POEMS & LYRICS BY JRS XIX
Somebody Who Loves Them (Lyrics)
Love In The Time Of Cholera Remix
Obsessions Defeated And Victorious
A Vulgar Expression Of The State Of The World
The Humiliation Of The French Collaborators, Paris, 1944
Hilda’s Blitz Krieg Of Self-Denial
Captain Of The Ship Of Fantasy
What Did You Do With The Magic Moment?
Tiger made the arrow,
you made the poem.
It’s not an act of vanity,
I have to ward you off -
your absence off -
which is the most powerful you.
Tiger made the arrow,
you made the poem.
It’s not about being an artist,
it’s about not being ripped to shreds.
Iron words wrapped around me
so you can’t get through
even though you already did.
Tiger made the arrow,
you made the poem.
In the jungle your savage grace
mocked my thoughts.
Low to the ground with feline wisdom
in serpent sisterhood
to the earth,
no need for sky,
eagle of the ground,
you sucked the life out of my
mind,
who could run like you,
leap like you,
tear my paper world apart
like you
in callous, self-contained magnificence?
Pages, pages, thick with words
dug from the depths of my mind
like the mind-flash of the arrow
changing man from infant,
forest from grave,
I fortified my paper barrier
against you
with infinities stolen
from your breath,
gave the weight to words
and pushed it off my
broken chest
with poems.
Like Cleopatra smuggled in a carpet,
I rolled you up
inside my talent
and sent you away
from my jugular tears,
I articulated you into harmlessness
one night at a time
before the sun of you
returned to demand new blood,
compelled me to pierce my tongue
with cactus
and drip reflections of you
on pages
of worship.
Tiger made the arrow,
you made the poem.
This isn’t literature.
This isn’t poetry.
This isn’t art.
It’s you and me,
naked gladiators
in the arena
of love
badly translated.
Mixed-signal mayhem
in our hearts
on the sand of
things that went wrong:
right from the outside,
but wrong,
so wrong.
Who would believe the fairy tale
of what we could have been?
Swords in hand,
love, unspoken, on the sand.
Yes, I’m mad,
condemned to a lifetime
of writing about it.
Tiger made the arrow,
you made the poem.
This isn’t literature.
This isn’t poetry.
This isn’t art.
It’s an act of self-defense.
Yes, we’re friends.
Fifth column
of the heart.
This isn’t literature.
This isn’t poetry.
This isn’t art.
It’s an act of self-defense.
Tiger made the arrow,
you made the poem.
It never happened
it’s all in your heart.
This isn’t literature.
This isn’t poetry.
This isn’t art.
It’s an act of self-defense.
I’m going to survive you.
Water of love
wanted to go to everything.
You made the channel.
You made the channel.
Kept it away.
Water of love
won’t flow into your bedroom,
won’t go away.
You built three walls around your city,
three walls of water,
three moats
of me
to keep me away
from your whisper-hungry ear,
your frightened body,
the statue of gold
that turned your eye
into my detractor,
your non-existent man
shaped from dreams,
your dragon-ideal
that guards
the fruit on the tree
that the water of love
feeds.
The rejection tree has
roots
that reach deep
into me:
I give you the strength
to deny me.
Water of love.
Water of love.
You made the river bed
with your child’s finger in the earth,
drew the map
of our relationship
in the dirt,
and I poured through the wound
rushing towards
the intimate entrance
to your soul
but found myself
meeting the ocean instead
with only a hint of you:
your child’s laugh,
your woman’s hurt.
Time’s bleeding
from the ground
from the cut
you made for
me to live in:
your cut,
my water of love.
Where it flowed
was always your decision,
from the day
I realized
who you were.
Water of love
slowly drained my soul,
trying to reach you
through your perception.
Time to be a
cloud again,
flow up,
the vertical river bed
is mine,
my tears
want an answer
that only I can give.
You had me
and let me go,
will you ever know
the importance of love?
Beautiful river bed,
will you ever know
what passed through
you?
Angel made of mud
doesn’t believe it’s mud,
that’s where its wings come from.
And that’s how God made men and women
from clay.
He gave them self-respect
and they rose above their
material,
they believed in the purpose they
invented,
not the destiny
they inherited.
What was inside them, then,
burned like fire.
Who saw the ugly house
with all the light
exploding out of the windows,
with mountains of brightness
erupting like
genies from every opening,
from every hole bitten by brilliance
into the mundane
and the pointless?
Beggars aren’t rags,
they’re the way
they carry themselves.
Walk like a king,
and a crown
will appear
on your head.
Don’t let others define you,
don’t let them seep into you with
their ignorance;
turn people’s
judgments
into a gauge of their character,
in the center
of the storm
become the judge.
You wear the robe of authority
when you
irrigate
the accident:
believe me, it will turn green.
Angel made of mud,
forget what you’re made of and
where you come from.
Forgetting is the first
principle of
genesis.
Forget.
A halo will burst into being
above your amnesia.
Forget.
God forgot
which is how his divine pottery
turned into men.
His toys became real:
one day his daydream
pinched itself with armies
and said, "Ouch!"
One day his clay woman
cried out in ecstasy and said,
"There’s something more than biology,
there’s love."
The baby was an afterthought,
and that was
independence.
I can see your
face melt
in the
meditation of
sex:
back off, eternity,
the gun of
my second of life
is loaded!
Angel made of mud.
Don’t be what you are,
be what you hate yourself
for not being,
it’s as easy
as shaping clay.
Elope with God’s creative daughter,
divinity is not copyrighted,
imitation is sacred;
for the wise,
it is inevitable.
Angel made of mud.
If she doesn’t see you,
she’s not the one.
We don’t fly,
eyes fly and lift us up into the sky
with their sight.
Once charity
realizes it’s only the veil
that hides
the glory of the universe
sculpted into the form of a man,
you’ll bow down
of your own free will
to everyone.
Pity is crushed
between God’s hands of reverence
and obligation.
Stop this heartsick dismantlement of the self!
You need to find someone
with flying eyes!
Angel made of mud.
If she calls you mud
by not rushing into your arms and
promising the night with a kiss,
pray for her,
she’s more alone
than you.
Believe in the
power
of the inside horse,
throw off the imposed rider.
Don’t let yourself be invaded,
no matter how beautiful the eyes!
Don’t succumb
to your naked imaginary entwining,
don’t try to be a
perfect lover to the blind.
If you’re a painter,
remain a painter,
even though she’ll never see
the shouting roses of your soul,
or the blue teardrops of her lost opportunity.
Don’t try to convince anyone
outside of your stronghold.
When you do, you just stay mud.
Angel made of mud.
Time to fly away
in
someone else’s flying eyes.
Clay cracked:
something real grew inside
the womb of fantasy.
Angel
come out
and attract your
soul mate,
the days of being made of mud
are over.
You’ve forgotten yourself
into beauty.
The girl with one foot,
when she used to have both,
used to dance by the sea.
The waves danced
with her,
she was worthy of the ocean.
Though it stretched from
Africa to America
it wanted her
for its wife;
she was the joy
of the two continents
it touched,
the light of its life.
"Come dive into me,"
it sang with bouquets
of splashes
thrown
at her feet,
with gifts of fishes
to the hungry
who lived beside her,
and horizons
for poets
searching for a song.
"Come dive into me,
I’ll caress you into being a
dolphin, and cover you with love,
engulf you in the
ecstasy
of being a part of me";
but she only dabbled
on the beach,
danced where the white foam
gasped its last breath,
danced where the pounding surf
died
of love,
danced the most beautiful
fear
with all the protection of the
ocean near,
wearing earrings
of seagulls’ voices
in the wind
and the jewels of empty shells,
tossed as trinkets
to the child self
in which the woman hid,
never wanting
anything
more than a father.
"Let the woman free!" the ocean
roared, violent only to itself,
with storms of longing
that would not let
the world sleep,
tormented by the
thoughts
of the deep.
But the woman
could not
get past the
child. Not
even the sea
could set her
free, get her to
let her hair down
by the human face of purity:
its need.
And all night
the ocean
tossed and turned
and breathed
with the whole earth
trapped inside its
dream of her.
Until the morning came
and she, who had locked
herself among
strangers,
lost her foot
in an
accident,
stepping on the land mine
of an old war
waged against her soul
as she carried
flowers
to the market
to embellish
others’
bluffs of love.
White ceiling of pain!
Imitations of doctors
looking down
at her
with blood on their
gloves
and lights,
like they shine in
the eyes of prisoners,
illuminating
their coldness:
all perceived in a helpless
daze.
How much better
to be helpless
in the throes of love!
"We couldn’t save it,"
they said
on the way back
to their garden.
Now alone,
without a man, without a home,
the girl with one foot
dances with her eyes.
The ocean gently
watches her limping thoughts of
yesterday,
and sighs,
he returns each day to
the sad spectacle of her ruined
dance,
builds the beauty
suggested by it
into what it’s not,
connects the broken dots
with the intentions beyond
her reach,
creates her dance again
from the pieces on the
beach.
Though he has other
lands to reach,
in loyalty to the fantasies
of his past
he stays beside her,
promises her years.
He watches the broken
bird fly
in its tears.
The girl with one foot
would not,
and then she could not,
for only
dancing
could she live as a dolphin
in his midst.
Now there is nothing
but this; no raw material
for the
metamorphosis.
As always
it was
only in her mind.
The girl with both feet
in her prime,
the girl with one foot
past her time,
never deserved a thing:
that’s where they cut her,
that was her wound.
That’s
why she always went
back
to her darkened room
after testing the
sun.
Ocean still loves her,
watches her dancing eyes
when she’s not looking,
when she forgets.
He kisses her phantom limb
at dawn,
waters her shore,
and then moves on.
The earth won’t let him
stop there,
won’t let him stop being the ocean
for her sad eyes.
It was always her
choice:
to be a part
or stay behind forever
with a
broken heart.
First there was Eve,
then I gave her a face.
There was the Garden of Eden
and the Fall from Grace.
Running under the black clouds
with the
serpent below
and the lightning above,
I hid my shame
in a new love.
I lost the exact words of her,
but Eve remained.
Like hot wax
poured into a new mold
by my need,
I reshaped and
renewed the recurring theme.
The earth moves;
so do our hearts,
towards necessity:
St. George of my nature,
slay the dragon of sin!
When it’s knotted around your breath
it’s muscles earn the right to
ravage
the gardens of
invention.
It’s too strong to be called obsession.
Our deepest loyalty is to the
thought,
not the expression.
And I can say Eve
a thousand ways.
Eve, Eve, what faces
will you wear today?
From what naked form
or robe of
maddening discretion,
from what bath you step from dripping wet,
or body beautified by hiding,
will my captivity be born?
You are too magnificent
for this to be perversion.
From which direction will you come?
Into what night will you fade?
Though I lose you today
you’ll never go away,
tomorrow
has a thousand names.
And Eve is always first among lost things.
