It’s strange
how people bring flowers
to your funeral,
but never when you’re alive.

And no—
I’m not talking about the flowers,
or death.

I call to you from bruised knees,
amidst a haze of my own humanness
in a blood-smeared tunic
with dirt in my nail beds
tear stains on my face
and you are waiting.
Arms spread wide and love in your eyes.
“You are mine”,
And my heart slows -
because I am yours.

You know my heart –
every muscle and sinew,
you built to the frame of my bones
breathed your design into every cell
and numbered the hairs on my head.

And so, whilst I battle confused against my fingers
Gripping like iron clamps to burdens,
refusing to give them up though I so want to let go -
You are not surprised.
I don’t understand.
You didn’t ask me to.
And from the depths of my soul song rises
whispered, ragged almost at first
to praise the One who never changes
who is always trustworthy
whose arms are spread wide and waiting
a heart felt Hallelujah.

Made swirls and lines, a crazy trick.
Not pictures neat, of birds or trees,
Just messy marks upon his knees.

The rain came down, a heavy weep,
For vanished souls, gone to their sleep.
It fed the grief that grew inside,
Where willow branches, deep did hide.

He hushed his pride, kept still and low,
And called to God, in gentle flow.
He called and called, with burning heart,
Until it felt it fall apart.

A whisper came, a light so bright,
"Your peace is veiled from common sight.
Only a love, so strong and true,
Can find the quiet, kept for you."

The simpler the attraction,
The more luring the suggestion,
The last thing we have in mind is peace.

Now, who believes there is a final ritual,
A priest, a confession, a blessing never taken
For granted as included in grace for grace, eh, nada

ventured, nada gained, what price peace,
Price to me, personally, I might lie and say
I payed the goddammendest price imaginable,

I gave my very soul. I sacrificed my own spirit,
eh today they call that the shadow, maybe even

the shadow ego, Mister Hyde, inside us all, wishing,
To escape Victorian Edwardian standards that lead
eventually to Prohibition of deadly spirits, and lying

Devils, ah, but on my side, the winning side, we got
lying spirits Micaiah has been saying he saw, we got
word, authorized version, memory verses for years,
We got the cards, we got the idea, the seed, no fruit,

keep your mind stayed on the Lord, full on monk
experience, twelve years and more, for a few
who seemingly could not unbelieve lies all
knew, that can't be true,

that some law allows war, crime on mob-level power holders,

Who imagined revolution, well, here's telling us now,
we paradigm builders are new in the business, now
we comprehend worth, so we know worth ship, now

As seen on television, seen into unreal appeals to senses,
TRIX are for kids, silly wabbit, Elmer,
elmer fudd, that man was gay.
Queer we called such, I knew sailors
Who bragged in 1964 about rolling queers
On Ronsencrantz down by the beach, back then

Times change, people change, lies stay lies,
In stories or in realized this is us living now lives,

Not on tv, but online, thinking, if two or more agree,

No positive or negative effort past ag, ag me on, if I gain y'an inch
Yonder no wise matters, Mobius looping in peace and tranquility,

As when one accepts ones answers as such, we make peace, we inherit the earth.

Here is where unfurling functions best,
Bolts of calico and honest to God purple
Velvet skirted Dine' lady, noble mejor, she

With her Zuni concho belt and squash blossom
Pendant perhaps honoring the blossom, per se

Doubt free, this is us, joined at the verbs,
Linked like fibers in a thread twisted for years,
Followed back, through lists of favorite things,

Inevitably the original grammar **** returns, with a
Vision, made plain as day, once, nations are made of
Us, we the people who use these living words to make

Peace, where none has been, in living memory,
But we pray today, any way, we expect yes, let peace

Reign locally, the whole world gets the idea and
Trumps the fool at the table betting truth is not God.

Sub-rosa, eh, a rose is a rose, Gertrude told me.
The Lie, that all men are not liars, is oft sold little thinkers,
And that is the truth each tells itself, we are chosen ones.

Somewhere beside a rocky shore,
A sea so deeply blue,
Sparkling like sapphires and diamonds in the light.

Somewhere in another world,
A little piece of my soul
Paints an olive tree.

Somewhere beyond the inland confines,
The wind is free,
The rocky cliffs wild and imposing,
As heavy oil paints the canvas,
Dappled green and yellow.

Somewhere in Greece,
My heart is free,
Where worlds build underneath my steady strokes,
And the brush an extension of my being.