One by one they awaken
Those dark and callous
beasts of darkness
Do they ask questions
about life as I do?
I awoke and I walked
The long hard way
until I saw the questions
Of life were lies.
Today the sun streamed
Bright all day
until the beasts of darkness
scampered fast away
Now once more
I will strip the night
from the new moon’s flesh
and wear it like a crown
wrapped generous around
my callous and beastly head.

How long would you have loved me?
A lifetime?
Ah wait, but that was too long?
Let us say just a moment.
Life is best but a moment,
If life is scarcely a day.
Might you have loved me then?
Perhaps while you drank,
From my life’s delicate cup,
with your sweet face turned up,
To love's exquisite taste.
Just one rapturous moment,
While my love inhaled you,
Like the soul of a flower,
For the space of a breath,
Within the breath of my space,
Where my words had no power,
But did their best to express,
Something so divine, so enchanting,
As your souls lingering scent,
Thrilling through all of my mind,
But at last in a sigh,
to be breathed out and spent.
Just one moment no longer,
and then all of my strength and desire,
all my passion exhausted,
With nothing left of my fire,
Gray ash scattered in the wind.
But then would you have clung to me?
Would you have then loved me?
Or would you have loathed me,
and scorned me,
And ruthlessly flung me away?
Yet again?
This maddening moment, I beg let the next,
Show what it chooses to reveal.
Is it enough that you loved me but a moment?
It was I after all,
who let fate spin her wheel.
What though from my dream when I awake?
My love a mere frolic it does seem.
What is life at best but a dreaming sleep,
And what is love, but just a dream,
A brief fleeting thought,
Only for fools to keep?

It is a promise unfulfilled,
To which now I humbly view,
The rugged climbing jasmine vine,
Relies daily on the dew.

No doubt this inconstancy,
May be difficult to find,
So tangled are my morning thoughts,
As the jasmine’s skyward climb.

On his table is a cup,
filled with a need,
to satisfy her receptacle,
of weights and measures,
without such whose proportions,
he could not know.
His own hands mix sugar and flour,
chocolate and longing.
His mind must be precise,
Or her words may grey out,
to a flavorless poem,
a definite defeat of taste.
The chocolate cake he knows she likes,
smooth dark frosting,  
rich with butter.
His mind needs more than tablespoons,
Of sugar and flour, cups of it,
Mixed with a pinch,
Of a sweet sultry gaze,
Sifting through his lover’s day.
Till with his hand he cups her chin,
And turns again,
to mix her mouth with his.
This woman is his table,
And he the cup.

Antiquity lives now as a pale-yellow dust,
Confusing to the remnants of its ruins,
While old bones bleach whiter with age

I longed for red lips,
red roses and rest,
soft cotton and comfort,
found upon her smooth breast.

The red of her love so entangled me,
But oh how I did crave the pain
To banish my own mediocrity
And burn in her molten red rain

In our days we danced so wildly,
Through red skies so happy we flew,
But soon our red turned to crimson,
A red much too heavy for two.

Now I long for white roses,
A somber display,
I’ll curse it in horror,
And fling it away.

Where yesterday small men
felled a large tree,
in its height and beauty,
for no good reason.
Where it was now,
only emptiness remains,
It’s tree bloodied stump,
now level with the ground.

The wind finds its own place,
and waits there holding its breath,
for a sad lonely moment,
calling to no one,
sudden in its stillness,
surprising even the rain,
expectantly drifting in,
still looking for the tree.

Below the tree line
love ran its rank course
in hungry silence, with diligence,
where all are meat, and none are free,
to the lone wolf prowling through the pines
pure of heart, and lovers’ dreams
over many a distant hill he roams
his silent sorrow speaks to me.

Here amongst these rolling hills
among no person's love or lust
resigned to chase his dimming suns
with knowledge of his end to come.
None should know such lonely thoughts,
as this simple creature, filled with light,
chasing always loves request
to find his longing in the night.

Howling deeds that others shun,
Silver drops of heartache shimmer,
from jaws of silent moonlight come,
glowing with the faintest glimmer,
of peaceful evenings left undone.

