FALLING OFF LOVE’S CLIFF
Poems are not objective, they are subjective and many times wildly inaccurate. Poems are not fixed objects in the sky, they are soul photographs of emotional moments, photographs of feelings that sometimes succumb to their very opposite. Poems are impulses that take a creative form: those that are followed and those that are rejected. They are cities lived in and roads not traveled. They are decisions in the making, competing choices. Their words are not binding in the court of God, nor do they reflect the final judgments of the one who writes: the one whose vacillation, whose confusion of love and fury, is a path to understanding himself. Honesty is the poet’s strategy for survival; and honesty reflects his own inner world more than it does the characters and situations which wander into the path of his pen. Apologies, in advance, are therefore given to any of the mystery people who may feel that they are but grist for his mill. Their reality lies beyond him, their innocence cannot be compromised by an inspiration, their impact is neither "good" nor "bad", it is sacred and a part of the divine texture of life. Blessed be all those who came close enough to be distorted by the poet’s art!
If you have come to this page from "Poetry Preface", you may return via the link provided. Following are the poems of JRS XIV ("Falling Off Love's Cliff"):
Wounded Man In A Hole (Lyrics)
I can’t help myself.
I breathe fire
I burn down hearts
I ruin lives
just by being alive.
Writing on my skin.
A mistake
or not a mistake,
just too much,
and there it is,
a cut,
a word you left
on my skin.
A burn,
a story
given to
my
body-paper.
Thoughts and feelings
all over me.
Life used me
like a clay tablet
to engrave
the world
in this soft skin
that’s not felt you
for ages.
And then,
there’s the writing
of new skin,
the pen of
life
forgetting,
healing,
covering over,
the amnesia of flesh
growing towards a
new light.
Or was it just too much?
And someone new
will look at my naked
unmarked skin
and never know.
You won’t be there.
And we’ll live the lie.
Because life
is that strong,
when death is the only
other answer.
One day she’ll see
that’s it’s not
my insect/god eyes
of many lenses
that’s where she comes from,
the many worlds
that I see;
nor the throne
upon which
her sister sits,
nor comparisons
nor books of law
shaped like hearts,
but trapped by rules.
Somewhere
beyond expectations,
beyond security,
she’ll understand,
she’ll stop bleeding.
What bird
is afraid of falling?
What fish
is afraid of drowning?
She’s too great
for my migrating eyes
to destroy,
as long as she
doesn’t put her crying self
outside the door
into the dark.
She won’t need me.
She won’t need
the God, or the
thief.
She won’t have
to curse the sky,
she’ll be the sky.
And she won’t have to break me
by breaking,
she’ll be indestructible.
Once she stops looking
at my eyes
and lets her eyes
be the ones
that tell her
who she is.
Truth will save her
and set me free.
Love won’t become hate.
Winter will be beautiful,
not cold.
Guilt.
Did I stab myself?
Did she stab me?
Did I destroy what I loved?
Or did it destroy me?
Is her pain
my crime,
or her weapon?
Whose blood is it
on the floor?
Was it the beast in me
or the angel
who fell in love
with the night’s
brightest star?
Was it treachery
or enlightenment?
Now, everywhere I go,
I must walk on roads
of broken glass,
her deadly tears
that kill me
with the difference
between the me
she dreamt of
and the me who was;
the me who she
built a temple to,
and the me
who God forgot to
finish;
the me
who was a captive
of her generosity,
and the me
who is the wind’s son.
Guilt.
Did it taste good
to my hate,
or was
I set up for
the kill
by years
of needing
someone
to forgive me?
Should I whip myself again,
or did she
whip me enough
with love
I could not fulfill?
Night:
it’s fine
to let the
night in,
to shut down
this torture chamber
of living
as my own
worst enemy
because she
no longer
stores her gold
in my heart.
Night:
it’s so fine,
like a whisper
after so much shouting,
like a flower trembling
in the desert,
this nothingness,
this healing dark,
this forgetting about us,
this world
trying to be reborn
by not existing,
until one day
a new day
finally is
a new day.
I feel the need
for complete soul nudity.
I want to take off
everything,
every lie and fear
in a room
of loving eyes,
I want one moment
beyond their
fragility
that kills me
with secrets
I cannot keep,
I want to dance
one night
across the floor
of sorrow,
I want the deception to end.
