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The Gift of Absence
Then comes the moment when we realize
The differences in those we thought we knew,
Illusions of our own creation, thoughts
Which pleased, as liars do, by telling us

About ourselves what we most wished to hear.
But such as are now absent from our lives
—yes, absence is a gift when seen aright—
 Restore to us, by being gone, the truth

Of who and what we are, despite our will
To be deceived by flattery and lies,
Those shining packages of purest air
That substance lack, though dressed in beauty’s robes.

In time, such liars find themselves alone,
And lose themselves in mirrors where they gaze.

What Lies Beneath
The accidental son who never pleased,
The daughters she would surely kill in time,
If time had lent her hours and days beyond
The years when cancer spread inside her skin,

These now remember her each time they meet,
Survivors marked indelibly by pain
With blackened scars commemorating lives
Spent waiting for release that never came

Until her death, if even then, since years
Have now gone by, and she remains alive,
A voice I cannot shake, despite the grave:
“Remember me,” as though I could forget.

That voice demands my life, would have my blood,
Reanimate itself behind my eyes.

The Pedagogue’s Lament
I’m trying to reach them, reach something inside of them, but often I feel as if I am reaching into the thinnest air, strutting and fretting my hour on the classroom stage, making the merest and purest fool of myself in front of an audience that quietly snickers at my pretention. I want them not just to see, but to hear, to feel—viscerally, and down through their body cores into their toes—the pains and joys of the plays and poems we read. “Never, never, never, never, never.” It is perhaps the single most painful line in all of literature, East or West, ancient or modern, in any language. “She’ll not come again.” Absolute, irreversible, permanent loss. And the meter in which Shakespeare writes that line from the end of his King Lear is a reversal—trochaic rather than iambic, with its emphasis on the first rather than the second syllable of each two syllable unit—of the meter in which he writes the boisterous life that inhabits nearly all of his poetry and verse drama. It encapsulates the slowing down, the stopping, the losing of life, a heart laboring, and slowly coming to an everlasting halt. Feel the slowing. Feel the pain in Lear’s voice as he describes the stark finality of his loss of Cordelia, the daughter he had most brutally mistreated, but who had, nevertheless, inexplicably forgiven him…mere hours before she died, still young, still with decades ahead of her, killed by a mindless goon whom Lear himself—at over eighty years of age—still had strength to kill, but not the swiftness of reaction time to kill before Cordelia herself had been mortally wounded. He could not save her, the girl who had forgiven him for failing her. He could not save her, and so failed her again, and for the last time. “She’ll not come again. Never, never, never, never, never.”

I feel like I am Lear sometimes—in the smallest of ways, of course. But I feel like I fail them. And they’ll not come again…

At the Tannhäuser Gates

I want more life, fucker…

We cry for immortality, we men,
The fear of loss, of chances somehow missed,
Prevents us oft from seeing who we are
And who we might yet be if we could choose.

But choice confounds the hearts and minds of all,
Or most, such rare exceptions as might be
Displayed in gilded art-house frames aside,
The rest of us stand doubtful at the gates

Of possibility, with wary sense
Inclined first one way, then another way,
Perhaps with thoughts of third and fourth new paths,
Illusions offering their sweetest taste.

Though circumscribed by death, our dreams defy
The limits on a life that time requires.

The Voice Within
For time and times and half a time our gods
Have reigned secure, though only in the minds
Of those who think as they are told to think,
For whom the signs directing every move
Of flesh and blood and glass and steel outweigh
The airy principles of documents
Designed for thinking men of days declined
Into the veil of years and near-forgot
By patriots who love their lords and laws.

But those once fit though few are many now,
If not the mass, a number great enough
To now be heard, without resort to fear.
We’ll have no lords, nor priestly codes designed
To overawe our reason, come what may.

Your ancient stories, gods, and hero tales
Must take their place amongst the poetry
Of bards, both blind and sighted, through the world
And time, abandoning their claims to truth,
The righteous arguments of those whose gods
Have always been reflections of themselves,
Whose hatreds are their own, though marble-carved,
With eyes that meet no gaze, though fiercest brows
Contain their blankness in illusion’s space,
Suggesting purpose where old chaos reigns.

What truths there are, each faith has long obscured,
Though all have claimed to hear the voice of god;
But truth will not be heard, unless by ears
That learn to hear the still small voice within.

The Lady
But screw your courage to the sticking place,
And we’ll not fail—in anything we try.
What evil can we not, when all we are,
Devoted to ambition’s price, remains

Inside our undiminished hearts and minds,
Two lovers bound in mutual desire
For all that kings and queens may yet attain,
If only those now in our way were gone?

So come, my darkest lord, unsex me here,
Replace what’s soft about my heart with steel,
For those that dare must act when fortune calls
And I would have you of my mind in this.

His blood will be the wine to fill the cups
We raise in toast to power and its joys.

The Dragon in Winter
Come not between the dragon and his wrath,
Such wrath has been the anchor of my days,
Of years, four score and upwards, though my mind
Has long since turned its focus from the world

Without, to gaze in rapt attention here
On worlds within that only I can see,
No hope of understanding children aged
To hardened middle-years with acid tongues.

My youngest, I would set my rest on her,
But I will have the tribute of her voice
Before the gathered noble crowds, who wait
For me to abdicate and crawl towards death.

But she will nothing say, and I’ll not hear
The loving reason in her absent words.

The Prince of Denmark
I cannot play this role; though I pretend
To be as others are, I am not one
For whom the plot in which I find myself,
And all the interactions it requires,

Can but a prison be, though infinite
In space, with walls no other notices
But me, who cannot help but push against
The limits of such minds as made the rules

In which I speak my lines, and soon must end.
But endings—though played well with actor’s skill—
Do not resolve the questions of a life
Of sacrifice to ghosts that will not die.

Though all the rest is silence, I would speak,
If I but had a voice beyond this stage.

The Moor
In spite of nature, country, credit, years,
I loved you still, regardless of the costs
My heart would one day have to pay in blood,
The pain of loss I well approved when first

I touched your hand, then, reaching for your face,
Caressed your cheek, and tucked a silken strand
Of wayward hair behind your ear, and watched
You tremble with desire that soon would burn

Us both inside the flames that roared too hot,
And could not be sustained or yet transformed
To heat for working days, a love for lives
As lived in time by ordinary men.

Now you are gone, and I am left with dreams
Of life, though soon I will awake in death.

And Teach Us Now to See
Remembrance of those friends we lost to time
And changing circumstance, the ebb and flow
Of hearts’ affections, brings to mind the loves
We all once hoped to find in those now gone,

Though our mistake was one so often made:
We did not see them as they really were,
But as reflections of our own desire,
The mirrors where we spend our private hours

In nightly conversation with our eyes.
While some such friends were good and true, yet some
Were bullets better dodged, and fortune smiled
In tearing them away, despite the pain.

Still, even those who hurt us gave us joy,
And teach us now to see beyond ourselves.

Immortality
I used to believe that I was immortal. But mine was not merely the immortality that all youth seems to believe itself the rightful inheritors of, no…mine was promised to me by the Brooklyn Heights priesthood of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, that quintessentially American religion in which salvation from death depends on one’s productivity. Work hard, sell lots and lots of garishly-printed and poorly-written magazines, and most importantly…never ever ask questions of any kind…and maybe, just maybe, an ancient Mesopotamian deity will pass you by while he sets about destroying the entire world—old people, young people, children, infants, dogs, cats, and all.

To this day, death strikes me as absurd, an activity in which no one with any sense of style or taste would engage---I mean, it’s been done. But we have no choice, apparently…and though my particular genetics in all likelihood give me something rather closer to a century than most, a century isn’t really that much time is it? What is the damned point of dying? Yes, yes, the old story from Herodotus—count no man happy until his death, because we do not know the end of our stories until death…but is that all? Is that it? Death serves a goddamn narrative function?

And what of those of us so determinedly, even preternaturally superficial as to think that the fashions of this, or any other day are a reason to live in the face of something so absurd as death? Los Angeles is so full of such people it chokes on them a little more each day…soon no breath will be possible any longer, so filled will this suburb in search of a city be with the legions of fashionistas for whom Anna Wintour (or Slavoj Zizek) is a power player equivalent to Machiavelli’s Prince.

Perhaps it is—at least in part—due to such that Derrida referred to Death as a gift. But who wants such a gift? Perhaps we reach a point at which we all do. But not me…and not yet. And with angry gods to the left of us, and vapid Angelenos to the right, what are the rest of us to do but insist that neither theology nor thread count (theoretical or otherwise) gives meaning to life?

Oh well, screw us…the latest issues of Vogue and Critical Inquiry are on shelves now!

Los Angeles
She has no feeling heart, though politics
Disguises what she lacks in empathy
For others, with their all-too-human flaws.
She quickly tires of every lover’s gaze,

And will not stay where she is wanted long,
For none can love her as she loves herself,
And mirrors show a face more beautiful
Than any in the world of mortal men.

Narcissus has no touch of her, the choice
And master spirit of her age and place,
This superficial kingdom of the damned
Where fashion reigns, and substance stays at heel.

And though I loved her once, I was a fool
Who would not see the blank space in her eyes.

Transcendence: A Brief Manifesto
Transcendence is possible…but only here, and only now. It has nothing to do with gods and heavens, or devils and hells. There is no life beyond this one, but there is life beyond the ones most of us live. We live in fear of who and what we are. We run from love, from risk, from choice, from anything that might make us drop the illusion of immortality, the quiet denial of death in which we live and move and have our being.

But death will not be fooled by our failures to live. Transcendence lies in recognizing that failure to live is death. Transcendence is the conscious choice to live before we die, in spite of the inevitable end, in spite of the inevitable loss, in spite of disapproval from others too afraid to do more than stand before the doors of possibility, never having courage to choose one and forsake the rest, never having the will to follow a path not knowing quite where it leads. But that path, and only that path, is the narrow road to life—all others are merely variations on the broad and spacious path, not that leads to death, but that is death.

Pistis Sophia
A moment’s turn, and she was there no more,
Her voice, her words, the workings of that mind
So like to mine, and yet so far removed
In place, in years, though differences seemed naught

Compared to natural similarities
And unexpected joys such thoughts could bring,
As noting each to each how perfectly
The politics of greed aligns with faith.

But she is gone, somewhere I cannot reach;
Though I would speak with her, no answer comes,
My words are cast into a void where sound
Is not itself, in hollowness stays mute.

And yet, I see her in my waking dreams,
Remember still the beauty of her eyes.

Forms and Copies
Love manifests itself in plenitude,
No scarcity of choice where beauties bloom
Like flowers after gentle summer rains,
Where fields of color stretch out to the line

That separates the earth from skies above,
While standing midst the yellows, purples, reds,
And purest whites atop their greening stalks,
One sees variety and all its joys.

But all the flowers blooming in these fields
Come short of you, the one I did not know,
Until I saw, with newly-opened eyes,
Such beauty as I all too soon would lose.

Not all the fields of this, or any, world
Afford another flower like to you.

Runners
In saying yes to one life, we say no
To countless other possibilities,
Catch fevered glimpses of mortality,
The end that waits behind the eyes of love

In death, whose arms too soon embrace us all.
But fear is no defense—and what becomes
Of those who run from love as from a trap,
If not to wander in a wilderness

Of self-regard, with mirrors to converse,
No difference whether made of glass or flesh,
Since living mirrors often serve full well
As those we gaze upon inside our walls?

To run will not forestall the deaths we fear,
But guards our hearts from loss, and thus we fly.

Leopold VSM
The pain is still familiar, even now,
Though years have passed since lessons first were learned
And easily seen through for what they were,
The lies that shaped my life, taught me my role,

The stoic one who stands and takes the blows
Still raining down for sins committed once,
Or not at all, the worst sins of the lot,
Since what I haven’t done can never be

Disproved, or demonstrated for the eyes
Of those who judge and punish for the wrongs
Imagination gives the force of crimes
For which I must receive correction’s strokes.

So bruises mount, but still I would hold on,
For love has costs, and I am bound to pay.

Survivor’s Tale
An old song brings her face to mind again,
In Springsteen’s voice, the strum of his guitar,
I hear the stories she once told of life
In coal mine towns where bars and churches fill

In alternating rhythms as the days
Stretch on, with each day like the days before,
Without the possibilities that dreams
Hold out to those who live in larger worlds

Than this, a one-light town with no way out,
Where no escape, of bodies, hearts, or minds,
Is possible but for the few, who pay
A price they cannot know to break its chains.

But scars remain, and freedom comes at cost
Of running from the ghosts they cannot shake.

Mirrors
True ugliness cannot but be denied,
Adorned in fashions to distract the eye
From all that lies beneath a beauty’s face,
That netherworld of self  where loathing likes

And liking loves, and of itself speaks well,
Despite the emptiness it covers still
With words in carefully arranged disguise,
Pretending to the last as actors must.

The best of us deny it to ourselves,
Learn not to see where we would others blind,
And glide thus smoothly though our lives and lies
Without the slightest twinge of guilt or pain.

And what is else left to be overcome,
Once conscience flatters us as mirrors do?

Something Lent
When love comes unexpectedly, be glad,
But know it will not be with you for long;
For love is something lent, a summer’s breeze,
Not permanent, though sweet, too delicate

To grasp and hold as if we owned the hearts
Of those who lend us this great gift a time,
And times, and half a time, before its lease
Expires, and we must let it go again.

Remember how they looked at you, through eyes
That spoke a language you had never heard
Before, and cherish what their hearts once lent;
Such moments, though they fade, give life its joy.

Be happy then for loves that did not last,
For life itself is lent, at interest due.

Sonnet 94, in Miniature
Though mortal creatures all have hearts that fail,
That failure does not mean their loves were false;
They loved as best they could, despite their flaws,
And never meant to hurt, or cause such pain

As leaves a scar in every lover’s heart,
Despite the best and most sincere intents.
Their eyes that shone with love did not tell lies,
But told a truth their lives could not sustain.

So now, you face a choice, to spend your days
In anger and regret for loss of love,
Or see those lovers as at best they were,
Free givers of a gift that could not last.

Forgiveness will not come before its time,
But come it must, and that love will not fail.

A Fool Among the Wise
You all are fools, the ones who keep your word,
Who follow through on plans, whose yes means yes
And no means no; the wise are not pinned down
By promises, recalling what was said,

As if their words were more than air in shapes
That served emotions of the moment well,
And made a pleasing sound, as music does
When played with skill, as liars play your hearts.

While you are stunned, still searching for the whys
And wherefores of betrayal’s stinging pains,
The wise move on with conscience light as air,
Without a thought, leave you to gasp for breath.

And yet, I would not be among such wise,
But stay among the fools, let come what may.

The Muse Remembered
My inner walls came down too easily,
Doors tripled-bolted opened at a touch
Of hands that held a key I did not know,
While turning fingers coaxed my secrets out,

And whispers of desire and love assured
Me of the truth of words whose sounds were sweet,
More welcome to my ears than any lie
Had ever been, or any truth could be.

Her words were not a lie, but spoke a truth
Much more complex than either of us knew,
Or could imagine at the time she spoke
Of loving me and teaching me to hear.

As moments pass, the meaning of her words
Eludes me still, and she will speak no more.

The Suicide Cafe
The special for today is Hemingway,
Though Plath and Sexton are quite good as well;
Virginia Woolf is popular, of course,
If somewhat overdone, and so last year.

Perhaps Empedocles is more your style?
For those who’d like to go out with a bang,
Volcanic lava really can’t be beat,
And nicely solves the problem of remains.

If this is somewhat garish for your taste,
The artist in the garret might well serve;
A Thomas Chatterton, unrecognized
By editors and hacks, in poison’s arms.

But save some room to taste a sweet or two,
Mishima’s blade will surely cut the fat.

The Awful Rowing (for Anne Sexton)
The awful rowing goes on, day by day,
But not toward God, or something in the place
Of God; despite the shorter breath of days
Through which we manage to survive once more,

The rowing aims at nothing in the end,
No final destination gives it point
Or meaning; still, the muscles ache with strain,
And sweat pours down our faces with each stroke

Of oars in water leading to no shore,
No resting place in sight, unless we see
An end worth calling by that name in death,
A shaping principle to aimless tales.

But death knows nothing more, no secret stores
Of wisdom give this awful rowing shape.

Requiem
I miss the rhythms of her conversation,
The irony with which she spoke of life,
Of art, and politicians’ promises,
The flashing light inside her angry eyes

When now and then reminded of the past
In coal mine towns from which the few escape
Who have the strength to leave, but bring their scars,
Their fears of want wherever they may go.

They run, as once they ran, for motion saves,
Or seems to save, where stasis threatens death,
But running has its price in pain, in lives
Left unexplored, and loves now left behind.

But she is dead and gone, though not quite dead,
More like a ghost than one who sees the sun.

Shelf Life (Oscar to Bosie)
They get away with much, those creatures fair
Who take our breath away, with beauty marked
To stand among the rest as if the sun
Both rose and set for them and theirs alone.

Else who would tolerate their sudden shifts
Of heart and mind, capricious in their whims,
Assured that all the world exists for them,
To do them service and to soothe their pains?

So much the more are we the motley fools
Who lend ourselves as adjuncts to their lives,
The willing partners to such ones as see
No farther than themselves and their own skin.

So learn this lesson well, love not with eyes,
For beauty’s shelf life won’t outlast its price.

Penalty Phase
Her trauma took the voice she might have had;
She speaks in whispers now, with eyes cast down
Avoiding those who gaze in sympathy,
Objectifying even as they try

To understand a pain they'll never know,
The sudden violence changing everything,
A trust in life that cannot be regained,
No matter what the priests or doctors say.

The boy--still nothing like a man--sits still,
With poorly practiced calm looks cold and hard,
While watching all he's known of life grow dark,
And slip away because of what he's done.

For neither will the world embrace again,
But each inhabit prisons of their own.

Equally to All
Despite constructed worlds in which we live
And move and have our being, life remains
The same, as birth and love and age and death
Come equally to all, without regard

To fortune or belief in moral codes
Derived from gods whose sole existence springs
From human fear and need to understand
In smaller scale what else exceeds our grasp.

Believing does not make what we would have
Exist, nor does our unbelief affect
The stark reality of human lives
Which have an end that comes for each too soon.

So gather rosebuds, as the poet said,
And live with passion for a life too short.

The Uselessness of Reason
The grasping after reason is what chafes,
Though sudden breaks leave questions in their wake,
As whys and whens and hows blow through the mind
Like storms that cannot be abated soon,

If ever, though with time their winds will fade
And something like a peace will be restored,
But only like, as questions never stop
Or disappear entirely, else life

Would make more sense and hearts reflect a truth
That minds could understand and analyze,
Providing comfort when our lives go wrong
And shining light when darkness looms in view.

But passions make no sense, nor will be tamed,
Though reason holds itself as if supreme.

Nő a magány (Woman in Solitude)
I loved her once, and though she cannot see,
I love her still; but hers was not a heart
That loved too easily, though once I thought
It might love well, once she had said the words.

But words, it seems, were part of her disguise,
A smokescreen she put up to hide intent
From others, even from herself, to buy
The time she needed to decide which tales

To tell and which to save for future use
On future loves who got too close to her,
Who loved too well, and threatened to expose
Her solitude as loneliness and pain.

And though she left in haste, she haunts me still,
In nightly visitations whispers dreams.

Love and Emotion
Emotions have too frequent ebb and flow
To be relied upon in search of love,
For love is out of time, a moment’s glimpse
Of truth’s eternal forms inside the heart.

But feelings are not love, as flux and change
Can batter such affections, leave them bruised
With sudden shifts, and alterations strange,
Reversals nearly inexplicable,

Until they’re seen as shadows in the caves
From which true lovers ever must emerge
In order to escape illusion’s grip
To see the sun, and understand its light.

To love someone is not to see ourselves,
But see eternity behind their eyes.

Wordless Ghost
You read my poems, yet refuse to speak:
I see the footprints that you leave behind,
The late-night visits, mornings, afternoons,
As though you've banished me, but can't let go.
Or do you wish to speak, but can't, through hurt
And wounded pride, because my ignorance
Has injured you, although I meant no harm,
But only love, though in my pain I spoke
Perhaps too harshly for my heart's intent
And damaged what I merely meant to save?
I wish I knew, and knowing then could act,
And through my actions bring you back again.
But though you are a wordless ghost, please stay,
And read of how I love you all the same.

II
I love you past all manner of such love
As men can speak, and poets still can write
In these, our latter days of ignorance,
Where sentiment comes packaged in the aisles
Of grocery stores, and churches peddle gods
That few believe, and fewer understand,
Beyond the commonplace clichés of blood
And sins defined as all that gives us joy.
I love you, not for you have beauty’s mark,
But for your wit, your steel, your sharpest mind,
That intellect that gives you cause to see
As clear as day, despite the deepest night.
I’ve never met another like to you,
And all the world seems gray, now you are gone.

III
Revenge-play ghosts demanded to be heard,
But modern ghosts depend on us for life,
Live through our thoughts, take nourishment from pain,
Regrets that stem from loss, things left unsaid.
To talk with them gives momentary comfort,
Relieves the loneliness that casts a pall
On welcome solitude, the hours we spend
In dim remembrance of the loves we’ve lost.
Despite the passions that once gripped our hearts,
The urgent wonder in recalling times
And moments almost sacred in their joy,
Life still awaits, and new loves are in store.
Regardless, then, of how we loved them once,
The time has come to tell our ghosts goodbye.

In Word and Deed
Your silence is what haunts me now in dreams,
The hours when most I try to reach for you
And most your absence focuses my loss
As loss, though how this emptiness became

The daily fact of all I call my life,
I cannot fathom yet, not knowing how
I lost you, when was my misstep, or worse,
My inattention to the one I love.

I send out words to find you where you are,
But nothing comes again, not like before
When words and smiles served as the food of love,
And all we were came breathless from our lips.

I miss you more than my poor words can say,
And wish for your return, in word and deed.

