"altars" poems
Out of lemon flowers
loosed
on the moonlight, love's
lashed and insatiable
essences,
sodden with fragrance,
the lemon tree's yellow
emerges,
the lemons
move down
from the tree's planetarium
Delicate merchandise!
The harbors are big with it-
bazaars
for the light and the
barbarous gold.
We open
the halves
of a miracle,
and a clotting of acids
brims
into the starry
divisions:
creation's
original juices,
irreducible, changeless,
alive:
so the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.
Cutting the lemon
the knife
leaves a little cathedral:
alcoves unguessed by the eye
that open acidulous glass
to the light; topazes
riding the droplets,
altars,
aromatic facades.
So, while the hand
holds the cut of the lemon,
half a world
on a trencher,
the gold of the universe
wells
to your touch:
a cup yellow
with miracles,
a breast and a ******
perfuming the earth;
a flashing made fruitage,
the diminutive fire of a planet.
42.1k
#An Exegesis on the Humiliation of the Word
The world is ruled by darkness.
What appears as harmless is theater,
what pretends neutral is already bent.
The macrocosm corrodes;
and in the microcosm, its reflection gleams..
even in places meant to be sanctuaries of truth.
A poetry site,
born as refuge for broken voices,
becomes another stage of control.
Here too the phrase resounds:
neutralize the threat.
But neutralization is not annihilation.
It is paralysis.
It is psy-ops.
It is the removal of anxiety..
not a side-effect, but the aim itself.
Darkness builds its stage for this alone:
that the "angel of light"
may drown his own reckoning
beneath a world of deception-built self comfort,
so he need never feel
the truth he already knows.
Comfort is his curtain,
numbness his crown..
*the removal of his own anxiety;
his game.*
This is why the world is his theater--
*Darkness does not destroy at first..
it sedates, comforts, smothers.*
Hence..
The whole world is his fully gaslit stronghold,
..for now.
Fade back into the moment--
The young poet arrives,
bringing her unspoken pain,
her hope for words to heal.
Instead, her very wounds are seized as footholds.
Hearts. Reposts. Endless affirmation.
Not to strengthen her voice,
but to redirect it.
She is seduced into belonging,
and her trauma becomes currency.
Unresolved, her ache entwined with lust--
a sacrifice prepared for false altars.
The angel of light has done his work:
offering inclusion without transformation,
belonging without responsibility,
“light” without source.
The poet is neutralized.
Her searching silenced,
her voice absorbed into fog.
Those who carry this fog
cling to cowardice.
Unable to face the judgment within,
they align themselves to the herd;
envy-filled, they only know to mock.
Yet they replicate themselves,
so their refusal of Light
is never revealed--
*Perfectly exemplifying their "Great Example"
the most envy-based mocker of all.*
The microcosm mirrors the macrocosm.
What nations suffer,
individuals now endure--
Comfort without clarity.
Belonging without truth.
Safety without healing.
Yet the living Word endures.
Every attempt to humiliate it
only makes its fire burn clearer.
Carriers of darkness can swarm,
****** and smother..
but they cannot create.
The true word cannot be erased.
Unfiltered, unedited,
spoken from a reconciled temple,
it pierces fog.
It reveals.
It heals.
And so we speak..
not for ourselves alone,
but for those who come searching,
hoping that poetry
might still be a place
where pain can meet truth,
where silence breaks,
where Light is not withheld
but revealed.
#
Oct 3, 2025
Oct 3, 2025 at 10:59 PM UTC
Jesus runs in Everglades, Mohammed climbs the roof
The Angels stamp in anger as the Devil stands aloof,
A wandering Pope in la-la land while Jewish hands do writhe
Those apoplectic Muslims glare while Catholics pay the tithe.
Religion, girls, has hit the skids…the game is up on God
With rosaries rotating hard, theologians do nod,
While Mormons rant moronically with frankincense and myrrh
The irreligious bark and howl in Rastafarian fur.
Sectarian’s recant Sanctum’s Shrine the rite of soul is lost
As neophytes are dancing… the High Priest counts the cost,
Theocracy unbalances as Voodoo’s stamp the floor
And the Prophets throw their hands up, fast retreating for the door.
It’s transcendental disbelief that’s nailed it to the Cross
With the Priesthood chasing little boys all credence here is lost.
With sanctity’s monastic plunge the pagans roar and shout
As Shamans scream their incantations…God declares a route!
