Bend my knees,
Whisper in my ear;
You're the true prayer
Moving through air.

On Michael's wings
Rides your atmosphere,
Just promise me
That you’ll be there:

As morning hymn,
And evening song;
Of need or whim
A whole life long.

The speeding thought,
That calm my heart-
The litany of you;
Creator's art.

Consider it defunct,
Like a shuttered window,
Like a witless drunk.

Consider it done and said,
Like a water-logged book,
Like the service for the dead.

Consider it forgotten
Like packets of love letters,
In satchels that are rotten.

Consider it old news,
Like old somethings for a wedding,
Something blue, that you would choose.

Consider it's really over,
Like a badly mangled body
Finally covered by green clover.

Devastator,
Don't trip upon my sighs:
Heavenly bodies do sometimes lie.

Devastator,
Alms-giving’s for the righteous;
So give of yourself, tonight.

Devastator,
Your name means 'who is like god';
And I’ve been searching him forever.

Devastator,
I’m lying in wait all night,
Like a wily predator,

Devastator,
There is one named Michael;
Have you seen him anywhere tonight?

I'd already forgotten your name
But it wasn't like I planned it,
And after a moment, it came back-
Like a vague memory, of a long
Uncomfortable fever,
Being out of your head for a few days,
Or a lingering cough of several weeks.

It will always be there buried,
My sins never really forgiven,
My confusion unanswered;
The viral storm you took me over with
Just a bad dream, one of many nightmares.

Living well doesn't erase it,
And self respect doesn't heal it-
Even if I still had any of that left.

You are only the thorn I pricked myself with
Before the hundred-years sleep
Of numberless, uneasy dreams.

A word forgets how to write itself
A smile forgets who it first appeared for,
Everything and nothing owns this treasure-store world.

Tears sprout where laughter used to play
Everywhere are the ghosts of dry fountains
Which once poured out existence like a pitcher.

Who has asked for nothing yet received all?
Who hasn’t tried to go home to the singularity again
Only to recall that there is no center?

God and creation have no point of origin
This is why everything JUST IS.

An embrace down here is how we remind one another
We are the heirs of omnipotent cause;
Planets jostle at our lightest touch,
And at the knifelike sound of a scream
One galaxy cannibalizes another.

Everything we know is a single exhalation
In an endless stream of breaths:

Remember you are only breathing so that you can create,
And all created things contain the conscious whole of creation
Safely stored within them.

Step into the mirror; just go with faith:
The mirror is another dimension that you can enter into
And gracefully approach it, not faltering
And lift your shoe and step through it, to the other side
From where you will see your life going in reverse
Until that last hiccup, before you were ever born.

Step over the bridge; and do not cling
With hands desperately squeezing, breaking off fingernails,
Holding to that last slippery scream, and falling inelegantly
Like a wisp of a ghost, once suspended above the river
Which people will see and then say,
Did you see that? It must have been a bird.

Step out of this life and into the new one
And break all the mirrors, and bust up the reflections,
And do not fall headlong into the panic-stricken past,
Lost in mourning, for whatever it has now become.

Do not look backwards or ahead, but inside
Do not look to be saved, do not look to be reclaimed,
And only then, all the miracles of creation
Will be released from Time’s distant cradle
To come wherever they are needed.

I went to visit a cousin of mine
Who breaks beer bottles on Sunset and Vine;
He turns on the gas, in abandoned homes,
Says if they cared for them, why'd they roam?

Hock the stars and ration the sun;
Bleed the earth till it comes undone,
Sell everything that's not nailed down:
What we're looking for can't be found.

I was walking down some dead-end road
Found where someone had dumped a load
Of brand new shoes; still in their box;
You get paid now, to rob your own shop.

Let's sell the world to the highest bidder,
No one cares if you're a quitter;
We'll blow it all up, as we step on that rocket,
Try to find a space, out of God's pocket.

Rebel-mankind will never get in line,
Always thinks he's got lots more time;
If he saw that mushroom cloud go up-
He'd sell one-way tickets, till it blew up.

Hock the stars and ration the sun;
Bleed the earth till it comes undone,
Sell everything that's not nailed down:
What we're looking for can't be found.