Timeless like the pyramids of stone
that faced down
the desert,
like the Sphinx
with its nose blown off by fools
that endured its scars,
the vices of men,
with dominating patience,
broken, forgotten everythings
topping from the bottom of history
with queens who ruled kings
and warriors who carved the
emptiness
into empires
to impress,
to instill willingness into flesh;
mating dances of wars,
inventions, poems to light a fire
in the eyes of the
harem slave,
now burst out of servitude
like the
goddess of liberty
who all come to,
to suckle
from her proud, free breast.
Eve was always mistress
of the Universe.
One great holy place
or islands in the sea
that the broken ships use
to limp to port
one storm at a time,
she is the eternal spirit that keeps
the human race
revolving around
itself,
she is our
blindness, and
the door to
God.
Eve, who lives half outside me
and half inside my mind,
the burning image
that is the compass of my life,
the dancing rack
upon which I hang
every worthwhile thing I am,
the ground beneath my feet
that stops the falling
and tells me what it is
to be a man,
what she responds to,
what her hands reach out for:
there the earth takes shape out of the void,
there I stand.
Everything else is wind and sand.
Eve!
Eve!
Don’t leave me!
Break another mask,
make me bleed with poems
for another
lost disguise,
illusions of you,
glances of you in the mirror
that look like her,
you’ll never run out of faces.
Even in despair,
if I don’t lose hope,
if I kiss the air,
one day, again,
I’ll find you there,
you never go.
She goes, Eve,
she always goes,
but you stay.
The part inside me stays
until it reels in
another match
from the sea of loneliness,
you change your shape
and elude my past.
Sad I am
by my broken love,
but Eve you do not cry for me,
you use my eyes
to weep new women
into the world;
like changing patterns
of water rippling in a pool,
you master the momentary
with your depth,
the life and death
of love is just a single breath
of your sleep,
as you dream
the faces that I’d die for,
as I build and burn down
cities for your masks,
for the mere garments
of the queen.
And nothing is as it seems:
as I write another poem
for you, through her,
bound, forever, to this
recurring theme.
Cold winter.
Everything withers away
except what’s real.
Leaves of falsehoods
fall to the ground
leaving only the
tree of beauty.
What do you have?
What have you kept?
Did you choose
the wrong God?
Victim of hollow
things,
victim of fantasies
that hid the water!
Thirst was made
by your eyes.
I passed
through the wall
of your
vigil
like a ghost,
while you prayed
all night
to the candle
of liars.
I could never
penetrate
your gullibility,
never
remove
the nail of
superficiality
which they hammered
into your deep soul.
Last night,
I dreamt you
drowned in a
shallow river
on the way to
the promised land.
And then I was alone.
Lynx, caught in a trap.
What beautiful fur
someone will wear.
The forest
will spend the rest of time
marking your
grave with deep snow
without your footprints.
Trees will bend down
with the weight
of the white world
that lacks
your eyes,
the wind will cry
to the graceless.
Why did you let them catch you?
Why did you let them
make you into
a coat?
For some bitch’s vanity
the woods are mourning
secrets
no one is left
to understand.
The stone face
erupting with pines
is dying
without the soft clever
feet
that felt it
into existence,
you were the self-awareness
of God,
the awakening of the raw power
of the earth
in a body.
Your mortal bounding
brought what is immortal
to life.
But you threw yourself away,
you broke the heart
of things that do not feel,
in a moment of self-deprecation
you chose her over you,
the woman wrapped in a coat
that’s all
that’s left of you.
You gave the stones back to stone,
muted the stars in the night,
killed their language of light,
destroyed the world
by ceasing to catch its meaninglessness
as it fell from forever to so what?
with your strange purpose,
your loyalties blooming from irrelevance
into altars,
your pain-filled ecstasies.
You despised yourself
with the Universe at your mercy,
brushed aside your beauty
with high thoughts that led you into
low people’s trap.
And now you’re just a coat
on the shoulders of a fool,
while the whole forest
searches for you with snow
and wind
and ancient kneeling trees
and slowly fades into nothing
without your
beautiful small steps,
your dancing invented center;
because you never understood
how great it was
to be a lynx,
hunting meaning in the snow.
Somebody Who Loves Them (Lyrics)
Some people have a gold watch
Some people have a silver chain
Some people have a diamond ring
Some people have a private plane
Some people begin with rubies
and with emeralds end
Some people got dollars, pounds, and yen
And some people have somebody who loves them
Would you let money fall from your hands
and watch it blow away?
You think anyone else
will love you this way?
Nobody steps on their gold watch
Nobody breaks their silver chain
Nobody tosses their diamond ring
Nobody blows up their private plane
You got love
but you want pain
Why? Why?
Why’d you leave the wallet of love
on the street?
On the money of love
I’m the president
But I can’t get past your defense
In your iron world I can’t make a dent
Green bills of my heart
flying in the wind
of your sad eyes
I could change your life
but you just walk by
You left your money on the ground,
tears on my face
You just let a million dollars of love
blow away
And all I can say is
Some people begin with rubies
and with emeralds end
Some people got dollars, pounds, and yen
And some people have somebody who loves them
Yeah, some people have somebody who loves them
Some people have somebody who loves them
Sex in a barren land
Start with her vagina
forget her lips, forget her hand
penetrate, don’t understand
love’s abridged version:
the modern man
What begins in bed
washes up on the shore of other lands,
her disappointed eyes:
the dead in the sand
it’s with her body
you learn to be a
beast or man
Love her
look for her eyes
Create the world
with her
Love In The Time Of Cholera Remix
Guerrilla love fighter.
Going to steal a little love
from the night,
going to hit and run
with the love gun,
take the grape
right out of death’s mouth,
kiss you between the skull teeth
then get back to the light.
You’ll bear the child
of real love
in the way your eyes
open in the morning.
Baby of faith
will cry at dawn
with the lungs
of your new gaze.
Clean the bloodstains
off the day.
Hell on earth
Hell on earth
Grim Reaper took over the country of the
waterfalls,
but guerrilla lover
can still get wet,
bathe beside the jungle birds
before the mist lifts from
the killer’s sight
we’ll love and
get back to the light.
Death sniper’s scope
peering from behind
ecstasy
won’t see a thing,
trigger finger
stopped by our undeclared
wedding ring,
we’ll wrest another moment
from the sorrow
and we’ll bring it back to
tomorrow.
Alive and loved,
we’ll shine,
survivors of the suicide need.
Caution-euphoria hybrids
still walk free.
Hit and run,
touch and love,
Devil below,
God above,
we’ll draw a map
through the land mines
of love,
and take back
the Holy Land
between our souls’ legs.
Our lust will lay a golden egg;
body enlightenment
without the curse
will percolate down to
the sacred roots.
Zen ecstasy,
Buddha path to release,
condom mind protect the deadly
free-fall thought,
grab orgasm by the horns
and guide the madness
past the incense of the Maenads,
their luscious ambush dance
riding your dim-eyed trance,
tambourines of forgetting
till it’s too late
pounding to the beat of
your emptiness;
past the hunger of the
Sirens and the Fates,
their weeping goddess voices in the sea,
we have choices,
you and me,
to spit out the pit
from love’s fruit
by beginning
with
self-respect.
It’s always been the best
answer
to death.
Don’t fall all the way in:
too shallow is starvation,
too deep is sin,
wise man faun
will walk the
tightrope
of your invitation.
Snatch the treasure
from temptation
and return
to contemplate the goodness
of quiet things,
tiny carvings on the golden wall,
between the baited jewels,
worth centuries of meditation.
Don’t erase
your graceful slow demise into divinity
with the flight of loaded passion
that aims to never find
the sacred warning
in the back of your mind.
Don’t block the
withering unfolding
with bitterness:
become a skeleton the green way,
in step with your season.
Save every
bound
before the limp,
boil love
till only love remains.
The hottest fires
burn
in the embrace of
coolness.
Just look into
the succubus angel eyes
that steal ecstasy with
frightful clarity
like pearls
from the
death oyster,
that love with self-love,
that fall with wings.
You’ll be freed
without being caught.
What’s going on?
What’s going on?
My life is one big
lossathon.
Love it, lose it.
It’s mine; prove it!
Can’t hold on.
Can’t hold on
to anything.
What’s in my hands is gone;
cause I’m the winner
of the
lossathon.
Blink and it’s gone
Slip through your hands
Hole in the bucket
Castles of sand
it’s like I didn’t want
what I want
Would my happiness
sink the world?
Does the blue earth
need me down?
Did I vex
the wizard of my soul,
hex myself
with the magic
of leaving it all
for someone else?
No one will hold it like I can
I want the Three Sisters to understand
Blink and it’s gone
Night becomes dawn
Reverse the magic
Let the weak become strong
I don’t need this lossathon.
No, let me come in last place
in the lossathon.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon
hunts with
hounds of solitude.
She amazes eyes
with the raw light
of the naked moon,
chases away the sun
to become the sun of the night,
takes over the sky
of the sensitive,
then disappears into the forest
with
lethal virginity.
I have spied
upon her
bathing in the river
of my
highest thoughts,
kissed her in intimate places
with years of self-denial,
worshipped her
in the temple
of my poetry.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
with her broken mind
that became a
million stars,
ideas without a home
shining in the dark,
fermenting my words
into the wine of
poetry.
She is beyond me
and imbedded in me.
Her madness
is hidden
by the breadth
of my vision.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
scarred by mortal impediments,
cut on the cheek
by the branch
of a tree
that prays
to her.
She drags
her celestial inviolability
across the earth,
limps low
with her lofty principles,
breaking with insights
that became heavy
when a child first looked in the mirror
and saw the tiny blossoms
of her breasts.
That’s when the goddess was born,
and the woman left.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
stigmatized by clouds
of ominous misunderstanding
until she uses my imagination
to part the dark curtains
and peek
with her face of light
into the cradle
of her mental child
which I am raising
as love.
Her celibacy,
passing through my loneliness,
is filtered
into seduction.
Her beauty falls upon me
like the night
upon the earth,
abducts me
to the limits
that infatuate me.
She accepts me now
like a tree
accepts a bird,
becomes its stepmother
by the grave of its exhausted wings.
She accepts me like the forest that hides her,
like a green leaf
held back
by a branch,
shaking harmlessly
in the breeze,
beside her discarded clothes
while she bathes naked
in the river
of my eyes
that only see
what will never happen.
So quietly moves my lust,
like a deer
afraid to be
slain by the arrow
of her shame!
Like a garment
concealed
by mighty distractions,
by burning suns and reeling winds
and histories
that take her mind from her body
and obliterate
the sensation of being touched
she does not feel me
wrapped around her every
movement
caressing her with the fabric
of my obsession,
she lets me cling to her
because she has lions
in her eyes,
miles of forests
and ghosts
that make me fade,
shielding me with her distant
and embattled gaze.
I am the victim
of her focus,
and saved
by being a victim.
Where dark armies tried to break in
true love weighs nothing,
and what is not said with a battering ram
is inaudible.
My love is not killed
because it is invisible.
