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.

For here we have no continuing city-
Here the falcons and the herons
Clash overhead, and the dead fall to ground
Like so many feckless soldiers.

For here we have no continuing city-
Wolves and foxes bear young in the caves
And they track the moon till dawn
Like the last worshipers of a lunar deity.

For here we have no continuing city-
When you reach out to touch my hand
Wild goats stumble high up in the cliffs
And the rabbit escapes the trap narrowly.

I steal the ghosts, from others words;
I lift the toast, things seldom heard-
A breath from one goes out, and then
Another creature breathes it in.

The idea that was dead, in you;
I dig it up, and brush the loose
Debris away, and hang to dry-
To have my way, with words gone by.

It's not your typical kind of date,
And he doesn't often date women;
But he's alone, and you're alone,
Though it feels so much like sinning.

You can't refuse his offer,
As he waits for you to dress,
Something casual’s best, he says;
It’s good enough for this.

The scenery floats by slowly,
For he doesn't drive too fast;
You're both old enough by now
You want the time to last.

He has a patient smile,
As he opens up the door;
You're alone now, far away-
Though you've been here before.

You eat dinner, watch a movie
While you sit together, close.
There's alcohol, but you don't drink;
Neither of you likes those.

You want to be clear headed,
To remember every thing.
And then it's late, and pretty soon
There's nothing on the screen.

So you go back to the bedrooms,
And you lie beneath the sheets,
And then he comes so silently,
That you can scarcely breathe.

He lies down full beside you,
So quiet, so strangely still;
And finally says, half-strangled,
We'll begin, whenever you will-

And so, you start to kiss him,
As you think of somewhere far;
The past he's tried to leave behind-
He only wants you to kiss his scars..

Decidedly blase, as the hours tumble past
If divinatory; as the strains of old fugues
That once roused us to incoherent victories.

Never mind that the **** crowed thrice,
Ere you forgot our names-
And lord, the company you keep

Locked in that old hobnail chest;
How you'd be disdained, were it known
The lampshades here drink old *****

Under a goat-grey sky, at morning
And your key's sloppy turning, meteor-like
On its slow approach, at decoding the lock.

But sleeping fitfully now, on the porch,
Your muddy shoes can tell no tales
Of your evenings holy grails.

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 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..

Transmogrified through the written word,
I see myself through his agate eyes;
Shall I take up then the sin of pen,
Transmute smooth paper
To invisible sighs?

Secrets suit him best of all;
A blackness from which ink disappears;
The word written down remains only a whisper,
The heart has it's stalwart lock and key
Which safeguards well it's timeless tales.

For he's the unturned phrase of a day,
Which empties deep into me my own;
And the faint, far echoes slowly returning,
For a thousand years:
Bedrock of my soul.

They said he was known, to talk to his axe
As if it were the best comrade of his,
Amid the rumors about, he had a rich father
Must have fueled his rancor; the life he had missed.

So local horse slaughterer, became his career,
Ready day and night, with axe in his bag;
Sick and old cows, horses and mules,
Made short work with his axe, of the ailing Nag.

It was his work and he was quite good,
Most skillful with axe; and strong and fast.
With his constant friend, in it's home, the bag,
There's many an animal, breathed it's last.

His work left a smell, upon his person;
Some sick horses had the smell within,
And a small girl at play outside, could not miss
The man going by, with strange smell on him.

Under the radar, he plied his trade,
Coming and going, near invisibly;
Never suspected, if he was the one
Gave fatal blows their timely delivery.

Like a bad choice come back, from the past
To haunt the rich miser, in his worldly domain
Of such stern stuff, there's no doubt he'd refuse
To his fatal undoing, and terminal pain.

Where regrets ice over,
The disemboweled freedom rings:
Strolling down defunct bridges,
Unseeing by the dismembered dolls, and orphaned house shoes,
Sycophantic candy wrappers boomeranging,
Piano notes tumbling by on dusty wings.
The air current adds a gauzy, cheap thrill.
Detoured and lost again, casting off the surplus as you go;
The rattle and clatter of the dirt raising roads,
Trying to remember what to disown and
What to abandon in the wake of leaves,
And random shimmers from old butterfly trails.
The forgotten hopes pooled, where you once spent a day
In decisive despair, and decrepitude.
The vacant future come tumbling;
Not so much unexpected, as unwelcome
The loose ends dragging
Bird song remnants, cottonwood pollen,
Unspoken dearness, and unintended consequences.
The key glitters its way to the shallow bottom of the river
I watch it going down, with a half smile-
I stopped marking time ages ago, in my half-life.

