loneliness: in my dreams
we go on adventures
you, without a face or a name
travel with me as we raid corporate
offices and write children’s books
and turn tables searching for truth
and liberation
you strike deep roots, deeper roots than I could
ever fathom

sometimes I try to deny you the earth’s blessings
sometimes, loneliness, I try to pull you out from the soil
but I can only claw so deep into the earth before I am tired
sweaty, in the hot sun, the sandy soil sliding back down around
your rootspace

loneliness, you are not the same as despair
loneliness, you are not a perennial
I should let you grow deep and wide, I should let you
take over the entire garden
Do I even have the heart or soul left to grow anything
else this year?

One of these days I might regret stymieing your growth
I would wonder what your blossoms would look and smell like
What your fruit would taste like if I gave
you time to bear it
What nutrients you might leave to nourish a rootspace in my soul
That could be filled with love, laughter and
a future so distant and so near I could know not its name

loneliness: let’s be friends
I’ll leave fear and longing behind and we can bear on
together,
Our cups overfull, our hands acheing with energy
The sand, the soil, into the forest together
We discover a world I would have never known without you
And I will learn to carry you not as a burden but
as a blessing
Since it’s been so long since I’ve known your name
Why would I deny the opportunity
To savor your bittersweet flesh in a hot afternoon?
It will take time,
But I have all the patience in the world

General Winter.


When the ground freezes

all Hell will break loose

stalagtithes are going to be

rocked from their anchors.


Driven snow will be banked

up in deluged drifts, lifeless

trees will silhouette skeletal

reflections on the tundra.


Tank tracks will bar code

their way westward, black

exhaust fumes will pollute

blue skies, stymieing the sun.

I can pretend no more.  Have I lost my faith?

No.

What has happened?  Have I divorced myself from myself?

Possibly.

I have only concluded upon, perhaps confirmed upon, to be more accurate;
This bane known as religion.  

This acid that trickles still through society’s veins.
This riotous poison that massacres routinely in holy names.

I used to balk at Dawkins,
Cringe at Hitchens, and
Sneer at Sagan.  Until.  Until veils were lifted and earplugs were bored out; and I come to Understand the necessity of these and other like voices--
Their convictions.
Legitimacy.

This religion.  It wants to ride on the back of my faith,
And attempt to undermine conviction--
Oh I’m baptized!
Oh I’m good!
Oh I speak in tongues.
I’m-a going to heaven.

And I say enough.

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust.
That is what we know for sure.

Strychnine.
Ricin.
Cyanide.  The three majors--all claiming God their own.
Dividing the world, stymieing potential, and spoon feeding fear.

Ashes to ashes--
Dust to dust--
What is true from here
To Earth’s molten core…

I am in divorce...

My facets of faith seeking separation;
Seeking my grand extrication,
Finding that liberation,
From the aggravating clutches of
Religion.

Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust.