EXTRAORDINARY PENNILESS MEN
A Poem For God On A Night On The Edge
Loving You Is A Lonely Place To Be
My Dream Ran Out Of Time, And Dido Won
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
You cannot perform
the Heimlich Maneuver
on a butterfly.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Do Not Disturb.
Loneliness in progress.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Flower falling to the earth
changed its mind,
became a butterfly.