Once I noticed a great writer, and he had no comments.
To remedy this occluded justice,
I left a colorful comment upon one of his best.
Immediately a scathing message appeared from him,
Though he had never messaged me before;
I had an instant moment of understanding
Of why he had no comments; it was just too obvious
For my childlike mind to have avoided the trap.
A few more condescending messages,
And I deleted the comment; nothing more needed saying.
I had trespassed on hallowed ground,
I had merely to retrace my steps
And all should be forgiven.

I intruded upon your life, which I could never really see,
Through a series of locks and channels
It remained invisible to me.
And again I invaded privacy, caused consternation.
Compliant, I withdrew all my excursions to your door
And with an effort, I mitigated any unhappy
Emotions remaining there.
I do this to spare everyone more pain.
But it comes at a price.

Did you ever wonder how all the people
Who go to the grocery store on Sunday mornings
Could have such well-defined niche lives?
They think they are defined by what they do,
By a synthetic order that's tacked over the hours of freedom.
There is an affliction, in which every single hour
Must be made to account for itself.

But what if they woke up some day
Before the grocery shopping was done,
Would they feel they had missed out on something
Inestimable and uncommon; worth sleeping in for-
And replaced it merely with something
Utilitarian and predictable?
Be careful what you trade your Sunday mornings for.

What's easiest in coming is never as appreciated
As that over which we must expend ourselves in agonies,
Give birth to, by fully stretching open our being.

What's easiest to lose is never forgotten again;
We had it once, in the sweaty, half-closing palm of our hand
Studying it for long seconds, contemplating it's beauty there,
Imagining it to be ours alone, forever;
But something turned our head for a moment, a second
And at that instant, it flew.

Barnacle-Sam was one hell of a man;
He broke wild horses on the Rio Grande,
He had a skin texture like broken glass,
He caught the horses cause he was fast-
The crustiest cowboy in all of the land.

She lay eyes closed, on gleaming steel,
Summoning every ounce of will;
But was not enough to overcome the drugs
He'd given, with his fateful hug.

She remembered things she thought had gone,
Somewhere broken wings had flown;
Her mind a million miles ahead,
Although her body felt quite dead.

She heard the cart of tools wheeled close,
And with a shudder, knew what those
Things were used for, knew her time
For thinking would too soon unwind.

There was something once she'd read
That she searched for in her head-
A foolproof way to blink your eyes,
Even if you couldn’t cry

Aloud; or twitch your toes beneath,
Though all above, were deep in grief
To tell them that your brain still lived-
And it was just your body, fibbed.

Too late; she heard the scalpel lift-
Felt her hair folded up in clips;
If she could, she would have prayed-
For now her heart was well dismayed-

And then the ruby drops rained down,
Covering white shoes and gowns-
Her pain was met with equal screams,
As she fell down, in darker dreams..

In calm waves of imaginings  I am mermaid,
Always chasing you through the towering tides,
Disappearing between each scalloped crest;
Only my tail visible, sticking out at odd angles.

I have lean, strong swimmer's muscles; I can swim for miles,
Nearly keep up with submarines, ships, ferry’s,
For a limited time. My hair tumbles down
As though a nest, like *****, twisted seaweed
Around my face’s shipwreck-glass eyes
And sunscald lips.

I follow keenly the scent;
Something, someone who’s precious- human scent,
Pungent, earthy, vivifyingly attractive,
Counterpoint to the ocean’s ambergris.

Meanwhile there’s only horizons of teal water all around me,
And roving sky above; my sole company most days.
I swim with just the barest hint
Of whispered memories,
Something so far and long ago;
He who knew well the secret heart of me,
Within my fishy innards
And  in spite of my appearance.

Sometimes a stray dolphin befriends me,
And travels for a distance beside me;
Speaking in strange, native high-pitched dolphin talk;
And dolphins are interesting, but they are not men,
And they can’t comprehend what is it I follow

In the blind, long-aching of unknown distance,
Or what I pine for nightly, in my roiling watery soul
In the solitary caves, of this twilight world.

