I sit surrounded by the carnage of the day’s efforts:
Words dismembered, metaphors bled dry.
I flap my wings in discomfiture at each glaring new
Example of mechanical fallowness;
Words hung out on clotheslines of manipulated
Speech patterns, wherever they could squeeze in-
Between the wet, moldy socks and twisted, bedraggled underwear.
I am a trained chicken at best, trying to force something out
At least partly digestible. As I peck out the sterile notes
One by one, on my red toy piano,
An automaton digs thru my internal filebanks, the flux of
Catapulted words continually bouncing over the chickenwire;
Escaping to flap heavily upward towards the trees:
And there to look down beady-eyed at the
Flopping, feathery decapitated blight.
For good reason, I hail from a long line of extinct dinosaurs.
Clucking with irritation, I see someone else has
Already laid all the good eggs, the golden eggs;
I can only scratch out some maggots and hope they hatch.

In the kingdom of love,
I would live in your dreams
Touching all of your secrets
The things not yet seen.

In the rivers of time,
I would travel beside you
Passing by all that's false
On our way to the true.

On the path to the stars,
We would walk hand in hand
Finding all the worlds wonder
In the heart of one man.

My moods drain me down
To some immoderate sluice-gate,
They run down the grainy windows,
Clog the sand in the top of the hour-glass
Like bat's tears, like misplaced rainstorms
Looking for a cloud to hang out under.

All my temperaments are accidental,
Wrongly placed; too early or too late
Miscarriages of intention,
Predicaments of inattention.

All the inconsequential moments I inhabit,
I'm wearing thin, from changing my mind too often-
Why is there no groove for thinking,
No energy-saving secret gear?

Sometimes I sit absolutely still
In an uncomfortable position,
Hoping the powers that be will notice me;
Will see that I'm going nowhere, so slowly
And they will send some tempest to help move me along.

I'm also afraid they will send change;
The paralytic not only can't move,
He knows he can never move,
And his biggest fear
Is being thought capable of movement.

In that rapid swirling down the drain,
He wants someone to snag him on a branch,
Save and reclaim his manhood;
Not sit in a tree and watch him spiraling,
While repeating over and over,
Why don't you save yourself?

He knows it's too late for words;
The tears only add to the swelling river.
And if once I thought there was a savior on every corner,
I guess I just got tired of waiting-
Because the ones in the mirror only close their eyes now.

Normalcy both appalls and comforts me-
Why does it all appear so average,
As you go sprawling head first over the falls:
You know nobody elses life will change one iota,
And you know you're just paying some bill
You never even saw.

like dulcet lovers
twins on the Aegean
two hearts beating in time
bis vivit qui bene vivit

never shall innocent blood be shed
yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river

time ran by leaving ****** footprints
time mated with a vengeance
does time run down or simply run out
of time?

never shall innocent blood be shed
yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river

blood speaks in a rush
and mumbles in corpuscles
blood measures heartbeats in pulses
between two hearts
a silken cord of caring

never shall innocent blood be shed
yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river

time answers all questions
in good time
souls are thin rivers
running into the same
shivering ocean of memories

never shall innocent blood be shed
yet the blood of the wicked shall flow like a river

hearts are cymbals
beating out the old refrains
in time

*He lives twice who lives well

Vast leaped the candle's flame,
Kissing grotesque shadows.
Blinking eye of the holocaust
Enshrouded by shards of night.

Drunken fevers illuminate all secrets.
There is one hour between darkness and dawn,
When the beauty of desperate things eclipses time
And destroys the expectations of reason.

Sunless steeples toppled the fonts of your apocrypha
The mumbled harbingers of guilt's ascendancy
The icicles of the chandeliers dripping
Carbuncle tears, as the ransom of sullen lives
Many Sundays saw the closing of word-stiffened pages
In the hands of the blue-suited multitudes,
In homage of cathedrals filled up with dead Lilies
The pure must wear dark colors, in a kind of fake humility
While the evil wear white alone, in broad strokes of denial
And attention is a weather vane spinning madly
At the top of the world, wanting only God to be watching
only God to be watching
only God to be watching

Evil takes its sanguine bite
Out of the ****** dark,
And the soulless stumble
Beneath Earth’s apocalypse
Trying to outrun the smoke of shotguns;
The hunger of dead dreams-
Down here, we can curse with a single kiss.

