First-rate minds
greet new ideas
with wonder and joy.

Second-rate minds
greet new ideas
with contempt and fear.

Third-rate minds
do not greet new ideas
at all.

Sometimes,
my son,
I just want
to be numb;
I want to wake
to bird song
and fresh morning air,
not human voice,
not the distant traffic's hum.

Sometimes,
my son,
I want the numbness
to envelope me,
to swallow me whole,
to keep out
the hurt and pain,
the breaking up
of heart
and ache of head,
pretending
you're not dead.

The numbness,
my son,
how it seems
to put things
in perspective,
allows the past
to dissolve
into a vague series
of images,
hoping to be lost,
forgetting the cost.

Sometimes, Ole,
I want to be numb,
need the feelings to go,
the pain to ease,
the last words
to freeze.

Only the drugged
sleep aids,
my son,
only the dreamless sleep
like sister death,
helps me
for a few hours
to unwind
the inner clock's
wound up spring.

Sometimes,
my son,
the drugs don't work,
the pain remains,
and I don't want the drink
to take hold again
to numb the pain.

Sometimes,
my son,
I just want
a numbness to ease,
the words be
temporally forgotten,
the visions seen,
packed away
for another day,
when I feel stronger,
when the loss of you,
hurts less(if ever),
and the night to day
questions come less
or do so no longer.

Some days,
my son,
I just want
to be numb.

You pour your essence into
the inkpot of my soul and fill me so
that you can dip your quill in
and write the poetry of my life
on the canvas of skies.

I have received your secret message;
And sit by the courtyard
awaiting your blessed return
past the procession of stars
endlessly mourning the death of days.

Beloved friend, now it does not matter
whether the blessed dawn is nigh
or an oasis afar.

from heaving waves i emerge
and wander, hapless, forward,
to shallows, to piled sand and
grasses like thickened tongue.
sallow and saltbreak, this heart
has set to mend.

across field and timberline,
teeth gnash; but now they
belong to i. now, the proud
stretches of tussock weave
song through my chest. now,
lonely is an auxiliary quantity:
heart in hand, my very own,
soft clay to mould.

let us get drunk on
the stars and burdock tea.
let me find your fingers
across a chasm i clamber
up out of, only to breathe and
kiss you. i ask not for long-
desired salvation. i have
poured my own. i've enough
left to bathe you in light,
or at least to pry open your
leaf-litter eyelashes. i can
separate want and caprice.
i can want you.
                             let my desire
face west and cast to bush,
to flint, to corrals of snowfall.

i've dined in all great halls, but
i'd rather sit in your room,
for now.

Life's river white
waters flowed over
rocks so treacherous
few survived
even fewer were willing
to take it for the whole ride

but you

You must have learned
how to
at an early age
to navigate the
roughest of terrain
to emerge into a
circular eddy
of love's refrain
around and around

You were anointed
to absorb other's pain
through the power of your empathy
all you could see was
their hallowed name
the essence of being
their spirit still remained
as you circled round
and round love's
true refrain

Routines and rituals
household shared
you invited them all in.

My wish for you
is to break free
to find another
circling
in their own eddy
of love's refrain
to hold you close
to know you more
to cherish all
those dreams you
left at the shore
before you jumped into
that river.

One another’s best
we two sat by a bank
where the wild violet grew,
holding hands, holding
each other’s gaze,
we thread a double skein
of pictures propagated
by our eyes
whilst inner thoughts
(our souls perhaps?)
negotiate, as we like statues
still, say nothing.

If someone standing near
could hear our silent speech
a pure concoction they would
take away, of you and I,
of ecstasy unperplexed
telling how we love, (not ***)
but all that makes both one,
each this and that.
Just as the violet redoubles still
and multiplies, our love with
one another interanimates;
we know of what we’re made:
we are intelligences,
and our bodies simply spheres.
We owe them thanks because
they thus did us, to us
at first convey.

And so we sit
our fingers knitted
into that subtle knot
which makes us man
and woman, but one to all
who look upon our love revealed.
Love's mysteries grow in our thoughts
but the body is where it lives.
We’ve heard this dialogue of one
and know it belongs in our bodies too.

Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu.
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of naught
Save where you are, how happy you make those.
    So true a fool is love that in your will,
    Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or
obnoxious.
one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.
but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused to
see.
not their fault?
whose fault?
mine?
I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.
age is no crime
but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life
among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
is.

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.