The meaning of Eucharist
is not empirical. The bread,
the wine, the priest in his
splendid robes hovering
over the Host. We can see
them, hear them, taste
them, touch them. But
the mystical essence
escapes our senses.
It is accessible, revealed
only to faith.
Faith encounters the body
and blood of Christ
in glory at the altar.
Faith beholds the bread
and wine transubstantiate.
A daily miracle, hidden
from the unbelieving,
the unenlightened. Faith
fuses all, makes new
the covenant of Jesus,
who proclaimed, "This do
in remembrance of me."
The bread is tasted and chewed;
the wine is sipped and swallowed.
Our body remembers, but
only when informed by faith,
the pinnacle of the unempirical.

i am encapsulated

with a curious ambivalence of the will
i cast off
the chaotic cosmic cloak that shatters
into a myriad particles of tiny plenum
-- reminiscences, shadows and reflections,
sorrowful leaves sparkling with the glint
of dazzling light,
like tiny jewels of dew --

all this and more lies scattered on the wind

the struggle is so heavy; the flames consume so much
now, here
beneath the distant, burning stars,
shuffling through these crumbling
monuments at my feet,

a nervous flash of lightning
the shape of infinity in all i see:
the apocalyptic evening sky is exposed

wearily, i must lay myself down to rest
to breathe gently in this sweet, elusive silence,
the silence of the Void

rest in weariness
rest
and the unpredictable predispositions of the cosmic structure
will expand and divide ever so slowly
with the course of my breathing

(After Anne Sexton's "The Starry Night")

Van Gogh's "Starry Night"
illumines a damaged heart.
Poetry remains therapy
until the patient is cured.

Pulitzer Prize, parties, men
and accolades galore.
Anne Sexton, the poets' darling,
dances to the darkening sky.
This is how you want to die.

This is how the world ends:
without swirling stars,
without a crescent moon,
stuck alone inside your garage,
door closed, car running.
Inhale the aroma of the blackened night.

the surface of the sun erupts
spilling streams of brimstone
into airless passageways
where poets roam

words catch fire orbit the mind
like elliptical rocks mortared tight
they shed more heat than light
pile them high

pick only hard consonants
their Anglo-Saxon pedigree
stirs the lowest impulses of life
use them sparingly

elegance eschews vulgarity
the driving force of the body
the circulation of black blood
swallow it like wine

to name is to own
like landed gentry you parcel out
your words as possessions
****** them from the void

you must climb over the walls
of what cannot be spoken
stitch the sun's lacerations
into the fire of the poem

1.
Genesis:
grandiloquent awakening
genteel reawakening from the depths of a sleepy ocean
as dreams floated idly overhead like driftwood
translucent surging
back and forth
rising and falling with the moon and its pull

i open my eyes in the salty brine
and am purged

i open my mouth to swallow and
suddenly: Satori!

2.

in the beginning:
the driftwood would not burn

it's true i wandered aimlessly beneath the cliffs
into early morning
even before the sun, i was
mist upon the beach, barefoot, in jeans and sweater
damp in the morning

yes, i was there walking alone past
seal carcass and seagull carrion
seaweed and ***** would scurry
over smooth gray stones and sand
whitewashed with foam by the tide

somewhere along the shoreline    i thought
the firmament moved
a lighthouse beam perhaps

i, too, like the gull, was scavenging among the shells,
some spotted brown like leopards,
for the 15th century
heavy coins of Spanish galleons and gold

"holding a seashell to your ear, you can hear the voice of God,"
the Horse-woman once told me
stooping i listened
yes yes yes    you would have seen me there in the morning
but only because i was dreaming

3,

your reply:

On the flat edge of the horizon
a purple-pink glow beckons me on,
across empty fields dusted with snow.
Trees raise their hands in praise
for the end of this day, plump with possibilities.

I have accomplished nothing.
Yet I turn the lathe one last time,
cutting metal, cutting bone,
with a wound too deep to plumb,
too dark to lighten, transfused
with blood that stains the sun.