If they don’t hang me,
I hang myself.
I want that to change.
Is it an immortal goddess
with wings
I need,
one who my sword of defects
cannot puncture -
or just myself?
Forgive me in advance.
Love me
because I am strange,
my first step towards something great,
if you won’t blow the light out
by being wounded
so easily.
Don’t live in my eyes,
fly above me,
love me,
be invulnerable,
love me.
Forget these clothes of trying to please you,
burn them,
take me naked
or join the wild
killer pack,
I don’t want to
be brought down
from behind.
See me naked
and tell me right away,
don’t let me
load your weapon
by pretending to be perfect.
One day you’ll find out.
I can’t live this way,
by their laws.
Like rain I fall,
I am.
Don’t need me,
don’t get under my skin,
don’t tie your heart
to what you don’t know
about me.
Look at me naked.
Look at yourself,
not through my eyes.
Then decide.
Tonight.
I was born today.
I have ten years to live.
I knew you in a past life,
but this is now.
Yesterday
is only an ambush.
Who wants to live
in a city
of ruins?
I was born today.
I have ten years to live.
Not much time,
but a life.
What do I want
to do
with it?
Before now,
shadows were
my king,
heartbreak
was my
religion,
my sky was black
and the stars
of what we
once shared
only made
it blacker.
Loyalty
to broken wings
and submerged continents
got in the way
of the sun.
It could not rise
with the power
of our lost bed,
our estranged minds.
I have ten years left.
Ten years of shining,
or just
the long last chapter
of the book
of the dead.
When your eyes
lost that spark -
when no light came
into them
when you saw me -
I knew it was over.
I had to be born
without you,
or die.
The pain
went up
to the mountain
and came back
with the commandment
of me
loving me
because God
loves me
even if you
don’t.
Solitude
isn’t divine punishment,
it’s just
the labor pains
of being born
without your eyes,
of being born
out of my own
womb,
in my own way,
and my own time,
beyond your kindness
or your hate.
I’m not a criminal
just because
I didn’t
turn out the way
you wanted.
I’m not worthless
just because you exposed me to die
on the mountain
of your cold heart,
cold because it once
loved me.
Thank you for killing me
today.
Tomorrow would have been
too late.
But now I know.
In time to turn a beautiful color
before I
fall from the tree.
Thank you for telling me
today.
Tomorrow would have been
too late.
I have ten years to live.
Ten years to live.
I knew you in a past life,
but this is now.
My body
never betrayed you.
You betrayed me
by punishing me
for being able to love.
I loved the tree,
I loved the leaf,
I loved the green insect,
I loved the cat,
I loved the flock of geese,
I loved the way the light
loved the clouds,
I loved
the secret language
of the sea,
I loved the moon
hiding and
running from cloud to cloud,
her half-seen body
of foggy light
suddenly becoming bright,
I loved music in the night
coming from unseen places,
I loved people talking to themselves,
and dancing
because they thought no one
was looking,
I loved ruins
that other people
once called home,
because I loved my own home,
I loved the ghosts
insinuated by stones,
I loved pictures
in old books
before anyone knew
what other worlds
really looked like,
I loved chimes
talking with the wind,
I loved fountains
breathing in places of stone,
footsteps of water
running from the dead,
I loved sunsets
foretelling new days,
falling orbs of fire
quieted by the black
secretly conspiring with
the light,
I loved my footprints in the sand,
offerings to the waves,
I loved the
sound of nothing
in which the creaking of an
old house
seemed to be
the voice
of life
announcing its omnipresence,
the impossibility of oblivion,
I loved mountains
defining me
with snow-capped peaks
I could not reach,
that filled
me with the longing
to climb
steep and wild hills,
I loved texts of stars
rolled out
in the giant library
of the night,
I loved the sound
of myself
as I used to be.
How could I not love her?
How could I be next to her,
and not love her, too?
Our bodies never touched,
but our souls swam together
in the same sea,
we were enveloped in a moment
of comprehension,
radiant
with the impact of
each other.
The only way I could
not have loved her
would have been
to love nothing,
to shut all the beauty
of the world down;
and to not
love you.
Our bodies never touched.