A dream revealed your eyes to me,
And love once caged is now set free.

I must love you, if love I must;
For who heaven's angels dare mistrust?

A whisper in my ear was all,
My heartbeat slowed down to a crawl.

With love, my soul is now more me,
And love once caged is soon set free.

I must love you, if love I must;
For who heaven's angels dare mistrust?

My eyes uncovered of their caul,
My heartbeat slowed unto a crawl

I prayed together we will be,
And love once caged will be set free.

I must love only you; I must,
For who heaven's angels dare mistrust?

The birds from tree to tree do call:
My heartbeat has grown wide and tall.

Depth:
Jump in;
Begin to swim-
Don't forget to dock.

And I wake up, greedy to live:
The sun climbs higher, in morning’s sky,
While Buddha sits, in his gold-paint statue,
And household saints hide in early shadow,
And woodpeckers do old style tap-shoe.

Coffee smells are rampant now,
The squawk box is rife, with trivial banter;
A nice background sound to go on living to
And the air foams up, at window and door-
The unspoken things are breaking through

A new day's come now, bearing gifts
Unknown, they're already on their way;
Life grows exacting and random, the same,
And again I awaken, greedy to live
And exult in the freedom, to play this game..

My soul married yours long before it told the heart,
That was your secret gestures, it had been concealing
And shy alphabet letters formed our non-linear talks
On which ancient symbols were awakening with the news,
That my rapt countenance longed to behold only you.
And in Morse code, my riotous pulse was pinging,
In tiptoeing tiny steps, toward your smile-fragranced planes;
With small sips of blind and drunken-wheeling wonder,
On Adirondacks of time, I finally met your gaze.
And together found, we were writing the same vows;
Our fingers following a bright-feathered knowing,
And scented blooms of flowers knew your older names;
And avalanching comets swept clean the turgid dawns.
Then the seeds of forever were pocketed in your breath,
Wreathed by stars, and saved for hidden yearning.

The mermaid was dead, of that they were sure
They carried her out, to the green pastures

They buried her deep, and there left a cross
Near which, the bereft waves were tossed.

And the moon crept high, and the tide moved slow,
And a low and murmuring cry did blow:

At first was faint and seemed far away,
Yet soon was audible through the bay.

It sounded like wind, had lost it's way;
It sounded like something, that once was gay

Something whose soul, was shattered apart:
Something was hunting it's broken heart.

It frightened children in their beds,
Whispered inaudible words, in men's heads.

It revealed it's presence, with two green lights
Reflective and deep, like the mermaid's eyes.

Around the lighthouse, the green lights glimmered
And often neath the water, shimmered;

Wherever the Captain happened to be,
Twas sure, the lights would there roam free.

The Captain never said one way or other,
If he thought it She; herself, in the Ether.

And when on his deathbed, the Captain lay,
Beside his window, the two lights stayed

Keeping a watch, on his mortal frame,
Till his breathing life had waned.

And the midnight that he breathed his last,
And all his earthly torments passed,

People swore of the strangest thing:
At quarter past two, heard a ship's bell ring,

And saw two shadows, one tall and thin,
And one swam in the water, leading one in,

Hand in hand, till they both submerged;
It's rumored now, that the Captain's Lord

Of the undersea; the whole blue ocean,
Because of one mermaids deathless devotion.

If alleys were blind,
If you could drive
me anywhere
near insanity's brink;
Or if time could march,
and the moon whisper
it's forgotten lines
in blue octopus ink.

If scarce winds could dance,
where soft rains kiss,
or the brave stars wink.
If my neurons were,
in that thinking circus
of blown-fuse circuits,
the weakest link.

If man is a parasite
***** blood from earth,
grieves igneous oceans
that once gave birth;

If venial sin is always the lesser,
and time leaves us dead in the dust,
I'm bound to make you my
secret confessor,
for time never sleeps
in your rust.

The clock counts the hours of raging indifference,
The clock watches all, in the house of stone-
Tick tock: another heart is feebly breaking;
Tick tock: another heart's wretched, alone.

The hours of chance break the hourglasses;
The sundial's overgrown, with moss and weeds-
Tick tock: somebody says goodbye, forever;
Tick tock: someone else inhabits grief.

The clock sees the winners and the losers;
The clock says nothing, but the words it knows-
Tick tock: don't ask for whom the hour is chiming;
Tick tock: for the mirror and the timepiece know.

