Good God,
you don’t have to be
right about everything
to have the right
to live!
My different opinion
isn’t a
death threat,
you don’t have to kill
me before I kill you.
Let me add
another color to
your life,
let me add
another note
to your song.
You don’t have to be
the sun and moon;
let me be the moon.
I can’t bear
living under the
dictatorship
of your insecurity.
Be strong.
Then you won’t need
to crush me.
I’m no scorpion,
no cobra on your floor.
I’m just different.
Our minds could
work so well together,
they could fit together perfectly
like the day and night,
we could be everything the
world needs
if you’ll just let me
be myself,
not bully me
into being you
with those gunshot eyes,
those prison-sentence silences.
We could have a beautiful life,
one half you
and one half me,
your mind,
and my mind.
Disagreement is what makes
the sun shine,
one half falling inwards,
which is the trigger of the light,
one half glowing outwards,
which is
the resurrection
that binds the star to life.
Disagreement is
the secret path
to unity.
One thought only
starves the truth,
and it kills love,
too.
I love you
and your mind,
even in is wild travels
off the map
of my own wound-learned knowledge.
I love you enough
to stay,
to let things I don’t believe
seep into the soil
of maybe,
to think again
for your sake,
to reconsider
the law of gravity.
But give me space
to disagree with you;
my mind is sacred,
don’t put bars in its windows,
don’t pit yourself
against my eyes’ right to see.
Don’t you know?
You are like a mountain:
you’ll still be standing
after the rain of doubt
has fallen over you.
You’ll still be great,
even if
you’re proved wrong.
Give me room.
Let me breathe.
Don’t live with your back
always to the wall,
threatened by
every thought that doesn’t bow
down to your
perception.
You don’t have to be a God
to be beautiful;
to be wise;
to be loved;
to be alive.
People of glass.
People of glass kill.
If you are made of glass,
everyone else seems like a
stone.
You walk around
afraid of being broken.
You are only safe
in an empty world.
People of glass kill.
They raze the fields of life
with their fear,
they turn the earth into a
void
so that there is nothing left to bump into,
they cover their
murderous fragility
with the costume of strength,
they
strut like roosters
to hide their
worm souls.
People of glass.
People of glass kill.
They conquer nations
so they do not
have to face themselves.
They bury generations
because they are afraid
of shattering.
People of glass.
People of glass kill.
They set the world
marching
to defend their delicate
glass bodies,
glass minds,
glass hearts,
glass souls,
they dig up iron
to destroy iron,
borrow wombs
to fill their machines
to reap the crop
of love
to throw into the fires
of hate,
they eclipse
the heart
of the world
with shadows
cast by their frailty,
they bring emptiness
to the world,
emptiness which is the
refuge,
the heaven
of glass.
People of glass.
People of glass kill.
People of glass.
We die for people
of glass.
People of glass kill.
I won’t break.
For a few nights or
years
you can own me,
till the wind
calls me back,
till I hear the
sacred spirit
in the trees
talking with their leaves,
telling me that I can’t leave.
Then I’ll leave you.
Because I can’t leave.
It’s stronger than you.
It’s stronger than you.
I’m not stronger than you,
but it is.
I’m leaving
the dark formation.
Something about
where you’re going,
how it feels,
I can’t go on.
I’m tipping my wing,
and veering off
into the open blue,
into the wild free sky
where the sun is dancing
and the clouds are waiting
to wash away
the sins
of anyone
who dares to be swallowed
by them.
Somewhere,
far away,
birds are calling,
and my aching metal plane
longs to follow them,
to shed its might
and immortality
for one moment
singing
in their midst.
The following poem was written after an encounter with an insect in the bathroom, who I decided to kill. It was at a time of high alarm about the West Nile Virus, and I decided to take no chances. At the same time, my eyes were in very poor shape that morning, and my vision was unclear.
I am making decisions
with unclear eyes.
They’re the only eyes I have.
It looks like a mosquito on the wall,
the kind that could make you sick.
But is it?
I just can’t see.
Which means it might be.
So now it will die -
because of my unclear eyes?
Don’t carry the
weight of
every dark
thing
on your
shoulders -
don’t carry the
madness of
dog-eat-dog
evolution,
your crocodile ancestry,
harmony based
upon
murder,
beasts eating their
way to the top,
the writhing zebra
beneath the lion’s
claws
and the vultures
waiting;
all the mind of the spider
channeled into the killing web,
genes of exploitation,
carnivorous constructions,
skyscrapers
spitting onto slums,
slaves in chains,
a thousand ways to rape,
the price of jewels,
nations locked into
the prison of a diamond,
street children sniffing
the glue that
holds nothing
together,
the darkness
where the light
of the few
is made,
the disemboweled sun,
the poison sunset,
forests of stumps
crying black smoke to God,
green dying without a father,
plagues hidden in
love,
books that aren’t written,
and books that can’t be read,
the crypts beneath
the fountains,
mountains of laws
that are nothing more than
the urine of the strong
marking territory;
laws of dreams
(the flowers of the heart
above the mud) in tatters;
running from the tools
of torture
and wondering if
one is as guilty
as the hooded men
for not hanging
from their wall,
if the only path to brotherhood
is death;
dances of the soul
loaded
to the breaking point,
the sound
of millions groaning
swept under the rug
by callousness,
or by sensitivity;
burning,
dying,
madness everywhere
you have not
trained your eyes
not to look,
the spirit of
pulling out an insect’s wings
in search
of a philosopher,
in search of fine clothes,
giant dark
wheels turning
without a
lever, without a
switch;
looking and not finding
a way
to turn them off,
just listening
in the night
for centuries
and wanting to adopt
a thousand orphans
though your crippled room
is already
too small for you.
Don’t carry it, brother.
Don’t carry the weight
of every dark thing on
your shoulders.
Even God can’t carry it.
Even God had to find
some beauty in the ruins
to soothe his
wounded heart,
which is all
the Universe.
Even God needed
to turn his back on
pain,
for just a moment,
and be alone with joy.
To let the wars rage
and hide inside
a flower.
One good man is a start.
Who can carry the world?
Carry yourself.
And let a bit of happiness
keep you
from crumbling.
Please help a door of
light
to open in this sky of
black,
please help my heart to
live again.
Please translate these hot burning
tears that have
emptied me of
youth’s sweet dreams
into the language of the vision
I waited for
forever.
Just one glimpse,
just one night,
just one season
to blossom,
just one sign
that the orphan has a mother,
somewhere,
that every now and then
a trace of love
called regret
still binds her
to him,
the most unwanted child,
saves him from
utter aloneness,
from the unforgiving void
that has seeped into his soul
like cold rain
leaking into a house
with a broken roof;
please
light the match of love,
even if there is no candle
or lantern
to hold it,
even if it is just one dying
flash in the
night, fizzling out
at the very moment of its birth,
let it illuminate
a face that cares
in its vacillating, doomed glow
before the swarming hungry
shadows shut it down.
Then I’ll know
that the night
contains love,
that the pain
contains something beautiful,
that the long dark road
was not in vain,
that though it came from
nowhere
and led nowhere,
there was still something
that mattered
on the way.
I can’t afford to live
in this darkness every day.
I can’t afford to live
in this blackness every day -
in this night without a day.
I can’t afford
to live this way,
without a sunrise.
I’m going to have to take charge
of this empty world,
just like God,
I’m going to have to make it
all over again
with my need to be happy.
Let there be light!
Let the seas be filled with fishes
and the land be filled
with animals
and the skies
be filled with winged singing multitudes.
Let there be man
and woman, let there be love,
let there be light.
Nothing - it
forces you to be
a magician;
otherwise,
you’ll just go down
like the arctic sun
without ever rising.
Nothing - it
forces you to
conjure up spells
from your loneliness,
to pull white rabbits
out of the blackest hat.
You can make
joy.
When it’s not there
you can make it.
When you have to.
When you’re all alone
in a prison cell
you can
search out
the tiny spider
who is sure to be hidden
in the corner,
for her
it’s not a prison cell,
it’s a world.
You can watch her
and let her become your eyes.
You can let the tiny
miraculous web
she spins,
that intricate thread
like jewelry made
of herself,
give your
life back to you.
You, too, can spin
such fantasies,
such new ways
of looking at
things,
turn a prison cell
into a universe
when you have to.
And the time has come
in my life
to leave behind my sense
of justice,
my sense of what the world
has done to me,
and to accept
the bullethole
in my body
as my world,
more real than right or wrong;
and to give up this agonizing
motherhood
of dreams,
this unbearable pain
of carrying unborn children
nowhere.
