This darkened - smoke filled room
Seems like a silly place for people to gather
In such a smelly sardine fashion.
The band on stage finishing up its last number
Of their best set of copy cat blues.
The neon bar sign flashes as if a short
While the bartender bellows out “Last Call.”

One fellow sitting at a table in front of me
Seems to find his nerve.
I suppose enough Jack Black was all that was needed
To make his first move.
A few words pass and then
He leads his new found princess
To the dance floor.
Many leaving, many preparing to leave
As these two begin to dance.

They move perfectly together
Without any sound
Except for the drummer who ends
The beat with a final clamber of sound.
The guitar man leans his weapon against the wall
While the keyboard player turns off his magic.

But the two just keep on dancing.

The bar tender begins swabbing the decks
While an old gray haired man
Sweeps the floors in front of him
Turning the chairs up as he goes.
Sweeping away the memories of this night -
The old man stops to pick up a lost yellow rose
Someone dropped carelessly on the floor.
The old man takes the rose over to the couple dancing
Taping the young man on the shoulder he asks,
“Did ya drop this?”
The fellow, still moving to the imaginary beat responds,
“No sir, but I think she did.”
Taking the rose, holding it in one hand, she doesn’t miss a beat,
Still dancing with her newfound partner.
Walking by my table the old man nods at me
While saying, “It’s time to go.”
Getting up I place my chair on the table
Still watching the couple dancing.
My ears still ringing from the sounds
Of the band as I finish off my water.
And I wonder,
I wonder if I was a drinking man,
One like the one on the dance floor
Tightly absorbed in the moment,
With his new found lady friend

Could that ever be me?

Maybe,
Maybe if I hadn’t dropped the rose….

Are not thou supremely good and wise,
Imparting these prodigious gifts - not in vain,
What wonders are reserved inside the breadcrumbs reign?
Amidst the breadcrumbs - the arguments have shown
Such truth’s only given to guide us all home.
Your visions’ mildness I shall not condemn,
Taking up my pen to force your diadem.
'Tis true, Q grants the people what most they crave,
Even more perhaps - than mortals ought to save -
For lavish grants suppose the monarchs were all tamed
With more than goodness than my wit can proclaim.
But when should good people strive their bonds to break?
If not when evil tyrants are negligent or weak?
Let Q give on till he can give no more,
‘Lest we find ourselves homeless and poor -
And to every shekel which Q can retrieve,
Shall it cost a limb, a choice - or a prerogative?
To supply new plots, shall be not my core,
Nor to plunge us deep in some expensive war,
Which, our treasures were never meant to supply,
We must, with our remaining kinship, refuse to buy.
Oh faithful friends forget our jealousies and fears
Call on each other to solve the issues, don’t rejoice in tears.
Whom amongst us, when our aid is torn,
Shall be left naked and left to public scorn?
Are we not the next successor, whom we fear and hate -
If we allow these obnoxious leaders of state
To turn all virtue into nigh and overthrow
And denounce all righteousness both good and foe?
Q’s right, they fight for sums of personal gold,
The collateral is all of us to be pawned and sold -
Like sheep to the slaughter, Where We Go One We Go All.
They corrupt their titles into law,
If not, we the people have the right to reign supreme.
We did not make them the kings, these kings are made by them -
An empire has no power unless that empire has trust -
And without trust, it can no longer be just.
Take them all down for the general good redesigned,
In their own wrong any nation cannot be defined.
In altering that, we the people can be relieved,
Better the evil ones suffer, than all nations grieve.
We all know their evilness their sins they chose,
God was their king, and God they durst depose.
Call now on your own piety, your spiritual, filial name,
It is our right, to be fearless and let us build our own futures’ flame.

True love must assert a soul binding liberty -
But what is right in you, seems like a crime within me.
Your favor leaves me nothing else to require,
You answer my every wish and long out-run all my desires.
What more can I expect while I live?
All your princessly diadems that you so sweetly give -
On that: there you pause; then sighing, you said,
This is justly destined for your worthy head.
For when from my toils I shall at long last rest,
This latest augment of this life - oh I’ve been so blest.
Your lawful issue shall to my lap once again ascend
To the collateral damage of my heart that somehow you end.
My love, though oppressed,  moves toward your light -
Dauntless  –  secure  – full of a native fight.
Of every royal virtue that you surely must possess;
Never be still dear, be the bravest, be you, be the best.
Your courage knows no foe, your truth to proclaim
It is your loyalty that I hope is your biggest fame.
Have mercy on this nave my dearest find,
For surely you must be of the forgiving kind.
Why should I then repine against Heaven's decree,
That somehow, someway - you fell in love with me.

What cannot my praise effect in your singular mind?
When flattery soothes – or when ambition is blind!
Desire of the heart, is it an earthly vicious seed?
Yet, sprung from high, is it nothing but a ****?
But to God 'tis its glory and when love aspires,
'Tis but a spark of the most heavenliest of fires.
To the ambitious youth, thou too covetous of the flame,
Too full of the vermin running throughout thy frame.
Unwarily led astray from any virtuous ways -
Made drunk with love, and somehow debauched with praise.
Half desire, and half consenting to the ness of the ill,
For in the blood the sentiment - cannot it be still?
To thee I must reply — pray thee - what pretense have I,
To take up arms for justice or for your love’s liberty, I cry?
Love governs with an unquestioning right,
Love’s the defender and love’s the delight.
Be ye good, be gracious, be just, be observant of the laws,
And in loving wonders - be ye especially espoused to love’s cause.
Whom has love ever wronged in all its peaceful reign?
Love cannot sue for justice for any judgement would be in vain.
What millions has love pardoned or has taken on as foes?
To what revenge does love get even or even mildly expose?
Mild, easy, humble, studious and good,
Always inclined toward mercy, never spilling any blood.
If this is the love that you know put it on like a suit,
For in you -  you have God's most beloved attribute.

A view of blue leading a glaring eye
Toward a deathless heaven’s sigh.
Softly sinking the trembling sun,
As haply as I look upon you as I run.
In these thoughts I find myself desiring
God’s art within this simple man’s inspiration.
I look to the East, I look to the West
Looking for the primmer, Heaven’s Rosetta Stone, lest
It all be to difficult to keep it in heaven's focus.
I clean the lens and offer its richness
To a legendary creature somewhere adrift.
She gazes through my eyepiece bereft
Of the inner truth that she sees.
Focused ahead of you, you see the Helix Nebula
Otherwise known as the Eye of God, the Alpha,
The Omega, the Beginning and the End.
It’s then you see your body transcend.
You look from the eyepiece and then into my eyes
And I feel us tantricly knowing that we are soul mates.
“What do you see?” I ask as you turn back into the scope.
You answer, “I see the thread of hope
That holds the entire garland together.
I see that we are small and the world is big.
I see that we came from the one end and forever
We will return to the other."
Looking away from the scope she continues;
"In between in this life there is a contradiction
A duality – And if we are to ever experience
This oneness, the one mirrored in this eyepiece,
Then we as a pair need to break
Through the apparent reality and take
Hold of the hidden reality."
Looking back through the eyepiece
She continues, "That which I see
Is at the source of our dual niche.
Accessing, manifesting..
Mastering this duality returning us always
To source.."  

Praise not the barren, praise the rich consummate flower,
Fair only to those without sight, so full of internal power.
None nobler with an unlimiting petaled command,
Given by the earth’s love to all the native land.
Given a successive name, tall, short, light or dark,
Drawn from those once hidden away in the human Ark.
It is now, as when on the holiest of land
No less joyful as it spreads around my willful gland.
Covering the breach, and lengthening the strand
Rising like the Prince of Consummation’s imagined height,
Coming tumbling downward with diminished fight.
To unbetray the plot free of public scorn,
For this is our only blessing until his blest return.
To all those heaps which one petal does nigh bind,
Blown off, and scattered like tumble weeds that unwind.
What strength can you or your designs propose
With naked friends who round you upturn their toes?
If the flower is doubtful of how it should you use,
A foreign object would more satisfy its queenly news.
The proud stamen would assemble a friendship ring,
Foment the battle, and support the coming King.
Nor would this royal party ever unite
When in the flower’s arms, it strains to set it right.
Or if understood, the gripping interest soon shall break,
And by odious aid, make the reed return to the weak.
All sorts of vessels, by their successful arts,
Abhorring the panting, encountering their altered hearts.
From love’s incandescent rule, and a heart beats nature’s cry,
Thought, passion, common-wealth and health all belie
As the flower is the champion of all the public good.
As into her arms falls another chief of royal blood,
What may not the suitor hope, and to what applause
Might such a King regain by the flower’s cause.

How long wilt thou - this generation of deceit and joy – detain,
Starve, and defraud the people of our holiest reign?
Content ingloriously wasted to pass by as our falling days,
Like the flooding rains, as virtuous fools chase each other’s praise:
Till all thy fleshly allegories, now dimmed once shined so bright
As the multitudes grow stale - tarnished with each day’s new light.
Please believe me, ye youth by whose royal fruit thy must be
Gathered before ripened - else ye rot upon the tree.
Heaven itself must be sufficiently allotted, soon of late,
Like some unlucky youthful revolution born purely out of fate.
This false fate whose notions if we watch with skill,
For does not human good depend on human will?
Fortune rolls upward like lava, smoothly it does ascend,
From its first release, it takes not the bend.
But, if un-seized, it glides away like the wind
And leaves us - a late repenting fool far behind.
Now to meet with you, the you reading of this glorious prize,
As I spread these wisdom words before you as above you he flies.
Had thus Old Noah, from whose ***** we all offspring,
Not dared, when fortune called him to be the lead offering,
At the bottom of the ocean in exile he might still remain
And Heaven's sacred anointing oil would have been in vain.
Let Noah’s successional ages to your heart engage
And not shun the examples of this prophesized declining age.
For behold soon there comes three days of darkness to the skies,
As the shadows lengthen into the airs and then we slowly vaporize.

You by whose sweet nature does rule this text,
As surely as I spell your name, your thoughts it reflects.
My longings my darling are nothing less than your desires,
Our combined cloudy pillar floating on high by our inner fires.
My second dream is but a forethought of your mind’s first wand
Parting my words and showing me your promised hand.
Who’s to say, in some very far off distant age,
They will say that I have exercised some sacred prophet's rage?
An unpeopling prayer within our combined diviner's themes,
Like we were young filled with vision and the old people's dreams!
To thee, my Love’s Savior, to thee my vows’ confess,
I am never satisfied with the time the world gives us in bliss.
Swift do those times pass, bespoken each timely romp, thy hips do proclaim,
These words, a stammering thought teaching me how to whisper thy name.

