Troy.
Vengeance for Helen was his alone.

Now humiliation mounts on the back of ******.
Queen Clytemnestra gleefully joins in
the fatal mischief of her lover, Aegistheus.
His ambition: to be king. What else?
Hers: to replace the man she once loved, but who
left her bed empty for more than a decade.

War does that, you know. It requires sacrifice,
commands it, calls it duty. Nobody wants
to play that game, nobody wants to pay
the price for raging injustice, for the dangerous
rescue of the divinely beautiful Helen,
snatched away from Menelaus, brother

to Agamemnon, now Mycenae's scapegoat
of shame. Shame, guilt, rage, cunning, lust
for power, lust for queens and kingdoms,
hubris, maniacal ambition, evil run rampant
like an unwatched child, wooden sword
in hand, babbling for glory -- such

are the spoils of war on the domestic
front. Such the sorry state of kingdoms
whose king fights from afar in absentia.
Argos suffers. Each year, the ritual of bringing the
dead up from hell conjures a plague of over-sized
flies, befouling the people, who wallow in repentance,

perhaps even for their silent collusion in glorifying the king's
killing. And so Orestes returns for yet another reason: to liberate
the carrion city from the sickly, yearly confessions of wrongdoing
that attract the flies; a sickly, yearly punishment for those
long past sickness, long past even the remotest possibility of
condoning Aegistheus' dispatch of Orestes' noble, unarmed father.

2.
Orestes vows to avenge that death, only to be harried
by the flies. He will save Argos from its plague of
Clytemnestra's crime, collaboration with evil, all for
the sake of pleasure, not only in her royal bed, but
in seeing her subjects futilely try to atone for sins
she and Aegistheus have imputed to them. Such is
the queenly power that only an equally royal son

can shatter with his shining broadsword,
destined for use in eviscerating the farcical
couple defiling Agamemnon's crown, defrauding
Argos of its rightful rule of power, majesty,
and dignity. So long in the dark, the people
recite their own defilement, covered in flies
and false feelings of failure. No one dares

speak against it, for that, too, is sin. Zeus
presses his stammering stamp upon the ritual.
Electra, Orestes' wavering sister, willing to sacrifice
her own sanctity to the swarming flies, does not trust
her brother’s might or plan until he swings the sword
at Aegistheus' blackened brain, plunges it
into his mother's blackened heart, which pours

anemic blue blood onto the palace floor,
bubbling with sapphires of retribution,
with the beauty of righteous indignation,
now claimed by Orestes in his father's name.
The son shall inherit the throne, yet he chooses –
relying on nothing but his own free will -- to adorn
himself with the flies, liberating the people of Argos

from their misery, and pursuing a path of
infinite freedom away from the city. Little
does he know that les mouches will buzz
their way behind him in the form of Furies, Greece's
classic haranguers of the guilty, of the criminal
on the run from justice, on the road to ruin.
The Furies: favorite trope of Greek choruses,

singing the doom of the unjust, the impure,
the sullied hero, no longer powerful but pathetic.
Rotten to the core. Yet Orestes again freely accepts this
burden and its stain of rightful revenge. He admits
he is no Oedipus. Yes, he has slain his mother
and slept with the lionhearted darkness
of his iron will, steadied with purified

resolution, the signature of freedom,
the sign of heroism that violates all
laws but redeems the reputation of
those who stormed the invincible walls
of Troy, site of Greece's grandest victory,
driven by a giant horse and Odysseus'
wily wit and wisdom. To take part

is an honor, leading the fight an apotheosis
that a sword-swinging son can inherit,
carrying it on his shoulders as protection
from the Furies’ terrifying talons, their blood lust
for human courage -- not to possess its fearlessness,
but to **** it dry like the receding sea on the shores
of Ilium (ancient Troy), like the fading memory

of Clytemnestra's crime, now shrouded in gowns
of legend, of myth, of Aeschylus' Oresteia, of Sartre's
"The Flies", ancient and modern renditions of tales
that shower the human race with virtues even poor Zeus
cannot fathom, with his tired, lightning-addled brain, hounded
forever by Hera's imperious, Olympian disdain, free of every
working machina save the immortal pulleys of pride.

Earth and heaven yield to each other.
Points of light reflect ancient eons.
Stars recede billions of miles away.

Pond turns to a canvas sprinkled
with specks of white paint.
Celestial expressionism.