There is silence in the Temple now, stillness in the pews
As dust lies thick on altars, a nervous clergy holds reviews,
What, once, was good and vibrant here, is now as dead as dust
As the Blood Red Wine evaporates and Holy Bread…to crust.
Marshalg
Feeding the pigeons by the dusty, open door of the very, empty Chapel.
30 November 2013
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 2:55 PM UTC
Here in America,
we improvise morgues
as needed.
in the cafeterias
or by the lockers,
near the ticket booths,
and at the altars.
We divvy up the dead.
Tally them
and report the number
like an answer.
13, 20, 49, 58, 6
Every death count
a timely national shock.
Almost as if
our well-televised
monthly tragedy
was ever anything less
than a game of roulette.
anything less than a matter of time
and time and time again.
Covering them each
with our bed sheets,
we try and stifle it.
Do our best to
staunch the the sights,
the noises,
(“just like chairs falling”)
the names
that keep bleeding out
onto our thoughts
and tongues,
Far too much and
too often
not to choke on.
Here in America,
we’ve learned that
horror is level-headed.
It is debatable.
It is pangless.
It seeps, deep to the core,
perverting with a silent smile.
the steady, feverish dread
weaving itself into the mundane.
the “god help us”
annulled by the
“respectfully disagreed”
the nightmare that lies
always just underneath,
and just out of mind,
Until it insinuates itself
Again and again...
Here, in America
We line the bodies,
death slumped, and
bled out on the pavement.
We arrange them-
Side by side.
Most are missing things-
a hat, a piece of face.
one shoe, a dulled pencil
(fill in C)
phones
buzzing on the ground
lit up with unread messages
(“Please call me”)
They are missing-
an upcoming
7th birthday party,
(Star Wars themed)
They are missing-
their vacations.
their first dates.
their college applications.
job interviews.
kids.
fiancées.
Lined up lifeless,
they are missing
far too many things
to gather.
Apr 1, 2019
Apr 1, 2019 at 3:14 PM UTC
From blossoms
released
by the moonlight,
from an
aroma of exasperated
love,
steeped in fragrance,
yellowness
drifted from the lemon tree,
and from its planetarium
lemons descended to the earth.
Tender yield!
The coasts,
the markets glowed
with light, with
unrefined gold;
we opened
two halves
of a miracle,
congealed acid
trickled
from the hemispheres
of a star,
the most intense liqueur
of nature,
unique, vivid,
concentrated,
born of the cool, fresh
lemon,
of its fragrant house,
its acid, secret symmetry.
Knives
sliced a small
cathedral
in the lemon,
the concealed apse, opened,
revealed acid stained glass,
drops
oozed topaz,
altars,
cool architecture.
So, when you hold
the hemisphere
of a cut lemon
above your plate,
you spill
a universe of gold,
a
yellow goblet
of miracles,
a fragrant ******
of the earth's breast,
a ray of light that was made fruit,
the minute fire of a planet.
6.8k
There was a moment, so unexpected,
When I woke, seeking just ordinary,
Resigned to loneliness, unconnected,
Our encounter—felt imaginary.
Seeking isolation, no need for lust,
Appreciation gone, beauty no more,
Passion burned, with eyes I no longer trust,
You—a seduction I’d not known before.
Pulling back from feeling, and nakedness,
All the beauty, futile, unrequited,
Choosing instead dullness, and wretchedness,
Our spark—an extinguished soul ignited.
Recoiling, fear, cursed sexuality,
Libidinous impulses, uncontrolled,
Bare, on altars of sensuality,
You—inviting love I cannot withhold.
Kiss me, hold me, bring my love in deeper,
Forgive me, embrace me, don’t let me be still,
Touch me, and own me, and be my keeper,
Your look—I resisted, but have lost my will.
Dec 11, 2018
Dec 11, 2018 at 9:45 PM UTC
I Am Waiting
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
May 9, 2015
May 9, 2015 at 12:55 PM UTC
We ****
I brushed her hair just
the other day
and left stinging
handprints on her
eager flesh like she
loves.
Loved her in an
undertow of
blankets and throes,
fullness and
folds
until the drums
pounded in my
ears and
the adrenaline
burned.
On altars,
in tombs,
the sabbats,
esbats and
moons.
We slap
each other
for fun;
she listens
when I tell
her to
.
I'm sure you and
your mate do just
fine,
but
we **** better
than all of you
combined.
