CROSSCURRENTS OF LOVE
You Got To Be Madly In Love With My Soul
Loneliness Does Strange Things To Love
I realize
I’m standing on the earth
I realize
I’m listening to the sea
I realize
it’s not just in my mind
Something’s going on
between you and me
And it might be love
It might even be love
Two swans swimming side by side
like writing on the lake
Two geese flying side by side
like writing in the sky
God’s pen is busy
telling us who we are
Lonely’s got to believe it
Tiger and Tiger
Bird and Bird
Life speaks in
Pairs
it’s the language
even hermits understand
The proudly isolated
drift in broken ships
towards land
We’re together without a vow
or expectation
it just happened
below the surface
of our solitude
And I can’t go away
even though I’m not there
When I said I’d leave,
it meant I’d stay
I realize
I’m standing on the earth
I realize
I’m listening to the sea
I realize
it’s not just in my mind
Something’s going on
between you and me
And it might be love
It might even be love
Sappho,
how beautiful you are.
I’m sorry my body’s
so coarse
so strange
so dangerous
so odd,
like clothing
that doesn’t fit
your heart.
If I could,
I’d be a girl
for you.
To be with you
I’d be a white flower
in the breeze,
you could be the one
who said,
"Come through the door,
I’m ready now."
I’d lie down
on the bed of
you having the power,
I’d be safe,
you could be the storm.
To be with you
I’d become
your shadow
or soft skin,
give up
the threat,
to be with you
I’d be as gentle
as the door
I have to come through,
and gentler when I arrived.
I’d bring more than
all the chariots of Lydia
in my soul
to your loneliness
and surrender them
to your horses.
I’d stretch my power
beneath you
like the sea
you threw yourself into.
I’d put the dark cliff
you leapt from
back into the sheath
of your solitude.
I’d come softly
but with worthiness,
like thunder rumbling
on the horizon.
I’d lay down beside you
and wait for you
to need me.
Sappho, dear Sappho,
if you’d let me,
if the Gods would let me,
I’d come
bearing your greatness,
not mine,
except as a form
of yours.
I’d leave behind the army,
menacing with plumes
of thinning populations
scheming to perpetuate
their weapons,
I’d bring flowers
to your moist citadel
and kneel
in gentle supplication
to the two moons
of life
that your mind
cannot hide,
I’d come to worship,
not to steal.
I’d whisper
and converse
in the cradle of fire,
be as quiet as your own thoughts,
be the sheet
you covered yourself with
or kicked off
in the night.
And like that sheet,
I wouldn’t hide you,
when you wanted to
cover yourself with me,
the beauty of your form
would still shine through,
like the moon glowing
through clouds.
Sappho, dear Sappho,
I’d wear flowers
in the fierce hair
of my soul
till the lions slept,
I’d wear a dress,
put down the spear
of my pride
and bathe with you,
white and tender
in the river of sisters,
I’d hold a golden mirror
up to your face
by the angry sea
until its waves laid down
at your feet,
I’d touch you with hands
guided by your
wounds,
I’d be you loving yourself
with another mind.
Sappho, dear Sappho,
I’d be what I’m not
to be with you.
Sappho, dear Sappho,
let me be
what I’m not
to be with you.
When you make a road of pain
to your door,
don’t you understand,
most people will just
go away?
They won’t
take the test,
they won’t go
on the knight’s brave
quest,
fight dragons,
seek Grails
for a whip.
You wanted true love
so badly,
you dug a moat
deeper than any heart.
You want love that would walk over fire,
but first you have to be loved.
When thorns
hide the rose,
no one knows
what they’re bleeding for;
and heroes
don’t come to life
for nothing.
Your fierce net
makes no distinction between
impostors and champions,
between abusers in sheepskins
and souls
sent by your angels,
it sweeps them all up
out of the sea
of coming to you.
You are alone,
alone,
surrounded by graves,
graves of love
that never had a chance.
Because no one
could ever pass your test.
You pulled
the rug out from
under my feet,
then expected
Hercules.
The only way
to be strong enough
to stay
was not
to love you.
The only hero who
could win you
was the one
who’d already
stopped trying.
She warded you off
with her sword,
my love who’s not
yet dead.
Still she hides
in places she broke;
she wouldn’t be the one,
but she wouldn’t
ever let herself be impossible.
She said no
but wouldn’t
give me back.
She wouldn’t let
the sun rise
in your eyes.
She’s still got the wound
in her hands
and knows how to use it
to keep me
on the island
of her prisoners,
the ones she won’t ever let
start over.
When you come to me
is when she comes.
To put out
the rebellion
of me loving
someone else.
It’s not that she means to do it.
She just comes.
Like a nightmare,
like wine.
Out of seas deeper
than you and I have ever swum.
But her savage possession
is the only proof I have
that I’m not worthless;
and my inability
to impress you
is a small price to pay,
I let her ride me away
from meeting your eyes
with my whole soul.
I surrender to the loyalty
that destroys me
whenever you’re close.
The sword point
of her
ancient love
pierces me
whenever I have a chance
to love again.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
Is it over?
Jungle night,
noise stilled
in the quiet of his hunting heart,
neon lights unveiling
prey
of
dreams,
the deer want
his tiger claws,
his tiger power
in their heart.
But he’s become soft with love,
he’s not a tiger anymore.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
Yesterday’s night taunts
his victories with now,
who he was limps
from the wound
of being who he is.
His eyes can’t stop shining
in the dark,
he can’t help bounding
after
humiliations,
he leaps at ghosts
and lands alone.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
The thrill of stalking
incites his dream world,
his killing
that gives birth to beauty,
his harmless
yet terrible way of killing,
but the memory
of blood
stops him
before he can
save those
whose life
comes from dying,
he can’t do it
like he used to.
An angel stowaway
in the dark center of his
instinct
disrupts
the power
of his rush
with thoughts
on how it used
to bring pain.
Joy,
wearing the skin
of pain.
It’s too personal.
He can’t
do it like he used to,
rainy nights of tears
have taken off
the edge.
Philosophers
have invaded
his mighty
thoughtlessness,
turned his wild leap
into
the folly of
meditation.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
It’s not the same.
His stealth
has grown,
how he wears the forest
until he’s there!
But he comes
with nothing!
Only love
that kills those
who want to be
ripped to pieces.
It’s too similar -
the gentleness
that came
from those he hurt
averts
its eyes,
how could God
hide life
in the form of
violence,
it’s too similar!
