my path is satiation
rage is my recreation
no more delineation
i crave your liberation
im caught in my own mire
bound up by my desires
cage of my own creation
im stuck between relations
sacraments and medication
breathed into my being
divisions my denomination
emptiness is what i'm feeling

all my hopes ive been misplacing
i lose my head in circle tracing
lines throughout my thoughts
fight to twist, untwist, each place they cross
i guess maybe i'm lost
and so i look for signs
create them where they're not

they say that desperate times
call for desperate measures
im so desperate for pleasure
i mistake it for pain
so hungry for help,
i could drown in a drop of rain
so take me deeper
i'm already under
what more is there to loose
ill breathe in fear
im underwater
this is the death i choose

sacraments not meant for tasting
ive spent my whole life chasing
but my life and self are recreating
and my guilt God is erasing

3900 light years from earth
a mere 1.2 billion miles across,
makes me wonder who your master is
and what magic it takes to fill
your feeding bowl

I wish I could ****
the kiloparsecs keeping us apart
and see you, unleashed, maybe chasing
Frisbees left by the barking big bang

I hope you don't bite

black ghosts, white ghosts
line my lane, ether's balloons
watching the night,
calling to me

what does thou see
mourner in the flesh, others?
fainter apparitions, silent
even to us

you won’t find him, they say,
no soul stays close to home, we fell
in distant moors and this night, we are
the whispers in your thatched roof,
rain strolling down your old stones
fog rolling from the ponds

but, he will be
wafting over another's hedge,
far from the glens where you threw him
the ball, miles from the roads where
he road his bike

he won’t be near
the blackened stacks by the tracks
where a strange body found him,
transformed him into one of us
with a blade honed for
eternity…before
that night

one ever sharp,
even though it was thrown
into the Avon before your boy
was cold

look for your lad, your love
in the wild sea, in the shapes waves weave
blue on sunny days; he will be there
not black or white like we

you will find him, ever
near, though far from where
you look

through his window
he could see the oak planted by his grandfather
or his father, or his, however many greats
that would be

few obstinate leaves lingered
like refugees who missed a hegira
to the promised land, or to the
red, russet heap along
the stone wall

some of its ancient roots
had wearied of earth's deep dark  
and now streaked across the yard
silent serpents laying in wait
for another eve

he wanted to write
of his lifelong arboreal companion
but his fingers had adopted a stiff grotesque pose
some forgotten fall, when the leaves
had been long in their leaving

words were there, waiting,
perched behind his eyes, then sinking
in some grave fashion to his tongue,
though to whom would they speak?

nobody remained
who read his verse
still the words kept lining up
not quite knocking on the door
demanding exit to a flat
white world

as his tired eyes rested
on the tree, the words rumbled louder,
until they pleaded, who planted you,
where are they now, and when
will we join them...?

We took a drive. I had things to say.
My heart was aching, shattered.
I rehearsed the words throughout the day,
Believing that it mattered.

I met you then but I only saw,
The mask you chose to show.
If you were suffering underneath,
Then how was I to know?

I said,
" Your grey facade hides worlds so vast,
Naked flesh of fruit, beneath the rind.
Your future's informed by its turbulent past,
Full understanding; when you look behind."

You said,
" You try too hard, you think too much.
You never live for now.
Wrapping words around the wrong ideas,
You miss the point somehow."
"Stuck in place, because it's safe,
You're too afraid to grow.
If you had begun to change your fate,
Then how was I to know?"

You saw me within a grey facade.
I saw you within a grey facade.

We could not say more, it seemed sufficient,
That love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is ignoring all that came before,
Loving only the moment.
That coin of the realm: elusive, bright.
Your grey facade hides
Such a beautiful light.
Love has many names.
Call any one aloud and I will answer.
I will come.
You will see.
You'll see me clearly, even behind this grey facade.

I couldn’t manage a lotus position,
so I tried you, my bare feet reaching
for the stained ceiling of my apartment  
sitar music and stale **** smoke  
there with me  

like the dwellings
of a million mid-century bohemians  
who tried transcendence long
enough to get hungry    

when I now try you,  
Salamba Sarvangasana,  
I get a bit dizzy--spinning
a reaping reminder I have passed
nearly sixty-four years  

looking up, at cleaner plaster  
I no longer hear the music; the grass is gone,
replaced  by fumes perhaps more beguiling  

then I fall  
never able to pronounce your name  
ever aware my feet could not remain
airborne forever

first flight: your talons
in the grim grip of a teenager
belly filled with berries

dumped fast
in the back of an SUV,
long enough to find
a red brick nest

your guts quickly spilled
and you tossed in a black hole
for a long night with other avian creatures
black, big as pigs, smelly as well

at sunrise the hole rolled
but only long enough for it to be clutched
by a moaning monster, toppled upside down
the pigs sliding into its guts

but the wind rescued you!
gave you recycled flight, a full day
and night, until my wiper blade snagged
your white wings at 70 MPH

I could have dumped you
in the bin at the next rest stop
but you had a different vision
of redemption

instead, I dropped you on the road                        
where you would wait, without protest,  
for another gust