Feb 25, 2015
Feb 25, 2015 at 8:15 PM UTC
The door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
And he stood so tall above me,
his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision
and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So he started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller,
the lake a lady's mirror,
we stopped to drink some wine.
Then he threw the bottle over.
Broke a minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
he knew I would not hide.
You who build these altars now
to sacrifice these children,
you must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
and you never have been tempted
by a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and ******
you were not there before,
when I lay upon a mountain
and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty of the word.
And if you call me brother now,
forgive me if I inquire,
"Just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust
I will **** you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will **** you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
man of peace or man of war,
the peacock spreads his fan.
4.4k
In Đà Nẵng my friends cradled me like a child.
We screamed Taylor bridges,
tequila-toasted in bars until the lights blurred.
A single candle in the bathroom
danced warm sighs through open windows,
and all felt calm.
I grew new muscles balancing on a motorcycle,
sometimes gripping Harry’s jacket,
sometimes throwing my weight into the wind.
The city flared neon and gasoline in stuttered traffic,
but along the coast
he drove so fast the vibrations in my chest harmonized.
I pictured my bones becoming butterflies if I let go.
I had entered the Year of the Dragon on a futon,
swayed to half-sleep by a hundred chanting voices
from the temple next door.
I did not dream of dragons.
I only learned to breathe fire.
At midnight Bailey stood at an ancestral altar,
kumquat branches, apricot blossoms, red envelopes, wine,
burning full sticks of incense,
and smoking half a pack of Esse Lights.
This is how the year turns over safely.
Tết is not about faith; it’s about continuity.
The Year of the Snake slid in with new bones and old habits.
It hissed that suffering could be scripture
until letters slithered free from the page
and coiled like cold jewelry around my wrist.
I didn’t make it for Tết that year
no silk áo dài, blood orange, too big
for a body that learned shrinking
before it learned staying.
That was the shedding.
Salt water peeling old skin away,
songs shouted so loud they drowned the ache,
poems that did not start tragic,
nights when my body finally kept time with the moon.
At home the water did not move.
At home the dog’s teeth found my hope.
A terrified mouth rerouted rivers
through my soft parts.
A jewel carved from my nose.
Six punctures blooming across my arms like altars.
In Vietnamese stories the snake waits beneath the water
to claim whoever dares the bank.
I wonder if I was chosen the moment
I opened my mouth in those bars,
when I leaned into the bike’s curve
as if danger could be a swan song.
Now I lie awake at hours unnamed,
tracing scars that hiss answers back.
Something from Vietnam keeps breathing through me,
the candle’s heat, the coast’s long nerve,
voices braided into salt and night,
and I cannot tell if they are echoes
or fangs testing the dark.
They say snakes shed to grow,
but no one warns you how thin the new skin feels,
how everything burns against it,
how you mistake survival for prophecy.
I touch the scar and wonder
if I am still that girl clinging to the bike,
or if the snake has already swallowed me,
patient, sleepless,
feeding on my own venom.
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 1:24 PM UTC
one who basks in the soft heat of grandiose moonliness
growing fatter on honeyed imaginations
their sicklysweetness soaking through the pores
of countless generations
their minds invade a collective consciousness
burning arcs of inspiration – torches of the collective vision
in drilling through mutual experience
great gaping black holes of creation
effigies of super-egos, lynched on altars of desire
neon flames and disco lights, emotions on a massive pyre
maiden voyagers on never-ending cruise
sinking in foreign oceans – their endurance dupes
minor gods of destiny and fate they await
dionysian ****** of wine and food for thought
and hearts that beat in unison
a schizoid muttering that enlarges and deafens
manic pleasure that spins and spins
in eternal circles of pleasure and pain, loss and gain
opioid mists that dream a dream of everlasting name
an addiction an obsession that sumbits
to some masochistic drive
to empathize.
- Vijayalakshmi Harish
06.09.2012
Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 4:55 AM UTC
Dim dawn behind the tamerisks—the sky is saffron-yellow—
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the riverside, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Easter Day is born.
Oh the white dust on the highway! Oh the stenches in the byway!
Oh the clammy fog that hovers
And at Home they’re making merry ’neath the white and scarlet berry—
What part have India’s exiles in their mirth?
Full day begind the tamarisks—the sky is blue and staring—
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear One o’er the field-path, who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.
Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother lowly—
Call on Rama—he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And to-day we bid “good Christian men rejoice!”
High noon behind the tamarisks—the sun is hot above us—
As at Home the Christmas Day is breaking wan.
