He spent one night in jail
for not paying his poll tax.
Good government, he wrote,
governs least. He kept his
integrity intact by composing
"Civil Disobedience." He did
what he proclaimed: Pay the price.
Suffer judgment for what is right.

At Walden Pond he embraced
simplicity and reflection; he
eschewed civilization's trappings.
He hammered out a budget
for supplies and survival.
He transformed the reeds and pond
into his temporary home. Vitality
exuded from his pen. He was alive!

Transcendentalism became his
religion of favor. Partial to "Hindoo"
philosophy, he sought the final
diminution of the unruly self.
His poems elevated the cosmos
above his puny human stature.
He situated the heart in a world
awash with questing and meaning.

Illusion obscured the way to life's
essence and virtue. Acute vision
of the natural world and shunning
all distractions proved the formula
for true fulfillment and strength.
He made the life of the mind matter;
his poetry gave voice to lasting wisdom.
He blossomed as a scribe of the soul.

The delicate smell of marzipan wafts
through the room, as the nuns push
their specialty candy through an
ancient iron gate. I pass them
a handful of euros in exchange.

Inside the entrance to the cloister,
we move in slanted lines of shadow.
Outside, the sun, blindingly bright,
awakens the day to everything
but quiet and contemplation.

How sweet these primal gestalts
of darkness and light. Secular
and sacred. Prayerful and profane.
You cannot invent such memories;
they simply spill through the maker’s
hands – not like sand, but like clay
begging to be subtly shaped into
a figurine.

First the noses, then the arms break,
like fragments of an antique statue.
The pieces vanish, but you can retrieve
them, hold them spellbound, pull them
from the depths of forgetfulness.
The past does not exist; it’s true,
except in this powerful kind of willfulness
that holds on to brokenness no matter what.

Time moves like thoughts move,
unidentifiable in the body. Time moves
on its own, eternally trapped in the present.
Here, now, is all we can say.

We can resent time, mourn its passing,
but we can never stop it from moving.
The eternal now that moves like cattle
across a field, like clouds across the
lavender sky. Once we aim to taste
the marzipan again, it flees before our eyes.

The ocean accepts every sacrilege,
every pollutant,
every lasting piece of plastic
that amalgamates into an
artificial coral reef bobbing
toward the top.

The ocean is no longer our home;
we treat it like a compost heap --
infertile, ugly, smelling of death.
Fish cannot compete with artifice,
cannot feed on trash.
It is too late to save them.

The gibbous moon hangs over the Earth,
death descending upon a dying reality.
A shovelful of ashes,
this dance of futility,
nothing left behind but fallen soot.

Dearest brother, we are at the last point,
it seems, and who would have expected
such a ridiculous finale,
this eschatological confrontation
with the black summit of existence?

O impotent little man,
in your melancholy selfishness,
how you distress me
with this great, surging silence,
the oppressiveness of solitude.

Despair is disease,
but I can no longer mourn you.
Your remorse is indulgent,
self-forgiving, superstitious.

The pain of relentless doom
in no way ennobles you;
your retreat into suffering
but a complicity in guilt.

Stretch forth your wretched head to
say the words you cannot say;
a contortion in the throat,
a choking on each syllable.

Do not be deceived.

Beyond all else
there is nothing more human,
than these last, few moments
of the searing white heat
of the God we cannot prove,
of the broken mirror image
of your imminent demise.

Passing beyond all morality
oozes the wound of your existence:
to decry the winnowing of meaning,
the destruction of freedom,
the end of everything.

Dull orange bracken clings to the peat-like soil that seeps
into muddy moors past Devon. A shadowy fog makes
a royal landing on the low-slung ridge, spewing
fists of mist fit for scalers of Lakeland mountains,
balancing on the knife edge of Helvellyn before dawn.

I follow the droppings-dappled sheep trails, veering away
from the road. A ***** white flock nuzzles the close-cropped
scrubland for shoots of greenery, but masticates only humid air.
In the dim light of evening, a dark presence looms on the uneven
horizon: a distinct world fitfully revealed and obscured, liberated from,
then confined to the clinging veil of illusion that clutches the Earth.

