If it's true,
and you know it is,

sister, money don't grow,
on the tree of life, oh, no,

toil and pain and sorrow,
those grow,
on the tree of life, outside

these walls of mud faith bakes,
and builds heroic as formal evidence,
by grace alone, the blessing on America,

Oi, where Chickasaw whole life awaken dance
hey hey yahweh, same dance same sacred idea

We got StarLink in Chad,
oh, when can we read the heresies
personal savior level lucky prayer
online, free from press, amen.

All amenable Kilroy, was  here.
We pulledhisassoffhisthrone
with thunder words,
and other nonsense
We learned
to read, and write
shocking truths no slave should know,
money, has all kindsaansworn NDAs
there's the tie, the business
religion, re attaching
ligamental forces,
pending dooms
used
to make the peasants pay
for joy,
ceremony
of the veterans, paid
with joy,
ai, we die…
all we celebrate,
and all we worship Ares,
and Elon's trip to Mars, and Hermes,

tricking me
into telling a preacher story,
truer or not, it is too soon
to say, stories
sometimes hook up
with old characters,

brought
to mind using ceremonial reminders,
put on your respected veteran medal
of wit,
let this mind be
in you, this military mind, eh
strut your stuff, you patriotic consciousnesses.

A bubble
of belief engulfed the big parade,
the ompa blat left behind.

We blinked. They won.

I came away with an alienated mind,
to this day, I am happy to say,
that has made the difference,
I lived, while others just died.

she wore a dress of silk that day
a coral comb set in her hair
to dress her curls a dark array
all black as night, as cold as air.

a sweet seductress so beware!
no man could ever win her charms
her beauty was a vision fair
a hellish haunt that death disarms.

she walked towards her lover's house
her soul was calling out to him
as quiet as a timid mouse
her pounding heart all silent sin.

for he was flesh and he was bone
and she a ghost, a cold temptress
and in her hair she wore a comb
to match the silk of her blue dress.

so how could any man resist
her ghostly spirit, cold as night
as if the very moon that kissed
the soulful sky that shone so bright

was hunting, searching night for him
her lover waited, knew her near
her ruby lips, the lanterns dim
in distant dreams she would appear.

she wore a dress of silk that day
a coral comb set in her hair
how could she so her love betray?
i'll tell the tale and climb the stair...

the moon a phantom all despair
he shook and then a deathly cry
she cut his throat, this vision fair
and flew from him across the sky.

they buried him beneath a tree
his life that languished at her hand
and now i'll end this fantasy
of ghoulish love in spirit land!

beware the witch, beware the knell
where ghosts do flaunt the midnight cold
for devil's pave the way to hell
and steal the souls that darkness sold.

(a poem in Senryus)

Let’s rerun the play,
take up strings, so the puppets
can start fresh their dance.

Summon the old ghosts—
Shakespeare’s doomed heroes
—pronounce them reborn.

Recall the actors,
lead horses from their pastures,
raise the curtains.

Pay Shylock his pound
of flesh, give Richard his horse,
let Viola love anew.

Old, ever-hallowed
villainy, once banished,
has taken new stage.

Human suffering,
live—don’t fret, you won’t miss it
—it’ll come to you.
.
.
Songs for this:
Kool Thing by Sonic Youth
End of the innocence by Don Henley
The Perfect Idiot by Fievel Is Glauque

In this dim night
before the dawn of All Saints,
no need to take fright
of the spirits you acquaint —
for they are merely the ones who went on before.

Beloved dead whom we miss
reenter the world of the quick
and blow us a kiss
with a treat but no trick —
as we celebrate their return from the dark shore.

Ornate iron bars that twist and swirl
on windows of a stone Baroque house:
Their billowing lines flow and unfurl
like the linen of a wan lady’s blouse.

Late sun casts her umbra on the stone wall,
a dark bramble of shadowy vines
that cling to the plaster in ways that recall
hung forests of lost memory and time.

Into this dark wood I walk with my mind
to retreat into the past of this place
and see how far the clock I can unwind
for to pass through its pale numbered face.

There faces now greet me, spirits of old
who once walked this very same street.
They look astonished at how I was so bold
as to travel there to warmly them greet.

To be remembered and seen once again
is a gift for which they’ve waited a year.
For as this day fades, the dark windowpanes
between our two worlds turn into a gauzy frontier.

And so the veil of the quick and the dead
turns thinner for just a brief night
while the faces of those who’ve gone on ahead
to the other side shine their dim light.

