Let the poetry of others repose in majestic halls:
My poems are filler for paper shredders,
For packing in shipping boxes,
And backing for flypaper sticky strips;
To wipe the muddy soles of shoes
That have seen too much of springtime
In the garden.

Others poetry fills the airwaves, and sits between the covers of books;
My poetry is for grocery lists,
And sudden messages you need to scribble while on the telephone,
And maps to undiscovered geneological treasures
That are only a township away-
To trace the faces of cool tombstones
Under a mid-day sun.

You won't find my poetry near any other kind of list
That doesn't say get bleach, dog food, and toilet paper.
Still, my poetry is from a well lettered life-
I have written all my heartbeats, and most of my sighs
Into sibylline hieroglyphics, from midnight initiations
In the secret brotherhood, of my own soul:
And I will die a freeman, because nobody
Will ever feel the need to own any of these words.

The world is a catastrophe always evolving,
But somehow it must be more
Than it's life and death,
It's breathing and suffocating
In the fullness of youth or old age?

Can't it be more than beauty and ugliness,
Truth and falsehood,
Peace and war?

If you become very still
You can feel all of the people who are dying inside you
Right this minute

They each write about it as it sees them fit:
Poets and writers, pouring out words;
Keeping to parity their own souls wit.

Snatching words from thin air, as they sit,
For they each have their own distinct worlds;
They each write about it as it sees them fit.

Giving to the page their own token bit,
As the truth deep inside them slowly unfurls;
Keeping to parity their own souls wit.

Writing's something they never can quit,
Scribbling's something they to all else prefer:
They each write about it, as it sees them fit.

Life to them is never just a skit,
They would never want to go unheard;
Keeping to their own souls wit.

From piece to piece, their busy mind flits,
And their heart singing just like a bird;
They each write about it as it sees them fit,
Keeping to parity their own souls wit.

In a madman's rush, the worm gets born:
As shouting words do the fight unleash,
Moon's in eyes, and the soul gets shorn.

Why lay hands on the things that harm,
When there's brokenwinged wonder, in our speech-
In a madman's rush, the worm gets born.

The shroud is lost, unravelled and torn,
And human mercy is but a leech:
Moon's in eyes, and the soul gets shorn.

Scorpion's sting, and mankind's scorn;
It seems real justice is out of reach:
In a madman's rush, the worm gets born.

The unicorn has lost his horn;
The mermaid's dead upon the beach-
Moon's in eyes, and the soul gets shorn.

My thoughts are deep and as forlorn;
For man, by the heart of him's impeached:
In a madman's rush, the worm gets born,
Moon's in eyes, and the soul gets shorn.

The skies are cloudy with a chance of love:
With you, I'd paint all the stars above;
My hearts on fire, and there's a chance of rain-
Unless I'm wrapped by your arms again.

The skies are cloudy; but the sun peeks out,
While in my heart there can be no doubt
The weather there has been just the same,
Since I first heard you speak my name.

The skies are cloudy, but underneath
Love has taken my heart; the thief,
So now all weathers that we see as two
Will show us skies that are always blue.

The tongue lies but the eyes tell the truth;
Never comes the day, that you could believe
The odd flowers, all growing from one root:
She says she'll stay, but anyway she leaves.

Never comes the day that you could believe
How different plants grow, from the same-sown seed:
She says she'll stay but anyway she leaves;
Your heart says flower, but your mind says ****.

How different plants grow from the same-sown seed,
In the bloodied pact you made, her blood was fake:
Your heart says flower but your mind says ****;
You know you still want her, though she makes you ache.

In the bloodied pact you made her blood was fake;
There's no more trust, just the carcass of lust,
You know you still want her though she makes you ache,
She says she's yours, but her words are more rust.

There's no more trust just the carcass of lust;
The odd flowers, all growing from one root
She says she's yours but her words are more rust:
The tongue lies, but the eyes tell the truth.

In the midst of all your dreams
I tiptoe through your heart
While the stars about us gleam
I put to work my art

I tiptoe through your heart
The stars alone can see
I put to work my art
To bring your love to me

The stars alone can see
How I cast my sovereign spell
To bring your love to me
For nobody can tell

How I cast my sovereign spell
And I wrap your dreams with mine
For nobody can tell
And I do it every night

And I wrap your dreams with mine
While the stars about us gleam
And I do it every night
In the midst of all your dreams

I looked through eyes, were never cruel;
O, but their looking long was naught!
Though people may have thought me fool,
I looked through eyes, were never cruel
All that for loneliness, was my school;
And by no friends, were ever sought:
I looked through eyes, were never cruel-
O, but their looking long was naught!

My lover's gone to sail the sea;
The frothy waves like millwheels turn-  
Blow wind, blow him back to me.

