 
Land of Uncertainty:

Poetry and Prose

2013 – 2018

By Rori O'Keeffe

Copyright © 2018 by Rori O'Keeffe

Published at Smashwords by Rori O'Keeffe

All poems previously published by Rori O'Keeffe 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018.

All rights reserved by the author.

The image on the cover is courtesy of Pixabay.

To see more by Rori O'Keeffe, go to www.smashwords.com or use this link to

her profile page: Rori O'Keeffe's Profile, Interview, and Books
Table of Contents

First Poem

¼-way point

½-way point

¾-way point

The Persistence Of Tunnel Vision

When they saw slaves twisted in bloody heaps

Under the fallen rocks by the pyramid's side,

They turned and said,

It is not that I don't care, but I am busy with my tasks.

I suppose, long ago, flames licked their tongues at the agony

Of my ancestor's dying flesh;

It was good, said some, to burn a witch;

Others, less imbued with divine authority,

Could but watch, and return to their tasks -

Their world narrowing with

Each harrowing desecration

Of humanity around them.

Peace at last, they found in the grave.

When many among us

Make good for themselves

By the desecration of human beings far away,

It is as though they are of no concern;

They are not known to me,

So their suffering is but illusion to me.

Besides, I am busy with my tasks.

We ever fail to hear the screams,

Until it is Mother, or Brother

Screaming out to us.

As the screams of the world rise,

Threatening to call us out of our personal worlds,

Our tunnel vision protects from conscience,

Or action,

Until, as the story goes,

They at last come for each of us -

And then the screams are felt

Not just heard.

Destiny is what may be achieved

With will and love and unity.

Fate is what befalls those who have come to believe

In their own immunity

From the scourge of the ages

That have plagued each life

Since we left paradise

Long, long ago.

Emerging Love

Over the years of my life,

I have watched that scotch pine

In its ascent through the air,

From sapling I plunged into the soil,

To the green spire

That now crests

The old home's chimney top.

How many gales has it withstood?

What of it's calm presence in winter?

Though it's beauty enraptures my heart,

I yearn for a pyre

To consume it with flame.

I roll and loll about in my bed at night

Wishing in dreams and under baleful moonlight

That you would return

And carry my heart away;

After all, it is your rightful trophy -

Or, perhaps, a notch on your little black book.

I succumb to a vision,

Or a fond hope, perhaps

Of you lying dead, a knife in your chest,

Finished off by a virago that found you at last.

I believe it is likely, however,

That you are off on a cruise ship

In the Sargasso Sea

Where we met so long ago

In those still waters.

None have compared to you

And your turquoise eyes;

Nor your lilting trills

As you carried your prize;

Why must I recall you in each

New man's face?

Why do I teach them -

Beseech them -

To learn your embrace?

After all is said and done,

You cut the bloom off my flower

And replaced it with a brooch

Meant for weddings

Though without an engraving.

How the years have passed cruelly

Since you abandoned me at sea,

To find a firmer ass

In some other woman's cabin.

Does it matter to you

That I have drifted off course

And find myself alone on the

Isle of Old Maids?

I counsel myself to yearn for

The flesh of a woman -

In the hope that love would become

New again in a kinder bed mate.

I caution myself against desperate

Chance-taking

On the wheel of fate

That is the dating service.

I tell myself that, in time,

I will no longer want a love

To place by my side,

For does not desire flow,

Then ebb as the tide?

I have been placed in the tomb,

A premature burial,

While a raven calls out

"Nevermore."

I still see myself in the moon's orb,

A dead ancient world

Scarred by age and melted rock,

Until it now has a companion in me.

My life was changed forever

By you

Under that tropical moon,

And though your kiss infected

My still growing spirit

With your blight,

The sea turned vicious on me -

The price I've paid

For having you

One night.

A storm raged around my home

All hours of the night;

The hail bullied the roof into submission

And bolts' light captured the sight

Of a sinuous wind cloud

Snapping the trunk of that old scotch pine.

Nothing will ever be the same

In my old neighbourhood -

All has been moved,

Turned about as omens

Are ironic, yet not perverse.