Moments
If hand to hand is holy palmer’s kiss,
As once two lovers said when first they touched,
Then trembling hands were our first kiss as well,
When first I touched you, brushing back your hair

To tuck behind your ear, reveal the face
I could not help but gaze upon in awe,
Then slowly reach out for your hand to touch
Your palm, your slender fingers, grasping hold.

Surroundings did not matter then, despite
Their darkly strange and dreamlike quality,
For all we saw was in each other’s eyes,
And when I finally kissed you, we belonged.

I would not lose those moments, or lose you,
For love is much too rare to be denied.

Narcissus
Emotions are not real, except for mine,
And nothing lives outside of my own skin.
For men were meant to serve and to admire
The beauty that is mine and mine alone.

And when I gaze on you, you come to life,
As long as your amusements hold, but soon
I will grow tired of you, and turn away,
Relinquish you to life among the shades

Of all who fail to please or fill my need
For moments of diversion in the sun
Which shines out just for me and warms  my flesh
My pale, yet perfect form, where no blood flows.

What though your pain is great? It matters not,
For all hearts are but adjuncts to my own.

No Gods but Us
In every life, decisions must be made,
Emotions reckoned with, despite their cost;
To pull the shades and hide from who we are,
Where passions most do burn that also heal,

Might seem the path of least resistance now,
But cannot help but lead our hearts to ruin.
For those who would not hurt the ones they love,
Yet sink beneath the whelming tide of fears—

Of love, of loss, of self betrayed by self—
There comes the choice: what risks are worth the pain
They might entail, or joys that might ensue,
If only we can face an unknown truth?

For love’s divine, though no gods are its source
But us, the sole creators of our worlds.

Jacob, of Rachel (IV)
Although I would not lose you to goodbye,
I'll not hold on, nor be unwelcome there,
Where once I saw desire in your eyes,
Since now those eyes grow dim and turn away.

I cannot sleep for racking pains and doubts,
With suddenness of love's decline perplexed,
The questions of myself, where I went wrong,
What things I must have done to lose that gaze

Whose light had bathed my face in utter joy
Each time I saw you watching my approach,
Though oft of late your silence and retreat
Has dimmed that light, till I no longer see.

But I would not hold on where love has died,
So I will love once more by letting go.

(A)theist Manifesto: A Prose Poem

God…oh do let’s talk about God, shall we? What the negative theologians (Pseudo-Dionysius, et al) described as unknowable, mean-spirited tyrants who are trying to sell you something have described as all-too-knowable. The God of the salesmen is a jealous God, demanding exclusive devotion…just like the one that huckster Hilkiah was peddling in the court of Josiah all those centuries ago.

God is Love (so says John). Love Hurts (so says Nazareth). Love Stinks (so says the J. Geils Band). Discuss…

The first thing Milton has his character “God” utter in Paradise Lost is a lie. Milton was not screwing around. The first thing Yahweh tells the human pair in Genesis 2 is a lie. The serpent calls him out on it, and Yahweh admits it in Genesis 3.

No God but God
There is no God but God, so say the fools,
Who know not what the books they hold dear mean;
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

But wise men know the dangers of the rules
Insisting on belief in what’s unseen;
There is no God but God, so say the fools.

Our reason yet survives in wisdom’s jewels,
Maintains philosophy, though ne’er so mean,
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

Unlearned men will labor as if mules,
Demanding still a pious playhouse scene,
There is no God but God, so say the fools.

Though no salvation comes, no ardor cools,
No faith diminished, growing ever green,
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

But I, who once believed, have shed the tools
Of faith, no longer will abide its sheen;
There is no God but God, so say the fools,
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

Love Song on a Sleepless Night
The hour of sleep eludes me most at need,
When all my thoughts are bent toward love of you,
Still feeling most your absence in desire,
The touch of skin to skin, the silken waves

Of fragrant hair that frame your perfect face,
Whose hazel eyes revisit me in dreams
Where sleeping or awake, I live with you
In love, bathed in the quiet pre-dawn light

Where most I see, as I am seen in turn.
And though I would not weary you with love,
With oft protesting passion's heat in verse
Or song, I'll not restrain the flow of words.

For words serve most at need through sleepless nights,
Bring absent touch to life in thoughts of you.

Rhapsode
Though he is quiet when he first walks in,
The room is his; he plays it at his will,
Its silences and sounds the quickened notes
For practiced compositions often played,

Though never quite the same from then to now,
As each performance changes what's performed,
Reveals the actor to himself, though none
Beside have skill to see the seamless role.

He plays the notes in hopes that some will hear,
Will recognize the music's ancient tune,
Though reaching fewer with each chorus sung,
Each failure now his own remorseful fall.

And yet, he tries again, renews his song,
Naught knowing matter else to sing or do.

Kobayashi
Goodbye looms near when once we say hello,
As every fair from fair sometime declines,
So every greeting brings its time to part,
Where eyes, once blue, grow dull in downcast grays.

But as with all, there lies a trick within,
A way to cheat the hours of love’s decay,
And damn the days and weeks that would remove
Our loves through years’ routines and passions spent.

Grow tender through your time apart, and fond
Where life’s incessant noise grows to a din;
When absence is required, and solitude,
In silence lies the keys to love’s rewards.

Then say hello once more, still furthering
The time and distance to our last goodbyes.

Now
Imprisonment comes slowly on, as days
Pass into weeks, and months become the years
Of dim existence, sifting through the past
For clues to fix the broken narratives,

The jumbled tales we tell about our lives;
As if a life could be revised, reworked,
Its roughest edges gently smoothed away
By changing voice, or style, erasing time.

But life is not a play, nor work of art,
No audience demands, nor even notes
Our most recursive work—the practiced selves
We all rehearse in lines we never speak.

The time is now, and now, and ever now:
New life awaits for those who would yet live.

Silences
Where gods of old religions once held sway,
There now abides a welcome emptiness;
Though blind-eyed statues still attest to faith,
And former generations of belief

Expressed in contradictions meant to point
To mysteries no one truly understood:
Like how the human heart can love and hate,
Grow cold where once the flames of passion burned,

Or cloak desire in all the robes of sin,
Denying all the joy a life might have,
If only those allowed themselves to live
Who talk of freedom on their knees in prayer.

Our silences are where such truth resides
As all our ancient tales have long obscured.

Traveler’s Tale
You tell a tale, and all your weariness
Soon disappears; your face returns to life
With eyes lit up in mirth, or disbelief
At others’ lives, the children they let crawl

Through aisles in airports, screaming on the planes,
Still seemingly oblivious to need
Expressed at highest volume, while they chat
Amongst themselves about the latest shows,

Or random matters of no consequence
To any creature other than themselves.
A week in Paris lights, or Roman ruins,
And what remains with them of magic’s touch?

I smile, while seeing details through your eyes,
And wishing I had been there all the same.

Masks
Despite appearances, the truth of self
Will be revealed a thousand subtle ways
For those with eyes to see; no actor’s skill
Can fix the shifting public masks so tight

That artifice, though seamless to the mass,
Remains invisible from even those
We most would hold at bay—the ones we love,
The ones with whom we most would be ourselves,

If we but had the strength to improvise,
Set down our prompts, their safely written lines,
To speak a truth we may not know in full,
With halting words unfolding unknown ends.

To say we love is true, but what of that?
No love survives for long behind our masks.

Felt Absence
I feel her absence in each silent breath,
In subtle shifts of light as moments pass
From morning’s bright pastels to purple night
And back again, as days stretch into weeks,

Though not so long, not weeks, though seeming so
From my impatience for her hazel eyes,
And longing for the skin whose touch revives
An ancient passion long ago forgot,

Excited further by the mind she shows
The world, and what she saves for closest friends,
The self I almost missed the chance to know
So focused on my solitary life.

And though I wish her joy, I would the hours
Till her return might pass as moments do.

From One, To Another
I watch you, as a laugh lights up your eyes,
And see the comfort in your face, so rare
For one as private as you often seem,
Like one who learned to hide behind her thoughts,

Concealing thoughts in turn from those too blind
To see, too deaf to hear, or understand.
Across a room, through conversation’s din,
I catch your eye and see behind the mask

You wear, while mine falls easily away
To you, though no one else can see the face
We each keep to ourselves among the crowds
In which we live, and move, and play our roles.

I saw you oft before, but did not see;
Mistook the mask for what was real—no more.

Of Roads and Choices
The road less traveled by, so goes the verse,
Makes all the difference; but I’ll not trust
Iambic platitudes, despite the skill,
The diamond hardness in their rhythmic lines,

The master’s touch so evident within
That tone deaf readers recognize the sounds
For which they have no definitions, though
Experience, best guide to life as yet

Unlived, lends certainty in place of doubt.
And yet, though far too oft repeated, words
In well-worn patterns carry much of truth
That otherwise illusion’s web obscures.

For two roads lie before me now—which one
I take determines all the lives to come.

Achilles at Dusk
And now the time has come for letting go.
I gave my all, but all was not enough,
For those unbottomed wells of rawest need
That once had seemed compelling, now constrain

As prison cells set firm in smooth stone walls
Whence no escape, nor hope to see the sun,
Can draw my shade back to the world of light
Forsaking here my throne among the dead.

My end was in the way this life began,
Disguised among the women of the court,
Too close, still pressing in upon my youth,
Now spent in vain here on the sands of Troy.

In war, in love, my fight has been the same,
But now my load is one I cannot bear.

Lesson
The only safe existence is the lie,
The roles we play, the masks we wear by day
Disguising fair or foul intent with shows
Designed to court the favors of the just,

Or those who think themselves the just and right
While punishing the sins of those whose lives
—Too stubborn in the difference from their own—
Must be constrained, and shaped to fit the mold

Of expectation’s fancy, truth be damned.
Remove the mask, expose the face beneath,
And then prepare to face the consequence:
A life unloved, with graying eyes unmet.

So best, it seems, to hide behind the lie,
For truth wounds only those without disguise.

Three Wishes (együttérzés, tartozás, megértése)
To gaze across the gulf that lies between
And know, for once, a mind like to our own,
Till now kept hid behind the smiling eyes,
The petty interactions of such days

As ever make the endless years the same,
With necessary seeming overfilled,
The lies we tell, the poorly fitting masks
We wear to try and fit this stranger’s world.

To meet the eyes that see both who we are
And who we might yet be ere sunlight fades,
And know, forever after, where we fit
In this, the best of worlds, unknown till now.

And, though alone, to rest in knowledge still,
That someone else is there who understands.

Love’s Lesson for the Few
The origin of sin is Man’s desire.
To want, and seek to fill the emptiness
That inexplicably defeats the wise,
Who know no better than what Reason taught,

As if such lessons could relieve the pain
That lovers feel who’ve made the prime mistake:
Admitting what they love, not keeping close
The secrets of their hearts, now laughter’s food,

And sport for mockers of the kind whose loves
Have always been too easily won
For aught imagination can express
Of pain, humiliation, and regret.

To openly admire brings whips of scorn,
So secrets must be kept, and loves denied.

The Tree of Knowledge
Believers oft suspect their truths are lies,
Else why do battle with a modern world
That doesn’t care for ancient Hebrew gods,
Or Roman theologians steeped in blood

Who never understood poetic tales
Except as argument for sins as yet
Unthought by Bronze-age bards and prophets past,
Who nothing knew of heavenly rewards?

What need they, when this world brings bliss enough
For those with eyes to see, and hearts to feel,
Where love walks in the cool of evening light
Delighting all who hear its siren call?

And though there is no mythic tree of life,
The tree of knowledge shades and feeds us all.

Jacob, of Rachel (III)
At first, the years were swift as summer days
Remembered through the haze of wintry age,
But soon, the leaves began to fall, and bare
The limbs that once had seemed so full of life,

Till even summer’s days began to chill,
And warmth, now grown elusive, slipped away.
In waning hours, when Leah’s eyes grew dull,
I bent my thoughts in long pursuit of you,

Your eyes that shone, and pierced beneath the veils
Where all my hopes and discontents lay bare.
But now your love is real—I’ll not let go;
Too many years have passed without your touch.

Through seven summers end, then seven more,
I’ve longed for you, and now the warmth returns.

Note in an Empty House
And so the time has come to say the words,
The words that wound, while every vowel cuts
Into the hearts of those who hear goodbye
Where once hello had sounded sweeter notes.

For fear of words, and all the pain they cause,
I’ve lived a prisoner behind the walls
Of cowardice, still closing in my grasp
The key to all the doors, and all the bars

That hold me fast in this, my worn-out role,
Whose lines, though yet familiar in my mouth,
Have since become excuses to be dead,
Avoiding pain while watching lives pass by.

But life has offered love and hope once more,
And time has come to live and feel the sun.

Jacob, of Rachel (II)
Soft framed by raven hair, her face exceeds
All thought, as wisdom falls to worship where
It once had reigned supreme in reason’s garb,
As if her beauty could by argument

Be overcome, denied its sacred sway
O’er hearts and minds and eyes, both those who see
And those who know without the benefit
Of sight, which oft misleads the wisest fools.

Enfolded in her arms as though I would
Escape, release myself from loving ties,
I find it is her heart, her thought that winds
Me fast around with gentle silken cords

From which I would not be unbound, not now
Nor ever thence, despite what time may bring.

Jacob, of Rachel
Her hazel eyes pierce through pretension’s veil;
Their quiet gaze reveals you as you are,
Laid bare before a living work of art
Whose power yet transcends her beauty’s form

While taking root inside the ones it sees,
Where hearts become themselves, and growth transforms
The desiccated bud to fullest bloom
Still turning toward her eyes like summer sun.

To live inside her eyes is space enough
For fairest show of who we’d learn to be
If only to remain in favor’s sight
And stand before the altar as her priests.

This only is religion’s use—to love
In wonder at the beauty of her eyes.

Sophia, of Her Children
In morning hours before the first light shines,
In sunrise only seen through heart’s unease,
I realize the path a life must take,
The reasons I will soon be left behind,

And must be left, and why I must let go.
For love cannot, and still be love, hold fast
To those who would be free, whose lives now sing
The notes of change, the siren songs of growth

And all the possibilities of joy.
But this has been my chosen task, to love
And then let go, without attaching guilt,
Lest love enmesh and mar what it would save.

In aftertimes, this comfort I will take,
I gave as best I could—so love rewards.

Remains of Light
And all at once, illusions are revealed
As insubstantial castles built on sand,
The hearts of many now outweighed by one
Whose hate can swift destroy all I have built,

Or thought to build, when youth and hope held sway.
But now, the burning eyes, resentment's flash,
And harsh, disdainful tones of one for whom
My life and work are merely in the way,

Remind me of the end that comes to all,
Forestall or still deny it as I might,
The night will come too soon, will interrupt
The flow of days that once had known no end.

And yet, I would hold on as darkness falls,
And bathe my eyes in what remains of light.

Abelard, to Heloise
I’ve always known the day love’s end would come
Would be a day much like the other days.
The unexpected pause in conversation
That leads to all goodbyes, including ours,

Comes as an interruption to the lives
It quickly rearranges, setting fires
Where love had been, while clearing space for some
To live anew, though others fall and die

Without the hope of resurrection’s balm
Or healing hearts where God himself withdraws
To leave an empty space behind the eyes
Of those who yet survive to love again.

I knew, but hoped I would not see the day
When you would pause, then quickly say goodbye.

To Penelope
We went to sea in mortal ships of wood
With blood and stone and bronze as argument,
Not knowing yet how hostile were the gods
To all that men would build beneath the sky.

Still undiminished in those early days,
We grasped at life with unrepentant greed,
For all the pleasures of the world looked fair
And fairly could be bought without the pains

Of loss intruding on the everyday.
Such time had not yet come for us in youth,
Whiles yet we took the cattle of the Sun
And nothing suffered for the boldest theft.

Now years revenge, if not the deathless gods,
And take from us ourselves as payment due.

Reason Also Is Choice
Despite intentions for the best, it ends,
Our love, our life, our plans to dominate
Both fears and insecurities, to forge
A path as yet unknown to those who pray

For favor from the gods who’ve long since died
And turned to Eden’s dust from which they came.
And yet, inside each end lies promised new
Beginning, leaving by those death will bring,

For all who claim to know of death tell lies
They’ve long rehearsed as palliative truths,
As if the sounds themselves could stave off fear
Of unknown countries and the dreams that come.

While time remains, each ending offers choice,
And choice is what it is to be alive.

Nor Truth Nor Lie
And then comes clarity, in moments past
All understanding, knowledge of the path
A life must take with mind and heart entwined
While focus makes those options fall away

That once had seemed too difficult to choose
Between, as lovers pulled in half by doubts
Fear choice as fearing death and end of days.
But pardon me, I do not speak of Truth,

Though some would blanch at calling it a Lie;
I speak of what is only heard in silence,
The muffled cry of who and what we are
Long buried under years of mannered grace.

Our songs of innocence have fallen mute,
But old experience can be renewed.

Anti-Harlequin
To reach beyond ourselves, to take the risk
That life might yet have more to offer us
Than any poet may conceive in verse,
In this not what it means to be alive?

Each momentary smile, each new hello,
Though all will soon enough be lost, brings light
Where darkness waits, though darkness will not win
The day, while will remains and love renews.

These fragments shored against our ruins serve
Where ministers and priests too often fail,
Convince the weary to say yes again,
And watch another day unfold in hope.

So play the fool, for wise men know what waits,
While dignity ne’er won a moment’s joy.

Harlequin
I’ve played the fool too many times to count,
And yet, each time the choice recurs, I play
The fool again, as if I’d nothing learned,
Nor nothing gained from lessons time would teach

If only I would listen to the voice
That tries in vain to tell unvarnished truth.
I know full well the man that I’ve become
Shows nothing forth, and yet, to those with eyes

To see, shows all the secrets I would keep
If only to protect myself from harm
Inflicted, or imagined, by my failed
Attempts to seem as all the others are.

But those who see are rare—most men are blind;
And so this king of fools can pass for wise.

The Socialist
“In scripture, go and learn what these words mean:
I would have mercy before sacrifice.
And those among you without sin, cast stones
Without compunction at the sinners here

On Earth, and also those near Heaven's throne.
The rich men shall not enter there, nor here
Shall find contentment next to Abraham,
But burn with unquenched fire and jealousy

While begging for a drop to cool their tongues.
So eat, and drink, and make of merriment
The profit of your days, for days grow short
And lacking all tomorrows, you will die.”

Such words bring death to those who dare to speak,
While life’s reserved for those who’ve mastered lies.

Happiness
Unexpectedly it comes, through silence
Wrapped in sound, in contacts made at random,
Sensations—touch, the texture of her hair,
The straying strand that will not be put right.

Intelligence and sympathy and love--
What more have I the right to ask of life?
And yet, her face, with all its perfect lines,
Its alabaster skin in silken frame,

Would teach, if I could yet its lessons learn,
That I had only just begun to live,
While necessary losses had prepared
My eyes to see, my heart to feel, the truth.

Such moments signal what the world calls joy,
And I have felt its unexpected touch.

The Extrovert
The silences of empty rooms oppress
My heart, reduce imagination’s sway
Until my eyes grow dull expecting more
Though still receiving less as nights extend

Their reach into the pall of early day
And newer rounds and rounds begin again.
I must have laughter, sound, the colors bright
Against the darkened sky, recharge myself

With merriment in stories told and heard
By lovers, friends—not yet, or soon to be,
The faces I remember in my dreams
Of life, and in the dreams I live each day.

So keep the lights alive, and raise a glass,
Though silence drains, good fellowship restores.

The Introvert
Relationship demands we pay its price,
Which differs in its terms for youth and age;
For some, the price is love, while others pay
With labor’s pains—for me, the price is life.

To be with others drains me to the core,
Though laughter energizes most of us
—And I enjoy it to be sure—I wane
Where others wax, and soon must be alone.

But still, I would not be without my friends,
My loves, and all the voices of my days;
I merely wish they understood my need
For silent privacy, where I renew.

The introvert does not reject the world,
But loves it at a cost his friends can’t know.

Life in Moments
Life offers all the moments we would choose
If only we could see and hear and feel
Without restraint from preconceived ideas
That circumscribe our possibilities.

The curling waves of women’s hair undone,
Released from bondage to the rules of day,
The eyes that flash intelligence and fair
Desire, while skin holds promise of its joy.

To gaze on beauty’s form divorced from shame
Is life’s great gift, if only we would live,
Not hurry toward the exit unprepared
To be convinced by circumstance to stay.

Though life is cruel, it also offers love,
A passion that consumes its lovers’ hearts.

Who Will Not See
Beauty comes unrecognized by lovers
Whose tastes were formed by customs of their time,
Without a clue about what other worlds
Have worshipped to the point of agony

In grey-green eyes of gods and goddesses
Surpassing understanding. Senses ache
Still straining for sensation long denied
To flesh subdued by ancient sacrifice,

Denying passion’s hold to live a life
Half dead, as if to want were worthy death,
Which fools believe who’ve long since grown ashamed
Of all desire, of bodies, hearts, or minds.

But those who will not see cannot be taught
To see, remaining chained before the flames.

Chrysalis
This old life ends with worlds in disarray,
And all I’ve tried to hold now lost in time,
Set free through inattention or intent,
What does it matter whether it was wrong?

There comes a time when all we were gives way
To that we know must be, despite our fears,
Or preference for familiar same and sames,
Our well-worn circles scrawled into the dust.

I want the new, but fear to lose the old,
Still feel the death within my own desire
For life, and all its fleeting, precious joys
Which I have thought, and dreamed, and gazed upon.

But I'll no longer live behind my eyes,
Nor wear my aging mask, for new life calls.

Of Two Minds
To sit and talk, and not to want to leave
Despite the fact that yesterday has gone
And all the midnight revelers now sleep
In preparation for another day

Too much like all the others that have come
Before—such signs are how we know the real,
Still recognize the other in ourselves,
Or as ourselves, and change our masks for lives.

Two minds that form a whole, and yet distinct,
Each bringing each the possibility
Of solitude in joy, companionship
In aspirations, passions, quiet smiles.