Sorrow trails me like a bird dog
sniffing out her prey, startling
quail to take flight. I watch them
pass overhead. I am not a hunter.
They are safe to flee, coveys of comfort.

"The world is too much with us,"
Wordsworth proclaimed. I contemplate
his lament, but see no way out.
Ancient faces watch my route --
aimless, famished, still
seeking out transcendence,
still hungry for God.

I embrace the horizon as it bends.
Purple-pink sky leads me on.

1.
Stone castles float high above the moat,
rising in the empty sky.

Colonnades of clouds pummel the shoreline,
but plunder only Time.

The silver lake reflects the face of God.
Forsake its lifeline,
trace its outline in darkness,
then dive, dive, dive
to retrieve your destiny.

The horizon sleeps at the end of the road.
Light turns, but withholds its blessing.

2.
Pilgrims clamber over slick, thick cobblestones,
combing the ruins of history.
They slip, slide and slither back,
only to lose their way.

A baby-faced mountain bends low
to brush a raindrop off a rose.
The rose reddens, the mountain shudders,
and love blooms —

even as older peaks,
streaked in early snow,
grind their teeth in envy.

Obey your nature.

3.
A crown of fog settles on the silent village.
Wet cobblestones snake back upon themselves,
pooling castles on the ground.

The road plummets to the shoreline; the horizon weeps for no one.

Light turns; Time tires; and infinity seeps into the soul.
Bruised pilgrims withhold their blessing.

Beneath the love-struck mountain,
a lonely traveler gropes homeward.

Patches of empty sky carry scents of welcome:
There, unbidden, tranquility awaits.

Sly Ulysses strapped himself to the mast,
So the Sirens could not lure him away.
His return home proved anything but fast.
Circe, in her cave, kept him years, for play.
By cunning, he ****** her into the past,
And to Ithaca set sail straightaway.
Penelope stayed faithful to the last.
Her hope for him never lost its strong sway.
He roamed far, once the die of Troy was cast.
His horse, filled with Greeks, the vast city razed.
Cleverness made his sailing ventures last.
“To the beyond” rang the mantra he prayed.
Homer had him **** his wife’s beaus, aghast.
Dante dispatched him to hell, where he stayed.

The battered robot's sword
will no longer fit its sheath.
The blade is rusted and bent.
The handle tarnished and broken.
Now the sword is good for only one thing.

The robot's enemy offers a truce,
with a miraculous incentive:
If the robot throws down his sword
for good, he will have the chance
to become human. The wizard

promises to make this so.
The robot, battered himself,
turns his back on his enemy,
falls to his creaky knees
and commits hari-kari.

"Y not"? You say.
Y is a singular fork in the road,
and you always choose
the road less taken.
(You've read your Robert Frost,)
The road less taken is full of beauty,
discovery, adventure and an
unpredictable walking surface.
But you cannot take it.
The more you are tempted to,
the more the road becomes more taken.
You must follow your Y like a Euclidean puzzle.
The fork offers only one tine to you.
The road less taken cannot be taken by you again,
or it will turn into the road increasingly taken.
And your journey by foot will turn trivial and
banal. By taking the road less traveled, you rob
it of its mystique. That, shamefully, stands out as
a mistaken use of this very special road.
Triviality, shame, silly self-indulgence all
mar your journey. Y would you risk it?
Y directs your path like a whirling English
traffic cop. Watch for the telling hand signal.
The one that says, "You, begin." Follow the
lonely tine and be on your way. You will
have traveled the right road, leaving the
less traveled one to its Y-ly mystique.
From here on out, walking in the woods,
when you come to a crossroads,
you will never have to ask Y again.

.
After "Sometimes"

1.

You call your dog home
from the mystic woods.
Larks land on branches.

You've built your final home
out of love and faith.
Clouds tear apart in branches.

You say that you're at home
with melancholy, because
it leaves you breathless.