I am the pauper of her tumult,
a tiny chameleon,
the color of the ocean
hurling itself against her purity,
I survive because
I can’t be taken
seriously,
I don’t ride a black chariot,
I don’t have the strong arms
she lusts for
to the point
of murdering.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
blowing the silent horn
of your need
in the night,
I hear it,
that’s why I’ve come:
to offer you
love without blood,
life without surrender.
I’ll leave my genitals
at the door
come in with kindness
behind the soul
you couldn’t find
among the killers
you craved.
I’ll contort my lust
to fit the contours
of your stunted glory,
your goddess might
and cripple woman.
I’ll reduce myself to
the size of your wound,
stand naked against the cold wall
while your virtue scourges me
for the sins
of the ones you loved.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
I love you more than life,
for you I jumped off the mountain
of my nature
to appease your injury.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
I love you
more than what I am,
but even so,
I cannot persevere to love you
after death,
after enamored nobility’s final breath;
after the deadly ravages
of my new shape.
The world will never survive my alteration
or your escape.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
I love you more than what I am,
but I cannot live forever
as a strand of your fantasy
as the phantom of your safety.
Artemis,
goddess of the moon,
when will you let me
be a man?
Touch deprivation,
skin wearing a blindfold
all life long.
Mama’s hug,
lullaby hands
not there.
Special friends’ caress
retracted,
intimacy recanted,
retroactive
starvation of the flesh,
mere impersonation of a lover.
Go back in time
to steal
the context
of the sensations,
reinterpret fusion
as solitude,
you’re impervious even to
the touches
of the past.
Cupids’ arrow
is supposed to be
soft
and hours long,
doesn’t need
to end with an orgasm.
Even held hands
can overturn
the sentence,
solitary confinement
in a body.
Sometimes
the candlelight vigil
of one’s love need
can win a reprieve
from isolation,
pardon from the
insurmountable barrier of
obvious damage.
A friend says yes.
Just held hands,
that’s all:
a little rain
can make a
parched land
whimper with love
and blush
green thickets.
What kind of cowardice
is this
that keeps us locked apart,
with miles
still
between our
hearts?
Obsessions Defeated And Victorious
When you back up from some obsessions
you see a fool in the mirror,
the gun smoke of your heart’s war against reality clears
and there’s nothing left but a
white flag
flying above the fantasy.
"She was never the one for me."
"What was I thinking?"
the rose on her arm says,
her beauty goes on without you,
love is dead.
People who don’t love you
fade like flowers
burned by the sun.
Sunflowers
that don’t follow
the golden light
of your illusions
wither in the heat of
your riderless dreams.
What has your loneliness done?
Obsession, obsession,
you’ve lost your grip,
her eyes moved past my doomed gift,
my silent chorus of reverence,
my mind divided into a thousand angels
singing by her bedside.
For her, God turned into a pen
and died.
Obsession, obsession,
she couldn’t pick her child
from the crowd,
she watched the chariot of love crash
without knowing what it was,
thinking it was
some other woman
staining the
church window
of my regrets.
She didn’t believe I could be so unrealistic.
Obsession, obsession,
when I saw
I was nothing to her,
my unworthiness made her unworthy,
she fell from the pedestal,
became a leper with a bell,
ringing warnings of her color-blindness
to flowers.
But that is when obsession falls.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
You back off, you rub your eyes,
you slap water on your face,
and she’s still alive, sitting on the throne of your
self-destruction;
you can’t snap out of it, can’t get away,
can’t get past
the beautiful obstruction;
somehow she’s changed the chemistry
of your brain, become the gatekeeper of
all your pain, the ruler of your history of tears,
queen of all the secrets which she doesn’t know
but which she owns.
She has power over you which is like the blood
in your veins, you’ll bleed to death if you break her.
On the mountain of your capture she stands,
holding your unused genitals aloft like Perseus raising Medusa’s
severed head,
with a polished mirror she conquered you
without looking at you,
she killed you without touching you.
Your heart is where she buries her dead,
your imagination is her domain.
She binds you with the chains of your sensitivity
lifting her iron dress to show a vulnerability,
she knows the gullibility of your tenderness;
then dances like your own invention
in the endless square of your loneliness,
becomes the only feature of the earth.
You fall to your knees with more lost days.
Obsession, obsession!
She uses your adoration like a bird uses the air
to save its wings
she glides for miles over your infatuation
to more practical dreams.
Your mind sees all; your heart permits all.
Will she ever leave me? Will she ever come to me?
Will this obsession kill itself by becoming real, or stretch itself
so thin it breaks? Will I be saved by the patience of my
absurdity, or rescued by the preposterous,
finally vomit up my slavery from the unpalatable extremism of the jest?
Is this bondage, or is this a quest?
Am I devoted, or just obsessed?
Will I ever be free from the one I love?
Hostage needs
the highest rose,
you won’t kidnap
him with a
ten-foot pole
Empty jail
needs a bank full of money
to be its door
you want
the standard plan
you’ve got to flash
your jewelry on the platform
north wind’s
got to
bend like
the kama sutra
walk the streets
of loneliness
with an offering
even spider boy
gets the kindness
of ecstasy
before he becomes
her meal,
before his dreams
are spun into
her eternal maze;
she strips the night
from her body and
he gets to see one dawn
before he dies
she flatters his soul
before she yawns
before his supremacy
kills him
In what deluded temple
does this man become yours?
there is always an altar of pleasure
before the throat is slit
goddess should know suicide is a gift
fierce Kali
dances with all his senses
lies beneath his imagination
one hour
before she takes out
the knife
to protect
the mysteries
of her sacred hurt
only gold
sleeps soundly
in the dirt
never has so much power
led to an old maid
you’ve smashed your way through the revelations
of history
to complete futility
forgotten
lessons learned from Salome
I know you don’t want equality
you want control
and you could have it
if you could just let go
until you fell all the way down
to the throne
if you would only let your helplessness
crown you
throw pearls to the fool
lie down, rise up,
reverse and rule
The Trojan Horse of love
never fails
but your pride keeps you
on the side
of the eternal game
you won’t play the winning card
in your hand
the queen of hearts
is going to lose her man
you call it dignity
but it’s only a self-inflicted wound
it’s beneath you to comfort the victim
of the sacrifice
so who will walk up the steps
of your pyramid?
even those who want you to kill them
will choose the misery of life
if there are no gods
on the other side
of the well
lure them to you with a moment of truth
talk to them with
your skin
it’s divine and it won’t mind
it won’t be polluted by his joy
never, never!
you think this is for free?
Captives have rights
they exercise through the level of conviction
they put into their flight
slow them down with the ancient weapon
of yes
turn their thundering departure into a token escape
light the fire that brings them back
bargain with your beauty
it’s not whorish
it’s the law
they are giving you a life
give them something
don’t pretend your body weighs more
than a human soul
Hostage needs
the highest rose,
you won’t kidnap
him with a
ten-foot pole
Every once in a while
in the daydream daze
somebody needs to step into the clear
and say
I love you,
don’t want to lose you in the fog
Never trust the obvious
never think she knows
every day you’ve got to show her
her name is written in your soul
Tired, trite, cliché,
don’t let master poet get in the way,
ring the rusty bell of love
over and over again.
You are the sun
you are the rose
you are the angel
you are the dove among the crows.
Been there, done that:
you’ll lose her if you think like that!
You can never plagiarize
what’s in your heart,
the dawn erased the tablet
of the gods
and everything you do from now on’s
new
You’ve got to say it again,
cause she wasn’t Juliet
and Shakespeare
wasn’t you.
Sometimes, the sun don’t shine
between the lines
Don’t lose her
just because your love’s blazing
in the middle of the sky
maybe she’s blind
Put her hands
on the world
that’s right in front of her,
don’t let her walk by
the piano of love
without playing what you feel,
don’t leave the music to chance,
don’t let her second guess
what’s only in her own mind
and what is real.
Write love
on every page
of her world
LOVE
LOVE
LOVE
LOVE
until she knows what she means
to you
give her a clear space
to decline or accept,
never let her drift away
because you mumbled
deep things
in the mist
or spoke in riddles
to save face
suffocated the cross roads
with discretion.
Truth in love
is the greatest bravery.
Clinging to its periphery -
loving your own advanced guard
in her heart
or losing love through misunderstanding
and spending the rest of time
impaled on your mistake -
it’s worse than slavery.
Nostalgia for things not tried
while the fears that stole life survive deep inside,
crawling like termites
through your broken heart,
is the slowest death.
Sing whatever song,
however feeble,
can sally from your throat,
and risk no
in order to live.
Step into the clear.
Tell her in words as plan as a kiss.
The Universe has remedies
for every consequence
and for every fault
except cowardice
The beaten army of love
is leaving
The beaten army of love’s
retreating
The horses are turning
round
winter will be left
to itself
The beaten army of love
is leaving
The beaten army of love’s
retreating
Young men became old
in the long march
to your heart
Gray ghost soldiers
turn back
at your doorstep
they left behind flowers
and their souls
The beaten army of love
is leaving
The beaten army of love’s
retreating
The endless continent
of your eyes
will be free forever
to look
out an empty window
The beaten army of love
is leaving
The beaten army of love’s
retreating
Back across the ice and snow
towards the starting place of dreams:
but they’ve lost the
strength to start again,
they won’t find home
where they’re going,
only shadows of what you didn’t
give them
when their hearts were in
summer,
when they believed
your disinterest
was a test
The beaten army of love
is leaving
The beaten army of love’s
retreating
Love’s paths are haunted
by the blood of the
unrequited
Love’s dead
are never quiet
they wander endlessly
inside the poems
that took the place
of their lives
The beaten army of love
is leaving
The beaten army of love’s
retreating
You are the victor
You won the war
against love
Fare thee well
Fare thee well
might as well be
a parting of old
When letters took a century
to cross the deep and stormy sea
That far away you are from me
Since you said good-bye, love
Fare thee well, good-bye, love
Fare thee well
Fare thee well
might as well be
a parting of old
When ravens sat upon the window sill
to watch the pale lover grow deathly ill
That sick your love has made me
Since you said good-bye, love
Fare thee well, good-bye, love
Fare thee well, good-bye love
The man dies before his love does
Fare thee well, good-bye, love
It really is good-bye love
Fare thee well
Fare thee well
might as well be
a parting of old
They’ll find my scattered books about
All the pages of happiness torn out
Since you said good-bye, love,
Fare thee well, good-bye, love
Fare thee well
Fare thee well
might as well be
a parting of old
You’ll see a lantern shining by the sea
Once for you and once for me
And a piece of a ship lying on the beach
Since you said good-bye, love
Fare thee well, good-bye, love
Fare thee well, good-bye love
The man dies before his love does
Fare thee well, good-bye, love
It really is good-bye love
Red light,
red blinding light
spreading through my closed eyes
red, red, dark red
and flaming red hands reaching for something
bright rivers of red
flowing through red
spotted red
age spots in the red
islands of dark red
walls of red fire
crashing against
the red that lisps
lipstick stains in the red
the shape of your lips
kissing the fire
of my closed eyes
Your lips
the only things that aren’t burned up
in the red fire
red lips hovering
like an angel
lost in Hell
Fireproof thoughts of love
staggering through every hall
in the labyrinth of fire
you say no
I try to burn
my desire
throw the incriminating letter
into the fireplace
fiery red
blinding red
can’t digest
your lips
kissing the flames
of my closed eyes
I see you everywhere in the red
lipstick stains
can’t burn the letter
like a pervert
caught with his pants down
you can make the
whitest horse
die of shame
make God apologize
for the sky
red, red
everywhere
in my closed eyes
red
spreading over
the backside
of my eyelids
cherries
bursting into flames
red blood windows
with the noon sun
shining through
sun dance
staring into
a red sky
eagle dripping
from the red
into my ear’s eyes
I see red
hear red
taste red
feel red
smell red
my sixth sense is red, too,
red clairvoyance
blinded by you
snowblind
with red
red, red
I read red
in the red book
had sex
with myself
with you
inside me
like a baby
red
praying to the red God
dying of red thirst
reaching for the red cup
Who shot my face?