This is no pilgrimage into the noirish heart of nature, yet
I detect through the flattened corona of the monarch moon
outlines of a troupe of Shakespearean ghosts tottering my way.
Revealed and obscured, like questions in Hamlet's tragedy,
they would gladly chant as a Greek chorus, if only they had
material voices to be heard. Together, they mime the news

of Elizabethan England: betrayal and intrigue, executions
and ***. The lust for power pours the foundation of the
City of Man -- sin and ambition, deception and pride. I hear
nothing but the constant scuff of my boots against wet stone.
Silence wraps round me like a cloak of quicksand. I must try
to scrape it clean. But with each new blade stroke, no novel
message emerges, no sign points homeward. Emptiness reigns
like a ruthless queen, ****** and shorn, an otherworldly white.

Looking back, I search for Coleridge strolling atop the Quantock Hills.
He has coaxed the Wordsworths there, convincing them to barter
isolation for inspiration. Poetry speaks to William, demanding
a new voice, a new style that joins the bright heart of nature to the brooding spirit of man, that lifts the lowly moments of the mundane
into the celestial heights of the Poet's magisterial meditations on Being.

All this once would have sufficed for me, but the stale, soaked smell
of sheep reminds me that I remain alone. Night falls and the moors
glisten from the constant damp. No one comes to England for its weather or cuisine. No one comes for solace or comfort or love. History,
      literature,
haute couture, base passions: Such is the recipe for a signal
      significance,
for a British extravagance of soul. It abides in the blackened bowels of Exmoor, launched from fallow footpaths and sodden goat trails,
skillfully trammeled by ghosts who juggle in silence the lavish jewels
of Elizabeth's crown, sparkling in the saturating mists before dawn.

We are pushed by
out-of-date clothes,
chased by boldly printed scarves,
shoved by trinkets
and lozenges.

St. Remy’s market bustles
in the morning sun.
Massive crowds craving
bargains. It is
a festival day.
Vendors lace the cake with
eternal candles, turned off
shortly after noon.

We wander through the
giddy ambiance, peer at the
high-priced wares, wary
of being taken for tourists.
Art, cheese and spices
catch our eyes. We
take home paintings,
etchings, nougat.
We nourish the local
economy.

A church hovers on
the brightly colored fringe.
Its steps a convenient
respite from the madding
crowd. I taste
cheeses, meats, candies
and foie gras.

A twinge of conscience:
Innocent geese gorged
on grain.
Farmers work hard to
achieve the right-sized
livers: bloated.
They can their product,
stamped with primitive
labels.
An immoral delicacy
proffered on tasting sticks.

Euros drop like flies
from my wallet, emptying
it. In search of cash,
we discover antique
wine-tastings cups.
Burgundy tinged with
pewter.
Materialism thrives in
every crammed, covered
booth. Bartering for
prices the hard truth
of commerce.

Who knows a value when
you see one?
Who needs another object
to shelve?
Yet we buy, buy, buy, eyes
weak against temptation.
Humble elegance especially
earns a tip.

The genome tilts on its axis, spilling memes of shame,
mutation and death, tattooed on plasma walls.

Coronavirus latches onto a lowly cell, clamps down,
spews pellets of bubonic plague as fleas flee disaster.

1666. Eyam Village barricades its boundaries: No going in.
No going out. The population dies like convulsing rats,

bodies stacked high in the street: cords of firewood. No one dares
light the flame. Pestilence obeys the border's blockade, contained

behind thick, golden stones. Tiny cottages mutate to infirmaries.
Judgment seeps through window panes. Mercy aligns with death.

We build no blockades, boundaries shift in the wind. Virus obeys
no one's laws, vandalizes the body, sets fire to the human touch.

Eyam beams prettiness now. Neat, manicured lawns, well-swept streets,
no trace of plague save on the village entry sign. Tourists flock like fleas,

soaking up history's survival, sobering on its showcase of blight.
Who deserves to die from nature's aberrations? *Who goes in, who out?

No celestial being will ever descend the misty ether
to complement my wishing and seeking
for its eternal presence.

None who are worthy of such adoration will ever chance
to stoop to move me out beyond myself,
to send me hurtling down the long, contemplative spiral
of the Self toward the focal point of Existenz.

Identity is elusive; for me there is no focal point, no center
of recognition and acceptance with which to make my defense.