You have God in your pocket
as you clamber up trees,
lodged safe and high in branches.

2.

A field of sunflowers blooms,
the crown of creation.
Simplicity, domesticity --
you lived the way your poems sang.

Death waited for you,
but you were unafraid, unamused.
You followed your own
instructions for living:

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

You left beauty and wisdom
for the rest of us, as we
walk slowly with you
and listen.

Place your hands on your ankle
and squeeze tightly -- like
a tourniquet -- until your foot
expands, withers or explodes
from the pounds of pressure
damming your lower body’s
blood flow.

You can neither walk nor crawl --
your hands otherwise occupied --
so you must sit, half-cross-legged,
listless like a Beckett character,
supporting the burden of existence
-- its pain and tedium, its inexorable
cosmic absurdity.

Without budging, you survey
your surroundings -- a stage
unattended, only the foot lights
lit. You see your future waiting
In the wings among the heavy
velvet curtains drooping
with dust.

You sense an escape: You can
tumble toward your goal, bruising
your brow and back, but covering
distance like Quasimodo alighting
on his bells. You will collide with your
path forward: exchange your tourniquet
for a cross.

A languid loon
liltingly launches
a dive to the bottom of
a small stone pond
staked by straggly trees.

Near the shallow end
of the water, greenish
bracken forms
a wispy fringe
waving farewell
to the overgrown,
fulsome banks.

The taciturn trees
burst into capillaries
of naked branches,
as the autumn sun bears down
upon them from its
mid-afternoon throne.

The loon breaks
the glassy surface,
and a ring of irregular
circles spreads skyward
toward the luxuriant sun,
overlooking the lyrical,
liquid world below.

I sit on one of the dampened
stones, stoically awaiting
the loon’s arrival air-side.
Its last breath plunged it
into the darkened depths.
Now, another breath must
propel it upward to rejoin
the living.

But there is no movement,
no minions of bubbles
scrambling to the surface.
The supercilious sun
slinks further toward
the flat horizon.
Nothing happens.

The loon is lost, it seems,
listlessly failing
to defy the odds
of survival under water,
content to linger in
the glory of a long,
lonely yet lovely
swan song.

battle fatigues
empty cup
war on homelessness

Mephistopheles moans.
His bargain won; now what
to do? What good is a human
soul as vanquished prey?

Faust exults in his superhuman
strength. He holds an unfair
advantage over all other poets.
No drug testing for magic.

He dances with the devil,
cheek to cheek. He swoons
at the crescendo, falls into
his partner's waiting arms.

There is something maniacal
in his character, like arsenic
in a tall, cold glass of water.
He gets drunk on it, gets high.

Who will judge his newest
achievement? Like for like cannot
be found. He stays isolated
in his cold grey cage. No touching.

Freedom breeds creativity,
the force of all masterworks.
Faust settles as a lap dog
for Mephistopheles.

Soulless, the poet wanders
through Dante's circles
of hell. With whom will he
find his place? No place

for his cheapened soul. No
punishment for his fiery
hubris. He forms artist and
audience as one substance,

and applauds himself.
His victory is self-serving,
but he has no human
self to serve. His triumph rings

hollow. He plays the xylophone
on his ribs. The music turns
toy-like and irritating. He has
gone too far. No way back.

Two glaciers that once kneaded the neck
of this tiny tourist town have bled
into the mountain -- now twin rivulets of ice
ambling aimlessly up the rocky, grey *****.

Robbed of its tourist prize, the town shrinks
like snow in the scalding sun.
I have not come for the snow nor the ice,
but for the warm-blooded Alpine splendor,
which cannot recede from this isolated valley.

The ghosts of glaciers haunt my path up the hills
into the belly of these bulky peaks, cemented to the earth
like pillars of stone sculpting themselves.
Tourists must settle for such shrunken beauty,
still as intoxicating as new wine.

I hurriedly push past myself,
watching my body from above,
feinting with consciousness,
fainting into the Spanish black.

