Hiatus

Has it always been like this?

Necks laid bare to naked blade
Something for some
Nothing for others
Downtrodden children
Don't recognize their own parents
In this half-light, half-hunger, half-mad

Has it always been like this?

Wistfully wishing for something no longer there
I remember to forget to remember again
That voice
That crescent moon
An instant of locked glances

How do you time time?
How do you measure measuring?
By a life on the cusp of a moment?
By a kiss on the brink of creation?

It is impossible to unsee the unseeable
I've tried
I have no answers
She took even what I don't have from me
Stole my debts and left me madness
Now I think
I've never had less
And been richer

Until I forget to remember to forget again

It has always been like this

the passed

I took my favorite arrangement of your words
And tried to make of them a home
I made an engraving of something you said
To adorn the entrance of my heart's museum

You spoke in lakes, open fields and valleys
I spoke in cages and metal chinks of gates snapping shut
I saw in black and white residues
Like a photograph you live through on playback

I made footholds from your promises
So you could see me hanging
Off a ledge that was never ours

I forgot how to accept the passing of seasons
I tried to lock away the summer sun in your eyes
As if light could be contained
I embraced the night because I had betrayed the dawn

Death

Can you hear them?

The drums are calling

They say
The sun will shine
The rain will fall
And the night sky will revolve
As surely as the swing of the executioner's ax

Can you hear death calling?

Listen
She is whispering your name

She says
Do not look at me as the loveforsaken
What do you know of love's hand in my work?
I am the Great Destroyer and the Portal to life
I am the desert at the end of all roads and this expanse
You cannot cross with steps or feet

When times are good
Men forget her face
They find her ghastly
Some men spend their lives trying to forget her face
There are those who would contain her in computer monitors
Sterilize her in automated lethal injections
Disguise her with red buttons labelled 'armed'
And deemed humane, but she will not be contained
And when the drums are calling, she reveals her true form
To all who dare gaze upon the darkness of the unknown

Her mouth, the eater of time and moments
Lips, dark from sucking out all color
Eyes, the velvet depths of a black hole
Hers is the tongue that cuts the throats of words
And her attire, midnight blue breeze
With stars on her ears
The moon dangling off her neck
She smiles, and as her teeth grind planets and suns
Between bites, all matter becomes one
She smiles and as her teeth grind planets and suns
Between bites, yin and yang become one

The entire universe is on her dinner plate
But with each bite, she gives birth to life
So tell me, what is hers but a labor of love?
We can mask her presence in our midst
We can deny her, cover up her signs and look away
But when the drums are calling
We have to leave behind everything and go all in
Because love requires honesty
And death is the ultimate truth
We just pray that when she finally calls our name
There is enough love in our hearts
That we can greet the darkness with an even gaze

Untitled 2

Scars that kiss you back

Like open, hungry mouths

***

Tonight I am an open scar

And each word and breath 

Peels apart the wound afresh

Tonight my tongue is a whip

It lashes off the roof of my mouth

And the back of my teeth

Tonight 

My veins pump napalm

I am the oncoming darkness

A face turned away from the sun

The searing cold of perpetual shadow

Tonight 

I am a cemetery of empty graves

Tabula Rasa tombstones

Waiting for a brush of your lips

So they may etch its memory into stone

So color me iridescent with incessant kisses

I want to make love to you with all my pain

I want to hold you the way dry land soaks in 

That first drop of rain after a drought

I won't ask you where you come from

I won't ask of past deeds or your beliefs 

Because even as water recedes to the lowest point

I know, you will be gone by the morning

Resurrected by the heat of the sun

Back up into the open arms of the sky

A passing cloud 

Reminding me of our next, reunion. 

confessions p 29

The poets in the old country say
"You are that which makes your heart tremble"

Beloved
Please grant this shaking leaf fastness

Any light in my life is due to the illumination of Love;
The darkness is due to me

Any good I do belongs to the grace of Love;
Any evil I commit belongs to me

Any truth I may speak is due to the mercy of Love;
Any falsehood I utter is due to me

Any generosity I display belongs to the generosity of Love;
Any greed I exhibit is mine

Confessions p 28

I know of no more beautiful a thing than a heart
That does not cling
But is still
In love

I remember you

Perched on two hills
Overlooking Loretta avenue south
Just off Beech street
I sit on the porch smoking
Watching the oak
The tree beckons
The wind brushes through what will soon be
The green locks and foliage of her curls
It passes instead without a whisper
Through skeletal arms reaching heavenward

It has been Spring for days
There is still snow here
And you can't tell the difference
Between 10:00 pm or 3:00 am

You are here with me, I know
No matter where you may be
No matter who you may be
No matter the great distances between us
Because when the soul recognizes itself in another form
The keeper's of those hearts become traveling homes
Carrying each other in one another everywhere they may go

If love should find me worthy

If love should find me worthy

Should you find me worthy of love

Love is my Mecca, my Ka'bah 

Love, may the flowerbed of my actions 

drink generously of your waters.

Truth, may the house of my soul

be unlocked by your key.

Beauty, may the light of your moon 

illuminate the darkness of the unknown.

Mystery, may I be more than a plaything to your mistress

May she find me worthy of her secret shores

May love lead me gently out this labyrinth of mirrors

and half-lies into the obliteration and annihilation of truth

 

What is poetry?

It is a twist in your gut
It is knowing by feeling
It can be heard in the varying tones
of a heartbeat, or a breath
It is laughter, and often tears

It is alchemy
It is the mother tongue of the heart
It is a secret passageway
Through the gated walls of reason and logic

It has countless lovers
But it does not always get along with words
It can be as loud as thunder
Or as quiet as the distances between galaxies

Hell, Gravity is poetry
Planets and stars suspended in a rippling reflection
Over the surface of the ocean is poetry

A poem can be as harsh as nature and the cosmos are unforgiving
A poem can be a storm of asteroids, poisonous gas giants
And countless black holes in an uninhabitable desert
The size of God's imagination
A poem can be a tiny blue planet hanging in the middle of all this

The unrelenting vibration of the smallest building blocks, poetry
Electrons that have forgotten how to stop dancing, poetry
The way you look at me, poetry

Confessions p 27

Back in the old country, the poets say

I learned manners from the ill-mannered
I learned honesty from the dishonest
I learned faith from the faithless

haha
What a fool I was each time I cursed the world
When the source of my frustration
Was my own inability of such alchemy

Holy blasphemy p 1

I heard a zealot exclaim

Imagine you could hear God reciting scripture 

A hundred thoughts went off in my head

Not all of them pleasant

Yet I drank in his words 

Past the constriction in my throat

The copper aftertaste of dogma 

And the knot in my gut

Maybe that is exactly what we are hearing

Right now

In the stillness of the night

In the birdsong of the dawn

Maybe it is God reciting scripture

On the street corner busking for a buck 

In the marketplace hustling for a bite

Dinner for two or three or more 

Maybe it is God whispering scripture

Through the lips of family members and lovers

When they betray themselves 

When they betray one another

Because even betrayal is sacred

Because every stepping stone to forgiveness

Is a sacred ascension to a higher plane 

A love confession p 6

No, do not take off your chains
Because the way you carry them
Is what makes you beautiful

But just remember
Outside the bubble of names
Free from the narrow confines of words

Free from the whip of the egos in our soul
Outside judgment and superstitions

There is a place where "you" and "I"
Are just leaves blowing away with the wind

As we teeter totter
Over the edge of joy
And the brim of delight

Sharing one soul
In two different forms