The lonely tree
In the far off field is a
Flower tree--
The flowers are white
And pregnant with
Possibility
Like cold and clean
Sterile snowballs
Washed by the rain
This morning that fell
Gently from the
Milky clouds and woke me
From my slumber
Because they so rudely
Hid the sun from me

The rain outside
(thrice-born like God)
the soft pitter-patter
of watery feet
on the wooden roof
on the asphalt
washing away the paint
of a spent day
and watering the
womb of the Earth
this is the bitterest
season and one for
happiness

Ah,
but where are my friends?

I envy those who
sleep beneath the ground
as I toss and turn
beneath my sheets.

The rain coats the windows,
the clear paint on the wooden walls,
sheets of gray steel on the sidewalk,
blank faces in the windows--

the quietude, the quaintness, the
quilt of rain in the forests
and dripping from the roofs.

And where are my friends?

Away, miles away,
far from my wet eyes.

Say a prayer
for the little brown kids
in Syria
dressed in rags &
paying for
the crimes of
a few idiot dissidents.

Desperation is the language
Of men in gray suits and women in
Gray dresses who count digital money
As if it mattered;
The language of the men with the
Combovers and the women with the
Horn-rimmed glasses with shining
Clear fingernails constantly
Glancing at the expensive watch
On their thin wrists that pulse
With fast food, caffeine,
And a million multicolored pills.
There is a computer in his back pocket
And he has never heard the angels.
Her purse is made of leather
And she has never ridden on a horse
Or even been on a farm
Encased in the stench of manure
And hay as opposed to the familiar wonderful
Fragrance of the gaseous air
That lurks in the alleys and the white
Smell of processed food
In the offices and the campuses.
They will laugh and cry about it all again
In Limbo and hold one another
Like a crucifix at the end of a row
Of pretty rosary beads, at the end
Of a row of pews, at the edge of the feet
Of marble Jesus, who stands and cries tears
As heavy and beautiful as the Brooklyn Bridge
And is powerless to adjust his crown
Of thorns, for his wrists are bleeding
Drops of blood as big and beatific
As the stock exchange.

I have a shaggy mess
of brown hair that
stays tangled & rankled
to fall over my glasses
like a flag. Smoke from my
cigarette trails behind
me when I walk,
in the direction of the
breeze. I have short legs
and long fingernails that
break often. I wear an old
sandalwood Buddhist
mala rosary on my thin
and bony right wrist.
I've never made a necklace
of flowers--

maybe I'll start
making those tomorrow.

I can never love you
like Romeo loved Juliet;
it is against my religion
to ****.

I can never love you
like cats love one another;
the cold indifference
would slay me.

I can never love you
like I loved her;
the passion would set
us both aflame.

I can love you
like a lover loves a lover.

Love melts the heart
and turns it into
chocolate butterflies
that dwell in the stomach.

Love fries the brain
and turns it into
a smooth stone
stuck in the throat.

Love inflames the testicles
and turns them into
furtive little mice
excited for escape.

Love makes you feel
deep like the oceans.

Diaper-smell, sweet rosewater--
out here, far from the sea,
in a church where the sailors
never go,

(the flies buzz on the altar,
they land on the sacrifice,
they feast)

she dances with scarves &
swords, she gyrates &
stares with ceramic eyes.
Lady of the cloth,
pale of skin & dark of
hair, golden choker about
her neck, red letter upon
her breast,

(the flies baptize themselves
against the meager sunlight)

she dances.

Springing
From the ground
Like flowers
And groping at our
Feet
Hoping to entangle us
And trap is forever

The thorny vines
Poking into
Our ankles and
Sliding up our pant
Legs to bury spikes
Within
Our smooth unsuspecting
Flesh

Drops of blood drawn
Drop like the bold sunset
Leaving pretty stains
On the soft skin
Pulsing and
Bruised

Dead on the water
is not a paid vacation;
floating in black
stagnation, figures
treading water around
your center.

Dissolving in the
uncaring ripples of
a green and murky pond--
men lost their lives
for this place.

Buried treasure
glints in the bent
sunlight of the soundless
depths--

locked out in the winter
is not a blaze of glory.

All these silly stupid
little trees
dripping wet with
awkward leaves,

while I drip with
smoke & write my
loneliness with
eyebrow pencils,

idle in my idiocy
& thinking of nothing
else but thee,

a banquet for the bony
dancing boldly in the
silence,

made up with
pale make-up &
trafficking in tall
tales,

all these stupid
ugly little people,

they taste like disease,

but even in a crowd
all I see is thee.

I was 15 years old
when I tried ******
for the first time.

I got it from an older girl
with a mane of obsidian
hair and a porcelain face
shaped like all
her teardrops.

She told me she'd let me
**** her
if I went to prom with her.

I didn't want to **** her;
she smelled like
the Boston Harbor.

