POEMS/LYRICS BY JRS XVIII

 

EXTRAORDINARY PENNILESS MEN

 

Extraordinary Penniless Men

Lisistrata (Lyrics)

Private Cuts, Bleeding World

The Nazis Were In Color

Black Helicopter

A File

You Killed Hitler!

Mirror of Darkness

Heimlich Almost-Haiku

Words After The Last Words

Door To The Treasure House

Feng Shui In A Pit

Casualty In Paradise

Clock And Soul

Loyalist

Christmas In Iraq

To Keep Us Together 

I Am Not

Revenge

God

A Poem For God On A Night On The Edge

Sacred Being

Do I Stay Down?

Reap What You Sow (Lyrics)

Food Of Illusions

Loving You Is A Lonely Place To Be

One-Legged Man

Don’t Want To Be Lonely

Honey’s Just As Sweet

Music To Me

Charade Parade

Around And Around And Around

I Can’t Scratch

Canary Pen

Soul Obsession

Sign On The Poet’s Door

Treading Water

Old Man River

Idiotus, Fool Of Fools

Poets And Love 

Mary, Mary 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

My Dream Ran Out Of Time, And Dido Won

Two White Horses

Dragon Burned

Creatures Of Spirit

Moon And Ladder

Falling Flower

 

Extraordinary Penniless Men

 

Extraordinary penniless men.

Don’t be so quick to say no

when they invite you

to the free crack

in the wall.

The world needs

new tricks,

and even though no dollar sign

comes out of their ****s,

they can

do better than that:

pull an angel

out of Hell’s hat,

or at least a feather

to show the difference

between

angels and men.

If you don’t have to snort,

you can read

the golden book,

it only comes

in tatters.

 

Extraordinary penniless men.

We’re the librarians in the basement

who guard

the stairs of hope.

Hear us marching

to the beat of a different drummer,

don’t walk past the wise soul

of summer,

which autumn’s falling leaves

enthrone,

don’t stab the sun

with your withheld lips,

it will drip light

out of the question’s reach.

We have the answer,

we just don’t have the means.

 

Extraordinary penniless men.

Sacrifice yourself

on the cross of our obsession,

it has a reason.

Wager your genes

on the dice roll of

our brilliant uncompetitive minds.

Your soft deluded hands

could be the womb

of a new world.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Lisistrata (Lyrics)

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

la nube que se alcanza con la sange

el palacio construido con el dolor del inocente

el leon que mata para que su reina tenga diamante

 

Puedo ser su complice

a el le puedo dar mi cuerpo y mi corazon

O puedo decir no

puedo ser la defensora de un mundo mejor

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Para mi belleza lucha, dice el soldado

Quiere conquistarme con el botin de El Dorado

Soy pirata tambien si acepto las joyas de su mano

 

Puedo ser su complice

a el le puedo dar mi cuerpo y mi corazon

O puedo decir no

puedo ser la defensora de un mundo mejor

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Que poder tiene Lisistrata

Sin ella, el soldado no tiene nada

en su nombre inventO las balas

para ella el Diablo tiene cola

y el angel tiene alas

es una diosa, y es una hada

esta Lisistrata

esta mujer llamada Lisistrata

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Sin ella, el traficante no se meta en la droga

el pirata no saquea, y el marinero no se ahoga

las abejas pican, todas buscando la rosa

un sexo lucha para el mundo

pero el otro lo da su forma

mas poderosa que las armas es la respuesta de Lisistrata

su respuesta de si o no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Ni los presidentes

ni los reyes

tienen mi poder

ellos juegan

pero soy yo

soy yo que pongo las reglas

puedo poner las reglas

con mi si o no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

hoy acepto las joyas

de la sinceridad

y de la moralidad

no me compras mas con

las frutas de la hostilidad

quiero que llegue la paz

puedes quedarte con las perlas

con el oro que tu robas

con la plata que sacas de las lagrimas

puedes quedarte con la casa grande

si hay pobres al otro lado del balancin

no acepto la corona que necesita un gamin

Soy la diosa que va a hacer el mundo nuevo

con mi no

con las rayas del sol

de mi no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no

Lisistrata dice no, no, no

 

Back to Top

 

 

Private Cuts, Bleeding World

 

Private cuts

bleeding world.

 

Donna’s hippy lover left,

she became a Republican.

 

Eddie’s father hit him

then took him to the woods

and showed him how to shoot

the big-eyed deer.

Sniper grew on the apple tree.

Now everyone in the gun-sight’s dad,

the politics doesn’t matter.

 

White Boy Joey

got beat up in Nigeria,

now they’re all Uncle Remus

with a crack vial.

 

Alexandra got broken into

where she’s sweetest

by the vandal,

now she kills the one

who really loves her

with miles of ice.

 

Mary lost her Baby Jesus,

cried tears that sideswiped history,

the whole world rushed

to be nailed to the cross.

 

Private cuts, bleeding world.

 

Murray drove the forklift

through his daily dust

under the whip eyes

of yelling man

until he finally said,

"Bomb them all."

 

And Murray was just like Sam,

the master of crawling.

Sam was

recruited by TV land

to become a soldier of the voting booth,

gave the gun of his vote

to another angry man.

 

Said, "Here, I’m dying,

please do it for me."

 

A whole world

scribbling history

in its own blood

on the wall.

Little lives

that make

the empires

rise and fall.

 

J and D were going to have a baby,

something went wrong,

sang their love song

in the cold.

Prometheus stole fire from the Gods

and his reward was to be chained down

so an eagle could eat his liver

forever.

Now every couple passing by

is like that eagle,

J and D are killed by other people’s

happiness. At least the world used

Prometheus’ torch.

Sad and hopeless,

their wound stays home

while the earth

riots in the streets.

Their healing hands

were silenced

long ago.

 

Jack of All Trades

lost his eleventh crappy job,

built the Berlin Wall

in El Paso.

Programmed the cruise missile to home in

on accents.

He turned the bills he couldn’t pay

into a million Mexicans,

used them to keep his

heartbreaks from crossing over the

border to the truth.

No one wants to be the runt of the family.

 

Wally P. always hated

the Big Apple,

it could never remember

the name of his

small town.

When he saw its towers come

tumbling down,

he didn’t cry,

he just used them.

Turban World got to go,

the earth’s filled with New Yorks

that don’t go

fishing with me.

 

Private cuts, bleeding world.

 

How many treaties do we need?

 

Private cuts, bleeding world.

 

Hopelessness, or hope?

 

Too much needs to be fixed.

 

But one person can save it all.

 

Back to Top

 

 

The Nazis Were In Color

 

Met them in a vintage photo,

met them in a film

on the other side of me.

 

Nazis in the past.

Black and white soldiers

running past

the burning truck,

eyes of steel traps

ready to snap shut

on anyone who sees them naked;

you make one wrong move

and their bullet

will suddenly

be f*****g you.

The Arch came later,

after the fields

in full bloom with the dead,

and the intersections

cluttered

with flaming tokens

of resistance,

some strange god

in the sky

covered his tracks.

 

The Arch -

the Arch pillaged

by marching feet

that were not its own.

Passing underneath

was their way of being

on top.

 

And the ocean waves of

Sieg Heil,

like a child playing

in his tub

who sends water

splashing onto the floor:

tub of a nation,

floor of a world;

bewildered looks raped

by the proud.

That, too,

was in black and white,

nations plucked from the

illusion of order,

which is only the down time

of chaos.

 

Black and white.

I saw it all in black and white.

 

It wasn’t of this world,

the nightmare,

it came from the

black and white world,

belonged to the world

of black and white.

 

Black and white.

The vintage moat,

protector of

our times.

 

Until one day, walking,

I suddenly found myself

wandering in the same

green woods,

and realized so looked

these woods to

the invading Nazi

and the dying Frenchman.

 

The Nazis were in color!

Every nuance, every flower, every leaf

as I see it now,

the color of human flesh and human eyes,

this is the medium

in which the Nazi conquered

and the Frenchman died.

Even the night was not quite black,

and the snow that tried, in vain,

to bring back holiness was not true white,

black and white were not the absence of color,

they were colors,

colors amidst colors.

 

The black and white world

never existed,

it was only the illusion of a photograph!

And suddenly,

I was no longer distant

from the attack,

from the men and women who

were behind the changes on the map.

 

The Nazis were in color!

Enlightenment came like a cold sweat in the night;

with a moment of inner dynamite

hurled against perception

a giant hole was blown in the wall

of the black and white jail

which kept them off the streets of my times.

 

The Nazis were in color!

 

Fairy tale’s end!

History’s insulation shattered,

two times screwed together

like parts of a gun,

something buried in the past

around the bend!

 

The Nazis were in color!

 

Oh death of black and white

which sheltered me with the camera’s

sleight of hand,

guarded my sleep and land

with the magic trick of a non-existent wall!

History does not have periods,

it’s a run-on sentence.

And yesterday never gives back the key.

 

Oh death of black and white,

counting sheep throughout the night,

must I now count wolves?

 

The Nazis were in color!

 

Not black and white!

 

The Nazis were in color!

 

Back to Top

 

 

Black Helicopter

 

I had a vision of dying,

of black helicopters in the sky

and barbed wire around Right

while Wrong stood high,

spotlights

coming from the Third Eye

of Liberty,

and blood dripping from

every question mark,

I dreamt I ran within

a herd nation

hiding from its conscience,

until the sun turned its back

on the earth;

and only those

who were eaten

by the hateful mind

and passed through its intestines

to its gun-wielding fingers

were not discovered

and destroyed.

 

Back to Top

 

 

A File

 

Written with all due respect to institutions of self-defense when properly envisioned and legitimately utilized.

 

If you’re worthwhile

you’re going to have a file.

Might as well get it now.

Don’t make big Brother wait.

Don’t make the mindless killer

speculate.

Spycam up your ass,

blow kisses to the CIA,

they’ve got to be there

in case your girl’s

hiding Bin Laden

in her pants.

FBI Library card

and NSA telephone,

I’ll never be alone.

I’ve got a file,

therefore I am.

 

Patriot Act

come in like a cat

without bells,

the mouse of my mind

is creeping around the holes

in the big guy’s argument.

Let the Reverend kill Shakespeare

and send the monkeys home,

and by the way

shoot the little yelling man

who took his country back,

I deserve a file, to talk like that.

I loved the towers

more than those

who used them.

 

E-mail a telescope

into the head of the different drummer,

type your confession

which is too many questions.

We’re on it.

we don’t have the firing squad yet,

take a number

and wait

your turn,

doors close at 1945,

will open again tomorrow,

if you look the other way.

 

Used to be,

all the knights were out

looking for the Grail,

the castle was nothing but

an empty jail.

But now the king is back

with a crown

of crass gold,

he never understood what the holy fuss

was all about,

he just knelt

in front of his shit

and prayed for the sky to be

worthless.

And he dressed the cripples

in crusaders’ crosses,

to make the world bend

low enough

for him to reach.

Avalon just became ECHELON.

 

They’ve broken into the lofty mind

with base eyes

tied to base souls.

 

They scrutinize

the open arms of horizons

with stabs in the back.

 

They know you are beyond them;

you must fall off the earth

because they’ve declared it flat.

 

Information will pierce you soon,

it’s waiting like a loaded gun,

waiting, waiting

for one more fool

to tip the scales.

 

Transparency

in the arsenal of dogs

is the deadliest weapon of all,

they’ll kill the future

by dressing you in the

dunce cap of your

complexity,

steal a nuance from your

richness

to hurl to the empty and the filthy.

With rat poison, they’ll kill the

Gods!

 

Today, they build the wall,

tomorrow they stand you

against it.

 

How much living can you get in

before they find out

who you are?

 

Never mind!

 

It’s as inevitable as the stars burning out.

Might as well get a file now,

wouldn’t it be a shame to be the last

one to go,

to live longer

only because you were frozen

in your tracks -

because you didn’t ask?

Might as well get a file now,

it’s the only way to be somebody.

Every penny wants to be gold;

are you worth a bullet?

 

Cannon fodder doesn’t count.

Brave Man’s

just Bad Man’s hand;

and it’s Bad Man’s land.

He despises his tools

by giving them a medal.

 

Might as well get a file now,

let the cowards

gather around your integrity

like vultures,

and pick apart your love of truth.

Once there was a first man,

one day there’ll be a last man.

No one can ask for more

than to die in the right place.

 

Might as well get a file now:

Home of the free,

Land of the brave,

and everyone else is born to be

a slave.

 

But my file gave proof through the night,

that our flag was still there.

Our flag was still there - in me.

 

Patriot act, and patriot fact.

Which one are you?

 

And my file gave proof through the night,

that our flag was still there.

 

Back to Top

 

 

You Killed Hitler!

 

Damn Russians!

Damn Americans!

You killed Hitler.

You’re murderers!

 

Some people

are able to

build their

righteousness

on top of

the most amazing

misperceptions!

 

Blinded

to everything

except

their own actions

coming back

to them,

they dare to

wear the crown of the

victim,

to add the most precious jewel

to their treasure house

of thefts.

 

Invisible punches

bring counterpunches

that seem to be

the first blow.

Some people throw punches

in their sleep,

but people who are hit

are always awake.

 

What a strange thing, when

people of iron cry.

 

He who lives by the sword

expects to die tenderly

in God’s arms.

 

What an incompetent religion,

like a shaky hand that can’t hold

a glass of water

without spilling it.

Morals were

always such

cheap whores.

 

In and out of

Alzheimer’s,

the killers destroy,

while preserving

their right

to mourn the

consequences of

somebody else’s

self-defense.

 

The abridged version

of Karma

has no

chapter

of Genesis.

Moments come from nowhere,

there is no wheel,

just the affront of

a rebelling slave

whose chains

you never

saw.

 

At such moments,

swords

imagine they are shields.

 

Politics

masquerades as

forensic science

to prove that the

man who was shot in the back

was charging.

Excuses

pound the stranger’s dream

like artillery

until innocence is

leveled,

until the carnage was deserved.

Armies have

always needed

fairy tales.

 

Napoleon cut out God,

the middle man,

to crown himself Emperor.

The swastika

gave itself

angel’s wings.

 

The karmic wheel

is never captured

by the still photography

of politics.

There will always be some point

at which Hitler seems right.

 

Damn Russians!

Damn Americans!

You killed Hitler.

You’re murderers!

 

There is no greater

danger in the world

than the mirage

of a holy place.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Mirror Of Darkness

 

He who will not look within,

in the mirror of darkness,

will be slain

by a cloud.

You must go far from God

into the temple of Brother Hate

where your

umbilical cord

reaches into

Hell.

 

No doctor can avert his eyes

if the patient is to live.

 

Ulysses blinded the Cyclops

with a burning stake

thrust into the only eye he had.

 

Don’t let the Ulysses in you

turn everything into day.

 

Angels can’t be delicate.

 

The scarab pushes around a ball of dung.

That’s how he got to

be sacred.

 

Judas ran ahead of himself,

that’s why he fell.

He didn’t know he could commit adultery

with gold

until Jesus was dead.

 

Know thyself.

 

Plunge into dark reflections,

baptize yourself in the water of

wrong choices and wrong paths,

swim

before you get wet.

 

Know thyself.

 

Run with wolves.

Spare the world.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Heimlich Almost-Haiku

 

You cannot perform

the Heimlich Maneuver

on a butterfly.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Words After The Last Words

 

A I.P., quien persiste en mi corazon como el hermano del alma que era.

 

You had the power for that one moment

when my eyes froze like a deer

before I could remember

that all men die;

for that one instant when God’s trick

to keep us alive

made me look afraid

as your hate, tipped with a gun,

broke through the walls of justice, and smashed

into my heart, my dreaming skull.

For a moment, then, my physiology

raised you high, like a flag above your illusion.

I gasped for breath

and sank to my knees

as though you were the king,

though you were nothing but a lost soul

and a trigger.

Tears cascaded from my eyes

as blood surged out of my veins,

a crimson funeral dirge

that made you float in ignorant rapture

over my powerlessness.

But it is you who died

and drowned in weakness,

not the broken one

who writhed ecstatically in the arms of angels

disguised as pain,

incompatible

with the earth.

 

Give me a minute

to break free of this debris,

to get clear of this body that has surrendered me

like a flower opening up

to God.

 

Give me a minute

to escape the reflexes of ephemeral agony

and to return to the infinite tranquillity

that mocks you.

 

Did you shoot the sky? The sea?

Did you think the heart of the Universe

would stop beating,

or that the sun

would say your name?

A bullet lodged in the brain of the ocean

is merely spit upon

by all the water

of the world.

 

You are a fool.

Your little toy of death

is like a child

crying "Boo!"

 

To startle is not to vanquish.

To dislodge a spirit

from a corpse

is not to rule

what’s real.

 

Poor fool.

Drown your sins in cups

of lives you stole,

stick your egotism, rigid with self-love,

into a dark place

unlocked by lies

and stacks of paper that hold the faces of the dead.

Your pleasure is like vomit.

Nothing you can ever do

will save you from this day.

 

And now it’s you who are on your knees and crying,

like a sissy

inside the iron

you have to cling to.

Your lips can’t even reach the feet

of the dead.

They live, above your corpse

of excesses,

your futile orgasms and hangovers

that can never free you

from your leprous trigger finger.

 

Poor fool!

It is you who are a cadaver,

so far from the fields of the sun,

where angels dance

and will always dance

without you.

 

Good men don’t die, love keeps them

like candles at an altar.

As they dissolve

beneath the ground

the earth slowly takes their form.

One day, we’ll awaken

on top of a giant heart.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Door To The Treasure House

 

Door to the human treasure house,

gateway to the soft insides

of humanity.

Of course the dark iron God

is there,

ringing the doorbell

of guns.

He wants what you have.

He doesn’t want to be you,

he wants to hold it

without knowing what it is.

He’ll make every good thing bleed

till he can

make it fit.

 

His blueprint has no tear ducts,

just a grudge against hope.

Yesterday,

he shot an angel

by the fence,

his bullets raised our sins

another notch.

This time we may not be able

to get over them.

 

King of night,

with a child’s mind!

The gold coin

told him a lie,

and he believed it.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Feng Shui In A Pit

Feng Shui in a pit.

Balance the dark with the dirt.

The yin of piss

with the yang of shit.

Wise man: what can you do with this?

 

Now you’re finally in tune

with the history of the earth.

Blown over, burned, drowned, and buried,

the Four Elements are present

in your life.

Wise man: do you have anything more than light?

 

Feng Shui in a pit.

Balance the dark with the dirt.

The yin of piss

with the yang of shit.

Wise man: what can you do with this?

 

In some places

Enlightenment doesn’t matter.

You don’t need a wise man;

you need a ladder.

 

Back to Top

 

 

 

Casualty In Paradise

 

Casualty in paradise.

Blood seeped under the door.

One man’s Heaven

is another man’s Hell.

Can’t get away from it

cause it’s in someone’s mind,

no matter where you draw the line.

There’s always the Trojan Horse

of who we were.

 

Casualty in paradise.

The real world always catches up

with the fantasy

of being our own God.

 

It’s noble to try to break

the chains,

even though we are the chains.

 

There’s nothing worth living for

except throwing yourself under the

wheels of what’s impossible.

Everything else is too easy.

The stars in the sky

aren’t worthy of me.

 

Casualty in paradise.

 

Ocean knows where the island lives,

and always will.

 

One day the water will

cover the earth.

 

Paradise is the beauty

of flying the flag till the end:

the flag

of what God lost.

Maybe one day he’ll look,

and find it in us.

 

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Clock And Soul

 

Clock is ticking down

to my dead soul

in somebody’s fat stomach.

Body on the road.

Pass it by, this is war.

It’s my body.

They’re on the way

to weighing a thousand pounds.

 

Ice statue woman wants the finest feathers

in her hat,

she’s going to dig her beauty

out of someone else’s earth,

bury the dead

in the hole her face comes from:

plastic surgery

performed

by extinction.

No more birds in the sky,

just the finest feathers in her hat.