Infinity reigns throughout the universe.
Eternal patterns swirl in water and sky.
Billions of starry lights create a canopy.

We live between here and above.
The One shines down mercifully upon us.
The pond pours back its dazzling glory.

1.
Spirits trample the rain-starved
Plains like herds of fattened buffalo.

Cloaked in tawny hides, they pound
the earth: invincible grass dancers.

From the ground spring their harvests
of sickness and health, good and evil.

A shaman ignites his sage bundle,
tosses pebbles on the tipi floor.

He stumbles backward, eyes turned
inward, arms outstretched to receive

the medicine's blessing. He soars in vapor
trails of hawks, surpassing the smoke,

the sky, the spirits' singing to the drum,
the cosmos' luminous fringe.

Eyes on fire like liquid lightning,
he peers into the future, the past,

liberates forces of healing, gathers up
baskets of goodness, effusive with wonder.

2.
Above the dusty brown hills, the turquoise
sky casts shadows on ancestral shores.

All must cross the waters, awaken from
their trances, devour supernatural dreams.

The shaman cries out in ancient rapture,
his flesh on tenterhooks, shredding into leaves

of supplication, tears of blood and water.
Horses snort in the distance. Raptors

circle overhead. The shaman grapples
with the spirits, ***** power from their

dances, grinds grasses' green seedlings,
the growing treasure of the earth.

He calls down hawks of heaven, builds
a bed of red feathers. Smoke wavers

through the night sky, orange as a harvest moon.
In the deep sleep of bears, the dying rise up.

Time climbs
the sycamores,
seeking a resting place,
      a nesting place
to contemplate its passing.
No words can express
    the sadness.

Wind whips across
              the lawn,
scattering leaves,
slapping trees
             for their insolent
             refusal to fall.

All directions collapse
            into one,
            into none
worth following.

We break under the weight
               of the void.
It insists on absolute
               emptiness.
I am full, a plenum.

This phrase tells no one
             the truth.
Words scatter on the wind.
Words crackle in the leaves.

Poets guard ancient
            initiation rites.
Mystery settles on the Muse.

Silence burrows underground,
           digs for gold.
Only dull ore rises
            to the surface.

Flakes scatter on the wind,
            disjointed,
            clattering
through the sleepy dawn.

Shadows obscure Time
              as it exhales
              the past.

The future photosynthesizes,
               green, green,
               with broken
               promises.

Time weeps for no one.

Broken limbs, tenuous twigs
              snap under
              the weight
              of a plenum.

Time wrestles the void.

Time is full.
             But it’s
                         cracking.

Suddenly Satori!
Mountains remain mountains.
Moon remains moon.
Infinity in a grain of sand.
Awake!

Monk sweeps earthen floor,
mindfully makes jasmine tea.
Everything is as it should be.
All illusions shattered
in clear light of awareness.

I have been marked by horses
tied to the saddle as they forded
the Colorado River chest deep
in currents carrying me away

I have disappeard in a cloud
of ponies painted black and white
I shudder at their muscular flanks
they nudge me into the corral

I have cheered as a Palamino
pranced down Main Street
my grandfather grandly on board
beauty integrity his hidden strength

I have wept as a horse has died
unceremoniously carted off
will I find him in my glue
will I force the old man to answer Why

is in the cards, some say.
But I never accepted the deal.
I took my life into my own hands.
I took my life, striking a lethal blow
to Ted Hughes' heart. Infidelity lay
in the cards for him. I never turned
them over, knowing what I might find.

Sunlight ricochets off the blanco bell tower
of Iglesia de la Asunción, landing as a spectral
ball lodged in the iron-barred windows across
the narrow lane. Light splays its rays onto
an outdoor café, which bustles with excitement
at the arrival of perfect weather for the perfect
pueblo blanco of Spain, a grand fiesta of white.

Priego de Cordoba revels in its inheritance
of white, the picture-perfect, pristine village
elevated above abundant olive groves and
the crackling, undulating earth. Here, you
gaze upon the arid land with the all-seeing eye
of God, never bloodshot, never blurred,
crisp as a hawk's flight to prune its prey.

Approaching the village, giant, arthritic roots
of ancient trees sprawl atop the shallow
soil like crooked claws. Farther ahead,
a 19th-century goatherd leans on his long,
weathered stick, whistling beneath his
beret, as his garrison of goats clatters
down the massive, twisting row of rocks.