We must not be sad
Under an ancient moon
Where the glistening waterways move
And the owl and the night hawk listen

Trees that reach out with strong branches
Caressed by a tender breeze
And loons flying over the thatch
And eyes that are darker than these

In the hollow beside the copse
Waits a figure, in the tangled deep
Praying for another chance
While the priest and the laborer sleep.

Looking into the large bathroom mirror
Before the bath
I catch a glimpse, a flash of something
A darkened area of discoloration
Almost as if some future dead thing now inhabits me:
A too old cut of meat turned a familiar greenish hue
Dead corpse waiting to sprout
A glaze eyed figure in the haunted house.
The spot may reveal itself on the face,
Or along a shoulder or arm. Just for a second.
Looking again, it was only my imagination.
The infamous man who dug up graves
To take parts of the bodies, spoke of a woman's body,
That it flushed red where he began to take off
A part of it, by cutting it.
Even that dead for a week body knew
Something violent was being done to it
And stories abound of the still-growing hair, fingernails..
Not just haunted tales to scare children
It seems a little bit of death resides in the living
And a touch of aliveness remains even in death:
The boundaries of when we are transformed
Into house of wax characters
Are never as clear as medical textbooks imply.

The man in the shroud appeared at my door
Impersonating Three-in-One persons
With his Two-D visage.
He said if I ironed him, a reversed negative image would appear
On the other side of him.

But I wanted to know,
Where are the wine stains from the Last Supper?
He replied that he'd changed clothing
Many times since that day.
The flora was exquisitely exact, he said-
Even the Calcium Carbonate signature of the cave was there.

I asked if it weren't all just a fake
And he asked me if we had the science yet to make even one?
And then he raised his arm
And called down one giga-bolt of the Infinite universal X-ray
With which he burned himself into my memory forever.

First I unlock the door
That you might come to me
I open the windows
I cut fresh flowers
I unbind my hair
That you might come to me
I pick some ripe fruit
I light some candles
I sing an old love song
That you might come to me
I polish the mirrors
I shine up my dreams
I bathe myself in the four winds
That you might come to me
It is all of no use
You never will come
Until I have given myself up
To tears and whimpering,
Guile quite forgotten in hopelessness-
Only then do you come into me.
But ever forgetting that
I try everything else first.

My inconstant heart
Tries to touch you, in the boarded up rooms,
The corridors sealed off from my reach.
My recorded voice echoes past empty hallways,
Down decrepit staircases.

Once my portrait hung
Above your bed itself,
Till you partitioned it off.
Even I will no longer grovel
When hope has already flown out the portal.

I'm more dangerous now,
Having nothing left to lose
And nothing to hold onto;
My timbers mutely rotting, while your siren voice
Goes on sweetly singing.

I stuck my hand in the pocket
Of one of your ancient wool coats.
Unworn for many years, too small for me,
It had obviously fit a much younger, trimmer you.
Inside I found a single well-handled pink tissue,
Very fragile, but still in one piece.

I held it up, in awe of its age.
It was then I saw the glimmer
Of infinitesimal crystals;
****** secretions from the distant past.
At once I imagined you outside,
Nose running freely in the cold air,
Furtively brushing your nose now and again
With the tissue, before reburying it
In the satin-lined pocket.

As I held it up in the dim light of the bedroom,
A furtive breeze, aided by the shaking
Of my hand, unlocked the tiny prisms
From the weave of pinkness,
And they dispersed into the air invisibly,
Like the popping of silent bubbles.

A delicate part of you had been returned,
Freed, into the constantly moving stream of life,
Now released from a silken *******.
I bowed my head in wonder at it;
That you were gone from me now,
And yet here was this most human statement left behind,
An outpouring from your once vibrant body.

And I had just touched you again,
And could feel you floating all around me,
Finer in the air, than ashes from a cremation,
Was this dust of ashes
From a long lost Winter day
And then, I breathed you into me
Just for a few minutes, and watched
As the boundaries of time and space were suspended.

Waltz me across the universe
Dance me through time-
Ring the bells: I’m alive
By accident or design.

The offspring of broken symmetry
Or a miracle, sight unseen-
Not the same world would it be
If I had never been.

Waltz me across the universe
Dance me through time-
Once I lived in a star’s eyes
But now my own light shines.

To fire and dust, ran my Father’s veins-
His sudden tempers, fast to wain,
Considered judgments, swift but sure;
Against stray pathos, well immured.

Fire and dust, through all his days-
Meanings strict as he would say;
Toward logic, reasoning flowed his mind,
With love, the tension to unwind.

How I miss the fire and dust of him,
And miss the years, now memory’s dim;
As diamonds hide their humbler sides,
Their closed channels, to abide.

