Tolling hungrily the hollow bell
High in pious belfry hung.

Lofty words as pride dictates
From deep in cavernous dwellings
To keep a doctrine as one
Keeps hope of the future
Locked in a chest --
The ritual of past and present notions.

Receding line at edge of seaboard
Feeding on dry land the watery grave
Filled with borrowed sentiments adrift.
The open sea -- open sores of prejudice

Cut off from inlets of vision and reason.
Preserved as Lenin's body under glass.

I finally let my demons win,
They whisper like giants, patience so thin.
In harbored of darkness I conceded my fight,
I'll no longer actively seek for the light.

My soul starts reclusing, hoping to be unborn.
Thieving shadows, my hopes they scorned.
Emotions raw, exposing myself naked bare,
A fatal step in despair's seductive entrapping lair.

A heart once ablaze, killing in one air blow.
With each pulse, I let the sorrow grow.
No armor left to guard my core,
I welcome Satan and whatever he has in store.

In the dim glow of candlelight, I stand,
Clutching the remnants of who I am.
A ritual of despair begins,
Binding me in the demons' hymn.

Chanting words I scarcely know,
I let the darkness freely flow.
An offering of my spirit's core,
A pact sealed in the silence's roar.

A dagger's edge against my skin,
The bloodied ink, my soul's chagrin.
In this ceremony, I find release,
Anointing wounds, composing this piece.

I scream, I cry, in boundless silence,
This battleground abnegating solace.
But in surrender, there's a peace,
A promise that pain shall soon cease.

I now let my demons take their place,
In the hollow of my heart's embrace.
No fight, no struggle, no facade,
Just my demons sharing a drop of my blood.

There is no graceful transition
of a cup of hot hot coffee
from one hand to another hand,
the cup only has one handle.

It is inherantly akward,
almost as if it’s intended,
a brief, forced, colaboration
to keep the coffee in the cup.

Contorting to not spill a drop,
Still, clumbsy, after these long years
and a thousand repetitions,
ten thousand hot cups of coffee.

We angle ourselves to the task,
a brief intimate fumbling,
until the cup is handed off,
and the best part of it is gone.

                                     -Still Here

The progress is slow but perpetual
Impassioned as well as habitual
Avoid second guessing
To honor the blessing
And live every day like a ritual

They all sympathise

and write their best intentions --


to put in the urn.

The farewell party

is especially festive --


for those who can stay.

We say goodbye, short

- long - stop, the signalling code --


of: I think of you.

we are targets for light, for the precision of its
unknown aim, yet we insist in blackening the world
as a self-described pyromaniac, I practice daily rituals with your presence. I tell your name to the wind, to the sheets, to the cup of tea,  to the orchids. then I tell to myself who I am, who you are.
outside the world is drowning in its own guts. your name is incomprehensible, but not to the rituals of the heart, they defy gravity, brevity and bribery. Diffracted on the psychic field your trajectory is eerie, the amplitude of some waves enormous, as I watch them wash the horizon away. dreams are the only shadowless creatures, and still I dream only your shadow. we still don't know why beauty is truth and truth is beauty. oh, happy rituals of the hands: inventing love, writing poetry.