Serenity seeps into your bones as you stroll
among the potted flowers, bursting with red
and white into the Barrio de la Villa. My
wanderings reach from door to tiny door,
touching nothing but the spotless white paint
that bathes the tall, stucco walls. I fly above
the strictured street, wide enough for a donkey's

passage, laden with burdens of the quiet life.
Like a condor, my broad wingspan brushes
the facades of these run-on homes, whose close
proximity propels the principle of shared
existence. Now we must live face-to-face,
mano a mano, shadow-boxing the hanging pots
as they lovingly labor to sprout laurels of victory.

I narrow to the lane's end, where lies buried the
barrio's secret map to the alleyways of Paradise.
I spy an aged senora sweeping with a stumpy
straw broom to gather up the beaming bits
of white and sprinkle them into the faded folds
of her patterned apron. She stares at me, just
another incorrigible source of refuse, bearing

the crudely unwrapped gift of a devotee of beauty,
breathing in the barrio's florid scent of security,
blanco a blanco, endless white on white. I turn,
incapable of tracing my steps, of tripping right
or left, traipsing to the fringe of the barrio,
where streaming waters wash away all colors
save the nakedness of white. Neptune towers

over the concrete pools of Fuente del Rey,
a king's ransom of swirling waves that imprint
the reflecting cradles of sky, wrapped in cotton-
thin clouds shredding the afternoon into white,
rose-tinted white. An unfinished canvas of
monochromatic color fields blends into
the blinding white. I cool my feet in bubbling

ponds, peering out at the outlying jungle of
bushes, dwarf trees and twisted vines. I need
rest, the rejuvenating powers of Neptune's trident
hanging above my head, ready to knight me as
the Quixote of Cordoba's rippling region. He
splashes me into intimidating fountains of
life, of light streaming its tranquil rays into

basins of sheer delight. Here, I lay my burden
down, dip my feet into the cool, white flow of
Epsom baths sans the salt. Renewed, I use
my flatfoot tools of travel to trigger my trek,
my pilgrimage into the white belly of Spain.
Still in the barrio, I ogle the outdoor café, then
take the first step to tread all sin underground.

Halfway up the stairs to the bone-white, beehive Basilica of Sacre-Coeur, I lost count of my climb. My legs remembered every trembling step, but they could no longer do the math  On the vast portico, swarming with earnest worker bees, guidebooks in hand, I turned to take in the triumphalist, panoramic view of smog-shrouded Paris -- a vision marred by the massive carbon boot print of 11 million Parisians. As my stomach snarled from my meager morning meal, I searched for a place to eat my equally meager lunch.Soon, I spied a bench wide enough for three people, but with only one occupant, an old Frenchman, blind from childhood. As I watched the tourist crowds run amok, careering into one another, I  asked if I could sit down beside him, and we struck up a conversation in French. Affable, intelligent, alert as a bird among cats, he was reading a braille biography of Marie Antoinette. I was impressed. He then told me how as a result of an untreatable eye disease, he had had his optic nerves cut as a boy. It was a drastic treatment,  to be sure, but common at the time. Now, he said, his life nearly over, he seriously contemplated suicide, plagued by the meaningless daily routine of a visit to Sacre Coeur, where he rested, a fixture unseen by the unsettling crowds. He could find no other purpose. So, thinking myself a therapist to the world, I leaned in close and remarked, "There is always hope." "Why do you say this?" "Because God exists." "Ah, God exists," he retorted in a half question, half scoff. Below, the carousel's calliope played a delightful, dancing tune. He listened intently. After that, we sat silently side by side for several minutes, he hearing the shuffling feet, I watching the mobs of visitors overrun the balcony. We never spoke again, until it was time for me to enter the basilica. We  exchanged "adieux," and I walked away. To this day, I  wonder what the blind man heard, among the noisome crowds, on his lonely bench at the base of the beehive Sacre-Coeur.

Mysteriously, like a seed
growing underground, consciousness
spreads into the world
seeking a presence to devour.

Like a lion lurking in the Kalahari bush,
consciousness crouches, hidden
within the body, not merely the brain,
waiting for its prey to emerge
from a field of nothingness,
to reveal its essence.

An act, a desire, a pure intentionality,
consciousness pounces on its prey,
embracing its whole presence,
filling in the many sides unseen,
teasing out its eidos.

In itself, consciousness is nothing,
a darkened grain of wheat
buried in the ground. It awakens
only at the stirrings of
the next manifestation.

Always, eternally
a consciousness-of,
it roams my room,
zooming past the myriad
items cluttering my gestalt,
fixing on the single form
it has come to inform.
Consciousness waits
for no one.

Uneasy until it grasps
the one thing necessary,
consciousness expands
and expands, actively roaming
among the wonders of my world.

It acts, but I cannot take hold of it.
It has me in its reflexive spell:
All consciousness is self-consciousness.
And I, in myself, am nothing.

1.

Sasquatch stalks
the Washington woods.
I lope through low-lying
bushes in search of huckleberries.
The purple-reddish stains on my fingers
are as real
as the grumbling in my stomach,
or the solidity of these mighty pines.
The “small rain” begins to seep
through the atmosphere.
It will not wash away my stains.

2.

I do not believe in Big Foot.
He towers, an outsized legend of the forest.
A Nessie of the woodlands.
A mythical creature created
to satisfy our impoverished imagination,
atrophied by the ever-encroaching
artifice and sterility of the human world.

3.

Soon, the mist turns to big rain.
Clouds blot out the sky.
Dusk turns to night, hours early.
Thoroughly soaked, I
will seek shelter alone.

4.

Mountain folk recite encounters
with Big Foot like happy-to-be-frightened
children around a campfire.
The scariest tale is always the next to come.
Twigs snap, branches break, pine cones are crushed.
We all listen, acutely alert.

5.

Gorged on huckleberries, I will sleep tonight
beneath the pines, solitary,
curling up safely in the contours
of a giant footprint.
I can hear the leaves hit the forest floor.
Dare I dream of conversion?
Dare I dream of belief?

1.
Gentle waves wash across
the tawny, packed sand,
as crab skeletons litter
our path toward Haystack.
The gulls pick at the shells,
praying for any last,
clinging piece of meat.
Even fully alive, the *****
make for small morsels.
What lies under water
may be tastier and more
nutritious to the poor,
omnivorous marine predator.

2.
Haystack looms, a giant
half-cone shadow pressed against
the lavender-pink, dusky sky.
Barnacles and starfish cling
to its face; amid the crags
a touch of color: red-orange, light gray.
A landmark, icon, natural wonder,
Haystack forms a filled-in archway
to pass through – or around –
on your way back to more
wave-washed beaches and tiny *****.

3.
It’s not doing that counts here,
but being; the behemoth
black rock overshadowing
humans in the distance, as tiny as *****.
National treasure, natural marvel,
Haystack exists purely to be seen
from all watery perspectives.
Close or up, far or down, its bulk
blocks the way for the beach’s
minuscule inhabitants,
scurrying homeward,
as waves scour the shoreline
time and again — their backs turned
to the big, black beacon
that never shines, but only absorbs
the light meant for souls lost at sea.

(After Elytis)

                 1.

The sea lies leagues away.
I look leeward and see
No sandy beach, only this
Sandy soil in which our plants
And flowers struggle to grow.
There is no sign of salty air,
Of seagulls, or dolphins,
Or seashells. No Neptune and
His entourage to capture
My weakening sight
With his flashing trident.

                 2.

How easy the Greeks had it:
The sea,
Wine-dark, vast, the press
Of tides calling the long
Boats toward Troy.
Black mountains rise up
In a morning splayed with
Iridescence.
Thunder and echo sound
In the warmth’s embrace.
Glory gilds the waves.

                 3.

Today, the sea refracts
An aquamarine blue, lapping
Lazily against island shores,
Which cradle the waves,
Then ****** them back,
Vivifying, in their
Rhythms, the words of
Infinity, singing
the endless song of the sun.
The spume
Baptizes island souls
As the source of all life.
That is a lie, of course,
Or shall we say, a myth.
Human life began on
The African savannah,
Leagues away from the sea.

                 4.

Yet we need our myths,
To fortify our dreams,
An irresistible radiance
Clinging to the waves.
A heroic hymn
Of exaltation. Bells
Strike in the distance.
Yes, myths,
Classical, traditional,
Stretching toward the center
Of things.
Crusading sails in
The current, carrying
Our yearnings
For the eternal, rosy-
Fingered dawn.

                 5.