Never mistake the fake for real;
Hard truths, for lack of loving.
The genuine need no introduction,
And we reserve anger only for what we care about.

Never love without reason, many ills must be borne
Because of impatience or indifference.
Respect your heart to give it space;
The truth, for room for breathing.

The day is an anvil which beats out the soul
The mettle is forged by the long days of toil
The molds are all filled with the same molten ore
And no part is greater than the strength of its core
If the metal should blister, no working will matter
When struck by the hammer, the piece will soon shatter
If the welds are too shallow the thing will not last
If the mettle is poor it cannot do its task
Though painted or bored, its nature won't alter
If the work ship is true, then it need never falter.

We own the sky, you and I,
And all the stars that sit therein;
Galaxies and nebulae,
Cosmic bodies with no end.

To what avail, I cannot tell
We inherit such a sum;
Although the world is still in braille;
Creation never will be done.

Graveyard cherubs look so cold,
Immune to cries of sadness; fear,
But there are reliquary angels,
And old paintings, that wept real tears.

You plant your loved one
Like a tree, and never look back ever again;
But sing the songs and fight the battles,
Unearthly wars, of virtue; sin.

You do your time until it's done,
And then they'll come, to bare your bones,
Unto that crypt, with impassive angels;
And say with grief, that you are home.

It's a beggar's moon, for you and me,
A lunar ride, to the edge of dawn,
Clutching stardust in our hands
Where love lives on, forever free.

It's a beggar's moon, we see above,
It's phases glowing like an orb,
As fairies fly and wishes spiral
And lonely couples look for love.

It's a beggar's moon, will follow us
It's shadow haunting word and look,
And eyes that speak an older tongue,
And smiles that last, till we are dust.

Just lonely nomads;
we're each others heroes,
for no other hero could there be,
travelling paths so ordinary.

Your name my siren call,
come heathered dawn or sultry dusk,
dim footprints only, left to show
where you shed your human husk.

Dead or dying; we're all the same,
intrepid explorers of rusting earth;
just hoping in some distant future
they'll remember our death or birth.

Three-two-one, Boom!
Said the guns,
Of Eric and Dylan.


Eric portrayed as mastermind,
Dylan as the follower, the disciple;
Violence: the school of after-hours.


Just say no to sawed-offs,
They proclaimed, laughing;
But by the end they were saying, hell yes.


Eric's nose broken by the kickback,
As he played a game of hide and seek
Under a library table.


But the fun wore off, alas;
The fantasy lived out was not as fulfilling
As all the dreams they'd shared.


So they went on to hell together
To see what trouble they could raise there-
And left us all holding the bag.

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.

I love you terribly, and because of it
I am become completely impotent.
And I love you impotently,
And that is a terrible thing to behold.
I love you patiently
Because the root of me is a grave impatience,
And I love you impatiently
Lest the present root begin to die in earnest.
My flesh loves the scarlet sin in all of you;
Being that itself is made entirely of ruby-blooded flesh.
And my spirit loves the resounding hollowness
Of your souls thin, empty rails.

My love is an imperturbable being
That is too soon ground beneath your wheel, like an acorn;
And it is an impenetrable wheel
Which pulls me under, on it's return travel around.
This love is a decomposing hand
That's rising up fist-like, out of a newly closed grave
To grab my ankle as I run past, trying to scream out your name,
Through some shadowed cemetery, at some ungodly hour
In a world that looks suspiciously like this one.

And this love is a panting hound,
Trying to rebury its last remaining bone scrap of hope
With two lame legs impeding;
While this love, a one-eyed crow
Sits taciturn in a tree, just above a tiny, dead sparrow-
And fluffs its jet feathers, unconcernedly.

Flowers in the basket, rotting
Gloves hang by the stairway, dripping
Friends are frantically calling, calling
While my thoughts are slipping, slipping

Roses bloom on faded curtains
Children outside, stairing, stairing
More brilliant dye has stained the cloth
While I sit not caring, caring

Upstairs all is still and silent
Nothing moves inside the gloom
All the voices, never ceasing
Echo in the tomb, the tomb.

A face looks so carnivorous
From the nostrils down:
An open, ravenous trap,
Half full or half empty
Gleaming with ivory shears
And threatened sharpness
Of incisors clicking.