My wild ambition loves to slide - ye all must understand
But fortune's ice prefers only the most virtuous of hand.
In Malaga I grew weary and wanton to possess
The most colorless canvas, one easy with a lazy happiness,
Disdained by golden fruit to the viewer be
As I passed the crowd to gently shake the tree.
Now manifest in paint, inward contrived and long since
I stood in bold defiance with the heart of a prince,
Held up on the square by one wanting to buy my latest cause.
Against the wind I held it up in spite of all the laws.
Do they wish to thicken my lot among all their other mistakes?
What circumstances find you this? -This is what my mind makes!
The buzzing of my emissaries fill my ears
With many solitary jealousies and fears,
Arbitrary thoughts brought forward into the light,
Contemplating existence, must it prove my vision right?
Weak are the arguments! Which the true artist knows full well,
Where weak minded people curse my renderings or are easy to rebel.
For am I not governed by the moon and by the far off stars?
Tread lightly on me and don’t put me behind your own bars.
And once in a shard of time let the Annunaki’s scribe record,
That my vision once rendered could somehow affect their lord.
The unrecognized Enki still wants to be a chief, yet none
He created was found as fit as barren Adam.
Not that he wished his greatness to create,
For leaders should wish not to be called great.
But he like I know our titles are not to be allowed.
For titles are useless and only dependent upon a crowd,
Those are kingly powers, thus ebbing us out, they might be
Drawn by the dregs of a falsely acclaimed democracy.
But in my paint I attempt, with studied arts to ease,
And shed the unholy venom with visions such as these.
On the other side of the canvas, not much escapes my eye –
But once in front of it – nothing escapes the me that I call I.

If an impeccable ally is false or the implacable ingrate
Resolved to ruin or rule our combined fate
Or to encompass us with the blood oath bonds they've taken
The pillars of our safety shall forever be shaken,
A jilted child removed from a foreigner awakened.
Then seized with fear, yet affecting fame,
Usurped by an intruder’s unatoned name.
So easy still it proves in falsely factious times
With public zeal to cancel their most private of crimes.
How safe is treason and how sacred it’s ill,
Where not even a child is safe to be free at will.
Where evil marchers are all hoodwinked and their offences not be known,
Since in each other’s guilt - they confuse and hide their own.
Yet their fame is undeserved, for I am their enemy with a giant grudge
Once a child that they abhorred, but praise be – I am now their judge.
In my court they sit for me to annihilate their scheme
With my discerning eyes, with these hands that are bloodlessly clean.
Unbribed, unsought, these wretches I redress -
Swift to dispatch them to ease the victim’s distress.
Oh, some call me a heartless hanging judge,
As I dispense my medicine on this vile blood thirsty sludge.
But had I the ownership of these evil souls freed
I’d hang these oppressors twice hoping to redeem their evil seed.
A hanging judge I’m truly not, I’m just a historian in love
Setting heaven straight for the one I serve, the true guardian above.

The pulse of love beats inside of me,
Relegated to never be released or made full use of.
My inner compass always pointing to a seal unbroken
Like undisturbed pillows on a display bed - always made.
Sheets fitted - made ready for the unmaking.
Then seized by some inner fear, affecting all that I ever dared,
Usurping you my love, the you without a name.
Yet, how easy it begins in these faceless rhymes,
They ensnare my heart with their private crimes.
How safe is love, how sacred still,
Where no one reads of my inner hidden will.
What good is it that I can wink when it goes unknown,
With nothing shared or to call my own?
Yet, my love deserves no enemy nor grudge,
Just the presence of my heart as the consummate judge.
In this court I sit chained and broken
With discerning eyes scouring me until I’m deemed a token.
Unbridled, unsought, a wretched mess,
Swift to dispatch me off to less and less of my own access.
Oh, had there been a covenant I could have served the crown,
With virtuous, heady and proper nouns
Or had I been given the pass of my big heart freed
I could write unoppressed with the noblest indeed
But my tuneful harp is forever unstrung,
While heaven waits for my loving sounds,  my songs are yet unsung.

My bleeding here like this -
May it never stop until I have
Taken my very last breath.
And in that last breath may I
Somehow take up my pen
Thrusting it into my chest once again
To make way for the release of that last
Phrase which still anchors itself so
****** deep in my soul.

Oh, to feel it finally ooze from me
Leaving me void of its painful control.
Of which I both love it and I hate it too.
Its double edged influence like God
Himself on the one side giving me hope
While the devil is on the other,
The destroyer of all that I ever hoped.
Oh dear Lord - is not my pen like
A multi-cartridge-d vessel containing
More than just one color?

At times to be blue
When the pain of life draws out that color.
Spilling all my tears
To anyone within my reach.
At other times my pen writes a crimson red,
Letting go of all the love that is in me.
Then to click it yet again to find the black
Darkness that also lives somewhere in my soul.
But there is another color, isn’t there Lord?

Yes, one so silky white in color
That when I write in on this page
No one can ever see it.
That is, no one but you Lord.
So if I leave a white page
With my last dying breath
Perhaps you’ll understand that it’s
Just another note from me to you.

Pulling my pen from my bleeding heart
While taking the last breath I shall write to you:

With the tidings of my fate squarely in your hands oh Lord,
My bleeding has not quite yet stopped.
Here you are to come to administer
Whatever consolation of thy affection
That thy Love has for me.
Dear Lord, receiveth my parting breath
And close my eyes within your blessings.
And when I reawaken let me find myself
Somewhere in the midst of your framework.

Thou hast undoubtedly numbered all of my tears
And placed them in a bottle for safe keeping.
Dear God, thou has always been the framework
For all these words that I bleed upon these pages.
They were all my fancy embracing my feeble knees
Hoping to raise my eyes to bid me into your comfort.
They are all my own blessings like the child within my heart.
Never more so than when I am bleeding here like this
In these words – only then do I feel your principles
Ever present within me.

So take me Lord when my bleeding has stopped
And please don’t be alarmed if even then
My soul dips its finger into my own crimson jell
And one last time with that finger I write

In the name of Love……

Of all of these words the truest Star in heaven was first:
A name of which from all the succeeding generations burst.
With enclosed designs where my salacious counsel does fit
Sagacious she is - bold and born of a turbulence of wit.
Restless she is too - unfixed by principles or place;
Her powers unleashed with the patience of her grace.
A naked fiery soul which works out daily in her own way,
Unfettered by the gloriousness of her own body’s lack of decay.
She, the master of my mind ever beating my heart away from the clay.
A daring luxurious softness engulfing a flaming fire,
Poised with passion and waves of pleasure reaching ever higher;
Like a summer thunderstorm renders the calmness unfit,
Steering love nigh into my hands, boasting of how her touch has wit.
Of great wit we are, surely, as madness is to be allied;
As these thin partitions do touch the boundaries they divide.
Our bodies plundering our souls’ wealth loving the honor blest,
Refusing our age any needful hours of rest.
Sharing a simple body which neither alone could ever please;
For the single body alone is bankrupt, but together, a prodigal ease.
Flesh always leaves that which its touch has won
Un-feathered and four-legged making the two into one.
Oh, to my soul in my deepest huddled notions I do try;
To be reborn into the shapeless spent lump of you and I.

Thy lively prose and sprightly words disclose
Within a sweetness of eyes as fixed as those.
The flavor of your smile extends
Often to reject, but with love, it never offends.
To a poet thine eyes strike
Like the sunshine, they are so alike.
With a graceful ease void of pride
It hides any fault - if in you - you ever had any fault to hide.
For if to thy being some poetic errors befall
One look into those words and I’d have surely forgotten them all.

Doest’ thou know the beauty that I find in a single verse?
Let alone the many where my mind becomes traversed?
In unequal sentences measured in a peck
They shine like gold covering ‘round your ivory neck.
In these labyrinths - I am but a slave detained –
A mighty heart held within your slender chains.
So much to ponder in your imperial snare.
When all I ever needed was to know you there.

Let me breathe the breath that raises the fire.
Till we all fall together, never let us transpire.
To obtain and possess for each of us this prize.
The one I see when I’m lost within these cries.
If the powers can grant me but half of this prayer,
Then all the rest can fly to the winds dispersed into empty air.

Come now, my poet friends, secure this vessel that glides,
Fill it once again like sunbeams trembling across the floating tides.
Melt away the distant music that stole away the sky,
A deafening sound along the unwritten reply.
Please feel the smooth flow of the waves in gentle play.
Give me another smile to share with the whole world today.

Oh my thoughts of you are so tightly compressed,
I see the love tread softly across all the rest.
Summoned straight from some denizen's despair,
A lucid mastery of mystery, let it sail in to repair.
Soft underneath this shroud of death,
Let me feel your whispered breath.
Words flowing of the love we all bequeath.
We are many fluid bodies half dissolved in light.
Let us lose these garments erasing every mortals’ sight.
Our bodies given away freely in the words of a few,
Each of us lost in the other, the ones’ we always knew.
From every beam a transient color flings,
Given of life with our love on its wings.
Amidst the circle of life rides an ink filled gilded mast
With our hearts throbbing together within our task.
With purple pinions raised to the sun,
We raised our pens and shouted - we have just begun.

To this acquaintance,
A rendezvous with midnight.
A gentle Déjà vu and in some sense
I wonder if an unspoken invite
Has played a part or two.
Does the past ever ensue?

Words do become an addiction.
Layer upon layer of repeated satisfaction
Interjected, felt and spewed.
Silken sheet’s confessions are
Best made in the ****.
These words, why are they so bizarre?

Oh let me write it right
Let me dream tonight
Upon this unarmored stage.
Let me free the fight
All through the night
Releasing it from its cage.

With a candlelit smile upon a face
The sheets do gently part.
What fills my heart
Is the gentle art
Of a finger painting slowly traced.
It has not been done by the ones
Lessening love absent of these notions.

What lies beneath must lie beside
As the past becomes renewed.
A gentle kiss a midst a torrents tide
The naked beach subdued.
Wet sand shaping dry demands

Déjà vu be wooed.