Yes, we need the sea,
And its ******-up cones
Of stone on the horizon.
Freedom blows from all
Directions, uncovering
Great tales of destiny,
Penitence, tragedy,
Self-mastery, lament.
The sailor exults
In his salt-sprayed aims.
We need the sea,
Wine-dark or blue, vast,
Rough or tame.
Without it, civilization,
In all its majesty, infallibly
Collapses.


                 6.

The sea lies leagues away.
I look leeward and see
Only sandy soil.

The sea crashes hard into
The black boulders
Of the harbor.
Fountains of spume dribble
Landward into crevices.
Shrouded in gloom, I climb
Slippery black stairs to see
The spectacle.
Rough sailing ahead.
Rough rains behind.
Cinque Terre craves attention.
Five Lands of building blocks
And pastel colors.
I stand on the *****
Of indecision, stumbling
Toward the rocky marketplace.
Can I buy peace there?
Can I make fire on the waves?
Riomaggiore anchors my fall
Onto the watery stones,
Black and blind.
Facedown,
I float the Five Beauties of spume.
It is safe among the crevices.

And so we wait
for the barbarians,
our hearts palpitating
like bleating sheep,
our mouths dry as stone,
our thirst unslaked
by the morning dew.

Beyond the ramparts,
the sun rises blood red
above the hill
where we hunted
for secrets of
the hordes to come.

We scattered high
and low, far past
the statue of Poseidon
that towers
at the edge of
the wine-dark sea,
which unfurls like
a murderous storm
that would drown our crops,
batter out battlements,
power the siege to come.

And so we wait
at the gates
for the barbarians
and the tsunami
that drives them.

(After “Tintern Abbey”)

Years have passed under
The aegis of tedium.
Years have passed with
The lamentations of time.
And again I behold
The ancient sentinel
Spanning the shallow straits
Of the Gardon River.
The arches rise stalwart
And stolid, standing in
Mire against history’s
Gentle currents.
Rising high above the handful
Of tourists who have come to
Gawk and play.
Once carrying water as far
As Nimes, the troisieme etage
Still flows, spilling spirit.
We walked across it alone
In years past. The aegis
Of memory.
Pont du Gard beams in
The late, slanting sun,
A monument to engineering,
Ingenuity. Block packed on
Block, supported by the art
Of eternal geometry.
Euclid’s legacy; mortar
No necessity.
Sluices slide past skimpy
Sandbars and reeds.
Brilliant blues, silent
Witnesses to the genius
Of Rome-conquered Gaul.

Li Po bathes his hands
in the Yellow River
-- How the calligrapher
tires of brushwork

Orange Koi nibble my feet
water lilies roil on the pond
-- I will race solo again
to the open wine cave

Wavy mountains push past
the earth's surface
-- Only Tao sustains
the ten thousand things

We came to the valley to absorb the glory
of the Alps. Wordsworth succumbed
to the sublime here. Now we all romanticize
nature. But the sublime overwhelms;
it is too grand, too large, too dark, too menacing.
The mountains soar,
overflowing the bounds of what
the scrawny human spirit
can take in.

You clutch a dazzling pink rose
In front of the Spanish Steps.
The last of the day, bartered
For a bag of M&Ms.
No money changes hands.
No promises kept.
No way to go but headlong
Into the crowds.
Tramping on tourists, staring at horses,
Thinking Poesy past the Keats House,
Piazza di Spagna 26.
Life mask, death mask.
Walls of poetical works bound
In shiny green leather.
Romanticism dies on the short, striped bed,
A sleigh ride to the Elysian Fields.
Awake to sweet unrest.
Here is my ode
To a rose not fading unto death.
Bright colors of the Steps.
No struggle for a breath.

Byron maintained his political zeal,
Perhaps more than his love for poetry.
Revolution his watchword; its appeal
Would never die toward friends, enemies.
He sought a Rousseauian realm of steeled
Freedom more impressive than Childe Harold’s
Debut, which made him an instant sensation, real
Enough to establish his notoriety.
England was satirized, religion repealed.
Scandal attracted as many readers
As aesthetics; his bad boy title sealed.
Affairs fabled, he scorned immortality.
No paradise without politics, he pealed.
Yet he found it all the same in Poesie.

a gusty north wind races down
the littered lanes of this concrete jungle
we call home I turn my collar to cover
my ears wish fulfillment brings no warmth