I smoked the ******
that first time.

Gray smoke curled thickly
into the damp air of
a basement haunt--
in the Georgian heat
the rain had steamed away.

It tasted like the sands of Persia
or the ambrosia of Mount
Olympus.

It smelled awful;
burnt rubber after a highway
blowout.

I couldn't move;
I sat on my moth-eaten
sofa, dozing in and out
of life in a golden daze.

Everything was golden then
in that instant and I knew
the golden love of a mother's
glowing gaze for the first time.

Then I heaved and my stomach
purged itself.

Then I knew the black hate
of my own vicious glare
for the first time and awoke
an hour later.

Then I threw up my guts
again.

When I woke to the sounds of silence
once more I was confronted
with a golden warmth
and the feeling of the presence
of the Sacred Heart--

and I knew that I loved it.

the sky is gray
over naked gray trees
all seems gray
sidewalk & building
& all is a dream
& a pretty little dream
& the mind is the dreamer
sleeping in the gray
& i am glad for it
my dream is gray
the rainy day is gray
the rain in spain is gray
the eyes of pretty ladies
are gray just look
at all of this gray
sea of dreaming
just look at the dream
it is all gray
it is all
tathagata

Tenderly Dionysus
Wraps us in the folds
Of his earthy, leafy robe
Fragrant and exuberant
Smelling of cotton and
Jubilee and lavender
And he weaves
Necklaces and crowns of
Green verdant clover
Sunflowers for his Muse
Into our thick knots
Of tangled ***** hair

This is the song of the handsome people
bleached white bones
dark red flesh
with wrinkles deep and old
as the desert.

Their arrows having disembarked
have faded into the
molten clay of the
mean-spirited earth.

Their heritage having been
habitually crushed with cause
for hatred has been
enveloped in peace and pride
and is cloaked in
dry hides.

Feathered in cold trails of tears
to match trails of aging
they have covered up their
misfortunes with song
and smoke.

Their rainbow carried by the wind
to some far-off pasture
rides on the backs of deer
and dead bison

to be consumed in smoke
and black flame.

There is a married feeling
dark soft and warm
snuggled against my back
between seas of blankets.

Soft breathing, warm skin
and i am scared to roll over
into the wisdom of your beauty

because I don't want to
disturb you.

She is the goddess,
all-receptive and coagulating
eternally to shift with
our rhythms, our wants,
our needs.

She is as old
as all the dark rivers
that coalesce into the
perfection of the sea.

She is the lady
who opens herself
and ushers us onto
our golden throne,
and urges us to drink
from her ******
chalice.

She was alive in the Way,
and in the Water,
and in the Moon,
and in the Blood
of the Ages that flows
still in the veins of a
hidden world.

She is the perfect wife,
the wise crone,
the impetuous harlot,
ill of temper and all-forgiving.

There is a vast, cool intelligence out there
watching & searching in the blackness of space
& reaching out into the vertices of time
to pluck our minutes from under our chins
& to steal our seconds from under our upturned
noses. They take our time & give us nothing
in return, unsympathetic to our four-dimensional
existence & our tiny ideas & our meaningless
ideals. They strike at the moment of ******
when we stare into the gateless gate &
all of life is white & drips like yolk from a
fallen egg, drips like snow onto the branches of
enormous trees, drips like ***** out of the
**** of a blushing *****, drips like milk
into a cylindrical glass, all the way to the brim,
& then filleth over to cover the wood of
a well-polished table.

Madness?
Nay, gnosis--
remembering how to kiss
the waters, remembering
how to embrace the flames.

There is the tree--
it juts out of the earth,
a sword in the stone.

Alone in a field
of green grass, alone
amongst the flowers,
the emboldened
plumage.

The leaves, greeny finery,
ancient and reborn
age after age,
sag beneath the weight
of the breeze
and the clouds.

I just wanted to be
your tugboat captain,
your name engraved
on the hull, my name
enmeshed with your
skull.

Dance around in your tutu,
yes, suspended on one toe,
yes, now slip it off &
crawl into the bath.

I just wanted to be
your tugboat captain,
your skin wrapped
around the mast, your
skeleton draped upon
the shaft.

Look up at me with blue eyes, yes,
open up your pink mouth, yes,
now steer with your feet &
take us to the mainland.

I threw away the years
that I spent kissing you &
holding you in the gloom
of damp basements &
on leather couches; I had
to do it, because I have
grown immense & cold
like the spaces between the
twinkling stars.

a tribe of swans
flying forward forever in a
perfect V--
squawking against the wind,
with wings laughing
like little old ladies,
rhythmically & white
feathers falling to the
gentle earth...

black vultures the color
of 3 AM in a
pitiful wretched circle
fly over the
valley, worshipping
the dead and the bones
and the ashes.