Though Adam could not know his higher plans,
Is this not what the poet meant for Eve?

At Random
The randomness of life is its great gift,
Where unexpected sparks can set new fires,
Reminding us of who we used to be
And what those other selves once dared to dream

Before they learned to mimic those around
Who play by rules designed to kill the heart,
Convincing others with their puppet shows,
Till, masters of pretense, they disappear

Behind the roles they play, forget to see
The stage whereon they still must live and move
And have their being, giving all to show
But saving naught of substance for their lives.

And yet, she comes, though you had failed to see
The soft intensity behind her eyes.

David, at the Window
Her dark hair’s curling tendrils wrap themselves
Around the remnants of my heart, give life
Where passion’s heat had cooled, with promises
Of sympathy and love, despite my fall

From grace, here now, at end of mortal days.
The gods I’ve served reward with promised lands
That cannot help but pale beside her eyes,
Her skin, her lips, the taste of honeyed milk

For which my sins diminish in their scope,
As but the coin wherewith such joys are bought,
Or borrowed for a time, and times, and half
A time, distinct from ordinary days.

Such joys are worth the loss of covenants,
Which bloodless gods can never understand.

The Call
I’ve watched as shadows danced before my eyes,
Despite the fact I knew what I should not
Have known, and saw what I should not have seen.
A decorous pretense still seemed the path

Discretion would advise, despite the dark
In which I lived, without regard to truth
Or light, left hanging by the threads of chance,
Misdeeds, mistakes, miscalculations sore

Whose errors multiply in fructive time,
Take root, and grow to shade me from the sun
And all the possibilities of life
Without regrets for all that might have been.

But now, though why I do not know, the world
Has called, and pauses here for my reply.

The Player
The strings will do what I would have them do;
There, nothing is impossible for me,
And life retreats a while behind the notes
That fill the air, and chase away the dark.

But step away from nylon strings, or steel,
And in that moment chaos quick returns,
While I am left, without a signpost’s guide,
To my devices and my unmade plans,

And all my still unrealized ambitions.
Perhaps the music merely masks the gap
That stretches wide between my would and is;
Though music be a mask, or lie, play on.

For I would have my life within these bars,
And play until my strings have come unstrung.

Legion
From foresight much advanced, his enemies
Have always been the intimates within,
Who know the truths he labors still to hide
That we might seem as one behind his eyes.

In hindsight much removed, his advocates
Have been the same, the inner guardians
Each coming forth when called to play his part,
The lover, scholar, teacher, showmen all

With skills the core could never find the strength
To master, hidden safely still in dark
While sending others forth into the world
Disguised as one who wears his name and face.

We used to fear that he would be found out,
But we are safely hidden from the blind.

Length of Days
In aftertimes I’ve missed the certitude
That faith provides to those who still believe
In all the stories of our gospel youth
Where goodness purchased heaven with its coin.

And yet I would not pass this life in time
For promises of immortality,
Nor ask forgiveness from an angry god
Who lacks the courage even to exist

Except as fragments in an ancient text
Or fevered prayers of those whose hate
Sustains them through the emptiness of life
Spent genuflecting to their fears of death.

The promise of forever still tastes sweet,
But quickly fades before the length of days.

The Veil Between
Then moments come that we have seen before,
As if we knew the course our lives would take,
Refusing only to admit the truth
That otherwise would loose illusion’s grip

By forcing confrontation with ourselves.
A face, a voice, a breath, a melody,
Unseen, unheard, yet eerily familiar
As someone you have always known and loved

But never met until this very now,
A song whose lyrics you have often sung
But never heard until its chorus ends
And you are left alone as someone else.

These moments call to those with ears to hear,
But pass in silence those who look away.

Epilogue
This storm has gathered at a lifetime's pace,
Each day has brought it closer, bearing down
Until it sweeps away illusory
Beliefs, the threads with which I've bound my life,

Still held it fast, though fragments soon betrayed
My skilled impersonation of a whole,
Revealed theatricality in lines
And all the tricks an actor needs to live.

There simply aren't enough of me, so few
Have I become inhabiting these roles
That would demand I be what I pretend,
In essence, not in stagecraft, still alive.

But time has come to sweep me off this stage,
Restore the balance of a life unlived.

Oedipus Wrecked
The lives I cannot have compel me most,
Each path an immortality denied,
Its possibilities unrealized,
Its joys unfelt, its sorrows still unknown,

Each choice a death, a darkness drawing near
On silent wings, as moments pass me by.
The life I have, I would refuse if asked,
But threads are cut without regard to wish

And lives assigned despite unwillingness
To live within the lines set down by fates
For whom sardonic jokes define free will
As freedom to deny, yet suffer, truth.

And so I choose as I have been designed,
Still blind myself in hopes that I might see.

What Then of Lies?
My weariness has grown with all facades,
The necessary lies that shape our lives,
Make interactions possible, though love
In all its forms depends both most and least

On masks, oft worn, quick changed, sometimes removed
As opportunity and circumstance
May yet avail us in a fruitful search
For meaning, or at least for shared belief.

Yet loves composed of lies will have their end
As well as honest passions forged in truth,
Each path can offer something like to joy,
And each involves a loss, of heart or soul.

If truth will set us free, what then of lies?
Not all do harm, and some redeem the world.

From One Who Stands Outside
The door, I know, has not been shut to me,
It has been, rather, me who shut myself.
Though I have made a life of giving aid
To those who could not see illusion’s masks,

Of showing common lies for what they are,
Distractions from the truth that sets all free,
I’ll not go through the open door myself,
But stand in Pisgah’s shadow, unredeemed.

Salvation comes to those who would be saved,
And though I know the way, I shun the path,
For mine is not a life that should be spared
But spent, so others less adept might live.

I am a secret hidden from the world,
And being told, I die, and am reborn.

Remembrance
In truth, I find remembrance seeks a toll
Too high for me to pay, though life’s rewards
Are oft sought out by one whose airy soul
Is yet unmatched by deeds, whose simple chords

Do not yet make a song, sans melody
Or harmony, of all arrangement bare
Excepting that surrounding middle C,
Which every singer worth the name can wear.

But I would venture off the charted scales,
Find symphonies in sounds without intent,
Although such freedom risk, and life, entails,
My actions new are not to mem’ry bent.

And yet the past demands its legal due,
Will payment claim, as years of debts accrue.

These But Lines
At other times, the needful thing is love,
Forgetfulness of self, well-worn complaints
And grievances, no matter how profound
Or superficial, to see in others,

Or one, the human purpose of a life,
If life can still be thought as purposeful,
Giving all the energy of wounded
Silent years in service to another.

If out of evil goodness still flows forth,
Then even meanest lives of men may serve;
The hours and days will not have been in vain,
So may it be for each of us in time.

But those are other times, and other lives,
And these but lines of hope, now at an end.

Still Small Voice
Since I was young, I’ve heard the devil’s call,
The siren song of darkness and its lord.
He promised freedom from the fear of wrath,
A life unfettered by the manacles

Of genuflection to a jealous God
To whom obedience would yet be paid
As ransom for the crime of human life.
At last I learned that he did not exist,

And lost my faith in darkness, as in light.
As years went by, the voice remained unchanged,
Though softer now, perhaps, more indistinct
And muffled by the noise of everyday.

What once had seemed heroic in its scope
Stayed with me as the still, small voice within.

The Player King
I’ve lived this life with nose pressed to the glass,
Imperfectly aware I did not fit,
While harboring illusions life could change
If only I were someone else’s son.

But lacking skill to alter time and birth,
I learned to play at being one of those
Surrounding me by mimicking their ways
Until I blended, seamless and unseen.

The mirror shows me someone I’ve not met,
A face I do not know until I smooth
The visage into one of many masks
Which I have worn since first I took the stage.

I’ll not set down my script, relearn my lines,
Those words are who I am, though I am not.

While Forests Burned
Soft curling wisps of bluish smoke remain
When forests have returned to earth in flame;
The beauty that survives the conflagration
Outweighs the pains we feel from sudden loss,

Points us forward, past the haze and rubble
Of lives we only now see value in,
Now lost and gone beyond recovery,
Remembrance closing doors on what we were.

I could have had so many other lives,
Been other, better versions of myself.
But what I am, I am, despite regrets
For what I might have been, had I but seen.

To settle my accounts, I must record
The chances I passed by while forests burned.

A Christmas Poem
A king amidst the mindless and misled,
As seas of ignorance wash up on shores
Where hordes of pointless rabble spend their lives.
These aren’t the verses in a Christmas card,

As lacking merriment and odes to joy
And season's greetings standing in for love.
But would they were, for Christmas cards could use
Some livelier revisions to their form

Than common sentiments will yet allow.
So Merry Christmas, Jesus hates your kids,
Or Old Saint Nick would kill you if he could,
Or Happy Hanukkah, Christ most hates you.

Such cards would bring a warmth we often lack
On these, our special days of love’s pretense.

Betrayal
Betrayal always takes us by surprise,
Though each of us has played its dual roles;
We think it cannot happen, not to us,
And so are blinded when it comes again.

Our loves are castles built on sandy shores,
We pray the tides will not come wash away
The structures we have built to hide ourselves
From cruel mischance, inevitable loss

And endless startings over—but our prayers
Disperse as breath in gentle breeze, unheard,
Unmarked, except by those who see us pray,
Though never gods, nor none who’ll do us good.

Our pains we must abide alone, unhealed
Except by time, when new love calls once more.

And Lies Will Set Us Free
Each generation learns to lie anew,
For lies sustain the world, make possible
The loves and energies sustaining us
Which truth would kill in service of itself

Not caring whom it hurts, destroys, or worse,
Erases from all possibility
Of life, with sin its foremost enemy,
Defined, of course, as all that brings us joy.

Such truth is only hatred now renamed
To pass among us as a moral good,
But like all hatreds, it would soon consume
All those who give it dwelling in their hearts.

So let us lie, and long may we insist
That truth not be allowed to make us slaves.

Through a Glass, Darkly
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled
Was one I would soon learn, how not to be,
Or not to seem to be, at least, to fools
Whose eyes are blinded by the dimmest light,

Whose stomachs vomit forth the slightest food,
Whose minds revolt on hearing simple truth.
Their God is not their friend, despite the smiles
And prayers they fervently devote in hopes

Of winning ancient and capricious favor
From one whose very name they will not speak
Or do not know. What matter then, if life
Continues to perplex? They still believe.

Eyes gazing blankly through a darkened glass,
They call it faith, and laugh at dancing flames.

The Keys, As Yet Unturned
Though holding keys to all the oldest doors,
I’ve dared not use them, lest I soon be free
And find myself outside the pale of life
As I have always known it, orderly

In its construction, safely without risk
In all its structures, empty of reward
Except for tired illusions sold as truth
And portable distractions still on call

In lines from books, and ancient flowing words.
This aging lock yet keeps me safe from harm,
From love and loss, and all a broken heart
Can sore inflict on those who live its thrall.

These keys would open doors of pain untold,
And once I turn them, life begins at last.

No Greater Love
Our secrets all contend twixt day and night,
Put light and darkness to the crucial test
Whereby our facile lies are soon revealed
In all their lack of skill and subtlety.

The masks I wear for you, like yours for me,
Fool no one but ourselves, suppress the real
By mutual agreement, quickly signed
With notarized imprimatur of truth.

To drop our practiced guise, to be, not seem,
To stand before each other as ourselves
And not as our personae for the world,
What higher love than this? What greater risk?

Yet were we capable of truth in love,
We might still have a fleeting glimpse of joy.

End of Days, with Life Unlived
Predictable decline still disappoints,
Reminders of mortality disturb,
In spite of what we know must be today,
Perhaps tomorrow will bring better news,

Enable us once more to look away
From quick-approaching death, or dress in hope
The flat despair we must not see or feel
In order to continue with the script

By which we live, still speaking out its lines.
But voices falter, minds become unclear,
Our bodies will betray us in the end,
All while we watch, though we refuse to see.

Our struggle to be free from childhood chains
Oft overlaps with our too-swift goodbyes.

Scapegoat (for Azazel)
Without my blood, they’ll not survive the day,
Or so it seems, when panic grips, and need
O’erwhelms the reason in the grasp of fear.
I live in thrall to others’ mortal sins,

Yet no one knows, or bears, the weight of mine;
I am, in part, to blame—for sympathy
Requires an object, someone to support,
And I am no one, by design and choice.

For Nobody slips through the cracks of life,
Avoids the wrath of those who would revenge
Their wounds upon the small within their reach,
And teach them to accept their blame as just.

And so I disappear in times of peace,
For my best use comes in the times of war.

Ebb and Flow
The tide in men’s affairs has been at ebb
For longer than I can recall; no flow
Replenishes spent energy of life
In service of the needs of those whose love

Still comes at cost, to whom one gives without
The expectation of receipt in kind.
Such giving is its own reward, a love
Expressed as healing though oneself is sick.

But all things have their natural ends in time,
And flow must soon return, else river beds
Grow indistinct, recede into the sands
Which once they watered into blooming life.

That which sustains must be sustained in turn,
What gives must also take before it dies.

The Hero
Each lover’s face holds promise of new life,
As children’s voices sound the notes of birth
And restoration, holding fast to hopes
Long faded under pragmatism’s gaze.

Still grasping after immortality
While life slips from my hands, unnoticed, cold,
I turn away from love’s sustaining heat
And venture on my own to shores untried
Of lands unclaimed, though formerly possessed

By others such as me, who cannot stay
Where most they’re wanted, missing out in quest
Of days and years that will not come again.

I know this truth, and yet I cannot change,
Cannot let go the promised evermore.

Curtain Call
I can’t repair the crack, the breach remains
Unfilled, despite the eloquence I’ve learned
To hide behind; that which she took from me
Is elemental, not to be replaced

By learning to behave as others do,
Observing all the ways they interact,
Unnoticed gestures, vocal light and shade,
A perfect mimicry worth all my skills.

But none will know me as an alien,
A freak amidst their blinded normalcy,
For I inhabit them from inside out
And play them better than they play themselves.

This role, familiar now, was daunting once,
But now my show is seamless to the eye.

Life in the Subjunctive
The time has come, old friend, to face the truth.
A life in the subjunctive is no life
Worth losing or preserving, spent with if
As though the virtue of uncertainty

Outweighed the silent moments spent alone
With nothing, dressed as no one, eyes cast down
On paths of least resistance, seeking love,
Or love’s illusion, in a life of lies.

Though I have never been, I would yet be,
My second act remains unwritten still
And possibility still offers hope
Of life beyond these towered walls of self.

I would put off the old, put on the new,
But nightly, if resumes its wonted role.

In Beauty, Truth
I wonder, sometimes, when I see your face,
How beauty might bring pain to those who love
But would not be mistaken, as if lust
Were all their eyes encompassed, or their hearts.

But beauty such as yours makes wits grow dim,
Makes others of ourselves, forgetful still
Of who and what we are, or claim to be,
While Passion soon usurps King Reason's throne.

Our quick desires but peep to what they would,
Act little of their will, struck dumb with awe
As all admirers are when faced with truth
And inability to turn away.

Though beauty cannot see the light it shines,
Its lovers do, though few will understand.

According to our Kind
Each moment has potential still unseen
When life unfolds in multiplicity
Through tantalizing glimpses of the paths
Not taken, lives unlived, and loves unknown.

It would, perhaps, be better not to see,
Hear custom's notes for truth, and harmonize
Our years and weeks, our days and final hours
With shopworn promises of ancient gods.

Still not to know of what we leave behind
Provides some comfort to the blind and deaf
Who'll neither see nor hear, but willfully
Remain in silent darkness, undisturbed.

Perhaps we have no choice to see or know,
But spend our days according to our kind.

Out of Reach
For some, your best will not be good enough,
They’ll roll their eyes and sigh, play boredom’s notes
As virtuosos, making sure you see
Their keen disinterest and the pure disdain

They have for you and your attempts to teach
Them something, anything they do not know,
Already wise beyond your learning’s years,
And scornful of each word, each phrase you speak.

Their faces glow, though not, as you might think,
From joy of knowing, but from lighted screens
Of phones pulled out, inspected in plain view,
As though the classroom were a hotel bar.

These think themselves above you and their peers,
Give off more heat than light, and soon grow dim.

For Those Who See
This world is Paradise, for those who see,
Its killing floors, its sprawling fields of light,
Its towers reaching into jealous heights,
Where gods are helpless to prevent their rise.

How do you like us now, you ancient fuck?
Go scatter this, and watch us soon return
To storm the gates of privilege you call home,
And tear your heaven from your dying hands.

Would that it were so…a god makes simple
What else is vexingly complex, makes light
What otherwise is fraught with deepest dark,
A world like ours where evil mixed with good.

But here is beauty, light and shade entwined,
Where blood rejoices to be let for love.

Half-Life
The safest path still winds around itself,
Revolves around the same bare patch of ground,
Avoids with care all hints of something new,
Untried, or lacking safest precedent.

Though such a path entails nor risk, nor pain,
Nor fear of loss, its vistas are the same
Today as yesterday as evermore,
And all its possibilities are nil.

Still, all the voices of our lives insist
That we must be, as they, content to walk
The broad and spacious path to nowhere else
From all the nowheres of our careful years.

We listen and conform at cost of death,
Take comfort in denying thoughts of joy.

Desire and Descent
There is a man of little mark or note,
Possessed of all the usual desires,
Though learnéd in the scholarship of shame,
For his desires oppress those worthier

Than he, who yet strives mightily to still
His thoughts, avert his eyes, touch nothing here,
Soil nothing by his presence or his gaze,
Till life itself becomes his final fault,

The crime for which he’ll one day pay in blood.
He has no other currency or coin
With which his mounting debts he might still pay,
But blood is best, erasing every trace.

Till then, he lives as someone else, unseen,
Unheard, well hidden by his borrowed words.

Odysseus at Twilight
My time is running out, though none would know
By mere appearance, I can feel the pace
Of time has quickened, leaving little doubt
The final act begins in earnest now.

So much remains undone, so much unseen,
So many threads of past entanglements
Still hold me fast, I know I’ll not escape,
But watch the quiet setting of my life.

Yet time and strength remain for one last quest
And what I am, I am, defiant still
To gods who are but villains clothed in light,
Pretending grace, possessed of naught but death.

One final sea, one final sun, I live;
No ancient deathless god can say as much.

No God but God
There is no God but God, so say the fools,
Who know not what the sounds they utter mean;
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

But wise men know how foolish are the rules
Insisting on belief in what’s unseen;
There is no God but God, so say the fools.

Our reason yet survives as wisdom’s jewels,
Maintains philosophy, though ne’er so mean,
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

Unlearned men will labor as if mules,
Demanding still a pious playhouse scene,
There is no God but God, so say the fools.

Though no salvation comes, no ardor cools,
No faith diminished, growing ever green,
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

But I, who once believed, now lack the tools
Of faith, no longer can abide its sheen;
There is no God but God, so say the fools,
For gods are but the idols of our schools.

Pro Se
The evil that you know is for the rubes;
We sell it cheap, in slick pre-packaged form.
We are not what we are, though you’ll not know
What lies behind our skillful presentations,

For all your truths are lies straight from our mouths,
Your moral maxims lessons we have taught
And wrapped with care in entertaining tales
Where goodness is triumphant in the end

And evil, though it has a certain style,
Is made to pay for all its wicked charms.
But this is just a lie meant to assuage
The mass, whose possibilities we steal.

For evil smiles, and tells you to your face
That life is full of risks, and best played safe.

With a Whimper
The gods regard us as their clever toys,
Show favor where they please, destroy at will,
Abandon us when most we live in need,
In fear regarding prayers as if our last.

No wonder, since they never did exist
Except as crutches for our crippled minds,
Preventing, by the power we invest
In them, all access to the still small voice

Where wisdom cries but is no longer heard
Than drifters in disguise as gods are seen
By those of us too busy, with the noise
And ceaseless motion of our days, to die.

So life holds fast as we become its shades,
And soon transparent grow to mortal sight.

Kenosis
My disappearance is not adequate.
Too much of me remains still visible,
And I no longer please when I am seen
Apart from needs, since my role is to serve.

I mirror your emotions back to you,
Provide support and sympathy at call,
Perform this function best when least I am
Myself, whose image still I would erase

If disappointing you can be delayed
For yet another day, or week, or year,
While costs mount far too high for me to pay,
Ensuring I will rid myself of me.

Then, even morning’s light will not reveal
My shape, long since consumed in fire and air.

Once More, With Feeling
Once doors are closed, can they be opened still?
Or will such pride prevent our second thoughts
That we, despite of nature, will regret
But leave untried what happiness might come

To those whose hearts allow them to be fools?
Perhaps we’re better off not knowing hope,
Assuming what is done is ne’er undone,
That choices made cannot be visited,

That paths untaken will not come again.
Each crux then makes or mars, fordoes us quite
Or brings us fair return on our desires,
While time runs swiftly on and from our grasp.

And yet, despite the costs, I would return
Again, for one last look into her eyes.

To Live Among the Dead
There is but one, each day we waste reduced
In scope, but one regardless of our gods,
The voices we have learned to substitute
For truths we’ve long been taught to disregard

In favor of the customs of our tribe.
The broad and spacious path that leads to death
Is paved with approbation and approval,
With smiles of recognition from the dead

Who fill the halls and courtyards of the world.
But narrow is the path that leads to life,
And steep the lonely way, reserved for few
With courage to resist the swelling stream.

Such life, no matter where or when, is boon
For heroes, more than thrones among the dead.

Old Song, Rewritten
Come live with me, and be my love, and we
Will all the old paths prove, of lies rehearsed
Until we learn the folly of old truths
Unsuited to our newer times and styles.

For is not love a choice born of free will?
Unless predestination rules our glands,
Is despot over endocrines’ salt tears,
The chemical reactions in our souls.

For those of us who courage lack in love,
As well in life, whose “not to be” outweighs
Fair thoughts that lie between a maiden’s legs,
There is but this: away at once with fear.