That fine old tree is now dead,

And I can never now summon the will

To plant a new sapling -

And so my heart will ever be still.

Peace at last

Can now fill my being,

As I walk in my garden

No longer in the shadow

Of that old scotch pine.
Berserkers

They hack and hew and hex

The lands they visit.

They leave what hearts are left

Cold and shrivelled.

And, they are coming to your town next.

Blood and gore they will spill on

Free people's monuments;

Eyes they will pluck from the

Harried masses who defy them;

They will gorge on Civilization

And the future: They will condemn.

They can be stopped from entering

This land, your land,

Though they dangle gold

As bait for the hungry

The greedy

And the desperate.

And all they want is Liberty

For themselves

Alone.
Bare Naked Babes

I'm something of a telepath, you see;

I can read your mind while you

Sleep beside me

In the night that was meant to ours.

I see you in your depraved fantasies

Straining, urging, ogling, and humping

All those bare naked babes

You have known throughout

The endless years of your adolescence.

Your most repetitive

{And boring, I must add}

Perversions concern

The girls on the track team at high school,

And the soccer babes with their

Inviting thighs,

Not to mention

The unmentionable things you do

With the cheer leading squad.

Your typing teacher makes a little more sense.

At the end of these dreams you have,

You return to me, and I dance {!}

To finish you off,

So you can rest until the next REM cycle,

And then it begins again

With college girls,

Your first lady boss,

And that really cute effeminate guy

You once rode on a train with.

I must admit

That your dream lovers are all quite sexy.

I don't blame you for remembering them all;

But the imprint on your sizes-too-small heart

Enshrouds our marriage bed in a demonic pall.

Why our new neighbour with the gym sculpted body,

When she as well is betrothed

To the guy you invited to poker nights?

Why that young thing down the street

That wouldn't know a leer

If you spied on her from a bush.

And, once again, dear,

Why am I summoned to your oak bar

To writhe and strip when

You have gotten your jollies

Into your pyjamas

After following these neighbours about?

I once scanned your mind after

Thanksgiving dinner,

Fully expecting to see my sister

In her plunging V neck

Chatting you up for some

Brief encounter in my parent's basement

In the cold storage

With all the preserves;

I drew back when instead I saw in your mind

My mother bending at the oven,

Basting the turkey with unbridled passion.

Why do you not disgust yourself?

I'll now beam a moon dream

Into your next bout of frustrated hopes;

You will see that I also have an eye

For flesh that is supple, toned and radiant.

You will see my own dream

As I have known it of late:

A knight in shining armour

Stripping the way a man really should -

Without shyness of his nudity

Or my eye as he dances.

As you tremble in this nightmare,

At the thought of tables turned on you,

I want you look closely at this man

And the way he arouses me

And finishes me off so sumptuously.

He makes love like a man really should,

And he is my own bare naked babe;

The only one I dream of.

He will be the first to carve his initials

On my heart,

And he will shower me with gifts

That I'll keep in my Memory Trunk.

He is a tad younger than I,

But wiser than Solomon -

And never a wandering eye

And has dreams at night that I can share

Blissfully.

You, my first sweetheart,

Will be trounced by this mature man,

And will be free to ogle

And play with yourself

In the privacy of your bachelor apartment.

And no, you are not getting a cent

Out of me in the settlement.
The Choice

So it was written,

As though into my heart,

That all are born free,

And it is noblest, best,

To always be so.

I staved off the ruins

Of another age,

That lay claim upon each soul,

And declared that the lot

Of the peasant

Is duty.

Truly, I set off to the stage of the world

With banners unfurled,

Just a little girl,

And made myself free.

Free for the taking;

Free for lovemaking;

Free, above all,

To do as I pleased.

Fires fell about me,

{From heaven, I wonder?}

And great floods swept my dwelling

Off its rickety stilts.

I was beautiful as Narcissus,

Gazing into the bowl

Of my misgivings about

What I had become.

I was free of it all,

And all of them -

Children were but a ghostly

Alternate reality -

Science fantasy to one such as me;

I had no faith in myself,

Yet, somehow,

I would be free of them all.