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.

Humankind is the raging mist of tears in the night
An echo of sobs left behind a star capped mountain

We each are dying as soon as we arrive
Day by day, every heartbeat gets subtracted

We beat our bodies against unyielding rock
We wear ourselves out on the anvil of earth

Hope flies away faster than evening shadows arrive
We are shallow-graven letters on icy stone

A rusting planet circles a dying star-
Just how many ways are there to die
And does it matter once the fire has left the heart?

In the holographic world, thoughts can fly
From brain to brain; no reason why
Synchronicity is the rule-
Coincidence? don't be a fool.
Ask, and the door must always open
The dream won't end, till the dreamer's woken
A man will put childish things aside
When he finds the whole universe lies inside
And all we see, and all we are
Once lived inside of a twinkling star
Don't tell me magic cannot exist:
For out of nothing, comes all this.

Christmas opened childhood
Like heroes opened games,
And gifts were just the standard
For those with your same name.

Christmas ringed our childhood
Like hoodlums ring a fight,
And no one could believe it-
That Santa was a lie.

Christmas ended childhood,
That day we knew the truth:
We ****** our own eye’s knowledge
Of wisdom's sorry proofs.

I miss you, and I'm afraid to ask
Where you've gone, where you've been,
How you are, and most of all, if you still are-

I fear the answer most, that doesn't come,
The reply that never arrives:
Bravery was never my forte.

But I wanted to say I miss you
And that I imagine you doing well-
Because that's the only vision I can withstand.

I wish I were the kind could shore up another,
Be their rock and guide, through stormy days.
Unfortunately, I am only that one who stays quietly faithful
In the inner heart, till the very end.

But I can't imagine there being an end to you
Or of that vision that you are the only container of
Ever met with, in my lifetime of knowing.

So I will only say, I wish you well, forever
Come what may, and hope that we will meet again-
Some other, better day.

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.

Silence upon other silence grows;
Taller than any skyward cathedral,
Wider than divisions, between two brothers.

The only sincere silence is natural,
Or found by a flickering candle’s flame,
And the latency, of a sleeping child.

After a death, some silence may roar
Down zigzagging corridors, of dazed;
Haunting midnight's vertiginous dreams.

Numbness opens vast reservoirs of quiet
And in the resultant- preternaturally stilled-
Silence sometimes finds its earthly voice.

I now present to you, Silence itself-
Bereft of courtesies, or dignified flourishes;
Bare as a babe at death- or birth.

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.

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.

I go to sleep again, eventually
After hours of fitful tossing,
Unwilling to surrender
To the nightly unknowing.

Some nights bring forgetting of everything;
Self, days, events, time, life itself.
Others fill themselves up
With a sort of coin, of wavering moonlight
Seen through the haze of obfuscating dewfall.

Reflections broken free from the sea of self
Raise unobstructed to float,
Hanging in the cooling ether of dreamscapes
Where in the fog nameless dogs bark
And dark landscapes prevaricate.

Where clocks do not follow rules,
Where gravity sometimes suspends
Or history rewrites itself.
Judgments come down and are executed
Beyond the dignity of reason.

Nights pass slowly through a watery realm
Where nothing is concrete,
As we wade clumsily through clumps of time,
Skip through a children's maze of nonsense riddles.

And when the knowledge of being in a dream
Pierces sporadically, through the body's paralysis
We awaken, amazed to find
That we are simply ourselves again,

Then we stretch back out, into the other dimension,
Ready to dream some more lines;
Sample some more realities
Till morning awakens us with hands
Of impatient brightness.

And abstraction slinks away
To wait for the next evenings
Entertainment of amnesia.

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.

Ancient, invisible God of the Hebrews,
Some have renamed You, and crowned You
Their Christian god; but for the discerning person
We just need a little more proof.

Here are some forms and paper work,
You need to fill out;
And of course we'll need a certified note,
Declaring just when and where and how
You came into Being, and listing
All next of kin- yes Your Son absolutely should qualify for that-

And we'll need His death certificate on file,
For future referencing, and any dependents-
What's this about Three Persons in One?
Do You have a psychiatric doctor You see?
We should probably have his information too, just in case.

Immaculate conception?
I'm sorry, that just isn't acceptable in any court of law.
Every woman seems to believe it at first, of course,
But that doesn't make it hold water-
****** birth? hmm, very interesting.
Perhaps an examination is in order,
Something surely doesn't seem right here?