 

Clock is ticking down.

Another morning

I’ve got to cut myself to be on time:

Razor blade, slash my flesh,

mutilate my skin

with my daily bread.

The beautiful book is still unwritten -

and unread.

 

Clock

Clock

 

Run away,

you’re dangerous

to the shallow premise.

 

Grind the mind

into a road,

your value is equal

to the velocity of

the army

you don’t impede.

You can’t believe it,

but it’s true.

They throw out light

because it thinks it’s above

the rules of the strong.

 

Clock is ticking down,

I’ve got nothing left

but goodness

sitting down.

 

Pyrite world

wears the gold out.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Loyalist

 

Loyalist.

I heard the old music again.

It cut me into pieces

alone

in the dark room.

Is this how it feels

to put bullets into your gun

on the night when

suicide finally

comes dressed

with pearls?

I can’t go back.

By the burning candle,

dripping wax of cowardice,

and the note of ideals I couldn’t outgrow,

I sit

while others sleep,

determined to commit

the suicide

of returning.

 

A horse

can outrun a car

after the road has stopped.

There’s no road here,

just my unfinished youth,

waiting for

an old man

to paint

a young man’s angel.

 

It’s the only thing

that will let me die,

let me become the quiet sky

that reaches the lovers I never met.

 

Loyalist.

I can’t leave it behind,

the beauty

that destroyed me

because I tried too hard to love.

I’ve got to stay true.

I no longer have the strength to be a traitor,

or the time to be my enemy.

 

And now, in the season of hard ground

and frost,

a woman has come

seeking shelter,

offering her gold.

How I want her!

How I want to spoil

the final chapter of my book

with happiness -

but she knows too much.

I’m too old for her;

I have to spend my last years being young.

I still have to write the spring.

I cannot fly at the height

of her autumn

or my winter.

 

Loyalist.

I heard the music

and like Gabriel

it would not let me go.

"Deliver the message!"

the angel said

with the blinding sword of

who I was afraid to be.

"You do not belong to you.

You are the carrier of a dream.

What chariot says no to a God?"

How he lashes the horses

of my fear

with my shame!

 

Loyalist.

Today, I finally let my dream

devour me.

It needs my strength.

 

How she hates foolish men,

her body is still bruised

by their starry eyes.

 

But I can’t become innocent,

I can’t surrender my danger.

As Perseus would not let himself

become a stone,

so I can only look at the

reflection of her beauty

in the polished

mirror-shield

of my impracticality.

 

Yes, I know.

Dreamers are hurtful people.

But I can be outflanked,

behind me is a whole world of

people who are not like me.

 

I can’t lower my flag

just because she’s lonely.

Guilt is what keeps the world

at the feet of men

who have no conscience.

 

How well the world turns

love into the storm

that wrecks the ships of change.

 

Loyalist.

I can’t go back.

 

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood."

 

The ring fell off

when I chose the road

of the fool.

 

But I’m a loyalist.

Looks like

autumn-leaf love

is going to blow away, too.

 

But I’m a loyalist.

 

It’s too late

not to stay

until the end.

 

Loyalist.

 

Start to write it

on my gravestone.

 

Start to write it in

your diary,

it will lead you

to another man.

 

Loyalist.

 

How proud I am

to be

outnumbered

and unloved!

 

Back to Top

 

 

Christmas In Iraq

 

Merry Christmas

by the tree of who we aren’t.

Baby Jesus is coming

with the present

of missing you.

 

Merry Christmas

in the stable of a war,

baby who I sang to sleep

is going to bed

with people who hate him;

but love is stronger

than the staring street.

I hear you

pitter-pattering

in your pajamas

with sewed-in feet,

running to the lights

and packages beneath the tree.

 

Sled tracks in the dawn.

Santa didn’t leave a real gun.

Didn’t have a fake white beard,

didn’t have a country to leave him a cookie.

 

Merry Christmas

on the other side of home,

where "alone" takes up the whole dictionary.

North Pole

could make a grown man cry;

silver bells don’t ring

at the roadblock.

 

When you coming home?

Won’t say what they gave me

to say in the speech,

won’t cry bullets

down my cheek

or hold a stiff upper lip for the mistake.

I’d put icicles on the tree forever

if it could make

the world go away.

If we could find our way back

to Christmas Day.

 

Back to Top   

 

 

To Keep Us Together

Like a cricket

chirping into the wind

who you still hear

because you want to listen to him,

in your loneliness to let him in,

tears are crying for you

on the other side of the world,

the music of tears

playing on the face

of the one you love.

If you lift up your ears

like a dog

hunting for the sound of the footsteps

that bring life

you’ll hear me.

If you listen with your longing

you’ll hear me.

Out of earshot you’ll hear me.

The wind can’t blow this love away

can’t hide it

or disguise it,

whispers will fall out of the roar that makes

the mountains wake up in another place.

You’ll hear my voice.

You’ll see my face.

 

The shifting sands

make the desert seem like

another land

but it’s the same,

the wind changes the expressions

of the earth

but not its face.

The one you love

is everywhere

looking at you like a mother.

My heart beats

on the other side of the wind

and in the wind,

my absence

kisses you endlessly,

caresses you on the soul’s skin.

Listen to me!

Listen to me

and throw away

the word loneliness.

The earth

exists only

to keep

us together.

Back to Top

 

I Am Not

I am not.

I am but a hand which

justice made

to paint itself.

Therefore I cannot die

for there is no I

and what made me is forever.

Back to Top

 

Revenge

Revenge is in reach,

mercy is too far.

 

My soul has lost too much blood

to reach mercy,

today I’ll make it

no farther than revenge.

 

Love, love,

it all came from love.

I loved you so much

that I ended up far

from love.

How could your beauty

turn into this!?

I miss you!

I cry out

with unspeakable loneliness,

scream your name

with burned fields,

defile your angelic hands

with their wounds.

How could

I bring you back

except to

shatter the laws of

time and death

with

this

inverted adoration?

 

Revenge is in reach,

mercy is too far.

 

Like an eagle,

I fly through the

rain of hate

hoping to die

to be with you sooner,

but somehow

the accident of winning

keeps us apart.

 

Why couldn’t I

give my love for you

to the world?

 

I just couldn’t.

 

My soul has lost too much blood

to reach mercy,

today I’ll make it

no farther than revenge.

 

Don’t put her name on the bullet!

Don’t put her name on the bullet!

 

Don’t break her halo

with your reflex.

Don’t let her know that

pain is stronger than love!

 

One day,

God will make a man

worthy of her.

But not today.

 

My soul has lost too much blood

to reach mercy,

today I’ll make it

no farther than revenge.