Children, parents, and in the end,

My notably wicked friends,

Who made no friends of their own.

Some envied me,

Others pointed to the precipice,

Which at last I have come to,

And so, without hesitation,

I am now jumping to my death,

Where, I have little doubt,

I will at last be

Absolutely free.

This I have chosen to become,

For the life of duty

Is undignified;

Though, I now perceive,

With salt's bitter taste on my lips,

A life with duty in it

Has the charm of being

Relatively happy

Compared to what

Mine has become.

Absolute freedom awaits me

At the bottom of this precipice.

Farewell.

Swiftly

He knew the vicious minute's hour,

And it was a sour motion in his blood.

He left this world a wider place,

With bottle in hand -

A bitter taste

When news of his death

Spread swiftly across the land.

{So they say, in his biography.}

Nine Lives Lost

The crazy old bastard never

Got the cat fixed.

Took the kittens down to the river

In a pillow case,

To send them to a better place

He said.

I, for one, am glad

The crazy old bastard's

Now dead.

Wicked Runs My Smile

Perhaps the finest thing about

Rainbows could be,

That the storm is then passed

Onto an others fine day.

If I win the lotto,

Though I rarely take the chance,

Has a morbid curse

Passed onto another poor lass?

When I hear that crazy

Mockingbird before the sunrise,

And send my cats out to get it,

I give birds a word to the wise.

When I left my last beau

For a woman, did he know,

That she once met his mother,

Who complained of me so?

When old friends of mine

Say that I'm everywhere wanted,

Dead or alive, I take great pride

That my wicked smile runs -

So very wide.

I am alive.

Long Ago

If Pagans could have won

In Europe of old,

Witches would be Christians,

Burned for being so bold

As to worship a God

That hated the Pagan,

And the world, on the whole,

In all matters of substance,

Would be none the better,

Nor none the worse.

Adam and Eve, if the serpent's

Account can be told,

Were banished from Eden for seeing

Their God planning

To tempt with evil

Any who came into His paradise,

So that he would have sinners to smite.

The Big Bang, it turns out,

Was the angriest event

Of all time -

Next to the coming

Death of the Universe.

What could be worse

Than living in the past -

When after all,

It is only the present

That can outlast the past.

The Man Who Could Not Be Moved

That island in the South -

Pacific or Atlantic -

I'm not really sure;

Or somewhere in the cold Antarctic seas -

It was there that a melting berg,

The size of a high rise,

Came to buffet that island,

In the cold seas,

Under ironic sun,

And it came to be seen,

Nothing could move the Island Of Man.

Change the Empire,

Or cast into Dark Age,

Invent new Religion,

Discover Cures for the ill,

Hold Death at bay

A little longer still,

Make Moonshots and Mars bugs

Sing All You Need Is Love,

And the Island Of Man,

In cold unforgiving seas,

Is always unmoved,

By the screams of the Trees,

The screams of the Poor,

And the next-to-be-Poor,

And the Human Spirit

Is quelled time and again,

By the Island Of Man,

That can never be moved.

There is a Spirit born into us,

Ethereal,

Yet of our substance,

And like a flame it licks

The immovable object,

Which defeats the Spirit,

In each that is born,

And we resign ourselves

To life in the cold, cold

Antarctic seas,

Having become as dead within

As that man who cannot be moved.

Things Worth Living For

Love,

Its taste is sweet,

And all is bitter without it.

Hate,

For surely our enemies

Will see our eyes sparkle

In their moment of calamity.

Peace,

As it is a respite

From the endless warring

That neighbours make on each other -

Knocking down fences,

Throwing rubbish in each others yards -

Yes, Peace is the tonic of Hope.

War,

Without which disputes could not

Otherwise be settled{!!!}

Sexy mannequins,

Which train the eye

To the potentials of lovers' bodies

And the likelihood that our lovers will

Grow stiff and cold.

Ugly people,

Who remind me

That we are all beautiful.