Red curtain
coming down
over my eyes
dying and flying
migrating to loneliness
f****d by fire
you shot me
with your bluff of
self-sufficiency
naked in the tower
you shot me
from your hiding place
in the red
red woman
poisoning me
with red
red spider
spinning my awakening
into a web
red knife
stabbing my eyes
with your quarrel
with life
fear so hot
turned the world red
flaming red
burning red
insomniac red
that can’t sleep
as ashes
always burning
red fire
with veins of red
carrying red blood
from the chambers
of my heartbreak
to the pages
of my abandoned body
shapes that come and go
you and your pets
Noah’s Ark of rejects
dark red is the night
bright red is the day
beaten over the head
by the sun
red shade under red trees
red match lit
a red lamp
red abyss
and red regrets
flaming red everywhere
in my closed eyes
kissed by your red lips
lipstick stains
on my loneliness
red world
burning forever
since I met you
red lips
kissing the fire
of my closed eyes
Back To Top
Going blind.
I used to see your face in the light,
now the sun of my sight
is going down
leaving you in shadows,
I see half of a smiling face,
the dusk of what made you
beautiful.
You’re fading,
the hour of my love
is growing late,
nighttime is crawling over your face
like the giant spider
who stole my eyes,
you’re disappearing.
The echo of an image I would not recant
tries in vain
to touch up the
gaps in your dancing visage,
I only see the ballerina
shoes
of your expressions
vanishing
into the fog of my tears,
the blackness
of my eyes’ blood,
that your indifference
gave to time.
I’m going blind,
I’m looking straight at you
and I can’t see the one
I love anymore.
Where are you?
My wounded heart
can’t find you in the dark,
I finally see too clearly
to see.
A voice,
that’s all that’s left:
a voice,
your voice
telling me about your day,
your theory
of everything,
which means good-bye.
So sweet, so joyful,
so autonomous,
feeding the pigeons
of tangent lives with crumbs
of your soul’s
activity.
I sit now, listening, in the dark
to your world.
I’m going blind.
I used to hang
from the precipice
of every detail
of your dancing,
introspective,
outpouring
face,
cling to every frown,
every danger warded off
in deep eyes
by the patrolling angels
of exiled thoughts,
the broad reflections,
the sparks of trying,
the triumphant escape
of smiles
from your heavy flesh,
branded forever
by hands in the
wrong places,
I read the story,
every word
that you wrote
with your face,
your soul’s kingdom
radiating
intimacies
to my eagle eyes,
my eyes soaring above
your well-kept secrets
with love for you.
I broke the code of your soul,
read the unintended revelations,
lived transfixed
by the novel
of your moods’
physical form.
But now I’m going
blind. You
discarded my life
of reverent staring
(I was the Galileo of you,
your children of Fatimah);
you hurt me
by the way
you said no
without sympathy
for your effect,
you threw me back into
the darkness
I tried to penetrate.
Now I can’t see what
I used to see,
it’s fading away,
the edges of my sight have been
erased by your rejection,
I’m losing my vision
of you. Are you still there
in the blurred smear of hope?
Are you that shape in the night,
that black sun
in a black sky,
the sound of a rustling dress,
the footsteps of my fading eyes?
Now I can only see
inside my mind,
shadows of
yesterday
that are sick
but won’t die,
visions of you
that slipped in
before the gates
of my seeing
closed.
What ever happened
to those days,
those days my eyes
caressed you
softly
without changing you?
I’m going blind,
I’m looking straight at you
and I can’t see the one
I love anymore.
Rock doesn’t believe in love
Lifetime of getting hammered and chiseled,
broken in the quarry, dragged off to some high place,
then chipped and battered and smashed and scraped
into someone else’s face
then stood up naked as a stranger
in the middle of the square
for the eyes of people who don’t even know her
to grope and stare
For Rock kidnapped by art,
love means a sledgehammer
She sees your eyes
and runs back to the
primal instinct
of stone
Once she was a part of a mountain
She doesn’t want your love
She just wants to be left alone
Frozen river
cold heart covered
the impassable water with ice
I walked over it
to my new life
Fool,
too big a fool,
don’t want to talk about
my personal mythology
of love.
I rode above
the chimera
on a winged horse,
that was her.
Medusa
who turned my life to stone
with her lovely face
that needed the shelter
of a thousand hissing snakes
so she could kill
us all
with inner peace,
she was another,
coming from another direction;
it was long ago
and she loved
another me.
Then there was Helen
and the burning city
of me in the kiss
I could not refuse,
ten years after my lust
turned me into
a shadow.
Like a meteor
falling to the earth
I came with little
from a glorious place.
The thousand ships
of my self-effacement
slid into dark waters,
I beat the drum that moved the oars
for her, sailed past green shores
to my funeral,
I fought the war to be nothing
so she could be beautiful.
And yet,
if I sing of the sirens
it is not of her
I sing,
but of another still, who
found an unlocked door
into my imagination
and from the closet of my hope
took the golden robes
of speculations
to impersonate
the resurrected queen I waited for,
the Messiah of my frustration.
I did not see her
switch her throat
for mine,
nor recognize
the singing that
came from her
as the music
of my mind.
She committed no crime
but to be absolutely silent
in the night,
like a robber almost found,
to be still, so still,
a mirror
reflecting
anything I did
or wanted.
Like a bat, blind,
I flew towards myself,
towards my dreams
bouncing off of walls.
She was the walls
and I was the dark.
Together we made a perfect
team of deception.
Don’t move, siren,
don’t give yourself away,
don’t let me see that
you’re me!
Siren only wanted to please:
that was her way
of killing.
Yes, I’ve been a fool
with many accessories.
I’ve loved whips
and chains
and flowers
that turn the mind
into a kaleidoscope,
women who were these things to me,
roots of love and delusion
that blossomed into
a personal mythology.
Don’t judge them by what I write.
I still don’t know
who they really are.
I think, sometimes,
they’re only the
creations of my sight.
Angel fell down ten flights of stairs,
dented his goodness;
he got up
and first thing he said was:
"Do you love me?"
Girl with a twisted wing blushed
on the other side
of the cracked mirror.
Angel fell down ten flights of stairs,
kissed the first hooker he saw
because he wanted to beat the ten-count.
The wind of love
was knocked out of him,
he had to breathe in something.
Angel fell down ten flights of stairs,
it hurt so much
he had to hold
somebody’s hand.
Hungry hand ate him
in the river of loneliness.
Angel fell down ten flights of stairs,
that’s when mummy girl
began to look so good,
she had bandages to share
and stories about a palace
in the dust.
The synchronicity of
irreparable loss
foretold the kiss of peace.
Each was the embodiment of the other’s limits,
the ocean, in the way, that woke up the road’s eyes.
The only step forward from here
was into the other’s body, the last rites of
their dreams was sex.
They used each other to surrender to God.
All you have to do
is call it
and the acorn
will fall,
the tree will grow;
the tree that is as high
as you make me
feel low.
Think the thought
and the horses will come
running in from the west
to pull your carriage
east,
towards the rising sun
of you.
The orchestra waits,
a thousand instruments of
pleasing you are in tune,
ready for the symphony
that will summon the Valkyries
from the clouds
of your soul,
they’ll carry those who died
from your beauty
back into your life,
you’ll be protected
by the pleasure
you tower over.
Lift the baton
of the power you misused,
unleash the notes of Heaven
finally becoming realistic,
stooping down
to the earth.
God will kiss you
where he can reach you.
Stop this madness of
throwing yourself
to the dogs of loneliness.
Your misery is a haunted mansion
filled with the ghosts
of those who put your
happiness first.
Stare into the candle
of your refusal
and your changed eyes
will see
living men.
The house isn’t haunted:
you are.
Stop this insult,
this degradation of your heart!
You used the most beautiful tree
of the forest
to make a twisted flute.
Why do you torture yourself
with the sounds of
an insurmountable childhood?
Live!
You don’t have to spit out
the cake,
you’re the one who made it
bitter by wrestling its flavor
into the past
and tasting all your sad days
with every bite.
Darkness stays unless
there’s a will
somewhere in the light:
a lion isn’t a lion
unless he fights.
When life is deep,
joy only comes to lions.
Stop this expressionless weeping!
Stop this ice-cold lamenting,
your unseen tears will freeze you
to death.
You have broken down in Eden,
in the paradise
of being loved;
beneath the fruit trees’
heavy, hanging branches
offering you life.
There is a dance
that will make it happen.
Let your feet move
in an ancient way,
don’t worry,
with your fear at the helm
you won’t end up underneath,
there’s room to wince
and fly
in the strange world
of your woman’s might,
your beauty’s prayers
have been answered
by a pack of
wolves
as soft as silk.
The power’s yours.
Call it,
and the world
will fall into place.
Call it and
the slum will put on another face
and bow down
to the queen of the land.
When you want it,
you have yourself
and you have a man.
You have the joy of
all the moments that weren’t big enough
to catch in your hands,
spaces made empty
by your ambition;
you have mortal days
of discovery,
and the happiness
of eternity
at your command.
Shake Hands On The No
Shake hands
Shake hands on the No.
It was good while it
lasted.
No need to part in
anger
to save my soul.
Mermaid isn’t going to lose
her fish tail
to live on land,
Sasquatch is never
going to be a man.
What a beautiful mandala
their incompatibility
made in the sand.
Shake hands
Shake hands on the No.
Don’t need to defend
myself
by poisoning the
unlikely wine.
You were close to me
but never mine.
Shake hands
Shake hands on the No.
It couldn’t have happened
any other way.
The sword of my self-respect
can let you go
without striking an unjust
blow.
I don’t need to demean
you just to explain
to the world
why I’m alone.
Shake hands
Shake hands on the No.
You made life sweet.
It’s up to me
to accept the gift
of a single moment.
To step into the unfinished
circle
and make it
complete
with resignation.
In the face of
your beauty
resignation is
gratitude:
the only way left
that I can
say
I love you.