Martyred for our sins? What an interesting idea.
Resurrection? Is there a record of that anywhere?
I suppose it's possible You could have had
a colorful near death experience,
If You were really resuscitated- oh it was Your Son?
Oh, You Yourself accomplished this Re-Animation-
Oh oh oh! I've got to get that call.
Hold on; be right back, dear.

"Get the guys in white coats down here in room
311 right away. I've got a hot one.."

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.

dark watch beyond
whose melancholies sang of a savage sleep
and the dimly virtuous poets
who lingered like the kindness of death
writing their peace out line by line
into uneasy slumbers
many nights far afield
where we held up their verse like a lamp
the grace of the muse still showing the way
serene as unexplained stars by day

Please smile, when you read these words
So nobody will know, that I love you;
And don't be afraid, for it's only this,
That I love you, and then please smile,
As if it were only the daily news.

But not the same smile that you use
With her; for smiles are more
Than mere muscular signatures,
For they enclose a private world;
So smile, smile; this is meant for you
And only you;

Smile as if it were only a sweet surprise
Between us two;
Please smile again, as you read my words,
So nobody will know, this love is for you
(And then afterwards, don't forget
to smile for her too)

Hide in plain sight
Hide the hole within your soul,
Hide your dark blots all away
And run away that you shall live;
And live to run another day.

Hide in dark and hide in light,
Hide your life's continual blight-
Hide from truths so they won't find
The blackest hole of all; your mind

Hide in plain sight
Hide the hole within your soul,
Hide your dark blots all away
And run away that you shall live;
And live to run another day.

Hide the brilliance of your soul,
Hide it deep, hide it well-
Hope they won't think to look there
Stand watch to guard it, if you dare

Hide in plain sight
Hide the hole within your soul,
Hide your dark blots all away
And run away that you shall live;
And live to run another day.

Hide in hell worlds of the mind,
Hide in spells they'll never find-
Don't let them own your living soul
Much better far, to live in holes.

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.

I stubbed my toe upon a nail
It hurt and hurted, just like hell
I got sick of the pain
Along came a train-
Sliced it off on the top of a rail.

I jammed my finger in a door
I swear that sucker got so sore
When I couldn't stand it one minute
I turned on the disposal and stuffed it in it-
Now instead of five fingers, I got four.

My knee was feeling it's weary age
As I hobbled me across the stage
In the museum, there was the guillotine
Crawled over the chain, and did my thing-
Now my wooden leg is all the rage.

My arm was sprung; I cannot lie
So I laid me down in the road, to die
But I got lucky, the truck was small
So now I'm just not quite as tall-
You can't succeed if you never try.

Had tennis elbow, so I went to play
Games with a table-saw; my friend Ray
Has tools galore; had just the thing
Now my arm's fixed, it's in its sling-
And I didn't even have to pay.

Got paper cut, doing my thesis
Cussed out loud, my paper in pieces
I hung my hand from a ceiling beam
Strangled it's guts, with nary a scream-
Really proud of my new prosthesis.

My child ran crying she got hurt
As I saw all around her, blood did spurt
But she took one look at my stumps and slings
Said oh, it's really not anything-
Went out, and rubbed it with some dirt.

I'm not spendy, and I don't have greed
For sure, this body has gone to seed
I can do without arms and legs
Ovaries, appendix; all those eggs-
Cause the head's the only part I need.

A prayer is just a cry of becoming human
A cry is just a scream
Of a frightening belief.
And how do we remember how to speak in tongues,
And to flow through moving tunnels
While molding the body to fit something else-
A pattern not yet seen?

Being silent doesn't stop
Others from knowing your unquiet thoughts;
We are more alike
Than we will ever be different.
Just save the last breath for god,
Who pardons all your conscious confusion.

That last, most brilliant light you'll never see
Is only a brain being consumed
By the entrophy of existence.

The stars are well-lit cemeteries
Of illumined souls, that went forgotten once
In the unevenness between the boundaries
Of time, space and heaven.

White feathers falling,
When an angel flew close by;
There's nothing up above us,
But I saw him, on the sly.

White downy floaters,
Floating on the sea of air;
In a single eye blink,
I saw him hovering there.

Souvenirs of miracles,
Signs and wonders too:
He knew he lost that feather-
And he said- give it to you.

I and Me own different planes within the skull;
I settled in the frontal lobes
Where I can usually vote aye or nay, as it strikes my fancy
Controlling the higher thought, the calculations,
Schedules and contingency plans.