The past,

For in Time we are

Embedded, rooted -

And illusory or not,

That which is past

Is safely forgotten

When it bring troubles.

The present,

Because there's no time like it.

The future,

For it is where we place

Hope,

The best thing of all that we save -

And we may find peace

Before our turns

At the grave.

We Are The Beginning

No one has watched that tree grow,

As moss was strewn about its lower branches;

No one was there to water its roots

Or prune its dead shoots;

No one but I, who have within me,

The memory of what I have been -

That tree will fall, and no one will hear the sound

Of a spirit taking flight

Back to its beginning,

With the hope of standing in the soil of the earth

Once again.

Not Worth It

Why have I taken flight

Time and again,

From the arms of men,

To the bosoms of friends?

When I was a little girl,

I asked of my mother

What love would be -

And she said "don't ask me."

I turned to my father whose face was now red,

If he knew what it would be for me,

And here's what he said:

"Love is invisible, save to the one who feels it."

My mother, now blue, turned an eye

To the sky,

"Sort of like God,"

She quipped to my heart,

And off I ran

Into the arms of a man,

Who I thought was a god,

For his love was invisible.

Atheism is the only doctrine that holds hope

For the brokenhearted,

So I have left the company of men

For now,

To take up with a friend,

Whose love's in no doubt.

Like a priest who tells all in the pews,

I have for you all some enlightening news -

Take your prayers to the gods and leave them in here,

For it's not worth it,

When the one you love

Just doesn't hear.

And so,

Dear man in my future,

I know you won't listen

To my prayers that you love me in return,

But that doesn't mean that for a time,

I won't be charmed by a god,

Even though

You're just not worth it.

Why Not?

I am a mystery to myself,

Though I know others in good health,

Who claim to see right through me

And my wicked, worldly ways,

And within me,

Through layers of haze,

They can see a frightened child,

Who does not want to grow up,

For I haven't the knack

Of being insincere

With a knife in my back,

Or when my mirror's cracked.

I know of some, at arms length

I deign to keep 'em,

Who are so insane, they claim to know

Themselves in all their perfection,

And these are the ones who are

Declared the sane.

I tear up Valentine's cards

In my lovers' faces

Every year.

I don't know why,

But I have a great fear,

Of growing up and becoming ever so wise,

Like the fist in the face of someone

You despise.

Respect is respect,

And fear is fear.

Don't ever mix them -

One is a color you rightfully earn,

The other is a color in those you spurn.

And don't be boastful

In the company of fools,

Who bring out the fist,

And make frightening rules.

Don't forget to live,

For the fist will make you die

Inside -

Learn to say why not?

And let the rule makers rot.

Thanks for all the lesbians -

They are the spring of Hope

In a world

That never stops being mad.

Four Poster With Optional Canopy

When the men have all gone home,

And it's just my sweet galfriends and I,

My eyes and mind will start to roam,

And I might consider, for the right lass,

Putting the canopy up over my bed,

And if she takes the hint of my ass,

I'll go to the cupboard for my favorite red.

Men who make love with sincerity,

Are rare as true love is, in verity.

A woman can caress me with the hem of her dress,

And if she's a good friend, I'll always say yes.

When I meet a man that I might want for a while,

Whether it's his muscles, mind or his style,

My galfriends wink when we get up to leave,

"It's a four poster with optional canopy, Steve."

On the way home, we talk about things,

And when we come to my bedroom, I sing,

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah,

My secret joke that I like both ways to swing.

I wouldn't trade one of my gals

For all the Don Juan's {such as they are,}

'Cause a girlfriend always loves me,

Where the man has to be the big star,

So someday - maybe Jade, or Melodie -

Will be on my arm, after she weds me.

Probable Cause Of Extinction

All the women tried it

With another woman,

And lo and behold,

They all became bold,

And said Why not -

Men are so cold.

Whispers Remain

Down by the brook,

Cardinal chirps plainly,

Sun smiles down,

Whispers remain.

Down where the kids

Like to party and huddle,

Graves stand as testament

To the reality

That ghosts walk about:

All that is left of us

When you're gone.

I Find You Here

A star leaves an impression,

When considered up close.