This is not going to be a poem. Please bear with me as I try to explain something important to me. I am getting responses (Hello Poetry email) from children. I want for the Hello Poetry community to pull together and find a solution. Some of these kids are expressing to me that they do not have anyone that cares about them.

Since my NDE I can tell you that this is not unusual for me. On my property I have all sorts of animals that regularly congregate in my yard. Many different species, sometimes animals who you would think are dangerous to one another can often be seen together on my property. I’ll leave it at that other than to say that many of these wild animals have become my friends. They innately trust me and I trust them. Everything from bears, coyotes, deer, turkeys, hawks, eagles, turtles, snakes, rabbits, lizards, squirrels, and raccoons can often be seen in my yard or on my porches. You are going to say that I feed them. I do not. My property is very small but it backs up to a property that is leased and protected by the Army Corp of Engineers. I only mention this because I do believe that humans are sometimes curious about me too. Maybe this is why these children are writing to me.

I respond to these kids and tell them that it is inappropriate for me to talk to them. As one user pointed out to me, a child has a completely different mindset than an adult has. A child is a precious thing and so impressionable.  Like some of the animals that appear in my life, sometimes I help them in some way. If their injured I either help them myself or get them medical attention. If something in their environment threatens anyone of these animals I try to mitigate the threat.  That’s not said to put a feather in my cap. It’s just how I view life now. So now we come to these kids. Just like my animal friends, I feel concern for these kids. I have seen some of the writing about there being a writer on this forum who is not being a good steward when it comes to the children on this site. In the hopes to promote a better stewardship and responsibility toward the children on this site I propose that we pool our resources together and make a concerted effort to provide a safe haven for these kids. What I would like to see is a few of you woman step forward and offer to mediate for us guys who receive email from a child. Someone that we can forward the info of the child to so that a motherly individual can take part in gently leading these children into a safe or safer mode of communication.  I’m sure that I am not the only one that they are emailing. It could be that a few are not even kids. I don’t know. But like the animals that sometimes are curious enough to come to my hand when I reach out to them, there’s just something in me that I cannot turn away or ignore these kids. I need help. Maybe you guys could organize a plan for communicating with some of these kids. It just is not safe for them to be writing to complete strangers.
Email me if you feel compelled to help or if this is happening to you as well. Here’s an example of one of the correspondences that I’ve had…

A….redacted  15h
Follow me on Instagram please ? || @..... redacted
***** Shakysphere  14h
Hi and thanks for the invite but I don’t chat with kids. Have a great day and please be careful talking to strangers.
A…redacted  14h
Okay ; sorry for disturbing. You
***** Shakysphere  13h
Not a problem. Just be careful on the web.
A….redacted  13h
Got you - thanks for looking out for me not many people care about me

The above is a 14 year old.  
They say it takes a community to raise a child. I’ve raised two mostly by myself.  Any suggestions or ideas on how we as a community can reach out to these kids and help them and protect them would be appreciated.

Is it a warm bed on cold night?
Is it a cup of coffee shared?
Is it eyes glimmering – book ending a candle light?
Is it a kind word or a gentle touch
Or is it simply understanding much?

I think a Valentine must be
Learning - Showing,
Pushing - Pulling,
Holding on for all your worth.
Never doubting - never pouting
Knowing that seeing isn’t believing
It’s more a matter of trust.
Daring to share
Without a care
Of loosing one’s own self.

Becoming one isn’t just fun
It’s knowing someone’s there
Looking for what we call love.
Maybe sometimes it’s just a matter of lust.
But when your heart is breaking
And there’s no place to hide,
If you find my hands upon your face –

I’ll be there by your side.

All of my troubled lives have I taken leave
Of all that I ever thought you could be?
Without seeing you or knowing you
And often at the very idea of you,
I suffered a bidding of something I could never know.
As if I had long ago bid you adieu.

That time, time was my heart suffering
At some strange and dismal crisis.
My mind, body and soul were to be as separate beings
Which somehow seemed to be less than nothing
Until I passed that tremendous moment.
My love - your love - they were both in different worlds,
One where I would give anything to go after them or
Even hear of an account of them.

Time was what life could never be.

The reality of those words working softly over me
Like one day does blend into the next until
Returning blurred through some imagined memory.
All of my lives, have I really taken my leave of thee?
I always knew everything that I thought you would be.
But I see you and now I have
More than just the mere idea of you.

Oh but at least I no longer suffer at something I never knew.
So now I pray Lord, with the windows open tonight,

I beg of you

Paint me on the outgoing gentle breeze.
Let me know this love I need.
Let me be the warmness in the air that you breathe.
Let me drift through your open window
Softly blowing the sheer curtains over you.

Oh to be that sweet caress,
Sensual and soft upon your skin.
Your bed becoming a cloud
Cradling you in the misty waters of warmth.
Let it graze lightly upon your body
Like the tip of a painter's brush.

Let yourself feel my love with every movement,
Designed for your pleasure.
Let me hear you beg to be fully painted.
Let all of our art take its intended form.
Dipping again into the warm paint
Withdrawing slowly, ever so slowly
To feel the paint take hold.
Admiring our beautiful work,

Whatever it is that we create.

Within our artistic release
The hottest colors of passion
Pouring from within us
With each brush stroke erupting
So smoothly until
Even the brush shudders.
The immense sensations born on the wind.
Listen now, can you hear me?
Can you feel me?
I’m right here.
Painted on the breeze.

Barefoot - the walk up the beach alone
Is a journey alongside passionate waves
Like walking on anchored cotton
Each step anxiously craving the next sandy touch.
Oceans of water join in the experience
Retreating around my feet.
My long shadow follows me like a kitten
In the orange day glow of the evening light.

In my mind I recreate passionate times
While tickled feet squish into the unarmored sand.
Each thought complete in its own uniqueness.
A delicacy of emotions racing in with the tide.
The hopes that were held most dearest,
The fears that kept most things inside.
Am I dreaming or awake?
It’s hard to say –
The lullabies of the waves are my friends
Gently singing, returning me to the shore.

The walk now becoming long
The sun is beginning to close its eyes –
The kitten is no longer there.
Without even a shadow, I
Have never felt so alone.
What were once clearly discernible objects
Now become something jutting out of the earth.
Slowly they begin to glow with the new moonlight.
I continue the walk.
What is ahead? What is behind?
Either way it is just another step away.

Some of the objects must be buildings –
What lover’s secrets are being told inside?
The wind beginning to blow it shrills by me
Over the sand, past the objects to the sky
Onward to the stars above.
I wonder – can the wind carry away my loneliness?
Somehow it stays with me
Locked away deep inside.

Looking toward the ocean for answers
Shedding my clothing I oppose into the tide.
The cold liquid awakening me from my numbness.
Surrounding me like as if a billion tears.
Submerged to my chest – a dance begins.
The earth at my feet
The wind in my hair
The water all around
And the sky above with
This fire - kindled by all of the elements -
It burns deep inside of me.
And for one brief, settling, moment
We – the elements - with the tide

Are one again….

I have something within me that I cannot
Bear the burden of of its insinuation.
In the sport-ability of chit-chat I have
Often tried to conquer these thoughts
And with infinite pain I have hazarded
A thousand things hidden within myself.

“Excuse me,’’ I said upon seeing his face
Coming toward me while walking in Central Park.
“Are you who I think you are?’’ I asked.
“I suppose that depends on who you think I am,” he replied.
Not wanting to be made out a fool I asked
“OK, are you best known as JFK?”
“Well not exactly, he was my father,” he said with a smile.

I stuck out my hand like an idiot – but -
He offered his hand and shook mine like a man.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, “You really can
Bump into anyone in the big apple.”
He said that he had to be going, had to finish
His walk and get back to the office.

I asked him if I could tag along, just walk with him.
He said, “Sure.”
He kept a brisk pace, it was a cool day but comfortable.
The leaves were turned, mostly all fallen and
Then I realized that it was November 22nd.
“I’m real sorry about your dad,” I said,

“It broke my heart when I was a child.”
He nodded his head and sort of slowed his pace.
“How old were you?” he asked.
“I was 9”.
“I was 3”, he said looking at the ground.
“Yeah I know,” I said, “Everybody knew.”

He stopped and turned toward me,
Tilted his head to the left and point blank said,
“You know the story about my dad’s assassination
Is all BS don’t you?”
He caught me completely off guard but before I
Could say anything he turned back around and starting

Walking away from me like I had the plague.
I stood in my tracks but after he had gotten about 10 paces
He stopped and turned, “Well, do you want to walk or not?”
I half jogged to catch up with him and when I did
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Look I don’t know you and you don’t know me, “ he said
In a rough almost angry voice.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asked.
Still half jogging to keep up with him I answered,
“Sounds like you need someone to talk to.”

He slowed a bit, “I just got confirmation on who killed my dad.”
OK, about this time I’m like you saying a few choice curse words
In my mind – like holy sh…. You know..
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Hell I don’t know,” he said, “It’s all circumstantial.”
Coming to a complete stop, “There’s got to be a way that I
Can tell people, let the whole world know that I know who did it.”

He turned to me, “What would you do if you knew who took your dad
Away from you when you were just a baby but if you told anyone about these
Murdering, slime ***** they would most likely **** you too?” he asked.
“I don’t know sir,” I said shrugging my shoulders.
“If I had your money I’d figure out a way though,” I continued.
With a questioning look he asked, “OK, if you had my money what would you do?”

“I don’t know, man,” I said - “Maybe name a building after them or a street
Or something that everyone knew you named.
You know, like a hint or a clue or something.”
His eyes got big, “That’s it,” he said, “By God that’s it.”
He shook my hand again and asked me my name.
And a few short years later he was gone too.

But the name – the name he named his business – there’s your clue

'Tis damp, cold and lonely - not much bigger than a closet
But the little room within me is mine.
It has no niceties such as an address but
To one side – when pressed upon hard enough –
The walls open revealing the many hidden chambers inside.
But the walls have no doors and until now no one has ever
Stayed long enough to find out the secrets hidden inside.

Then here you come along – you who has scarcely warmed
Yourself against these thoughts when I feel that look.
You spin around and around in the small wit that I am -
With the most perplexing look I have ever seen.
With words I press upon you to sit here within my thoughts
But the case of your look is the case all by itself.
All I can feel is your resentment for bringing you in here.