Me dwells deeper, inside the ancient brain;
The place of reptiles, receptacle of instincts
While I dream of ice cream sodas, ***, and journeys,
Me might dream of large snakes, have nightly dreams
Of terror, mass exterminations and die-outs,
Experimental lobotomies and spherical supernovas.

Me worships planetary deities and various idols of glazed stone.
I gave up dominance to Me, who can hijack My main processes
When confronted with extreme danger or duress,
In order to have the majority of say the rest of the time.

I and Me get along well mainly because
We are never occupying the same place for long,
Sort of a marriage of convenience;
All my logical reasoning can't turn Me aside
Once her wire gets tripped.
So I spend a lot of time doing damage control-
And hopefully, Me stays asleep.

A reckoning, was the waste of loving you;
Whose heart was otherwhere, who's eyes
Could never resist a new, stunning view.
My solitary hovering as innocuous as a bee,
Stalking the mortal garden, come sun or shower;
As predictable as rain, as forgettable as a flower-
My comedic pratfalls less memorable,
Than her cries of elation:
Her eggs more precious than mine.

Fly far, unclouded soul,
Heaven's newest fervent flower;
Fly to ****** waters, fast or slow
For how can it matter
Once freed of all earth's denials
For you no boundaries, no time;
Limits are for living lives,
But you are the unfettered firmament
Behind a million smiles;
You are the kite that's broken free
Of every clutching kite string;
The pink balloon bearing goodbye tears
Released from a tiny baby's grave;
Or the laughter of many years
Grown quiet; still brave
Having left behind all fears,
Now only on gods time,
Which no man knows-
Fly far, unclouded soul.

When I was young, white moonlight poured in, nights
Through my gauzy white curtains, and the world turned paler,
A ghostly apparition of it's daytime countenance.
The whiteness contained all the emotion, of my whole life's turning
Condensed down into streaming rays of silvered light-
And that moonlight scoured, cleansed everything it touched;
Nothing was sordid, forgettable, unimaginable; the magic turned all
Into a fairy's world, of majestic mystery and translucent dignity.

I trusted the moonlight. Moonlight today is not the same;
My curtains don't block it, but the moon doesn't seem to smile as large
And I know too many secrets and disappearances now-
When I knew less, the fantasies could sustain the weight of my world,
Which has since grown too heavy, and the hour now is late.

I feel if I could reach that lost moonlight one more time,
I could find the other self, the one knew so much more of nothing,
But was secreted between the moonlit nights
And felt satisfied, not yet knowing the deep inward emptiness of life,
And the way the colors get released one by one
From the central altar of night time’s lamp,
And how particles of soul get extinguished;
Released to another life, in the far-travelling moonbeams.

But the moon does not remember bewitching my face,
Which has grown cratered with time,
And while the moon slowly steals our breaths away,
And covers up our eyes with its brilliance,
It's hands pick our pockets nightly,
And take everything there that is light, bright, glowing
To return it to the moon-blinded young.

While we just keep on growing darker,
Until they shove us back underground again-
Now even the moon has forgotten my face.

You wanted a shelter against the tempest
I became a leafy tree
You wanted a haven safe from rain
I became a dry cave mouth
You wanted sustenance from the earth
I became wild rice and spelt
You wanted strong protection both day and night
I became a hall of stone pillars
You wanted to worship man made idols
I squeezed myself down to fit small temples
You wanted a structure like hands raised in prayer
I became an over-arching cathedral
You wanted sanctified rites for life and death
I became the true Religion
You wanted a landmark to honor your ancestors
I became a giant's play-circle of stones
You wanted dependable and natural food
I became fertile fields of grain
You wanted a memorial to primordial mankind
I became ochre'd paint on smoky cave walls
You wanted your freedom, you were too boxed in
I became leafy green bowers...

You were unhappy, you had too many choices
I took it all away again and left it back to chance
In order that you should make your own happiness-
You, who couldn't find contentment
When things came to you naturally, uncomplicated
I may be God, who can mold myself into any form I desire:
But you will always be the form most desired by me.

We are legion, in between the plates of this skull:
Terra firma, of the mind’s fickle boundaries
On a piece of planet, that keeps getting recycled;
From burnt supernovas, to soup kitchens:
How many distant whispers from my old remnants
Call to me from the dark, moist body of my mother?
How many other plots have I called home,
While inhabiting these collections of dust and plasma-
I can feel my once-atoms trying to summon me again,
From every corner of this starred-and-****** universe;
For I was Sister Moon, once known to St. Francis,
And I am part and parcel of the unlikely rabble
Burnt St. Joan’s body into the stake, upon unsympathetic scaffolding;
My bones daily bear the brunt of every curse and offering,
Here in my own timeless tragedy, of trembling flesh.