He promised he would stay with me,
I felt the ocean's salty burn;
My lover's gone to sail the sea.

What other lover could there be?
Than one who makes my tired heart yearn;
Blow wind, blow him back to me.

He swore he'd never set me free
And my embrace, would never spurn;
My lover's gone to sail the sea.

He vowed his love on bended knee;
My thoughts like blackest waves do churn-
Blow wind, blow him back to me.

With those wild winds, I won't agree;
I'll bind my heart, to steer the stern:
My lover's gone to sail the sea;
Blow wind, blow him back to me.

He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,
From drops of peridot scattered at sea,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His father not caring where or with whom,
Or from what rare ocean his being might be-
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.

He learnt his letters from a dark winged loon
Who flew where the mountains caress the trees,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His speech was a garble of false and truth,
Whistling like a hollow piped reed,
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon.

His eyes a contagion of waters blue
And brackish trunks of underwater trees
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

His normal voice wove a threadless tune,
Brought close the mermaids, hungry to feed;
He stole his eyes from a milk-glass moon,
Hidden beneath a moon-shadowed ruin.

There's magic in the air
When Cinderella dreams;
Glass slippers may appear,
As odd as it may seem.

When Cinderella dreams
Of jaunty men on horses;
As odd as it may seem
For magic reigns, of courses

Of jaunty men on horses,
She dreams, in her little bed,
For magic reigns, of courses;
And it dances through her head.

She dreams, in her little bed
He has come to take her hand,
And it dances through her head;
She'll be Queen of the little land.

He has come to take her hand,
Glass slippers may appear;
She'll be Queen of the little land:
There's magic in the air.

(Pantoum form)

I had two rats, to fill my days
Through spines of books and bed clothes
They chewed their lazy way
And when they saw you, froze

Through spines of books and bed clothes
Released out of their cage
And when they saw you, froze
For chewing was their rage

Released out of their cage
And when they saw you, froze
For chewing was their rage
Their pile of ***** grows

And when they saw you, froze
They lurked behind the dresser
Their pile of ***** grows
The cage mess is the lesser

They lurked behind the dresser
They chewed their lazy way
The cage mess is the lesser
I had two rats, to fill my days

We drove by the cemetery in a different part of town
Searching for another restaurant where we didn't really want to go
And suddenly I remembered you were there; that is, your clam shell was there
Carefully wrapped and placed underground, somewhere among the thousands
Your inexpensive namecard merely flat brass; invisibly close to the ground
And I thought of the oddness of life;
Here I was with two people you never got to meet,
Who meant everything to me, as you did back when,
And indeed always will. And back in my touchy days of grief
I could not have envisioned a happy day
On a drive beside where you lay,
Busy composing your still reverie for the ages.

So life goes on, however we wish it would not at times,
And though it is difficult to believe, we do get better, by and by.
And though the Earth will not remember one flower
That we knew together,
I realized the cemetery ground is made hallowed
By all the love and faithful memories being poured into it:
I'm pouring in mine now-
Who knows, perhaps it will flood?

Life can mesmerize with smiles;
But when it weeps beware, beware:
Your tears would fill a mountain stream
That's rushing past, before Life care.

And when you laugh, you laugh alone,
Though you might think the flowers too
Would giggle at a word you said;
The flowers thoughts are very few.

We are not often understood;
The world speaks in different tongues,
Though we may think that ours would be
The only universal one.

Well now I'd sell my soul for a pound
Of words: all picked clean of ambiguity;
Rocks and detritus removed,
Preselected for clarity of meaning
Predestined for the musical familiarity
Measured out for rhyme and syncopation
Delivered by some gum chewing, ball-capped deviant
Nervously glancing up and down the street
As he slips me the stash, and I hand over the cash.
Yes, what a dream; instead of the frown
Then the squint; with a curse on the scribbled, marked through letters
Killing, resurrecting, then killing them all over again
Buried, dug up, and reanimated
Embalmed, only to be cast again on the bone pile
Trying to remove the threadbare impressions
With the worn out, gnawed upon pink eraser
Drooling, staring at the clock, eating more junk food
In between the hours of crisis and midnight
The only right answer being
To eradicate whatever I like
And leave alone whatever makes me uncomfortable
Impossible task: insipidity ruins the brilliance
The plot's flaccid and lacking moral filibuster
The characters weep and sing at the wrong times.
What kind of a racket
Doesn't even have a black market
To turn to when you're desperate,
And you've got to die
To have your name be remembered,
If indeed it ever would be.

Proximity-
My knee touches yours under the table;
Adults we are, a knee excites no molecules
In our experienced repertoires.