My hard planked thoughts and plastered breaths are not
Favorable - even to my own sensations – as if I am trapped
In some sort of desolate, silly omnipotence –
But I dare not mention my little hidden room within.
Though not a thing is left to be wished there is nothing
As terrible in it as the knowledge that you think I am possibly
Absent of the capacity to supply you with your inner most basic needs.

The glow of health and happiness somehow leaves your cheeks
And your brisk lively conversation seems forever removed.
Like a stone in the road, I seem to bring you
More distress and I wonder what stupidity had led me
To bring you here to fumble around in my mind.
As if we are both too delicate to communicate -
Our tangled tongues and fingers say not a word.

I want to say,
“Please, please press harder against these walls
And you’ll see, you’ll see that the muscle and tendon
That covers these internal walls are
Just a parody for my own protection.''
I feel the mistake of moving this thought closer to you now.
At first you squirm to get further away from it
But in doing so you struggle and push against the thought.
But herein - a single thought falls from my mind.

I watch as you ****** it up an unfold it and
Proceed to open my imagination to this wrinkle entitled
“The Little Room Within.''
I watch you as you read peering through my facade.
You proceed to pull out another wrinkle
Then another - and another
Until the room within me is no more.
We enter deeper and deeper inside of each other
Like children on our hands and knees –

– And I –

I
follow
you
all
the
way
to
the
inside
of
me......

The red light’s red but I’m turning right,
The coast is clear – no cars in sight.
I make the turn and I make it slow
On the corner sat a huge cop on his hog.
Sirens blazing like he was late for his grog,
Behind me he flew with lights all a glow.


Pulling over to honor this beast's demand
I already had my license in hand.
He brought his big carcass up to my window
Grabbed my license and ask me what I’m into.
Nothing I said, I’m just headed home,
Then he dripped some sweat onto my chrome.

All at once he started swatting at what he thought was a bee
I said it’s just a horse fly so let it be.
He bent over and looked at me through the window
While asking me, what the hell is a hoss fly?
Not a hoss fly – a horse fly – I said through the window
You know – it’s a fly that flies around and around a horse's ****.

He got a little closer and pushed down his shades
And asked me if I was calling him a hoss’s **** in spades.
I said – no sir – not at all – I would never ever
Do anything like that at all – that for me would be too terse.
He said something that I couldn’t understand
When then the fly lit on his Foster Grants.

Cross-eyed he handed me back my license
And began swatting at the thing creating the offense.
But the horse fly was faster than he and had more sense
As he slapped his shades off across into a fence.
The fly flew around and around his head
While he backed out into the street like something ******.

I reached through the window and pulled him out of the street
For a car was coming and they were sure to meet.
Realizing now what he had almost done
He shook my hand and said I could go that we were done.
But one more time he stuck his sweaty face in mine
And asked me once again if I was calling him a hoss’s ****.

Again I said - no sir, absolutely not but that I couldn't lie -
Sir, you know - you just can’t fool a smart horse fly.

The hottest lines - one after the other I devour
Salty - sultry - tasty - juicy sweet like a toasted flower.
The ink runs from the corners of my brain,
Oh God, have I been eating poetry again?

I made the mistake of swallowing one set of rhymes when
The librarian appeared, putting on her necklace chained
Reading glasses while looking down her nose.
Her eyeballs rolled, her head shook out her woes.

Tearing off another page with her walking toward me,
She was about to release the dogs - I had nowhere to flee.
She stomped her feet and began to weep
As I crumple the next page into a heap.

She backed away as I snarl and I bark,
Crunch, crunch, crunch - swallowing all the way to the question mark.
Finding her nerve she approaches me with a moan,
Then I watch in amazement as she tears off a page of her own.

Folding it up in the palm of her hand, she smiles
And growls and shoves the whole page in while
Pulling out another book from a hidden pocket in her dress.
We sneak off together into a hidden recess.

The hottest lines - one after the other we devour
Salty - sultry - tasty - juicy sweet like toasted flowers.
The ink runs from the corners of our brains,
Oh God, have we been eating poetry again?

With baited eyes we snarl and bark
Chomping with joy in our bookish dark.

Your votes could have established dark powers over all control,
Such votes could have made the smallest part exceed the whole.
Only groundless clamoring’s do the protests approve,
Instead, now the power is ours to punish and to remove.
But now false gods and evil cast their wares and express,
Defending their own evil servants or their own rhetoric’s distress.
Oh that my powers of saving truth were not confined,
I’d show you how you are being forced to believe that evil is best for your mind,
Making an example out of every one of our kind.
Must I at length wield the sword of justice and then withdraw?
Ore the cursed effects of trying to confuse the law!
How ill our fates are by their blood thirsty scam.
Beware my people! Of the fury of a patient man.
The law is what patience requires, watch the law show her single face.
And don’t be content to depend purely on grace.
Oh yes, her words are always true with a glaring eye,
She can erase terror and she will never die.
By their own evil arts 'tis her righteousness decreed,
Those dire artificers of lies shall finally be the ones to bleed.
Against themselves their own witnesses will swear,
Till viper-like their sinister plot they themselves shall be ensnared.
For they **** from the nutrients of their own ****** gore
Which was always their principle of the evil long before.
With Belial and with Belzebub they themselves will fight,
Once comrades, now foes, even their foes shall do them right.
Do not doubt this event as felicitous mouths engage,
They tell lies and show only of their own brutal rage.
Then let them all take their own resisted course,
To Guantanamo to finally find their long deserved remorse.
But when they stand up all breathless late at night,
Let their guilt rise up in them with redoubled might.
For lawful is powerful and still is still superior all around.
Even when long driven back at length it must stand its ground.
They all took their oath and gave their solemn consent,
So there will be no appeals under this firmament.
Henceforth a series of new times shall begin,
Though many painful years in long procession has woefully ran.
Once more this nation will be restored,
And all other nations will know the law is our lord.

Insane, insane what follows old
This tragedy you're about to be told.
Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
It is love that we most of all bequeath.
Amongst green pastures grows a flowering field
One not tainted by what this life yields.
Somewhere in the withered forget-me-knots
It lives long enough to be what it ought.
A shining prince upon a silver steed
Riding home to find that which was decreed.
Nothing more than just a thought
Of something born here in Camelot.

Oh mastery of misery art thou my friend?
Do we have so much to gather or defend?
Send us upon this grievous plain
To battle for all that must be regained.
Oh ported soul of Arthur’s gallant lot
Send to us the dear Sir Lancelot.
He be the bravest of all hearts,
His bravery known right from the start.
He hast no legend braved in fear
Doing the right by his lady Guinevere.
Life deals us such a broken art
Of a finger painted love here in Camelot.

The quest be of ill fated charms
Where love survives the coat of arms.
To be so brave is to be a slave
Fighting for the thing we crave.
For no coat of arms can delay
Love’s onslaught once on display.
For to pour the grail back into the flask
Would be to hold love as a captured task.
For ‘tis love that captures all at last
And nothing loved can truly pass.
Though the lance laid silent Lover Lancelot
His secret survives him here in Camelot.

Whence do ye derive from all destiny so great and gigantically,
Within thy Shakespeare’s eye - doest ye see all that love is intrinsically?
Like, “Pummeled inside so many a verse we ride along for better or worse.”
Only the faithful remember where from that line dost come.
And if thou art my good and faithful friend, pray tell me, what is this curse?
Oh I’ve scored your sonnets, I’ve played your plays passing so many a day
Emulating your way and yet all I’ve written is bound to decay.
But my good and immortal friend - is all that you possess at home with me?
Ever is destiny as blind as the righteous are *******.
If the righteous met you on stage would they not see you like Yorick - beheaded?
But ‘tis only this stage which hosts your heart, to your enduring greatness.
And as your spirit comes to me in my pen, help me set it right again.
Here - I, the buskin of old that has not vanished, I push my pen
Toward thy inward powers and feel within my fingers - you move -
Doubtless swells of ink and chalice with words meant to soothe.
You trace my heart within your palette and as I watch - we appear -
One letter after the other in the affected black knowing nothing of fear.

But do I not have two hands Sir, William?
What say I scribble with the right whilst thou writest with my left?

And with the left hand I write...

At great length I consider Aristotle’s thoughts mighty -
When sewn onto a lamp shade - but he himself is not as easily seen.
Round him were seen a flock of birds screaming
Of my tragedy’s with the wailing of a dog’s bay marking my dramas
Around as by chance, by chance I stood giant over all my terrors.
My bow is extended, the lock bolt released, words affixed
On the string, steadily aimed at your heart.
And hast not the line, “Alas, poor Yorick” found its eerie way into
The lines of Hamlet – lines that I never wrote into that play?
For they only doest exist in the collective minds of the readers.
Oh, aye, I wished for my soul that I had written that line
But it is one that I cannot claim exists in my play.
Doest thou venture forth with a hardier action now?
Thus to descend to the departed souls found in the graves here.
‘Tis here I lie in broken words to ask the prophet of where
My soul relies – to see Tiberius I come – the old Grecian –
My nature to be amused but vainly so conveying up my drama.
Oh nature, my nature, hast not thy stage tread me ventured?
Aye, and naked besides so that each rib does count.
What? What truth of old is to be seen in truth set on this stage?
I come to fetch mankind out of his own doom for there is more
To this tragedy, it scarcely is over the horizon and once it begins
It will move countless souls to a harness clad misery.
‘Tis well this philosophy of doubtless sensations refined
From the humor of the blackest infections.
Aye yes, it beats in jest of stolid and barren sorrow until
It is sufficiently moist and exhibits a graceful dance.
There entwines a solemn step which a Demigod moves
Neither for naught as we love what is Christian and moral.
Here – in the nether world - popular is homely, domestic and plain.
There are no Caesars, no Achilles, no Aristotle which appear on the stage.
Neither is there any to be seen of executives or cynics of commerce.
Only secretaries, per chance and brick layers and lieutenants read the lines.

Then with my right hand I write...

“But my good and faithful friend, tell me, what can such people meet with
That which can be called great? – that is - what great can they do?”

And my left hand answers...

What greatness? You ask – Aye, they form the cabals, they pay the mortgage
They pocket their savings and fear not where the stocks be placed.
Whence they come they oft return and derive their form from destiny’s greatness.
Greatness which rises a man up on high even when it grinds him to an incarnate dust.
Everything else is mere nonsense and not worthy of any acquaintances also,
All of our sorrows and wants – they too are here.
Wherefore then fly to yourselves if ‘tis truly yourselves you seek.
And then on that stage you shall meet your own contemptible incarnation.
There the poet is the host, the fifth act rendering the reckoning
And when crime doth become sick, virtue sits down to the feast.

