I can see those wings
how playfully they hide
as the feathers fall gingerly down
coming to rest at your side

You tried to hide your halo
flipped it out of sight
but your eyes gave away a pureness
a never ceasing, beautiful light

although you may be bound to this earth
cold concrete and cruel
you my dear truly are an angel
a blessing through and through

Allen Ginsberg, a raving madman, a man beyond the borders of normal
      once said, “Poets are ******, but see with the eyes of angels.”
His ranting howls, mere paradoxical clamorings (LOUDER).
His bootless, penniless, homeless cries, slight nonsensical musings.
His power subdued, his passion put-out, his well of enumerations run
      dry…

Can you hear him?

(LOUDER!!!)

Are you even listening?

What do holy angel-headed hipsters like he see?

A myriad of star-crossed artists, poets, gurus, and monks?
A tired and beat batch of street corner hustlers, homeless and hungry?
A drunk in the back-room bar?
A stumbling, shadowy silhouette in the by-street (an enigma...)?
An old man, philosophizing to everyone and no one but himself?
A juke box stuck on repeat?
A young couple, making love with their feet under the table?
A trio of jazz musicians out back for a smoke?
A bar maid making minimum wage, or nothing?
A priest who's losing his conviction?
A down-n-out loner, dreamy, dazed, dashed,
      staring at the bottom of his empty beer glass
      (who will buy the next round)?
A nosey cop?
A rosey fop?
A belligerent racist?
A beat runaway?
A child begging? (there are so many...)
A fed-up fanatic? (too loud, too loud…)
A would-be protester-rioter-anarchist, giving up and going home?
A giggling girl, flirting, with her skirt hiked high?
A show-off with an inferiority complex?
A shy recluse, too afraid to walk through the door?
A power-hungry politician, his propaganda blasting through the static of
      a detuned radio advertisement, paid for by (who are these people?)?
A struggle, never-ending, ever-renewed, always there, always alive,
      but only seen through crazy, mad, angelic eyes.

i watch you fade
into the night
of formless shadows
shapeless sins

they swirl around you
before the strike
of deathly terrors
shrieking fiends

breathe it in
you say
to hold the
powers of darkness
at bay

let them in
and they will play
a little pain
like dancing splashes
of pouring rain
so quickly gone

keep them out
and they will rend
the very fibers of your soul
and when your blood
drips
upon the thirsty ground
they will stoop to smell
your fear

so breath it in
the darkling mist
come let them play
within the midst
of all your halfway
dreams
and thoughts of bliss

-

but in the end
the deepest pit
by spoonfuls dug
tick by tock
a dragon's bane
may prove

and
if the gifting shadows
fade
you will see
in the looking-glass
not your own
but the mirror of a madman
driven by
that
precious fear
to sell the soul
of all that he holds dear

Rambling craziness of a gambling madman
Always one slice from the suicide pie.

Taste it will you choke on the goodness,
swallow your pride gamble on that most
Of expensive of bets that's life.

First step is a long one the second never
Walked, jumped in front of the band
Wagon, always look before you walk.

'Do you understand the incredible godliness of a straight line?!' my madman said to me.
'Not quite,' I said, 'But I am not beyond hope to instruction."

'We cannot see a straight line in our world,' he said, 'But we thought of one nonetheless. Something came from nothing, ex nhilo, ex nhilo.' he said.

I watched his logic at work from my place at his right hand.

'Have you ever tried to draw? Straight lines are hard, try drawing a sunset. Try to draw your hand.'

I did, though I'm not sure it was his intention.
It came out wrong.

'Look! LOOK. You see? The heart of the world is but a skewed imprint when we draw it. You cannot see the world, but the lines and shadows of the world are there, and it would take a lifetime to truly draw them.'

My madman took the pen and drew a perfect sunset, with my hand clasped around it, as one would grip something so fragile, so quick to vanish.

'There are sketch lines in all we see, the world is creating a drawing in every microsecond, every heartbeat creates universes.'

His hand shook and the pen fell, ink at his feet and his hands. He looked upon them.

He rubbed the ink on his palms.

'The world is the greatest artist... And we?'
He lay his hands on the page before him, and the truest image of a hand he could ever draw was in front of me. I saw many sunsets in his fingerprints.
'We are the imitators.'

I smiled, and my madman smiled back.
Or at least as close as he could come.

In fields where roses fade as finite flowers should
He watches from his mountain; mindfully morose.
Full of sound and fury; sad and surley.
As if made of wood.
He moveth not as a man might move
rather he gather a stretch of wind
and with it work a while, that he may prove.
He is free and clear, he has not sinned.
Yet lost to in trepidation
and filled for five years or more
he is. The child of every nation,
being but a borrower among the poor.
Carry no comforts nor glee
while whistling workers are whimpering;
their pain, an ease to see.
The game is paved with suffering
and always played so thoughtlessly.