Proximity-
Shoulder to shoulder, in the airplane
Trained to be busy, to keep alive;
No time for sensation or idle daydreaming.

Proximity-
Two hearts beating, back-to-back, in a fertile darkness;
And a long gaping drop-off, just before the edge of forever:
Every cell too keenly aware..

And the letter came:
And you thumbed, humbled, over it and over
An hundred times a week, you took it out
Pouring each word over again
As for the first time, it still was
And blotchy it was from tears
And tips, nervous fingers which pulled little rips
Into the off-white paper, where much strong handling bore
Each time's grief bearing need: you read it, nothing more
Seen differently; surely always the same, yet nuances
Came despite instinctual knowledge of before;
Did this sentence- this wording style preferred it
That he might mean only just that- or was it
Imagination's sullied creation? did those words
Sound tired; and if very thought of you
Became fatigue, was it the plague of his precious pen, or brain
Or just the worry of his own entrenchment there?
Even so; sometimes you read familiar words
That joy shouted from, certain as could be.
Times when you felt uneasy, queasy at one word
Or phrase, as if a ringing death-knell must have
Rang: to spell out the end of time's bitter being-
Crossed yourself, three times; and said a beaded prayer.
The letter came to be important to you that this
Could cause everything to cease; a hunt driven
Feverish, once it went missing where from out it's pocket-house
(deeply as when you bent under the trees..
to pick up crying children in their frail need) it leaped.
And when one day unfolding, the letter dropped into your lap
Pieces neat piled into sections; folds perforated through
Because so nearly worn out; stained, thin-souled as grief itself
Heart treasure map woven in lover's lace; bequeathed
And then realized: there no other letter ever was or be;
If never sent, gone missing; you'd pinned all quickened heart beats
Stayed hope's courage upon a single letter's fate, and it
Carried through the fears, saw above the swarming years
Sleepless nights when, no tears left, it swam: you gathered up the limp
Damp, feathered pieces and stowed them safe for keeping
Knowing some day again, when things were not the same
And finding them you would remember, this single letter
By which all hope then was given, your hope that came
As a single letter; came due south, straight down from heaven..

I envy the cool darkness, now we're apart
And the warmth which wrapped your body:
Cocooned by your breathing,
The secret shadows and angles
Which gradually changed every hour
Like a dark sundial recording
All your limbs tiniest convolutions.

I know there was a sort of
Kabalistic synchronicity
Some algebraic function
And if only I'd studied more;
If only I'd applied myself better
I wouldn't have gotten all the equations wrong
Lost the notes, failed the exam.

I remember those once acute angles
How they fit so perfectly my body's contours
Our seams vanished together, smooth soldered
In the same molten dream; mouth to mouth
Torso upon torso, moving wave unfurled
Water of twin oceans, mingled-
Now it's only the moonlight that burns.

I'm reading along, like a galloping fawn,
And then something trips me, as I hurtle along;
I land smack on my head, and then I look back;
There's something has tripped me, right there on the track-

Well, it's a stray 'thee'; and as pretty as you please,
That all of a sudden popped up, like the breeze;
I was reading along, quite all unaware,
And suddenly - boom! a 'thee' did appear.

I gather my courage and try to get up,
But before I can manage, to pick up my stuff,
It happens again; who would have thunk it;
I stand up and hit my head, square on a lunkett!

Looking above, I can see why and how:
It's because I have bumbled, into a stray 'thou';
Who would have guessed, it would cause me to blunder;
Cause the last time I saw one, was late eighteen-hundred!

The last one is worst; you know it, of course;
Almost fell on my head like an anvil, the curse!
This one more insidious, than all the others;
When a 'thine' smacks your backside, you'll not want another!

So be careful, when reading the words of the day,
And watch where you walk, even walking away;
For, if you're not careful, you could have some pain
When the archaic words come, to beat you again.

Be careful of close auditoriums
And thick stanchioned stadiums
Watch out for iron gussetted doorframes
And bar covered windows
For your loneliness will trap you there
Backed up against the steel barriers
And probe your trembling thoughts
With it's dark truncheon.

Stay away from mirrors
Which can reveal your state of solitude
Automobiles which will show your inertia
Rollercoasters which can skitter you into the past
Without so much as a roll-bar
And arms, perhaps most dangerous of all-
Just before nightfall.

And if your sun should nightly shine
To kiss my most fervent need
And if fevered hands should suddenly seek
Upon mine; inviolate, to feed

If, hand to hand, we fuel that hidden mouth
Which, cavernous, can never sleep
Who can say what the ending will be
Of things giving birth from the deep

Once-bound of heaven; loosed upon earth
To the uppermost firmaments, it must always escape
The clouds ferry sandpipers day-swift journeys,
While on beaches beneath, the dead birds gape.