Back to Top

 

God

God exists

I feel happy

dying

a chorus of faces

is singing to me

I see a thousand

shining moon-faces

welcoming me

telling me it doesn’t matter

 

that I have done enough

been enough

 

I don’t feel the bullet

I don’t feel the knife

there’s a thousand miles

of divinity

between me

and the weapons

 

There’s things

I want to say

before I fall away

from my voice

to set things straight

but even that’s OK

the strange liquid

pouring over the glass

of my perception

is cleaning up after me

 

I see them in a haze

and I know they’ll know

one day

when linked hands of light

clasp together with the truth

in our hearts

 

and I feel sorry

for the weeping stragglers

who will look into my

coffin

and not see me looking

down at them with my own

moon-smiling face

 

and even here

as they kick my body around

with technology

I’m doing fine

deep inside the endorphins

and the adrenaline

that are only God’s

smoke screen

because He doesn’t give faith

away for free

 

and I’m fine

just fine

with the bitterness out

of my system

and the pain

and the fear

and the disappointment

and the pain

and the feeling of abandonment

and betrayal

and the pain

 

all the loose ends

come together with death

and God finally makes sense

He washes His hands of graves

in the place

where mothers and orphans

intersect forever

the straight lines of loneliness

curve in the holy space

inside life’s destruction

beyond its desperation

what’s lost comes back

 

separation is only possible

on the earth

and the earth gives way

to truth

 

where forgiveness ceases

to be a transgression against love

 

and worth is measured

by the sea

that swallows crowns

 

and I am, at last,

a bitter man no more

in my final dusty moment

of being claimed by genius focused

into an obsessed metal head

of being plucked from myself like fruit

to the sound of dark cheers

 

pissing all over myself

with God’s warm tears

 

crashing downwards

to breathe raped earth

I am a bitter man no more

 

take my money

take my life

take my trust

my dreams are bigger than I thought

and the door to them is opening

 

the door to what

they really are

 

and I am a bitter man no more

a beaten man no more

a mournful man no more

a tortured man no more

 

I’m going home

to everything I lost

to everything I missed

I’m going home

to the country where I’m great

 

without being anything

I’m great

 

what a sweet drink

this dying is

 

stay on, my friends,

you don’t deserve this joy

yet

you still have illusions

to conquer

beneath the moon

of my love

for you

 

it will all be over sooner than you think

 

and we’ll flow back

into one another

like warm water

 

like hot springs

in the snow

we’ll beat the cold

 

the dark will back off

and you’ll know

forever

what I know

now

Back to Top

 

 

 

A Poem For God On A Night At The Edge

 

Greater than my sins

is where I’m walking to.

 

Greater than the vows to God

I broke

is the good I did

as a liar.

 

Whenever He really needed me

I came without a promise

or a cross.

 

Why walk over the thin ice

of your frail soul to get to Him

when you can just be who you are?

 

He knows where you live.

 

Self-hate,

self-hate!

 

The gun of wanting to get it right

gone mad with paralysis,

which turned to hate.

Tonight I pointed it at my head!

Why would God let me pull the trigger?

That’s how a pen found its way into my hand

instead.

 

Stop, you’re so serious,

you’re hurting God!

 

Relax

until you are the perfect soldier.

A little drink

will improve your aim.

 

Do you know how many creatures

defecate within the sea,

in which we bathe?

Even so, the waves come up to embrace us with authority,

as though it didn’t matter.

And it doesn’t.

What’s pure isn’t pure;

it’s beyond purity,

it’s real;

it swallows up its own filth

with endless miles of forgiveness,

and dares to be clean

by doing what it does best.

It’s too busy being enormous

to succumb to its

imperfection.

 

God doesn’t like "yes men."

 

He knows the wild horses.

He made them.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Sacred Being

 

Sacred Being.

What a fool you are!

You jumped into the mud

and came out shining.

You spit at God

by putting a bullet through your brain,

but the children

wouldn’t let you leave.

 

You are the clumsiest dancer of sin

the world’s ever seen.

Angels laugh at you.

 

Your goodness is like an elephant

trying to hide behind a lamppost.

You can’t escape from being beautiful.

It looks like your soul is going

to have to drag you behind it

to the place where you’re needed.

You can’t fall low enough

not to be useful.

You are even improved by sin,

it put some color back

into your pale cheeks.

 

Sacred Being!

Did you think you could

run away from God

by hating yourself?

 

Did you think the witchcraft

of your humility

could make your wings fall off?

 

Did you think sticking needles

into the doll of you

could kill the you

you’re afraid to be?

 

Curses are nothing.

Why God put you here

is everything.

 

Your crazy game of roulette

is just a trick

that loneliness is playing

on you:

the sword’s a feather

because it’s not God’s.

 

You can’t walk away with

something that’s His.

 

Get used to it.

 

You can’t fall off of the world,

it’s everywhere.

You can’t not be you.

You can’t make it be night.

 

God’s sun is shining, and you’re a sacred being.

 

You can’t make it be night.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Do I Stay Down?

 

There comes a time

when you’ve got to decide:

do I stay down

or get back on my feet?

 

They were wrong,

they cheated

and no one saw.

The world doesn’t understand.

Your glass jaw

wasn’t really a glass jaw,

it was a low blow.

The world doesn’t understand.

 

You have the right

to lie down forever,

to immortalize the injustice

by being beaten.

You can build a temple

around what they did to you,

and worship what might have been

or you can

destroy the

shrine

by getting up.

 

There comes a time

when you’ve got to decide:

do I stay down

or get back on my feet?

 

It hurts to get back up.

Instead of being a martyr,

you’ll be in last place.

 

It hurts to get back up

and try again.

You have so far to go

to catch up,

it’s so cold

this far behind.

Staying down

is like a warm room

inside

a freezing night.

 

There comes a time

when you’ve got to decide:

do I stay down

or get back on my feet?

 

If the world’s lost because of you,

only you will know.

 

There comes a time

when you’ve got to decide:

do I stay down

or get back on my feet?

 

Back to Top

 

 

Reap What You Sow (Lyrics)

 

You didn’t love me enough

for me to show you

all I had inside

 

Your future fell

under the feet of the

ignorance of your eyes

 

Reap what you sow

Reap what you sow

 

You didn’t care

cause it wasn’t you

when the black bells rang

 

Indifference is the

master craftsman

of the boomerang

 

You didn’t let yourself

breathe in the air

of the day after

 

You stayed locked

in the chapel of

yesterday’s laughter

 

Reap what you sow

Reap what you sow

 

You didn’t care

cause it wasn’t you

when the black bells rang

 

Indifference is the

master craftsman

of the boomerang

 

Father Mother Son Daughter

Neighbor Nation World Slaughter

 

You wanted what didn’t belong to you

 

You took the fruit

that made the tree fall down

 

Can you live backwards?

Can you live backwards now?