Repetitions in life.
Who doesn’t want to turn
their best friend
into a wife?
Gather the harvest
of your soul’s bloom,
paint the room
of the beautiful pair.
Then wake up to empty walls.
The paintings have all been taken down,
only nail holes are there,
and windows without shades.
Nothing’s left
except a light bulb
she forgot to take away,
just enough to illuminate
the immensity of your self-deception.
But it doesn’t matter.
You turn on the switch,
it’s the one switch that
will still do something
in a house of darkness.
Shamelessly, you accept the naked
harsh bulb
excreting light
onto your last piece of paper,
tolerate its mockery
of your eloquent naiveté
to write: "No more.
From now on, I’m at war with love."
For a moment, proud and free,
you stand strong "above the chasm
of what she did to me."
But the war won’t last
because of
your heart’s
learning disability.
One spring day,
when knowledge thaws beneath
the eternal sun,
she’ll come again
not knowing who she is,
in perfect
loveless innocence,
and you’ll not listen
to reason or to
intuition,
your intelligence will be
overwhelmed by wishing,
once more you’ll love her
till love ends,
embrace a dream
and lose a friend,
commit the crime of love again,
hurl useless reflections
into the path of impulses
impossible to resist,
be swept aside by the
immortal engine of the Universe
which is repetition.
Caught in cycles
of ecstatic blindness,
who could ever
give in to wisdom?
No, I’ll love her
tomorrow,
rise phoenix-like
from my tears
to be the same fool,
my madness has always
given me a
day of happiness.
I think I’ve written
this poem before
on the other side
of a burned-out sun.
Sometimes I hate myself,
but why?
This is what love does,
and has always done.
How could we ever be free?
Our errors
are the building blocks
of eternity.
And forever is only
the circle
that we make
with our mistakes.
Yes, the road of always
has an end,
it’s just by being lost
that we make it endless,
constantly rewinding the finite
to listen to the
same illusion.
The Universe needs
your beauty
and my futility;
the stars are lit by my love
for you,
and after they die,
reborn
by you not loving me.
Don’t depend on me,
be your own friend,
when the silver bullet
takes me home
you’ll be on your own,
and you’re enough.
That’s all I’m here to do.
To show you
you’re enough.
I’ll stand tall once
just to let you know,
I’ll anoint you with
my "I love you" before I go
and you’ll know it counts
because I’ll bleed
sunshine
into the life
of everybody
who doesn’t know you.
In the emptiness
their heads will turn towards you,
they’ll see my soul’s last kiss
in your hair
and thank you
for giving birth
to what made me great.
My eyes will make
their eyes
be your eyes.
I’ll trick you
into loving yourself,
lead you to the truth
in deceptive and
convoluted ways,
you won’t have to
face your self-hate,
I’ll take you in through the
back door
of what others think of you.
They made you hate yourself,
now they’ll let your love
yourself.
I’ll lower my lance
and charge
against any worthy foe
more for you than for the world
so my eyes
will make their eyes
be your eyes.
Full moon
of social nonconformity
is out
the gentleman howls
the hair of all the tools of his
psyche
engulfs him
that much hair can only be called fur
Full moon got the stamp of approval
from his journey
the early part
held onto by his pack-rat heart
why throw out history?
he drops down on all fours
it’s how he got this far
though he cuts out paper angels
from daytime expectations
gentleman howls
with bizarre games
that need the whole forest
to hide them
while the town sleeps
protected by his statue in the public square
he lunges against his tameness
he succumbs to the courage not to forget
freedom from small things
breeds competence to defend great things
his strangeness is the temple
of his beauty
his eccentricity is growing spiritually every day
he’ll multiply the loaves
by breaking the law
by private howling
that dislodges the magic frozen
by the trauma
his aberration
will bear fruit for the world
the ones who hunt him
will eat from his hand
Full moon is out
open window
curtains blowing in the breeze
a chair and desk wait to receive
thoughts outside the box
that no one could rescue from infinity
who is locked in by the codes of the body
bound by the social pact to be pale
only by becoming a maddened butterfly
ripping himself out of the cocoon of his slave flesh
can he be free to see freedom
hidden against the background of obedience
only be losing control of his human form
can the deadly control of incompetence be broken
escape learns from escape
twisted liberation becomes straight
once it’s learned how to fly in the night
wolf man kissed and laid down his cross
until the dawn
Full moon is a
giant circle magic wand
cast its spell over his righteous ineffectiveness
beast to pull the crippled good man
up the slope
thrashing through the woods
scratched by a thousand sins
he felt nothing, he was an animal
he ran through a hundred crowns of thorns
on his way to the blood
the sacrament of feasting on
his innocence
without hurting anyone he hurled himself
violently against his halo,
the holy handcuffs of the guards who flatter man
into servitude and dullness
he tasted everything forbidden
wrote the Bible all over again
to see if it came out the same
he howled
he howled truth into the world
on all fours outran hypocrisy
used the night to overturn the angels
until he found one that would not fall
and kissed her with his memory
of being a man
as beast’s in man, man’s in beast
salvation is merely an act of navigation
Full moon
wild tracks meet the dawn-eyes of the town
frightened speculations arm themselves
and march around
broken windows and torn branches
but no center to the storm:
nothing’s found
Behind a closed window
a gentleman gets dressed, hides
the nakedness that knows
so he can bring back light
to the world.
Soul in the body
Fish in the sea
Won’t you come here
and fish for me?
Fish with your hands
Fish with your lips
Find me in the water
with your wise-woman hips
This isn’t the most beautiful water
But in it swims a beautiful fish
Chase the wayward bird
and you’ll find love.
Chase him all the way
to the new
shape of emptiness
and you’ll finally see
the bright colors
of the one
who your empty eyes turned gray.
The emptiness is in you,
you don’t need the orgy
of a new lover,
you need philosophy;
it’s not about kisses,
it’s about the night,
make peace with the ghost
you’re becoming,
and the friend you have
will blossom
in your desert eyes,
when you don’t need
to weep with your genitals,
to hide from death by
dropping veils
and fleeing from face to face
without waiting
for a shadow to fall,
that’s when you will
look upon her shortcomings
with awe
and realize
there is no one who is not fragile
beneath the cruel mystery,
no one more worthy
than the one
who loves you.
Chase the wayward bird
and you’ll find love.
Go on, sin,
hurl yourself from the parapets
of familiarity,
embrace forbidden lips
with your tongue,
let the demons in;
get it out of your system,
and then you can begin
to live where you are;
on a planet of dirt
that is turning back into a star.
Chase the wayward bird
and you’ll find love.
Chase the question you had to ask,
when you find the answer
you’ll come back.
The wayward bird
is the angel
of the unconvinced.
I know, I chased him far;
and I’ve loved you
ever since.
Holy Man
got to go up to the mountain.
Holy Woman
will you wait for him?
Will you let him
throw your comfort
to the four winds?
Will you let him
cry among the pines,
will you let him
stare at the sun
until he can hear
sacred voices dancing
in his blindness?
Will you let him
be touched
by the eagle flying?
Holy woman,
can you be as alone
as he is
at the top?
Can you wait for him,
can you let him be alone
and come back with nothing
except the way he walks?
Can you let him spend
four days
times many years of your life
for the people
outside your door?
Holy Woman,
can you
breathe the air
that high up?
Holy Man
chose the hand
of the Universe,
but he wants
your hand too.
Can you help
to bring his
knowledge back
to earth,
or will you leave him
stranded
in the palm
of the moon
and stars?
Holy Man:
broken
up there on
the heights,
is it wrong of him
to want a human wife?
Holy Woman,
will you
make a place
for him
among men?
Do you love the
world enough
to put up
with him?
Can you
do the sun dance
of loving him?
Can you
fast on
the peak
of his search?
Can you
keep house
in one of
his teardrops?
Can you stand beside him
in the battle
when ignorance
comes charging
on fast horses?
Can you ride
the pony
that knows where
the dawn is?
Holy Woman,
can you
fix the
broken circle
by loving him?
Holy Man
and Holy Woman.
The world is waiting
for what you can give
to each other.
This song, which got nowhere then, is from the 1980s, when Iran-Contragate burst upon the scene, and it contains numerous references to the political milieu of the 1970s and 80s. Although the emphasis is no longer topical, the underlying theme is, more so than ever.
Topics come and go, scandals never cease
the tides come in upon the shore, and in a little while retreat
Watergate and Teapot Dome, Whiskey Ring and Tweed,
The Bay of Pigs invasion, the bitter snows of Wounded Knee
And each sin rips apart the quiet of the air
but in a while the disturbance fades, and something else is there
And Iran is nothing new, just tell me who are you?
Oh Vietnam is burning we cried out in shame
and we found it hard to be ourselves again
So we stayed out of Africa, it was "hands off" of Tehran
till the hostage situation and Afghanistan
Made us feel threatened till we showed we hadn’t changed
Grenada proved we do not run from sin but only pain
And Iran is nothing new, just tell me who are you?
Yes, from the rubble of Beirut and all those young men crushed inside
we lashed out at Grenada to resurrect our pride
And in a minute we forgot about dreams of lasting peace
we found an easier illusion than the Middle East
And then to hide the failure of our policies
we went and bombed the hell out of Tripoli
And Iran is nothing new, just tell me who are you?
Then tell me what you think of things that happened long ago
of what we did in Panama and in Santo Domingo
And of how Allende fell and Arbenz, too, you know
and what about the missing half of Mexico
But now we have the contras and in spite of what they’ve done
how they used never bothered us as much as how they got their guns
And Iran is nothing new, just tell me who are you?
Yes, though I know that some of you try so hard to see
I think newspaper columns have become prisons for you and me
Tell me we don’t get lost in them fighting one battle at a time
why do only specifics change never the substance of headlines?
Maybe there’s something deeper though I don’t mean to preach
that through the issues of the day we can never hope to reach
And Iran is nothing new, just tell me who are you?
And this is a silent prayer that we will recognize
the deeper reasons for all that happens, the reasons we’re alive
That we will reach down into the essence of our beings
and never let activity become another way of fleeing
From the hardest fight of all which is to break out of the prison
of effects to find the causes of these endless repetitions
And Iran is nothing new, just tell me who are you?
And the only way to win is if you go within
And the only way to win is if you will begin
And the only way to begin is if you seek within
A Vulgar Expression Of The State Of The World
I came to take a crap
and you’re taking a bath
with rose petals.
Locked door,
locked door,
how can this horrible feeling
be on the wrong side
of the door?
It would be so easy
to make it right.
Locked door
with someone else’s singing
where I only need a minute.
How long till you’re out?
Till the incense burns down,
till every nerve
has been loved
like a baby.
You’ll step out new
like Aphrodite rising from
the sea,
they’ll bow down to your
self-absorption.
How could my crap
get in the way of that?
Just tough it out,
give her the towel of
your misery
to wipe herself dry
before she dances into
the world’s eye.
For every dotted "i" of glory
someone dies.
Don’t knock
too loudly on the door,
don’t spoil
my water time!