If at first I had seen you as a still-life
Of passing interest, in one of those restaurants
With heightened pretensions of the eclectic: culture in a can
You would have remained void of deepness, to me:
A face half-hidden behind a menu, buzzing neon lights behind your head
Faintly visible enigmatic eyes, above the hors-d'oeuvres list
Some inaudible small talk with another person,
A casual tabloid easily forgotten.

If I had noticed you while you were working
You would have seemed another skilled contractor or employee;
The answer key to the solution I was seeking, though I might have paused
Long enough to suppose you wise, well educated: noble
In the struggle, perhaps wondered if you were always this serious
Even if not on someone's time-clock or your own pay roll
Maybe I would have thought you had a quizzical expression, or questioned
If I had imagined that wariness which seemed to hide behind an easy smile.

Instead, you've drawn me closer in, only toward you-
Pulled me in with no touch, not a glance, nor hushed voice
With only your words, your wit and keen intuition, against which  
I've no sort of defense, no sophisticated angle of attack
And words can promise all, or nothing; or simply imply a supposed future
Towards which we might have been running backwards
All this time, while caught up in thinking that eventually
We would be arriving at some place completely different.

Key to my door, come into my heart:
A place has been prepared for you there;
Forever waiting to become your altar,
Many dead flowers, to sweep aside-
Come in; come in, now nothing must hide.

Key to my door, I've waited so long;
Song of my heart, that's opening wide,
I'd wait forever, if you asked;
For only for you, eternity stands still-
You know; you know, you have a potent will.

Key to my door, heaven's within,
This house of thoughts you're covered in,
Where my chest beats out ecstatic rhythms;
Where your treasures lie, and your words stay hidden.

Dread not, that fickle time knows not your name;
Nor fear, that vanquished age will stake its claim:
For evolution is the game of life,
It soothes our ancient wounds, it ends all strife.

The dust knows more than paltry men may learn,
The end to all our future enterprise-
But holds its stony tongue, lest we discern
We're drowned, beneath an earthly weight of lies.

Our fantasies and dreams; but sediment,
Our darting eyes are full of nothing real,
And we can have no notion where they went,
And so our lies, from rancid truth we steal.

We would at once all things save love, impeach
If we could view ourselves from heaven's reach.

You've given me everything
I could have wanted; and also that which
I wouldn't have dreamed I could ever desire so much
You've answered me in your own way-
Everything I've asked of you and more
I never could have imagined how wonderful
You would be, even in your darkest moments
I've enjoyed with you things most people
Only fantasize about, and things nobody could imagine
I've had a special relationship with you
From the first moment, so forgive me
If, at the end of us,
I ask for more time with you-
And I know everyone does that;
It's not that I'm greedy, it's just that
The alternative to you is nothing I can imagine,
Nothing compared to your beauty right now,
O my world- everyone always wants more of you
Even though you're the soul of everything.

All nights are too long
When your lover's far away-

I chase the trains all night
The ones my thoughts are riding;
Hobos bound for anywhere but home.

Trains full of candle smoke
And down from comforters,
Trains mixing together a combustible dream
In their blurry eyed compartments.

My memory is westbound
My history behind me somewhere;
If I stay behind, I'm nowhere,
If I don't jump soon enough, I'm lost

I can't remember getting on at any station,
I never had a ticket stub
Nobody here seems to knows me-
Why have I always been afraid?

I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry

The standing fall down on trains,
The sitting see everything swiftly pass them by
Before they can ring the bell-
I can see your eyes, out of a hundred windows

In every window, door and steeple
The faster, the farther I go, the more you keep up with me;
Haunting, like a vision
Soundless, like a dancing flame.

I sleep and wake fitfully,
Feeling the cabin vibrate-
Are the eyes inside or out now?

We can play like ghosts at midnight,
With the past and future;
We can pass through walls
As invisible as wind:

I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry

Death teases us with the nearness of it's breath
Like when you look into a crowd
And happen to lock eyes with the one staring straight at you-
Even though you never saw them before,
And didn't know they'd be looking your way.

I wander past your outstretched arms
Looking for the other you,
The one outside my head
Who fills out all my waking dreams

When everyone's gone
Who will see the stars falling,
And who can give me absolution?

For I'm the tear in a nun's eye
I'm the broken note in a crow's cry-

Nights are too long
When your lover's far away.

written to Morning Song/Zero 7

A woman's just a padded cell, in situ:
With mirrored tile reflections, of former occupants
Reveals their once desires, like long past feast
That's been viewed only partially, through a narrow hall,
And though her cushions can't stop your fall
They soak up life's effluvium; for she's an island
In the lull; most co-morbidly, antediluvian:
And as it cradles the body's living estate,
Her rocking-horse frame can't navigate
The ground swell of presumptive grace.