Identity is infectious, a problem that plagues. Like the Fall,
the Delphic Oracle must remain unheeded.

Perhaps I am too tainted; perhaps I am impure.
Perhaps I would be blinded by the brightness of their glory.

No, I am quite certain that those who sit among the stars
will never be moved by pity or by suffering to breathe
the breath of Eros that flings me out
beyond this solitude; none will ever come to bestow me with
the presence and embrace I so passionately seek and desire.

None

The clock stops for no one.
Sunday turns to Monday
turns to Sunday.
Endlessly absurd days.

The stench of their bodies overwhelms.
Their barks and howls echo as
Weirdly human voices.
I want to answer back.
They would not trust me.

The lions joust and scream
for position on the dark brown dock.
The stark sun stuns some
into a trance-like slumber.
I feel the heat burning my cheeks.

They would not move, even
if it meant to breathe, I think.
Alpha bulls clamber over
The immobile hoards.
And doe-like eyes, laden

With silken lashes peer out at me.
I carry no fish in my pockets.
I am not worth even
a casual interrogation,
which I would not pass.

I lull them, dull them to sleep.
Their blubbered bodies,
plump, sleek, bulging, flop
only as little as the flies permit.
And then: they form a chorus of harpies.

Bewhiskered snouts snarl,
baring sharp brown teeth.
They no longer want me here.
In my reveries, I harpoon the
Ugly ones. They answer back.

So, like Orestes, in Sartre’s play,
I flee the Furies of the flies.
The lions bark and howl.
I want to answer back.
But I no longer trust them.

(After Sartre)

There’s a sorrow that overcomes us all.
There’s a sickness that never can be healed.
Within itself, existence casts a pall
That no one can remove; the cover’s sealed
Into the searing consciousness of all.
Its attributes can never be repealed.
They inform freedom, forcing us to call
For a meaning and value we can feel.
Death makes the veil of nothingness to fall
Over all the choices with which we deal.
We can’t escape this burden or forestall
Making ourselves the judges of what’s real.
It’s a problem that suffocates us all:
We solely pick the cards that we must deal.

On the other side of silence,
A lonely, primeval drone.
Wind hisses through the violets.
The dejected spirit moans.
I reach for eternal solace,
But grasp only chiseled stone.
Here, climbing toward the Highlands,
My sureness of hiking honed.
I cross and rush to Inverness
In search of the ancients’ bones.
They bless me with their hieroglyphs
I cannot decode alone.
I wander through the mistiness,
Keep clambering for my home.

Chained to his rugged rock, Prometheus fumes.
He brought the gift of fire to mankind. Now
He must pay. The gods are not amused.
His is an act of defiance unbowed
By the threat of retribution. Unsoothed,
He faces his fate: to have ravens scour
His liver each day, then start up anew.
Like Sisyphus, punishment is his shroud.
He wears it regally: His will only hews
To its task; it cannot break; he stays proud.
His gift spreads across the globe. Only few
Turn it down. Man is equal to the crowd
Of gods on Olympus. They will strew
Their anger. But naught keeps this mortal cowed.

1.
Stags crest the hill
splotched with heather
and cairns. Their body-
builder-thick necks
carry a massive
headdress of outsize
antlers. Heavy is
the head that wears
the crown.

They snort with
disdain at dangers
from humans. The hunt
means nothing to
them but the thrill
of the chase. The
nearness of death
simply one of nature’s
teasing tricks.

A misty sun punches
through the yellow-
gray fog, a blurry
corona emerging as
a chick from its shell, no
match for the Red Deer's
majestic rack. Royalty
spawns violence to
protect the crown. No
challenger approaches.

Nobility, integrity, power.
Scotland finds these
virtues hidden in the
regal heart of the Red Hart.
And so killing turns
to regicide. The
bullet melts in its
casing from shame.
We yearn, yearn,
yearn for the
beauty of the stag,
only to "possess"
it by destroying it.

2.
To leave the hills
and dales, the
mist of the stag's
fierce breathing,
and to warily enter
the shadowed lair
of some hunting lodge --
all this vanquishes
our claim to
nature's bounty.