This is history’s
fundamental lesson.
Don’t bring her down
with your intestines.
God damn it!
I have to take a crap
and you’re taking a bath
with rose petals.
The black glass
will be broken on the white rock.
Angels told the dying dreamer
beside his bed.
Fool I was,
whose poems never stopped a bullet!
I saw Eden
and all I gave you
was a rose.
The black glass
will be broken on the white rock.
Angels told the dying dreamer
beside his bed.
The sea of evil always comes
onto the shore of hope,
and unravels like a ball of yarn
crying out with
mortally-wounded waves,
it digs with its water fingernails
into the land
but can’t hold on;
it slips back into its
frightening limits
and leaves the earth to children
playing in the sand.
The black glass
will be broken on the white rock.
Angels told the dying dreamer
beside his bed.
Cruelty grows old
like the human body
until the vultures
of kind thoughts
gather on the branches
of its armies.
Beautiful souls
are like a desert
it can’t find water in.
Bullets didn’t kill them,
bullets were the seeds
that brought them back:
where one fell, ten arose.
The black glass
will be broken on the white rock.
Angels told the dying dreamer
beside his bed.
Men tire of the light
and do terrible things with their
boredom
until they
dig their way back
to the center of the earth
with their sins.
There, the shovel of power
breaks
on a tear
that’s turned to stone;
stolen sons and daughters
turn into a giant mother
who grabs the world
by the ear
and drags it
home.
The black glass
will be broken on the white rock.
Angels told the dying dreamer
beside his bed.
There is nothing more you
could have done or said.
Go to sleep,
sweet friend of the orphan horde.
Today the killer reigns,
tomorrow ghosts pregnant with the living.
Darkness weighs a ton
and sinks to the bottom of history
with its iron triumphs.
Justice, like a cork in water,
floats.
God made the one
lighter than the other
so that you could rest in peace
on your bed of
white poetry.
The Humiliation Of The French Collaborators, Paris, 1944
French girls
who went with the Nazis,
no, you don’t deserve
the lion pit
of liberated eyes
devouring you
with the secrets
that they kept
before revenge.
You were traitors,
but still, you’re women.
You left the poor boy
standing on the street,
and chose victory
over love.
But the millionaire’s house
burned down,
a thousand planes
fell out of the sky,
and suddenly,
the garden of opportunity
turned brown.
The flowers of Hell blossomed
into flames
like Messerschmitts
shot down.
Beautiful, beautiful prize,
clever plunder
landing on its feet.
Your practical mind
doomed you.
You were traitors,
but still, you’re women.
Some say love is the only thing that counts.
But when your homeland
is shit on by steel,
and the windows of God
are broken,
you don’t cross the line
with a kiss.
You don’t let a dark soul
right the
insect struggling on its back,
you don’t let them stop the bleeding;
you don’t smile for a lost angel
when you’re standing on your father’s grave.
You discipline yourself not to love
the beautiful blue-eyed tool, puzzled by his gun.
He wants to go home.
Don’t let him into the arms
of having a reason to stay.
You were traitors,
but still, you’re women.
You guessed wrong,
so now you’re behind the chariot in chains,
the only one left out of the celebration,
even though it’s your
parade.
We were corrupt
before we were free.
Then you arose like Aphrodite
from pieces of civilization
that could not restrain you.
How could we resist?
Now it’s our turn to be Germans,
with you.
Shorn like a sheep
with the hair of us-not-being-good-enough
on the ground,
we salivate
alongside your white form
floating by
in delirious helplessness,
the ecstasy of being discovered.
Your fright is like fruit plucked from a tree
and in our mouths,
your outrage, stunted by absurdity,
is like a blush,
your numbness
delicate, like the inside of a vagina:
how well you respond
to our touch of hate.
You are the perfect lover
for a mob.
United, we tower above you
in your pupils.
We’re your God
because you didn’t get on your knees
till now.
How sweet is retribution,
rife with secret chambers!
Forgiven by numbers,
we gather around the chaos
of civilization’s train wreck
scavenging for watches and for jewels,
we must hurry
before Order
wounds us back
into submission.
We never wanted our world anyway,
we just didn’t want
Hitler to be the one
to destroy it.
French girls
who went with the Nazis.
You were traitors,
but still, you’re women.
Now we have our country back:
our country with its dirty secrets.
For this unconscious mind
creeping inside the head of patriotism,
we died;
then we spoiled the victory
with your humiliation.
Traitor, you didn’t deserve the gift
of our fall!
We should have left you,
that’s all.
We shouldn’t have give you
the shield of our sins.
Darkness under the ice,
black shadow
of the high mind.
What giant columns,
hewed from the ordinary,
hold up the temple roof!
Sheer scream
of the primal heart
convoluted
into the child’s hand
gouging meaning into clay,
stamping the same earth
the old man will be buried in
with his frowning brow
focused on thoughts
placed carefully,
like one step after the other
on a slippery surface.
How well
our dancing hand
hides
the stutter
of our desires.
How well the penis
wears the mask of
stylus,
filling the night
with histories of disappointment
and revenge.
A man’s love
for a woman
becomes a winged God,
a lion in the garden.
A bed without her blooming like spring
becomes a shipwreck
on the shore
of peace,
a wave of
all the broken antlers
trying one last time
to win her
with the coherent
bellow of an army
or a giant flower
of stone
raised above
a desert of
slaves,
the jewel of my frustration
and your sweat,
your servitude to my
greater sensitivity.
All
the great ideas
move on hooves;
my painting began
on all fours,
but poured out of me
in the
colors of mountain peaks.
My song
was pure weeping
until I put strings in it
and played
it in the key
of the sun.
My poem
was me killing Abel
and burying him in the sky
as the
north star.
It’s all
steps
on the ladder of evolution.
I swing,
branch by branch of my mind,
through the jungle of my first rebellion
towards walking
upright.
I paint over the ugliness
with broad brush strokes of
escape
loyal to
what I’m running from.
I flee
from what I want
by combing its hair
and putting a hat on it.
I freeze the gargoyles
into stone
and
decorate my city
with my nightmares.
The base mire
is where I get all my ideas from,
it’s never far
from the clouds
where the angels
play their harps
and dry their wings.
Oh beautiful bridges
over the Seine,
listen to the rattle
of the devil’s chains,
we’ve made him our jeweler,
set him to work
beating the gold
of our emptiness
into priceless tears!
Below the surface
we contradict ourselves.
We use our filth to be beautiful,
become prodigies of our flaws,
we make godly faces
with mud on our hands
after dipping our arms
elbow-deep into
the entrails
of the earth,
we preserve our illness
because it’s the only medium
we know how to work with.
Can you paint with the light
that’s shining through the window?
No, only
with the milk
of my mother’s fear
and my father’s anger.
Her eyes are like
the lake on which
the dark swan glides,
ready to beat her to death
with his wings.
It’s the only place
where I know how to sing.
Traitors to heaven,
we scorned the stairs
that led us away from
the music!
We should hang ourselves like Judas;
except then,
there would only be what is,
and not what could be.
Congestion in the sky
God blowing the mucous
of a storm
all over the earth,
today the world’s
a kleenix.
Divine nose
blowing our city
to a standstill.
Somewhere, He’s drinking
the hot tea
of our limping snowplows
parting curtains of white
getting extra sleep
under the blanket
of our spinning nowhere-going wheels
gripped by the bulldog jaws of snow banks
even the wild love-making trees
leaping towards Him
with imminent fertility
have to restrain their green ache
with ice designs
like nurses
holding a wet wash rag
to His head
their beautiful crystalline chastity pleading for the spring
lets Him take a rest
from wars and human f**k-ups,
the third law of entropy
wreaking havoc on the
sacred
For once we’re on our knees praying,
praying for the road to be clear
so we can get away from Him
We untied
the shoes
He gave us to walk in
but now
we’re all pilgrims in His white
Jerusalem
dusting off the silenced
machinery of our sins
with
shovels
so we can hide in its
rumbling sidestep
it’s so hard to be His children
that’s why
we’ve run down a thousand miles of our heart
with free will
to another earth
Echoes of genesis
in our hands
have spoiled the six days
and lost the seventh
Poor God can only catch up
with desperate letters of weather
written to our pride
That’s why
you’re not going to do anything today
except dig yourself out
reflect with a shovel
God made a little temple
in your busyness,
a street going nowhere
for a day
In an arrogant world
holiness
returns as helplessness
baby earth
crawling through the storm
Noah’s flood
never looked so pretty
Sodom came out white
For a minute
the purity you left behind
engulfs you,
you slip and fall on virtues
you abandoned
Before you can melt them with salt
they force you
to slow down,
to look at every step
you take
Sick, sick world
God caught a cold from you
You made Him sick
and now he’s sneezing all over you
with a storm
But it won’t last forever.
Stop a minute
to gather armfuls of this white reminder,
the music of everything
being broken.
Tomorrow you’ll be back to sinning
and He’ll be up out of bed,
trying to love you.
Hilda’s Blitz Krieg Of Self-Denial
She’s descended from the Nazis,
she became a flower.
Her defiant, self-destructive gentleness
is a swastika
trying to hang itself
but you can still see
the Panzer Korps thundering
through her blue eyes
chiseled from the sea,
the iron eagles of
being soft,
she’s just falling off the world
in her own way.
One night the Storm Troopers
of father’s discontent
smashed through
the windows
of her trust,
she fled from her
violated soul
to the angels of
anger,
painted them
over as
love.
She drew a line through violence,
then wrote "God",
with the same ink.
She amputated herself
from my life
with holiness;
she invaded
the world
by withholding herself
from it.
Behind her compliance
with Heaven
there is the SS
breaking down doors,
she goose steps with kindness
that is not natural,
twists herself
from the danger of being human,
inflicts angel wings
upon herself,
murders the ardent by being good.
She has Nazis in her blood,
how could mere clouds
escape her claws?
She can only save the Jews
by playing a broken harp,
only escape her diving Stuka thoughts
by strangling herself with the
opposite,
by bottling up rage in someone else
with her
ineptness at living.
She’s cursed,
generations are needed
to dilute
that fatal uprising of
confidence,
that fury numb
to the dead.
Himmler saw her,
a little girl in pajamas,
and she’s still burned
by the love
in his eyes.
How could
her benevolence
be taken seriously?
No, it must be
the demons at work,
riding her horrified conscience
off the cliff,
making paradise impossible
with unbearable purity;
inner terrorists
infiltrating her heart,
hiding explosives
in the trash cans
of everything she’s
thrown out
to be redeemed.
War will come to her soon,
or to those she did not touch
to keep her hands clean.
Hilda
of the Niebelungelied,
horned-helmet goddess
of the
Rhine,
suppressed a sword
with stolen angel wings,
and turned me into the sword
she renounced,
by saying no to love.
What else could she do,
with Nazis
in her blood?