Let's pretend, that the dizzy motion ride
Has provided real progress forward, in spite
Of strong waves, that coupled oceans bring;
Jump saddle, on her coiled and double-jointed springs.
Bright enameled eyes might rein you inside
For your brief spate, of the near total ingress:
Waving haloed hips of plastic'd flesh; her glide
Could stay stationary, until you confess.

Only she knows well, the secret of assuring you
You'll not drown, of her swirling vicissitudes;
And if once you abhorred your childhood name;
Now can use same call sign, for your idling engines
Of a certain procreatively inspired invasion
As she whispers it; says it loud, clenching need
Of the second's singlemost long duration.

When she finally unlocks your prow from docks
Post haste, of body's self-deceptive clocks
Inside her temples, rising incense of sweat
Mingled with undertows, of past vibrations; and her smell
Itself: a briny distillate, of a pheromone tonic; forensic clue
Of a decidedly amber hue; the body's cyclonic age of man
Keeps travelling it's way, down her plundered mnemonic.

You can feel the straight jacket's razored sleeves,
Beginning to loose your constricted lungs;
And your ***** overflowing; becoming a sieve:
If you could keep on riding, you'd be quite sure
That eventually, just a small band-aid could cure
The slight, though badly malformed scar;
From the still flowing toxins; to soon immure-
Hard to believe, how far gone you were.

Forget old self; a newfound confidence;
Makes you forestall the inevitable trip
Down to the corner, second-hand store,
As now is revealed, that her paint's become chipped;
And the horse's eyes are now rolling inward,
As if looking there, for some positive proof,
From the prying, irreverent eyes of the world-
But you know it too well: she's just a padded cell.

It may be that you were an astronaut before
And now you clamber unknown chambers of my heart,
Knocking down the tilt-up walls
To find the inner space of your reservoir
And your oxygen; my bloodstream
My heart; your pulsar beating out cosmic revelations
My future; framed by your unblinking past

Terminal comets tumble alongside
Undisturbing of the velocity of your experiment
Exploding suns in supernovae spin-cycles
Left your scientific mood untouched
The last horizon, my need for security
Has been hitched to your superior fuselage
Now we float together, at the end of a single lifeline

I breathe out as you breathe in
A symbiotic bellows, in perfection geared
Neither of us make a move
Except we go in the same instant of direction
This must be what heaven feels like
At the end of time and acceleration,
Facing the unknowns inherent in the expedition

There were never any promises made,
Discovering the wonders and terrors of deep space
And at the finish of my hibernation,
I awaken to explore a mysterious new portal:
Held open for me, an orbital doorway
In galactic eyes of bluest heaven-shine
Which will stir the primordial chaos of my existence.

I'm too big for your suitcase-
My life is a hell;
I thought I'd go with you
When they ring that bell.

I thought I could fold
My face to my knees;
Wrap my arms round my legs,
Hold my breath until three.

Then emerge from the suitcase
Unscathed as you please,
But there's no way I'll fit there-
I've eaten too much cheese.

I'm too wide for the zipper,
It won't close or move,
And worse, it seems stuck there-
Right in my groove.

I'm too wide for the zipper,
And it's teeth are now stretched;
If I just had no feet
I would feel much less wretched.

My head doesn't fit,
And my arms much too long;
If I could get shortened-
Would it be so wrong?

I thought I would fit
In your suitcase, to hide;
But instead, I'll just mail me
In a big box, inside.

Like a tomb for a Pharoah,
I'll have room for my parts;
On my way to you now,
To reclaim my lost heart.

The moon owns all women:
We feel it's tautness, as it's pulling us
Into the fertile loam fields, of reproduction,
A year at a time, until high tide finally arrives.

And at birthing time, we can sense it's shadowy silver fingers
Prodding us, wanting us to deliver to it's schedules only;
Like it orders the oceans to and fro, with it's nearness
And animals sense it's fog of breath behind them, urging them on to madness.

At certain times of the month, and it is such an on-again off-again sort,
Either completely out there, or hidden like a thread of light, barely showing
Through hidden doorways tiny cracks; unwilling to reveal a centimeter more
All the while influencing a million more invisible things we would never associate
At all; and makes one almost willing to believe in astrology's claims.

And once I saw the moon beside your face, and could no longer resist
It's pulling; and when it told me to go into your arms, I obeyed-
Because I knew it was more ancient and  more powerful, than any of our sawdust brains.

When my body can't take it anymore
I go into the closet- not to pray, but to worship;
I kiss the complacent coat hangers there, orderly on their metallic racks,
My lips on smooth plastic; eyes closed,
All senses centered on my mouth;
Enraptured, I can't see any colors at all..