A galaxy is an Island Universe,

Where anything is possible.

Neptune, I see, has the most impossible hue,

And the ancient moon seems to have a hold on me.

Diamonds are made around red stars,

Red Queens are nothing without hearts and diamonds.

Within I ache for what's out there,

For it is the same stubborn mystery

I find within you

When we gaze together

Up at the stars.

You Are My Favorite Tea Leaf Reader

When you said we could have

A future together,

A spider spun its nest

Over my porch,

The moon was full,

The dew was falling,

Drops of your love

Were everywhere around,

Yet

I did not believe.

When you said there is

A rocking chair

I'll sit in

At the end of my days,

And that if I am with you,

I'll know my life was

Well spent

And hard-earned,

You said what I have

Always yearned

To hear from a lover.

And so, my friend,

You are in my locket,

And I'll always recall

With fondness

How happy you would have

Made me

In your visceral dreams,

In the tea leaves you read,

In the moon that you said was mine,

And in the way you looked at me

Like I was really, truly,

The woman of your wishes

That left you,Long ago.
Love Poem 1

She was held to be the most,

In all ways of beauty,

In her village, built on the ashes

Of the Celts' old town.

She was Saxon, and as of olde,

Trailed fine golden ringlets of hair

Across the chests and faces

Of her lovers.

It was in a field of barley,

Under the silvering moon,

Still worshipped by many,

That she showed a suitor her flower,

Nestled in gold between her thighs;

He came to her and went in

On his own.

He fled the village two moons later,

When she began to show

The gift that she thought she had

Been given by he.

"What of it?" said an old gentleman,

Widowed for years with children all grown;

She jumped at the chance to marry into cropland;

With a good stepson's support,

She might again have the chance,

Under a silvering moon,

To coddle a man between her thighs,

And find what love there was

To be had,

In this world.
Love Poem 2

She claimed it was rape,

Then changed her mind.

She claimed it was false love,

Then changed her mind.

She claimed it was desperation

To marry such a man,

Then changed her mind.

She claimed, and maintained,

All the years of his life,

That he was the Devil himself,

But changed her mind, after

He had passed on.

He had been a kept man,

And she drove other women

Away from him,

So that her greedy heart

Could revel in a man's true,

Strong love,

And not have to share this

Rarity with others

Who were more kind.

Death Poem 1

Sundry oaths fly about

In parlours and homes

Across the globe;

Insipid lies are often told,

Then not retracted

By some so bold;

The best of mates,

The best of friends,

Are not told of the passing;

How is it that at the end,

So many make a Hellish mocking

Of a heavenly one's joy of life?

Bitterness makes the

Talking dead

Rage with envy

At the death, and the life,

Of ones who truly lived.

Be wary at the wilting of ones you love;

It is when villains take their vicious revenge

On those they found to be fine, and worthy.
Chaos Poem 1

Whatever moon they choose to come by,

They can be heard in fields and yards,

Near and far, and those in between;

Some are speckled black on orange,

Some are a lyrical iridescent green;

Still others are black, and some brown.

They rise, it seems, in unison

For the sky - then in a trice,

Some plunge while some hold high.

On it goes through their lives,

At times soaring, sometimes falling;

They were put on earth for a simple reason -

That they might live,

Live badly and learn;

That they might live,

Live well and have a turn

At glory;

And on they go,

Age after age of the earth,

Some rising,

Some falling,

All for a while,

Until they die,

And we are sated by

The spectacle of life.
Chaos Poem 2

Rim that ram, trim that hem, make good use of this spam.

Can't a girl, get on top, without being told to stop?

Can't a boy, try to care, and not be called a fairy - fair?

Bully's strong, cold's not wrong, don't you touch my underwear.

World in peril, invest in beryl, sing a shoddy Christmas carol.

Send an email, to the heavens, enter here - at your peril.

Hit on the head, till you're dead, someone else will get you good.

Need a girl, to shake this world, guess we'll call her Robin Hood.