I fear it's raging hungers, this face;
It looks ghastly unkind
With tearing, strong molars,
An impertinent softness of tongue lurking
Concealing the violence till the last instant
While delicately testing
The perfect temperature of warm blood.

Who says humans
Don't eat their young;
Things sometimes happen in the dark,
Late of night, things you'd never catch in daylight-
Why do some never have children at all;
Perhaps they became too fond of newborn flesh,
Delicate as the palest veal-calf of the restaurant.

And it only looks human
When you add in some eyes.

Lonely, deep, swift moments I commune with you,
Looking through my open window into blue,
Uncharted, star-filled, never-ending space
That holds the cherished image of your face.

Longings I would tell you in sweet, sudden word,
Catching in my throat, are stilled, and never heard;
And lovely, unsaid thoughts surge up anew
To wing across the darkness, seeking you.

Knowing not the time and distance in between,
Silently and eagerly, by eyes unseen;
Across the star-filled, never-ending blue
My heart springs up and runs away to you.

These nerves know all the ticking of seconds
In your syncopated ecstasies, and this flesh knows
When you've reached the edge,
There's no going backwards again.
This mind knows all the precise pinpricks
Of patience, wherever you've veered to wander.
But somehow, this world cannot disband
Its crystalline self, before disbelieving eyes;
Can never follow the ordered layers peeling away:
Everything will still be as solid, as fragrant
As vertiginous, restless in inhibition,
Expressing the scaled continuum of resolute being,
When your nerves are finally stilled,
And your flesh is growing already colder.
But my unruly mind will no longer grasp then
Its footprints in carefully metered seconds;
But only in the leaping of frayed centuries, in aqueducts;
The rivers racing forward, into blind uncharted distance
Yet undreamed of, hidden under moonless nights;
Forests folded under the weight of eons, suddenly registered,
Calamities sped up to meet the counterpoint
Of time's new frowning dissonance;
And how quickly the wood begins to warp,
The rusted gallows to peek through, all the torn tapestries weaving.

Ancient air beneath the stars,
Spilling under midnight's face,
Every glowing, hanging cloud
Is an amulet’s silvered trace.

Cast from broken spells of moonlight
Clinging to the pearly beams,
Like unseen spiders spinning silks
To pin a fairy's silver wings.

While she gilds the waiting dawn
With what the newborn angels sing,
In sunrise colors newly minted
For the newborn day they bring.

Bored meeting again,
And we’ve assembled ourselves,
Well situated, to see the clock,
Later arrivals take the leftover chairs
And the words begin to drone.

Pencils getting pushed,
While we’re thinking, how’d we get here;
We left in such a rush,
Our brains are scrambled mush,
When suddenly there’s a silence-

A response is now required;
More murmuring and muttering,
Chair legs being squawked,
Drawings on white boards,
Handouts passed about:

We wish that we just had the guts
To get up; walk right out.
Our lives are lived in neutral,
While clocks hammer out our days;
We owe our every bit of food

To something someone says.
This meeting feels interminable,
In so many different ways,
And just when we’re most sure, we’ll die-
Adjournment comes; the end.

You are the poem that lives on
in all the bright white spaces of me;
the sparkle of snowstorms
in the first flakes drifting
the bleat of a yearling;
the first steps it takes
flowers in moonlight
clouds in the rain
a path to the forest
a mountain bell's clang
calling me home
petal scents on the breeze
white sails on oceans
and softer than these;
faint words on old paper
a gleam in an eye
a jet's silver message
scrawled on the sky;
for you are that radiance
gives me back to me.

The earthquake shook
Their eyes, in a teacup
The room floor raised up-
What were they listening for?

The dead hollows filled
In the stubbled field
The corpses to yield-
What were they listening for?

A low groan, a hidden moan
The moon on loan
Evil sown, to vengeance grown-
What were they listening for?

The footfalls came
Their souls to maim
And life, reclaim-
Oh horror, sustained:
Comes now the sound they were listening for..

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.