Or else away at once with life itself,
Spent bowing to the gods of nevermore.

Team Player
I’ll not remembered be for any good
I’ve done, nor any evil brought to light;
Since mine has been a tale uncomplicated
By ought of interest, smooth and featureless

As my own face, with small irregular
Moments, reversals of form and accent,
Trochees jarring iambs from their places,
With halting steps in business ill conceived,

Uncertain stops in ventures well begun,
Till those who might reward are disinclined,
Withdrawing favor’s marks, while I remain
Entangled here in mediocrity.

So neither hot nor cold, but still lukewarm,
I’ll be spewed forth, and soon enough forgot.

Acts and Havings
If gender is an unpoetic word
(And I believe it so), will sex suffice?
Its liquid sounds suggest the character,
The essence, of its meaning as an act,

But as a marker of identity
Perhaps it comes too short to name our truth;
For what we have, or do, is what we are,
Unless our acts and havings are but play

And all our earnest claims convenient masks
That serve but to procure our base desires.
Assume the worst, or best, what matter words
When action, hence borne out, betrays intent?

So call it gender, sex, or what you will—
Our havings still require the masks we wear.

Possession
I know when one is dead and when one lives.
Time was when I have known a different truth,
Composed of lies, well-told if not well-meant,
Concealing, in their folds, a breathless corpse.

In death, in life, in breath, in breathlessness,
I keep my own condition still unseen
By others, by myself, in secrecy
And in pretense of being what I am.

I know when one is dead, and comes no more,
Although the feather stirs, moved by the breath
I know she cannot have except in dreams
That will not leave me to my rest in peace.

She follows me, lives on inside my life,
And will not die until I cast her out.

Once Again, Yes
In unexpected moments, hope returns,
Despite the long-familiar lessons life
Has taught with each experience of love
Or need, contracted to deficiencies

Unspoken, unacknowledged, at their core
Misunderstood by lover and beloved.
In fleeting hours of light amidst the dark,
A smile returns, old optimism reigns,

And life seems full of promise once again.
Attachment may bring pain, but life requires
Its entrance fee, emotions, tangled thoughts,
And those who will not pay, will not have lived.

With all I’ve known, with every scar and wound,
I’d pay the price again, and live once more.

Happiness and Wisdom
Despite exhaustion, beauty still takes hold,
Weaves tapestries from silken promises
That all alone reveal the ignorance
Inherent in belief, in faith, in hope.

Yet knowledge never saved a tortured soul;
Much reading is a weariness to flesh,
While lies establish and envelop us
Within illusion’s comforting embrace.

The happy are unburdened by the world,
Take solace in a loving god whose face
Reminds them of their own, with eyes that speak
Of mercy, louder still of judgment’s wrath.

The wise are more fools still, to volunteer
For lives illumined by remorseless truth.

Intercessor
She sank beneath the waves, her eyes still fixed
On me, the one who could have saved her then;
But for the weakness running deep in us,
In all the children who survived, I might

Have shaken off paralysis, grabbed hold
And not let go. But I just watched her drown,
Ophelia-like, still singing favorite songs
As water rose to claim her for its own.

Still, there at least, she will be free, despite
My failed attempts to hold her to this world;
I lacked the strength, the necessary skills
To stop the tides of death in ceaseless flow.

No brave resistance can recall the time,
Nor will remorse repair the ruins of loss.

Achilles in Darkness
I've nothing left, at last, but my despair,
Nor mine, if truth be told, but borrowed whence
Repayment will remain, perforce, a dream
Which cannot be remembered without pain.

So strictly speaking, nothing is my core,
And no one is my name, though I'll not shout
In pride to Neptune's son, to celebrate
My stunning triumph on the wine-dark sea

For fear the gods may turn their gaze on me,
And take the anonymity wherein
I live and move and have my being here
Among the shadows and the silent shades.

To live another day, to see the sun,
I would renounce my throne among the dead.

Smiles of a Winter Night
The smiles that touch our hearts, bring down our guard,
Restore long lost remembrance to our eyes,
Reconstitute belief amidst despair,
Persuade, insinuate, almost convince

Those basking in their radiance to see
What is not there, to hear what is not said,
These smiles will cleave a soul, cut minds in two,
Their hemispheres left raw, while blood at odds

With blood lacks charity for argument,
Still raining on the earth below as dew
With droplets staining red the tips of leaves
That bend beneath the liquid weight of death.

And yet, such smiles have beauty, and will please,
For skillful lies have virtues of their own.

The Other
Though I have fallen silent, drawn a veil
Down over eyes that gave away too much,
My old companion manages my days,
Allowing me to hide behind his face.

He’s never failed me, since he first arrived
One day in pain when I could not respond,
He did, and since, has never lacked for words.
I do not know his name, though he knows mine,

Knows everything about me, all I’ve learned
Flows quickly off his tongue without my help
No prompting or involvement now required
From me, no words remain he does not speak.

He saved my life, and now he lives the life
That I might yet have lived, if I were one.

In Waiting
I’ve always lived in waiting for the end,
Despite the paradise I smiled to see
In offset printed magazines where hope
Was peddled door to door on Saturdays

With poorly practiced patter written down
On notecards I’d refer to in the car
Between identical suburban streets
Where my salvation, not the residents’

Was on the line. The habits learned at doors
Where silence brought reprieve from ministry,
While storm clouds gathered in the distant skies,
Still serve me well in these my latter days.

For though I know I’m running out of time,
The readiness is all, and I still wait.

Talking Cure
The talking cure rehearses truths we hide
In lies we tell ourselves, in masks we wear
As others in a world of absent forms
Long emptied of their substance, borrowed light

Reflected in a darkened glass wherein
Appears the hidden face, acknowledged not,
But not to be denied without a cost
Too dear to reckon in a mortal life.

The words that can escape our lips are dead
Already in our hearts and minds, despite
Their easy fluency, expressive notes
Both in and out of tune with minor chords.

Our virtuosity enmeshes us,
And none will find us there, nor care to try.

Ripeness is All
I cannot any longer pay the cost,
Nor speak from mem’ry lines I did not write
Unless I was another then, sustained
By hopes for truth and light I’ve long forgot

While chained here in my cave where shadows dance,
Transfixing all who see them through my eyes.
I’ll not know grace, nor ever ask for help;
I’d rather burn, and still keep who I am.

These lessons closest kept have served me well,
Occasional and momentary slips
Aside—but now the time has come to square
Accounts, when all the wealth I have is blood.

There is no shuffling now, no gamesmanship,
The bills are due, and cannot be denied.

Sannyasi
Like hollows that define their outer shells,
My weakness is what matters, not my strength;
This world has measured where I’ve fallen short,
And short shrift given to my only skills.

I have no art or talent for details,
But these are valued most by those who judge,
While other thoughts—of where transcendence leads—
Are trifles of a mind as light as air,

Whilst reverend, grave, and weighty are all those
Whose minds are double-columned record books
Where profit’s mark exists with loss beside
And all is managed, orderly, and small.

I once resented this, but have since learned
To live apart from worlds that are not mine.

Anatta
Illusion’s price grows steeper with the years,
Requiring all my heart’s expenditure,
Wherein I spend on credit to maintain
Personae far too dear for poverty

Of spirit to sustain beyond the hour
On stage in which I speak my golden lines.
What know you of my mind from what you see
Of how I frame my face for all occasions?

What mind there was to read or know is lost
To subterfuges needed to survive
Beyond the moment wrath appeared, and pain
Inflicted in remembrance of her fears.

My execution in the hours between
Preserved a life at costs I could not know.

Soliloquy
On stage, I’m never at a loss for words,
Nor ever wonder where to put my hands;
No awkwardness reveals my hidden seams,
As seamlessness is crucial to the show.

You must believe I am what I pretend,
And so you do, and so you always have.
With eloquence comes license to deceive,
Though granted by a willing audience.

An actor learns the value of a lie,
Too precious to be wasted on a fool,
Though none but fools exist beyond the lights,
Whose need for comfort finds a dark redress.

Such people willingly believe my lies,
Still seek them out, demand them from my lips.

The Favored One
My life’s irreconciled iniquities
Have flowered into desiccated buds
With petals curled around a core of lives
My own has touched, for better, or for worse.

I would not claim responsibility
For hearts I have entwined within my own,
Although I know evasion will not serve,
And checks must soon be signed in flowing blood.

I did not sell my soul for power’s charms
But mere survival, just to stay alive,
Though in exchange, I learned to weave a spell
Reflecting others through their own desires.

But my Walpurgisnacht will soon arrive,
And severed be the branch that once grew straight.

Krodhamaya
I still admire Yudhisthira, but hear
The voice of Duryodhana within.
I would not injure anyone, but wrath
Demands its time on stage, its audience,

Its satisfaction paid with suffering,
Receipt in kind of all a life has lost.
I struggle with desire for foul revenge,
Would yet protect the small and weak from fear.

My target, then, becomes myself, the hate
That swells from lessons learned through discipline
And teaching hands that rained their wisdoms down
As if to show that love must leave its mark.

Those fathers, brothers, cousins who must die
On Kurukshetra’s battlefield are me.

Be Thou My Good
I’ll not deny responsibility
For those mistakes whose price my life still pays,
Nor failings judge of others who deny
Their sins’ banality, uninteresting

To tempter and redeemer, formulas
In place of active lives, where fear remains
Enthroned, anointed, canonized as kings,
Messiahs, saints, and heroes often sung.

And yet, I would I could be someone else,
If only to be free of consequence,
If only for a moment to be free
From all I am, and all that I pretend.

A lie—I know if I were offered choice,
I would remain myself, let come what may.

Ich Kann Nicht Anders
I’ve not been ready yet to be alone,
Although my solitude has been profound;
I’ve been a sounding board for those I’ve loved,
Or clung to in the hope that love was real.

Remembrance brings me feeling of my chains,
Those structures I have built in which my life
Has meaning, or its simulated form,
Which will suffice, for ordinary use.

But now, I feel as if my life wants growth,
That what I’ve been must now be put to rest
In service of that self I’ve long denied,
If only I could hear its still small voice.

Transcendence calls, but so does earthly love;
So here I’ll stand—I can no other choose.

The Living
We are what we have thought, so said the sage;
But thought is far too wan a term to serve
So great an end as to describe ourselves.
We are what we have feared—this hits the mark

Where thought goes wide, for fear will twist and shape
Its worshippers, and those who cannot leave
The faith that fear demands. To choose a path
Of self-delivered grace, to not submit,

To not define oneself in fallen terms,
Rejecting both the sins and sinners’ gods,
And “necessary” losses that define
The limits of our lives—this is courage.

Through courage to negate, and to affirm,
We act in spite of fear; we choose to live.

The Show
There comes a time by which you realize
The point is moot, that action, hence borne out,
Can never waste the memory of your days,
That former lives are with you, taking hold

Of hopes tomorrow and tomorrows bring,
Transforming all occasions into plays
Whose scenes you’ve acted skillfully before
With lines, though well-rehearsed, whose hollow sounds

Reveal, or threaten to reveal, a core
Of grief, or loneliness, that all your skills
And dedication have been used to hide
From others’ prying eyes, or from your own.

And yet, in spite of doubts, your show goes on;
For what is else not to be overcome?

The Well-Told Lie
Most people’s preference is a well-told lie,
To hear what they will hear, adopt ideas
Entirely without regard to facts
Or evidence, the proofs their eyes receive.

Such traitors to themselves will ne’er be taught
To see what they refuse to recognize,
Or question aught they have been told is right;
Such fools will constantly mislead themselves

Without assistance, as incurious
To know as hostile to the ones who’d teach
The forms inside an ignorant, dark world
Where flames burn dim, and chains still bind them fast.

No matter then, if lies retain their spark,
Since truth was only ever meant for few.

Muse in Blue
I could not help but love you, cannot still,
When every smile in your eyes warms my heart,
Each teardrop makes me want to make amends,
To whisper in your ear, all will be well.

You brought me to myself, restored my faith
In love despite my scars, in spite of years,
Regardless of the times I’ve loved too well,
Unwise in my attempts to hold love fast.

You make me want to be a better man,
One not easily perplexed, nor jealous
To extremes, but passionately faithful,
Still seeking after ecstasy with you.

Though what I am, I am, I would be more,
If only to be more in love with you.

Unto the Lord
Who makes a joyful noise unto the Lord
Must first obtain a Lord. These don’t come cheap,
Although I have not priced one in a while.
The better models come with warranties

That guarantee repairs, and cover costs
Of scheduled maintenance, since Lords break down
At inconvenient times, and rental Lords
Are never what they seem in the brochures.

I almost leased one once, but changed my mind
On seeing contract limits to the miles—
Lords lose their resale value overused,
Twelve thousand prayers a year, no more’s allowed.

The public Lords can’t take me straight to work,
So I will keep my Lord another year.

The Least
Astonished by the smallness of some lives,
Still sometimes I forget, reminded by
The mother who must discipline her child
While buying tickets for the lottery,

His wounded squalling playing squalor’s notes;
Or managers who openly berate
Their workers so the customers can hear
How firmly they take charge when nothing’s wrong.

The least of these, a famous man once said,
The least are me, and those who would abuse
Them have no place reserved, except in shame,
Despite the volume of their piety.

Such cruelty spreads its seeds and springs to life
In twisted vines of anger and revenge.

(In)Sanity.
Outside us, sanity is relative,
Since what we are is judged by what we seem;
Behind the eyes is where our lunatics
Reside, still carving out the space between

The law and our emotions, giving lie
To claims of self-control, maturity,
And rationality. What yet remains
Is loss, the hollow places deftly bored

Inside us by the woundings of our lives,
The loves we did not get, or give, or know.
We are what we desire, although our fears
Will mould us to their twisted forms with speed.

To love, to choose, to leave behind those paths
We do not follow, this is sanity.

Cloth Surrogate
My job has been to listen, so I always have.
A substitute in cloth, I don’t feel pain or loss,
But I provide some comfort here to those that do.
I listen as they talk and tell me of their lives,
Each inhalation preface to another tale.

I have no self to speak of, so I do not speak,
Responding silently to others' needs and words.
None notice no one else is there. How could they know?
When listening to others is the perfect guise,
The perfect way to pass as if alive, as real,

Without exposing twisted wire beneath the cloth,
The empty space inside that wires and cloth disguise.
I am not what I am, but not like him, the one
Who wants to hurt. I help—at least I try to help—
Though there is little that a surrogate can do.

But I can listen, while you talk and never see
I never talk about myself. Oh, I have jokes,
And carefully rehearsed details of others’ lives
Selected for similitude, to craft a life
Eccentric in its color and its storied past.

But I have rarely needed my pre-scripted lines,
And not at all of late. My cloth and wires suffice.

Answers
The answers will not come to those who ask,
Despite what all the sages teach by rote;
The mind will not be sated by mere facts
Without emotions, overarching patterns,

The pure pretense of meaning, giving lies
Their keylit spot on center stage, down front
Where money sits, removed from sweating crowds
For whom the lies are sacred truths revealed.

No answers come, because they do not fit
The smiles we wear while feigning confidence,
While leaving undisturbed, from fear of truths
That might expose, our old, threadbare, disguise.

The answers come as hammer blows, unbid,
Unwelcomed but by those who worlds deny.

If At First
The light and shade, the whisper and the thunder,
The Alpha and Omega of my mind,
The teachers I have honored, fit though few,
Whose match relumed my near-extinguished light,

Those minds, that were it not for them, mine own
Would long have since been hollowed to a shell,
All these have been the signposts I have followed,
The guides whose borrowed wisdom I have lived.

I’ve not lived up to expectation's hopes,
Nor yet achieved or failed in aught of note,
Still, sparks of better hopes and days appear,
Whose tantalizing forms yet promise joy.

I’ll rake the ground in search of fallen seeds
That might be planted yet, and brought to life.

A Stop at Willoughby
In serving others, I have failed myself,
To be a self, much more than just a face
I wear to pass unnoticed in the crowd,
To listen to the still small voice within

And know its promptings, separate from the world,
Though still amidst its noise and native tongues
That drown out all reflection with the hum
Of action, constant motion, pointless words.

But they, at least, are what they are, if lost
At moments, seeking what cannot be found
In wisdom learned by rote, but still, their wants
Are real, their struggles fierce, their eyes undimmed.

I cannot say the same for my desires,
What once they were, though now beyond recall.

Exit Strategy
The time has come to pack away this life,
Store tissue-wrapped regrets where none will know
The scars I’ve carved in those I leave behind,
As though my sins could find forgiveness here,

Among the secret shames of youth and age,
And all the years between. What though remorse
May find new clarity, confessing all
The harms my life has caused, my breath inflicts

With passing of each moment I usurp?
Apologies ne’er mended broken hearts,
Brought truth to those who fiercely cling to lies,
Nor healed those broken by their misplaced trust.

Despite their weakness, these will be my last,
From this time forth, I never will speak word.

Walls
The walls we build protect us from ourselves,
From inner cores that scream at us to stop,
Begin again, forgive ourselves for love’s
Transgressions and mistakes made in good faith

Or no. Despite ourselves, what we would have
We all too often turn away in shame,
Convinced we are not worthy what we want,
Or else reversed—that what we want falls short,

Pedestrian in taste, and low of form,
Ourselves the arbiters of tastes too cruel
To be acknowledged, else unraveled lies
Come near to telling truth about our lives.

Such naked truth might make us scale our walls,
Self-sabotage those selves that we are not.

Someone/Anyone (a translation of Borges' "Alguien")

A man who worked for time,
a man who waited for death
(though statistics are the proofs of death,
still none but run the risk
of being the first immortal),
a man who had learned to appreciate
the modest gifts of the days:
sleep, routine, the taste of water,
an unsuspected etymology,
a verse in Latin or Saxon,
the memory of a woman who left
so many years ago
that now he can remember her without bitterness,
a man aware that the present
is both future and oblivion,
a man who had been false to others
and been with others false to him,
may suddenly feel, from across the street,
a mysterious happiness
not from hope, or something next to hope,
but from an old innocence,
of his truest self or a scattered god.

He knows not to look too closely
because there are reasons, more terrible than tigers,
and obligations to demonstrate
his unhappiness,
yet he humbly receives
that sudden burst of joy.

Perhaps in death we will be eternal,
when dust is dust,
that indescribable self,
expanding forever,
in peace or in pain,
our solitary heaven or hell.

A Would-be Bard, yet Blind
These lines are all I have to leave behind,
Though few, or none, will know that they exist.
Their sound and fury signifies nothing,
As they strut and fret their hour onstage;

Still, I write, as if they mattered, knowing
They go unread and will remain obscure.
What matters that, so long as words resist
Decay, as marble monuments cannot?

To write without attachment, still unread
Though years and lifetimes pass, e’en so what then?
The question sins, still missing wide the mark
Of art, whose span puts longest life to shame.

Their quality will be revealed in time
For good or ill, by other eyes, not mine.

Of Iron and Clay.
I’ll not compare you to a summer’s day,
For such comparisons are meaningless
To those whose lives have played on winter’s stage;
No darling buds, no May, no beauty’s form

That poetry might yet preserve from Time
Exists in this our age of fallen clay.
What’s left for us, in our belated age,
Is penance, cries to be forgiven sins

We have not yet committed. Even so,
We will be held accountable by gods
Of our construction, overlords of wrath
In human shape, our own embodied fears.

Forgiveness fades to unreality
Before the wint’ry forms of dying worlds.

Expectations’ End
When foolish expectations have an end,
And light shows our desires in harsh detail
For what they always were, false witnesses
Whose lies waste time, the currency of life,

Then comes the reckoning, a moment’s truth,
A question with no answer but itself.
“Is life no more than this? Is there no point,
No simple truth, no meaning, but is marred?”

But asking thus the question aims too wide
Still fails to grasp the point of pointlessness.
Though grasping after reason causes pain,
It is the last attachment of the wise.

What is the meaning of a flower’s scent?
Experience, not meaning, is its joy.

Accidental Poem I
Some poems hurt in accidental ways,
Their images misfire, and quickly wound
The ones who read, though few now take the time
To read, as waves of verse come in like tides

That rise and fall, and leave no trace behind.
No mystery now in lines of broken prose
Their spaces white between the random black
Of letters spelling words like “I” or “me”—

Pure solipsism in the role of art.
But it was ever thus, for poetry
Holds mirrors, not to nature, but ourselves,
And poets light our way to dusty death.

I would not be a poet but to gaze
Beyond that self, and leave behind its god.

Accidental Poem II
It is his emptiness that makes a man
The absence at his core that makes him whole,
Containers need their hollows else they spill
Down over sides that cannot hold a self.

In stillness and in silence there is truth,
Though not the kind we’re taught in light of day,
Where lessons form us into useful shapes
Enriching those who use us for their ends,

Still filling us with selves, though not our own,
But those we have been issued for our tasks
By masters who need bricks but give no straw
And slacken not the quota, though we die.

No work suffices to appease such lords
Who crowd all hollows, filling them with noise.

Accidental Poem III
To sit across from you, to see your eyes,
Reminds me of the loves I’ve lost before,
The ones I never had, nor ever knew
Except as distant lives, unreachable

By such as me. I know you now, and know
Myself, and know I am not what I thought
I was, an outcast from the realms of love,
A cloistered mendicant behind the walls

His own hands built despite a sore desire
To breach them even as their shadows grew.
But I’ve no words to offer in my stead,
No glitt’ring masks on hand to gild my faults.

So I will nothing say, and never know
What might have been, if only I yet lived.

Accidental Poem IV
Sometimes, unpurposed, words combine themselves
Without regard to meaning or control,
As if expression yearned to free itself
From shackles of biography, or sense,

Or grammar’s rules, communication’s laws.
Such words are merely sounds, the shapes of breath
That punctuate the silences between
Ourselves and others, talk of what we will,

It matters not—for though they are but air,
Still we are flesh, more solid than our words,
Less easily dismissed, or framed to suit
Each new occasion—thick, where words are thin.

Once clear of us and ours, such words soon find
Themselves at play, from matter's chains released.

The Reprobate
I would not join the One, nor lose myself,
Despite the pains of heartsore solitude,
Of having none without who see within.
Self-abnegation offers solace poor

For expectations grown in Christian soil
Where even now forever has a face
And death is waived away as meaningless
Before the power of the living God.

But all that is a lie, no deities
Exist to whom we might yet plead our case,
Seek succor and relief from death’s swift blade,
Nor comes salvation in a formless form.

We are what we have thought—no more, no less;
And I have thought myself a mind alone.

Bhishma
“The time has come, my friends, for me to die.
I’ve known this world’s beginning—now its end
Has come upon us all; while cousins fight
To claim supremacy and kingly sway

The world’s gone dark, and on my arrow bed
The hour has come for sleep, so ask me now
What you would know, whilst yet my mem’ry serves,
And I will speak of gods misled with lies.”

“Oh grave and reverend one,” Yudisthira
Began…”how can you be defeated, when
Even as you die, you hold the threads of life?”
The old man nodded—what was said was just.

He would not die, except in flesh; his heart
Would yet survive in those who fought.

A Familiar Stranger
I am the life-sustaining pelican
Of which Laertes spoke in passion’s fit,
Repasting untold others with my blood,
Unable—or unwilling—to sustain

Myself except at cost of my own life.
Emotional exchanges empty me
Without the hope to be refilled in kind,
And yet I stay, intently listening

To what I often do not understand.
I hear the words, make sense of sentences,
But cannot fathom why the speaker speaks
Except to revel in the sounds of self.

None have yet noticed silence is my voice,
Nor should they, since they’ve so much self to speak.

Guards and Guardians
Lights flashing at the checkpoint up ahead,
Prepare yourself, do not resist, survive.
Now get your papers ready, clear your eyes
Of hate and fear—the guards can see right through

Despite the fact you cannot see yourself.
Don’t frown or smile or move your face at all,
Such motions just betray the one who moves;
Control, but not too tightly, all your limbs,

Suppress your breath, keep inhalations still.
They notice everything, though they are blind
To one who stills all signs of human life
Thus passing for the dead with whom he walks.

Their sharpest focus will soon pass away,
Seek out another, leave you still alive.

The Rest is Silence
I wanted my father to rescue me,
Though both were absent, only one was gone,
But neither knew, or if they knew, denied
What happened to the son who would not speak,

Deny it to this day, in fact, so proud
Of his accomplishments they made a peace
Between themselves, as rivals for her love
They once could not. But even now, to speak

Of betrayal and abandonment’s price,
Survival’s cost still paid in pounds of flesh,
Is impossible. No words will e’er suffice
To breach the gap between or make them see.

So they will never know the face I knew,
And never hear the darkness in her voice.

Samadhi
Till now, belief would not take hold of me,
Would not convince, nor heal my unbelief,
But left me to my doubts, still unresolved
And cast in bronze, or carved from hardest stone,

Impenetrable walls behind my eyes
That kept unseen the hidden self within,
And kept that self from seeing past its gates.
No Damascus waits my steps, no savior

Calls, demanding that I stop profaning him,
Or offers me a purpose in his stead;
Conversion has not touched me, laid me bare
Before its mystery; no, I’ve seen no light.

But wonder has possessed me even so,
In knowledge of the one I’ve always been.

Remember Me
I listened to her breath until it stopped.
Despite the stillness, she had not yet died,
But merely slept, though death would not be long
Before it came for her. She lay from whence

She would not ever move again; her life
Had not been what she’d hoped, no monuments
Remained to testify to who she’d been,
Except a son who long before had left,

A daughter who still hoped to earn her love,
Another hidden there behind the walls
That even now grow higher, broader still,
So none can cross or climb or breach their stones.

When news came of her death, I felt relief,
Not knowing yet her burden now was mine.

The Thinker
I sense somehow that time is running out.
Without a script by which to learn my lines,
I improvised my life, learned how to love,
And whom, tried mightily not to betray

Myself in service of the ones I loved,
But all too often, I have failed to be
That person who best captures my beliefs—
Professed beliefs perhaps, hypocrisy

Alone among my talents has not dulled
With long disuse—without yet knowing how
To any other be than who I’ve been
In each decision, each fell moment’s choice.

To make new choices now demands a leap
Of fear and trembling. What is else to lose?

Verweile Doch
I’ve always yearned for what I cannot have,
Still strived for goals I knew beyond my reach,
The gods of youth, the God of middle-age,
Each unforgiving in their tasks for me.

Neither one could be appeased with service
Or sacrifice, but each demanded blood
And promised all things in return for fear
And strict obedience to all commands.

But I could not obey, cannot conform,
Not even to my own fell expectations
Will I be constant, seeking still elsewhere
Than here, wherever here may be for now.

I would not sell my soul for any price
But one: to know what cannot yet be known.

Happy Poem
Uplifting happy poems often suck,
With Hallmark rhymes from Susan Polis Shutz,
And pious sentiments from Sunday School
That leave a reader soaked in saccharine.

But now and then, remembrance brings true joy:
The time the schoolyard bully broke his neck—
Not quite fatally, that would end the joke—
The truest joy was in the awkward gear

He had to wear to keep his head aligned,
The mix of rage and shame that lit his eyes;
Eyes wont to cast contempt on all he thought
Too weak for mercy, now begged mercy’s boon.

I learned to pity him, though still I laughed
Each time he raged and blustered through his fear.

Predators
Predators rely on you to be nice,
To color inside the lines, to stay neat
And orderly, to restrict your protests
To proper channels, never disobey.

How else could they provoke you, push you down,
Grind your face beneath their heels while laughing
At your weakness? Your cooperation,
Your kneeling at their feet with throat bent back

Inviting swift cutting blades to their work,
Is all the license they will ever need
To throw you on the pile of human waste
That grows with every conquest they have made.

So smile, be confident in your reward,
The meek shall inherit, so pray and die.

Belief
Belief comes easily to those who lie
Without skill or invention, still repeating
Stale and shopworn narratives they're handed down
Of Gods and sacred truths they know naught of.

A skilled practitioner cannot believe,
Aware, unlike the mass, of where what’s real
Begins, and where it bleeds into the lie,
Contingent on credulity in men

To be accepted without questioning
Or doubts, anathema to those who know
Themselves the master spirits of an age
Of masks and misdirections dressed as truth.

And yet, there is a truth that we might find,
If only in a mendicant’s few words.

Trees
At odd moments I still remember trees,
Especially one, whose roots would surface
As arms reaching up to hug or grasp me.
I always felt safe there, sitting with her,

The woman—girl really, barely twenty—
Who loved me, telling me she was the one,
The only one who ever had or would.
I believed her, not knowing any better.

The scent of eucalyptus filled the air,
Salt sea mixing with her and her perfume;
I could see only her, hear only her,
She told me then I was her little man.

I was only three, and would quickly learn
Of love, of lies, of rage, of survival.

II
I could not stand her pain, nor hear her cries
Without complicity or deference;
Unless she were happy, even moments
Of joy were dimmed and turned to waste and dust.

Soon I was set apart, denied contact
With the world, then even with those nearest,
Who knew me as they knew a silent ghost.
That I was hers alone, not to be touched,

Or even spoken to, lest wrath grow quick,
Consuming all in flames of wounded ire,
They knew as if by instinct. Otherwise,
Transgressions soon would be redressed in flesh.

I knew not why the endless silence palled;
Nor nothing knew of other lives, unchained.

III
She told a story like no other could,
Wrapped you in its rhythms, bought your belief
With widow’s mite, while others treasures poured;
She needed to be loved at any price.

The lives of others were sufficient coin
To pay her debts of pain and loss and fear,
But always only for a moment’s space
Before the rage, expressed in calmest tones,

Returned, announcing sure, for those who heard,
The other had revived, and sought its due.
But quick as it appeared it left again,
And she awoke, in tears lest I were gone.

In quiet and regret, she tended wounds,
While singing lullabies beneath the tree.

IV
With open book, she curled up on the couch,
While teaching me to read in my third year.
No primers served, nor ordinary books,
For she would soon lose interest and grow dark.

“The time has come to speak of many things,”
She read, of Walruses and Oysters then,
As through the looking glass we often went,
Though soon enough returned, at least at first.

She was the former in the line, of course;
Although I did not know what those words meant,
I learned their sounds and shapes, their rhythmic drive
And quick melodic interplays of breath.

An Oyster needs its shell to be secure,
Though knives will soon enough lay all things bare.

V
Her father was a myth, a ghost, unreal
Except in absences, where emptiness,
Abandonment, and fear maintained their watch
Before the high defenses she had raised.

Replacements proved their insufficiency
In later years; her marriages revived
Her absent father, now in husbands’ form.
The first refused her youthful ultimatum:

The band or me. He chose the band, and left.
The second stayed, but never quite gave in
To her demands, nor ceded his control
Or choice of his career, his God, his life.

But he was absent too, for months at sea.
Her letters spoke of one who would not leave.

VI
The loneliness took root, grew wide and tall
With overhanging branches that gave shade.
Weeks and months went by in isolation,
No visitors, no reason to go out

Most days, so filled with stories from her life
Or books her fancy chose for me to learn,
Strange tales of love and domination’s cost,
The price that must be paid for loving men.

“You must not listen to the voice within,
Because it lies—they love but to destroy;
And you must not believe as they believe,
Behave as they behave, for they betray.”

I did not understand then who she was,
But learned to see myself, and grew ashamed.

VII
To pare away all feeling left a core
As yet untouched, unreached and buried deep,
If not quite deep enough, for there she saw
The man, though still a boy, who would yet leave

Despite his childish frame and quiet eyes
That only looked on her. She’d not abide
The thought that I might be like those she loathed
And worshipped all at once, though still expressed

In domination and submission’s need,
In anger and in lust, in smoother words
Than any could resist, or understand
In their true sense—incapable of truth.

No actor’s talent could deceive that gaze,
And I had not yet learned my master craft.

VIII
“All men want only one thing; all women
Exist to serve that need, say yes, of course,
Comply, accommodate you fucking swine,
Lie back and let you sweat and grunt and die.

Your scents disgust me, make me want to retch;
If only I could kill you all, I would.
But you will never disappoint, my son,
My only love, for you are not a man.”

The other spoke this way, when she had left,
Gone missing, lost behind the blue-grey eyes
Iced over now with hate and rage and fear
Of being left alone and waved away.

The other taught by hand, to prove her point,
And showed me what a swine a man could be.

IX
Concupiscence caused men to overheat,
Inflamed with lusts they neither could nor would
Control. What matter then, if heat caused pain,
She said, when ice could take that pain away?

Responding to her touch confirmed her hate,
Proved I was but a man like all the rest,
Though I was only three, then four, then five
As years went by and served their turn on me.

Each time was as the others—darkness fell
Across her brows; the other soon appeared,
Then took me by the neck to let me know
Her will that I respond as if a man.

In aftertimes, she lay me down in ice
As if its melting water washed her sins.

X
And just as suddenly, what started stopped.
A creature of extremes, she would not touch
That too too sullied flesh that would not melt
Nor thaw, nor yet resolve into a dew

As if in decorous pretense of health,
That all was well, that none required redress
For damage done, lest isolation bear
Its will, defining all her future days

As acts of penitence and sore remorse.
No need, for life’s next act came to our door
As paired evangelists, with God and Truth
Tucked deep inside a leather satchel case.

So easily displaced was all her pain,
As absent fathers morphed to present gods.

XI (fin d'ete)
Revisiting my tree at summer's end,
What struck me was how small the setting was,
How near the street. Did I remember cars?
Were swingsets there, or monkeybars in sand?

The eucalyptus scent remains, the breeze
Yet brings the ocean’s salt, and children play
In sight of all, watched over by a few.
Such peace remains, when fires have burned and died.

We never spoke of early days again,
And when I left, returning for her death
Alone, my sisters were the focus of
Her eyes. Each knew imprisonment in time.

Though one recovered, one withdrew inside,
For both, I sit beneath the tree, and write.

The Actor
He seems sad only because he is sad,
Though few can see it, taken in by shows.
Despite his skill in seeming, what he is,
He is. He never meant to hurt; though love

Has left its mark on him, he never sought
Revenge, nor ever hoped himself to heal
By seeking vengeance for his timeworn wrongs.
He merely wishes to be recognized

By one who sees, though yet invisible
Amongst the mass, the herds who swallow lies
Like water, drinking even those he tells
In hopes to be discovered for his sins.

Though disappointed, comfort yet he finds
In knowing. Solitude has its rewards.

I Am Not What I Am
I learned to live a double life in youth,
To actions play for all opposing masters,
To tell the lies that others wished to hear,
And now that I grow old, I cannot stop.

I know not who or what I am, no one
Of consequence, I’m sure, a simple man
Who flies from pain, but gladly suffers all
If only to avoid yet disappointing

Those others, all, whose needs exceeded his
In strength, importance, and in dread command.
My only need is to be silent here,
Remain unscathed, invisible, unharmed.

Nor hero, villain, nor a Machiavel,
I’ve nothing been, nor nothing will become.

Antigone in the Suburbs
With darkened light, her eyes still call to God,
While searching faces, whisp’ring silent prayers
Of hope, imploring recognition’s glance
From passers-by, though unaware and blind,

Whose eyes give naught but darkness visible,
And cannot see her, neither what she was,
Nor what she has become in loneliness
And silence, quiet depths where none approach.

She knows it fruitless, seeking in the dust
For love, or if not love, then intellect,
Someone who sees, and seeing so sees her.
But still she searches, hoping to be wrong.

And as she searches, learns to see herself,
What once she was, and what is now, alone.

That Thou Art
Fallen petals, dew-drenched and tinged with brown,
Moments half-remembered, hazy with regrets
For lives unlived and eyes unmet, with sighs,
Averted glances, necessary losses,

Wounds that bring no wisdom, filled with nothing
That comes from nothing, all our fortunes marred--
All this is what we are, what we have thought,
The paradise within, whose selves are Hell,

Who must still bid farewell to happy fields
And bid the dark receive its new possessor.
But this is not our fate, nor must our lives
Conform to this, the oldest of despairs.

The trick, if trick it be, is to let go;
Act without attachment, love without reward.

At Long Last
I need your help to do what must be done,
Though long delay, and misplaced fears and pride
Have yet prevented my request, now sun
Is setting, night approaches quick, and tides

That once flowed in, now hasten to recede.
My time to act is now, so act I will,
Lose all I’ve tried to hold, which still but bleeds
My proper life, which fades to death until

I let it go. This house, this sacred shore,
The only dream I ever had in years
Of wintry exile, holds me fast no more,
Though I will mourn its little ones with tears.

And so, I ask, though I have been a fool;
At risk of no, which then must be my school.

Muse—She Who Knows
I thought there were no moments left with you,
All squandered, lost, and thrown away for naught
Of value, worth, remembrance dear, or pure
Delights whereby a lover climbs the heights

Of wisdom. Yet, despite my weaknesses,
And all my sins upon my head, you stayed,
Forgiving me for all I’ve failed to be
Or do, or yet show strength in measure deep

Enough to take the actions I must take.
So, if I may, I’ll ask but one more boon,
That you might teach me how to see myself
As you have learned, so I might be his twin.

I’ll never leave, unless at your behest;
Nor nothing fear, though I must walk through fire.

Of Love and Shame
You treated me as though you were ashamed
To know me; publicly acknowledging
Our love was far beyond your strength or will,
And so I was a secret not revealed,

Kept hidden from your friends, who never knew
That we were more than strangers in the halls
We all once shared. They never knew my name,
Or knew that you would cry it out through waves

Of passion in the hours that we made love.
The night they nearly caught a glimpse of us,
Your panic caught me by surprise, before
You ran from me in shame, lest they might see.

And even as I followed you, I knew
You did not love me, so I said goodbye.

Arrant Knaves All
They malice most deserve, and deepest hate,
Who think to know my stops, how I’d be played
As though I were a pipe, an instrument
For simple melodies of single notes.

They know not who I am, or what they risk
Between my fairest seems and foulest is,
Incenséd points of mighty opposites,
For dumb shows, noise, and lies are all they hear,

And all they think to see with dimming eyes
Blank-focused on themselves and their own hearts,
Where naught but stale illusions take the stage,
While well-worn scenes of dull betrayals play.

Nor tragedy, nor comedy such lives
Portray, all mere rehearsal for the blind.

From One, on Another’s Death
No talent, no success, will yet erase
The shame that such as we have learned to feel;
We brought it on ourselves, so we were told
By those who loved us, showing with the pain

They carefully assured us was for good,
The tender hearts of lovers wrapped in sin,
Expressed in lust and fear left uncontrolled
Or still unknown by those who should have known.

They’ve long since died, and yet their lives go on,
Their voices tinged with anger and regret,
Tired faces mixing rage and sorrow,
Shades of ancient graves and new betrayals.

Forgiveness holds no purchase for our tribe;
Remembrance holds us fast to what we were.

Never Seen Till Used.
When I profess that I have truly loved,
Do not believe my words, unmatched by deeds.
What sacrifices have I made for you,
What costs have I yet paid, what pleasures skipped,

What promise kept? I break no faith because
I pawn’d thee none, but offered up those words
You’d most believe or be persuaded by
Till I possessed, enjoyed, and ravished you.

But now achieved, what need I linger here?
You’ve nothing more I want, nor nothing are
Of what might hold me fast, and stay my search
For newer joys to feed my appetite.

Believing me has made your betters fools,
Who nothing learn, and will believe again.

The Path Resisted
It’s you whom I have wanted all these years,
Though silently I glanced, then looked away.
Embracing me to say hello, goodbye,
Or merely thanks, caused my desire for you

To near exceed my will and self-control;
I wished to turn your face to mine, to kiss
Those lips whose taste I often dreamt as sweet,
Caress your soft and fragrant skin, then touch

Your hair that like a goddess showed, hung full
Beneath your perfect shoulders, as it flowed
Cascading down in waves where I would swim
And lose myself in luxury and love.

The pure desire I had for you inflamed
Each time I saw you. Now it constant burns.

In the Beginning

The words flowed fast and freely at the start,
Such words excitement never brought before.
Their eloquence and sympathy of heart
Filled paragraphs with feelings’ pent-up store.

In those early days, words still made us one,
Though kept apart by miles, by years, by time.
We knew those accidents could be undone
By rarest spirits’ gift of tongues sublime.

But something happened, what, we did not see,
Words in torrents slowed to barest trickle.
Those accidents soon seemed to essence be;
Instead of faithful, words proved merely fickle.

And yet, to early days I would return,
When words with passion’s fire could make us burn.

True/False

Although we would not have it proven so,
It seems the heart is false; there are no loves
Can stem the tides of feelings’ ebb and flow.
They come upon us as descending doves

With voice from Heaven saying, “This is one
With whom, from whom, you will not have to hide.”
But voices, not to be by hearts outdone,
Do liars prove while passions quick subside.

But even if all hearts will prove untrue,
Does physic lie in closing them up fast?
Despite the pains they bring, true loves are few,
And rarest are the things that truly last.

Such lovers will not skip a moment’s joy
Though all the pains of loss their hearts destroy.

The End in the Beginning

When I remember how we first began,
It is the suddenness that captures me.
Our light was heat, while time too swiftly ran,
Before we could make sense of ecstasy.

Before we touched, before we even talked,
We shared the dreams we still had left untried;
Time running out, we left no path unwalked
Inside the living fantasy we plied.

But all too soon, reality returned,
And swift as we began, we ended too;
Nor light, nor heat remained, too quickly burned
The flames which once rose high, now embers few.

But though you left as quickly as you came,
I’d not forgo the burning in that flame.

Unlived

It is the unlived life I most regret,
The plans we made we now will not see through,
The drive along the coast, the beach sunset,
The wine and laughter, standing still with you.

You could not wait to see me then, but now,
A moment’s time has passed, and you grow cold.
I read the words which now you disavow
And wonder who that was who was so bold

To say she wanted me, and where she went?
What passion burned you and so soon could die,
To lead you to deny the words you sent
Pretending now you have not said goodbye?

Although I neither blame, nor feel chagrin,
I cannot but regret what might have been.

The Leap

The leap through fear and trembling still awaits,
Despite our lack of courage and resolve.
We have this chance, this life, till time negates,
And death of all our sins will us absolve.

The time to live is now, since no rehearsal
Prepares us for life’s shows and pageantry.
We get one scene to play without reversal,
So speak the lines out clear, not haltingly.

Reach for my hand, the time for fear is done,
Remembrance cannot harm us anymore.
Our pasts lie still, new lives not yet begun,
With world enough and time to love explore.

Though none can guarantee naught but delight,
We’ll trembling leap; on joy we will alight.

The Lesson

Since honeyed words which once did drop like dew
From Heaven come no more, the time has come
To close up shop, protect my heart from you,
Who wanted, truth be told, nor parts nor sum

Of heart’s and mind’s store you had raised in me.
You wanted just the thrill of speaking words,
And used me as a mirror where you see
Your self-regard, for there are no accords,

No promises, no plans that hold you fast,
Bound only to your own heart’s boundless needs.
I was not real, so easily you cast
Me down, like garbage in the roadside weeds.

So, thank you for the lesson I have learned,
I’ll keep it close, as wisdom newly earned.

The Singer of Tales

I sing songs of poets and heroes past,
Pouring forth words fast bound with emotion,
But no relief or rainfall comes at last,
To raise the seas, or fill a drying ocean.

So I will sing until the waters stop.
And falling silent, I will sing no more...
Then songs will be for others, mine must crop
Themselves, laying their remains at the door

To a promised land I can never reach,
Though I hold its keys, and know its secrets.
When words no longer rush to fill the breach,
I will rest outside that door without regrets,

For it was never me, it was the song.
Without those notes, who would a life prolong?

Carving Pigs

What man can live by carving pigs alone?
Through euphemistic language we convey
Both non and sense, but how does one atone
For rebelliousness of mind? Who puts in play

The pre-established rules of conversation,
Defining what is good and right by sense,
Eliminating room for revelation,
Hiding wit behind a decorous pretense?