Saving and destroying!
It turns off the switch
that ignites the blind attack,
the longed-for attack,
all the sparks are swallowed up
by the fool of Conscience
who wanders in by mistake,
confidence dies at the hands of
Compassion,
it’s too similar,
the cry of pain,
the cry of joy,
the peak of life,
the valley of death.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
Perfect master
until it’s time to kill,
half-tiger,
faded tiger,
tiger
with all his colors
washed out
by tears
he imagined
they were going to cry,
when all they wanted to do
was die;
by victims
it is finally time to pay for,
hallucinations of damage,
overreactions
to his own
sensitivity.
Sensitive beings
should never be strong,
never:
for their strength
only breaks them.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
She wanted to die
tonight,
instead you came reformed,
emaciated
with kindness,
you made her cry
because you
didn’t hurt her.
Your power
has scared you
into the confusion
of trying to understand things
that you can only understand
by ignoring.
Now the whole world
is illegible,
and the jungle
is wet with
the weeping
of those you loved.
Tiger without teeth,
prowling for what?
Only one
aged in her soul
and broken like him
could ever see
the tiger
in his shadow,
believe in
the beast who was,
and love his pitiful
wreckage
wounded by his mercy,
until the mask of friendship
fell off the face of weakness,
enlightening him
with things he
had grown beyond,
to nurture him back
to savagery.
Calling all centaurs
and satyrs,
go to where the angel
goes not,
to the dark wild place
where she wants
to be raped.
It’s her choice,
like Socrates choosing
hemlock
over exile.
She’s tired of being
listened to,
revered.
She wants to be
thrown down,
hurt,
ancient defeats
are a part
of her blood, now,
safety comes from
being broken.
Survival instinct knows
her life depends on killers:
the one who wants
to conquer the next valley
won’t let
her children be covered
with shadows;
and he announces himself
by the way he
takes her,
turns her into the valley
of his enemies.
Ladders of genes
have left the gentle ones
behind,
as Mankind climbed
upwards to a bloody sun.
His way of making love
is proof of life,
she tests him by being pillaged,
watches him kill
the neighbor
with her body,
take the fruit-filled vines
her children need
from her helplessness.
She takes his fury for a test drive,
and knows from her aching,
discarded body, that she has a bright future.
Calling all centaurs
and satyrs,
hairy beasts
dancing with wine
and arrows.
Come and please her,
save her from
my deadly thoughtfulness.
She longs
to take cover in biology,
the ones not like her were left alone;
the proud are dead.
She feels history
in her wetness
and is already protecting
the children
she does not have.
And I don’t blame her.
Time has proven her right;
my ideals
are only a desperate mating strategy,
and she’s no fool:
she can see
which stag has the sharpest horns:
which one will stand on the peak
above the rest,
and which one will crawl back
into the woods of beautiful hunger.
Her weakness has strength,
it won’t give in to a soul.
Calling all centaurs
and satyrs,
she’s a good woman
wise in the ways of reality;
come and save her
from the sin of my
impracticality.
I have nothing to give her
but love.
What the dead did not learn
has made her long
for wild arms
to destroy her.
Life comes from the will
of those who use
everything,
and it begins
with her.
Calling all centaurs.
Love has made me dizzy, and
I’m falling off the ladder
of time,
with the sons and daughters
she wouldn’t let me have.
Calling all centaurs.
It’s what she’s wise enough to want.
Break her, break us;
you’ll go on,
I won’t.
You Got To Be Madly In Love With My Soul
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
I’m not your ordinary
candle,
I don’t burn
when it’s dark for you,
I burn when
the sun’s got
something in its eye.
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
I’m not the genie
in the bottle
coming out when the sun
of your three wishes rises.
Sometimes I stay inside.
Light can’t be premature.
Sometimes sorrow’s
not to be healed,
it’s the healer.
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
I’m not the driver
of the chariot
that crosses between the day
and night,
not the lion who’ll
make you feel all right
while Rome burns.
Sometimes, I got to sing to the wall,
turn my back on your fall.
There would be many arms to catch you
if you weren’t so proud.
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
I’m not the flower you can pick,
I’ve got to stay in the field.
Glass vase, water, and your table?
I’ve got to say no.
But I’ll be waiting for you
in the mountain meadow
when the stars are breaking the night.
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
I can’t give you gold
like they can,
can’t carry you all night
in a storm above your gaping wound,
can’t gently infuriate your ice
into melting,
or crush you back to life.
Can’t mine your need to forget
and send it
in treasure ships
back to my pleasure,
can’t be so cold,
so heartlessly life-giving,
can’t be so strong:
I need my strength elsewhere,
can’t throw it into
the chasms of love.
I can’t love you
apart from them,
only as a part of them.
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
When love asked for the ocean,
the ocean said
I must water every shore.
When love asked for the sky,
the sky said
I must carry the stars
to strangers.
When love told the wind
You are cold,
the wind said
I am the one
who unites
all human beings
through their vulnerability.
My dream is too large to be a home,
which means I must be alone.
My dream is not a roof,
it is a sky,
which means I cannot be your man.
Only one who knows this
in herself
can be with me.
This is not a call,
but a warning.
Not a boast,
but a regret.
Trying is my religion,
but I may never get there.
I may be nothing more
than a way to die.
You got to be madly
in love with my soul,
or don’t even try.
The fierce
don’t bring back
the dead
unless their sword
attacks the traitor,
while they kiss
the blood.
Water and a candle
from a gentle soul
could end an exile
of a thousand years.
The ocean
measures time
in centuries
of shoreline,
dancers
can arouse souls
with the curves
of their wisdom.
Beautiful hearts
could launch
the thousand ships
inside:
beautiful bodies
are made ugly
by impatience.
Doesn’t water flow
according to the shape
of the land?
The sea is there
waiting
for the adaptability
of its lost waters.
Rivers that want to go home
will always find a way.
What doesn’t come back to it,
the sea doesn’t need.
Sometimes,
the door stays closed
to test the one
who wants to
get in.
The worthy wait.
The mistakes
vanish
like bees
alighting
on an empty
flower,
moving on
to simpler colors
they understand.
Shallow bees
do not feed on
deep nectar.
But insecurity
does not need
a counterattack.
The failed alchemist
hates the lead,
but why
should the lead
be gold,
for his sake?
There is no up or down,
only what is,
and what belongs
together.
Starting again
is the definitive disaster.
"You never fail
until you stop trying."