Those longing cries for others,
Friends, enemies, lovers,
They cannot peer within
such chilly hills where solitude lives
Lone wolves run free and live apart
They have no brothers, no friends, no lovers,
to claim their lonely wandering heart,
the coldest, grimmest winds that blow
are all they need to nourish and feed,
their hunger wandering cold
and lean amongst the silent trees

All night long my restlessness
wandered longing
those wet city streets
dripping dropping, raindrops fall
Until my silent moan
woke me alone.
at daybreak a sole bird chirped,
singing sweetly in the dawn
If only to find such happiness,
in the morning’s quiet song.

All night long her restlessness,
Prevented her from sleep,
So she walked and peered
with eyes still closed
inside those deepest parts of me.
A sound then broke with the sunrise sigh
amidst the drifting winds.
Opening eyes lashes damp
With tears to the morning skies,
did she too hear the birdsong cry?

I should have kissed you
in our garden of sighs
under the deep purple sky
while you shook the daylight
from your free-falling hair
that moment knowing only
the thick stain of life
staining fingers tip to tip
colors dripping limb to limb
tasting deeply the seasons
of the whole world hidden
on your **** tender lips.

The laughter of leaves,
whisper testament,
over cool caverns,
ancient moss,
the absurdity of clocks,
and rain upon rocks
while serpents dance,
backlit with sunglow,
at the speed of life,
daring us to defy,
this timeless tapestry,
in which we all grow,
Our voice of life’s longing.

Cold and dim
the year draws to its end
Sipping my wine,
I search for the warmth
of sunlight on my chilly porch.
In the garden of my house
all leaves have fallen
In the garden of my heart,
many memories lay rotten
I tip my glass
and drink deep of the dregs
I look to the kitchen
but no light there glows.
Half written poems, unread books
Still stacked beside my creaky chair
But my autumn light is gone now
and I’ll not have time
to read again this year

What the material world values
Does not shine the same
in the truth of my soul.
Long have I been intrigued
by her shadow.
The sun a mere backdrop
to her grace and beauty.
I have need to rest lightly,
In her shade.

Deliciously delicate she says,
But how would she know?
could she taste her succulent syllables,
as they dripped from my quivering lips?

The one whom I thought of as a teacher
Passed deftly like the shade leaving no shadow.
He drank all the inertia, all the lethargy,
And waited himself in vain for fame.
He was his own omen, and the warning,
compassion for all, breathing torment,
Until he endlessly suffocated himself
On the nothing for which he waited.
I have learned well of his teaching,
It has become me.

Seamstress of my dreams,
upon the break of day
you sew the sleepy
eyelids of shadow
onto my open
eyes of grey.

what have I to offer them
unreasonable nymphos in the night
reasons I have none, but only a desire
to quench their ***** of fire
so bring that chocolate sauce just bought
that may be used or maybe not
on buttocks quivering oh so near
while cat-o-nines install their fear
of a pain transfigured sexually
by someone’s orderly advice.
I’d like to show my astonishment
as I run my tongue on buttered skin
how ridiculously gentle I have been
chasing naked up the stair
that dampened patch of ***** hair
but no, their desire has infected me
and now I’ve lost my sheepish grin
now no more shyness
let’s begin.

You'll be a lousy, solitary, misunderstood poet
Someone told me as they buttered my fresh baked bread.
Time slowed
The winds stopped moving
And the afternoon sun shifted its path
To follow those words instead.
The knife made its way
Still slippery and warm
Back to the butter dish
You'll become a coarse and crummy poet, they said
you're tailor-made for it,
you're ugly and skinny,
quiet, dull and dreary.
You'll write in small rooms with low light, pensive and poor
you'll write, they said
as the butter now soft
soaked into the bread
in front of a screen on cold nights drinking wine
tainted with scorn
weeping with sorrow,
and rage, and dread
The knife had by then sunk into the butter
the butter my poem,
the knife the life I have led.

Little by little
I feel languid with life.
Who pities the vigor that withers?
Only the image in my mirror
Joins me in tears.

Water plays
in the shade of trees
Clouds flit through
new moonlight
Alone in the darkness
stands my shadow,
completely unnoticed
in the damp twilight.