On every white wall, the
stag's crown hangs,
a dark skeleton
of taxidermy,
unsightly, lifeless,
mute witness to
our failed attempt
at unity, our empty
chase after beauty,
the lust to own it,
become it, caress
it, love it and so
woo immortality --
all this vanishes
like the moon on
a winter’s night,
as elusive
as the Red
Deer's ghost.

On the hill, cairns
point the way to
the grandest vistas
of the Highlands,
rolling in patchwork
colors toward the horizon
and sea. Our place
is left looking
and longing, the stags
prancing behind us,
elders chanting their
glory. The sun
glints off the waves,
lighting up a vast
kingdom of brilliance.
It swells and recedes,
forever lost to the
petty reach of our
lonely grasp.

Quasimodo frantically sounds the alarm,
swinging on bells like a medieval orangutan.
No sanctuary lingers in the smoldering nave.
Gargoyles roar like fire-breathing dragons,
then cower in corners, confused.

Notre Dame crumples in the wind, baptized
by the Holy Ghost and fire. Passion Week
transvalues every value: the great reversal comes.
Centuries of history agonize on the cross; dreams
of resurrection snag on collapsing rooftops.

Once a lighthouse to French pilgrims,
the spire tumbles, puncturing the pews
and all signs of hope. Prayers smother in the billowing smoke.
Non-believers gasp in hellish horror; while
the devil laughs, looting their scorched patrimony.

The ghost of Victor Hugo strolls amid barricades of crime tape.
Fire has done what the revolution could not:
Our Lady has lost her head, flames so much
messier that the swoosh of the guillotine,
strewing collateral damage in their wake.

I

the memory -- ethereal --
sprouts forth upon a field
so like a dream so real
we are caught up in it running to overturn
each black stone sweating to hide
behind
the Self we cannot hide behind

for controlling;
to control this Love-thought-lust
****** the waste deep into the Sun

                        II

Earth-day woman, you are both
young and old alike, you frighten me woman

with your sanctity your sanity
of purpose
it is almost wooden
the laughter in your eyes
it is almost grain
this hunting of both

the prey beneath the stone
black not hiding
the harvest of elusive heat behind bodies
turned silver by the Sun... you sing

                        III

hands defile the planting of seeds, overturn
the passion that silently touching your song
could burst into flames

ash chaff so hot
come running back to this lust-thought-Love
let my tongue taste the saltiness of your sweat

let my hands cut deep into the woodenness
of these stones so blackened

with soil

Apples fall from the tree
behind the Swiss chalet.
They fall through me as
shadows climb and crest
Wetterhorn Mountain,
crowned by rocky horns
borne from Michelangelo's
"Moses." Horns of brilliance
and power, horns of shining
light that passes through me
into the shadows of the sun-stained
mountain, whose horns turn,
twist and fall through me
into the scattered piles
of apples plopping
onto the neon green grass.
Apples tumble through me
as I pass into the silence
within the silence that beckons
from the mountaintops. I am
the fruit of darkness and light,
fruit of the horn of the divine,
a son of Moses seeking exodus
beneath this rocky band of ragged peaks.

orchid blooms
sun limns petals
winter beauty

(After Dante)

The Beloved glides through the room in light.
A flick of her hand, and shadows dispense.
Her form beams shapely, resonant and bright.
One sharp look will wilt my world, weak and dense.
She is fragrant as hyacinth at night.
She turns around, and my willpower’s spent.
I reach for her arm, but she’s fast in flight.
No coquettish flirting to make me wince.
Only freedom that exposes my plight.
I am lovelorn, hard stricken. No defense.
Rising skyward, she claims heaven, her right.
Living earthbound, I maintain my poor sense.
Still, I yearn for her with heart, mind and might.
My pursuit is authentic. No pretense.

For Laura, the Beloved

We emanate from the timeless One.
Some reflexively christen it the sun.
But their poetic imagination *****
in the wind, a useless appendage.

We are bound to blind matter,
an inane substrate of Being.
Planted in it, we rise as intellect and soul.
This triumvirate makes us whole.

We yearn to return to our Source,
seek union in inwardness and love.
A part fitting uneasily in the whole,
we contemplate our sorry cosmic role.

Still, mystic oneness drives us forward,
carried on wings of virtue in this life.
What comes next we cannot fathom.
The Origin beckons; we stand the strife.