Who would carve pigs, must carve first for himself,
But others are who know the carver’s trade;
When they list to speak, then language sounds itself,
And when they hear, through wit are they remade.

Though fit they are, they also are too few,
To genuflect to rules as others do.

In a Crowded Room, Alone
When one is lonely in a room alone,
There are, no doubt, still compensating pleasures.
But by oneself in crowded rooms unknown,
Unseen, unheard, cut off in greater measures

Than any prison’s ward can yet attain,
There might true delight reside in purest
Form, but for those for whom it is great pain
To be alone, who must then live as tourists

In their minds and hearts, while never seeing
Who and what they are, nor knowing any
Other, more than image without being,
Dull pictures fairly bought with cheapest penny.

To be alone with such as cannot see
Is welcome solitude in company.

Black Sheep
An alien, always outside the main,
Who yearned once for admittance to the world,
Now standing proud apart, with fixed disdain,
With freedom’s—or rebellion’s—flag unfurled.

Did white sheep punish? Or likely just ignore
The pain their orthodox demands suffused
Through others not like them? They'd not abhor
Such insights’ depths, but merely be amused.

What matters that, if we be still the same,
And what we are, with eyes that darkness see?
White sheep are deep with shadow, filled with shame,
Projected onto those who would be free.

In aftertimes and afterwords we learn,
A black sheep stands apart, but still must burn.

Braised Lamb
To braise a lamb, to discipline a child,
Each project is the same—retaining moisture
In the meat you would consume, a self beguiled
Of self, unto culinary jointure.

Wine and spice enhance the flesh, seal flavor
Into captive tissue, disregarding
The burning of the skin, delightful savor
For those who feed by others’ lives discarding.

All life feeds on death. All parents do the same.
“Better thou hadst not been born, than not to
Have pleased me better”—childhood’s primal shame
Is played on stage, where all old roles are new.

Those who would consume, would have us tender,
To death devote, while willing our surrender.

Letting Go
Though you say she is that rarest creature
Who would be loved, and yet would faithful prove,
My own counsel will I keep, for preacher
Is not the same as preached, and heaven’s dove

Is but a show for those who are near blind.
She will be broken, discarded once enjoyed,
Else prove exception in a world unkind
To virtue’s quality, and soon destroyed.

But cynic’s feignéd wisdom may be wrong,
And innocence have strength that none suspect.
She’ll not be lost amidst the shallow throng,
Where superstition puzzles intellect.

I would I could be with her at the gate
Where world and time will open to her fate.

Unrhymed (for my sister and her favorite boy)
This pretense has reached its logical end,
But logic was never its true reason,
Emotions rather, loneliness and fear,
A cowardice of Biblical proportion.

I cannot be the man you have wished for,
Just as you are not the woman I fear,
The ragged figure that moves, tree to tree
In the back of my mind, for she is gone,

Though ever-present. How can I be free,
When all I have ever wished is to live,
Or to die, just so long as the pain stops,
Silencing that voice, and its windblown rage?

I would that things had been different for us,
But what they are, they are, and so an end.

Taken/Given
Isolation was the key strategy,
Keeping separate from the world, in darkness
Drawing out one’s days in quiet elegy
For lives unlived, in mourning’s sweet duress.

To be in the world, and yet not of it,
That was our question, whether ‘twas noble
In the mind, or toxic to the soul and wit,
We sought it not, through doctrine made immobile.

Although I left them years ago, they still
Have not left me. Remembrance seeks its pound
Of flesh, and will its bond with terms of law fulfill;
No mercy drops like dew on God-scorched ground.

And yet, but for those years, I’d be without
My taste for words, and poet’s form devout.

Living in Plato’s Cave
Within the confines of a fading life,
That formerly had seemed to offer dear
Sustenance, though now devolving into strife,
Recriminations, old regrets, and fear

Of moving on, and loving life anew,
It often seems as if those confines still
Reduce themselves and us to morning’s dew,
Which quickly fades before the bright sun’s will.

Illusions confines are, yet so are we;
Although we grant to them a force sublime
Sustaining will and false belief, we see
Through shadows dim, resisting still the climb.

So sit we still, watch shadows in this cave,
Chained side by side, each failing to be brave.

Truth and Lies
Lies are what sustain us; truth sets no one free.
As hours resolve themselves to moments past,
No truths redeem or change trajectory
Of downward spirals, loves that do not last.

In each beginning hides the end, as cancer
In a healthy cell. The end, content to wait,
Lastly will be fed; though never dancer
Dance so well, at dance's start, still what is fate

Affections nor delay, deny, nor stem
The slow-advancing tide of passions’ thaw,
Till what is left of love is less a gem
Than hollow toy for hearts as dry as straw.

And yet as ends approach, we still deny
The painful truth, take comfort in the lie.

The Death of the Hero
With eyes wide open, I know the end has come.
I’ve felt all the wounds, used all the words,
Left blood on the ground, only to succumb
To underworlds within, and the dark herds

That roam behind my eyes, waiting to voice
Their lifelong presence, and swiftly take me home.
I was not who I should have been; my choice
Was free—or was it not?—but still I roam

Through fields of dim remembrance, like a shade
Still grasping after one more day of sun,
Deep with regret, the wrong choice having made,
Without the hope of new wars lost or won.

But if I had to face my choice once more,
I’d damn the gods, and no libations pour.

In Solitude, Recognizing Another
My solitude had long become a habit,
Ingrained in me like rise and fall of breath.
When first I met you, neither priest nor abbot
Convinced me life could ever transcend death.

I still am not convinced, but knowing you
Revives, at least in momentary term,
My will to faith, still trusting to subdue
Unruly passions young men must confirm.

Although they would prove worn in me, they are
An ever-fixed mark that looks on tempest
Without shaking, though we go too far,
Believing our decline we can arrest.

Though alone, I know I am not trapped here,
While life, still holding promise, raises fear.

Sacred Tents of Truth
From outside looking in, the heart is strange,
The spirit is willing--the flesh is weak.
I stand outside myself, hoping to exchange
The truth for lies, to hear what seems unique

To those who would be comfortably deceived.
There is, in the course of human events,
A time and place for truth, though misconceived
As charity. Who would not in sacred tents

Of truth abide? Truth of self, of others,
Of pains inflicted and still best incurred
In silence and in shame, for here no mothers
Dry tears from eyes, by loving undeterred.

That time and place is neither here nor now,
No truths will I affirm or disavow.

The Necessary Fall
I still do not break free, despite the years
In struggle with remembrance spent, and pain.
I know what I must do, yet ancient fears
Hold fast to me, increasing my disdain

For him I failed to be, and have become.
I know him not, yet know him all too well,
Deny him, hate him, yet he will succumb
To mettle more attractive, though in hell.

But building there is only for his envy,
Hence I’ll drive him, heaping more damnation
On his rebellious head, that he may see
My deepest fears prove naught in his frustration.

Then at last will I be free--’tis worthy all
And loss of all, though ne’er so far I fall.

The Wives’ Seducer
There is no she with virtue unmaligned;
I laugh to scorn their loves who most do show
Allegiance, faith, the marriage of true mind.
They’ll all be mine, with speed on pathways low.

I neither love them, nor do love myself,
Nor care to find their hearts to tell them truth;
No truths grow dusty there on highest shelf,
That shelf is bare, and has been from my youth.

Seems and is are one and same, describing
All actions that my life and heart have played;
I will be ever false, while still deriving
My pleasures from their loves and faiths betrayed.

With reasons will I answer for my life,
I do but as they wish, each untrue wife.

A Gnostic in Disguise among the Orthodox
Since none can see the masks I hide behind,
It seems hypocrisy retains such force
As it was wont to have o’er eye and mind
When gods alone directed human course.

Free will is but your comforting illusion,
When every thought is on your face for me
To silent read, and laugh at your confusion,
Enslaving that which he insists is free.

But truly, he is father of the lie,
Despite the claims of orthodox belief.
That sin that first was thought, you still decry
In ancient tales where knowledge causes grief.

Until you leave behind those gods of fear,
You’ll never to the inward truth adhere.

The Lovers' Path
Though wiser than before, we still believe
That loving hearts can heal and love again;
Sophistication then will seem naïve,
When lovers to the One do reascend.

We stand outside ourselves, hearts beating fast,
Each seeing through the other’s eyes to view
That moment, when through insight unsurpassed,
We knew that love would world and time renew.

Those who still deny love’s sweet instruction,
Insisting on their grounded view of life,
See but themselves, eyes cast down on destruction,
And walk through fields where nothing grows but strife.

Though love appear but foolish to the world,
The higher path to wisdom’s there unfurled.

Other Lives
Some certain faces, when I see them, fill me
With visceral regrets for lives untried,
Whose mortal possibilities I see,
Through eyes which gaze with longing from outside.

Choices made are lives denied, with other
Paths untaken; though ne’er a choice delayed
Will lengthen life, or buy a man another,
But merely keep unlived, a masquerade,

Of sense and motion. Oh, but wherefore must
The path of least resistance seem so broad?
And how might I regenerate that trust
In what might be, when all that is shows fraud?

And so I stand, twixt life and life, no heart
To turn aside, to stay, or to depart.

The Note Too Late
The time, my friend, has come to say goodbye.
I was not, and will not be, fortune’s bright star.
But that’s not much, for lives askew, awry,
And altogether left like doors ajar,

Are held in common ‘mongst men, till despair
Or emotions more potent light upon
The pain-scarred surface of lives beyond repair.
Such quiet desperation laying on

Leaves little room for brightness or fair shows,
The lies we tell, and actions we have played.
No longer any point, with arms to oppose
That sea of troubles, painfully clichéd.

So fare well, and if you can, forgive me.
I’m fixing her mistake, that I should be.

The Lover
The simple joys, though wondrous, do but pale
Before complexity of thought and feeling.
And those who see, though reading sightless Braille,
Have beauty’s stores that will suffice for healing

A world grown sick with surfeit of its hate
For what it does not understand, much less
What is beyond its will to desecrate
Destroy, deface, or otherwise suppress.

But in her eyes I see what’s called divine,
Summed up in her, contained as if perforce
All things conspired to glorify her shrine
And set the world back on its proper course.

Since through her eyes I see pure Beauty’s form,
I’ll cast away false gold, whilst I transform.

The Empath
The feelings of others weigh too heavy
Upon me, leaving me bereft, without
Defense against emotional levy
Or fine imposed for failure to cure drought

And rain-parched need with my own flowing blood.
Yet I cannot say no, nor will refuse
The call of tears, of eyes upturned, in flood
Of never-ending fear of loss, nor choose

The solitary path of quietude,
While suff’ring springs from wells of deep desire.
Instead I will my heart in attitude
Of immolation keep, while needs require.

But this is not a noble path of choice,
No reason to sing praise, nor yet rejoice.

Ship of Fools
Clichés are only thought so by those fools
Who would be wise, and two such fools are we.
The thoughts of those who do not think are jewels
That sparkle without wit, of learning free.

Emotion takes the place of reason still,
In those who would be king but nothing know,
Through storms of common sense and brutish will,
The wisest fools their quarters keep below.

But others, such as we, must hold our tongues,
While out on deck exposed to wind and rain
‘Mongst foolish crews whose valor’s in their lungs,
Who thoughts avoid, and from all books abstain.

Outnumbered here on board, we cannot steer
This ship of fools, though fools we both appear.

What Once I Was, and What Am Now
Baptismal waves closed quick upon my head,
And in an instant, life had changed forever.
No longer mine, I was but newly dead
To world and time, to life and all endeavor.

Belief came hard, but harder still came truth,
That truth the body knew, though we professed
A higher wisdom, immortal, as in youth.
Life would not be mine, whate’er I confessed,

Whate’er I prayed, the body knew its death,
Knew its time was short, deny it though I may.
My body scorned the faith, with slightest breath
Mocked castles down, illusions swept away.

Though some would have illusions’ comforts still,
I’ll not return to blindness, come what will.

Pearls of (not so) Great Price
My pearls are nothing precious, more costume
Than royal bauble. Such have been my days,
Of little worth. My failure to relume
That borrowed fire should not, in truth, amaze,

Although remembrance might persuade itself
To something see where nothing is, the truth
Has always been remote, too high a shelf
For me to reach. As ever, since my youth,

My refuge lies in silence and in doubt,
And quiet solitude, best found where crowds
Nor see nor care to know my inner drought,
The god-scarred boy with head still in the clouds.

Despite their lack, and all-too tarnished mien
They’re all I have, and all I’ve ever been.

A Day in the Life
Impassioned lovers still entwined in death,
Ill fated shades of heroes with regret,
A childish god who quickens clay with breath,
A fallen angel’s wings in silhouette.

These only were his morning’s friends and loves,
The epic similes of a young boy’s
Imagination, running far above
His circumstance, though secretly his joys.

As afternoon wore on, he had no room
For hero tales, nor those who could still feel
Alive, and stories hear, but not assume
Responsibility to what was real.

Then dying late at night, he left no trace;
No self remained, and nothing to erase.

Motiveless Malignity
Deception is a skill that can be learned
Like any other; master its technique,
And golden show, and all the world will turn
To you as if in honesty you speak.

The world hears only what it sore desires,
And will be tenderly led by the nose
As asses are. But I must stoke the fires
Of jealousy’s quick rage, lest I expose

My private face to those who cannot see.
But I’ll not worry overmuch, for there
Is no face beneath the masks, no pure degree
Of self, no self at all, nor foul, nor fair.

I am not what I am, merely a role,
Deception’s art demands the dearest toll.

Remembrance

In silent hours, when death seems sweet release,
Remembrance brings its healing remedy.
Although its cure brings something short of peace,
Still, living is made less a tragedy

Than comedy, whose plotline runs along
Familiar lines, when I remember loves,
Their moments filled with laughter and with song.
Despite their endings, passions flew like doves

From heaven’s heights, alighting to declare
That I was both belovéd and approved.
What though no savior? I could be, in prayer,
Yet something like a man, by love so moved.

Though life’s drear nights do passions from us drain,
Our loves recalled would make us live again.

The Poet in Winter
I would yet something say before I go,
Whilst life and breath still serve, and passion’s fire
Still burns. I know my time still shorter grows
Than any lamentation could require

To sing its wistful song. But I will mark
My final days with verses that record
Impressions of a life unlived, as stark
Regrets for hours unused, till now ignored.

I would I had this life to live once more,
Return eternal, as a madman wrote,
Though all life’s pains I’d suffer and abhor,
What else exists? What other worlds remote?

Despite mistakes and pains of life’s short term,
If asked again, I’d all my days affirm.

Canto XXIX: The Sowers of Discord
From acid tongues drip words of unctuous malice,
Fair speech and thoughts from those who would be seen
As knowing, though choking on the phallus
Of prurient imaginations mean.

Such speakers measure all by their own minds,
No wonder, then, their discourse is so cramped,
Too small a space in which to be confined,
Unless with gulag’s scars their hearts are stamped.

No such excuse will serve to justify
The stupid and aggressive, who insist
That all are as themselves, and testify
To rot within, through foulness better missed.

Such are the mass, wrote once the Machiavel,
By shows convinced, led hand in hand to hell.

The Children’s Panopticon
Love’s price was high, too dear to pay with coin
Of youth. While never could I know her pain,
How could she not know mine? Though I would join
With her, in twisted fantasies remain,

Still, nothing would suffice to calm her rage.
She would have all, or all reduce to wrack;
Her hellish fury, intermixed with sage
Pronouncements from her god, was the attack

Against which no defense could yet be raised.
That boy was not the man he would become,
But I could not protect him, be unfazed
As now I might, he could not but succumb.

In quiet hours, I listen for his breath,
The gasps and cries of sickness unto death.

Kafka’s Door
Before the Door of Law there stands a guard
Whose purpose sole is keeping that door closed
To you, and only you, for pathways hard
And secret gates are always undisclosed

But to the favored few, who needn’t wait.
But Law’s great door serves merely to remind
The ordinary of their outcast state,
Because it is not hidden, nor confined

To secret gnosis, standing in plain view.
We’re meant to see, and seeing, to desire
Admittance there, where justice yet rings true,
And fairest hopes, that open doors require.

Before that still-closed door is where we die.
The guard who shuts us out then shuts our eyes.

A Life In Muted Tones
Our fairest thoughts too often we betray,
Or so it is with me. Although I keep
Close counsel, still my words show disarray
When I would talk of matters high or deep,

So often I’ll not speak, but hold my tongue,
Expressing not what most my heart desires,
Hold passion’s discourse strictly for the young,
Denying first what first my life requires.

But wherefore will I not submit to tell
Of that which every man in common owns?
My reticence, though oft it has served well,
Has hardened to a wall of flesh and bones.

In silence now, in silence I’ll remain,
I'll nothing say, though all the world I’d gain.

Love’s Defense
What though I say I love you, what needs love
Its old excuse, or strong defense, by which
It would be justified? When, from above
The realm of human dealing, ne’er so rich,

Comes symbol or transcendent voice so fair
That will erase the trembling doubts and fears
That love inspires along with hope? No air
Or lightest madrigal can wipe the tears

From eyes that have known pain and emptiness;
No melody, technique, or player’s skill
Can music make so sweet that we’ll confess
No longer to have need of lover’s thrill.

For love needs no defense, nor will allow.
To say I love, does nothing disavow.

The Artist’s Eyes
I have no other wisdom to impart
Than quietly to say I love you still.
Though man lives not by bread alone, yet art
Sustains the flesh, and nourishes the will

By bringing beauty to our eyes before
Such divination can no longer be,
As senses dull, we former joys abhor,
And dearest loves no longer lovers see.

Your art lies buriéd behind your eyes,
Each painting but a picture of that mind
I cannot help but love and recognize
As leading lovers to the One inclined.

There in your eyes I see what cannot die,
Though love exposes, art destroys the lie.

Point of No Return
‘Tis strange, ‘tis passing strange, that I should love;
But I will never part from you, unless
You wish it so. For how, when all above
That’s pure seems summed in you, could I confess

Myself an enemy to love’s fair form,
The form I see in you, and see through you,
Without inviting greater wrack than storm
Or storm god’s ire has ever put on view?

Our best of life will never be if left
Untried, unspoken for, with neither thought
Expressed, nor given voice, as if bereft
Of speech and motion, paralyzed by ought.

Though custom’s law would keep its tyrant’s hold,
Those manacles we’ll break, through love grown bold.

The Old Courtier, With Regret for the Past
In love with love, though never such a child
As sonnets’ fools themselves are wont to be,
Much worse I proved, when your faith I reviled,
And doting, fell to newer company.

Forgiveness holds no purchase for such sin,
So I’ll not ask for that you cannot give;
What’s lost in asking’s rarely what we’d win,
If win we could, though hearts’ desires still live

As secrets hidden only from ourselves.
Though distance grows, remembrance holds us fast,
As pictures seen on high surrounding shelves
Of long familiar rooms, in sadness cast.

Although the breach between us I’d repair,
That life is gone, like mist from morning’s air.

Silence and Noise
In silence insights come I most would prove
'Gainst opposition from the noise-filled scene,
Whose popularity does thought reprove
Like scolded children raised by parents mean

And low of thought, who trim what grows before
Perfection can, or ripeness does, appear.
Such noise enfeebles and belittles; more
It cannot do, unless we give it ear

As tribute, patterning ourselves on shouts
Of rage or fear, unthinking in extremes
For those reduced to lives without the doubts
That thoughts and knowledge bring to quiet dreams.

As quickly as they come, in noise they fade,
But soon return, in quietude replayed.

Campus Crusader
An adolescent preacher stands alone,
His rising voice a cry to sin, repent!
No students mark him, busy with the phone
Or surreptitious smokes before descent

To yet another lecture’s dreary hour
Where once again repentance will be asked,
This time for sins of ignorance, while dour
Yet passive faces, tired from what they’re tasked

Reflect not on salvation but on release.
Outside, the preacher shouts of being wise
While foolish in a world still lacking peace,
The Prince of Peace, though fear shows in his eyes.

What waits at home? I wonder as I pass;
In him I see my past, as in a glass.

Alma Mater: On Visiting One’s Own Book in the Library
These shelves, where I was wont to search, or browse
For others’ words, and expertise divine,
Are home now to my words as well, to rouse,
Or no, imaginations after mine.

A tourist in the past, my visit here
Has been to tell my tale, from janitor
To factory floor, to nights spent in the stacks
Where now my book, my words, will help confer

Ideas on younger strengths while I decline,
Though imperceptibly for now, as years
Move not so swift, nor eyes so dimly shine
To make me number death among my fears.

My fear is loss, that words I’ll not sustain;
So when time comes, I’ll fight for words in pain.

At the End, Unsigned
No honor’s left me but in letting go.
The life I’ve lived has others’ lives destroyed,
Though they’ll not yet their ruin have come to know;
The plots I laid were all but to avoid

The consequences of severest lack
Of resolution’s steel; although from fear
I drew my breath in pain, yet I brought wrack
Into the lives of those who held me dear.

To love me was to ask to be betrayed;
No, not to ask, for who would victims be?
But ever without fault, to be dismayed,
Still chained by lies where lovers should be free.

The time to pay is now; the price is high.
My only resolution is to die.

In Dreams and Illusions
In dreams does freedom lie, though oft askance
We look at that which sees not light of day.
The darkness stills the mind, and stems the dance
Of flux and change, all matter in the way

Of truly knowing those eternal forms,
That are not seen but by the fit though few,
Yet fewer still ‘mongst those who claim the norms
Fair reason must obey lie in their view.

They would determine still our right and wrong,
Like Euthyphro, assured that might is right;
Though custom error proves, yet they ere long
Will cast the truth to uncreated night.

In waking, naught we see is like our dreams,
With copies of illusions daylight teems.

The Pale Cast of Thought
The choices I must make exceed my strength,
Or so they seem, while looking on them, still
Too tightly gripped by fear of endless length
Of days, lived with the knowledge that my will

Was strong and quick to run to yes, but no
Could never say, despite my frequent need
Of no, to stand for truth and bid lies go
Quick hence, to force fair word to match fair deed.