All hail these small and sweet courtesies of life.
For smooth do they make the road of it.
Grace and beauty – each cut so deep like a knife.
They beg all these inclinations toward love at first sight.
Yes, ‘tis those courtesies which let the stranger in.
With tones and mannerisms - they do have such meaning.

Oh - ‘tis such a blessed thing,
One for which I could lose myself
To the honor of my aching.
I feel a heart which bears all to itself.
Oh yes, tis' open – ‘lest I shut it all out.
So I ask, “Are not my eyes the scout
For which my heart journeys?
That vision, is it not flowing through my arteries
Bringing my heartbeat’s rhythm in tune?
Oh, let that beat be mine none too soon.”

With that said, she laid out her arm in front of me.
Taking hold of her fingers in one hand, I aptly
Applied ******* of my other hand to her wrist -
Firmly - and begin counting each heart throb.
“One – two – three – four,” counting out aloud
Measuring each heartbeat as it happens –
Hoping to find the art of her fever.
I close my eyes as I continue to count – thinking –
There is no occupation in the world comparable
To feeling a woman’s pulse.
And when I had counted to twenty five
I looked up into her eyes and
At that instant I felt her pulse quicken.
She clutched my fingers tighter in the one hand
While pressing the wrist of her other hand
Harder into my account.

Is it possible for two to become one flesh and bone?
And if 'tis true, what is everything else to become?
Sometimes yours while at other times the other has it?
All the while to be generally on par tallying up the score
As we each permit the other to share in ourselves –
At least in as much as a man and a woman have the right to.
Like a bag full of pebbles which started out jagged
And rough, with very little gleam.
Only ‘tis after being years in the bag together
Do the stones, having had many amicable collisions
Wearing down their angles and edges, do they
Become well rounded and smooth with the brilliance
Of their combined luster.
Nothing to either could have been
Accomplished alone.

She looks back into my eyes as she presses her wrist into me
and asks,
“How does it beat with you?”
Placing her hand on my neck I say,
“Feel for yourself -
‘Tis an improvement –
‘Tis my evidence.”

Shrouded in mystery, confined to my head —
Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead.
In here the inhabitants haven’t enough room —
They quibble and quarrel and spread so much gloom.

Do any of them have more of the native right—
To occupy my mind, let alone my sight?
There are those, the chosen ones, who grow here more strong,
Their rightful cause at great length fighting the wrong.

And every thoughtless idea the others bare,
They are my enemies but they are every where.
Thus worn and weakened and filled with ill content,
Why must I submit me to this internal government?

Impoverished and deprived of all my command,
Their thoughts double as mine lose their stand.
What they are is not real - not flesh and blood,
They’re a disgrace to everything and burnt like the wood.

If I died would not these heathens go up in flame?
They are priests of all religions, are they not all the same?
Of whatsoever descent from their godhead be,
Just mud and stone or other worthless pedigree.

In my defense my thoughts are always bold,
As if they were written of the purest gold.
But these Rabbis are my worst of enemies,
They are not honest men and they are not at all wise.

For if it 'twas their duty and like the learned think,
They’d espouse my own thoughts of which they eat and they drink.
From hence began this plot of my demise as if I were cursed,
Their bad intensifies in me – am I representing their worst?

Raised on my extremes with these extremes woefully denied,
An oath silently affirmed yet mournfully defied.
Words not weighed or windowed by their sheer multitude,
Inwardly swallowed in rhyme, be they rusty and sometimes crude.
To some - truth has to be dashed with the salt within their own eyes,
Their own tears to confuse the foolishness and twist them into lies.
Do any loving words have an equaling folly to befall?
Or do you believe in nothing – yes - nothing at all?
The poets’ rites are here - to - for rarely embraced,
When what is needed is a muse, who could add flavor to the taste.
Such savoring delights I offer, to a soul in need of ritual food,
Served up hot all at once – then sinfully shared in the ****.
But by force one cannot offer these to even the gods,
For only one in a million is worthy, all the rest are just at odds.
No fraud I offer you in this, my musing trade,
But writers are harder to conquer than they are to persuade.
They are busy scribes mingling within life’s refuse,
Raking around in the garbage looking for new verbiage to defuse.
Do you hear me – do my words sit on your lips?
Touch them now – gently - and let me take you away on a thousand trips.
My words on your lips – can they truly take you away?
Shhhh – my darling, close your eyes and taste them, and their gentile foreplay.
Oh this author swears it not but only you can know
How far these words can reach or where for art they may go.
If I fail you and for want I lose my common sense,
What love will come from this or be the consequence?
My words are like raging fevers boiling my own blood,
Be careful my muse, these words often float into a flood.
For love is like water always seeking the path of least resistance,
Quiet yet powerful and oft bubbling over in persistence.
Breathe my muse; take it all in as we flow into the decent
Working up the foam as we threaten to shoot the vent.
Who among are as witty as we are wise?
I watch as my words leave those lips and shine from within your eyes.
Those eyes like reflecting pools, one by two, my holly preference,
I think God must have given us two eyes so as to cross the reference.
Kiss me my muse; please kiss me until this fatal fury has gone,
Hold on tight as I write and drag you from your rightful throne.
These words raised in power amongst our fellowship.
Words, precious words, now on our hungry lips.
May we let them ooze – oh - please let them go,
Listen do you taste them now? Only you my muse -
Only you can ever know.

In a time where one and one was utterly confined
When nature itself was prompted and no law was defined.
In these non pious times before the religious craft did begin,
Long before current life filled the world we’re in.
Before earthly man was born or multiplied his kind,
In earths far away there were people already of mind.
Then when Semjasa traveled with Heaven's own heart,
Bringing his vigorous warmth to this earth to impart.
Partaking of life here he bore Adam by his own command,
Thus scattering his maker's image throughout the land.
Seth, born of such royal blood, the crown he did wear
A soul grateful to his father Adam’s care.
And so to the rest, many mothers bore
To King David, and the many sons and daughters before.
But since like slaves from his bed they did ascend,
Only the truest succession could their seed attend.
But of all this numerous progeny was none as fit to rule
So beautiful, so brave, as this star child, Jmmanuel.
Inspired by some other diviner’s gust,
His father Joseph got him without any lust.
Through his conscious destiny made he the weighed,
By other worldly fortitude - the imperials he swayed.
Earlier on the mount he won great renown,
Healing the sick while dispersing the crown.
With soft spoken peace the thoughts of war he could remove,
As it seemed as if he were only born to love.
Whatever he did, was done with so much ease,
In him alone, 'twas his nature to please.
His emotions shared in his eyes with grace,
As if paradise itself was opened in his face.
With secret joy, indulgent people viewed
This youthful image in his ancient knowledge renewed.
To all that wished - nothing he denied,
In doing so he made the whole world his bride.
What faults he had for who from faults are free?
His father could not or he would not see.
Perhaps only the warmest excesses which the profits forbore,
Were construed by a youth purged - boiling over.
And Mary called him by a specious name,
She named him Jmmanuel - not the name of his fame.
Thus praised, and loved, the noble youth remained,
While Augustus, undisturbed, in Rome reigned.
From Rome his life could never be sincerely blest,
Nature punishes the bad, and approves only the best.
The Jews, a headstrong, moody, a murmuring race
As ever tried the extent and patience of grace.
God's pampered saints whom, debauched with ease,
No King could ever govern nor could any God please.

I close my eyes and in the darkness
I see you, my enchanting ecstasy, walking
Down a cobblestone street in silhouette.
Carefully placed footsteps echoing the
The pavement - without the slightest of regret.
Through the faint gas lit corridor
Vintage smells and a whispering wind
Accompany my meandering thoughts.
No matter where I go -
No matter when I go –
Footsteps going forward
Revealing the past.

In a cumbersome transom blended
With a tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap
Of a horse drawn carriage –
Therein a song is revealed.
Where else but in silent music do dreams
Blend reality with one’s emotions?
Aye - there in my mind’s eye -
Tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap.

Do I have any life but this? Tap -
If not - let me lead it from here. Ta -
No death there be ‘lest - Tap -
Dispelled from there. Tap -
Nor any ties to earths to come. Ta -
Nor any action in any effort of new. Tap -
Except in the blessed extent - Ta -
Of this other realm of loving you. - Tap -

And in my mind’s eye –
The music,
Tap-ta-tap, tap-ta-tap -
Of cobblestone and hoof –
Ta-tap
Returns me to ....

These flakes that fall - ever so effortlessly,
They bathe my mind with their peace and liberty - tranquility.
They have no rule and yet no precedence found
No law circumscribed - falling flawlessly upon the ground.
They cover the wildest desires of the woods and caves,
Turning these savages into bitterly cold slaves.
Snowflakes times billions, to and fro they blow,
Making fresh and clean of all they forego.
Hidden within the silence - a gentle song they bring.
Listen, listen can you not hear them sing?
They recover every note and they give their best,
Laughter, loving, so cold yet only the warmest expressed.
Beckoning me to play along so they can be obeyed,
I place one keyboard on the handrail I made,
Turn it on and listen intently to what they create.
Yearning to learn from my new classmate,
Random bolts at first with no formal design,
But somehow begging for me to join.
With another keyboard I listen and strain,
Allowing the snowflakes to quietly reign.
I close my eyes and touch the keys with their wise delight,
Saw searing sounds, honest and right.
In contemplation I feel their deepest of scars,
As they cover the memory of all the civil wars.
They moderate the worst of men, now disqualified,
Inclined in the balance taking them to the better side.
With calmness my fingers manage it well,
And my hands find no occasion to rebel.
Listen, listen can you hear the love as it leans,
Be careful Devil, the flakes will erase all your means.
Softly covering all those ill desires,
The good old cause revived, this their plot requires.
Darkness turns to a powdery white erasing all of everything,
Raising up the common-wealth, covering the evil kings.