 

Reap what you sow

Reap what you sow

 

Plant a seed and watch it grow

You can’t cast it so far

that it won’t

 

Busy wrong

or sleeping wrong,

you water the fields

with everything you do and don’t

and it will grow

 

There is no such thing as nothing

everything is something

and it will grow

 

Whether you like it or not

you’re planting tomorrow

wherever you are and whatever you’re doing

you’re planting tomorrow

 

Reap what you sow

Reap what you sow

 

Reap what you sow

Reap what you sow

 

Back to Top

 

 

Food Of Illusions

 

Food of illusions.

Boy became God

and lost control

of the Sun.

 

Food of illusions.

 

Hermit

married a picture

on the wall,

he gave loneliness

a gun.

 

Food of illusions.

 

Starving man

didn’t eat

because he had you.

 

Food of illusions.

 

The last supper.

When you kissed me on the cheek,

I could already

feel the nails

going into my hands.

 

Food of illusions.

 

Sometimes something that has no weight

can break you.

 

Look at the emaciated man.

He just finished the feast of illusions.

 

Back To Top

 

 

Loving You’s A Lonely Place To Be

 

Loving you’s

a lonely place to be

 

Alone by the sea,

white waves

give everything

as they die

 

the land says no

but they keep coming back

 

intimate feelings

are shaken out of the ocean

 

when water hits a rock

the white cries out

all its secrets

 

it’s like lying naked

in your bed

and hearing you say

"What are you doing here?"

 

In the night

the humiliated waves hide,

you can hear them

talking to themselves,

lashing themselves

for their stupidity,

see the dark mass afraid of

fondling the edges of your life

 

In the day

it’s blue and proud again,

it’s seen itself

and realizes

the shore where it’s been bashing its head

is only a tiny part of

its existence.

It’s like a king

who has regained his power.

 

Then you

take away the veil,

your feet whisper

a dance as he departs,

you kiss the receding water

that’s going back into itself

with footsteps,

leave the love notes of your soles

in the wet sand,

and once more

the ocean forgets the world,

roars its helplessness to you,

crawls back

onto the beach

of your irresistible

coldness.

 

Back to Top

 

 

One Legged Man

 

One legged man

one push and he falls over

 

All over the world

men giving their legs to women

and women giving their legs to men

 

It’s a world of

one-legged people

falling down

 

fool people

 

who started on someone else

before they got

to themselves

 

Back to Top

 

 

Don’t Want To Be Lonely

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Kill you

Kill me

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Misfit love

mismatch love

will only

make us bleed

 

Try to twist ourselves

into what gets us what we need

 

Contortionist love

 

Got to make

the circle fit inside the square

 

Circle and square

lie down in bed together

 

Tomorrow

the child of not being right for each other

will be crying

for milk

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Kill you

Kill me

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Can see it coming

 

Tornado of you and me

tearing up the last chance we thought we’d already lost

which is why we threw it away,

you on me,

and me on you

 

There was one more train on the way,

but we started to walk

 

When broken souls love

the world bends,

it wants to break too

but it can’t

 

Waking up in arms that don’t have it anymore,

regrets become physical

 

Dying so slow

with what somebody else

did wrong

at the crossroads

of the missing summer

 

Can see it coming

 

Tornado

 

Good love’s a loose cannon

 

Good love sneaking out of mismatched souls

 

Like a diamond crying

with its dead,

shedding leaves of

child soldiers

so the wrong woman

can look down

at her superfluous white hand

and be the queen

she isn’t

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Kill you

Kill me

 

This orgasm just made a big mistake

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Kill you

Kill me

 

Don’t want to be lonely

 

Back to Top

 

 

Honey’s Just As Sweet

 

Honey’s just as sweet

after the bees

sting the bear’s nose

and chase him

into the water

 

He just doesn’t want it

anymore

 

Back to Top

 

 

Music To Me

 

People say I’m insane,

a man no wiser than a child,

an addict to the hole

in the middle of my life

which I try to fill with you,

a broken soul crawling towards

never growing,

a beggar

holding his wrinkled hat

for a few coins

of your beauty.

Like Lear

who was once king

wandering alone

in the wilderness

with a jester

while old warriors

try not to remember

that they died for him.

 

They don’t understand.

 

I’m a musician,

and you’re a piano

come to life

under the ghost hands

of what I lost.

 

All night,

the concerto torments

and gives meaning to

my ears,

it’s your soul.

I can hear it.

 

To them I’m like

a schizophrenic

hearing voices,

like the man on the subway

who says Jesus

is telling him what to do.

 

But I can hear it.

 

You.

 

Your meanness,

your aloofness wearing warmth,

your gaping wound

that cries for revenge

on Sundays,

your elusiveness,

and the predictability

of being baffled by you,

of never guessing right

and getting there,

it all makes sense

like point and counterpoint

like bass and treble

like rhythm and melody.

You’re a beautiful piece of music,

the lows that make me seem a fool

in others’ eyes

are like fierce mothers

embracing angel children,

your highs are like miracles

dripping from the closed faucets of Heaven,

normality leaks the blessing

of your difference.

They call an earthly plumber,

I just listen.

 

Low and high.

Could a bird fly

without the earth?

 

The sky is only beautiful

because it is

threatened

by the ground.
Imagine if your feet could make

the clouds dirty.

Imagine if you could

roll the sun into your house,

or see stars in an open casket.

 

You are a beautiful piece of music.

 

When I’m an animal

I hate you.

 

When I’m a God,

I love you.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Charade Parade

 

Truth rained

on the charade parade

Sun Maid

offered something new

but it was just

low-grade afraid

to pave the lonely road

another day.

Fool clothes got wet,

I had to change,

straight eyes

always win

when you’re strong enough

to see.

Big hearts

break

in big ways

but the love you wasted

always comes back

to haunt you.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Around And Around And Around

 

Around and around and around and around

in circles of being broken

 

You’re the alternative to fixing myself

 

Around and around and around and around

in circles of being broken

 

I’ve saved you the cost of repairs

 

Around and around and around and around

in circles of being broken

 

Dance of the bees, bees crying wolf,

the whole hive spends the precious energy

of its delicate angry wings

rushing airborne

to the nectar

that isn’t there.

 

Blind man hit the pin~ata,

all the good stuff came out

before we met

 

We should have stopped this long ago

 

Me banging my head on the wall of you

You banging your head on the wall of me

 

When the past is too strong

the present goes round and round,

like a donkey tied to a pole,

its breaking free turns what it is trying to leave

into the center of its life;

the radius of its freedom

is slavery

 

We should have stopped this long ago

 

Me banging my head on the wall of you

You banging your head on the wall of me

 

Back to Top

 

 

I Can’t Scratch

 

I can’t scratch some parts of my back,

and I can’t love you.

 

My coffin’s tattooed on your arm;

and all my love poems ever did

was cause you harm.

