I fetch a card from my deck of a love tarot
that showed me the lovers and I was reckoned
Like a crumpled paper my heart was shrunk
I restored my senses and stimulate my mind
How this has happened in this miserable life?
He is no more with me and there is no love inside
It is the irony of daily reading with the cards
It makes my wish truthful and covers my scars

how can i afford the cure?
the cure is my disease
how can i speak with words still pure?
my doctor poisons me
yet will i laud
and make it
soft
the words of the wise
are plainly lost

the angel called out to me
Recite!
But I said,
"what will I recite with these unclean lips? "

So the angel ripped my larynx
out of my throat
and set it on fire
until it burned to ashes

then I began to recite

On a world with no moon I pondered deeply on a starless night
Wondering what happened when the sun fell silent with the light
And yet the black sky told no story, no star-man seen with belt alight
Orion quiet as the darkness still, unthought, unformed

Not because of clouds or want of sight was my world formed in darkness
But because the sun had gone and was the only light
The nearest star was just too far, and so to me had never been
Like I must be to it as if it were I wasn't born

All the light I knew this night was fire; fire was my own
Nothing out beyond myself had gave this fire or had shown
One sign of having helped me strike the tinder into flame
I didn't even know it "fire", knew it by no name

On a world with no moon, no stars, no clouds, no name
I forgot there was a sun
but it was all the same

so there really is no end to this
faded snapshots, fleeting bliss
all i'm left with is desire
this my hell, and that my fire

archer shot too high and far
borrowed moments from the stars
now my time is free for all
never fall free from the law

my muse a slave, i sold my rights
in one too many stolen nights
moth to flame for city lights
a god has fallen slain tonight

remember when you sat in asylum
and heard sounds from the other side
when i soothed you with that children's song
high above the lamentation
up on the desert plain

remember when you sat among the violent
and heard through the haze
the passionate rhythm
the voice always with you

remember when your eyes were opened
to sun-colored fields
and to fields of radiant souls
each one cut and multi-faceted
each one perfect in its own poverty

remember when you looked down from that hill
on the sparkling city-lights below
and the city was transformed
and lived and breathed
and ran through you like divine blood
like Zion itself, consumed in your holy communion

I run through your memories
christening them holy
I breathe into your crowded slum
until every rock, and the dung strewn on the dirt path
are all lovely
worthy of worship all along

remember the fury with which I destroyed you
when you paced, heart racing
in your jail cell
when I set my wolves on you

remember the endless, stretching months
that all seemed like years and years
when I unleashed my plague of locusts
into your scrambled brains
when you found no rest in sleep
and your flesh burned through the day
when I breathed fire and consumed your little house
and you stood there naked and aghast
in a mechanistic universe that hated you through and through
a starving animal, you cowered in fear
thirsty longing to find shelter from the sun

i run through my memories
latent and potent in every cell, every member
i remember

is it my age-old blasphemies
that keep you at arm's length?
screaming for life
begging for bread

i sit by the silence
wrapped in the shade
the glories of youthful dreams
beautifully fade

my name in lights
my name tonight
forgotten
if for a moment
if i could hold it tight

if i could only make love to my demise
open to skies
swim in your eyes
with the rest of the teeming sea
of humanity
lost

Money protect Me, for i am of money
Power protect all your children who love You
may it be always, that we remain one
till’ all accounts settle, and we transform into none

passion for poem, wanton weakness in words
I am nothing
like anything
you think you have heard
chaos of rough draft
order adds on each edit
I give bread, and give breath, and you give me no credit

my father, my father, tell me why did you leave me?
the lust of a dust castle
seduced, she bereaved me
she robbed me of every singed hair, I remember
she left through the cold chimney late in December

I struggled to speak, in a world without ears
I sought long for weeping, but never found tears
I the day, I the night
I am time before years
I the moon
I the sun
I your most hopeful fear

Me is not I, unless words could deceive us
my bitterness feeds on the truth that you leave us
you leave and have left, and are leaving again
Me equals Us, and you leave us my friend

not leaving or coming, see
I’ve all come and left
I have no where to go, I have no where to nest
no bed and no pillow
no blanket or tree
you refuse to accept that my rest is with me

don’t tease me
or mock, with your promise of wages
you, the dumb-deaf demise of our weak-minded sages
you, insisting we work seven days of the week
you leave my hand empty and return me to the streets

it is for want of a road
you must sleep in the streets
I offer you rest, but you are always asleep
I ask you to walk
Your sun crumbled your feet
I ask you to walk
so you severed your wings

come now
i welcome you
and as the sign of my invitation
i’ll smear some of my blood over my thoughts
before i write them down

come burning
like the ember at the end of my cigarette
which i burn ritualistically
like a sacrifice for sin

come, i’ll slay swine and serpents
to lay out for you
forgive me, it is all i have to give
but i understand that it is the sincerity of the giving
and not the gift
which you desire

and for your thirst
i’ll give a bitter gall
that is all
i have, for your thirst or for mine

but come
come in time
i pine
away
like every day
you ever made

i ask for no angels to herald your arrival
lest wiser men arrive
and present you with better gifts
than i can afford

come Lord

awake now!
Recite!
Write it down, letter by letter
the house of Holy is being built
brick by brick, letter by letter, gem by gem

my Spirit approached me by night
with a vision of gladness
a triumphant tiding
born on a warm and powerful wind in the dead of winter

Say, “It is finished”
Say, “The city has fallen!”
Say, “Come away with me, my love. Come away, and taste not of her poison delicacies”

as in a dream, I watched
while a mad-woman
a maenad
ran through every street and back alley
a lunatic
possessed by the moonlight
holding in her left hand
a magic wand that she had retrieved
from a children’s magic kit
a plastic wand

and everywhere she ran
she swung her wand
pointing at each and every thing
and shouting

HOLY! HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!
Holy, the cobblestones of the street! Shining in the moonlight!
Swinging her wand and pointing up
HOLY the dark clouds which move to block the moonlight
and move away again to reveal!

Swinging and shrieking and crying
HOLY! HOLY!
Pointing the wand at the gawking passerby
who stopped to stare, clutching their children tightly to guard them from her madness
HOLY the skeptics, the blind, and the deaf! For they shall see! They shall hear!
Holy your children, whom you shall not keep from me!
They will follow me through the streets, singing and dancing to my merry tunes!

Holy the children, for they believe in magic wands of plastic
Holy the plastic, no less than the gold with which you adorn your temples!

Holy the darkness, which falls over your land!
And with those words
the Lady flung her arm
pointing her wand at the moon itself
which turned red-black
like congealed blood over a wound
and darkness fell over the cobblestones in the streets

and panic fell in the hearts of the passerby
because the light was gone
and screaming terrified, they tried to drag their children with them back inside their homes
where the cold hum of electricity kept the incandescent status quo glowing from the ceilings

but the children would have none of it
the Lady had begun to dance under the darkened moon
through the black streets
singing a merry tune (holy holy holy)
and the children each broke free from the terrified death-grips of their parents
and danced behind Her
into the streets