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
down the pedestrian boulevard
toward the burgeoning square
of Cataluyna, scurrying
to find fountains and buses
to whisk them away
from themselves.
The burden of identity weighs
heavily in each backpack and bag.
I share their plight:
the onus of being.

2.

The sun brilliantly burnishes
the crowd, beaming with
its childlike hunger for toys.
Nothing changes
except the country
beneath their feet.
Tourism is purgatory
to the undirected.
No map, no plan, no
rescue from impulse.
Lacking travel's baptism
of fire and freedom,
they learn that
all roads lead home
whence they came.

3.

Before the closed
doors of the cavernous cathedral,
Catalans circle, lift arms,
hop, twirl and dance.
Raised hands
signal liberation, unbrokenness.

Separation plays a different melody,
sends an inferno of deconstruction
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: No trouble
in paradise.

4.

I cool my heels at
the statue of Columbus,
anchored harbor-side;
the navigator
still ready to sail
under mistaken,
prevailing winds.
The crew
still ready to plant Spain's
contagion-carrying flag
in the shallows of faux India's
purifying pool.

O America!
How far you have drifted
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 conquers all.
Tourists queue to grab
their fair share.
Paradise need not please,
they discover.
Kick your bucket list to the sea.

5.

All is exotic in
Mediterranean Barcelona:
the languid light,
the briny breeze, the sun
radiating like a silver
grapefruit in the azure sky,
the orange shards of tile
piecing together the face
of heaven.

Gaudi still erects his towers
in wavering waves of
nature and faith.
Inside Basilica La Sagrada Familia,
construction workers
hammer his corner
of paradise slowly into place.
Christ hangs naked
on the cross.
A blue light filters
through modernista stained glass,
falls on the floor,
bathes my feet.

light of sorrow
journey claims its end
red rock stains clouds

From Plato's cave
we rise together,
shirking shadows
for the light.

No longer ours, thoughts
burrow deeply into
the shared, human
kingdom of insight.

We die of ennui and boredom,
blind to the cosmos’ resonating
with a revelatory repertoire
of marvels and wonders.

Our spirit intermingles
with Spirit, history’s unseen
hero, pushing the dialectic
forward to its inevitable conclusion.

Art is no easy accomplishment.
The Muse descends in silence.
We listen for her secret command,
shaping words into the integrity
of the poem. Spirit imprints spirit
on the open page.

Spirit rises with spirit to the realm
of the Titans, muscular poets
crowned in laurels and draped in multicolored
sashes. They have shown how
willpower can decode the Muse’s
cryptic command, and how poetry
is eternally reborn.

We die of ennui, boredom and blindness.
The cosmos enriches itself without us,
counting billions of stars, not hundreds
of poems. Consider the Muse like
the Delphic Oracle: Ignore her at your
own peril.

She knows that glory awaits
the courageous. She knows that there
are laurels enough for everyone.

Grief becomes you.
Your wan, tear-stained face.
Your razor-sharp finely cut dress,
black shoes, black pearls, black hat, black veil.

You were cavalier in life,
cloying with black at death.

This constant vigil,
mercilessly endless,
is but an act of love, I know:
headlights blaring
through the broken dusk,
sickening heaps of flowers
crushed and soiled upon the seat.

Sorrow weighs down upon us
like handfuls of newly spaded earth
begging to be tossed.

The smell of earth, warm and moist;
and no one is there.

The mourners tent is empty.
We have arrived too late.
Kneeling then, penitent, prayerful,
to touch the soil.

I trace my finger
over the epitaph engraved
on the hollow-white
headstone:

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

The limousine door
catches up the evening light.
Along the window's edge,
subtle hints of black and gray appear.

A long, soft cry
on the wind --
or is it the wind?

We answer with our undying act of love:
Christ lives in me.

Giant cottonwoods rake
the sky, slake their thirst
below dried-out creek beds.
The sunbaked soil fractures
into pieces of a shattered ***.

Octopus roots root out secret
channels underground, unclogged
by fish, debris or mythological
creatures rising from the rocks.
Trunks molt flattened flagstones

of bark, ragged chunks more gray
than brown, more a coat of armor
for battered torsos, more a pillar of steel
for massive, chipped legs. O Time! Age too
long, and bushy tops topple into the creek.