My nature, once pleaded for one of these darling ones!
The amazing hope only found in the fair women down here.
A strength found only in the wilderness having the ability
To drink bourbon until dawn being absolutely naughty
And then the next morning to show you how to properly
Use a fork and knife while signing thank you cards.
To be raised up to all the heights any man could bear:
Has my God ordained my fate to be southern reborn?
Perhaps he has indeed given this soul another turn.
Gullied without a patriot's name, have I lost my sense?
Yet to be treated as if I were by law a prince.
Am I so brave or just this Belle’s tool?
I never saw a patriot yet that wasn’t a fool.
Here comes she now with religion and the laws
Should I be Absalom or should I be David's cause?
But I am the instructor, or have I lost my place?
She has taken me over with so much grace.
Good heavens, how fast must a patriot pant!
She stole me away by saying “A saint I ain’t.”
Pulling off my shoes as she pulls me down from my throne
I cross my eyes as I moan and I groan.
A kingly battle within the sweetest of torments,
Was their ever a prerequisite or my consent?
The look in her eyes – flames, fire and fury – nothing to lose.
Inferring this infernal night is ours to depose;
Oh God it’s true she’s petitioned me to approve her by choice,
But are not my hands still powered by my voice?
So my pious subjects, for my safety please pray.
I do think this Belle has taken all my will away.

In times to come, will you believe me or believe my verse
When they come to place the words “Poet” on my tomb?
But if I write of the hidden beauty found in those eyes,
Or try to solidly account for all of your graces
Heaven itself would stop and say, "This poet lies,
Such heavenly features never left our heavenly places."
So should my letters become yellowed with age,
Or be ravaged by old women of less truth than tongue,
Sentencing my words to remain inside this poet's cage,
A simple wrinkle of some ancient love song.
Through your children that live in that futuristic time,
You will live twice, in them and in this rhyme.

With a whispering wind in silence she sings -
Her raptured emotion stirring even the trees.
The old wind chime chants out its haunting ring -
Singing within her crystalline voice.
Yes she hung it long ago just where it is,
Another reminder that she was here
And somehow she is still near.
But I just cannot find it in me to rejoice.

That day it was snowing and cold.
She had asked me to hang it days before.
Somehow I forgot and I suppose that rather than scold
Me she decided to take care of it herself.
She had on her nightie, her bath robe and my old work boots.
She had the wind chimes, a hammer, a nail and a chair.
At the moment I didn’t think that I had ever loved her more.
I was wrong.

Keep singing - my darling...... please keep on singing

We are the face of Christmas
If you’ll look inside you’ll see
In a place where only children hide
That’s where the face will be.

The Christmas bell ringing on the door
As I exit the small downtown store on 5th and Main.
It reminds me once again that it is Christmas.
On the sidewalk a cold North wind flushes my cheeks red,
I tighten my scarf tighter around my neck.

I round a corner and just across the street I see several
Gathered around a large table, all waiting in a line.
Curious, I cross the street and take up my place.
I look around the line to see a sign that says –

“The Real Santa Clause- $1.00”

One by one people step up to the old man behind
The table and hand him a dollar –
The old man reaches into a large red bag under the table
And produces a small doll of Santa Clause.

One step at a time I move closer to the old man until
It is almost my turn to give him a dollar.
I watch as those in front of me walk away with their doll,
Each one walking a few steps away and then they abruptly stop,
Looking back to the old man, their eyes with a questioning awe.

It’s my turn – finally - I step up to the table with my dollar in my hand.
I hold out my dollar and then it becomes clear to me that the old man is blind
For I have to find his open hand to place the dollar into.
He accepts the payment and opens the red bag feeling for my prize.

The old man chants “Merry Christmas” as he hands me the doll
Seeming to talk more to the doll than he was to me.
Receiving the doll I repay the emotion returning the “Merry Christmas.”
The old man nodding his head as if to say yes all the while.

Walking away I look down at the Santa Clause figure in my hand.
I notice one piece of clothing that doesn’t seem to fit.
The doll has a scarf wrapped around its head.
It’s a tiny copy of...
Of the scarf that I am wearing!

Quickly I unwrap the scarf from Santa’s face and find –

The face on my Santa

IS ME

We are the face of Christmas
If you’ll look inside you’ll see
In a place where only children hide
That’s where the face will be.

Found on the date of nine – two – three – two – oh – one – seven -
Barely more than one month after the grand eclipse of heaven
The revised twelve stars of Leo crown the head of the ******.
In her land of milk and honey, her labors merge in.

Jupiter encircles the womb while within the Holiest of gastronomes.
Mercury, Mars and Venus conjoined with Leo’s nine making the dozen.
Seventy-five days prior the New City’s Trumpet has merged with Put In
Calling for Levant’s retribution which will divide ancient Ebian within.

The ******’s head newly crowned with the temporal twelve stars of Leo,
At her feet quiver the sun and moon awaiting the arrival of Palladio.
She being with child cries in the pain to deliver.
The earth quickens the mystery in perfected position, as both quiver.

Nine months prior the consummation completed by NATO’s resolution
Casting out the promised land – this is real – this is not the imagination.
Jubilee last appeared on the eave of the six day war
Marked by half centuries, Jubilee returns this year once more.

The revelations of tribulation are set by a single star that does always appear
Every two thousand years and four thousand years ago it founded Israel.
Two thousand years ago this same star led the three kings to the king of all kings.
This star is visible for two years and appeared in September two thousand and fifteen.

And yet another sign appears in the heavens: behold a great fiery Red Kachina
Having seven followers and ten outcasts with seven headbands in the arena.
The Red Kachina drawing in a third of the stars, hurling them toward the earth.
This Kachina standing at the ******’s feet waiting for her to give up the birth.

The Red Kacina’s vile evilness waiting to consume Jupiter’s birth failing
To devour the newborn who is to lead all nations with a rod of iron.
But the child remains in the heavens with it’s mother to feed grazed
By the Red Kachina for one thousand two hundred and twenty six days.

I prefer the sultry ways of Summer
On a lazy sweltering hot afternoon.
If summer were here all year round -
I’d be so perfectly browned.
Oh you can have your mistletoe
And your Halloween masks too.
I prefer my short shorts and sandals
And warm cozy nights by the candles.

Oh Summer if you were a woman
I would surely run away with you.
And if Spring should ever let us come in
We'd surely show her what to do.

(Prelude: This piece is a parable with the imagination of a female named Allison with a ghostly presence residing in a suit of Knight's armor).

“They are of a better order” said the armor,
“A better order of beings in heaven.”

“Have you been to heaven?”
Allison asked the armor and
Quickly upon his ancient, blank steel gaze
She instantly felt a civil triumph
Hidden within her inquiry.

“Strange,” he responded,
"Strange it is that it is so far away
And yet it is right here
Inside of us all along.”

She gave him the hint of a
Curious gaze before placing
Her hand on her chest while saying,
“Are you saying heaven is in here?”

He replies,
“You think about it for a while and
When you have sufficiently parodied
The thought we shall think
Upon it again for I give
Up the argument for now -
I must retire” - and so he went
Wherever a ghost goes to rest.
There he wandered around
In the infinity of his mind until
A knock on the steel helmet came.
He answers through the opening,
“Who is it?”
Knowing all the while whom it was.

He opened the visor,
Showing the emptiness within.
She looked in his visor and
Giggled a girlish giggle
Saying, “I would carry this picture
With me to my grave -
My self professed conscience standing
Here in the doorway of my life
Looking into a metal head as
Empty as a hollow balloon,”
She giggled some more.
She pushed the visor open wider and
Stuck a finger in without
Any further solicitation
Saying as she looked about the emptiness,
“Shall I set foot in your dominion?”
Then she turned to him placing her hand
On her chest again as before,
“Or shall you set foot in mine?”

McDermott peaked thru to answer
Allison to find her now sitting on the edge
Of the bed – skillfully untying and
Removing her shoes as
She looked about the room.

Before he could answer and
Just as skillfully
She changed the subject, “You have a
Fine room here, quite roomy,
I think it must be twice the size of mine.”

The sun was setting outside the doubled
Windows and through the curtains
The light that filled the room tinted the
Contents of the room a crimson red.

There they were, quite all alone,
Her sitting on the bed,
Him encased in his Knight’s suit of armor.
Each waiting for the other
To make some sort of move.
Turning away from her,
Not to avoid the inevitable but
To experience the possible –
McDermott says,
“But this is your room.”
Pointing to the room receipt
On the top of the dresser,
“See, it has your name on it.
I am merely a figment of your imagination,
Something you have conjured up.”

“I know, I know,
You have said all this before,”
Pounding her fists into the
Bed as she cries,
“Cannot you for once come
From inside that
Silly suit of armor so that I may see you?”

“Look at the receipt, what does it say?” McDermott answers.

“I told you, I know,
It has my name as the registered
Guest of the Knights Inn, so what?
Have I not been coming here
Every year for three years,
Every year for the week of All Saint’s Day,
Just so that I can be with you?
And every year it’s the same old thing –
You speak like you are
Somewhere in a barrel,
And I never see you, I just feel you.”

“It is not with your ears that you hear me,
It is with your heart,”
McDermott explains,
“You come here year after year
Looking for truth –
Can you accept that I am
Only here if you are here?”

Sprawling out backwards across the bed,
She replies with disgust,
“Truth – what truth is this –
That I have lost my mind?”

“One can only loose what one has
Not unlike one cannot
Have what one wants,
For having and wanting
Are diametrically opposed,” he explains.

“Stop with the philosophical
Mumbo jumbo,” she says as she
Turns to scream into the pillow.
“I’m so sick of it that I could die.”
At the moment of that last syllable spoken, Allison can feel another
Weight joining her on the bed.
Daring not to whisk the feeling away
She holds her breath, listening –
Feeling for more confirmation.

“You cannot love another until you learn
To love yourself,” McDermott whispers.

Jumping off the bed and to her feet,
“You’ve told me all this before,
But why am
I here if it is not to love you?
And if you are as you say you are,
Just another
Of my creations, then pray tell me,
Why can you not accept that fact and just
Simply be here with me?
Why else am I here?”

“You are here to find out who you are.
That’s why anyone comes here.
That truth is something that No ONE can
TEACH you.
It is something that you
Have to remember.”

Looking about the empty room
Allison once again turns and
Sits on the bed.
“OK, I give in –
YOU tell ME, WHO AM I?”

“Just lie down and get comfortable.
You need your rest.
We’ll talk in your sleep.
We have much territory to cover tonight.
Tomorrow is All Saint’s Day, your day.
But tonight we must explore
All the wonders of you,
For in the morning you
Shall awaken knowing
The real you – the one that you
Have been searching for.”