There must have been some leftover
Ticket stub mementos
Of your other life as a bus driver,
Bachelor, mystery man about town:
Faded polaroids containing
A slice of arm, of back
Though as a driver, you would have seemed
Mainly a rear view
To all the people on the tour buses you drove.
Some days you surely would have intruded,
Unknowingly, behind the welcoming hugs captured
In still black and whites;
The practical jokes breaking out in transit;
And tearful departures caught in snapshots.
In their lives you passed by so quickly,
A flicker of shadow
Forever hovering just at the edge
Of their days journeys,
Not even remembered as an afterthought.
You would have stayed there
In the background,
Your image often captured while
Taking the furtive smoke,
Stretching out your legs,
Checking the tire pressure.
Though we did not know
One another then
I can visualize the carefulness with which
You would have tailored your own route.
If I could gather up all the scattered,
Torn and trampelled puzzle pieces
Of your once upon a time life-
Thousands of amputated parts of you,
In my imaginings-
Now lodged in a thousand dusty shoeboxes
In the tops of stranger's closets;
Maybe then I would no longer be haunted
With the idea that the invisible fragments of you
Carry on a secret existence
In obscure places you never even visited
And beyond all reach of any capacity
To locate or recognize them.

I can feel this consciousness;
That it's nowhere, and yet it feels local:
It's not in the rocks or the soil, the trees
Or the sky; it goes where I go
And I know where I'm going-
But it goes, without knowing.

Time and distance mean nothing to it;
And I'm its parasite, all the while believing
That I'm the one in charge;
Keeper of the maps and the shoes,
The tires and the itinerary.

Without it, I'm nothing and nowhere,
Just as lost in space as it is.
But I can't help fantasizing
About being the kite for once
Instead of always being the kitestring.

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.

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.

The axe is blood red, by the worn churchyard door,
And there's a dark moisture where it's usually dry:
The pigeons are quiet now and no longer cooing;
For the ones who survived must fly higher than high.

So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.

The children are weeping and rubbing their eyes
As the feather's go tumbling, unanchored and free;
****** clumps clinging, to bush and to vine,
And a small pile of birds at the foot of a tree.

So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.

The attacks were unwarranted; murderous rage:
Something gone awry, in the caretaker's mind;
So he pulled out his coat sleeve the long skinny blade,
Putting to rout all the birds and their kind.

So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more

Now the children have nightmares, which rouse them from sleep,
But it's too late to save their young eyes from the sight;
And the mute beaks are opening up toward the sky,
While they beat bloodied feathers through long endless nights.

So fly away Peter, fly away Paul;
Don't be found hanging round the churchyard no more.

My soul, into granite
Into quartz; into feldspar-
The flesh world can't hold
My roving mind, bold

Ever changing flares, but
Where's the base layer-
Reached not by prayer
That time hasn't raked

My soul's been naked,
For two billion years
O, clothe me in starlight,
In pure dreams of suns, bright

The universe of substance
Subside into me-
I just want to stay true
To myself, in that light

I'd like to see some other measurements-
The ones where humans don't ***** away
Toward the floor; where teeth and skull plates
Aren't widened and flattened into floorboards,
And where the secret grottoes of abbeys
Aren't made silent, by kneeling on cushioned flesh

Where we stretched our eardrums out
To become acoustic ceilings
We left in the smooth, pebbly gossip
As points of interest
To direct the secular gaze upward
Leaving our agoraphobic thoughts
Stranded out there,
Trying to cross that vast expanse
Of white nothingness

The problem of forever
Is that it always ends
Just one octave
Past a plaintive heartbeat

I put on the clothing of monotonous atmospheres
Because there wasn't anything else to wear
And because I like the nice familiarity
Of warm sun, and cooling moon-
All the twilight seasons of sensation,
Of when you could fall eternally,
Knowing that a temperamental universe
Still owned every atom of your being

And Time's scarred fingers endlessly screeching
On the blackboard
Of all your faded significance

I run for years, I run from fires
And frowns and harsh words and barking dogs
I run to love and away from disenchantment
I rush to judgment and retreat from skirmishes
I run headlong into many arms and bounce from chest to chest.

I fall spinning over cliffs and across boundaries
I swim fervently up tributaries and tumble over falls
The longer I go, the farther and faster I run
Almost as if the distance in itself were an achievement
Still at the end to be moveless, and not one remembers me.

Oct. 15 2010

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.

Chain the secret gate
Greenest passage to the flowering kiss
Fielding blue dew drops upon bade wood

Be mine where eyes don't lie
Till one is ever and all
The bright dare of a song

Pearl hidden where death won't gaze
By such verse lost and collected anew
Sun singing it's summer love song forever