Trying to hold on to the country
that already has
another flag flying over it…
Guerrilla of the memory
strikes at now
out of the past.
Wielding nostalgia
against everything that went
wrong.
The present must die.
You can fight the battle
over and over again,
a thousand times,
change the order of the troops,
strike an hour sooner,
but the world will no longer react
to your improvements.
Soldiers in their graves
can’t get it right.
But it doesn’t matter.
Fighting
is a way of healing.
War is a drug.
The pain is shaped into strategy
and can no longer
recognize itself.
When you are hurt enough
the past can blot out the present,
you can lose track
of where you are.
You can hallucinate victories
from the bottom
of a mass grave.
Starting over
is the definitive disaster.
It’s like signing the peace treaty
that says "I lost."
Opening your eyes to her
is a way of awakening to the fact that
it’s no longer your earth.
She wasn’t the one.
She’s only a shadow
of your days of glory,
because you are no longer you.
Joy will come again
when you let
it say good-bye.
Yesterday’s joy,
when it becomes a religion,
saves pain’s soul:
you burn in Hell
forever.
Joy will come again
when you let
it say good-bye.
Let the sweet nights go,
the marathons
of being alive,
stop trying to hear
the echoes.
Silence is the Messiah.
Let the cup of joy be empty.
Until it is,
the angel with the pitcher
will keep
passing your table by.
Pain is beautiful
as the first movement
of the symphony of your new life.
The pain
of "good-bye",
not the pain
of "why?"
Joy will come again
when you let
it say good-bye.
Let emptiness reign.
Don’t keep standing
by the place
where you died,
bury yourself
and be done with it.
Live for the heart
you left behind
inside yourself.
It’s day will come,
when you let joy
go back to its home,
to yesterday.
Joy will come again
when you let
it say good-bye.
You are my infatuation
and my nemesis.
The door
and the wall.
The Lovers
and the Tower.
You and I
are poets:
something happens
when we are together,
that needs words
to protect us.
I crawl towards you
with my heart
in my hands
but I know I can’t give it to you.
It’s like in the story,
where the hero twin’s severed head
is replaced with a squash.
I give you poems,
not me.
I can’t.
I’m not good enough for you,
because only the overreaction
of being divine
could save you
from what they did.
You are the air
that feeds my fire
of singing,
my only defense;
I am the earth
that puts out your fire
of hating,
your only answer.
That still only brings us
halfway
Rage is sacred
until it flows out of the banks
of setting the world right.
Loneliness is holy,
until it becomes a faith.
Words have made us possible,
as meditation makes
flaws possible.
And words have kept "us"
from being born:
for still, there is only
"you" and "me."
You are my infatuation
and my nemesis,
for one year
the Queen of my Songs.
Something happens
when we are together,
which is
not together.
Poems.
Poems,
not "us."
An evasion,
or all that could ever be?
Autumn.
I had second thoughts
when I saw the leaves
fall.
I couldn’t stand to see
you
falling from my heart
in that way.
I tried one last time,
disbelieved the summer
that was empty;
but you
wouldn’t change.
My pain,
which was your beauty’s
eyes closed
to itself,
wasn’t enough
to make you change.
Nothing changed,
the trees
just became
bare.
I can’t live
with pieces of a fallen star
I can’t live
with glimpses of a world
behind a half-open door.
My love needs air.
Some of the most beautiful
planets
have no atmosphere.
How bewitching is their
inhabitability!
A traveler came to one
and prayed to die
so he could stay,
till life grabbed him by the arm
and tore him away:
cowardice saved Eden,
which can never be more than
a story.
And so, as the gauge told him
it must end, he took
one last look at the crystal mountains
and hypnotic scars,
the star-filled captured skies,
and the broken love nests
of the Gods who’d left.
He must give it all back to the
hugeness of the night,
for on this world,
beauty was the same as death.
He cursed himself for needing to breathe
and leaving such a vision to
another.
Hurling jealousy at the rocks that remained,
he fled back to the homesick flame
that bore him home,
after he broke these words,
like glass upon a barren stone:
My love needs air.
I can’t live
with pieces of a fallen star
I can’t live
with glimpses of a world
behind a half-open door.
All the instruments
of what went wrong
are making a concert
of loneliness
that could make the sun
burning out
seem like a child’s song.
It’s called "The Symphony of Love’s Mistakes",
or
"What Love Could Have Been"
in the key of
wasn’t.
All night long
it’s going through my
head, over and over again,
this most beautiful
music of regrets,
and losing sleep
is in the audience,
applauding with the rest
of them:
the Fool, the Hanged
Man, and the Emperor,
who kept her
for himself.
I want to
fade out,
I want to fade out
so I can face the day,
but I don’t want to miss the
performance
of what I missed,
because what I
missed is in it
in the only form
I can ever have it:
painful sounds
of sleeplessness
that make
sleep seem
disrespectful,
exhaustion and dying
irrelevant.
A concert’s
playing in my
mind,
all night long,
my mind
using my heart,
and her distance…
The sea between us
was in her heart,
all the time
it was in her heart,
the waves were
only sentinels
of her eternal
withdrawal from love,
her escape
from the tyrants
who disfigured me
by wanting only
what was obvious.
And the concert
goes on and on,
the clock
crawls slowly
towards the dawn,
in a few hours
my uselessness
will have
to stand
without her,
I’ll have no illusions to
help me bear the
weight of my
self-destruction.
But tonight I have
this music,
sublime,
relentless,
so much more important
than my
preparation to die.
I’ll listen.
I’ll listen
till the hands of the clock
spare me
with the cold dawn,
let me back into
the world of ghosts,
feeling nothing,
not her,
not me,
not us,
not the jagged
remnants of
beautiful dreams
I dreamt by mistake.
Cue ball woman:
passing on
the hit,
knocking me
right into
the pocket
of not
loving you
anymore.
There are those who
break the chains
and those who
pass it on.
Is the old running the new?
Did the pool stick
tell you what to do?
Cue ball woman:
passing on
the hit,
knocking me
right into
the pocket
of not
loving you
anymore.
Why do you let them
come between us
with yesterday’s hurt?
Why do you let
the night stay out
all day
on the earth?
The green table
of what we wanted
needs a little justice,
not another crime.
There are those who
break the chains,
and those who
pass it on.
Is the old
running the new?
Did the pool stick
tell you what to do?
Cue ball woman:
passing on
the hit,
knocking me
right into
the pocket
of not
loving you
anymore.