 

They lowered you in my eyes

when you fell behind my words

They proved one of us is deaf

and the other one absurd

 

I can’t scratch some parts of my back,

and I can’t love you.

 

Longing is supposed to stretch reality

but the world didn’t change

365 heartbeats around the sun

and it’s still the same

you never flattered me by

changing course

 

When I used the sky to cry

you were so casual

you cracked the bell of angels hanging in my heart

by being factual

you wouldn’t step out onto my bridge

of speculations

You rejected my wild dreams for us

from the shelter of your own imagination

 

And I can’t go on

I can’t reach you where you are

my hand stops at where you’ll never go

 

I can’t scratch some parts of my back,

and I can’t love you.

 

Back To Top

 

 

Canary Pen

 

I won’t be

manipulated

by hammer blows.

You ain’t no

Michelangelo.

My faults do beautiful things.

 

And my canary pen’s

singing love’s

death song in the mines.

 

You don’t know me

well enough

to know

what to save

and what to kill.

Love my heart

and respect my mind.

 

And my canary pen’s

singing love’s

death song in the mines.

 

A man can be hurt

by too little and too much,

by absence and by a touch,

by an overwhelming act of cruelty

and a kind word that’s not enough.

Don’t make the painting

throw away the brush.

Listen to the rumors my neglected body whispers,

heed the things I don’t dare say:

read the signs.

 

My canary pen’s

singing love’s

death song in the mines.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Soul Obsession

 

Soul obsession

that’s all it’s been

 

Soul obsession

not a dog

chasing

the moon,

not a joker

asking Queen Elizabeth

to the Prom

 

Soul Obsession

 

Nature lover

who likes to be alone

with trees,

except

you’re the trees

 

Your great strange

existence,

one-half El Dorado

one-half Hindenburg

kept me glued

to solitude,

which you disguised,

until,

as all obsessions,

it finally swallowed

itself up

into nothingness

to wait

until the next

Creation.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Sign On The Poet’s Door

 

Do Not Disturb.

Loneliness in progress.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Treading Water

 

Treading water with you,

going nowhere

with your help.

It’s too early to pick a new

direction.

Right now,

keeping my head above water is

north, south, east, and west.

Don’t want to go too far

from the happiness I lost,

so I’m going nowhere.

Don’t want to make a mistake again

so I’m going nowhere.

Too many possibilities to destroy

by picking one,

so I’m going nowhere.

But I need to make the indecision

bearable.

That’s where you come in.

You don’t want me

and you don’t want to be alone.

You keep me from taking a chance,

and keep me from sinking like a stone.

Treading water with you.

Going nowhere,

with your help.

 

Back to Top

 

Old Man River

Old Man River

flowed along.

River bed said,

"Old Man."

 

Old Man River

passed through your young life,

remembering.

Once upon a time he was green,

passing through a green land.

 

Once upon a time.

 

Now a thousand miles

have changed his face.

 

Sediments of wisdom

muddied him,

the young are right

not to listen

until their bodies

age into an ear.

 

For the young,

defeats only bleed.

 

Old Man River,

flowing along.

You’ll never swim in his waters,

they’re not the color of your eyes.

 

Old Man River,

you just watch him

flowing by.

 

All the lives he lived

and wore out

look like dirt now,

that’s what

a thousand miles

does to a beautiful dream.

But somewhere down at

the end of his debacle,

a new land’s growing.

Sometimes, clinging to the past

is an act of creation.

 

Old Man River,

before your time.

His life is upstream,

the river you see

is only yesterday

going home.

You could have made him

flow in your own times,

but you let him stay

Old Man River;

let him pass through your loneliness

on the way to

the angels he killed.

 

No "now" for Old Man River,

you were only there to remind him

that he’s in the past tense.

 

Old Man River,

deep as a fool.

 

But one day,

this wreckage of the world

he passed through,

and drags along, forever,

inside his soul

will be somebody’s

home.

 

Could’ve been yours,

but you called him

Old Man River.

 

Could’ve been yours,

but he was the color

of his baggage,

and you wanted to be

as far away from you

as you could be.

 

Old Man River.

Could’ve been yours,

but you just watched him

flowing by.

Back to Top

 

Idiotus, Fool Of Fools

 

My name is Idiotus,

Fool of Fools,

lowest of the low.

Except when I put on

my golden ray

which is you.

Don’t look at me

like I look at me.

Find something

worthy

and let me grow

around it,

sometimes lies

become true,

roses bloom

for eyes that

are only imagining things.

Your perception

can be the wall,

or the carpet

leading

to the throne.

I’m blind -

they made me blind -

and I need

your eyes.

Otherwise,

I am Idiotus,

Fool of Fools,

lowest of the low.

Write it in stone,

one way

or the other.

Your pregnant subjectivity

or my barren objectivity:

truth, or giving birth?

Don’t let me

see me as I am,

let me see me

as your generosity

misperceives me.

I’ll fill

your illusion’s shoes.

My soul is broken,

all power, now,

is in your eyes:

your holy eyes.

Save me

by miscalculating.

Otherwise,

I am Idiotus,

Fool of Fools,

lowest of the low.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Poets And Love

 

Go seek out someone

who doesn’t love you

and dash the barriers

of your creativity

against the stone,

when you split

your head open

poems will fall out.

Real love

is too equal

to spur

the one-sided

longing

that invents art.

You need a woman

to hurl you into the abyss

to suddenly

awaken to words

that have wings.

If you want to be happy,

look for love that answers,

if you want to be a poet,

look for the most beautiful No

you can find.

 

Back to Top

 

Mary, Mary

Mary, Mary,

I kissed your foot,

it reaches upwards

towards the rest of you,

the Heaven

I can only

pray to.

 

Mary, Mary,

I kissed your foot,

the bed

became a church.

The child in your womb

grew from

a thought

that wasn’t mine.

 

Mary, Mary,

forgive my breath

upon the mirror,

the rosy lips

that blossomed

from the seed of knowing you

belong to someone else.

I have to close

the door;

even though you will

always be

on my side

of the door,

I have to pretend.

 

Mary, Mary,

you didn’t want a man,

you replaced yourself

in my arms

with the cloud

that would have hidden you.

I cry her name and slip

deeply into a

promise

I cannot break,

hemorrhaging tears

because

she’s not you.

Through her body

and her ecstasy,

through the mere air of her flesh

I see your light.

There is no substance in my

world

to keep me

from you.

 

Mary, Mary,

how could I tell her,

how could I let her down?

Why did I ever have to

meet you?

She could have been more to me than

a regret.

In her eyes

I see nothing except you

walking away.

 

Mary, Mary,

I kissed your foot,

everything beyond it

was lethal

because you

were too proud

or too afraid.

Your pride

became my loneliness,

your fear

became my religion.