I hear her singing against the gale
her tooth-riddled mouth opened wide
as she hits the high notes she wraps
her ragged shawl around her neck

memories of a glacial chill shivers
my bones I turn for shelter but find
only brick alleyways marred with paint
my anxiety inflames my blood pressure

the old woman shuffles my way her shoes
taped to her toes a 16th-century barefoot mystic
is she lost in divine love does she contemplate
the soul's ascent can she levitate to the stars

I daydream of her castle its moat full of frogs
she is St. Teresa of the Avenues and rules no one
do I approach her offer her aid genuflect to her cross
rain pelts my poncho as she sings the aria of the lost

Before the Euro, you were -- swirling light, sitting pretty.
We kicked it at night along the grungy lanes of Ile de la Cité.
Notre Dame loomed large and long, a battleship on the Seine.
An exoskeleton of Gothic bones, what could it ever do but win?

Hunger hung out among us, an unwanted dog on a wayward walk.
Frenchmen directed us au centre. In those days, I could talk the talk.
Still can, still do, but who needs "J'adore vos diamants de luxe,
calme et beauté" when you must bow down in a row sans your ducks?

Serendipity, man, that's what la Cité seeped. Evening an ermine
blanket tossed effortlessly over the spires of the medieval vermin
that Haussmann hacked into Euclidean lines of parallel charms:
more ordre, beauté et calme. Organic geometry. What's the harm?

Dusk draped us in l'amour du mystère. Cafe awnings as exotic
as Flaubert's Egyptian tours, plump with mistresses for the neurotic
novelist who poisoned Normandy with naturalistic despair. He's
no Parisian, no architect, no monk. We absorb le mot juste; a star flees.

On the sidewalk, a 50-franc note calls out beneath the weeds.
We look for an owner, see nothing, feel nothing but the need to feed
on crepes, chocolat et confiture de fraise. I imagine Camus and Sartre
at Les Deux Magots, nursing black café, pouring noir into your heart.

For You, justice remains mercy.
Your will shines as agape love.
And still darkness reigns.
Out of the whirlwind, You
spoke only mysteries.
There is no rational answer for evil
this side of the grave.
Yet faith overcomes all, a gift
of the Spirit. Let us cling to it, like Job.
Let us trust and obey.
Let  us lean not on our own understanding,
but cling to the mighty bulwarks
of Your everlasting mercy.

A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley

The nightingale sings to itself.
But its melodious message flies
far from the bird's tiny tongue.
The song soars beyond her beak;
catches fire in another's nest.
Like listens to like; that is the mystic
chord of the forest, in which singer
and listener unite, trading nuance
and beauty for nuance and beauty.

The nightingale sings to itself.
But only one self grasps her poetry:
the Oversoul of nature; the universal
spirit of art. There is no bird
ululating in isolation; its voice
penetrates the darkness, the thickness
of the forest; it echoes in the twigs
of empty nests. Music always flees to
another's ears, forever reverberating within.

Night swells with the sweet soarings of tenors.
Beauty floats lightly across the airwaves.
Santa Croce looms as Spirit’s center.
Dante’s Commedia he gave away.
Today he reigns as Italy’s mentor.
Great art leads the way out of Plato’s cave.
Michelangelo falters and splinters
His sculptures. Bright poems to young men he saves.
David stands tall through the chills of winter.
With Goliath’s cold head in hand, he raves.
Florence ferments like wine from a vintner.
It tastes of an angelic chardonnay.
Remember the city’s ancient cantor.
He yodels and chants of its marbled fame.

1.
St. John of the Cross throws
twenty spiritual poems into
the Living Flame of Love,
watching them burn into
black, shredded shards
of nada and todo. Nothing
for the finite, human spirit,
everything for the divine-
driven soul, longing for
sweet, eternal union with
The Source of All That Is.
How John can savor
the delicate aroma of
the incense of praise
that emanates from the fire,
love translated as living
grace infused into the soul,
dead to itself, but alive
in the grasp of God. How does
the poet usurp the saint?
How does the penitent
claim his forgiveness,
his peace, his inward
teachings of the labyrinthine
love in which his soul
wanders, waiting on a sacred guide
to lead him into the arbor
of righteousness, of purity,
of ecstatic communion
with the Living Flame,
which sears away all
traces of the arrogant,
self-driven soul, the ratio-
empirical self that lusts
for certainty from finite
possibilities, that sees no God
in the niches of nature?
How the wretched ones retreat
from glory, how the minions
of myopic seekers miss the mark:
hamartia of the heart.