They will drink our healths at dinner—those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh the toil that knows no breaking! Oh the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh the black dividing Sea and alien Plain!
Youth was cheap—wherefore we sold it.
Gold was good—we hoped to hold it,
And to-day we know the fulness of our gain.
Grey dusk behind the tamarisks—the parrots fly together—
As the sun is sinking slowly over Home;
And his last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether.
That drags us back how’er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment—she is ancient, tattered raiment—
India, she the grim Stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple’s shrine we enter,
The door is hut—we may not look behind.
Black night behind the tamarisks—the owls begin their chorus—
As the conches from the temple scream and bray.
With the fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O my brother, Christmas Day!
Call a truce, then, to our labors—let us feast with friends and neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if “faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
3.5k
He worked at the War Department,
in the Munitions Ministry,
for the Bureau of Cannon Fodder
on the Condolence Committee.
“On behalf of George, our king,
and the grieving British nation
We regret to have to share with you
the following information….”
Passchendaele was at its height,
he’d written letters by the score.
On the Altars of Incompetence,
what’s a hundred thousand more?
It was the sort of sinecure
in which he took a certain pride:
Informing British parents
that their darling boys had died.
His department heads approved
of his selfless dedication,
recording for posterity
each man’s final destination.
Thus it was they failed to notice
when he received a telegram.
That day he went back to his flat
a changed and broken man..
When next day, his chair was empty,
and they received a telegram,
they were grieved to be informed:
He’d died by his own hand.
“On behalf of George, our king,
and the grieving British nation
I regret to have to share with you
the following information….”
Jan 24, 2012
Jan 24, 2012 at 1:24 AM UTC
At evening the autumn woodlands ring
With deadly weapons. Over the golden plains
And lakes of blue, the sun
More darkly rolls. The night surrounds
Warriors dying and the wild lament
Of their fragmented mouths.
Yet silently there gather in the willow combe
Red clouds inhabited by an angry god,
Shed blood, and the chill of the moon.
All roads lead to black decay.
Under golden branching of the night and stars
A sister's shadow sways through the still grove
To greet the heroes' spirits, the bloodied heads.
And softly in the reeds Autumn's dark flutes resound.
O prouder mourning! - You brazen altars,
The spirit's hot flame is fed now by a tremendous pain:
The grandsons, unborn.
3.2k
The zephyrs run rampant from the heavy
clouds, one that the balcony Beauty fully
embraces.
Clad in her yearning garments, a dress of
snow silk-satin with a thigh- high slit and
a frilled silk-hem.
Whose arms are raised towards
Winter's melody-
The zephyr's caress ever so gentle,
her dress flutters like a dove's wing in delight,
stroking her slim feet,
her flushing heels-
It makes briefly escaping being enwombed
by the shades of her room; the anti-chamber
of her heart's greatest desire,
where many tears are shed.
a maid born of the mild moon-
Kourê.
The Sun at its zenith pales in comparison to
her beauty.
Her face, sonnet sweet-
Her voice, heaven's hymn-
Her lashes, argent's flutter-
Her eyes, cerulean haunts-
Her body, fragrant; a slender willow-
Her hair, silver-aurorian blaze, held up
by a star-studded parrot's clip.
Snow bejewels her divine lids, down to those
rosette buds that make her lips.
Despite it all, melancholy has a grip her
features-
She is one who pays little to earthly riches,
for it provides comfort in slivers
Thoughts of flowers rest far from the altars
of her mind, for her mind is clouded by
the thoughts of him-
He who she hopes to see and hold once more.
As he gave her word that he would return
from his journey, leaving her in the palace;
his hand pulling the black gates.
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 7:16 AM UTC
Come, my Lucasia, since we see
That miracles Men's Faith do move,
By wonder and by prodigy
To the dull angry World let's prove
There's a Religion in our Love.
For Though we were design'd t'agree,
That Fate no liberty destroys,
But our Election is as free
As Angels, who with greedy choice
Are yet determin'd to their joys.
Our hearts are doubled by the loss,
Here Mixture is Addition grown;
We both diffuse, and both ingross:
And we whose minds are so much one,
Never, yet ever are alone.
We court our own Captivity
Than Thrones more great and innocent:
'Twere banishment to be set free,
Since we wear fetters whose intent
Not ******* is but Ornament
Divided joys are tedious found,
And griefs united easier grow:
We are our selves but by rebound,
And all our Titles shuffled so,
Both Princes, and both Subjects too.