The surface doesn't soften, as I beat out my lips
Against the mild anvil; altar of pain, loving the more distant you
Somewhere on a compass that the heart knows best;
This pain is merely a devotional exercise, to take my mind
Off the fact that the hangers can't actually kiss me back.

The wool blazer has your blue eyes;
The polo shirt has some, not all, of your softness.
The shoes delicately waft a heavy, calming manly odor of leather.
The weight of the clothing leans back against me, sighing
And muffles most of my cries and exclamations

While I sway, to their soapy limerance of fabric softener and dust.
If I push far enough into them, they enclose me all around
Just like a lover's firm grasp, of aching seams and  straining stitches,
Loving me soundlessly, from many directions at once.

To silent, undanced waltzes, we hang together, in furtive salute;
For they are not free, and neither am I;
But we can dream together, in the small cottony, worsted room,
For we are old friends, we have known both sunshine and rainshower together

And long, undying afternoons, of tears and questioning why.
They have known many of my beloved's names,
And I in turn have seen them both inside and out, plush and threadbare.
We have no secrets any longer; I know their every scar by heart
As well as they know mine:
I can never discard even one of their kind,
I have to keep them closer than skin.

Words the counterpoint to our pain of existence;
Finely scattered fires, on the tips of arrows
Buried deeply beneath brooding flesh;
Blood seeking missiles, to destroy a lung or a heart.

If the syllables were aimed well enough,
And once my convulsing heart is all twisted and held
In the sinewed leather embrace of your quiver,
I'm busy reading my death in the end feathers.

Because a word is mispelled, and it takes my final breath:
I am impaled on your imperfection again;
That word is a secret message, that can fly swifter and straighter
To inform me, that you were thinking of something more
Than just dinner, and a hide to comfort old bones.

Experiment in human perception:
Change your name to something different
And suddenly it is perceived
That your writing itself has changed;
Become darker, depressive; even suicidal.
The same words, emotions as before,
Now clothed in a gothic, demonic flavor,
By the simple association with a different name;
Nothing more or less than a collection of letters-
The 'd's not from dendrites,
The 's's not from synapses.
Were the Salem witch hunts inclusive in our very DNA?
Because no one can ever see inside a man's heart,
Only his clothing and name are visible;
And both can be combusted, at the whim of society,
Of whom no one person can know it's motives.
How can it be trusted, telling nobody it's name or mission?
Yet my name is out there for the whole world to see.
The different will always be searched out, persecuted,
Whether in school, or the world at large,
Whether in 1940's Germany or 21st Century America.
That's how it starts.

That's why scientists use lawyers for experiments instead of rats
Stumpy replied, I was gonna say something when Martha fell out-
But ten dollars is ten dollars
Don't listen to him- he isn't even your father
But when I woke up in the morning
I was on that guy's mustache again
If she isn't good enough for her own family-
She sure as hell isn't good enough for you.
The parrot said, ''I give up,
What'd you do with the ship?''
NASA responded with a one-line memo: "Thaw the chicken."  
I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you!
When I'm driving around, my zip code keeps changing.
The cop asked, "What's he like?" The little boy replied,
"Beer and women with *******."
Frustrated the man said, "Put the cat on the phone,
I'm lost and I need directions."  
The stoner looks at him for a second, smiles
And says, "You're an ambulance!"
That felt good, but my hand still hurts like crazy!
You idiot! Now we have to **** in the boat!
“But I'm not pregnant,” she says.
“Well, you're not out of the ditch yet,” he says.
The boy started off, "Hi, my name's Chuck… --" and the farmer shot him.
'Hey, I don't mind you ******* my wife,
But can you stop using my *** as a scoreboard!?!'
The police are looking for some hardened criminals
'Dear baby Jesus. If you ever want to see your mother again..'
So the crocodile bit his legs off.
And the string says, "Nope- I'm a frayed knot."

we string up our words of pearl
dangle them, on finest fishing line:
butterflies, and large birds of prey
both are born from the same effort;
a monster, or a holy man
enter in through the same channel
and even though love and hate wrestle
every wee-hour of the dawn
to see which will reign that day,
we are never fearful of the weapon
we hold in our own hand
but only of what they might hold, in theirs.

Some kind of music calls me;
Recalls me,  to your side;
Some primal airborne reverie
Fresh out of space and time.

Some mostly memorable note
That reminds of something far;
Much farther than a memory;
Fast-fading as a star.

Past daybreaks blurry edge,
I know it will not beckon-
Time counts not it's loss, the same
As beating hearts would reckon.