To let what will be
surround me,
to breathe what will be
and what does not come
from me.
No, the fuel of desperation
has burned up all the time
I had to make myself
believe.
Hope is cruel to those
who find nothing
behind its door;
and the bars in the way
are bleeding me
to death.
Until I can find life
inside the prison,
I will have no life
with which
to fight for life.
Until I can make this
darkness shine,
I will never see.
Until I can find the infiniteness
within my tiny cell,
I will never have room
to move,
to change.
I used to think that hating
captivity
was the only way
I could escape from it.
I lived where I wanted to be,
I only came to where I was
as a way of trying to leave it.
But you can only look
outside the prison window
for so long
before the vision outside the window
begins to crush you;
before it turns from friend
to foe,
before its green hills
begin to destroy you.
And looking outside the window,
you begin to die.
It is as if you had torn the heart
from your body,
and put it where you
were not.
And who can live
without his heart,
beating in his chest?
Who can live without
blood flowing through the veins
of where he actually is?
A stone in your hand
has the power of a mountain
that is far away.
In prison,
that is an important thing to remember.
Sometimes there is no sunrise.
Only an act of will.
Let there be light!
Let there be light!
Let there be life!
Even here,
in prison.
Saturn said
not now
not yet.
You’ll wear me like a
heavy chain
all the way to liberty:
the son of pain
that bears wisdom.
You’ll be my
grandchild,
flowering after
a generation of
dreams
has been broken
by your heart
wanting
what it can only destroy
by not
being ready.
I’ll make you ready,
and you’ll hate me
for every inch
I make you grow.
But I won’t let you fail
by giving it to you
early:
when it comes
you’ll know what it
is,
and you won’t let it fall.
Success is a gift;
not having it
makes it a treasure.
Your lost time,
your years of dying
will make
it beautiful,
you’ll know how to hold it,
how to keep it from breaking,
after
I’m through
with you.
Saturn said
not now
not yet.
You’ll serve my purpose.
Without understanding yet,
seeing only the pieces
of the puzzle
that hurt the most.
I’ll give you
the defeats
victory is made of.
You’ll serve my purpose.
For now,
my weight
must crush what’s left of
your frivolity,
your ego,
I don’t give such things
to people
who fear to spread
everything they are
like seeds
from a golden flower.
I’ll ride on your back
till your fear eats through
itself, to fearlessness,
till the color of everything
that held you back
is faded,
till you finally stand alone
with nothing left to live for
except what I want.
Which is what they need:
the reason
you are here.
Saturn said
not now
not yet.
Your wasted energy must die,
used up by mistakes,
your deafness must find its way
to listening,
I’ll make sound
be the only way out
until you can hear.
I’ll make her beautiful,
and whisper another country
in her ear.
I’ll make your talent shine
and cover it over.
I’ll put out your lights,
the ones you are living for,
so the bombs of you getting it too soon
won't be able to find you.
I’ll make your heart as big
as the sea,
and I’ll give it a pond-sized hole
to live in.
I’ll make you curse God.
Screaming at the night,
you’ll find yourself,
one day after the last straw.
Saturn said
not now
not yet.
Soon.
The pain
is almost enough.
Saturn said
not now
not yet.
Soon.
The soon that looks the same as never.
But it's not.
It's the soon you need.
The one that will only come
after you should have stopped
believing in it.
Saturn said.
Great Saturn said...
On seeing a small sapling that had begun to grow in a yard.
Young tree
they won’t ever
let you be
taller than that.
There’s the God
of the block
lying face down
in a pool of blood.
The road of drugs,
the 9 mm road,
only goes so far.
The beautiful women
scattered
like a flock of crows
when the shot
was fired,
but now
they just came back
to roost
in the tree
that was never you.
It was always just
the tree.
And your favorite song is going by
now
in some other gangster’s
car.
‘Cause it was never you.
It was always just
the tree.
Who was going
to love you
if even you
couldn’t,
if even you
didn’t?
And it was never you.
It was always
just the tree.
On seeing some people handling a cape, in the manner of bullfighters, during a party.
Their capework.
It was nothing.
Because there was
no bull.
All the beauty
of their imaginary passes,
all their skill
and brilliance
was empty;
it was nothing
next to your simple survival,
your penniless grace,
your invisible unbowed soul.