Personal
paradigm shift,
the Copernicus of
mortality
just moved my earth,
my immortality
cracked like a
mirror,
I couldn’t blow out
the candles on
my cake,
they just kept on
burning
with my age,
shrinking under the
weight of the fire
that wants to
live forever,
too much
for the wax body
to bear.
Atlas’ shoulders
are melting
under the burden
of longing
not in harmony
with the earth,
dripping back in time
towards
before me.
I got lost
between the cracks
in the spheres,
the mechanism
left me out.
I’m going to die!
I just woke up to it,
memories of extinction
triggered by the celebration!
My blinders broke,
and I felt it deep inside.
Time just started
to tick today.
For the first time,
my name
was posted by the clock,
a hole was blown in
my fantasies
by the universal
lightning bolt.
The legs of my denial
are too old
to keep on running,
and my life is too barren
to interpose any compensation,
when I ask to stay
the stars only look away
with another morning,
there’s nothing written
in the book
and only one more
empty page!
Birthday from Hell!
Never remind me of these years
again,
I’ll smash the faces of the ones who love me
and stab the birthday cake!
After the party,
Depression,
like sad sun rays on the water
held me prisoner for days.
I became filled
with what I had not done,
an embodied tear
sitting by the sea
waiting to go back
empty-handed.
Until the pitiful
breach of duty
stirred what was left
of the inspiration
that made today
seem a tragedy,
the remnants of
hope and genius
not strangled by
overprotectiveness.
And I made a resolution
by the ocean’s
calm and deep reproach.
To make a banquet of
this final morsel of time.
To own what is mine
and be generous
with the gifts
that courage
loans
to the clear of mind.
I’ve got
to show God
He wasn’t wrong
to put me here,
I’ve got to
give him
the best of the
autumn.
Tiny, dinky cramped room,
refugee rat hole,
depressing reminder of loss,
geometry of the mid-life crisis,
architecture of dreams
too big for their shoes,
barren, pressing walls,
plaster hands squeezing
on the windpipe of hope.
Walls like this
are the fire
of the Hell
of misfits;
the unstoppable foe of rebels
without a punch,
who just keeps on coming,
landing body blows
to the soul.
The length, width, and height
of your flaws;
the prison the world’s built
around your cause.
Room of destruction,
room of defeat,
room of humiliation
room of an unjust peace.
Tiny, miserable little room except
for one careless oversight:
a window! A window with a view of ships!
Tiny little room I live in: I’ll never be vanquished
with a view like this!
Soul proof window,
looking at my people
from the other side,
tapping on the glass.
They don’t believe
I’m who I am.
I can’t get through
after all this
traveling
in disguises.
Essence lost its
credibility,
they still remember
how I would have
hated who I am.
Elk who strayed from the
herd looks like a sick wolf
now.
Who’s going to
stick around?
Sometimes to live
you’ve got to
react to a shape.
A whole flock of
birds will fly away
from someone
who loves
with a heavy
footstep.
Because the
slow one dies
you can’t wait for
first impressions
to change course.
You can’t wait for the snow
of what you see
to melt.
I understand.
I would look at
myself with hard eyes, too,
impenetrable with loyalty.
Soul proof window.
All I can do is look,
love my wife
across the rift,
my daughter
and my grandfather.
Fight for them
without touching them.
Talk to myself
with them in my
heart,
feed them from far away
with good deeds,
without being believed.
Never break the bond
even though
it’s only in me.
Soul proof window.
Separated
by being gone
too long.
Who wouldn’t
shoot any stranger
walking down the
trail of deceit?
Sometimes
good men
come from the
wrong direction,
they’re victims
of where they’re
coming from.
The benefit of the doubt
isn’t worth more than
your family’s life
so you strike with the
lightning of coldness,
blow love away with a shrug.
What we went through together
is to blame.
It all makes sense,
by the blood.
Soul proof window.
Mixed-up memory
can’t prove a thing,
truth’s got the stealth
of a wild cat in a
forest of mistakes.
You give up
on the ghost of your brother
because all you see
is trees
that got it wrong.
But lies
were never this strong.
I live halfway between
forgetting and remembering,
without a people.
Soul proof window.
Sometimes
the fog sees best.
The mind,
with accuracy,
betrays the
heart of the truth that
beats inside the human chest.
Don’t be killed
by your head.
Fight for the strange land.
It’s beautiful to die
singing
unfinished business,
it’s beautiful to
come back
with
eternal love’s
new tasks.
Soul proof window.
So alone:
no one knows you,
you fell between two families,
two worlds;
you came back riding on a wild horse
they thought was rain.
No one wants
to guess wrong.
Soul proof window.
This glass
will only break
if you
don’t need to
be loved to love.
If you can
fast on the top
of the hill
of rejection
until you die
and still insist
with the
silent devotion
of a broken heart.
Swine pulling the chariot of fire
How’d you let this happen,
how’d you let this be?
Digging a hole with the shovel of
our stolen hearts
to bury our good will
under six feet of history?
When dragons pull the flower cart
the earth spits out roses.
When the sun gets caught
in the Hell machine,
the sunrise gets booed
with lead.
The dictionary of trust
doesn’t have many words left now:
he crossed them out with the dead.
And the white snow just stopped falling,
yesterday still don’t know
The white snow just stopped falling
Angel called another soldier home
Dog at the races, ran towards Heaven
chasing entrails
Good boy woke up wearing black,
somebody poisoned his love behind his back
When your good intentions stand up above the world
and spread a cobra hood
you know your heart is just firewood
And donkey’s pulling somebody’s golden plow,
digging furrows of indifference in the earth
The world won’t forgive him just because he’s being whipped,
he’s working for the seeds of hate
working against his own heart and against his faith,
adding the fuel of his captivity
to the flames
Sometimes, it hurts to be free:
bleeding the diabolical loved one out of your veins
But he’s not worthy to hold the reins
Donkey, there’s a million brothers out there waiting
Sometimes you’ve just got to walk away
And the white snow just stopped falling,
yesterday still don’t know
The white snow just stopped falling
Angel called another soldier home
When I die
I want the world to still believe in love
I want the world to still believe
there’s a God above
Throw me on the funeral pyre of deceit,
burn me with the lies that killed me,
and please tell everybody near and far:
though he cheated, I was an honest card.
And the white snow just stopped falling,
yesterday still don’t know
The white snow just stopped falling
Angel called another soldier home
Captain Of The Ship Of Fantasy
I’m Captain of the ship of fantasy
haunting the sea of reality
with my withdrawal
Like a ghost my answers pass
unnoticed through the question,
phantom bullets passing through
the heart of darkness
I’ve overturned a thousand crimes with
my candle under a bushel,
rescued the dying angel on the ground
without changing a single word
of the book of sorrows
I’m Captain of the ship of fantasy,
powerful like a storm that prayers can’t stop
I hurl lightning bolts into the empty seas
and invite the earth to sup
at my table of imagined victories
I’m Captain of the ship of fantasy,
clutching the steering wheel of my inner world
while the waves howl with hunger
and swallow up the drowning sailors who I saved
The sky is dark, the wind is in a vengeful mood,
rain cuts into the foam; the sea bleeds from
the knife-sharp prow of my self-sufficiency
You’ll never be more alone than when
I extend my hand to you to pull you from the sea
I’m Captain of the ship of fantasy,
ghostly mad amidst the waves,
sowing seeds of gardens that can only grow in me.
I’m here to save you, and by saving you,
to let you die.
Dark, dark sky!
Loving mind, frightened back into itself,
I seized the world in my arms and fled back into the depths of me.
All I could give you for your tears and blood
was a place in my fantasy.
Warrior in a bottle,
throw him into the sea.
Please God,
carry him far away from me.
So I said, wrapping myself in chains,
until the tears
of someone who used to be mine
became a wave,
and washed the bottle
onto the beach
right up to
my shackled feet.
The dance of self-imposed
harmlessness must end,
preening before the mirror of
innocence.
The tiger’s reflection
on the water of helplessness
is another tiger.
That tiger’s me.
Warrior in a bottle.
I threw him past the danger
of who I was,
past pride and anger
to necessity.
My petals have to fall.
Your tears are stronger.
Weighing down
the dark camel,
piling light onto
his back,
all life long
coward camel
blind camel,
time keeps adding
regrets that degrade
into insights,
like uranium
that breaks down
in 100,000 years,
100,000 thoughts
Nightmares lose
their power
once their hands
are on your throat,
you’re going to be strangled,
it’s God’s last opportunity.
Youth’s doors of de facto
atheism
have been broken down
you can’t make it on your own
and you’re not alone
your power is everywhere
even on the knife blade
in your belly
fears in the sun
warrior, you don’t have to face
a gun
bravery is in your eyes
fears die in the sun
and you won’t run
just by knowing
I’ve always said
clarity is balls
Dark camel’s back,
I’ve spent a lifetime
of being surreptitiously
panic-stricken
remorse
like the wind
blew fruits from the trees
even when I hated myself
I knew what they were
and I just kept loading them
onto the camel’s back
one load of light
after another
until it’s legs wobbled
under the truth
and the desire:
a holy mix
Futile life
of the dark-camel driver
he never listened to my pleas
or whip
just kept me out
in the desert
of my handicap
watching the sand-grains
of great ideas
blowing meaninglessly
about
inside myself
I couldn’t overcome his darkness
But years kept adding bits of light
I was a scavenger of my suffering
and collected every defeat
and clung to it
to torture myself towards understanding
Slowly I added the refuse of my
life wreckage to his back,
wreckage so painful
that it began to speak
I made all the wrong choices
and vivisected myself into light
loaded the dark camel mercilessly with my knowledge
still following him about,
enslaved by his audacious indifference
to humanity,
and his devotion to my weakness,
until at last, one day,
my catastrophe changed him
a single straw of light
the straw that broke the camel’s back
one more insight coaxed out of nostalgia
and he could not rise,
my custom of losing was surprised by its
unexpected harvest
a single straw of light
who would think that such a life
could be salvaged
that the endless circle of futility could be broken?
The earth was made
when God’s word was spoken.
Write down everything you hear,
no matter how self-incriminating.
a single straw of light
the straw that broke the camel’s back
I spent my long sad life loading the light
of my sorrow onto his invulnerable back,
endured his stubborn love of barren places,
his love affair with my loneliness and his haughty laugh
I followed him, dying, in the desert
denied myself because he was stronger,
the voice in my head that spoke silently through my legs
that wouldn’t walk towards gardens
when the time was right
I gave up hope, but not my habit,
of loading the light
loading the light
loading the light
without hope,
loading the light
the one instinct that still ran free
like a child playing with his excrement
playing with my catastrophes
loading the light
blowing onto the embers of the sage
in the middle of the masochist
the flame of wisdom
dark camel let me suffer, didn’t know the gold
that’s in a broken heart
loading the light
loading the light
a single straw of light
the straw that broke the camel’s back
Never give up
collect your defeats and keep on
loading the light
a single straw of light
the straw that broke the camel’s back
Science Lobotomy.