Velazquez's "Las Meninas"
jack-hammers a tunnel
of ek-stasis, pulling me into
the painter's dark studio,

weighed down by overwhelming
curtains, curtailing the senses'
sense of majesty and control.
This is not trompe l'oeil. This is

tricking the soul into the artifice
of the palette, of paint on board,
of black that illumines perfect
placement: the spectator on the floor.

Stendhal's sensitivity is no virtue
or vice. It suckles the sublime,
sated on illusion, art for art's sake,
delivering a blow to the solar plexus.

I gasp as my body trembles at tremors
of terror, annunciations of angels
bearing paintbrushes as paltry wings.
Their back feathers stained a Spanish black.

Painting owns no one, owes no one
comfort or joy or pedantic instruction.
The cherubs in the foreground radiate
innocence, wonder, humanity's blank heart.

At my feet, my body wriggles skyward,
wrenches for a transplant. Paint on it
Valazquez's black goatee, then part
the velvet curtains. I will rise to new life.

First, give all your money to the poor.
Then gather your other possessions
and burn them, breathing a prayer
of contentment as smoke spirals
to the heavens.

Write farewell notes to all your
dearest friends and nearest relatives.
Keep the notes clear and concise --
no euphemisms for death and dying.
No saccharine clinging to the world.

Find a reputable carpenter to build
you a simple coffin -- most likely
a plain pine box. Meditate on your coffin
for days, imaging yourself laid inside it
with no way out. It will be your temporary
home. Keep it sparse and Spartan.
Look beyond it to the void.

Ritually bathe your body -- the last thing
you own -- cleansing it of sin and regret.
Repent. Rejoice. Reunite with your Source.
Bask in the glow of requited love.

In the sand, write with your finger a haiku;
make it jump like a frog into a pond of
lilies. Make it land on your heart
with ever the lightest touch.

Pray for grace to board your passage.
Only the living guess at its true nature,
unknowing on this side of the grave.
Read the Crito by Plato. There, Socrates says

Death is either a deep eternal sleep or
a reunion with other departed souls.
You do not have to choose. The reality
will come straight to you like a messenger
from afar. Be open to its meaning.

Finally, step into your coffin, fix the lid, and sleep.
When you wake, you will be on the other
side of dreams. Do not look back. You will
have entered the domain of the dead.
Make it your new abode. Clamber toward the light

My Beloved glides through the room in light.
A flick of her hand, shadows dispense.
Her form beams shapely, vibrant and bright.
One sharp look wilts my world, weak and dense.

She is as fragrant as hyacinth at night.
She turns 'round; my willpower’s spent.
I reach for her arm; she’s fast in flight.
No coquettish flirting to make me wince.

Her inward freedom 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 beauty: heart's light.
My pursuit is authentic. No pretense.

-- For Laura

How many times have I poured heavy cream from a squat wooden bowl
onto a fiery batch of raspberries --- the glory of this medieval
Swiss village of Gruyeres? How many times have I trod its cobblestone
streets, smooth stones scuffing my shoes, stones that fit like
molars in a jaw bone-- polished by millions of soles?

How many times have I spied a ***** blur the road, like an
atom split in fusion? Only once, today: an orange-red body,
windswept ears, toothsome snout, black-tipped tail, torpedo straight,
a rudder perfectly fixed on one course only: Elsewhere.

Repetition is the maker of travel, the reinstantiation of
the essence of our experience, each piece yearning to grow
into a medley with others. Only an on-key tune can capture
the elan vital of belonging nowhere but in memory. All travel
begs for repetition, for affirmation, for like turns to like.

Zen practices the presence of the now, instantaneous,
paradoxical, vanishing as it appears. Travel practices the Zen
of Zen, deconstructing the present into a precious piece of the past.
Travel recedes to remember tomorrow as yesterday’s promise.