Because you faced the bull.
The horns
of an unfair life,
the dark power of
the injustice
they let run wild
passed within inches
of your heart.
You stood your ground.
You didn’t give up anything,
though they never saw you,
never praised you.
No, you didn’t
turn the cape
like them - the ones who got all the cheers.
But you were with a bull.
They weren’t.
The rock
takes it.
Another day
it doesn’t break.
The rock
takes it.
You think:
"It’s a rock.
Of course it takes it."
You don’t know
all the things that go on
inside a rock.
You don’t know
what a rock is.
It’s not just something hard
that doesn’t feel.
It’s a pain
you’ll never know.
It’s wanting to break into a million pieces
every minute
just like glass,
but somehow not.
It’s feeling every blow,
but hanging on.
It’s trying to find a reason to go on,
and going on
anyway.
It’s a tidal wave
of crying
you’ll never see,
a whole invisible disaster zone
that won’t let its blood come out,
because there’s no one there
who cares,
and nothing between
strength and weakness.
It’s wondering
if the sun will rise
but deciding to rise up
with or without it.
It’s taking a vow
not to let it all end
on one’s knees,
not knowing why.
(Why does the moon
come up in the night?
It just does.)
It’s dying every day
without anyone else knowing,
yet going on after death,
like a spirit that won’t leave
the house,
faithful to something
that never had a chance.
It’s being killed by injustices which
others don’t even know exist,
but always coming back
from beyond the grave,
like a wave of the Universe
that has to make it
to the shore
one last time,
to say "No!"
It’s staying
in spite of everything,
because otherwise
what would be here?
The rock
takes it.
Another day
it doesn’t break.
The rock
takes it.
You think:
"It’s a rock.
Of course it takes it."
You don’t know
all the things that go on
inside a rock.
An allusion is made to WB Yeats' poem "The Rose Tree", which remembers Ireland's fallen from the Easter Rebellion of 1916.
It’s not me.
It’s the place I hold,
just like the men of old.
The fortress of my kind
guards the most beautiful part of
life
and cannot be allowed to fall:
or else mankind falls,
its proud spark lost,
its fire dead,
its flimsy justification
before the court of night
dwarfed by its sins,
and by madness
that no wild beast
would stoop to,
each being within its role
while we, alone, are
outside of ours,
on the bottom
of the tallest ladder.
It’s not me.
It’s the place I hold,
just like the men of old
who came and went
sometimes with a noose about their neck
or a bullet in their heart,
spit upon or left behind,
yet they were the last light left
in the deepest dark,
and what kept the human
soul and mind
from failing
with every triumph of a fool.
I won’t desert my post
in honor of the greatness
of what they did,
I’ll cherish the unhappiness
that comes from seeing the tower
not lived in,
I’ll fight on for the highest
part of this wreck
called history.
I’ll step into the line
where my brothers fell,
the ones who
inspired my child’s eye by standing
up to the storm
with their own storm of beauty,
dooming them, as it turned the heart
of each into a star,
shining forever in the darkened sky
where dreamers look
to find what’s left of life,
which is what it could be
and has never been;
I’ll fill the gap
of the ones who fell giving birth
while all the rest of the earth
was barren,
the ones who brought forth another noble generation
to live among villains;
the ones who
watered the rose bush
with their blood.
It’s not me.
It’s the place I hold,
just like the men of old.
What I do or don’t isn’t in my hands,
and my life or death matter little,
I’m just a man;
my time is not mine,
but belongs to my kind,
to the strand of color God preserves
in this wilderness of gray,
through us:
which is the only reason
we should not crawl
back into the sea
and vanish,
banished by the sacrilege
of our misunderstanding.
So let fear fade,
let destiny roll me over,
let me join the beautiful ones,
more beautiful than angels because
they had no wings.
Let me be nothing
if need be,
throw everything that is not
great away,
even if greatness
is lost in the eyes of others
by doing so;
let me live true
to the constellation that is above,
and lose the battle of the dirt,
if need be let me die,
another one,
to keep the wheel of hope
turning,
to light up one more child’s eyes
with an unbroken life
and worthy dream,
a lesson that it can be done,
that sometimes "lost" is "won"
when it saves
the soul of the unborn
and keeps Paradise from
deserting the imagination
of the damned.