Star Poem 1

They came from Heaven

To this crowded earth;

They were stars, and ranked,

According to net worth.
Death Poem 2

Waves of life rolled here once,

Inspired to the ramble,

For they had always

Gone on, through the ages.

It has grown timid,

Frightened, like a child lost;

It looks above the waves,

And sees a man looking in,

Casting out nets,

Bringing an end to what

Had always been.
Death Poem 3

I am trapped in this coffin,

Put here by them;

My only escape,

I'm scared to hear,

Is to succumb to my fear,

And leave silver behind.

Star Poem 2

Strange stirring felt, yet seen as well,

Beneath the starry firmament;

In places likened to Boreas,

Some look up to see the sky

Is alive.

Lost in places like the Sargasso,

Persons unknown

Commit the gravest of sins -

They do not do well

To deny that our star is alive,

And so might they be,

Were they under its spell.

Chaos Poem 3

Moths dance about a flame,

And singed wings' smoke

Rises to the sky;

Later, a raindrop is felt in your eye,

And now you know that

Even the smallest do cry

Out in pain, when

Life has been entrusted

To them, in vain.

Love Poem 3

Desperation and distress

Dinged the bells at his being;

Having found gold glamorous,

Yet wanting,

He found that his purchase

Had been himself sold.

When you buy, buy, buy

At this world,

You are sold, sold, sold,

Into a vassal's hold.

When you love, love, love,

At this world,

The bells ring out for your being -

You are then rolled out

On crushed velvet carpets -

Blue that's a sign of your power,

To free the slave,

Of his lust for things

That have no power

Over this earth.

Star Poem 3

At first, a light flickered,

Then grew strong,

And others in multitudes

Grew bright as well.

In pan islands of the Cosmos

They spun about,

And all the while,

They were waiting sentinels,

To remind you that we

Might live as they.

Love Poem 4

She saw that his flesh was good,

And so she tasted;

Then she saw that his eyes were knowing,

And so she then wed him.

He saw that her gaze was dull,

Like a spirit waiting to live;

He took her flesh,

In its delicate pain

And made it his duty

To bring her to life -

He bowed low so that she might see

His happy brow,

As he spoke the words

She yearned to hear:

Will thee me wed?

Deep in a tomb,

Hidden from us others,

Their delicate hands,

No longer encumbered

By the pains of flesh,

Are entwined, and so,

They have remained wed

To this, our day,

And beyond the prying eyes

Of a world mad for love

Such as theirs.
Death Poem 4

An angel came down

And blessed the little fellow;

For he had taken root

Within a tree's hollow.

Impatient, he was,

To replace his parent,

And to make certain

That death would be defeated

Yet again.

I crossed into a glen

When I saw

What seemed a miracle in my eye:

A freshly fallen oak lay

More still than ever;

And from it's green wood

Sprouted yet another,

Reaching for the sky.

Chaos Poem 4

Expressions of clarity,

Refuting the ways of old,

Filled the sky above the glass.

Peering in, macabre

Faces tormented

The still life within;

Cobalt wings that once flew,

And lit the hurricanes of this world;

Precious life that dazzles even

The minds of gods,

Is so entombed by morbid men

And women

In glass screens everywhere;

And so life's many dreams

Become reality for macabre minds -

Who will not go out

To see true cobalt blue.

Star Poem 4

Stars have rage,

And howling winds;

They can bump each other,

And merge;

Stars are seen in many colors,

And some have long since died.

Stars can be black,

Or white as alabaster;

They can be vapid,

Or dense;

They can nurture life,

Or capriciously extinguish it.

Though the longest lives

Of the stars are in the

Trillions of years -

A star's power over time, space,

And the stations of life,

Is but as a flea on Creation.

Even a star has limits,

After all.

Star Poem 5

A star is eternal,

Yet gone in a wink.

An atom is here,

And over there.

Nothing is only what it seems to be:

Gold is without glitter,

When I gaze at the stars -

Or they, at you and me.
Chaos Poem 5

Ling-aling, ling-aling,

The cod's by the bay,

Fresh caught today,

The boats are full

Of spices from faraway lands,

The gulls are pointing, to where

The fishers cast nets,

And all about is the scurry of man.

