From watered seed, who knows what grows,
In fertile, broken soil.  Your choice--
Who coined that pregnant word, and how?
A woman has decisions, yes,
Confusion and a life to live.
Gone past those gates and flaming sword,
Long legacy of guilt and shame,
For those who keep the world alive.

Your lips impress love's mortal claim--
Wild nights, red wine, fellated mind,
Where I have loved you long and hard.
Cold fingers beckon, crow beaks shine,
Confirm the cropper's shadowing,
Dark cloak that augurs closing time.

She's not available for love,
Can't seem to find the place or time.
Seductions hold a hidden past--
Abandonment, a missing man,
Not interested enough to stay
One year, first year, first word, first step.
She wouldn't like me saying this,
Who came as close as anyone,
And yet remained outside of love,
Uncertain where her heart had gone.

If truth & time be intertwined,
And as we're told by scientists,
It's in our DNA to lie,
Give leeway this forbidden tryst,
Conceived beneath the vernal sky,
In evening glow & morning mist.
Wise men condemn such frolicking,
And yet the fool is April's king.

We've no less right to sacred fruit,
Than Solomon, or Eve, or God.
Lie back, let me take off your boot;
Unzip my jeans, remove the rod.
This greening grass shall be our bed.
We'll move the earth.  We'll wake the dead.

I remember
sometimes

her voice would quiver

like paper lanterns
dancing in some
foreign nighttime glow

I fancy
sometimes

I knew that sweet tremble

at a tea ceremony table
beneath Chinese skies
many years before

it first caressed my ear

Despite the clutter and decay,
Indicative of my decline,
I'll have you understand I'm not
Unhappy with my lot, and yes,
Do comprehend the odds against
Becoming one with God or you,
And yet I've seen it happen once
Or twice and so, intermittent
Though it's been, I'll keep at it, love
Being one of those things, Hegel's
Greatest contradiction, reason
Being useless in its face, so
I don't mind the pain it harbors,
As much as I would miss its taste.

If I could conjure paradise,
I'd place it here, in this soft light,
With day trips for the groceries,
Occasional short strolls at night,
And visits now and then from friends,
Who'd bring good wine and never fight,
Would love the music that we play,
Transcend some way our mortal plight.

Our maladies would disappear,
Financial worries all dissolve,
Eat every fruit available,
No ****** mysteries to solve.
No hatred, spite or jealousy.
Around your body I'd revolve.

From the garden of Heaven a western breeze
Blows through the leaves of my garden of earth
                                             --Hafiz

Humility comes easier
And easier, accumulates
In the pockets of poverty,
The deep rivers of the heartland,
Where we're told by cashiers to have
A blessed day--sing, count your many--
And it's true as the western breeze,
Where leaves flutter, underrated.

Compassion, in the garden of
Heaven, God's country, flown over
Aside from quick stops to mine votes,
Cannot be regained in this land
By anything less than human,
By any houses not holy.