Whence comes strong resolution’s drive to do,
Not just to say, for saying is not hard?
I’d trade my skill with words, if but I knew
How best to act, what hold and what discard.

Where most I’m weak is where I’d most be strong,
And most do right, where yet I most do wrong.

For Me, Yet Not For Thee
Forgiveness, unlike mercy, oft is strained,
Where reason’s strength has passion’s will denied;
We most have need where most we have been pained,
When noblest minds would vengeance leave untried.

But wherefore does remembrance not refine
Both heart and mind, retraining passion’s heat
So virtue need not struggle, nor incline
Where reason must restrain our thoughts unmeet?

Who’ll not recall his faintest, oldest scar,
Yet blind remain to pains he’ll others cause?
Out best of conscience leaves the door ajar
To self-regard, where no doubts give us pause.

Although from crimes we’d all forgiven be,
We nurse the wounds that others cannot see.

Of Love and Lovers
Each lover offers different highs and lows,
Nor of the body only, but the mind;
Some guile the time with naught but fairest shows,
While others, though not kin, are more than kind.

But kinder still are those whose taste but cloys
At sickly-sweet and inauthentic words,
Who’ll not regard their loves as idle toys
Of children living lives no less absurd

Than aging lovers holding fast to youth
When youth has gone, though leaving not a trace
Or jot behind to witness to the truth
Or vanity of loving but a face.

Such lovers have the hardest lessons learned,
To love the wise, whom fools have ever spurned.

Need and Sacrifice
An outward focus soon will drain a soul,
Where not your own, but others’ wants and needs
Become your only focus. When your role
Is steward to another’s thoughts and deeds,

He’ll gladly take the sacrifice you give,
Discoursing earnestly on selflessness
While feeding on your marrow, so you live
As long as serves to fill his emptiness.

What’s kept not for yourself will not be paid
To you again by such a one, whose eyes
Are blinded to the pains of love betrayed,
And sees you as himself in other’s guise.

Such need is like a well that can’t be filled,
Though blood is let till oceans have been spilled.

Contrivance and Loss
From cowardice has come my life’s decay,
As broken willed, I slouch towards Bethlehem,
Not to be born, but to my birth betray
In being such that all men must condemn.

I lack the strength to cast off iron chains,
Though of my own design. I’ll stand and wait,
Yet nothing serve, for nothing yet remains
Of he I might have been, though to relate

How much was lost in trying to survive
Exceeds my gifts. Nor can my bookish skill
Raise words by which her face I may contrive
To show--her rage and talent for the kill.

I cannot yet forgive, though to reclaim,
That boy who fought and lost a self to shame.

Necessary Lies
Though dishonesty becomes a habit
As men mature, yet what remains is hope
For honest truth, though not, as we would have it,
So large or wide as lies become in scope,

But tightly focused, narrow in such ways
As truth defines itself, too strongly bound
To right and good to lend itself to days
Of sport and nights of riot, though found

With golden shows, facilitating lies,
And all the skills that learning can bestow.
My truth I'll not discover, not through sighs
Nor outwards signs: My face no man must know.

Some secrets are too dark not to be kept;
At necessary lies, I am adept.

The Old Courtier (II)
I'll not pretend my love for you is right,
For what can right or wrong in love yet mean
When we've grown old, our faces lined with night
And Time's fell hand, whose operation's seen

In outward guise, though not so in our hearts,
Where still desire reigns as now supreme
With mind and reason, inward better parts,
While eyes no longer see what we but seem?

For long since have we learned to see the truth,
Both of, and through each other in our eyes;
Life has no secrets for its callow youth,
But soonest gives abundance to its wise.

Though life's abundance quickly fades in time,
Eternity brings nothing more sublime.

Sonnets From Nowhere
The words now come in crashing waves; despite
My inability to understand
From where, or why, they come as if in flight
To somewhere I but glimpse at second hand,

From nowhere and no one, obscure, unknown,
And thoroughly unimportant. My time
Is running out; my curtain’s coming down,
So leaving words behind as if to prime

My path, explain what once I was, seems worth
Their birthing pains, though naught will be of note,
As nothing comes of nothing, yet unearth
A something though I would, all’s been by rote.

These words are all I have, and all I’ve been,
From no one, to nowhere, and all unseen.

Closing Time
This shop was nothing strange, or wonderful,
But it was mine, or rather, it was me,
A glimpse of who I was, though disdainful
Blind eyes would misconstrue, or just not see

Past dust, and years’ accumulated waste,
The shining gold of someone’s pocket watch,
Or loving notes on postcards sent in haste
When wars were fought and lives recalled with Scotch,

Two fingers, on the rocks, while beauty slips
Just beyond the grasp of aging lovers
Who gave their youth in passion’s brief eclipse,
Now words unread between unopened covers.

To ripe is all, as once a young man said,
Though ne’er so true, I’d yet keep green instead.

If I Be Still the Same

For years, and passing, I have struggled here,
Immune to so much else, here all too weak;
I’ve conquered every challenge, every fear
But one. I cannot beat this, cannot speak

My own defense, so long have I dissembled,
Still hiding what I would not have revealed,
Not even to myself, who more resembled
A man than was a man, my face concealed

From prying eyes, and all who wished me well
Or ill, still waiting for the sonnet’s turn
That never comes for those who've lived in hell,
Or those, like me, whose private hells still burn.

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell,
These depths I live, to dream of whence I fell.

Ahriman (Formlessness in Form)
You nothing know of what I really am.
Nor nothing still of dangers you now face.
I'm old, beyond imagination's grasp,
And I know every secret of your heart.

I’ve long been watching, since the start of all,
Still noting, cataloging every thought,
Every feeling, every human moment.
Your strengths, your noblest passions, I will use

When I destroy you, whom I hate beyond
All measure. Why? No more but that I would.
Your miseries are my exquisite joys;
While smallest truths bring forth my greatest lies.

I show no mercy; you cannot resist.
Nor would you yet, though you but had the strength.

The Old Courtier (III)
I’ll not apologize for loving you,
Let consequences come. Yet what can love
Still promise, once the leaves to russet hue
Have changed? The sun, though shining yet above

My head, hangs ever lower in the sky
And summer’s too-short date has lost its lease;
Though autumn’s time is yet in long supply,
What winter follows, but to bring decrease?

But say my highest summer is no more,
And all my days herein must shorter grow,
What foolishness would have not me adore
Each moment, spent with you, life would bestow?

So what remains, remains, and that a gift;
I’ll not refuse, though time be ne’er so swift.

Outsider, Looking In
When I look back on what I’ve called my life,
I see no light, but darkness visible,
My nose still pressed to glass, through naught but strife
And rawest fear, exclusion risible,

As if my birth brought something fell and cursed
Into the world, an object of derision
In healthy-minded actors’ well rehearsed
Dramatic shows, whose lives, though lacking vision,

Conformed to expectation’s mean behests.
Yet strength remains, with which to counter all
My life’s effects, despite what time suggests
The end will bring, my will still held in thrall.

My path will be my own, let come what may,
I’ll not join those whose lives are mere display.

The Gnostic Vision
The truth that can be spoken is not truth;
There needs no Taoist monk to tell us so.
But lies that can be spoken, though uncouth,
Are yet of truer substance than we know.

For lies comprise the substance of this world,
Where surface shines, and daily motions quick
Distract, as into lower realms we’re hurled
From realms of truth, entrapped within a trick

Of light and shade, though falser light than that
Above, which shines within the human breast,
Where all the gods reside. Though sharps will flat,
All notes but point where songs cannot attest.

For highest visions are reserved for few;
And highest truths cannot be put on view.

The Tempter’s Refusal
I’ll not pretend to ignorance of what
You speak, nor what you are behind that mask
Of innocence. Your lies, though meant to cut,
Are foolish and transparent, as you task

Your targets with your own most shopworn sin,
Committing yet the greatest sin of all--
To be uninteresting, without, within,
A soulless soul, unworthy of its fall.

Such carbon-based unlife as you have seemed,
Makes waste a tempter’s talents; what is gained
For good or evil, what to be esteemed
Could yet be had, though Hell your soul obtained?

I would not tempt you, though you were my last,
Let Heaven have you; I suspect they’ll pass.

Liar’s Manifesto
All those who love me are repaid with pain;
Though pain is never my intent, I’ll not
Hold back inflicting my heart’s sheer disdain
On all, myself included, who’ll have rot,

Decay, and lies support illusory
Lives still spent in pretense and denial
Of what we truly are, a usury
Whose interest pays for putting life on trial,

And finding it still guilty of all crimes
That we commit. Though I’d no others harm,
I harm them with my Yes, when No betimes
Would greater honor show, though lesser charm.

Still, lies, though told with all my practiced skill,
Could yet be known, but for my hearers’ will.

And So An End
Though leaving me for good was your intent,
You neither had the strength to let me go,
Nor mercy, since for all your garments rent,
Dramatic tears—put on as much for show

As from a hurt, dissembling not, you feel
Beyond control—will yet be your routine
Display in every quiet hour to heal
I’ve chanced to have. What though I live between

Charybdis and the jaws of Scylla’s wrath?
My punishment must be eternity,
For only in forever will your path
Of vengeance find its end in amity.

Your wounds will neither bottom find nor end,
They’ve depths unplumbed, or so you’d yet pretend.

A Lothario’s Doubts, Rescinded
Though caught between the options of my life,
A plenitude beyond what can be mine
Unless I twin myself, avoiding strife
By being all to all, both theirs and thine,

As many as demand their life’s repast
Sustained by blood that flows forth from my veins,
I’d yet my necessary reckoning
Delay, still putting off each day those pains

That telling simple truth will finally cause.
I cannot fathom, though I understand
In simplest terms, how I, without least pause,
Brought hurt to those who only love had planned.

My doubts are all misplaced; they’ve nothing earned.
Unless to be disgraced, thereafter spurned.

Sophia (Shards of Light)
I know she is the one that I would love,
Though life brought her too late for comfort’s sake
With too much damage done, and hints thereof
In every moment, every blind mistake

That near disaster seems as I attempt
To move amongst the normal still unseen,
While harsh remembrance calls the sheer contempt
Of crowds to mind, whose hatreds are routine.

With her I know even as I am known,
In her I live and move and have my being;
Herself complete, to do or say her own,
Brings me myself again, through her eyes’ seeing.

Although I’ve lacked the strength to love, I live
In love for her, and she will yet forgive.

Milton's Heaven
We dance and sing, in ecstasy before
The throne, with distances to cringe, not fight,
Or fawn and cringe and servilely adore
Our Heaven’s awful king. What but His might

Arranges every harmony and note,
With choreography controlling motion
Of angels’ dances, learning steps by rote,
Turn, turn, kick, turn, in chorus lines’ devotion

To mastery of the dance the Master calls?
What though free will may yet illusion prove,
Or no, but solid show as Heaven’s walls?
What matters is the dance in which we move.

A tyranny or liberty in show,
The image is ourselves, and all we’ll know.

The Intimate Enemy
My every moment, every word, reveals
The face behind the masks and skillful lies
That are but tissues ignorance conceals;
The fact you cannot see does not disguise

Your fictional constructions, neither men
Nor women of the world. What world will stay
Its hand from striking down its stupid, when
Predators their hunger will allay?

I understand your fear of consequence,
But action cannot take the place of thought,
And reason must of right proceed from whence
The passions still reside, though you’ll see naught.

I lie to you because you will not see,
And injure you, for it amuses me.

Oedipus: Darkness Visible
Imprisoned within walls I’ve made myself,
What matter where, if I be still the same?
What matter who, if life sits on a shelf
Too high for me to reach? Yet to my shame

I cannot free myself, what once I was,
For nothing comes from nothing, mend my speech
A little though I would, for fortune does
The too-blunt speaker mar; as though to breach

The raised defenses of my life were yet
A possibility for aught but gods
Malevolent, or merely bored, still met
On narrow roads, where life is played at odds.

I’d take that chance, with riddling divine,
For what remains is shadow, nothing mine.

Eternal Return
The time has come to choose—to live, or die?
Each moment brings this choice, though we’ll not see,
Or cannot yet admit our lives belie
Those high ideals, professed beliefs that free

Not one of us, forced truths that merely hurt,
While lies do yeoman’s work in holding fast
Illusions needful for our days, pervert
Our loves , and all our better parts, till past

Becomes the future, damage unrepaired
And long forgotten. Who have we become?
And why do we continue, unprepared
For necessary ending’s final sum?

Each yes brings yet another chance for no;
Each no denies returns time would bestow.

The Lover to His Beloved
What I would do for you is much too long
A list; I’ve neither words to say, nor thought,
Nor images with which I might prolong
My search for truth behind the precepts taught

By blind and willful guides with naught but lies
To offer. Truth is here, in you; through you
I see how I might be what men call wise;
Through you I see what gods have yet to view:

The One, in truest beauty, purest form,
All high and low existing indistinct,
Undifferentiated, though the swarm
Of flux and change would render truth extinct.

For you, I offer all and more than all,
Would gladly die, more gladly live your thrall.

The Lover to His Beloved (II)
I’d nothing render, nothing change, till you;
Now all things fade as background to your eyes,
Where I have learned to see, a world renew,
Connection to the source not theorize

But truly feel, a blinding light within,
A gnosis granted only on the terms
Of sacrifice, but joyous loss wherein
Myself I’ve truly found, and all affirm.

This wisdom does appear but foolishness,
But such that I’ll nor leave nor disavow,
For all the talk of should and ought has less
Sustaining than confining been, till now.

For now, in fear and trembling I have leapt,
And climb the ladder where all love has stepped.

The Lover to His Beloved (III)
I lack the faith required to mountains move,
But faith is needless when I see her eyes,
The light that shines therein, that love does prove
And lends me strength I’d not have otherwise,

Till mountains now move easily for her,
With all my former doubts and fears dispelled.
No thoughts can resolution yet deter,
For she has all my love now so compelled

That willingly I’ll pay the price required
To be with her. I’ll not pretend my heart
Is right, nor yet admit to sin, inspired
By beauty she alone can pure impart.

For every low and base thing I have been
Her love now burns, and gives me life again.

Than Not to Have Pleased Me Better
The fear of loss still dominates my heart
As I sell low to she who first will bid,
Still knowing no humiliation’s part
To which I’ll not submit for fear she’ll rid

Me from her life. I’ve nothing left to save
From her, despite the books I’ve made my shell,
For all I was went with her to the grave,
And what remains is hell, myself am hell,

Or fragments that I call myself in jest,
For I am nothing but the masks I wear,
A man for all occasions, framed as best
My skill with lies and counterfeit will bear.

What’s lost could yet be won, were life a game;
But all’s in earnest here where love brings shame.

The Secret Lover’s Lament
I’m weary being shunted to the side,
Still kept a fearful secret from your friends,
Who must not know you love me, lest they chide
And mock you for your love, so we pretend

To each not know the other when they’ll see,
Or chance to notice my stray glance, or yours.
I cannot even greet you, so decrees
The fear that binds and keeps our love indoors.

Am I worth nothing more than this? To lie
And hide in corners from my love’s reproof?
Are we to be deprived, and love belie,
For fear of gossip’s tongues to stand aloof?

I would be with you, and give all my heart;
You’ll not acknowledge me, but keep apart.

The Secret Lover’s Lament (Response)
I’ve never meant to hurt you, or deny
My love for you; I’ve just not known how best
To integrate my head and heart, or try
And find the balance in my life, attest

To truth and honor, lest my sore mistakes,
From fear of living life without a net,
Still chancing new and unexplored heartaches,
Might lead me to inflict more pain, in debt

To that which I would keep and own myself.
But I’ll no longer keep you in the dark,
Nor pose you as if hidden on a shelf,
For I do love, and will on love embark.

I love you more than I’ve had strength to prove,
But secrets now will bend to their remove.

End Game
The time has come for us to say goodbye;
Continuing with this pretense, this pale
And spectral mere existence would belie
Our claims to yet be living; though the veil

Between our worlds has grown translucent, thin,
Interpenetrating one another
Through cutting words, the blood we’ve spilled within
Has left us merely enmity, no other

Emotions yet remain alive in this,
Our fallow field, where thorns and thistles grow,
Things rank and gross, and otherwise amiss,
Possess it merely, stopping waters’ flow.

Whilst yet remembrance stores our former hearts,
Let’s say goodbye, preserve our better parts.

The Secret Lover's Lament (II)
What man dares take exception to our love?
What woman either, has the right to judge
Or mock us childishly, as if above
The common run of men, to neither budge

Nor yet be moved from their hard-hearted stance?
Why fear you to acknowledge me? For lack
Of their approval, lest they look askance
At us, unleashing jealousy's attack?

I cannot help but love you even so,
Regardless of the momentary pains
And complications to our love's fair show,
Though gossips' tongues would mar, yet love remains.

You ask me to keep patience, so I wait,
In hope that love will thrive, and be our fate.

The Note Too Late (II)
I will no longer be remembered here
Than time may yet require to heal the hurt
My presence has inflicted on my sphere
Of loves, or mere acquaintances, covert

Or openly acknowledged, as love should
Still be, and want to be, no matter who
Might disapprove, or judge, as if they could
Impose their moral judgments, make their view

Of ought and should be precepts for the world.
I would I had been different, more alive,
Or less afraid to live, but what I am,
I am. This cure will help my loves to thrive.

In absence hearts grow fond, and wounds may heal,
Till damage I have done will seem unreal.

The Secret Lover’s Lament (Final)
She worried I would break her fragile heart;
Preemptively, her fears have broken mine.
Although I loved her, she would stand apart,
Unwilling to acknowledge me in kind,

Though making promises she would not keep,
Assurances from which she’d back away,
It fell to me to prove my truth, then weep
As truth proved ineffective still to sway

Her heart from cold determination to
Inflict that pain she would herself avoid,
As though her past gave license to renew
Those pains she felt when lovers with her toyed.

I was not good enough her love to earn,
So I will walk away, though love still burns.

Young Lover, in Love with (an Unknown) Self
There lovers are for whom the world must bend
And genuflect before their fears and whims,
For all the world serves as mere dividend
To profit those whose feelings are as hymns

Still sung in churches of their self-regard,
Where services are nightly held in thrall
To ego and to vanity, though hard
And painful truths might lead them to the fall

Which necessary is for them to grow
Beyond their threadbare twenty-something lives.
Whence comes obsession when they’ll nothing know
Of who they are, or what they want to thrive?

We all were once in love with such a one,
And such a one have been, though now we’re none.

The Golden Rule, Not Followed
Do unto others as you’d have them do,
Treat other lovers as you’d have them love;
These are, perhaps, impossible, and few
Among our fellows chance to rank above

The rest. Hypocrisy or gentle will,
Are common to us all, though we’ll pretend
To naught but noble motives, hearts that fill
With joy at friends’ successes, still an end

Is reached where we would make exception for
Ourselves, and treat our friends and loves as toys
For our amusement, pain inflict, and sore
Confusion sow in those who’d keep their poise.

We hurt the ones we love, because they’re dear,
Still wounding those who most would hold us near.

Elegy (unrhymed)
You told me not to love you when I first
Pronounced the words; you did not want to hurt
Me, still uncertain of your heart and mind,
Unsure of your own worthiness—to love,

Or yet be loved. But did I listen? No.
I, later, thought you meant them when the words
Did finally come; “I love you” sounded sweet,
And I embraced that love like love, and would

Not wrong it, though too soon that love to fear
Transformed, and broken promises replaced
The simple truth, and heart once opened, closed
Up shop, while you more stiff and distant grew.

You once caressed, sent shivers through my skin;
But now a pillow feels your touch, not me.

The Note Too Late (III)
Though death would be a sweet release from pain,
I’ve lacked the courage yet to free myself;
I cannot go on with the meaningless
Mess that is my life, the wounds, betrayal,

And disappointment. All I’ve loved have gone;
All I’ve hoped has failed, with all my promise
Unfulfilled, and nothing left but failure
And threadbare lies, unnoticed by the herd

For whom I’ve ever been a deviant
From precious norms, inviolable precepts,
Unthinking prejudice, and common sense--
More common, madam, than we’d yet admit.

For healthy members of the herd would live,
While I can only dream of how to die.

Better to Reign

Here at least
We shall be free
--John Milton

The city breathes
with an occasional rattling cough;
natives no longer notice
bodies lying in empty warehouse doorways,
covered in cardboard and greasy rags,
invisible.

Southside nights crawl with the lowest caste;
young punks with double-digit IQ's,
their flannel shirts buttoned to the very top,
waiting for fresh meat at the A to Z Auto Wrecker
on the corner of Martin Luther King and Main,
Chupa mi Verga, Puta Blanca...Chinga tu Madre, Cabron...
angry, aging never-were's and angry, young never-will-be's
hanging out by Irish Spud Murphy's Gym on East Broadway,
dreaming Rocky dreams;
mechanically sexual women and men waiting for the new sailor-boys
in the neon-signed, electronic rip-off houses
and adult bookstores on West Broadway.

Steam rises from the streets,
like the City of Dis floating to the surface,
wisps of Pandemonium flowing in and out of the city's lungs,
a possessing spirit unnoticed by the sane.

Water of Life

White men with perfect Ward Cleaver surfaces,
obediently hair-sprayed wives,
well-beaten children in tow.
Sitting quietly in rows of bolted-down seats,
congregations wash
in the blood of lambs;
ancient martyrdom flows anew
flows without end to fill
repentance-drained tissues
parched by unquenchable need.

"We are nothing in His sight!"
thunders the choleric preacher
waving over-long arms
above a faintly sloping forehead,
railing against Darwinian heresies
for which his existence provides eloquent proof.
His flock laps greedily,
savoring each blood-drenched syllable
of exquisite accusation.

Reveries of death;
other people's death,
daydreams of fear;
other people's fear,
songs of war to a warrior God,
praying for glorious Armageddon
when He will make blood flow
as high as the bridles of horses.