I am back there, not here. I reminisce, reconstruct, relish
the essence of travel as I taste the heavy cream, the tartness
of raspberries, and the afternoon amazement as a ***** crossed
my path -- just as Merwin describes in The *****, his masterpiece.

I look back. Merwin's experience gains on me and quickly melds
into my own. His spiritual exercises inspire me. My repetition
of them and his incorrigible wanderlust reconstitutes
again and again his own timeless poetic reward.

The last breath rattles
in your ribs. The soul
escapes the body --
or so some say.
But the soul survives
only draped in
celestial raiment.

Socrates proclaimed
that death is just a deep
sleep or an introduction
to afterlife society.
Either way, you have
nothing to fear.
Immortality reigns.

How many times have I poured heavy cream from a squat wooden bowl
onto a fiery batch of raspberries --- the glory of this medieval
Swiss village of Gruyeres? How many times have I trod its cobblestone
streets, smooth stones scuffing my shoes, stones that fit like
molars in a jaw bone-- polished by millions of soles?

How many times have I spied a ***** blur the road, like an
atom split in fusion? Only once, today: an orange-red body,
windswept ears, toothsome snout, black-tipped tail, torpedo straight,
a rudder perfectly fixed on one course only: Elsewhere.

Repetition is the maker of travel, the reinstantiation of
the essence of our experience, each piece yearning to grow
into a medley with others. Only an on-key tune can capture
the elan vital of belonging nowhere but in memory. All travel
begs for repetition, for affirmation, for like turns to like.

Zen practices the presence of the now, instantaneous,
paradoxical, vanishing as it appears. Travel practices the Zen
of Zen, deconstructing the present into a precious piece of the past.
Travel recedes to remember tomorrow as yesterday’s promise.

I am back there, not here. I reminisce, reconstruct, relish
the essence of travel as I taste the heavy cream, the tartness
of raspberries, and the afternoon amazement as a ***** crossed
my path -- just as Merwin describes in The *****, his masterpiece.

I look back. His experience gains on me and quickly melds into my own.
His spiritual exercises inspire me. My repetition of them and his incorrigible wanderlust reconstitutes again and again his own timeless poetic reward.

Mmmmmmoon Lion roars.
The moon swerves in its orbit.
His voice reaches to the heavens,
avoiding omnivorous black holes.

He contemplates his philosophy
of life: poems written with
incorrigible vitality and verve.
He purrs the "m's" in his name.

Auden said that poetry makes
nothing happen. But Lion invokes
humor and thought, the rigor of form.
He holds deep respect for his readers.

They crave to do him justice in the
wake of an endangering diagnosis.
Poetry elevates the body, tunes in
to its hidden rhythms, sings its source.

As in Oz, the lion needs courage
to face the injustices of existence.
He silver-wraps his moments, gone
all too quickly. He instinctively roars

a new way to create poetry, one
that embraces the celestial,
disdains the body's betrayal.
He will win in the end:

His lion spirit soars.

vapors coat the night
mist rises to the heavens
stars pulse light and life

bright floral bonnet
young lovers nuzzle, silent
Eros' kiss; first blush

Van Gogh's "Starry Night"
illumines a damaged heart.
Poetry remains therapy
until the patient is cured.
Pulitzer Prize, parties, men
and accolades galore.
Anne Sexton, the poets' darling,
dances to the darkening sky.
This is how you want to die.
This is how the world ends:
without swirling stars,
without a crescent moon,
stuck alone inside your garage,
door closed, car running.
Inhale the aroma of the blackened night.

Merchants buy and sell my heart
like a slab of heady cheese.
They slice it into ever tinier bits.
With their bulbous lips
they praise the cows and sweet grass
that have produced the milk.

I cannot join them in their chorus.
I see nothing in the animals
or their pasture that is mine to keep.

Cheese molders on the wheel.
My heart will not permanently heal
from the knife blade.

I am weary from carrying the weight
of the world like an unkempt confidant.
It rides up and down my back,
turning my spine into an eternal question mark.

