Horsemen linger unnoticed in the corners
of what might have been while the mind
is preoccupied by the redundant affairs
of making love.

Evil is a man's business, and right now
business is real good, even though
there is nothing to covet and nothing to buy.

This is our Kingdom. Let us establish holidays,
so that we may celebrate our dubious citizenship.

Despite the protests of the genuine,
as long as we keep lying
we shall gain access
to all the common ecstasies.

I want to be a valued commodity
on the market of eternal youth,
but I have no currency except
as dried bones that groan
about salvation when rattled.

            Excellence will kiss
            with flame
            the soft skin
            of every
            beautiful child.

Still, I try to taste fire
because I want to run unhindered
across the plains of midnight visions-
and then there are no words,
but there is the moon.

Suffering is a thick liquid
that saturates our scalps,
and prayers happen while full of fear
as the arrows of evil
are aimed at us.

I try to be attractive, physically pleasing
to both the living and the dead.
My tongue wags and is rude,
but it heals while it offends.
Between death and conception,

God is fierce like the prophet's grin,
so trace the footsteps of prostitutes,
mendicants and wild beasts,
because a putrid odor is telling us
about a different path.

Now, let me take that naked taste
of truth that swells inside your belly.
Our lust will tip over
and flood the streets.
Then, we'll take a timeless walk
through our neighborhood of time.

Our third eye is an eclipse.
It flares with death and creativity.
A shadow without a horizon
will passover,
and we are then eternal.

I courted a prayer
to restrain from desire,
but creation crushed my will
in the millhouse of fertility.

The sea touched me
in a great moment of my dreams,
and called me to that bright necklace
it drapes along the shore.

Now, I can not deny
I suckled when I was young
making me a horned man today.
I have no choice, I do marry
and swim with golden children,
breaking waves with porpoises.

I bear my own child
who annihilates in me
all that hesitates
when I witness nature.

I covenant with a new prayer-

         Make me a creature
         of the golden sea,
         dumb of time,
         dumb of boundary.

To beautify myself
I invite my crucifixion.
I draw the arrows
from my beautiful body.
The blood stains my icon
a ***** red.
I am become the tender passion.
I am the patron of indiscretion,
in the name of violent love.
I and my God delight
in such unwise sacrifice.

My redemptive acts float
above recognition.
They are rooted in desire,
and need, and love.
They are impossible to eulogize
because they are as common as
shrugs or affirmations
delivered by my timid eyes.

You all know these acts.
You have no life without them.
A baby knows them soon as he, or she,
grabs teddy, and bites
his soft brown nose.
They are nothing moments.
They are valueless commodities
disregarded on the markets
of pride and sentiment.
They give no lessons.
They're just dumb and true
and they fear the advance of death
no more than boulders fear
the waters of a lake.

During a good long life you get
about a thousand or so such moments.
In one of those brief, tragic lives
you get maybe a hundred,
maybe even less. But of course,
tabulating them near or at the end
is about as smart and useful
as shoveling that lake.

They tell me that I am,
just like you, the way a grackle
is just like a grackle, or a lion cub
is just like all other lion cubs.
They tell me, that yes, life is pretty cool,
and that I will miss it,
and I will miss you.

A bundle of love
sits on my lap,
and when I hold it
close but easy,
freedom takes flight
like the birth of a star.

I spit out the last of my inhibitions
because none of creation’s elements
are mine to posses
except for the dream
of tranquility.

Love survives death
because love is
the perfect liar.