When the child cries the mother suffers,
When night comes, the daylight leaves;
When thousands die, the valley grieves-
Cover your dead; for more will always be coming.

When heart calls, there’s a heart must answer,
Though it be a million miles away;
Distance apart can't smile and can't lie-
Cover your dead; for more will always be coming.

The small must always follow the greater,
Hence you see the sun, the moon;
Though closeness makes the heart grow absent-
The dead won't need your silver coin.

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."

Genitalia are so amorphous;
They have no chance at heart or conscience.
Identifying characteristics; maybe,
But who spends time studying such a thing?

They are only the messenger;
First at knowing ecstasy,
Last to realize abandonment,
The body's inherently secret code
Attempting to speak the rhythms
Of everyman's language:
Bitmap of the soul's holiest desires.

They can't diagnose trouble,
Or predict rejection:
They are only the saddle upon an unbroken horse;
And wildness all that ever breathes,
Through it's foaming nostrils.

And what is desire, but the body's own fire?

My fathers aunt hated goodbyes.
She helped raise my father, who had lost both parents
At a young age; so in some ways
She was the only mother he ever knew.
The trip to see her was a long one,
So we only managed a visit to the farmhouse
Every couple of years, and I thought it so humorous
That when the time came to leave
She would always unaccountably disappear;
To be seen shortly afterwards, through the window
Or perhaps on the porch, looking moribund
As your car cleared the final sweep of the long driveway-
With perhaps a wave then, if you were lucky.

And then one day she died, and there were no goodbyes.
She died in her sleep, as all the wise of this world
Ought to be allowed to die; and with no goodbye,
No last wave, no tears. I began to understand then
That all those goodbyes, that she would never participate in
Were to be taken together, as a whole,
As a single, silent deference;
Or a quietly potent rebellion-
Against the final leave-taking,
That she knew would probably go unspoken,
And as it happened, so it did.

And now, I no longer say goodbye either-
I always leave the airport stone faced;
Afraid this might be the last goodbye
That I never knew about.

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.

Your trailing starlight woven with silver needles
Enters the mundane life of human days;
And magical tongue recounts miracles uncounted,
In magnitudes of unexpected ways.

Your vision never balks at walls or ceilings;
An artist's heart is not like other things,
The words like hope in slowly burning censors
Take to the sky, once given freedom's wings.

Silent are the rocks;
Silent the alleys and stone walls,
Cracked foundations and fountains.
No voices speak now, except through the wind
Twisting and turning, on its way through the gorges.
The weather has beaten out every surface,
Stamped it's stalagmite of time upon the faces.
The last rags of clothing hung out to dry
Are a sifting, unrecognizable ash of piled up molecules,
Indiscernible from the storm-strewn cadavers
Of wood, straw and leaves,
Leaves which can laugh at the ferocity of sudden gales
And chatter annoying, behind lifting fingers of twig,
Themselves tumbled shamelessly, into ancient doorways
That once were closed against all intruders.

The cipher of their blood has marked, defined this place,
Pressed it down, with the missing weight of forgotten culture,
Though their language is still indistinguishable from others,
But that their slivered bones have stopped up the pilfering,
The plundering of tombs by wild running waters,
Trickling down to the lowest graveled catacombs
Of a once vibrant village;
It is all running spaces of tomb now,
And the few visitors that happen to wander in
Find themselves holding their breath,
Wary of their modern dissonance
Disturbing the invisible residents of past days.

Hallowed be thy name
True reality of mind
Just myself left to attain
To unbury the divine.

Words alone must always fail
To describe that tiny spark
You would call the Holy Grail
If but once you'd brave the dark.

No death, so do not fear
The robed monk implores
Now see the way is clear
Go unlock your doors.

Know that the little Me
Again must go to sleep
But the hallowed soul goes free
To fields of stars so deep.

He hated the wind
It made him superstitious
How it carried things away, on whim
With a certain disarray, of sound

He howled back at the wind
With fear behind his eyes
But it backed him into corners
Attacked by stealth, and surprise

He sensed armies of dead spirits
Crept upon him, just to seize
But now age came more steadily
And overpowered, with disease

Please bury him where no wind will blow
And bend the bough, beneath the breeze
Prepare the plot with the softest dirt
To comfort old bones, with final ease