 

Mary, Mary,

after she goes

to sleep,

well-fed by

ecstasy,

I will return

to you,

I’ll light a

candle,

turn my semen into

holy fire,

purify my passion

into sadness.

I’ll hold your foot

till the end of time,

never get beyond it,

and never let

it go.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

I first heard your name today,

you’ve had many lovers, or so

they say.

Could I be another?

Would you take a rose

from my soul

and bury me

in your heart?

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

Would the world fit

on the altar of your troubled

eyes,

the future of many isles:

green children

of our fall and rise?

I can’t stand to be less

than those

who loved you until

they died;

those who wrote you love letters

with their lives.

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

Maud was but a stepping stone

across your lake,

you drove the poet

who loved her away, and

kept him dancing with his pen,

spilling the ink that would become

others’ blood,

and vainly longing

for your proud daughter;

you freed her, with his suffering,

to be the lioness

of the oppressed.

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

How you’ve aged,

the book of sins has turned another page, and

I see no one between your stooping memory

and my treacherous hesitation.

Green Isle

within a dress,

destroyer of the gifted,

I’m lonely enough to love you!

Resurrect me with the dark new face

of a changed world;

my country

is every place that cries.

Will you be my killer,

since you’ll never be my wife?

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

Gather me up

in your bloody angel hands,

I’ll give you back

your youth

by being a man.

The rose I’ve picked for you is me.

The wedding ring you’ll never wear

is some slave’s liberty.

I’ve freed everyone, by loving you,

but me.

 

Cathleen ni Houlihan

Light upon the lake,

heroes don’t cry to die,

they’re merely grateful

that they were made.

My blood in your veins

will guard tomorrow, and

all tomorrows,

with your beauty.

Back to Top   

My Dream Ran Out Of Time, And Dido Won

Killed by goodness:

it’s not really dying,

the bells of lives not lived

are sweetly chiming

with melodies in the tower

above the square.

Sometimes, when your dreams are gone

something else is there.

You couldn’t have defended yourself from her.

So God, who put her child’s soul

in the way

of your vision chariot,

meant for you to stop

until night stole the day.

You couldn’t ride her down.

You were only meant

to begin

what you thought you’d finish.

But the goodness

that made you incomplete

will bring another generation

to its feet.

All is well,

let the fever

speak to you, with life or death,

enjoy its

company,

its fiery breath, its

flaming inside your head.

Secrets and consolations

will visit you

before you’re dead.

 

God put her in the way

because you weren’t meant to

reach the end,

whether for a whisper in the rose bush,

or the subtle glory

of a friend.

Maybe the world

wasn’t greater

than her crying.

Maybe the reeling universe

spun forever

to bring all cosmic laws

into place

so she could bloom

for a second against a backdrop

of eternity.

Maybe the world was

only made

so she wouldn’t be alone.

Maybe Dido

was the real Rome.

 

O hard, hard warriors

who persevere to make history write your name

upon pages of empires and blood.

You will be remembered

because you knew how to turn off love!

I couldn’t cut her loose,

I couldn’t stand to see her sleepwalk

through my soul,

couldn’t stand to leave her behind

so I could go.

Maybe Dido

was the real Rome.

 

Good man dying,

banish regrets!

It was

God’s conspiracy

on her behalf

that made you throw away

the time you needed

to be great.

You can die

in peace now

for the

golden years

you gave her.

You don’t need

a grave or home,

you carried

her out

of the

darkness

to herself.

Maybe Dido

was the real Rome.

Back to Top

 

Two White Horses

 

Two white horses

didn’t get dirty,

pranced away from the

mud.

All the swiftness in their

legs remains,

their proud unbowed

manes,

the spirit of heads held

high,

they are not too

ashamed

to answer the wind

with uncorrupted

strides,

they did not commit the

suicide

of breaking each other

to

be

happy.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Dragon Burned

 

Dragon burned

what wanted to be

burned

and flew away.

Green valley

black.

But forest

always heals from

the cut of flames,

green blood

coagulates.

Forest fires are

like pimples on the

earth’s face,

only a little while before

the soul

reclaims

the skin

with trees.

Dragon flew away,

left my heart

in my healing hands.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Creatures Of Spirit

 

Human beings

are creatures of spirit.

 

Give us clothes, give us shoes,

give us roofs,

we’ll always find a way

to be drenched

in a rainstorm.

 

The temple of reason

shelters the gods

of the vanquished.

 

History has always been ruled

by runaway

hearts

using minds to make

a path for madness.

 

Swords

are crafted by reason

but their soul

belongs to an impulse.

 

Compassion, too,

is not logical.

We try to make it seem so,

but the real logic

is who can catch who by surprise?

How many weapons can you build,

in secret, behind a wall of love?

Compassion is irrational.

Conquest and love,

neither one makes any sense.

 

Never try to catch

domination and violence

in the net of your mind,

they’ll cut their way out

with feelings

even death can’t deter.

 

You can only fight fire with fire.

 

Emotion with emotion.

 

Reason is never the driver,

never the killer

or the savior.

It’s nothing more than the tip

of the arrow,

or the offering made to a cynic:

drugged meat

so the dog won’t bark.

 

Only fire can fight fire.

 

I once wrote a whole book

about this,

but it was burned

in the fire

of the secret defense

of the world the way it is.

Killers quietly

hoard their treasures in silence won on the

battlefields of broken pens.

Have you ever fought against a whole city,

have you ever seen the skyline of a weapon?

 

But this isn’t about me.

 

Only fire can fight fire.

 

Emotion and emotion.

 

Legislate

Philosophize

Study

Explain,

how intricate

can you make your impotence?

How high can you build

something that doesn’t matter to you?

I have seen sages

melt in the heat of

a desire,

wisdom crumble

in the hands of rage,

geniuses regress

to tantrums

and architects wear

the collar of the desert.

When you kiss an idea

it has to kiss you back.

 

Hate and love

have always set fire to the human mind,

made the scholars jump out of the tower,

and the diplomats run for cover.

 

Warriors

and saints

defy

the godly clockwork.

 

Bumblebees fly.

History perpetually evades the wise.

 

Only fire can fight fire.

 

Emotion and emotion.

 

Justice will always tear the law to shreds.

Love will always break out of the cage

that puts life first.

Fury longs to be blind and toothless.

The joy of suffering

will always flee from the oppression

of generosity.

 

Human beings are creatures of spirit.

 

Only fire can fight fire.

 

Emotion and emotion.

 

The mind just follows.

 

The world’s future lies in knowing

that the mind just follows.

 

Back to Top

 

 

Moon And Ladder

 

I see the moon

shining between

the rungs

of a high ladder.

Who wants to climb all

the way up

when the moon

is three rungs

from the top?

 

Back to Top

 

 

Falling Flower

 

Flower falling to the earth

changed its mind,

became a butterfly.

Back to Top

 

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