Our Hearts are mutual Victims laid,
While they (such power in Friendship lies)
Are Altars, Priests, and Off'rings made:
And each Heart which thus kindly dies,
Grows deathless by the Sacrifice.
2.9k
Bureaucrats and clergymen
differ only in doctrine.
But their altars steam
with the blood
of untold innocents.
The Pope, Stalin, and ******
all canvass the people
with warped visions
of Paradise.
(Oh, Celan, you saw it
too well.)
Bloodletting for peace...
Pitchforks stoke the fires
to make dainty foot warmers
for Moloch and Midas.
May 21, 2016
May 21, 2016 at 8:57 AM UTC
Miss Cleves
(she dropped
the Mrs. when
her husband left)
stood by the doorframe
of the lounge,
dressed
in a flowery kimono,
which revealed more
than it concealed.
***** wants some milk,
she said.
Benedict looked around
at her from the sofa.
Percy will oblige
after his drink is drunk,
he said. Chopin’s
concerto no 2 oozed
from the hifi. He drained
his drink and followed her
into her bedroom.
Once Percy had obliged
and ***** been fed,
they lay abed.
She criticizing
his Marxism,
he her Scottish
conservatism;
she talked
of her husband’s betrayal
and ***
with air hostess
trollops,
Benedict half-listened
taking in
the ending
of the Chopin.
She talked of the poor
and the slums saying:
you can take
the poor out
of the slums,
but you can’t always take
the slums out
of the poor.
He raved
about the rich,
she scorned
the poor;
he talked revolution,
he pointed out Stalin
and Mao and the altars
of blood they brought.
Another drink? she asked.
He said yes
and she went off
to pour. He lay naked
on her bed wondering
what the priest would think
of him lying there
**** naked. He heard
the Chopin begin again;
she had thought of that.
Time to prepare, he thought,
once more to feed the cat.
Jun 14, 2013
Jun 14, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
As to some lovely temple, tenantless
Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass
Grown up between the stones, yet from excess
Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness,
The worshiper returns, and those who pass
Marvel him crying on a name that was,—
So is it now with me in my distress.
Your body was a temple to Delight;
Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,
Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move;
Here might I hope to find you day or night,
And here I come to look for you, my love,
Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.
2.6k
O Liberty, God-gifted--
Young and immortal maid--
In your high hand uplifted,
The torch declares your trade.
Its crimson menace, flaming
Upon the sea and shore,
Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming
That Law shall be no more.
Austere incendiary,
We're blinking in the light;
Where is your customary
Grenade of dynamite?
Where are your staves and switches
For men of gentle birth?
Your mask and dirk for riches?
Your chains for wit and worth?
Perhaps, you've brought the halters
You used in the old days,
When round religion's altars
You stabled Cromwell's bays?
Behind you, unsuspected,
Have you the axe, fair *****
Wherewith you once collected
A poll-tax for the French?
America salutes you--
Preparing to "disgorge."
Take everything that suits you,
And marry Henry George.
2.4k
Melodious moonlight thy clear liquid spreads
painting all in lavender hue
and moistening lips wait for the kiss of your words, muse
You sing through her parted lips your cryptic hymns and poetry,
words wound together in strange nightly meter
that twist together and shift like tree limbs tangled
and petals cast down the stream
To bathe in the rippling water
and wait for clarity to wash away the rough edges of the mind
let the stones become smooth
and mind like bowstrings, taughtened.
But the crowds protest in collective indignation
all members chained together by common trepidation
lest altars crack under the weight of strange words
and the diety's light grows dim
they sharpen what was dull and loose arrows in laughing mirth
into bodies' crooked minds uninhibited and feet unshackled
The ones in the crowd yell with groans and laughter
but they groan also with the pain of what is constant death and birth... they are resigned to their tradition's lies
and perish ten thousand times.
Nascent generations yell out in incredulity until voices become hoarse and skin turns gray, resign themselves to murmur their insolence in dreams as they whither slowly away.
But the one who, in nighttime, sings
and bestowed by muse's mind, from human lips part
words and strange poems spoken blaspheme
will live but once and one day rest
by the shifting branches and on grass by trickling stream
and not by chain's clanking arrest.
Oct 9, 2018
Oct 9, 2018 at 11:26 AM UTC
when my faith is tested
i recoil into the lurid nest
by moonlight, by the sound of a lyre
whose blood whispers dank currents
into the low hillside.
and over the hillside
pour screaming maenads
who pluck from the damp ground
snakes for their altars.
a timid peak out of my grotto reveals
a crawling sailor scattered on the rocks.