Cut out the magic:
dead world
half-brain hubris
evil twin rules the world
power comes from the barrel
of a gun
because
angels are not possible
slaves make sense
when science has no
counterweight
Darwin’s collar
crawled out of the sea
stood upright
around the throat
of the weak
no ghost in the machine
nothing to the dream
probability is king
in the land of
miracles
mutations of chance
salvage the wrecks
without God
humble the divine messages
For every witch burned
for every trial by water
for every tear-shaped virgin sacrificed
there is an atom bomb
there is a camera filming
thoughts of liberty
and a computer
plotting mass murder
No wires in the sky
no circuits
means no God
No genes among the clouds:
no angels
For every microbe banished
there is a dance
that’s been stolen
an orphan bound
in chains
Inventions fall like iron rain
over the soft skin
of our longing
Arrogance cuts whole countries
from our brain
Locks us in the poorhouse of the laboratory
reaching for the goddess on the prow
who kept the storm away
turns religions into urine samples
and drives away the fairy race
that made the fields bloom
pillages the mystique from seeds
and soil
and enriches the artistry of doom
The secret eye was closed
wisdom became ignorance
The irrational was bleached white
no one walked on water
or parted seas
rage stayed behind
the pauper of the irrational
while the royalty
of the mysterious world
was overthrown
its wild head of hair
cropped by a pretense of light
one-half blessing
one-half control
Empowerer of the vestige
of the soul
Prove what you feel
that’s the deal
no more loyalties to the invisible
no more voices without a body
no visions by the well
the days of angels by the door
must give way to the light
of the visible spectrum
of the near-sighted
if it does not have a button
or a trigger
it’s not real
if it’s not a chemical
or a spark
that’s accepted by a meter
the gray books of the alchemists
have crumbled
given way to the new
superstition of nations
fed by coal and steel
souls gave way to railroads
power hoarded by the owners
of mass, brawn and muscle
No man with an angel in his heart
would ever bow down to the dark
for those on top
to those on the bottom:
ignorance is bliss
ignorance wearing the high and mighty armor
of the proud
shining with one of many forms of knowledge
making war on the rest
The net
the great wide net of genius
looking one way
believes there is no more to the sea
than what it drags up from the deep
There is no sea monster
no mermaid singing in the mist
there is the stone we stand on
the dangling light of the sun
hanging from the wire
of a law
and that’s it
only one language to speak
and no word for
heart
Who touched me in the night?
Who made my hair stand up on end?
It was neither foe nor friend
We drove the screaming ghosts away
denizens of the conscience
depopulated midnight with torches
lit by fear turned intellectual
cut through the knot of terror and hope
with a single sword of light
released the iron genie of unlimited might
to bury demons and Gods alike,
threw out the baby with the bath water,
banished the testimony of the ancient races,
the passion in their statues and on their pages,
and the goose bumps on our flesh
to bow down to an emaciated peace of mind,
(ceding everything around the corners of our eyes)
foregoing wings because we can only prove walking
building palaces on physical granite
on emotional quicksand
coming to depend upon our rational eloquence
to argue a new compromise
into the fabric of the Universe,
no diabolical surprises
and no Heavenly hand
the middle ground of the eunuch
castrated by knowledge
hidden by the manly gait of believing himself
courageous
because he’s torn hope to shreds
driven away divine whispers
with his methodology
his totalitarian hold on the truth
His beautiful hammer that smashed
Inquisitions
and disarmed mad priests
that brought the singing of planets
into the range of our ears
froze like a child’s laugh turned to ice
the revolution declared a reign of terror
against the dancers in the air
a purge against the past
dragged instincts and visions
to the guillotines
any prophet-eyed believer in the wilderness
who would not wear the yoke
of a theory
made the sun once more revolve around the earth
circling to its new music
God is dead
man, uprising ,
killed him
using only half a brain
No more myths
no more lies
no more priest-kings
leaping through hoops of incense
with tigers in their minds
no more daughters stripped naked
and given to the earth
like seeds
like lovers to the dead
no more nights of pounding hearts and sweat
running from the footsteps
of the wind
the creaks and mysteries
of the dark
and great gifts, too,
life for millions saved from ignorance
and persecution
compassion empowered by cleverness
Archimedes’ crazed siege engines
used for medicine
and cultivation
what a huge boast
backed up by the descendants
of the rescued
And yet, beware!
Beware the triumph!
In the ecosystem of history
fairy tales are the secret of life,
the pillar of reality
the green leaves
that subtly sustain the lion
who lives proudly certain
of their irrelevance
the unseen world felt
is as precious
and as necessary
as the touch of love
that comes between sterility
and the night
the dead angel,
the dead fairy,
the dead ghost
leave nothing
for man to live on
no plankton in the sea
means no diving dolphins
no fly in the pond:
no great-winged stork
mysterious connections
enshrined in our imaginations
are broken
the soul hungers
in the brave new world
of the mind
tradition shattered
by commitment to utter newness
the loss of peripheral vision
becomes as sharp as a point
and kills with cold genius
loaded with all the self-hatred
of a motherless existence
intelligence not enriched by
the jests of curiosity
reality not enriched by human elaboration
freely spawned in the creative womb
become tiresome
deadly with dullness
spiked with the ingenuity of misery
enormous with power
that could go either way
we haven’t found the brakes in ourselves yet
why uproot the ones we have
why disconnect from the personified Universe
why stab the bosom
and the face
with conceited speculations
consistent in their own narrow corridor
why smash the inner compass
its directions that resonate
to seek our way amidst sharp angles
why refuse the guiding warmth?
even the viper moves towards the heat of a body
why can’t we invade the Universe
with our love, and our search for love,
put our hearts inside stones
and make the whole earth throb with our pulse
embrace it with the deepest way we have
to understand it
bring back invaluable pieces of it
with our limits
why must we sever ourselves
stop ourselves from spreading
outwards and being penetrated
by what is outside
why kill the strange communion
that catches the truth
in a black bag?
I do not see it
but I know it’s in the bag
of my myth
And I’ve never lied
or killed for it
Science, you’re no enemy of mine
but don’t try to cut the contradictions
from my mind
the sacred stories
of my intuition
the instincts of my parallel universe
the approximations that elicit my
recognition and my loyalty
No lobotomy this time
No domination of the void
I’ll use the empty space in my own way
Teach me
but don’t come to end my double life,
don’t make war on the paradoxes
in which the green grass grows,
the two faces of Janus
my rational and mystic mind.
You’ve armed me to the teeth,
enhanced my primitive self
which only my primitive self
can talk out of it
Don’t give me a gun
without the safety catch
of an angel
Don’t give me a Universe
that’s nothing but an empty box
in which to scream
don’t make me want to die
Some say war
comes from the assurance of paradise
more likely is it to come from
the pointlessness of life
Don’t step on my heart
with your pride
don’t lay my soul in its grave
Science, I truly love you
but you’ve killed as many
as you’ve saved
Sun sets in the west, rises in the east,
compass points north
towards the cold.
What would you do if one day
the Sun didn’t rise from compass east?
Would you disbelieve your eyes?
Would you tell the Sun you can’t be you,
you’re coming from the wrong direction?
Would you believe the golden Sun that pierced the air
or the compass needle that said it wasn’t there?
Some souls stand their ground
and some souls run.
Which do you believe:
the compass or the Sun?
What Did You Do With The Magic Moment?
Look the whirlpool
in the eye,
let it suck you into the secret, or
you can say no
and die.
You’ll only have
an instant to decide.
The roses of truth
wither
with one betrayal,
the mountain is fragile
to the touch
of your
consciousness.
You can kill yourself
and forget
you’re dead,
hide inside the numbness
of the collective renunciation;
but fitting in
isn’t life,
not when it comes
to something
so personal.
Do you explain away
the invitation?
It’s so subtle
you’ll miss it
if you’re waiting
for it to make sense.
If you’re waiting
for the sky’s bells
to ring,
for its hardened enemies
to yield,
for it to melt the swords
of cynics
and offer you its love
with safety,
to let you sleep with it
without becoming
the black sheep
of the modern paradigm.
Subtle as a door
that opens and closes
in the night,
you can question it
or go in,
you can let it happen
or chase it away.
Do you believe
what you feel
or what others
say?
The power
of maybe
could make
you live
forever,
or you could sit
in the rocking chair
of those who
became ancient
from disbelief,
solitary unwed
disciples of
of matter,
celibate to spirit.
Run after the invisible
laughter!
The ghost child
won’t come back
once you
throw stones at him.
You may not have an answer
but treat him right.
Let yourself be bewildered
towards the light.
What did you do with
the magic moment?
Did you bow down
to the mystery
and weave the gold of it
into your life,
or did you bury it
in the night of others,
and sell your soul
for peace?
Buzz of the bees
making the honey of pain
fills the earth.
Wise man’s always sad.
Joy starts as tears
and is never more
than a beautiful
dance
wearing the chains
of the world’s sorrow.
But the slow and heavy steps
of an open heart
are fleeter
than the agile ecstasy
of the
soaring bird
who
uses the
closed heart
of height
to spare
himself the price of
love.
Listen!
The earth
won’t stop
whispering
its wounds to the
enlightened,
they hear its suffering
with their
trembling closed eyelids
and peaceful pierced faces,
sitting by the
lotus of blood.
They fly
with the lead wings
of terrible injustices
into the fire
of caring
and burst into flames
of understanding.
Understanding doesn’t sit,
it reaches out.
It doesn’t offer
shovels
to bury the dead,
it finds
levers to
move
the living.
But the fragility of flesh
stops
the plea
from walking
through the desert
of the sick mind
all the way
to the withered
heart.
The beautiful and the broken,
the angels of awakening,
covered the dying
with cloaks of
suggestions
before
history
swept them
back into
the inscrutable depths
of the void
that left its patterns
on their minds.
Wise men know
this is their fate:
to be too small.
To cry away
moments of
happiness
blemished
by the horizon,
to find
happiness in loving,
and let grief
catch up with it
and mix with it.
To stay afloat in the
whirlpool
of euphoria
and despair
that runs circles
around
serenity.
How could a man
who
makes love to the sight of a rose
be depressed?
How could a man
who hears
the moon mother
laying flowers
beside her craters
in the tiptoe middle of the
night
be happy?
Paradoxes
are the medium of
spirit
and the wise
hover
between
the two gravities,
overwhelmed
by unseen sources
of joy
and unheard signs
of distress.
They dwell
between worlds,
in a
world
of their own
that is
intensely ours.
Listen!
Do you hear the drone?
The drone of the worker bees
of sorrow
building the intricate
honeycombs of
our misery?
The dirge of what we have done
to each other,
the funeral of our innocence,
the voice of the earth?
The wise man
walks
with his sense of sound
hearing an infinity of
reasons
to weep;
his inner power
pulls him back from the edge,
he doesn’t run,
he doesn’t drown,
he remains,
slashed by tears
that bring him
into our midst,
buried in our hands,
imbedded in our hearts’ lips,
hurled into our souls’ arms.
He caresses us
with our tears,
dances his dance
to the beat of our pain,
dies with us
by the open door.