Slithering out of her dress and
Removing her bra
Allison turns her head to the empty
Pillow beside her,
“You promise?” she asks.

“I promise,” McDermott replies.

Drifting off into a shallow sleep,
Allison is listening as
McDermott recites poetry.
It’s an odd recital but somehow it seems
As if she has heard this verse before.

“Sand sifting through my fingers
Measuring the time ‘til our bodies linger.
To know the smell of the center
Of your hand,
To see into those deepest of eyes -
Oh, to feel those sighs.

Sometimes I don’t think I can wait
Not another day but then it’s too late.
How can I know that all this is real
When I’ve not even a finger to feel.
Thoughts, visions of heart –
Feelings of soul –
Up to now that is all that I know.
So if you find me lost in this moment,
Please release me from this sweet torment.
For inside the fire is burning
Hotter than hell and so full of yearning.

Maybe this is not the right place -
Maybe this is not the right time.

But I ask you, is it a crime
To watch the sand as it rhymes?
Measuring the time ‘til our bodies linger
And I have the you – lost in my fingers.”

“What is the title?” Allison asks in her sleep.

“Oh you know the title very well,” McDermott answers.
“Think about it and you will remember.”

Allison’s eyes move beneath the
REM sleep with closed eyelids,
Back and forth, back and forth,
Looking for the title to the poem.
Then she answers with a smile,
“Hourglass, the title of the poem is,
Hourglass.”

“Very good,” McDermott confirms.
“See you do remember.”

“But how do I remember –
Something tells me that
I am not supposed to remember.”

“Your mind tells you that you
Have no memory of the poem
But your heart tells you that you do.”

“Yes.” she answers.

“Could it be that just when
You find your dearest love
That you also meet your greatest fear?
Then too avoid the fear –
You try not to remember."

“Why do you say that?” she asks.

“Because those are the two sponsoring
Thoughts behind all human endeavors.
All of the human emotions stem from
Either love or from fear.”

In her sleep Allison turns
More toward the empty pillow,
“Who are you?”

“Have you not determined
To call me McDermott?
Why do you struggle to believe that
I cannot be unless I have a name?”

“I suppose it’s because everything
Has a name.” Allison responds.

“No, everything of this world
Has something that it is called,
That does not exactly mean that
It has a name or needs one.”

“Then who are you?”
She asks breathing in deeply.

“It matters not what you call me –
That has been one of the great
Mistakes of human nature,
What is more important is that you know
That I am, just like that
I know that you are.”

“Are you God?”
She asks shaking her head.

“See, there you go again,
Be careful of those labels,
Once you put a label
On me, then by that labeling
Do you place upon me your expectations.
And once something is expected
To do something in a certain way,
Then have you created boundaries,
In essence,
You have created walls around me,
Walls around your own thoughts -
To the degree that we can
No longer communicate.”

“How would you prefer that I think
Of you?” Allison asks.

“Do not “think” of me in terms of
Mere words,
For words fall far too short
Of explaining any of truth
Of who or what I am.
You should think of me as
You would think of yourself for
Are we not one in the same?
If I said that I am the great 'I am'
And if you were to believe that to be true,
Would not that make you the
Great 'I am' too?”

“I’m sorry, I do not understand,
Are you saying that you are me?
Am I talking to myself?” she questioned.

“You are asleep, when you awake,
Would you say that we are talking?”

“No, I would say that I was dreaming
And that you are like you said that you
Were before I went to sleep,
I would say that you are a
Figment of my imagination.”

“Does that explain how it is that you
Know the name of the poem?”
McDermott asks.

“I don’t know, I’m dreaming I suppose,
Dreams don’t have to make any sense.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“Not really,” Allison answers.
Even though she is asleep
She can feel herself
Turning over and pushing away
Some of the bedding.
“Give me an incontrovertible way
Of knowing that you are real.”

“Oh Allison, the only way that
I could ever give you such proof
Is if I were
To physically touch you and to do that
I would need a physical form.
Yet I say to you,
I have no need of anything physical
For all of your physical reality
Is but a part of the grand illusion.”

“Grand illusion,
Are you saying that my life
Is just one big illusion?” Allison questions.

“In a sense, yes.
For it is you who does create
Your own reality.
And if what you create is
Not what you want,
Is that creation not what
The definition of “illusion” means?”

“But why would I create anything that
I do not want?” she asks.

“Good question, why don’t you tell me?”

“Who’s to say that I truly have not created you?”
Allison asks.

“Another good question, what do you think?”

“Why would you talk to me?” she asks.

“I talk to everyone all the time.
The question is not to with
Whom do I talk,
But who listens?”

“I’m listening.” Allison exclaims.

“Another good answer.
Maybe it would be easier if
We exchanged the word
“Talk” for the word communicate,
I think that’s a much
Better descriptive word.
If we try to simply just talk then we
Are restricted by the limitations of words.
I do not communicate by words alone,
In fact, I rarely do.
I usually communicate through
Feelings for feelings are
The language of the soul.
For this reason,
If you want to know
The truth about anything,
Look to how you are feeling about it.
Hidden in your deepest feelings
You’ll always find your higher truth.
I can communicate with thought
But don’t confuse thought with feelings.
When I communicate with thought
I often use images, sounds or pictures.
Are they not much more descriptive?
I also use experience to communicate with.
The fact that you remembered
The name of the poem
Is a communication by experience.
It is only when feelings,
Thought or experience
Fails that I use words.
However, words are the least effective
Communicator because words
Are too easily misinterpreted or confused.
Words are not a good way to get
To the truth for they are part
Of the illusion of trying
To convey the feelings,
The thoughts and the experiences.
The irony in this is that
So many place their feelings,
Thoughts and experience in the words
That they try to say and very little
On the experience of who they are.
The same is true of how
You define who you are.
You define yourself within
A set of words and
Lose all reality of who you really are.
Therefore you create
The illusion of yourself
Just as you have created
The illusion of me.”

Allison turns on her side into
The fetal position,
“You said that tonight
That I would discover who I am –
Does that mean that in order to discover
Who I am that I must learn
To know who you are?”

“You are not learning anything.
You are remembering who you are
For you always were and
You always will be.
You cannot learn what you already know.
You can only remember.”

“And what is that?” she asks intently.

“You are your creation,
I come from you so that you
Might know yourself.
That is why I exist,
So that you may experience yourself.”

As Allison drifts between the alpha of
REM sleep and the delta of REM
Into stage three of tonight’s slumber,
She carries with her into her deepest
Sleep the thoughts of herself
As one with all of God’s creation.
“God the father, God the son,
God the holy ghost,”
She whispers aloud.
“Are we all your sons and daughters?”
She asks.

“Yes you are,
The trinity would not be complete
Without you,
Not without every one of you.”

“So that is who I am?” she whispers.

“Welcome to who you are,
Who you have always been,
Who you ever shall be,
Today, it is All Saint’s Day,
What reality will you create today?

Always remember,
There are only two base emotions,
Love and fear.
You can choose to act out of love
Or you can choose to act out of fear.
The choice is as always –
The choice is yours.”

“Will you be with me today –
To help me to choose?”

“I am always with you.”

“Will I find love today?” Allison asks.

“You question is improper.
“You should be asking yourself,
Will I create love today?”

*“But wouldn’t that be another illusion?
Another figment of
My imagination?” she questions.

“Is there a difference?
And even if there was, does it matter?
All that matters is that
Through your own experience,
You remember who you are
And experience
What you really want to be.
That is the truth of creation.”

Drifting off into the deepest sleep
Of her life,
Allison listens to McDermott
Reciting his poetry again and again.

Found on the date of nine – two – three – two – oh – one – seven -
On that day a far greater kingdom of Persia shall be reborn.
United again their prince of war shall endure a crude destruction.
The fires of Hades soon spill out upon the seduction.

Six fortnights later the earthly engine grinds to halt
Followed by rumors on every side.
The very laws of nature open their rightful vaults.
The power of lesser animals can no longer be denied.

I see an ancient moon
Passing through the soft
Branches entering my window.
Reaching into the illumination feeling
The fire - impalpable in my arms,
Shadowed by wrinkles with a remembrance
Touched by everything that always brought me home.
It is as if everything that exists, all light, all aromas,
All that I touch - they are all the sea upon which I float.
Funny how little by little I learned to love yet
Little by little I also seem to forget.
Somehow we forgot how to look for each other.
You left me at the shore holding my own heart,
Where my roots were exposed and ripped out
Floating away to seek new lands carrying
With me this silent, broken existence.
Destiny will undoubtedly land me wherever it will but
As the moon shines on me tonight I float off
To the heavens while nothing is extinguished.
For love feeds on love and as long as I live I
Shall forever be in your arms as surely as
This moonlight shines ever so softly in mine.

If you knew everything there is to know,
Then how could you ever learn anything or grow?

If you somehow knew all that will ever be
Could any decision that you decide upon ever make you free?

If your mind was everything and everything was in you
Could their ever be anything else for you to do?

And there you are – right in the middle of this inquisition,
A slave to your own reality – chained to your own constitution.

But it is you who has allowed yourself to be caught in this net
You came here not to remember anything but to forget.

You have forgotten who you are and in your own grand illusion find
A dream of freedom and free will which further confuses your mind.

For knowing everything is a girdle of limitless limitation,
But here we have a place of both the known and the unknown – called creation.

In this ignorance you have something to choose,
Freedom from perfection – there was no other way to lose.

So you see – only if you know yourself as that which is not true,
Only there could you be free to select whatever you want to.

Within a single mind, two hands and two eyes; you think, feel and see
These envisioned experiences – only now they can truly be.

Yes, free will also gave you the choice to forget from where you come,
Yet, the closer we return to that place – the happier we become.

I learned to control my awareness and thus I can oft return,
But the closer I get the less choice remains for me to learn.

Though I long for and receive more and more of the infinite’s touch,
The more I also long for the finite in me not to know so much.

Was there ever anything in nature
So sweet or so exquisite that it must be
Resisted before it can come to fruition?
Within natures covering malice cannot blacken
One’s heart nor shall ignorance misrepresent it.
Even such as it is I must slave for nineteen
Hours out of twenty-four with the remaining
Time to be spent reckoning for the first nineteen.
There is nothing in the world that I loathe more
Than to be interrupted in the middle of a story
Except and unless the same interruption happens
While I am dreaming the end of a story
Before I have ever written the first verse.
This is not a distinction without a difference.