Leaves rustle like muted cymbals.
Still, there is much to celebrate in such
fearless longevity: Do not Heracles-sized
branches veer off in heroic Y’s that
claw their way higher and higher until

they burst through the clouds, free from
the world, frowning down upon it in
verdant condescension? I cannot answer.
Trees soar in silence. I scoot along the creek
bed, scrambling for arrowheads, for some sign

of human presence that shows I, too, belong among
the giants, shooting my roots underground,
rising up as an arbor above the dried-out
shadows, grasping for the sweet sap of longevity.
I shall bite off a bit of bark and bid the world adieu.

The sun limns the crest of snow-capped peaks packed below
a pale, cloudless sky. The faded blue draws out the
steely gray of the three mountain musclemen: Eiger,
Munch, Jungfrau. Alpine white outshines the same hue
of fresh carnations placed delicately in a vase
on the living room table -- as if forever.

Alps wear puffy cowls above craggy faces, drooping
indentations from too many jaw-shattering bouts
with the natural elements. White wobbles always
on the ropes; the countdown begins. Disfiguring
bruises turn into the loser’s crown. Nature tricks
us with its charms of purity and innocence.

Lucerne’s {Kapellbrucke} exists only for us, transported
from the 14th century to now, little changed from its origins --
and all for our pleasure. Yet It is a ruse that anything
eight centuries old would remain in place for
our touristic joy. We are intruders on history, backpacks
replacing 19th-century carpet bags, gilded in fool’s gold.

At dusk, Eiger turns from white to orange, a fruitful hue
whose sustenance is only glory. You can feast on
white Raclette cheese, white wine, white boiled potatoes,
white onions, but not white glory. Nutrition comes in many
substances. Orange stones satisfy some senses,
but leave us waiting for more, night after night,

This is true even in the light afternoon rain of autumn.

heavy yellow-grayish waves
of swirling ****** backwater
**** steadily at the runner's knees
foaming at the ankles
deep green and lathered
in the sweeping middle distance.

he sweeps the rise of sand
and sedge with arms outstretched,
eyes afloat
fingers ply the flesh along his back,
brush water from his legs
the sheeny stinging film of brine

the white beach runs its sweeping course
swirling, sinking with the sand
drowsing in the drunken sun
refuge is offered -- a luminous blue
screeching of the soaring gulls
the thunder of the surf

great black rocks divide the tide
rolling in fields of azure
limitless, integral
he calls the sky
sweeping back
upon the distance
the endless sweeping middle distance

sunlight dazzling complexities of colors
ascetic flashings in richness of form
purity of beauty in fragrant elevation
the taste, the touch,
the vital intensity

swept away running
for the purely accidental,
the happiness, success
of the accident of nature

movement in rhythm, swift in apprehension
swiftly toward the integral combination
to combine the elements
fundamental, the intensity,
the taste, the touch,
the vital intensity

Love dies like an assassin's victim: caught
completely unaware, the thud of a bullet to the head,
mouth gaping to pronounce its own name. The heart
pumps its leaking reservoir of warm blue blood; the final
breath gurgles in the chest like a baby nursing.

Love dies because we create it in our own image:
two become one become two again. We see ourselves
darkly in its bright, believing face. We wrap our bodies
around it, lusting for ecstasy, with no room left for
the self, for the other. Like St. George and the dragon, we

unsheath a righteous broadsword to make a surgical
separation of locked *****. We dread what we wish for.
We lose our world in passion, empty-handed when
the end inevitably comes. We crave an eternal love,
but are fit merely for a temporal one. Time is love's assassin.

Homeland

Morning clouds tear apart.
White-blue helmet of heaven.
On the river, goslings glide.
Ripples of desire.

A darkened figure climbs the hill,
silent, snaking homeward.
Death marches, stride for stride,
and drops the red baton.

2. Berghof

Who has cried for sunken Dachstein?
Its crumpled crown.
Beauty is stone.
Carry me through glacial waters,
green and trembling,
fear alone.

Lichen blooms
on blackened tree bark.
Ice blocks clog
paths unknown.
Half-hewn timbers
line the walkway.
Heed the warning:
Hide your soul.

3. Atelier

Shadows shatter:
light’s division.
Present passes.
Breathing comes.