Why have I yielded to the world’s grimy gossip?
Why have I so carelessly given my heart away
for 30 pieces of silver?
Why have I squandered my power to resist?

No answer descends from the sky,
Just the brusque busyness and noise
of endless worldliness.
The clamor is too much with me.

The merchants slice and slice again.
I have waited too late for redemption.

In the morning, I must eat my heart out.

My father’s legacy dies within me.
I carry his book of rules like a coffin with no lid.
A long, grey, wooden rectangle
full of admonition and praise,
phrases spilling out like stones
splashed with symbols and ciphers.
Stones stacked to heights below my grasp,
staging the play of ancient axioms:
Do, don’t, resist.
Ahead, the future, rife with signs:
Go, stop, resist.
Resist the emptiness of death,
the ephemera of memory.
Carry stones like sins.
Pray for mercy, forgiveness.
Carry his legacy like iron
in the soul.
Weight of sorrow and disbelief.
Weight of anguish and grief.
Nothing dies within me.

Take a capital V,
balance it on a lower-case l,
rivet the pieces together,
and you have created Y,
an outdoor sculpture
made of polished steel,
that gleams in the noonday sun,
and beckons children
to climb its two slick branches.

Y makes tripodal creations
look anemic. Y towers over
the Earth, casting on the lawn
its skinny shadows that move
as if mimicking a drunken W.
No other letter is so susceptible
to toppling over as is Y.
The heavy V outweighs
the straight-up l, 2 to 1.
Gale-force winds can twist
it on its axis. It can be uprooted.

Even when it stands tall,
Y often comes in last,
at the end of words,
a fractured exclamation point
missing its downward dot.
Y waves its arms for attention,
but it clings to the lower-case l
slowly, coolly, gently, lonely.

Y has only Z to talk to,
a self-cloning, open-ended
triangle. Y never knows which
end is up. No matter.

Outdoors, Y continually invites
purposeful play, a standing
funnel of fun for all.

It gleams in the noonday sun.
It beckons children to climb
its two slick branches. That's
why Y rises up, never alone.

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

Ulysses sailed for 20 years
to reach Ithaca from Troy.
Mastermind of the Trojan Horse,
he and his warriors leveled that
fabled city; and he emerged as one
of Greece's greatest heroes.
Yet Dante consigned him
to Limbo to waste away
his afterlife. Heroism, apparently,
is not a holy virtue.

I shiver on the edge of the precipice.
I must leap. I must choose.
But freedom offers no support;
it is transparent, pure possibility.
I suffer from the anxiety of nothing,
literally no-thing.
Yet it paralyzes me.
I try to leap; I fiercely will it.
But I only fall,
headlong into the abyss.

Your smile radiates joy,
the brilliance of your heart
beaming from your face.
Your smile invigorates the sun,
the rest of the universe jealous.

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 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. I find no residue,
no center of recognition and acceptance
with which to make my defense.

Identity is infectious, a virus that plagues
without antidote or cure. As with the Fall,
I must disregard the Delphic Oracle. Who
among us has ever truly known himself?

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 stir among the stars
will never be moved by pity or suffering to breathe
the breath of Eros that flings me out beyond
this solitude. None will ever come to bestow on me
the presence and embrace I so passionately desire.

I must reshape my future in the image of the Lamb.
I must leap across the world's murderous, polluted abyss.
I must land on the other side in safety, security,
with nothing bruised save the membrane of my porous ego.

i have climbed the mountains of the west
massive, endless, and blue
forsaking the common trail so well-known and so well-defined by
cairns painted orange  green  like shrines
rising high and far apart:  forever forward

and i have dug my hands deep into rocky hillsides
to stay upright and have fallen
i have trekked cautiously through smoky forests and snow
always higher, gaining so much ground    steep and sloping
until both air and trees spread thin

and i would stop
to listen to the wind blowing hard through the pines below
clouds would cover me:  they could go no higher
and i would breathe, with my whole body,
the silent serenity of solitude and half-frozen lakes

time had no meaning here; there was but one day always
and in the afternoon it began to rain
silver beads of water, like tiny clouds
froze upon my beard and glasses:
i could not see nor speak

the darkness would grow cold and numb and cover me
a blanket without warmth

the night afforded no apology
i could not be distinguished from it
i do not remember becoming part of it

part of it shivering beneath the stars
shivering into dawn
alone

i could find nothing there but strength    pure and flowing
from within
it was here i built my dream in homage and wilderness
so high above the earth