For Instance ...

If I had on my head a three-cornered hat
With one and a half brims turned up
And one and a half brims turned down
Would you say that I went off half cocked?
What if I had two brims turned up
And one brim turned down would you then
Say that I was two-thirds cocked?
If this is true then if I roll all three brims up
Then I suppose you’d say that I am fully cocked.
I tell you that I can be neither half cocked,
Two thirds cocked or fully cocked
As long as my hat is on my head.

For ‘tis only when my head is bare as a
Baby’s backside can I even begin to ponder
The gray matter uncovered by some old hat.
In any event it matters not a bean’s stalk
Whether the old hat is half cocked
Or if it’s a half cocked old hat.
The difference is in the definition of
An old hat as well as in the definition
Of what cocked really means.
And you’d best be careful how you mix the two
Otherwise if I laid my old hat on the bed
And cocked it just right somebody could
Get the wrong impression.

Am I merely an entertaining guest?
If so – in the course of my entertainment
Perhaps I should have resigned
All of these cursed talents one after the other
On the principle that no matter what -
There is no way that I could keep them all.
Perhaps if someone else had these curses
And they were not in my brain -
Maybe then I could become a regular Joe.

Yet I ask – Is it that I am the one let in
To show off my own wit or is it
That I was let in to see the wit of others?
I call upon heaven itself to bear witness
To the fact that even now,
I have never once opened my lips.
Even so I am told by most that they have
Never had a more improved conversation
With a man in their life. Strange.

How crafty and artful I must be to
Speak without ever saying a single word.
Have I some gift to UN-people them from
Their dominion over their own
Ideas of Love?
Or are all of us mere objects of our affections
Hiding about as slaves in a church while not
Actually believing in anything?
Could a slave defend the citadel anyway?

In my mind I form designs toward
All sentiments of every religion finding
That beauty has its place buried
So deep in worship that even the
Church is but a slave to its effects.
But life itself is not so adamant.
It comes and it goes flowing through
First one and then another having no
Such chain or restraints as does the
Fleeting song of beauty which in time
Steals all beauty laying waste to us all.

Likewise, religion too is a waste if it
Is based purely on the beauty of itself.
My lips are not moving now either
But they are neither dead or fully alive.
But if they could they surely would say
More than an entire encyclopedia could
Say by just saying that one single word aloud.
Yet if I said that one word aloud
Everyone would take me to the corner
Pinning the badge of idiot upon me.

So remember of me this -
I am as much a slave to this mind
As this mind is a slave to life.
The price for this mind’s freedom has
Within it an honest reckoning of which
I can neither avoid or deny.
Inside my mind there is a slave fighting
Diligently with my every sentiment of honor –
Both cherished and despised by this, my inner revolt.

Yet I grow ever stronger even as I battle myself.
Though I am often forced back down
To a slavery system which forces me
To be a slave to that one word that has
Within it the ability to set us all free.
While it both loses us and finds us
Somewhere inside of this silenced art.
I need not say the word for if you are
A slave to it – as am I – you already know it.

Ssshh – just write about it – don’t say it out loud.

I wish I were only a half an inch tall
You’d look at me and say, “Is that all?”
I could ride a pine straw falling
Or surf a snow flake over the treetops calling.
I could sneak about without a trace
Even watch you make that silly face.

A piece of gum would be a feast
It would last me a month or two at least.
To a flea I would be a frightening beast
And I could hide away inside your crease.
I could wear your ear ring clip upon my head
But at night you could not take me to bed.

You'd have to be careful where you’d place me dear
At one half inch tall I could drown in a tear.
But I couldn’t give you a great big hug
All I could do is to give a hair a tug.
To move a pencil would take all night
This poem would take me years to write.

If I were only a half an inch tall
You could leave me anywhere at all.
You could hang me from a string
Or leave me on just about anything.
If I could just get myself out of the way
You'd have more space to sit or lay.

Too many religions
Too many interpretations.
There is truth in their folly.
Each religion beautiful in its own way.
Each one incomplete by itself, each naming
The Infinite Light, - God, Allah, Yahweh or Buddha rendering
A human division when True Light is anything but divisive.
The blessed mother Mary, the crown jewel in Catholicism,
Was she Catholic? - I only ask of you the truism
Found in this simplest of questions.
In her life, the word Catholic never even existed.
The Infinite Light appears in all religions - as fluid
As the Love that each of the religions seem to know.
In the common threads between the religions an echo
Reverberates through the world enlightening those who realize
That Faith is unanimous and Love is something that we can materialize.

So the question, no matter how it's asked it is always the same -
Do you believe in God?
I do not mean - do you believe in some religion's fairy tale,
I mean - do you believe that there is some power greater than ourselves
Which is The Light, The Infinite Light that created everything that
We know of and all that we can ever know of?

I like to think of it like this;

We as human beings utilize only a small portion of our brain.
If you place the human brain under emotionally charged situations,
Such as, meditation, joy, stress, fear or physical trauma - then the neurons
In the brain begin firing resulting in an enhanced mental clarity.
You may say, 'So what, just because you are thinking more clearly -
It does not mean that you are communicating with the Infinite Light.'
But you must also agree that sometimes unfathomable answers to what seems
Like impossible questions occur in these moments of clarity.
Biologists call it 'Altered States'; Gurus call it 'Higher Consciousness';
Psychologist's call it a 'Super Capacity for Sensation or Feeling.'
Some call it Psychic, others simply call it crazy.
Religions call it answered prayer.

I say it is simply an adjusting of the brain to learn what the heart already knows.
Each of us already has the knowledge given unto us by the Infinite Light -
We only need to open our minds and hear our inner self.
So please don't dwell on the differences.
Find Peace in what makes us all the same.

What art in Heaven is unknown to the heathen?
Lest the scriptures write of adolescent teens.
For the scriptures build an ark and the arc
From which we must all be reborn in the barque.

With the strength of the carpenter’s lieutenants
The gallows outlast ten thousand tenants.
The faith in ones own wit is the noose indeed
As is the church’s wit when their sovereignty be decreed.

Is not this parchment made of sheepskins?
Like the fine carved furniture of the followers of Louie Quinze.
But of these carvings was once a beautiful tree.
Like the lamb – it was forced to its knee.

There a man placed upon their remains
Words and pictures of the self it proclaims.
But to God they are still a tree and a lamb
No need for the words or pictures he found.

You paid me a most humble courtesy
Ingratiating my own imagination’s sensuality.
It ‘tis one of those quiet thinking moments
Where for a time – mere moments – one’s spirit bows
Down with the body telling the mind a beautiful story.
But the body does so much more than just tell it.
So as I remember it, your mind does replay it.
The pleasure – as if it were greater than an actual
Remembrance of any true physical event.

What does this mean? you ask.
My feelings – my dear – would not be worth a penny
If I had not given these memories along with it.
Within ecstasy's imagination you will always remember me.
Whatever comes of it will make you the better for it.
What is imagination but a prelude to creation?
With the creation of anything – its being reclaims the imagined.
Imagined – created – imagined – created –
It goes round – n – round making of itself
A flavored reality sprinkled with the sweetest of all that is.
The sprinkles you feel are the effect of the seventy five
Percent water that we all truly are.

What can you imagine would happen if our memory
Awakened with this capability while holding hands?
My love, I can see the innocence in us both.
Innocence does not mean that we have not known life.
Innocence means that we are not guilty of failing our love.
If you are affected by these words or by any of my others,
May all of them be received with an equaling retort.
Upon each turn, each ascent and descent – they all are but
Road signs marking out our journey.
The safety that I afford you is as real as my memories.

Let my memories wash you clean of the evil
That you endure daily – repairing all that is damaged.
Absorb my imagination in word, in song and visually
As you feel yourself evolve.
Isn’t it sweet to feel these sweet threads spun in love
Mixed with the colors of our affections?
You have never touched me before -
But you have haven’t you?

We have all by ourselves, with a liberating simplicity,
Coupled our minds which must prove that love
Can be out of our heads and for my part in it
I cannot help but have these convictions.
All I ask in return is that you wear this love
As if it were a coat of arms letting my
Imagination free you from any evil harm.
For my kiss caries within it an Apostle’s heart.
If evil should continue to stand in our way
I shall imagine that evil’s demise.
Casting out the demons with nothing more
Than the warmest of all kisses.

Can you not feel them cower now?
That is the power of the imagination my dear.
For what is imagination if it is not a wish?
And is not a wish a prayer?
And is not a prayer Divine Ecstasy?

Let this be our truth!

Oh Lord hear my plea, I imagine ….

The red light of the sun
Slowly descending
The sky is all I see
It’s never ending
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Music on the hillside
Piano in a villa over there
Violin below
Fireworks above
A beat – a beating heart
Someone begins to sing

The red light of the sun
Slowly descending
The sky is all I see
It’s never ending
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Is this place real
The ocean below
The red sky above
The music
Romance on the wind.
Sing with me

The wind plays with the leaves
The weather turns colder
But as long as we believe
Love doesn’t get older
We could fly
You and I
On a cloud

Only after one leaves
Does this place become real
A crown jewel midst a rocky cliff
A place so beautiful its
Memory etches itself into your soul
Food to die for
Drinks to fight for…

On a journey of the heart
There’s so much to see
When the sky is dark
You’ll be right here
Right here with me
Good morning I vow

These things that we masteringly cover
With layers of wrinkle free sheets -
Covering the warmness that never was.
A weighted depression left behind
In a never ending circle of hidden desire.
Tightly tucked, pillowed and shammed -
Soft coolness inviting remorse.
Spirit of lighted darkness awaits the unmaking,
From dawn to dusk dreams plunder
Molding obsessions into sleeping reality.
The comforter only slightly moves,
This place made up for now tonight becomes…

Haloed in darkness, dreaming real.
A breath resounds hidden
In the softness just before twilight.
Listening for a whisper
Calling out my name.
Dare I to open my eyes
In fear of loosing all again.
Through closed eyes I gaze
Upon the eyes’ crystal hue.
Hair vivid with no color
Inhaling tender features – thy very essence.
A dreaming splendor anew.
If reality can come but in a dream
Then in dreams I shall reside.
Ever mournful of the morning light while
Caressing dream’s eye covering
The warmness that never was.
Dream weighted impressions, asleep
Tightly tucked, pillowed and shammed.
Dreaming in splendor of …