It’s not me.
It’s the place I hold,
just like the men of old.
I am a part,
not ME,
just a part,
and the battle
cannot destroy me;
only running
from the battle.
I am mankind’s shining hem,
a bridge between the heroes of yesterday
and tomorrow’s unfolding prey,
I am the one
who keeps the sun moving
towards the day,
I am a place,
a post,
a position,
not a man,
I am a fortress that must be held,
a part of the Universe
that must be lived and felt
in order not to die,
a crown of fire
that will blacken and
atrophy,
if not worn well,
though it burn the head
of hope
with visions that bring forth
all the fears of Hell,
unleashed by the weak:
all the terrible power of mediocrity
which always seeks
the pit,
the lowest hole
in which to build its city.
I am not a man,
not a ME who can be killed,
I am a post,
not to be deserted,
an opening to receive
the hope of the world,
God’s dawn,
and let it flow through me
into the belief
of those who the darkness
seeks to crush
by hiding everything that is not
itself.
I am a window
in the darkened room
to disprove
the truth of the night
with the truth of the day.
It's not me,
but what I let in.
I am the son of Pearse,
who watered the rose bush
with his blood -
not free from fear,
but so in love
with the stars that will not give up
nor come down from above,
that I must yield to the destiny
of this sacred post,
to the fortress of my kind, and
surrender the ME that would run away,
to stand here, dying
with my brothers,
till the end of time.
Fairy-haunted paths,
mountains of green,
misty dawns
and surf of the sea,
sacred land
of ancient dreams,
I ran from you
and you drew back
from me.
Why did I do it?
Why did I leave?
What was it that her heart’s
harp did to me?
I still see her braids
and her blushing cheeks
beside the palace of the life
I did not seek.
And now it haunts me
this emptiness,
this heritage I found
and then just left.
A soul so familiar
it would have let me in
if I had only knocked on the door
of Ireland.
The sad and moving history
that’s in every wood,
in every meadow, and by every
stone understood.
The history of visions
and poetry,
of freedom’s spirit
and liberty.
And now it just asks:
Who is he?
Fairies and gold
and fireplaces,
nighttime stories
of the ancient races
and ruins of hallways
where some lost king paces,
and pieces of memory
in village faces.
As crushed fruit
leaves sweet juice
in the mouth of man,
so slain heroes
leave beautiful songs
all over the hills
of Ireland.
They wake me from sleep,
and rouse me to stand:
To show the world
what Irish blood
does in a man.
And mystics, they say,
of yesterday,
who died and left with
the olden ways,
remain as true
as life and fate
if you will not betray the morning mist,
nor believe too much
in the light of day.
O Ireland, O Ireland
how could I forget?
You’re just a tiny island
- and yet -
My life’s tied to you
like cords to a harp.
When the wind blows over you
it moves my heart.
My love was broken
but my plume stood high,
alone on the hilltop
I vowed to die.
My proud spear sought
an enemy to fell me.
Because birds can flee,
I burned my wings
the way you burned
my heart.
As low as you
made me feel,
inversely tall I stood
to take the arrow well.
Most men die
while they're still alive,
and persist pitifully as ghosts
beneath the shadow
of false thrones.
Not I.
I vowed to be a
proud corpse;
stolen from love, no
king could make me cower.
You gave me courage
by leaving me nothing but
a hilltop
in the cold wind,
a final battleground
to wreak havoc upon myself
for the sin
of losing you.
Proud of my darkened heart's silhouette
in the twilight of
your absence -
proud of the blood
I still had to give,
that you would not
stay for -
I vowed to be a hero:
because there was no longer
any reason
not to be.
Love,
true love,
in this world
is as rare
as a unicorn.
There may
only be
narwhals.
Love,
true love.
There was you.
There was me.
There was
waking up.
Pain factory
is open,
production's at
an all-time high,
everything pain can
make,
from poems to
songs is coming out.
There are a hundred beautiful
things
you can do with
tears.
Pain factory's
open,
building a new world
from the ground up.
Towers of anguish
fleeing from down
can only
go up,
soon Weeping
will reach God.
Pain factory's
open,
no sunshine sleeping
here,
a whole new world's
being born.
One day
maybe
what your crying's made
will be enough.
Snow will come again
to make the earth white.
After this long wait,
snow will come again.