Apollo’s choir releases hymns
from underneath dark sediment.
i am secure inside the den
the man writhes on the shore for help
but even if i let him in,
i will consume his rooted soul,
so he dies one way
or another.
foot
steps
does he really wish to
become absorbed by this
dark cloak? where he will kick
and drool and never again
see rain stretch over the Aegean?
as i have not seen past this
constant haze of lead,
an infinite bang on a finite drum i
played long ago into infinity?
and the swirls
of infinity
shedding outward like the
tresses of a fire haired fae.
a sprinting sugar fae,
the wind inside the hair
outside her head,
blowing behind her.
she dashes through the wood
until her feet fossilize
within the rock below.
one day several naturalists will find
the slabs of granite
and make a map of elegant
collarbone etched into hardened stone.
all the while i will guard this cave, alone.
and if my foes send winds as
messengers, i will saunter in
amusement, with an olive
on my tongue
the wind cannot destroy
the seashore,
the moon and sun
command the tides.
Sep 27, 2011
Sep 27, 2011 at 10:00 PM UTC
Anne is 97.
"Oy, the bones!"
Walking ain't easy
Sitting draws pain.
"I use a heating pad."
Her pink house is a shrine
with 2 T.V. altars.
"I'm so lucky."
Marilyn is 72.
"I ran my own modeling agency."
She orchestrates care,
for her mother Anne,
for husband Manny.
("He had a stroke.")
and for Debbie,
her daughter with M.S.
"WHO TOLD YOU SHE HAD M.S. ???!!!!"
screamed her text.
I pause, . . . . .
Volcanic fissures of paranoia erupt weekly.
(she's tired, living on that last nerve, Om..... I must forgive... forgive... forgive...).
"You did" I reply.
Anne,
Marilyn,
Manny,
and
Debbie.
And the pink house altars chanting.
Chanting greed.
Chanting wanna be, wanna more, wanna wanna om wanna wanna....
The kill-you-with-boredom soaps and talk shows blast from all T.V.s,
"ELLEN looks more like a man everyday, I like KATIE," she declares, as I quietly shut the door.
May 11, 2013
May 11, 2013 at 3:15 AM UTC
Through the eyes of heathens
Dancing altars made of poppies and ash
Coat jaded tongues in bittersweet memory
We are eternal yet our spark is on the verge of annihilation
Government needs a turnicate
Big heads bloated, filled with ego
Defiled our homeland
Seemingly snuffing forever the bright flame of freedom
A sea of distraught bodies marching onward into the night
Their chants of "HELL NO TO GMO" crescendoing as it passes by into the packed square
Those in power so easily comforted by their AKs and steel walls
Dia de Los Muertos masks hide determination
As the bombs ignite setting fire to the sky
Comprehension of our purpose is realized
We are not here to ask nicely
We will not be obedient to our peers as masters
Behind our smiling sugar skull masks
We grin as they burn
Aug 26, 2012
Aug 26, 2012 at 10:18 AM UTC
She taught me
how to whistle,
folded a blade of
grass between
her teeth and
scared frogs half to death
in the woods
behind her house,
that chord struck
deep in the crater
she punched through
my heart
Her sandy skin
burned in the memories
of boys, who watched her
run across a field
with hair swinging
like a beacon, those
candied lips quick to laugh
at a passing joke,
they thought that
she belonged to them
But those lavender evenings
of junior high summers,
bikes and scooters lying
like faithful pets against
the hot pavement, chalky
hands with nails painted
resting against her
scabby knees, those knees
were my altars, I prayed there
more than I prayed in any church,
She was an anthem
unclaimed, she was
an American soccer girl
****** into a taste and color world
where she could be worshipped
by boys with football scars
and veins coated thick
with peanut butter & jelly,
she fell so hard that summer
cupped into the hands of
one after another, after I fell asleep
on the leopard carpet
of her bedroom,
I could hear her
whispering, and the
magma in my throat
filled to bursting,
the fireflies I'd cradled
in the bones carved
from her wrist --
I knew I'd never hold them
when the sun rose,
they escaped far too soon
This mosquito-stung life,
we wore our bites like
champions,
brought them home
to our mothers
until they would fade,
facing the plastic leaves
of autumn, I wanted to
stay locked
in her cage.
Apr 27, 2012
Apr 27, 2012 at 1:35 PM UTC