In the middle of the night,
with sirens flashing,
they came:
after we did it to ourselves.
The ambulance
just carried our love
away.
It won’t be back.
Down the dark road
where it will never be seen again
they took the remains
of tomorrow.
The ambulance
just carried our love
away.
Sometimes there’s hope.
Sometimes there’s a second chance.
Sometimes,
reality
bows down to dreams.
But not this time.
The radio said:
"Dead at the scene."
The ambulance
just carried our love
away.
The night of love that
was only beginning
ended up being just a
gauntlet for
insomniacs.
Faults wouldn’t go to sleep,
windows wouldn’t shut out the mistakes.
Some car far away couldn’t get by
unheard.
Shot and killed for pride’s pocket
change, something like that:
that absurd.
And now they’re taking all the furniture
out of paradise.
Cleaning it up
so someone else can live there.
Chalk lines of
poems about us
left behind
on empty floors.
The ambulance
just carried our love
away.
World will get used to it.
To living without us holding
hands.
The ambulance
just carried our love
away.
Unilateral wise woman,
how do you know
what’s right for me?
You know
what I need
is more important
than what I want,
but I know what
I want,
and you don’t know
what I need.
And now,
you’ve imposed yourself
over me
as my guardian angel,
you’ve decided to save me
from myself
by not allowing me
to destroy my heart
by loving you;
you’ve taken the hard line
of love,
by saying no.
But what if your vision
isn’t coming from a higher place,
what if it’s only coming from
your fear
of being loved?
What if you’re only killing
two birds with one stone,
you and me?
What if you’re only dragging
me down with your
self-destructive chastity,
hidden behind flirting,
protected by lines
you plagiarized from
an angel?
Birds don’t only fly
to be beautiful,
sometimes their wings
are liars, singing praises
to the sky
because they fear the earth.
Are you really so wise,
or just too proud
to break into a run?
Unilateral wise woman.
We could have talked.
When two hearts are involved,
decrees seem unjust,
no mountain peak
is high enough
to discount the feelings of the earth,
to outrank love.
You decided for both of us,
but you are only
one of us.
I don’t believe in your serenity.
I don’t believe in your vision.
I believe in your fear
and the ingenuity of your fear,
I believe in disasters
controlled by your masochism.
I believe in the terror
that is in your light,
like blood in urine,
and in the catacombs
where your soul prays
below streets
it cannot walk on.
Other women want,
and pay the price of wanting;
you wanted
and then you fled.
You slew the dragon of
me coming to you with love;
you rose above us both.
You saved your sorrow,
and made me wear your chains.
Unilateral wise woman.
You are not wise,
only afraid
to see the damage
that you’ve left
between your two selves.
You are not wise,
it’s just another road
on the way to somebody else’s
broken heart;
it’s just another way
of trying on a life
that doesn’t fit.
Unilateral wise woman.
No, I won’t understand
some day,
I won’t wake up
to thank you.
Your wisdom’s
fallen short,
the verdict’s "Guilty"
in the court of coldness.
You got in over
your head
and pardoned yourself
with a halo
you made from my hours.
You’ve driven me out
to live on the street
below dreams you fed,
it wasn’t just in my mind.
Like a child
you played
far away from where
you could really go.
How could I know
till the loser
of your inner war
killed me?
Unilateral wise woman.
I’m the enlightened one,
not you.
You could have stayed.
You could have talked.
But the orders
just came down
from above,
from the mountain
of you not deserving
me.
Unilateral wise woman.
I’m the enlightened one,
not you.
I knew I was human;
when I told you that I loved you,
I used the map of the earth.
You crashlanded
where the night
of not knowing yourself
meets the desert
of what you’ve done to others.
You need to learn
how to be alone.
Unilateral wise woman,
you taught me something after all,
hollow things speak loudly
with what they’re missing.
As all Mankind learned from Judas,
so I learned from you.
You taught me with the blunt object
of your pilgrimage
to sorrow:
to never again follow a stranger’s dark eyes,
when I know the way.
I let your eyes become
the windows of my soul.
I sold myself
for the gold
of your body,
and the mystery of your art.
Unilateral wise woman.
She sent me away,
her pain was about to die,
it needed another broken heart
to survive the danger
of hope.
Unilateral wise woman:
Guru of her own
destruction.
Through me.
It wasn’t fair.
And she wasn’t wise.
That’s going to help:
to know I wasn’t the beast.
Unilateral wise woman.
Today we died.
I can find my way back
to life.
What about you?
Can you see where you’re going
in all that light?
Unilateral Wise Woman,
listen to the wise one
who didn’t try to be
more than he was:
Galileo went blind staring at the sun,
until he couldn’t see the face of
the one who loved him.
An angel before her time
falls through the cracks
between Heaven and Earth:
her wings aren’t strong enough
to lift her into the sky,
they just get in the way of walking.
Men who are dying in the desert
don’t need a diamond,
they need a cup of water.
Unilateral Wise Woman,
you’re not yet ready to wield the light
among men.
Angels are born
in the arms of life.
Put away the weapon of your wisdom,
and love.
It won’t be me.
I’m dead.
But if you’re true to the beauty
you have when the lights are out,
you’ll finally feel
what God never asked you
to leave behind.
It’s easier
to break
than to stay.
It’s easier
to remain the same height
than to grow.
It’s easier to be offended
than to see.
It’s easier for it
to be me
than you.
I can’t be a horse
to pull a shattered ego.
I can’t be your
accomplishment.
I can’t be the legs
of your pride
that let you walk
in the world.
I can’t be chandeliers
on your ceiling
to turn your room
of being a shadow
into a place of worship.
Armor that has a
mind of its own
is dangerous,
it may leave a hole
when the arrow of the past
returns.
You have to win your battle
before me.
I come after.
Don’t count on my love
to convince you of something
you don’t believe in.
You have to prove it to yourself.
My life
is nobody’s shield,
it’s God’s ego
using my humility
to do something
that might not have
to do with you.
You’re not an ingredient
of every pie
that’s made in my kitchen.
While I’m defending my castle,
yours could be stormed.
You need your own defenders.
Don’t count on me.
Don’t count on me.
I would die for you
on a dark street;
but I might not die for you
on a street that was dark
only in your mind.
I can’t be a horse
to pull a shattered ego.
I’ve got to run faster.
E tu, Brute?
If someone else had said it.
If someone else had done it.