But still,
you felt betrayed,
wounded enough
to try to kill me.
I can’t help myself.
I can’t help loving.
Loving’s in my blood.
And I leave my tracks.
Everywhere I go,
I leave my tracks,
with poems.
And you found out.
That I am not blind
or deaf,
or locked
in the room
of you.
Why was it so hard
for you to understand?
Loving her
was not an end
to loving you.
I don’t believe in only
one God.
Did anyone ever tell
an ancient Greek,
"You cannot love Hermes
because you love Zeus?
You cannot love Aphrodite
because you love Athena?"
Why could they have twelve Gods,
and I can
only have you?
Our bodies never touched.
But our souls
brushed against each other
and left deep traces
in our eyes.
Must I pull all beauty
out of the earth’s garden
as though everything
that were not you
were a weed?
Why can’t you let me
love,
why can’t you let my
heart be itself,
flow like water downhill
to beautiful things,
give offerings
of poems
to the ones
who move me?
Do you really
want that kind
of love,
the devotion
of a corpse,
mounted on the horse
of a lie,
to terrify the Moors
of your heart?
Do you really want
to live with
a cripple,
a prisoner without music,
a bird without wings,
a broken soul
who has severed himself
from all the beauty
of the Universe?
I can’t live that way.
Beauty is everywhere.
If I only see it in you,
I will not be able to see it
in you.
And singing is my way.
Like the bird
in the morning,
singing is my way.
Forgive me if I have hurt you,
but loving is in my blood.
And singing
is my way.
Fences
fences
people put
other people
behind fences,
they kill the soul
to cling to
the remains.
Like stuffed animals
behind museum cases
that don’t run
that don’t howl
or roar
or swim across rivers
or soar above
the ruptured might
of canyons
or disappear,
magician-like
in the mists
that protect
the sacred
face
of mountain peaks
from eyes
that lower
everything,
people drive the spirits away,
to stay
in clean dead places,
unhaunted
and unbeautiful,
they worship pieces of hair
taken from the dead.
They worship statues
whose jewel-eyes
were stolen,
standing blind and massive
in the temple
of lifelessness.
They worship
empty places where
birds stayed for one night
before flying away,
because it still wasn’t home.
It is a world
of crushed souls
living together
in half-love,
broken by a fear
of wild things,
by needs
too precarious
to take a chance with.
The skies of the daring and the free
are empty,
true love
has been
killed by idols,
by bound hands
and lies,
by wounds
that need delusions
of godhood
to be healed.
One day,
I looked the other way,
and I was killed.
For a long time after that,
I fell,
until one day
I realized
she never loved me,
she just used me
to fill
the hole
of their wrongs,
to believe what she
needed my eyes
to tell her,
which was
more than they could
without lying,
because no soul
can stand up
to that amount of
hurt.
She did not love me
when I was flying;
only when my wings
were folded
in homage
to the tyranny
of her wounds.
But I needed to fly.
Maybe if all souls
would fly,
there would be no need
for captives.
Maybe,
now that it’s over,
we can finally
love each other.
Falling
is the way
to higher ground.
You finally
understand something
by losing it.
Its soul
comes alive
when its form dies.
You have it
by not having it.
These words are nonsense
if you haven’t lived them;
and if you have,
they aren’t necessary.
But I had some extra ink
to spend this morning,
and stating the
obvious
never hurt anyone.
Loud subtleties
never tire of exposure.
There must be something
between a lobotomy
and a gladitorial combat,
something between an
electric shock
and a coma.
Something called love
that builds
without tearing down,
that heals
without maiming,
that flies
without crashing.
Something between
death and
death.
People live in fictions.
They hurl themselves
like actors
into dramas
that are only shadows
of their wounds,
they turn streets and nations
into a stage,
they raise the curtains
of love and war,
they kidnap
bystanders
to be the soldiers
of their
phantom army,
fighting phantom battles
with real blood,
they seduce look-alikes
and dream faces
with their ignorance
of themselves,
they break hearts
with runaway fantasies
rolling down
the mountain
of truth,
they
sacrifice lambs
to bring divine winds
to the sails
of their lies,
they talk about illusions
while living in illusions,
they wear the robes of the wise
while succumbing
to foolishness,
they turn everyone
into a pawn
of the great game
that hides
what is broken
inside them.
