We can make this edible
without utensils
In a strange, menuless kitchen
Well, can you not make a salad?
Take a cucumber of memory
Slice it so thin that none of the recollections hurt anymore.
Mince some olives so fine
Their oil leaks onto the cucumber like OK.
Add the pulsing flesh of bright red tomatoes
But don’t slice them
Just squeeze them with your hand
Until they explode like wet epiphanies
And dare to dice a garlic clove
Without turning your nose away
As invisible olfactory reality
Assaults you with truth so pungent
That ECT would pale in comparison
To that very assault on your boundaries of understanding
And then toss the whole thing
Watching how it changes color and texture
And just when you both start to get hungry
And you both want to cry
The 50 minutes are over.

One day when you are turning gray
Like I am now
You will look at a list you wrote
Through all those years
And all your different lovers.

You will think of them
One by one
And in the silent pictures of your mind
You will know which ones truly loved you
And which did not.

You will see their faces
One by one
And know the true lovers had the boy’s hearts
The gentle sweet fellows
Who came with sincere flowers
Their heads bowed down
Eyes fixed to the ground at your feet
Transfixed by your beauty.

They worshipped you
Trusting their beloved's animistic heart
Innocent and devoted like to mother,
They were pure beyond lust
And helpless but to adore innocently
For there is something in the simple heart of love
Tenderness in the heart of a boy-man who truly loves
And when he does
He cannot go halfway.

Whether by your own hand
or assisted by the selfish outlaw
with whom you last shared
your lonely body,
your eyes closed forever
no last thought
other than to end.

It was recklessness
that took you
to dark ***** places
no sweet girl should go
where endless bad actors
hurt and starving like you
had no lines to recite
no script but loneliness.

Your lovely face now torn
your once promising *******
like wounded doves
will never fly
to wise sacred gardens
where nourishment is given
to the orphaned heart.

Yet I have a prayer for you still
that perhaps from a higher place
you will come to understand
the beauty I saw
beneath your vain skin
a tender young girl
whose sweet hands
reached so desperately
to capture just one real love
not knowing I had waited
for you right there
at the edge of your heart
every time before.

Your angel calls you
From her distant doorway
Beckoning come my weary love
Into the Bigness.

Lay your armored fears
In the cradle of our hearts joined  
where you may feel the pulse and light
That makes our love.

I am the chimera of your longings
The whisper of the dreams
You could never make come true
Before you came to my door.

Love the idea of us now
But expect no kiss in kind
Knowing my face must turn away
Or you will never be free.

This is how the Bigness works
Leaving you half-starved
Hungry for the touch of love's ghost
Those desires that are too small
That no longer serve
In the Bigness.

I am not the only angel calling
From the light you crave
And though you beg me to follow
This is the bittersweet truth of the Bigness
I will always leave you
You must always come into it alone.

The last few couples cling
wild dark feathered figures
breathing in wild unison
as they dance dervishlike
in a loud neon heaven
embracing then releasing
clutching lustily again and again
under silent stars
as the music goes silent
and each partner’s intimate scent
reminds of old lovers
never quite forgotten
because memories expand like music
and most when dancing
behind masks that lie
about the inevitable partnerlessness
everyone will face
no matter how ecstatically
they dance in defiance of time
hypnotized by the sweet personal music
that always deceives lovers
willing to dance
in a late parade.

Here you are at last my mysterious friend,
said the wise man as his strange red, white and sooty guest
emerged from the hearth his heavy sack laden,
dragging behind oddly alive, morphing shape, wanting to express.

What have you brought?  
Well, what have you asked for?
I never ask for anything because though I have heard of you
you’ve yet to arrive at Yuletide as imagined.
So my wishes have always melted into dreams diaphanous
For I find it best to simply muse,
not to expect or hope for the unlikely.

Well, said the guest, unlikely is now here,
and we shall unwrap gifts of muse this eve.
We shall expect nothing but delight by firelight.
You know, don't you, sir,
That I just squeezed my considerable Self
and the enormity of my bag’s unconscious accoutrement
Through the liminal space of your narrow chimney,
Yet not a single flame burned me?

And so the two old fellows sat and  spoke of dreams and images
memories before time without definitions
and the flames slowly waned as midnight passed toward the dawn.
They danced on a feather toward sleep
when the mysterious guest woke with a start.

I must be off, he said,
to tend the soul of the world.
It needs the salve of its own sweet tears
which I just happen to carry in this heavy parcel of my heart.

But don’t leave yet, the host exclaimed.
First you must sign my guest book
everybody does, even strangers,
and especially one I never expected to meet
who comes unbidden with messages
I am left to translate with the secret alchemy of myths yet written.

Then show me where it is,
your library is so immense
tomes everywhere I look.
Don’t you see it there by the mantle,
that great leather volume.
You can’t miss it, it’s big and all in red,
Oh, yes, that’s the one I’d love to have you sign.
Then I can remember you visited this magical night
and though nobody might believe it
I will know you were here
if only for a moment
by firelight.

Help me
the drugs don't work
my father touches me
I am too fat
powerless
I incise my anorexic hunger
with a martyr's red razor
rewarding myself
with a dopamine high
mixed with pity and disgust
so I can hide in the up and down
never know my real reasons
project my sadness onto others
and take pills
from psychiatrists
who themselves
believe the shallow island of chemicals
is the solution
and who work only
to keep you sick
when the sun is shining
but you cannot see it
because your frontal cortex says
the sun is not shining
when in fact
it is.