Some voices are like a gun
in your own heart,
you pull the trigger
when they cry.
And when they look at you
like you’d raped a child,
you shoot yourself inside.
E tu, Brute?
If someone else had said it.
If someone else had done it.
How could you lower me
from your mountain of love?
You looked at the
butterfly who landed on you
like it was
pigeon crap
that just fell from a roof.
Romeo and Juliet come
from different truths.
But "love is always the best way
to die."
Who said that?
Nothing gets the job done
like love.
E tu, Brute?
If someone else had said it.
If someone else had done it.
Trojan horse
is everywhere like rain,
every gift comes with a
secret load of pain.
Soldiers of trust
will come out in the night
and burn your city down.
There’s always someone you won’t
lock the gates against.
But you’ll have to find out
for yourself:
Love was never a defense.
E tu, Brute?
E tu, Brute?
Strike me down,
I won’t fight back
against something I gave
my whole life to.
I could have stood up
to iron,
I could have stood up
to stone.
But I couldn’t stand up to love.
Was I always alone,
even when I was in love?
E tu, Brute?
If someone else had said it.
If someone else had done it.
Some knives
you can’t say no to.
E tu, Brute?
If someone else had said it.
If someone else had done it.
I’m not a bad person,
really I’m not.
I think I could have a
meaningful relationship
with myself.
Match.com, here I come:
to me.
I’m nice, I’m smart,
look, I even write poems,
and I don’t look that bad,
not for me.
I like the
Celtic-wounded-wise
look,
my dawn-by-the-stones soul
and a heart of secret love
that’s like a bag full
of magic spells
seeking out the blind who think
they see,
and the orphans who
know that something’s wrong.
I love,
that must absolve me
of my obsolescence.
I like me.
Yes, I do,
I think I do,
why do I need her
to love myself
through her love?
I’m more
than my usefulness to her,
I’m a piece of ocean
visiting the land,
a horse’s mane, flag of the free,
I’m cursed by knowing things I shouldn’t,
but beautiful for it,
wounded by witchcraft
on behalf of what matters;
broken
by the jealous sisters
of the deep,
I rise above the injury
in loyalty
to the precious things
that loyalty saves
with no weapon
but staying to the end.
Yes, I’m beautiful,
I can love myself,
I really can,
I don’t need to beg
for evidence
that I’m lovable
from you,
you can put your cold shoulder
between us forever
but my mirror
won’t change its mind,
I’ve just
awakened to myself
and I don’t need to rush to you
to prove myself.
I’ll just stay here writing poems,
with your love
or without it,
I love myself.
That’s a rock
that can stand for ages.
Women-winds may come and go,
bless them and their lives,
but they won’t
disprove the trail of
heartbreaks that led me
to the truth of my own beauty,
that has stood the test of time,
that has survived the eyes of those
who don’t know what to look for,
and the burden
of its irrelevant magnetism,
attracting jewels
of other worlds
that, here, are mere stones.
I don’t care!
I love myself.
Without a woman,
without a friend,
without a priest
to deliver the last rites
over my dying
social life,
I love myself;
I will myself into existence
as a being worthy of love,
I love myself
without her voice
to tell me I’m not mad
and bury me alive
in the necessity
of having her,
to confirm my right to live.
I love myself
without another voice
to overcome my insecurity
by making it worse,
I love myself,
I love myself,
I want to go on a date with myself
tonight,
I think I can
finally have a
good time,
alone.
No rush, now,
you’ve got to
be good.
No rush, now,
time to see.
Because I’ve got
me.
And I’m already in love.
Care to make it a threesome?
Because he’s not going anywhere.
I’m already in love.
Just friends
The saddest thing that she could say
Just friends
I just found out today
Just friends
that’s the way it’s going to stay
No beginning, no end
Just friends
I had big dreams when I saw her first
We walked hand in hand down my inner streets
Somehow I thought our minds would lead us
to the place where bodies make souls complete
But I found out I was just there
keeping someone else’s place warm,
the one who hasn’t come yet
but who she believes in
And all this time
she’s been looking past me
to a tomorrow without me -
with him
Just friends
The saddest thing that she could say
Just friends
I just found out today
Just friends
that’s the way it’s going to stay
No beginning, no end
Just friends
And I know I’ll always be able to stay around
she wants someone who’s less than her desire or her fear
I’ll light the candle of my soul for her each night
Then watch her blow it out when he comes near
I’ll be an angel in the shadows
dying, to feed her,
to give her what he won’t
We’ll be twins - him and me -
two in one - I’ll be the one who
makes him deep, by being me;
he’ll be the planet that eclipses me
when life is on the line -
when she wants to drown in someone else’s ego
to be eaten by someone else’s pride -
to be beaten, bound and tied
Love and kindness don’t go together in her mind,
she has memories of being a deer
and wants to be hunted down, and die
So I’ll have to stand to the side
I could never treat her like prey
and she won’t open her door
unless you break it down
So I guess this is it
I love her too much to be taken seriously
To ever be more than her friend
her one and only friend
Just friends
The saddest thing that she could say
Just friends
I just found out today
Just friends
that’s the way it’s going to stay
No beginning, no end
Just friends
Just friends
Just friends
Just friends
Soul Beating.
No marks on the skin.
Soul Beating.
They beat you up to
within an inch of your life.
I can see the long night
in your eyes,
the day was afraid
to come back.
Soul Beating.
The eye of the sun
is swollen shut.
Maybe they did it over and over again
like a broken record
of neglect,
because, baby,
there’s a leak in your
self-respect;
or maybe it was just one moment
when vulnerability
got control of the world.
Sometimes
the glass in us
accidentally strays
onto the peak of
everything we are,
and the whole world
stretched below
falls to its knees.
When the solar plexus of our beauty
takes a hit
we spend the rest of our life
out of breath.
Soul Beating.
Like a place in the ceiling
without a light.
Like a broken pleasure,
you have to crawl
away from.
Like something that should be
so easy,
that’s somehow filled
with strife.
If someone puffs on the cigarette
will it come back to life?
Soul Beating.
When I see me
in your eyes
I see one prisoner
looking at another.
I recognize the barbed wire
of your coldness,
the emptiness of
everything you tried to be
and left behind;
when the sun threw you away,
you threw it away.
Why should you give off light?
Your ice has a reason.
But even so, good people
are freezing;
standing next to your wound
is colder than hell.
Ice on the servants,
while the bell tolls
for the real you.