That cold narrow slab,
hardly any larger than a child's bed,
is where Alejandro died.
I bore away with him the tears of his gods,
the weight of his death, the frailty of his love.
I who separated them, his words and things,
Who did blend them with the cries and torments,
of that most foul and dark place
Knew he had come to an end.
With no smile amongst my flooding tears,
I longed for home for a few wretched hours,
While I waited him to breathe again

Could there be no sorrow too distant, too remote,
No lash to hard, no fear too impalpable,
To quell our captors delight?
Alejandro from birth through ****** pain
His faith an undefinable surge gaining perch,
Within my stirring and unearthly sleep
Dampens my dreams to tears
rest well my friend,
for I have remained with you,
throughout these many years.

Who has placed a shadow,
between the sun and I
to sense the aura
of a dark atmosphere
just under my mortal skin?

Who then chases my myth,
soaked in the blood
of the primordial hunt?

Who will concentrate,
My unknown language
into a singular cry
that falls heavy
into the eternal night?

Who then will search for me
Within the endless depths
of my suspended life?

Who will find meaning
in this poem hidden
from the hands of knowledge
waiting in shadows
with a hesitant touch?

Who indeed,
Would even care so much?

Just as I locked my door, and pocketed the key,
I glanced over my shoulder only to see,
My tortured soul staring back at me.
'Look, I said,
"this name is your name, this door is your door,"
And though I accept that now; why did I put the key,
in the back of my mind to hide it from me?

So my soul let me go,
but my name has been lost,
Along with the key.

If you have a moment let me tell you the shortest story,
about arriving at a lovely but lonely place,
the garden of thoughts that thrive in my mind.
My lawn of wildflowers, my shimmering trees,
loving the wind as they sway in the breeze.
Portraits hung on sun-gold walls in rooms clothed with shades of green,
an open-air kitchen to tease the senses with fragrant steam.
These my accessories of a genuine summers dream,
some years ago, before,
when I was somebody, someone’s friend,
someone’s lover, with much to show.
Was a young man then, with much of life yet to discover,
As my hands took from life’s garden the harvest of summer.
I could make light bread and serve it to those I loved,
This at a large table, draped with a cloth the color of sun.
In life’s garden I was found, and loved. My eggplant shone like polished wood,
My tomatoes smelled like their furry stems, zucchini scattered haphazardly,
Tiny teacups lined up on the counter, keeping watch for the sugar tree.
Onions round and plump, lording over their minions of garlic and chive,
some wine of love in a vibrant garden of earthly delight.
And into this very sunny story, many years later, I by myself came back,
having been beaten and blinded by the rigors of life,
and there waited for my dream to return me my sight.
I walked into the lawn, waist-high with colors of orange and pink, yellow and green,
fragrant lilacs swaying purple, the subject of a June’s afternoon delight.
My kitchen there, waiting for my bread of life,
to release the scent of ripe peaches, pepper and spice.
There I was back in my garden a displaced man with gray streaked hair,
with no place to which I wished to return, and no one,
to gather me into their arms when I got there.
No one to love me but the sun and the air.
That day life’s garden received me, and though not real,
I loved it greatly all the same, because it seemed all I had left.
And in that same manner I have learned to love much of the world
Since my absence in life’s garden.
Who is to say if I have less reason to live, or more to love,
Than any other whose life has yet begun,
Who is to say that my garden is not real,
Who is to say?

Life’s regrets and failures,
Have formed as frost on my forehead.
No longer do I have the body
To take me where my springs have led.
Why then do I need to go?

Because as a word,
Is both the answer
And the question.

Sometimes I wish for a tangerine tree
So that I could undress the fruit
like a lover, spontaneously

Sometimes I wish for an apple tree
So I could view the fruit as a friend
without need to peel, or pretend.

But mostly I wish for a walnut tree,
so other nuts could drop at my feet,
and have conversations with me!

My evenings umbra
stood watching
The nights damp
sweet falling
breathing lone sighs
and calling
the sky's departure
of dew.
Diluting loose tears,
in a fountain
of fears
where my fate
spread supine
in a cascade
of time
to ponder my present
tableau.