2.
John bears the cross as his
reward and burden, as the perfect
ending to his story of yearning
for union, of longing for love that
diminishes nada, that teases out
todo: The totality of Being that
succors the senses, mends the mind,
washes clean every obstacle
that stands in its way, elevates
every submission of will
above the calamity and
cacophony of the polluted world,
of tireless treks into temples
of doom to assert the supremacy
of the making mind, the force
of ratiocination that reigns over
every investigation and claim
into the nature of the self,
over every hypothesis,
experiment, spread sheet of data
and library of laws. Whose law
does the thirsting soul obey?
Is it not its own until the soul
is purified in the Living Flame
of Love, the eternal fire
that lights up the world in its
hubris and high comedy,
in its tragic truculence,
resisting grace that beckons
like shimmering sheets
of waterfalls as they splash
into deep, green pools, as they
plummet into like becomes
like, into the dancing dawn
of union, of embrace,
of the self singed of all sin,
raised up into the boundless
beauty of beatific visions,
of the wholeness of the will
and mind and soul and spirit,
of the renewed mortal body and
the traces of creation that cling
still to their impermanent places,
yearning also for perfect union,
for an end to their nothingness,
to their persistent contingency,
crying out for the beginning of
everlasting love, for the denouement
of existence's tragedy of errors:
the anti-Shakespearean play
of opposites, of ghosts and
beings of doubt, death and
decline trapped in the infinite
depths of self-obsession,
gazing into Narcissus’ mirror,
the focus receding to the blurred
horizon of perception,
to the inscrutable, shattered
realm of Imago Dei.

John invokes the power for
his soul to rise above every
mountain, to mount every
cairn that points forward
toward divinity, eternity,
ecstasy, authenticity
of the self made todo out of nada,
made to rest in the green
pools of destiny, droplets
splashing his face, falls
slaking his thirst, as he no longer
swims against the tides
that roil in his spirit like
pieces of a poem engulfed
in The Living Flame of Love,
scorched clean of error,
turned toward the wind
that scatters ashes abroad,
that blows where it will,
toward the telos that never
disappoints, that never dies:
Where every metaphor turns into
an axiom of beauty: the endless
struggle of like becomes like.

-- For the Rev. Tom Schaefer

1.
We carry a river of ice within us.
With its ***** scuffed ripples,
like a starving child's ribs,
it ascends the mountain *****,
strewing in its wake a palette
of naked rocks and clear-cut tundra.
Orange-stained cairns point to our shame.

2.
Once you could see the glacier
behind the rough-hewn pulpit
of the tiny Anglican Church
on the South Island
of New Zealand.
Angelic white, full and overflowing,
it swept into the front pew
like the descent of the Holy Ghost.
Now you glimpse only a dull tableau
behind the big picture window.
Aging panes of glass point to our shame.

3.
We swam against the tide
of La Mer de Glace near
Chamonix, France, urging
the glacier to not turn back
from our carbon fin-print,
urging the train we rode in on
to let us hike our way back.
All was silent except for
the constant drip, drip, drip
of la Mer's tears. We wept, too,
but to no purpose.
Centuries of history pointed to our shame.

The immeasurable depth of Being sustains our lament.
The divine radiance is extinguished;
the gods have turned their backs.

All earthly abodes found destitute, unhealing
in the dim twilight of history's
unfolding of the Logos.

And we are left hanging in
the age of the world's dark night.
Long is the turning this side of the abyss.

The remoteness of the Holy discloses its presence;
fugitive gods made manifest
in the acts of godless men.

The inner recalling of those who are most daring
summons forth the surpassing,
an openness to the ineffable.

And in their nameless sorrow all is preserved.

The sky wavered orange and gray,
as dusk settled over the Mayan ruins,
the Yucatan scrub land, the cooling
tiles of the archaeological villa
outside Chichen Itza, where we stayed.

I sat poolside, contemplating the fading,
fiery orb of the sun, musing on Kukulcan,
the sacred cenote, the Mayans' murderous
ball game, their majestic pyramid,
and rows upon rows of chiseled skulls.

When suddenly an epiphany engulfed me:
I saw my life come together as a perfect whole,
from beginning to then, and it showed one thing
only: that I would be and remain a writer. My soul
rose in ecstasy. I have never failed to feed it since.