Nobody has to add
to the damage,
but you know how much
some people like to fight.
And what I want to know is:
If someone puffs on the cigarette
will it come back to life?
Soul Beating.
You’re a good smoke,
baby,
let me show you
how good you are.
Let me pull you
out of yesterday.
Soul Beating.
Can it ever end?
Can I ever be more
than just a friend?
Could I be the one who
waits out the night
with you
until the dawn of trying again?
If someone puffs on the cigarette
will it come back to life?
Partners in doom,
time to break up
until we become
something new.
Time to walk in the
autumn leaves
of our own
gold and blood,
to face the cold clear
air
without the alibi
of love.
Feathered serpent
came from the
East,
I thought,
but it was only you
no insult meant by
"only"
but it was only you.
I broke my empire
in half
to let you in
because I thought it was yours
but it was mine,
for the Feathered Serpent.
I was the guardian,
I couldn’t give my heart
except to the Feathered Serpent,
I loved you by accident
because you came from the East
at the right time.
The door of the sacred oracle
opened,
you came
asking too much,
giving too little.
I betrayed my destiny
by loving you.
Feathered Serpent,
I passed by six great women
waiting for you,
I drowned my heart
in a pool of stone.
I became the hunting jaguar,
two eyes in the night
looking past you
to the death of our love.
Feathered Serpent,
I loved her
because I thought she was you
I thought she was you
coming from the East.
The rising sun
was her sail,
the whole ocean lied to me,
the shore did not
look closely.
How could you let her
get this far?
Were you no greater
than my eyes?
Feathered Serpent,
she usurped you
why did you deceive me
with your absence?
She did not seem a refugee
when she walked
through the door
of you not coming,
she seemed a queen.
She did not seem lost,
she came,
her journey
wrapped about her
like gold cloth.
She seemed
to remember everything,
to know the name
of every tear.
With night-black lips
she came
parting the curtains
of my doubt,
bringing from my dry mouth
the answer of kisses
like a sharp slope
brings water flowing.
Kisses of the mind.
Feathered Serpent,
I stopped dancing
by the altar
I slashed myself and
wandered into a cloud of
incense
until I could see you and her as one.
I cut my heart out
and gave it to her.
And the stars folded up
and gave the night back
all of its
blackness.
Feathered Serpent,
you deceived me
by letting her come
from the East
at the right time.
And where are you now?
And for who shall you come?
Feathered Serpent,
I thought it was life,
but it was only the love
that ends life,
the love
that keeps away real love
until there is no need
for deception.
Loveless people move on,
there are always others.
People who love deeply
die beside the empty bed-half of the one
who was not the one.
Flies light upon
noble things
as though they were crumbs,
feed and go on.
Some butterflies
will only light
on God flowers.
Sometimes, a
girl who wants to be a woman
will try to become one
by passing
through a man.
Beauty blossoms with ghosts,
worlds slip through the gaps
between hearts.
Feathered Serpent,
I gave my empire
to the wrong one!
I’m just
one big
frozen teardrop
on the way away
from home.
I’m a lonely dusk
that didn’t have a
day.
I’m night time
with the deepest saddest
moon;
it talks with
the beauty of someone
about to die.
What do you know
about the moon?
Did you know
the moon
cries with the pale
leftover light
of the sun
that’s somewhere else?
Moon, dear Moon.
It’s you
instead of her.
It’s you
instead of life.
You’ve become life,
beautiful queen of
missing things.
Shine for me!
Shine for me!
Drag me across
my dreams
one last time.
The night
is when the impossible
lives on
in streams of tears.
Moon, dear Moon,
shine for me.
Hurt me,
I don’t want
to not miss it.
Closed for renovations.
My heart is closed
for renovations.
Open again sometime
next spring.
Green Lady with wings
Lily White sat down for me
and became the
Green Lady with wings.
Siren Drown-the-man-at-the-bottom-of-the-song
Half-angel
with her broken steps
posed nude for me
and became
Siren Drown-the-man-at-the-bottom-of-the-song.
Amazon Queen in the chariot of never
Bluff girl
dropped my kerosene heart
onto the floor
of my secret art
and became
Amazon Queen in the chariot of never.
Artist’s model never knows
what she’s going to become.
A little bit of her
mixed with a little bit of me.
Choirs turn sick buildings
into cathedrals.
Wounded spirits switch
real jewels with fakes:
a little bit of blood
can damn the sun.
The brush plays with both of us,
erases footprints
with a perception.
Mighty tangents obscure
the source.
It’s the glory of becoming
illusions together.
Artist’s model.
I drink what I need
from your cup,
and leave the rest to you.
Except when I fall
into my painting.
Sometimes, I’m killed
by what I’ve made you.
Sometimes we die together.
Once I’ve turned you
into a jaguar
you’ve got to hunt
my poems.
No use trying to say
you’re not a jaguar.
I’ve made you
into what I need
to bring down
the quarry of Heaven.
Angry dinosaur woman
lured me to be kind,
then said no
as if I’d agreed,
and ran before
the confusion could
be cleared.
I just stood there in the dust
of her self-preserving theater,
in disbelief,
and said: did this really happen?
It surprised me enough
to write one of my
worst poems.
Yo, don’t come back!
Angry dinosaur woman,
you don’t get more than that:
one of my worst poems.
Not everyone can be an acrobat,
not everyone can be a femme fatale.
Garbo’s killed a lot of cousins.
Don’t say another word.
When you say hello,
it only means I’m in the cross hairs
of me not wanting you.
You’ll make me pay.
Scheherazade
never used a
knife
to extort her
beauty
from a man.
Angry dinosaur woman,
get down from the highwire,
you don’t belong up there.
Trying to be a swan,
a canary became a
cockroach on its back.
You should have sung the song
you had.
Angry dinosaur woman:
furious because the world
doesn’t play along.
You’re the little queen
by the Pharaoh’s foot:
the worst of
male chauvinists.
I don’t want to help you
hate yourself
by holding you in my arms
and loving what
you’re not.
But you don’t want
sympathy.
You want revenge.
Revenge
is for the
beautiful.
Go home.
The rules were made
before the first man,
when a drop of water
gave its soul to the sun
and left the ocean.
You can’t break them.
The ocean invented rain
to bring its loved one back.
Your anger is no match.
Don’t pit it against the sea
and the sun.
I follow ancient laws.
Angry dinosaur woman,
thanks for leaving.
Truly - thanks for leaving.
And this is still all you get -
one of my worst poems.