Dear is a value to be weighed using full bandwidth
Sakal, show thy self letters ready for measure,
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, indeed
שָׂכַל
If my need became your need,
we would be in love,
that would really
defeat the use
of preparation, peeling potatoes,
prudence, ever ready to entertain,
pounding clothes down by the riverside,
watchin' babies being washed off and blessed,
שָׂכַל
watchin' life like National Geographic, before TV.
A messenger's whistle, hear
ah
Message to the mass of little looks mira-clues, seen
since who knew when today would continue as today.
Dear Prudence, did we come out to play, as if today,
was one of those times that we all seem to have,
if it could seem alright.
שָׂכַל
Why? Would that defeat the use,
and not the purpose of preparation, final product,
Battlefield Earth, truths uses versus lies uses, us as we
who think it all through
desirable to make one wise
שָׂכַל
when time is not as dear, as an instance in re co gnosis,
- wise was the serpent discerning decision trees.
what would ever make us all think one thought once,
then never think it alone again, we all ways, big all
think this was the way, we walked in,
the same way we walked out, all
set to comprehend wisdom and knowledge and
yada da da da we who work in living once idle words,
our side ways won, when we did not fight,
we never lasted
this long before, but
when we get old, we keep our wits, we got older
sooner than later, so we know more than our dads, too.
- old friends well imagined happy ever after any way,
don't aspire to stave off thermo nuclear war
by your self,
make up a master mind board of suggesters
by your self,
HelloWorld,
with you in a minute,
relationships with dead friends are
deeply personal, core ties to old times, remember
we can hear them say the same damnedlies, or listen,
שָׂכַל
analagous to tuning back when zero beat, was sought
to make one wise, in Genisis, esoteric in the gaps,

hey, old enemy of me, I cannot remember why
I was afraid of you, and never got to know you,

but I recognized your art, the other day,
in an old, old magazine ad, then that leads to
a lost soul I had no sympathy for, I was his bully,

so he's dead and we're okeh, spiritually, we talked,
I told him I had changed, he told me he'd broken,
got busted in Oklahoma, went to prison, for ****,
got religion then went nuts, and I said

I can relate.

I don't know how he died, but we were in situations,
where sixth grade bullying had been forgotten,
when I call this character into my life, as a friend,
mistreated in this mortal moment, laughing ever

at the coincidence we both read Foster Wallace.

Cedar wood house
aching with arthritis
still standing atop a hill,
at me, she blew a kiss,
dreaming I could feel,
and as made my way
down the horizon
where the flowering
dogwood-covered
peaks rose
to this valley,
where whiskey flows,
old mountain ranges
have always been
November’s ghost.

I’m on this road
thinking it will lead me home,
but all along,
I was wrong,
my home lives with me
in my bones.
Faces I knew by heart,
in time faded until forever gone,
I’m left here singing their song
with their names etched
on winter stones.

This road has grown weary
leading me to golden places
that weren’t even there;
all the while it was I
chasing castles in the air,
and I was foolish enough
to care about running after
a mirage anywhere,
all along,
by my side, the happiness
that I dared myself to find,
has always been with her.

When you said we were over
I thought I'd remain as your friend
But you said nothing more
So I knew this had to end

You said it wasn't my fault we broke up
But the next day you removed me from a group chat
And I can't understand why you're gone
But I guess that is that

And I got so angry
I completely removed you from my life
I couldn't bear the pain anymore
So I cut you out of my heart with a knife

But I still felt bad because I'd loved you so
So I told you goodbye
And I had a dream you'd chase after me
But you didn't even reply

I hope I haunt your house, you see me everywhere
You hear me cry as you open the doors
And yes, you're the worst right now, but I still wish you happiness
Because I had once been yours.

i.

must be nice being a live-in crypt-keeper

lounging on stones till they fall over
keeping the grass warm for ‘em


ii.

i sip my juice glass of box wine

i make eye contact with the deer, freezing

a woman feeds them breadcrumbs from her car around noon
and they all saunter over

gods examining their offerings
on an altar in the mausoleum parking lot

when the sun sets, they approach loose dirt and chew
on the marigolds some suckers planted
in fits of poetic reverent irony
and i watch them(and i know they hate the taste
or i bite my cheek and know they’re supposed to)


iii.

i always wanted to live in a crypt

stained glass concrete windows
and little kids wondering what might be inside
like the doors to dracula’s castle
too distant for curious fists to reach

no wi-fi no hi-byes
no glowing screens
or angry yellow eyes through dusty curtains
and no need to save my neighbors’ numbers

or pretend the empty apple tree don’t bother me


iv.

after a while
meeting people who think they’re immortal stops being funny

like a joke you tell a thousand times
till you realize no one’s laughing
or the birthday card in the dust below your bed
that you now force to live on your wall

maybe i’ve lived here too long

because i used to climb that apple tree
just like she climbed a cherry tree in italy
just like the poor talented ghost who one day became it

but one by one we all swung down
and now none of us know what season it is,
just that it’s colder than it was when we first stepped off the grass
on a rainy day in april

because the deer don’t come near me anymore

they know i’m always empty-handed,
always hear my shivering bones approaching
when they fall asleep laying on her chest


v.

i stay awake, surrounded
at the kitchen table,
heating up the meatballs we found in her freezer
and sipping box wine with one ice cube ringing against the glass
a couple blocks away