I was outside
beneath the gray sky
this morning
smoking a cigarette
and my kitten's head
poked through the space
in the rotten fence

and I sipped my glass
of morning time ***
and went on with my bad
habits, and when my kitten
walked on by, feet
padding softly on the
wet concrete, I nodded
at him imperceptibly
and he looked up at me

and I guess he understood
where I was coming from,
because he looked as though
he really knew me, really knew
in these Scorpio eyes what
I was thinking about

and then he just kept on
walking in his utter silence
until he had reached the back
door, and then he mewled
softly, as is his way,
to let me know that it was
time to come back in

and I finished my cigarette
and downed the last sip of Bacardi
and went inside
to escape my bad habits.

cast off that mortal coil
& come with me to the garden
& learn how to be royal
& let your soft soul harden
in the gemlike flame
of compassion
in the diamondlike frame
of Buddha fashion
& throw away your clothes
& bring all of your books

life is a blood-red
rust-red roadmap
of cracked paper
that soaks up suffering
like soapy water
and burns up
slowly when set
on fire

When they come for me
I'll be sitting in my desk
With a gun in my hand
Wearing a bulletproof vest

I once was a cowboy king
and the American desert was
my playground.

My kingdom was my mind
and then it was free
to wander in the grass.

I smoked false cigarettes
made of sugar and chased
invisible horses.

The waves washed over my feet
and they sank into
the wisdom of the sand.

I built for myself a meager
castle with a moat
so I could stand above it.

The fluorescent corridors were
my stomping-grounds
and the servants stared.

No door could hold me
for I bore the royal hall pass
on my belt loop,

right beside my Crayola revolver.

I think I like you
because you look at my
Ram's horns
with pale Scorpionic eyes.

I hate you, you know;
you bore me & all
you want is flesh.

Socrates died in the ******* gutter,
his head smashed on the marble
pillars of the Parthenon,
blood soaked the streets of Athens--
          the **** of the city was dry,
          the **** of the city made wet
          with weeping.

The river ran red down the legs
of Athena, the rose of mysterious union
made her genius shudder & contort--
          ****** was the sunrise,
          ****** the terrible roofs of
          marbled Athens.

The jeweled night was loud and furtive,
the philosopher's blood made stains
on the nation, rusty were the gates of
the aqueducts, the asylums.

Red roses lurching
over sky blue picket fence

and my snake of smoke
is curling to dissipate
in the breeze

trying to feel the majesty
of air.

My dog
loves to be walked.

When I pick up the
black leash he jumps
and his tail wags
with sunshine and
his mouth waters with
glee.

In the wintertime
he shivers in the yard
and in the summertime
he sweats and pants
like a caveman.

In the fall
he is content to
have his tiny claws
crush dead leaves
and in the springtime
he is content to
run in the fresh greenery.

He ******
because the world is his
territory.

I'd like a bottle
Of blood red wine
Some cigarettes
A decent book
And a lady to ring in
The darkness of a new day

A girl
her skin the color of the pearls
was listening for
the angels, curled up
beneath a dogwood tree

This altar of teeth and ****,
crumbling into dust, into ashes
to be swept away in the sour wind
of the idiot daylight hours
in the jibber-jabber of the streets

Tender fruit, grapevine,
fleshy pulp waiting
inside,

marry me, be my bride.

Not even the vultures
will touch your rotten
meat, so why should I?

When I meditate
listening to the
words that pop up
and glimmer in the
front of my mind
everything my eyelids
behold begins to
quiver & I can look
straight through
& see nothing

We all have something to give
and you have given me your all.

This room, sunlight streaming
through dusty windows,
has become the seat of the soul,
the altar to ambiguity.

Do your bones creak?
Do your muscles ache
in the afterglow?

Gather up your things,
everything you brought here,
and disperse--
your gentle face stabs my
heart.

You were such a masterpiece,
such a beautiful work of art,
stinking of forests and ***** water.

I find you ugly now,
a wasted bag of bones,
and I must commit these
words to paper
to make a monument
to my own periodic
misogyny.

It is the wild wine
(not your whiskey,
nor your beer)
that sets me to singing
in the sullen afternoon.

The bottle
(heavy in my bony hand,
full of blushing ambrosia)
tilts back to feed
my gullet
swollen and red
as a fat, over-ripe leech.

O but this,
my Sermon on the Mount,
is one of dulled ecstasy
and ****** craving,
craving the touch of skin,
the ecstasy of the hunt.

Beautiful nectar,
bounty of the grove,
wellspring of violent
visions,
I drink and am drunk
on you,
elegant muse-water,
portentous deluge.

says the old portly man.

He has a mustache and his face
is red like a beet and his stomach
is swollen like a tumor and his chest
is covered in coarse fur.

"Edit sober!"
says the young muscular man.

His hair is neatly combed.
His hands are calloused.
He has seen war.
He has known love.
And he will know
the barrel
of his gun.