Missing sock
in the Laundromat:
who’s going to have
one bare foot
and one lovesick sock
that’s going to die?
Sockless Columbus sailing
with his habits,
will he discover the new world
of his lack?
Is he going to come back
in the middle of the night,
when the snow is falling,
to try to beat the
closing doors?
Or will he just leave the friend that
warmed his foot
to the cold machine,
and to the angry bundles of waiting clothes
that don’t want to meet
anybody new.
By now strange hands
will have torn his friend
from the refuge of his purification,
and hurled him to the place
of dead things.
Barefoot man,
he’s not cheap,
he can leave
his sock alone crying
on the table.
The grandeur of not regretting
has killed the hope
of many a tiny thing;
as if only small people
could care about
small things.
Missing sock,
calling out the name of the foot
he warmed,
calling out the name of his
brother sock
all through the night.
Quiet says the clock,
all-powerful with the hours
that no one ever sees.
Now it’s just you and me,
behind closed doors.
He’s not coming back.
You’re not
absent-minded
with the things you love.
And the ticking on the wall
becomes his heart,
missing sock
finally understands.
Socks don’t have souls,
they’re just pieces of cloth
that feet wear.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
The top of my everyday life
is frozen,
it’s like a sheet of ice
over the sea.
If you step out over what
she did to me
you might fall in.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
She holds the key to the dawn
that wants to rise
in me.
So far, no one’s eyes
are stronger.
No one sees anything,
except what I can do for them
with the smallest shadow
of myself.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
My world’s rich
but wounded.
Bats are going to come out
with the angels.
Maybe you sense it.
Maybe that’s why you stayed away
from the Pandora’s Box
of my heart,
never lifted up the lid
with a feeling
that wasn’t well-protected
by a thought.
Sometimes the nurse
of a gold mine
falls into the shaft
of something she can’t fix.
You’re beautiful enough
not to need my light,
why fight with her?
You have treasures of your own,
why descend into the darkness
of who I was
in search of who I could be?
You don’t need who
I could be:
you have you.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
Only my poems evade her:
she’s the highest form of silence.
Every time I
write a poem
she grows stronger.
Every time
you think,
she wins.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
And you are her greatest ally.
Because you fear her,
I obey her.
And nothing leaves me,
just this beautiful
talking to myself
on the way to
dying outside every door.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
Loneliness
spells
forever.
There’s too much of me,
and it’s all broken.
Still waters
run deep
She’s the keeper
of my silence
And you are her greatest ally.
Clear my mind,
Zen,
Just be.
Breathe in you,
breathe out me.
At last blackness comes
wreathed in birds’ songs
I hear with my pen.
Nothingness has no chance
while you’re in the world.
Whenever I feel at peace,
you rise up again,
like Aphrodite from
the sea.
Utilitarian love therapy
brain transplant.
Thanks for the advice,
I’ll get back to you
when I’m like you.
Sometimes
co-dependence
isn’t a sin,
it’s merely the
price of not being
cold enough.
Ruthlessness is the
virtue
that’s killed
the world.
To save the world,
I must die
from loving her.
Utilitarian love therapy
brain transplant.
When you are half as deep,
you become
enlightened
twice as fast.
Thanks for sharing your
wisdom.
I can see that you were
never foolish enough
to love.
Utilitarian love therapy
brain transplant.
You can leave me now.
Some hearts
are too impressed by
the vast continent
of their feeling,
to go into the house
of feeling better.
I don’t think all this wisdom is for me.
I think you want company,
to prove you didn’t miss anything
by surviving.
Stop, wait!
I have to recover
from my progress;
pause in an old
familiar field
in the shade of a
mistake;
the sun of perfection
is too hot
at this time
of day.
Stop, wait!
I have to recover
from my progress.
Let me stay nowhere
till yesterday’s
completely gone,
we’ll move out
in the night
when I know it’s over.
I’ve come too far
from my destruction
to feel safe.
Stop, wait!
I have to recover
from my progress.
Let me catch my breath
with one last glimpse
of who I can never
be again.
Let me die one
last time by what I
should have left behind
before I go to
live in the new world
wisdom has made for me.
That’s the day
she went crazy
with genius,
left every chain behind.
When you put down the stone
both hands are free.
Such a heavy stone
we carry in our minds.
She put it down
and did things
that no one had ever done
before.
What was coming out of her
was too beautiful
to relinquish
with a padded cell.
They just had to stand back
and let her mind
run naked through the streets,
screaming
useful madness,
inventing incandescent light bulbs
of feeling
from their underground springs,
that were like stray bullets
going through the windows of
neighbors’ opinions.
She spat out
divine obscenities
that made the floor boards
of the world
creak at night
under the ghostly footsteps
of obeying nothing.
She made the skeletons
in their closet
dance.
Hers was a fearful form of strangeness,
too much like God
to sin against
by being normal.
They let the crime
go undetected.
They let the ice melt
and drank the
water.
Some flowers are not crushed
by the winter snow:
they drive the winter away.
The world kills what threatens it,
but every once in a while
it just stands back in awe.
And before it can remember
its mediocrity,
genius is there
like a mountain.
Milestone.
Sit and pray.
But got to
run through the
sacred moment
in a daze.
Sacred loss
in the peripheral vision
of a wasted day.
Why couldn’t I just
lay flowers
on your grave?
All the sorrow’s
just a way of
getting to paradise.
I take my bearings
with pain.
Where paradise isn’t,
is getting closer.
Drowning in tears
is the mightiest ship,
it can cross the sea
of compromises.
Most people give up,
build brilliant structures
of resignation
and live the rest of their lives
in defeat, disguised as
philosophy.
They are like graves,
covered with beautiful flowers.
I’m not like that.
I throw myself on the sword
of not becoming wise.
The dreams I dreamt when I was
eighteen
still rule me.
I wasn’t immature,
I was only too young to hate myself
with the craft of the old.
Some feelings
can’t be dismantled
by intelligence.
They know that intellect
is a weapon of cowardice.
Some obsessions are
God’s hand
moving you across
the chessboard.
You won’t be happy
unless you’re on the square
he chooses.
Most of the time
when you decide,
you’re wrong.
Some pawns outguess
their fierce desire to be more
than they are,
they plant themselves
like a wall, and turn their whole life
into what somebody else can do.
Some pawns dream of being queens.
They let God tear them from
happiness,
and hang on until
the hour when pawns
become gold.