She sells the beer hops,

Puts the coins in her top,

Brown cloth is her love note;

She is a merchant by the bay,

Long before the pious would say,

That a home would be a good

Place for her to stay.

She'll be drinking with her folk

All night long;

She'll be giving out her hoses

To the throng;

Long, long ago,

She was free as free can be -

No one said then that she acted

Like a man.

Dum-ditty-dum, dum-ditty-dum;

She wasn't denied the right to come

Where the men all played,

In the forest where they laid,

The finest women ever known.

Come get the sage! Come get the sage!

The bins are full of sweet sage,

From the farmsteads of Italy!

They say we're upon a new age,

When man and woman

Will return to the ways,

The ways of paradise -

Though we've yet to see it come.

Lute, flute, play by my fruit,

We need your pluck

If we're to have our luck;

Sons and daughters

Raised upright,

Ring the bells that nothing's wrong

With a good man,

Or a woman who's strong.

Death Poem 5

Here lies a woman,

From the worldwide slum,

Known to be a slut,

A seller of smut,

The sort the haughty

Denounce as scum.

Much loved she was,

For she was kinder than

Sleep at the end of a day -

She was wiser than those

Who are paid to say,

That all is well under the sun -

Except for those people

Who come out from the slum.

She had no need of death

To put her heart at rest;

Peace, she knew, and gave it

From her breast.;

Leave her alone now,

Keep your petty oaths

In your mouths.

Her final wish,

Was for you to find out,

That death is not what

You think it is,

And life is about things

Not dreamt of in

Your worlds of power.
Love Poem 5

I know the time has come,

When I must leave this place,

For a graceful lover,

Who lives in the ways of wisdom.

There comes a time, it seems to me,

When every girl must lay down

Childish boys, and their toys,

And become a woman.

Thank you for the ride,

Erstwhile love -

It was fine and fun

Till I found these scars

And began to question, and grow;

And don't think I rue my time with you -

It was all well spent,

A dream I've kept

In my memory trunk.

You adorned my life like

A Christmas tree,

But now it's a New Year,

And so, out you are thrown.

My next lover will be winsome in spirit

And handsome in character;

Someone who's laid down

The toys from under the Yuletide tree.

My days are getting longer,

And new life is on the horizon;

I yearn to set down roots,

As a seed under the melt waters.

Don't despair, my good old friend -

The time will come soon,

When your heart will begin to mend;

Find me in your memory,

And know I've crawled away from you -

It was hard to grow up,

And leave a playful mate,

Such as you.

Bitter are my tears,

Sweet is my new love -

I'd shelter you under my branches,

But you would never see above.

Fare thee well, my friend,

Please keep this note;

You'll not see me again,

As I am now free -

Free of childish things,

Free of clinging ways;

I'll remember you as

One who inspired me

To grow, through all my days.

Chaos Poem 6

Balls kicked about like meandering rivers

Guided by foot and knee;

Little capricious girls selling stories

That just might not be;

Games not played by the rules,

Though none are cheating;

Whispered swear words,

Spoken like secret adult codes;

Vivid colors, sounds,

And the aromas of life;

Each touch felt, and

Committed to memory.

The textures of life

Still anticipated;

The fabric not yet stretched and torn.

A fight breaks out,

Though no one is hurt -

Soon it's forgotten,

Like a penny in the dirt.

Ants are fed, without cruel intent,

To waiting spiders -

Premonitions unknown

To them yet;

Dancing, swinging from bars,

Singing off key,

Though in harmony.

What care should they have,

Apart from growing?

Then the bell rings,

The children go in -

And chaos begins.

Death Poem 6

If it is said, that he is no good,

Will it not follow

That upon his grave,

It will be said,

He was no good?

Before it was said,

He is no good,

People decided,

He will be no good,

And so he performed as expected -

If you believe

That he will die,

Not having escaped from those

Who curse the good.

Love Poem 6

Rosetta turned red,

Violet turned blue.

What these girls saw,

Was that love can be true.