Silver circles:
no corrosion.
Water siphons.
Spirit song.

1.

Like a colossal black hole,
the pitiless night devours
every glowing shred of light,
generating an impenetrable
darkness for the pilgrim
groping to find his way home.

2.

Darkness is its own reward.
The lines on the highway
disappear into pavement.
Compasses swirl counter-
clockwise, blind to true north.
Death hides behind bushes, reaching
out to ****** the unwitting soul.

3.

I yearn to embrace the night
in all its inhumanity, to find
its weak spot for the traveler.
But there is no shadow of
direction. The night hides
within itself, dense and tragic,
like a Puccini opera.
Who can sing its arias?

4,

Like a colossal black hole,
the night compacts every
beam of light. Who can lift
the curtain of darkness
that falls across our lives?
Who can bring light back to the world?

His hounds bay and croon in the distance.
The Arkansas woods weigh down upon us
like a black hole ******* every particle
of light from the cluster of brittle limbs
and branches above our heads.

I ***** in trepidation behind my uncle,
wearing a ball cap and dungarees;
his carbide lantern leads the way.
I watch his right hand bob, half a thumb
lost to a chain and a mule in a logging accident.

He is at home here, stalking wildlife
night after night. He has found his haven from
the world, the quest for sport and game.
My father joins us. There is no need for talk.
We proceed in silence, listening to the forest floor

and the yelping of the hounds far ahead. I feel fear
as we advance in the darkness. This will be my first
and only hunt. I am 12 years old, innocent as the prey
we’re tracking. Out of breath, I catch up with the dogs,
a whirlpool of tongues and teeth and fur circling a tree.

The lantern shines high into a deep V in the trunk.
Filling it, a weak-eyed opossum peers back.
My uncle hands me a .22 rifle and says nothing,
keeping the light steady on my target.
I shakily take aim, **** the trigger, tremble.

The pale torso erupts in red. Congratulations
ring out all around. I sicken at the sight.
My fear has turned to hatred of the blood lust
and violence that has made me a man. We wait
on the hounds to return. The carbide light goes out.

none of this is new anymore
the writing,
the dreaming,
the happy guilt

how many times have i sat
and listened
to the wet leaves slap
against the cold morning pavement?

how many time have i seen
the trees in wonder
give their smoky shapes
to loneliness,
changing with the seasons?

the seasons keep bringing me
back to the knowing,
time in the moving
moving through time

for many they claim
that this is the triumph:
the nature of return
to the original presence

but who among them
can give force to the anguish,
defy the distance,
there-being,
himself?

surely the answer must be immanent in the asking

it must be the place
that is severed from its project

and not i who am falling
through the horizon of meanings

orange dragon clouds
swirl in the dusky, baroque, winnowing sky
the once brilliant day dies within me
still I cling to a rocky pinnacle        alone

At the peak of highest ecstasy,
so prettily pleased with herself,
she sinks beneath the surface sea,
gripping tight, like a book from a shelf,

her silver mirror, the perfect thing
to admire her perfect form.
Her virginal gown rises in angel's wings.
Her face beams beauty's eternal norm.

How long can she contemplate
herself before taking a breath?
Absorbed by her image, she satiates,
floating gently upward, away from death.

Jeffers’ poetry is as hard as bone,
His windswept lyrics fed by his dark side.
At Carmel, he built a tower of stone.
Wind, sea and storm fostered his rugged pride.
On nature’s fiery force, his skills he honed.
His message bleak, from which he could not hide,
Foretold an elemental strife alone.
He wrangled roan stallions only few could ride.
His wide-winged hawks over the waves would moan.
He joined their wildness with soul open wide.
His poems made me yearn for his coastal home.
Nothing human-made would pull the tide.
His poetics read: Find your heart in stone.
A Zen he practiced till the day he died.

William Blake's Ancient of Days
casts down atomic-yellow rays
of ever-shimmering light.

Coal-scuttled clouds vie
for dominion in the dusky sky,
majestically darkening into no-longer night.

On the desert floor, barren and warm,
recumbent dunes lie like sleeping women,
restless and turning.

Cacti stand sentinel over unearthly silence.

Gold limns the crests of the dunes.
Muted light paints the sand a once-fiery ocher.