Proud
walking
naked
man
don’t need guilt.
Life sun
on the skin,
all-day power
makes you grow towards her.
Then darkness comes,
the time to stir.
Moon-power angel,
guarding green doorways,
night’s in the gang
to cover
the metamorphosis.
They
don’t understand.
They’re broken.
Light’s enough to see,
too little
to give it away.
It’s the time
of
unseen faces
when everything
becomes clear.
No sin
those runaway loins
that
don’t need
everything to be
spelled out.
Who can argue
with ecstasy?
Scorched earth
has nothing
to say,
there’s no defense
but drooping heads
and
inner crucifixions
on their behalf.
But once the chains
are broken
by going too far,
what can they do?
Crawling back
to them’s too hard.
Once one has
has learned how to drink
forbidden water,
one will never die of thirst
because of
their desert eyes.
Once naked
is tall,
and one can wear
one’s
real name,
it’s over.
Immunity to poison
comes
from the bite
of disappointing them.
Go, friend,
find a dark wood,
a wild witch
to ride your heart away,
a halo moon,
a new life.
Break the past in
half,
and never go back.
Be proud.
Be free.
"Be all
you can be."
I was the white knight.
I was the diligent student.
I was the promising piece of stone
the sculptor’s heart
surrounds
with dreams
of what his longing hands
can cry
into being.
Now I am the vampire
who haunts your life,
who stalks your tomorrow
with
what
didn’t
happen yesterday.
I am the one
responsible
for the pale sun,
the anemic light
that’s left
in your
sky
until
you can
forget me,
until the shining
fire of
me being erased
has room
to rise.
You’ve come to my coffin
at dawn
with a stake in your hand
to drive through
my heart,
to finish it off
once and for all.
Monsters always
populate
the final chapter.
That’s how it goes.
My homage to you,
my last kiss,
is accepting
these bat’s wings
to set you free.
Today
the vampire dies.
It’s the ring
I never gave you,
scratched
by having taken all
these years.
The coffin’s lid
will never
open again:
from now on,
the night
is yours.
Today
the vampire dies.
For you.
Wounded Man In A Hole (Lyrics)
I’m a wounded man
in a hole,
thinking of you
I’m a wounded man
in a hole,
thinking of you
And that old song is coming through
like a ray of light
I always dreamt we’d be together,
we’d run away, not stay,
go to the place
where our dream could come true
God I miss you
it’s a different kind of dark
when you’re in my mind
black doesn’t seem the same
it’s almost bright
you’ve got more power than the night
until I remember that it’s over
over is the hardest word there is,
over is the hardest word there is
And…
I’m a wounded man
in a hole,
thinking of you
I’m a wounded man
in a hole,
thinking of you
Old days
will never come again
New days
were stolen
by what was
I’m dying
Guess that’s all
that’s left:
Dying,
And…
I’m a wounded man
in a hole,
thinking of you
I’m a wounded man
in a hole,
thinking of you…
The title of this song was suggested by the title of the Francoise Sagan novel, Bonjour Tristesse.
Good morning sorrow
without you who would I be?
Just another happy fool
without the beauty you bring to me.
Good morning sorrow
take me for a walk on your leash of tears
I couldn’t leave you if I tried
now that we’ve known each other all these years
Good morning sorrow
my life is shattered in pieces on the floor
and this old house won’t stop calling out her name
I thought she loved me, but you love me more
Laughter and love
came for a day
Then the cold wind blew
and they went away
But you’ll never desert me
you’ll always stay
My dear sorrow,
good morning
Good morning sorrow
I know you, you know me
It’s too late to start again, we’re more than friends
and you’re the only one who’ll never leave
Good morning sorrow
it’s you again
I was so alone in this room that doesn’t answer
thanks for staying until the end
Good morning sorrow
looks like it’s just you and me
she flew away with wounded angel wings
thanks for the company
Laughter and love
came for a day
Then the cold wind blew
and they went away
But you’ll never desert me
you’ll always stay
My dear sorrow,
good morning
And I heard her leaving
that’s how I knew you were coming
Thanks, dear sorrow,
good morning
She won’t cry for me
no more
She won’t love the broken pieces
no more
My phone won’t ring from her
no more
in the middle of the night
when I need a voice to say:
"It’s not just the night,
I know you."