Right now you're only a photo, and a distant voice:
But I have your wall's pattern
Committed to long term memory;
I'm sure I will see it in my dreams sometimes.

But you are much larger than all of that;
Than tiles and towels in a bowl.
In your sphere of influence,
My little world quakes.

Under the coming of such imminence
I feel the forward air rushing up
Just ahead of the subway's arrival
On it's familiar path, to the welcoming arms of the station.

I can feel the doors as they swish open,
And a million thoughts starting to fly in and out
Like so many frantic travelers
Going anywhere on a nameless, fragrant summer's day.

Behind it all is the transfiguration
Of a pair of eyes, that I seem to know best
From the inside out, from somewhere unshadowed,
Where time does not need to count on it's fingers.

And already I know that it is not the words
That I will get the chance to say to you,
That will haunt me; but all the thousands of words
That we will never say-

So that they will hang open-mouthed,
There in the stagnant stillness, where nothing moves,
And where nothing has its being any more
When those doors have closed forever.

I try to show her the universe without a telescope
I take one of her hands-
This bracelet opened up is the Milky Way galaxy; these spheres of lace
woven so intricately

And the knitting needles are the star beams
The fabric of space is seamless;
Look, inside your eye is a wayfaring nebula
Far from it's home constellation

Our heartbeats are woven from the dark spaces
Between the conjugated matter,
Frozen into time and dimensions

Love is the singularity;
Home is where the heart is beating,
And light is the substance that sings
The background song of creation
And how we are covered with it, inside and out-

Take a breath, and then see
That you are moving only light-
I stop and kiss her hand
And her eyes light up with understanding.

We practice it in our sleep,
That final flight into the ether-
The one from which we will never come back.

We're riding high, on the cresting wave of moonlight
Sceaming past fires of flaming suns
Far into the cauldron of multicolored night.

The slip-knot of time slows down
Long enough to drag our cocooned soul
Into the nearest sphincter of a wormhole.

Who could have guessed
That darkness would be the bone-marrow
Of so many subtle and exotic hues.

Racing through veils of blown out stars,
We pierce the raving annihilation of space
Weaving to and fro, through the comet trails.

Our voices still many light years behind us,
Stretching out, in the neural photonics of joy-
Only echoes returning, by morning.

Snow White had a pain one day,
She called for the court physician.
He checked her pulse, he felt her head
Said she had a strange condition.

Told her to eat some apples wild
And come back the very next day.
Then found that she must be with child;
For how long, he couldn't say.

Snow White had no rememberance
Of ever laying down with a man;
But her child bore a slight resemblance
To a motley forest band.

Seven dwarves had lived in a place
Right at the edge of town;
Rumors flew it was a disgrace
Which Snow White would never live down.

But then someone remembered a chap
Name of Johnny Appleseed, came through
Said he put some seed right in Snow's lap-
Just before her belly grew.

Let me atone for the sins of the world
Upon your body;
Here, put upon you this sheet
And drape it- just so.

Now, allow me to begin to worship you
With fresh flowers and wine,
Expecting the transmutation
To occur, just about- now!

The starlight will burst through the pyramid's opening
To travel down the dizzying tunnels,
Opening things once in eternal darkness;
Lighting up a bier covered with dried flowers.

A large granite monument to a dead heart
Waits here, in the swallowing silence of millenia.
Now angels will move the great stone aside;
Take my hand, and we'll make our escape

To the deepest tunnels of all; only the initiates allowed here
Where mysteries can only lead to more mysteries,
And a kiss is the most perfect act of communion
For two, who were once merely mortal.

When the slow wave creeps into your sight,
A blue-tinged blanket of reflected light,
Or a cloud shyly peeps the sun's own face
But in your reverie, leaves no trace;
Or a lightning torch x-rays the sky,
It's echoed voice like a rumbled sigh;
When trees wave graceful, arching arms
And the breeze unleash it's earnest charm:
It's angels I've sent, you understand
Of the wind and sky, the sea and land
So knowing them, you'll not forget
That inside love lives no regret
Not for a moment; no matter how far
And so Earth sings, how beloved you are.