The Flame of Life arrives
on a second-class coach.
He comes to cauterize my wounds of time.
The excessive heat can't last.

Your searching eyes
scour out the blank pages
of my being and shower
them with kisses of kindness,
tendrils of tenderness,
the grand miracle of mercy.

Love leaves an invisible
imprint on my imagination;
care-filled caresses of sweetness
and affection fill my fickle heart.

We stand as one beneath
the grand waterfalls of heaven.
We stand as one because I know
I owe my life to you.

But you say, My life
is your life. And I weep
hot tears of humility as
I search my wayward ways
for your searching eyes.

stone arched bridge
covers the way to darkness
ice floes rest on still river

The green light still shines
at the end of the dock.
It is the deep color of my regret.
Daisy, my first love, now married
to another, casting me out, alone.

My persona, so sharp, proves to be a sheer lie.
Violence and death mar my lavish lifestyle.
I have realized the American dream
in all its purported glory. Only to
discover how fraudulent and empty it is.

Mirrored mansions tower across the bay.
We look past each other,
Daisy and I. How I continually
long for her, willing to sacrifice all,
yet how far she remains out of reach.

Deception and defeat haunt me like Furies.
Without lasting love, I have achieved nothing.
The green light still glows on the horizon.
I stare longingly at it and know that
soon I will see nothing but doom.

Berries and cream, Gruyeres’ eternal taste,
Cream thick as wooden bowls you pour it from.
The mountains rise outside the village gate.
The castle, past the bridge, bids all to come.
Walls surround the square, the well, the worn slate.
Outside them gleam the green, vast pastures, some
As fresh as cream; well worth the bovine wait.
Turrets, arches, beams: elements of form.
Traipse the cobblestone at an uphill gait.
Shops sell crafts, art to the beat of Swiss drums.
Time suspends its march: the cadence of fate.
Here, the Middle Ages live on and on.
Gruyeres offers tranquil treasures that sate
The traveler’s wish for a world full of charm.

the fountain of youth
spews geysers to the heavens
bathers hold back time

Experience absorbs mind, shapes its ethereal body.
The invisible encircles the straining atoms
of thought, expands until there is space
to fill with my mind as your mind.

tell this soul your grief
succor those who mourn their deeds
press the hand that bleeds

Calligraphic patterns imprint the sky.
Trees write their names on the wind.

Desert cacti bloom like flowers in a lawn.
Reds and blues spill onto tawny dunes.

I walk at angles to the rising sun.
Scorpions scurry along my way home.

I sit cross-legged in the darkness
of my cave of solitude. No one else
will enter as long as my breathing
ricochets off the wall.
I have fought hard for this cave.
It is my life. Alone.
For any who come after,
My scattered bones
will be a fiery treasure.

Darkness devours the gibbous moon.
Its final sliver shivers in the freezing void.
Pockets of pock-marked light spill out of dusty craters.
Prints from space-age boots deface iconic astronaut signatures.

Colonies of phantoms have settled on the surface.
They sacrifice stars in elaborate rituals of absolution,
then aimlessly amble in circles around the circumference.
They squeeze water from recalcitrant rocks.

In darkness they decline to speak to one another.
Mutely, they await the daily rebirth of solar flares.
The moon generates nothing on its own. Cosmic
passivity mimics social order. A fiery Logos descends.

I carry the land
like a stranger in transit.
Wilderness calls me home.
Aspens shiver.
Knife-edge mountains slice the sky.