Paradise is the
reward of those who
are faithful
to their
pain.
Contentment is
the executioner
of the great.
You make paradise
every time you cry.
Take heart, you’re on your knees,
paradise can’t be far!
Guard your despair,
don’t let anyone console you.
Despair is
the courage to keep looking
and the devotion
to keep worshipping.
God hasn’t appeared.
By not coming,
he’s showed you
where he is.
You’re on the way.
Only the weak are happy.
Only the unholy.
The joy of the ones who have made it
is different than the joy of the ones
who built a city
by the last step they could take.
The Bodhisattva dances slowly,
because he won’t leave.
Love is the law of paradise,
and love is heavy.
That’s what makes it
beautiful.
Keep on weeping,
don’t outgrow it.
The map is shrinking.
Paradise is getting nearer.
Planet of possibility,
take me from the planet
of the past.
You might be a fantasy,
but your gravity
is real.
Tomorrow or delusion,
it doesn’t matter,
I need you
to counter the
loss of paradise.
Uncapture me
with your charm,
I can be saved
by
something
that isn’t for me.
Tear me from the orbit
of her
with your accidental
nearness.
The music of the spheres
comes from coincidences
that erupt in broken places.
When destiny fails,
lives dance to glorious irrelevancies,
as everlasting as seas,
as delicate as snowflakes,
that die each time
you try to copy them.
Captivity destroys the battering ram,
then yields to a sudden
premonition.
The truth in lies
turns falsehoods into
acts of liberation.
Whatever reason you have
for crossing the path of my defeat,
I can use you.
When the darkness pours in,
I can reach for your smile,
I can believe you love me.
And whenever you seem to ache,
with pain that might be mine,
I can believe I make a difference.
I can become new
like a reformed thief.
I feel guilty for all the gold I’ve taken from you,
I have to repent with poems.
Ghosts of yesterday alter every perception,
I can’t touch NOW, I can’t read NOW.
I am dyslexic in the present.
But it doesn’t matter.
You have gravity.
You are a countervailing planet.
Only a fool thinks that the parade
that is passing by
belongs to him.
Even so, he can command it,
like a King, to make him forget.
Forgive me for corrupting
your mysterious appearance
in the Universe.
Forgive me for putting a saddle
on the apparition.
Can I make up for the transgression
of needing you to escape from her?
Here, let me lay flowers at the feet
of the true purpose
of your beauty,
which I cannot fathom,
let me repay you
for my sin
of not knowing
who you are.
Release me or keep me;
just help me to be free.
Explain my poem?
It’s a comet
that comes into my mind
from the blackness
of not knowing who I am.
The sun plays with it
then lets it go for another century.
It knows it will come back
to another mind,
after it’s been forgotten.
Like knowledge
that’s too much to bear,
it burns into the darkness
and runs.
Jupiter watches;
its jealous might
slashes the path
with a sword of gravity
that breaks open the gold.
The sky rejoices
with its wound.
The light that’s spilled
along the way
of dying
changes everything.
Of course
you’re in it,
in intimate camouflage.
I borrowed you
from God.
Explain my poem?
I live.
You’re near.
I write down
whatever
won’t let me sleep.
There’s nothing more to my poetry
than that.
Loneliness Does Strange Things To Love
Loneliness
does strange things
to love.
The dove will sing
to the crow,
the horse
will wait for the snail,
the shark
will let strange fish
ride him till all the ocean laughs,
unwanted black shapes
in the depths
will spend
their lives
looking at the lanterns
that grow
out of their heads.
Mountains will beg for
earthquakes
to flatten them,
suns will burn
for dead planets,
dandelions will give their hopes up
to the next generation
and blow their heads off.
Beautiful men
will divide like cells
and become women
to write poems to.
Some clouds are giants,
some are horses, some are
the faces of Gods.
The world is a drifting cloud,
made by love’s eyes.
I love something suggested by you,
but I don’t know if it’s you.
Loneliness
does strange things
to love.
Angel
trying to be a woman.
Can’t.
Tangled up in
clouds,
doesn’t know how
to speak dreams
with skin.
Stirs up man dust,
can’t fly down.
One night
she danced like Salome,
I handed her
my head
on a platter.
That’s how angels
dream
of being women.
Morning comes,
and all you see
is the bottom of their clouds.
She tried.
She can’t.
I want my head back.
I took an x-ray
of a piece of shit,
and I found a jewel.
In a tree without leaves
I saw the glory
of summer’s green head.
They saw me
talking to the wind,
but I was sitting
at the head of the table
of my world.
I wasn’t such a fool
as to love you,
who could not be loved
by men.
My kiss
was all the Universe
rushing to your rescue.
My darling,
if I have failed at everything
the one place
where I was right
is you.
Stars give the night its name.
You did not come
for nothing
to the face of
darkness.
You saw its light.
Let me let it all out
Let me fall off of the mountain
Let me fall out of the sky
Your arms can do that
Let me let it all out
Let my proud mask fall into the dirt
Let my wheels break
Let my horse come in last
Your bed can do that
Or just your words
Burn down the false house
with your soul
After a life of struggling to be him
I want to be ashes
The phoenix can’t be born
if all is well
Long-term health
is no virtue in the night
Green needs drought
if it is to mean more
than the desert
Dislodge me from mediocrity!
Save me from safety!
Kill me
the way only you can
Judge me, then free me
by looking at me
after you have condemned me
Let me let it all out
Let me fall off of the mountain
Let me fall out of the sky
Your arms can do that
Let me let it all out
Let my proud mask fall into the dirt
Let my wheels break
Let my horse come in last
Your bed can do that
Or just your words
Love and contempt
makes a stronger kind of love
Yes, I know, I’m mad -
but only around you.
To die
for one pretend.
To die
for one night
of not knowing.
Green and cut down
wants to have
another flower.
Death
walks lightly,
tiptoes in
on a kiss
when you need
one more day in spring.
Who cares?
Who cares?
Now I understand.
Souls love
like water and the ear.
You hear the sea
tossing and turning
on the beach,
and your heart
knows it has
found a friend.
The sea
hears the
sound of your
hearing in its
watery heart
that it thought
was only for itself,
its self-absorbed
greatness realizes
that what it does best
has an admirer.
It wakes up
to its solitude
because someone
is listening,
and that’s when
its waves
begin to have a
double meaning.
It becomes like a
mother, singing its child
to sleep.
The sea and the ear,
they never touch.
Souls
make love
that way.