Writing is so close to making love:
That sometimes, you can't tell the difference at all;
If I ask if you want to make love this afternoon
You look out the window, at the sky, and mention the fineness of the weather
Or whether it is gloomy and maybe looks like rain,
As there is never, no weather, to comment about
If I ask if you want to make love this evening
You check your calendar then, as if perpetually finding it too full
To squeeze in a lover's tryst, at the full height of the moon,
And then might mention other nights, when unexpected guests arrived,
To while away the incubating hours of darkness, with glasses of wine
And well worn jokes; the *** jokes ever popular, with maybe a game of cards
If I ask if you might want to make love in the morning
You are sure to be busy then; what with breakfast to get, picking up clothes
From the night before; all the interminable household chores
Which seem to lead from one to another, almost seamlessly
While still finding the time, to watch birds through the window and wonder
What they are about, and if they have nests of eggs yet,
And about how two birds kept hiding, beneath the bush yesterday, to copulate
And if even birds have their preference, about such activities, performed together as a couple
And if the neighbors are not stirring, because they have slept in
After a night of continuous *******; and if they are not too old for that sort of thing yet-
It seems very clear, that the only way to write a poem
Is just to begin it, and to let all that other nonsense stuff of life
Fall away; to know that the right words will come when needed,
Just like the right moment finally arrives
And I take your hand, and go toward the smiling twilight
And you finally acquiesce, in the form of a silent acceptance,
That 'no' is not any longer an option,
Because for some things, the answer should always be, 'yes'
And so we write that poem, then
The one I have been thinking about, for so long
And I carefully leave out of it, weather and visitors and busy birds and neighbors;
And all of them are quiet and good, while the poem creates itself capriciously,
Born on only the whim of a moment, and some pulsing memories;
Our bodies merely the vehicle, which pushes it forth
Out of a rich milk of pastures and time;
And in which the whole of history, since mankind first appeared
Is all somehow condensed down
Into one line, of purest potency.

When I'm coffee deprived; it's bad, I know it,
My ****** comes out, I'm bound to show it,
Was trying to favorite that poem for so long;
Hit the wrong button, something went wrong-
Then I added myself as a favorite poet.

Science is full of many odd tales;
Like the woman, cast on me her spell:
She whipped off her pants,
And we did quite a dance-
For she had an opposable tail.

Your world belongs to me now.
I can take over every aspect of it, 24/7,
Stopping just shy, by a few micrometers, of what the law allows.
I'll accompany you now on all shopping trips
Offering my advice from, oh, forty feet or so away.
I'll utilize binoculars to make sure you're not doing anything unsafe.
Amazing how well those things work sometimes.
Especially at night, eh?
I might have to replace your dog with a smaller, less intimidating unit;
Of course; you're free to keep the replacement or do whatever you want with him.
Don't want to risk a serious bite on my intrusive forays after darkness..

Call forwarding; amazing cool thing that is!
No questions asked; just need a few minutes time on the telephone!
And pictures; I'll be taking loads of those.
You never know just when a particular photo might come in real handy.
I carry around bird-watching paraphernalia, so anytime I get stopped,
Everything looks copacetic, even the binos.

I also carry groundwater test kits, along with shovels, rakes; boring stuff like that.
You never know when you might need to test the water in an area.
The test kits are out of date by a decade or more, but who's checking?

Had to duct tape that old broken out back window.
I know, I know; it's unsightly and makes me highly visible,
But they'll never raise an eyebrow now, on seeing that fat roll of duct tape.
And you will always have peace of mind, since you can readily identify my car
And know for sure that I'm on the job, around the clock-
Working only for you, babe.

Oops; time's a-flying. Have to get downtown to the city before they close.
I've requested to take a peek at some publicly viewable records.
Amazing what you can find out there, that you never would have expected.
Isn't it?
Bye now; catch you later, ok?

There is a place within that always waits
For sunshine, knowing rain at last abates.

Everything recalls from whence it sprang;
As the songbird’s joy, when first it sang.

A little bit of ice inside the storm;
A hint of parents in the newly born.

The seed of love implanted at first sight,
To blossom fullblown, tender loving light.

Embedded in each tear the whole of grief;
All our ends twined round one falling leaf.

As brother unto brother does incline;
A little bit of sun in me still shines.

Two hands, which kept me from danger,
Two hands, which bade me know love;
Two eyes, which spoke to my own,
Twin beams, in the sky above.

One mind, which gave me my freedom,
One mind unselfishly waits;
While one heart, for me it is beating;
And one life: my opening gate.

Hands know love-
Clasped in beloveds hands; tight enough
Lips know love-
When the hungry other takes them; almost rough
Eyes know love-
When love's battered remnants lie everywhere
Nose knows love-
When it breathes that close rarefied air
Hair knows love-
When the strands mix about their face
Hearts know love-
When the body finds it; anyplace
Love shouldn't ever be considered rare-
When once you've felt it's form, so near.

your two eyes worship some evening farther sky
than the four winds around us, breathing with our sighs
perfumed taste tantalizes, in metered measure
as waves of warm skin rise, toward strong pleasure
only where the sacred kiss touches desire;
hunger where your quickened heart ascend even higher
as my lingering love gives voice to your song,
waves lapping restless shores, all night long:
then a still, white dove lies, with entrancing smile
underneath the sly moon's beaming magic wiles.