Then shall the thirsty
thirst no more.

American Golgothic

Dried-out husk of a Midwestern industrial town.
Downtown, a mosaic of crumbling brick,
shattered windows, unlit signs,
unlit except for beer signs on bars,
one for every block it seems.
Catholic churches with grimy walls and fading doors
cast shadows between bars and dead factories.
Shift-work orphans stumble from pew to stool,
washing eucharist-dried throats with draws of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
Glassworks closed down,
leaving landscapes dotted with slagheaps,
fields strewn with broken bits of blue glass.
Neighborhoods shrink, become emptier as cemetaries expand;
death is a growth industry here, no pink slips, no layoffs.

My wife calls this her hometown.
Her father and brother lie side-by-side in St. Stephen's cemetary,
Father never left, killed by a heart attack at forty-five,
cheeseburger still on his breath;
brother escaped, only to die while visiting friends,
grinding pieces of himself into patiently waiting asphalt
of a road driven hundreds of times before.
In darkly superstitious, chimpanzee portions of my mind,
I wonder if our own visits tempt a family curse,
a carnivorous factory-town Baal
which can only be appeased with heart attacks and car wrecks.

We leave after a few minutes,
walking past strangers buried near the path.
I notice a heap of fresh dirt,
stop, show the stone to my wife
Jimmy Kolvacki, Beloved Son, 1977-1993--
after a moment she suggests we get root beer and cheese fries,
so we do.

Back to Vietnam

We rise with coffee at seven
sometimes as early as five—
blinking in bright, artificial sun.
Green dye soils floors, grows viscous, ugly,
feeding vegetal shift bosses who see
through Mammon's jealous eyes.

Jow sabadee boh? (How are you?)
I ask my companion as we set to work.
Sabadee, Jow?, he answers--(I am good, and you?)
Our call and response never changes,
as if these strange yet familiar cadences
could somehow quicken the slowly ripening clock.

Kykeo and I have spent five years together
stooping in the fields of this factory.
Silkscreeners—we till with wood and rubber
plowing green, pestilent ink
through mesh which is not silk.
Lies pay our bills—truth sets no one free.

Sometimes, out of nowhere
he stills, distance growing in his eyes.
Sudden noise breaks his stare;
he smiles, says, "Back to Vietnam."
Vietnam is code for daydream,
portable vision of deciduous Paradise.

He came here after Saigon,
bringing green cards, an infant daughter,
a wife who would soon bear a son.
Roots pulled by Ho Chi Minh's communists,
he spends lunches studying for citizenship tests,
absently swallowing rice and tea water.

At day's end our hands are stained with green;
we wash, but the color never fades entirely.
We pick up our checks, punch out as second shift punches in.
On nights off from his second job he leaves for home.
I drive to night classes, hoping to buy my ransom,
my escape from the green death stalking us hourly.

The Blues Made Flesh

A quartet plays Ellington at the Grand
breezing through the bars in 4/4 time,
sax blowing Mood Indigo through the room.
Players bend blue notes beneath the flesh tones
of a ceiling-high Rubens in pink Weatherbeater paint,
female nude with an ass for the ages,
round and unashamed.
For a moment the riffs of midrange sax,
throbbing bass and steady backbeat,
the ringing trebles of cymbals and wine glasses,
seem to fade . . .
It is an enormous ass,
from a time before starvation was fashion,
before Weight Watchers ruled the earth,
when beauty was relaxed and human.

The notes return, unhurried and silky-smooth,
Happy-Go-Lucky Locals playing the C-Jam Blues.
Brush strokes caress the rhythm
as the sax sings an old love-song
to a Satin Doll.

Bug Dance

Air was heavy as we danced at sunset,
a dozen holding out in joyful resistance
to parental calls: "Come inside, it's getting dark!"
Twilight brought sounds of insects
entymological etudes in E-flat—
songs of summer, high grass, and humidity.
Sometimes the musicians stopped for a drink,
leaving us with swellings to remember them by,
each maddening prepubescent itch
a harbinger of itches to come.

Carbon-arc lamps buzzed as the last light faded;
from up the street we could hear
the rumble of the bug truck.
Sickly-sweet odor and billowing clouds
of insecticide ascended
like glandular secretions from its rear tanks,
covering our neighborhood in a petrochemical fog.

We danced as pagan children behind the bug truck god,
laughingly pantomiming bug death,
spinning to the ground on childish wishes and chimerical wings.
Intoxicated,
we lay damp and spent in curbside grass,
mouths open, chests heaving,
swallowing with each breath
a floating malignancy, a gorgeous windblown cancer,
silently taking root in fertile lungs.

Factory

Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as heretofore:
let them go and gather straw for themselves.
And the tale of the bricks, which they did make heretofore,
ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish ought thereof:
for they be idle. . .
and the taskmasters hastened them, saying,
Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw.
And the officers of the children of Israel,
which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over them,
were beaten, and demanded,
Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in making brick
both yesterday and to day, as heretofore?

Room for one more, honey.

I.

The Factory feeds on the slow death
of its workers
Under vaporous nitrate skies
of cold flourescent suns
grey faces with lifelike hands
build cathedrals they cannot afford to enter

Motion is Survival
as silk-suited predators
search for signs of slackening

Grey faces remain set in correct expressions
bodies strain, rhythmic motion unbroken
still they linger,
nostrils searching air-conditioned currents
hunting for weakness

Signs on the wall proclaim
"Make two copies of your personal
production report
and turn them in before you leave."

More for Less
The Leader's new Five-Year-Plan

Tomorrow quotas will increase
someone will be too old or too slow
to keep up
Tomorrow there will be sacrifice
the Factory will go on

II.
Time

Time is warped
stretched beyond recognition
in the Factory

Eight hour days become
millenia
generations born

Turned to dust and forgotten
while clocks drag
each day's first hour

Grey faces race mechanically
against minutes
blind to passionless hours

Orders: In/out
send it through
always room for more

Mass production is everywhere
everytime
changing only form or location

Inside time stops
worlds cease to
exist

For bodies selling souls
by the hour in steel and concrete
secular hells

III.
Broom's Companion

Our keepers walk like kings
amongst peasants
with thinly stretched smiles
under guillotine eyes

Walking in pairs
checking human inventory
for defects

An old man
broom's companion
pushes slowly through the hall
catching their attention

Watching his labored movements
they nod
whispering skeletal secrets

Tomorrow the broom will have
a new companion

IV.
Music

Grey faces with lifelike hands
play the music of the Factory
synchronous dances of perpetual motion
appease the surveillant eye

The melody hollows
its captive audience
with C# screams from the drill press
Symphonies of steel shafts and diamond tips
piercing skulls
reaching soft flesh beneath
leaving animate husks implosive to the touch

V.
Eyes

Class society
divided into slaves
and centurions
production floor purgatory
from which there is no escape

Without unearned Grace
from second floor deities
well-dressed priesthoods
with cameras and viewscreens

To use the restroom bring your badge
slide the magnetic strip through the eye
identify yourself
smile for the camera
as you take your seat

Upper-Level Manager
(What does He do? no one knows)
patrols the employee lunchroom
gliding across the floor
in His wool-lined uniform
of sedentary privilige
Casting quick resentful glances
Profits tick away
as His human inventory refuels

VI.
Laughter

Demands to increase Work invariably
come from those who know only the word
Work leaves no room for laughter
There is no humor in the Factory
Slavery is
Deadly
Serious
Business

VII.
Cages

I pace back and forth
before their machine
trying desperately to become
unconscious

Time rests lightly
on unconscious minds

Hours/days/years bind me fast
to my white-tiled flourescent cage
air vents and sliding glass doors seal me in
with the steady hum of my hungry metal master
I look around and wonder
must the Others endure time
as I endure it?
Or do the hands spin for them?

Do they see
years of mass-produced sameness
dim outlines of waste
Futility
reaching out with leper's arms
claiming its children?

Do they endure as I endure?
8/10/12 hours/ 6 days a week
we trade life for money
faithfully feeding their machines
400 times a day/120,000 times a year
6,000,000 times a life
until new blood comes and washes us away

We wait
still making feeding motions
with feeble ghosts of hands

We carry the Factory inside us

VIII.
Dreams

Even in sleep
I hear its voice
harsh, metallic insistence
with the icy patience
of mechanical immortality

I see its face
newborn/child/woman/mother/crone
teachers herding each year's flock
student/worker/boss/retiree
pushed through the line
by tomorrow's fresh supply
always room for more

In every meaningless moment
behind every anonymous face
it waits
hollowing laughter
mocking life

Grinning shadows
giving the lie
to all our conceits

Man-made Deaths
of repetitive motion
reaching out
claiming us for their own
slowly embalming
still-beating hearts

We survive
We gain the world
while we lose our souls
What does it profit us?
We will never escape
We carry the Factory inside us

Tragically Hip

Death
and his apprentice
clad in stylish
black
leave the coffeehouse
pulling away in a black BMW
license number INBZ 469
alienated and nihilistic
but in luxurious
comfort

Evil

Evil
smiles white with gap-teeth
carpools
recycles
and gives to Jerry's Kids

Evil
likes its beer dry
football
halter tops
and backyard barbecues

Evil
loves white shirts on Sunday
front row seats
nods from the elders
and a black velvet Jesus

Evil
has every record
Elvis
ever made

Life Cycle

Young larvae
dreaming larvae dreams
playing out their zygote jealousies
in an amniotic sea
of boredom and futility

Adolescent larvae
sweet sugary angst
rebellions of style not substance
wild roving packs
of identical iconoclasts

Adult larvae
self-consciously "mature"
getting down to the serious business of
home
family
and furniture

Middle-aged larvae
existential clichés
sports cars and station wagons
flashy rings on fat fingers
slack-jawed recitals of
"I remember when..."

Old larvae
tracing diminishing spirals
in a foot square patch of dust
a big wide world
for a larva

Politically Correct

What I'd like to say:
Get in touch with your feelings
on somebody else's fucking time
get the fuck out of my face
No, you can't share something with me.
If you don't leave me alone I'll kick
your goddamned fucking ass.

What I actually say:
Oh, that's too bad.
Gee, you've really come a long way
to be able to share that openly with others.
You should be really proud of yourself.

The Marquis De Sade Enters Heaven

Talkin' 'bout Jesus always gets me hard.
My subtle serpent struggles to burst
from his Fruit-of-the-Loom Eden,
seeking to find his Eve.
I am breathless with talk of Heaven and Hell,
where demons in chains are whipped into ecstasy
by leather-clad, harp-playing angels.
Mistress Mary ties and tickles submissive saints;
frenzied latex slaves lick the Virgin's six-inch heels,
praying for a flick of the circumcising whip.
Quivering masses of Apostolic flesh
writhe with the agony of exquisite punishment,
as fiery coals are heaped onto gospel-laden tongues,
searing the sinless with sexual truth.

Midnight

Midnight’s bus roars and jerks its way
through the strange terrain of darkness
past sleepless havens
of blanketed solitude
liquor stores
all-night markets
rumbling through silent empty stretches
bright fluorescent lights
red white and blue interior
a deafening plastic and steel oasis
where lives intersect
on their way to nowhere
riding downward through the night
one block at a time

Genius sleeps on park benches
bleeding beneath battering hooves
Worn-out messiahs
gather stale loaves for imaginary flocks
caught in the undertow
of asphalt tides
fighting anonymity
for breath without memory
memory without pain
flowing downward through the night
one death at a time

Love sleeps safely in unreachable dreams
her warm body stirs while I lie
listening
waiting
feeling my heart grow weaker
with each passing moment
counting my remaining store—I close my eyes
falling downward through the night
one night at a time

Dance with Yesterday

Shall we dance
even though we wear stranger’s faces
grey rheumatic eyes
peering through the bars of these
aging flesh prisons
too unfamiliar now to be
the half-forgotten objects
of uncertain reminiscence

Shall we dance
celebrate memories
unshared and unreal
all that is left of us
slowly turning
before yesterday’s dimly lit mirrors
cherishing our soft reflections
while there is still time

Shall we dance
cast off present chains and escape
into imaginings of
places we never touched
faces we never were
filling memory’s gaps
with ghostly images of desire

Shall we dance with yesterday
while tomorrow’s end lingers
just beyond fading senses
waiting for us to grow weaker
dance...dance...dance...

                            DI
                            NN
                            ER
                     WITH THE
                            D
                            E
                            A
                            D

                  The slow death
              of polite conversation;
      evening symphonies of eye contact,
      smiling and nodding in correct places
    Middle-age people who died at seventeen
         imagining lives that exist only

                 IN MEMORY

   What happens to our laughter, our spirit?
  We reach nesting age, reproduce, and wait
      Surviving through faded reminiscence,
          pale forests of soft-focus images;
      They just don’t make `em like they used to

The Closet

The closet was small with no light
but plenty of room for clothes
toys
and all the imaginary treasures
of an eight year old boy

It was dark
musty
and silent

When I outgrew my Teddy bear
I stored him in the closet
next to my new guitar

When my family moved away
the last thing my father did
was paint the inside of the closet
to cover the blood I left there
begging him to let me out

Leaving

Mornings start at eight in Oncology.
White-tiled floors reflect fluorescent ceilings.
Gaunt figures shuffle, painfully exposed;
X-rays, CAT-scans, probing eyes and needles
sink deep into no-longer-private flesh.
Lead-lined rooms descend five floors below ground;
elevators carry new hopefuls down,
lift the hopeless to the sunlit surface,
back to worlds of as-yet unrecognized,
undiagnosed, untreated slow collapse.

Twelve years we have waited for her to die;
through thirteen months of chemotherapy
hair loss, wigs, trips to Naval hospitals
—dying became her primary weapon,
Damocletian sword on fragile threads.
Remission went quietly unspoken;
death crouched always around the next corner.
Sunken-eyed stares, quiet accusations,
we had made her sick, we were killing her,
killing with childish disobedience.

Leaving was a mutinous betrayal.
I know because my family tells me so,
or did, when they were still speaking to me.
One sister still writes occasionally;
“Mom yelled at me for two hours today.”
She dreams of escape, old at seventeen;
poets, rock stars, and other messiahs
protect her in the psychiatric wards,
the churches, of our Mother’s lingering
death.

Carnival of Saints

Dying colors cling to darkening skies.
Inhibitions fade,
orange, purple, black.
Whispers: Do what thou wilt,
eat, drink, and be merry,
for tomorrow we will die.

All Hallows in Bohemia;
neighbors celebrate pride,
luscious fishnet costumes
unchain shadow selves
daily closeted behind orthodoxy,
released, outed in annual revelry.

Gauze-wrapped Jesus glides over fast-flowing streets,
absolving passers-by of sins
hastily finished,
or not yet imagined,
bearing gifts of latex and oil,
loaves and fishes for his faithful flock.

Iron-pumped cheerleaders,
nylon hair and soft rubber breasts,
turn cartwheels for red-light traffic,
flashing bright blue pom-poms,
well muscled thighs,
amid symphonies of horns and laughter.

Cat-people prowl in tight black vinyl,
trailing smoke and conversation,
following sidewalk-shaking bass riffs
to the Brass Rail or the Flame,
dissolving into music,
enveloped by night.

Salvation in Beeville, Texas

Polyester-clad disciples shuffle wing-tips and high heels
across unyielding cement,
ritually encircling the Motel-6 swimming pool.
Sweating flesh hidden behind soon-to-burst seams,
straining collars and tightly-fixed smiles,
hints of hair spray and dime-store cologne
mingle with southern-accented prayer.

One by one lambs are led to water;
swimsuits and bathing caps
step down into the pool,
held firmly by ministerial hands,
“Are you ready?” “Yes.”
Plunging beneath anointing liquid,
chlorinated to wash away algae and sin.

Climbing out shorn, wrapped in blankets of humidity,
newborns cast glowing-eyed gazes,
welcomed by Brothers and Sisters,
fellow slaves in the Lord
who take up the cross in summer storms,
praying for salvation,
watched over by legions of mosquitoes and dragonflies.

Letter To An Orphaned Friend

Sorry to hear that your Father died.
No I’m not—I always thought he was a jerk,
a wife-beating, child-terrorizing monster
poisoned by obedience
and a lifetime of fear.
I pity him, though.
Hypocritical, isn’t it?
To empathize with the dead, hated in life?

From what you’ve told me of his existence
(life seems too generous a term
to apply to the sort of knee-scraping drudgery you described)
I couldn’t have survived it.
He wanted to be a country singer;
he was no Tower builder,
no Ziggurats scraped the heavens of his south Texas imagination,
his mother wouldn’t allow it.
That was the story of his life, wasn’t it?
His mother, then later his wife—
an Oedipal project gone horribly wrong,
a new mother by his own hands—
wouldn’t allow anything deviating
from the words of Christ in red.

Your grandmother, a hymn-book-toting Nurse Ratched
with chapter-and-verse Thorazine,
beat him into submission with her dog-eared bludgeon
for sixty-seven years.
When the end came, she stood by his bedside so he could spend
his last moments under her watchful eye.
Devout dominatrix—she rejoiced in his subjection;
“The day of his death is better than the day of his birth,
for he has made a good name with God.”
He died with her umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.
He had never really lived,
but you know that doesn’t excuse him
for making you his human urinal.

Don’t forgive.
Understand, grieve, but don’t forgive.
Turning the other cheek is just an invitation.

Love is the only Law

Love is the only Law
Obey
follow orders
do what you are told

Believe
in God
in Man
because you are taught
you must

Do not question
or cause trouble
die confidently
in the assurance of virtue

Between the Lines

Parallel Time
stretches into diminishing
sameness
Its lines narrow
like roads in the distance
squeezing living spaces in between

We move between the lines
always
between narrowing lines

Obeying orders
doing the right thing
keeping up appearances
between the lines

Loves/struggles/mercies/justice
glorious infamies
sacraments for eyeless gods
unmoved before unseen tears
always
between narrowing lines

Gradually more compact
lives receding
we move with purpose
without remembering why

Near the end
one at a time now
pressed forward by relentless crush
from generations behind
no answers
for some—no questions

Ever obedient
unquestioning
unaware
herding through the narrowing lines
each in turn
to the blade and hook

The first thing is to cut off the feet

Masada

When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies
know desolation is near
let those in Judea flee to the mountains
I have remembered my covenant
and I will redeem you

In stone citadels rising above the Dead Sea,
words no longer comforted,
prophets could not save,
faith was vanity before Rome’s Tenth Legion.

Hundreds escaped to this mountain,
fleeing a dying city;
rivers of blood washed over its aqueducts,
released from Judean veins by Roman steel.
Three years refugees endured behind walls,
the last feeble resistance.
Husbands, wives, children,
imploring Him not to forget His promise,
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Three years without answer,
Zealots stalled inexorable Legions
who would drag corpses through obedient streets
as examples.
Hundreds fought to ransom one last season,
begging Him to remember.

There is where their weeping
and gnashing of teeth shall be.
My God, my God,
Why have you forsaken us?

Prayers became tears, tears turned to screams,
grief-shocked mothers held children fast,
“It won’t hurt if you don’t move.”
Fathers’ swords thrust quickly through
infants gored on the altar,
surrendered to mercy.

Pillars of flesh
caressed for the last time,
wives stood composed,
suddenly penetrated by phallic steel,
fucked to death on the altar
of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The men chose ten from among themselves
to kill all who remained.
The ten chose one.
The one watched sanctuary walls burn,
roamed among bodies
making sure no one suffered,
then fell on his sword
howling the name
of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Listening to the Laughter of the Masses at 3 A.M.

I’ve heard all the usual platitudes:
dying is nothing to be afraid of,
death is the natural ending of life.

I worry about the minor details,
how I will look when the paramedics
find me, slumped, pants down around my ankles,
cheekbone cracked against men’s room graffiti,
the aneurysm that I never knew
I had, introducing itself to me
after a Denny’s Hearty Man breakfast.

Will my last sights be a wrinkled shirt sleeve,
crudely sketched fantasies of penis size,
for a good time call—unreadable name,
half-empty toilet-paper dispensers,
rapidly rising tiles, sudden darkness?
Or will needles and registered nurses
be the final companions of old age? 

Rains come and people die.
Storms destroy without thought,
without malice,
because that is what storms do.
Nature’s beauty is a thin-crusted mask
covering a face of power, violence, indifference.
Nature does not cherish individuals;
the weak die now—the strong die later.

Killers suspect the truth.
Violence shatters masks,
recreates them in nature’s image;
but the mimicry is imperfect,
retaining a human touch.
Murder satisfies.
Nature cannot be satisfied,
is not appeased by blood or worship.

Flood waters recede, volcanoes cool, tremors still,
but nature gives no permanent quarter.
Thorough, untiring, infinitely patient,
the mask of beauty is restored
while the daemonic face turns elswhere—for the moment.
Consuming.
Ravaging.
Cherishing nothing.

Restless intellect refuses to be
imprisoned
easily fascinated
easily bored
its captives rail against
cast-iron prisons
no one else can see

We fear them
or perhaps more simply
we misunderstand

The eggheads
the know-it-alls
viewed with a curious mixture
of respect and resentment
we ask their opinions
hiding a bemused contempt
laughing to reassure ourselves

We minimize their threat
by locking them away
from the healthy flock
in colleges, bookstores, coffeehouses
and literary magazines
no one reads

Nursing homes for the Bell Curve set

We

Bright shining lies
covering faces like masks
hiding lives spent in fear
nodding
smiling
eyes furtively moving
checking to see
that masks have not slipped
concealing their own disbelief
revealing the disbelief of others
at once keepers and kept
cameras keeping watch on cameras

Ashes to Dust

Because I will never be
the son my mother knew
I keep his memory alive
with smiles and evasions
living a lie
Ashes to dust

Because I will never be
the man I once dreamed
I retreat into interiors
of windowless silence
Sending a shell
through the motions
of a defeated life
Ashes to dust

Because I will never have
the eternity I was promised
Time preys on me
waiting patiently
for me to stumble
Ashes to dust