All this passes for isolation in the world,
a cosmic confusion of identity,

Until the entire tableau passes through its stage
of equilibrium, passes through me like liquid.

No day, no night carries the bundle
on the road to enlightenment.

I peer at the synthesis, bemused.
Suddenly, Satori!

We travel through our lives, hapless and lost.
No pathway sets its course before our feet.
Yet we push onward, whatever the cost,
To chase after mirages, vast and fleet.
A void of understanding spells our loss.
We fail, groan and grasp; our destiny meet.
A lack of clear-cut meaning makes our cause:
We await a revelation so sweet.
Many roads lead to callings at no cost;
Which one to choose seems a quest for defeat.
Absurdity creates a fray to toss
Such callings to the flames of these mean streets.
A void of understanding keeps us lost.
We follow random markings at our feet.

He slumps against the charity's steps.
Torn, oversized Army jacket, a ragged
stocking cap, unwashed face and hands.

His arm extended, he asks for a few dollars.
I resist his obsequiousness and answer
that I carry no cash, which is a lie.

I ponder why I am so afraid to associate
with him; his presence a finger of shame
pointing directly at my recalcitrance.

I drive home in my air-conditioned car,
thinking that I had helped him stay off
the *****. No money was for his own good.

Then my conscience strikes me hard: I am a liar,
a coward. That could have been my brother,
living alone on the cheap streets of Costa Rica.

I quickly turn the car around, race back
to the charity, whose doors remain closed.
I search among the grimy faces. He is gone.

1.
emerging from
shadowed kiva
ladder rises
piercing light

sandstone heat
heat of ruins
old world heat
heat of grains

elevation
height of heights

embers
glow to
blackened
charcoal

silent scrawl
waxing
warmth

dust
clouds
swirl

boot soles
skate
along
pink
floor

smooth
as gems
secret rites

2.
spirit dwells
above
commotion
shelling beans
water's weight

unhunted trail
path untrodden

scrubland
tangled
bush
of thorns

white cloud
sky
of blue
blue sky

noonday
heat
aching light

thirst
for meaning
hand-tied
rung

steps
toward
heaven
rocky
roof

of rock
and stars

level
wall
knife-edge
corner

reaching
high
to touch
cool
stone

overhead
ghostly
hand print

time's
embrace

beyond
all time

Weakness of will plagues the poet:
Misery he can’t slow down.
Find talent; he tries to grow it.
His scratchings issue no sound.
His Muse is mute; his heart knows it.
His vision of art ground down
Like Leibniz’s lens. Sloth shows it.
Light dims, could still come around.
A poem builds steam, then slows it.
His gift a gift the void crowns.
One time he wrote well. He knows it.
Now passion cannot be found.
Whence Dante’s raft? He will row it.
Fragments of rhyme underground.

"ad astra per aspera"
how many times
have we heard it
repeated ad nauseam
how many times
has it been floated
like a balloon
above our leaden dreams

"to the stars through
difficulty" yes and so
why the stars
we aspire to them because
      they are there
maybe if mallory
had been an astronomer
maybe if he had been
a star climber

at least everest
welcomes
you to the top
of the world
at least mountains
may try to **** you
with great height
at least elevation
mimics transcendence
and who doesn't like
a good mime now and then

stars offer nothing
but distance
their light has long
gone out by the time
we reach them
and for good measure
if their light were still on
we would be toast
burnt not buttered
not jammed not jellied
crisp cinders of toast

stars are so many suns
they burn like black
furnaces they scorch
the synapses
of the soul
a consuming
inferno wild
and explosive
and dead
to us

we grasp for them why
they are not planets free
from ourselves
and all our space
detritus they are not
life not light
that illumines
more than more
stars then goes out
for good
and all this
after difficulty

never has inspiration
smelled so sweet
like smoke from
a raging wildfire
leaping over
mountains
to try to **** us
under the
canopy of
dying stars


(that's not writing, son,
that's typing!)

Ignore the Tao.
Mountains remain mountains.
Moon remains moon.
Infinity in a grain of sand,
raw silk, uncut wood.

Man sweeps earthen floor,
mindfully makes jasmine tea.
Everything is as it always was.
All confusion shattered
in the clear light of being.