And someone else’s eyes
will be looking into hers
when the moon bends down
to drink the water
She always said she’d live by the water
But she never said
without me.
I couldn’t come.
But she never said without me.
And I’ll just be the sorrow
she takes off
like clothes
on her wedding night
in the bed
of her new life
And my pain won’t haunt her anymore.
Ghosts don’t haunt
happy homes.
And she won’t cry for me
no more
She won’t love the broken pieces
no more
My phone won’t ring from her
no more
in the middle of the night
when I need a voice to say:
"It’s not just the night,
I know you."
Shell.
She was with me, then,
making footsteps
in the sand.
All up and down that beach
in the hot sun.
Life stopped on us
waited for us,
I never thought that it would
move on.
Our footsteps
owned the sand
for a day,
I loved her
and she loved me.
That’s the day
I picked up this shell,
this wedding ring
the ocean gave to us,
this piece of time
I still keep
by my side.
The beach remains,
I could give it
my footprints
all over again
but our duet of walking
will never more
write its secret
by the water,
her steps
and my steps
are a thousand miles
apart;
this parallel,
sometimes interlacing
journey
is at an end.
But I have a shell,
a shell of it
that still belongs to
her and me:
beautiful doomed days by the sea
that were erased
by the waves of our faults.
Beautiful doomed days by the sea
that were erased,
except for this shell.
She’s as beautiful
as a painting.
You’re covered
with mud.
She’s as beautiful
as a cloud.
You’re covered
with mud.
The mud of the trench.
The mud of the trench
we shared
fighting together
in the war
to be human.
We didn’t lose
and we didn’t win.
After a time,
I began to dream of others
who were not splattered
with mud.
I began to dream of clouds,
and lands beyond the sea.
Of beauty
unspoiled by
knowing it.
Only now
that we are apart
do I finally see the beauty
of the mud
that covered us -
the mud of the trench
we shared
fighting together
in the war
to be human.
Phoenix
you are my God:
flaming hope
from ash,
all my broken
dreams,
all the pieces
of my heart
strewn by her door,
all my lost beauty,
my lost moment
when the sun
came looking
for me
and I wasn’t there,
this hole
of missing everything,
this death
of having too much
love
to give,
this night
of not being enough,
of leaving
my planet
in the darkness,
of leaving my
soulmate
with an impostor,
of leaving my children
unborn
in the grave
of my useless martyrdom,
my unfruitful passion,
this night,
this night
that chills the soul,
that makes death
seem like a sin,
a desertion,
a robbery,
a robbery of myself
by myself,
a broken commandment,
a broken cup,
spilled life,
inconsolable bitterness.
Phoenix
you are my God.
On the darkest night
of my inside sky,
you are my only hope.
I can’t die so empty.
First I need
to obey the law
of my greatness,
I can’t die this way,
a traitor
to the gift,
I can’t die this way,
without her
and without me,
without handing over the light.
Phoenix
you are my God.
I bow down to you.
You rose again
from ashes.
I bow down to you.
You are
my God.
Phoenix
you are my God:
the only one
left
to pray to.
Any day
could be the day
I’m saved.
Any day.
Any day
could be the day
I see.
Any day.
Any day could be the day
I finally turn this coat of sorrows
inside out,
which means to wear it
the right way,
which is being
happy again.
Any day could be the day
I find out that
what I lost
is less than what
I still have.
Any day could be the day
this constant flight
from shadows ends,
that I wake up
from this
dream of endless falling.
Any day.
Any day could be the day
that I finally stop
combing my hair
for blind men,
that my heart ceases
to be synchronized
with the watch
of being somebody else’s
broken soul.
That I forget to lock
the prison door
of my mind,
and flee back
to before the
death threat.
I wasn’t always
like this;
and it’s not the price
of depth
to be so unhappy.
Deeper waters
don’t exist
without higher mountains.
And I could climb one
any day,
just by finding out
that I already have.
Any day
could be the day
that I stop trying so hard,
and just am:
the day the gold
is dusted off
and the shining
that was always there
comes back.
Any day.
Any day.
Which could be today.
What a beautiful sunrise,
not to step out into the same dark.
Because today
could be the day.
Today.