Passionate entwining of every limb,

Eager climbing into the nests,

Gifts from lovers who buy the best,

Destroy the mystery in those so inflamed

By the surfaces of

What is love - can it really be named?

The reviews were bad

On what had been created:

It needs to be tamed,

Before its hungers are sated.

Frustrated Cosmos

Collapses back,

Unable to become

It's glorious, glittering

Dynamic self.

If gods don't give up,

Then why do we?

The Universe, as they say,

Just is,

Never asking of itself,

"To be or not to be?"

A woman, or a man -

not even, but especially, a child -

That just is,

Is as a star.

We are all born

To be stars.

We are all a cosmos;

If we are turned back,

We cease to be.

A majestic pinwheel

Would take the age of the Universe

To know very well;

And so we are each

Knowable only to ourselves.

Judge another, at peril

Of bringing that life to its end.

Love another, as the gods

Loved what had been created;

Let it be.
You've Had Me So Cheap

Scraping at the ruins of my life thus far,

I see where your foot has sunk its weight;

I saw the dollar signs in your eyes,

And I erred in perceiving a golden child.

How may I put this, unwise man?

Can I settle you down by a bird,

And bring to you the flight you seek?

Or, is towering over me your height of being?

You'll be brought down, like a Marquis de Sade

Knocked from the top

Of the Empire State Building;

Oh, and the Eiffel Tower that illuminates me

Will rise again when at last I am free.
Admittedly, A Nerdy Love Of Mine

There is no other I would put before you,

When the night has wrapped me in a desirous warmth;

Marriage, it seems, hastens ahead of me -

I cannot catch what I cannot see.

So, my lover unparalleled,

I will find myself slipping beneath you

Again, and again.

What world could be crueler than the one

We are held in,

That gives to us a spire of joy,

Yet without true love dangled from its height?

I have a dream of being stranded somewhere,

Perhaps a frozen tundra with beasts about,

And only you there to guard me and feed me,

Within a cave where I tend the fire.

One day soon,

I may yet sink to one knee,

And beg of thee, beg of thee,

To enter wedlock with me!

If I do, silly child I can be -

Send me away, for you only offer

Strength and stamina,

Curves and breasts -

Enough to please me night after night,

But what empty days would follow,

Knowing that one such as you,

Could never more than care

For one such as me.

Love, as I want it, would not fill your heart,

And spill its dewy sweat upon me.

You have overpowered my being,

And so, please do not make me a bauble

Of a wife -

Leave me, sated, but forced to carry on

With my life,

Without you.
Altered Design

What if I came to know,

That some sort of pixie or elf

Planted seeds in my mind -

Changing how I might see myself?

Could it be that my sleep is troubled,

As night brings danger in the wild,

Because I have been split and doubled,

Since first I was told I am a bad child?
What Choice But Fate?

In the midst of a dale,

Not far from a person's home,

Sat a spring robin,

Resting and telling the world

To cheer-up, cheer-up.

Sadly, a house cat,

Little less than plump,

Seized that cheery bird,

Did what it need not have done,

And left feathers where a life had been.

The clock in my kitchen

Waits for the appointed hour,

When my realms of choice,

Meet their inevitable fate.

Do not abide by the advice of the cruel;

Live well, live joyously,

Cheer up, cheer up,

And leave satiny, colorful

Feathers to mark where your life has been.
Why There Must Be A Creator

I was hungry once,

And found a twenty in a bush.

Lonely, I looked inside,

And found good company there.

Appalled, I looked upward,

And saw the sky.

I entered a church one day,

And felt a presence.

I had a thought,

And realized that I truly am;

For this to be,

It had to be meant.

There is no doubt,

That life is about

The search for why,

Or what good it might be;

There is a Creator,

Because I have willed it;

Or, there is a Creator,

Because I have been willed.

Forgive me, rational ones -

I must go away and pray.

It is as clear to me,

As the night and the day.
A Bell Calls On Me

As all is in flux,

And all is dynamic,

A Universe with no God

Would be in error -

It would be static.

I have a God,

But no church;

Doctrines,

And no bibles.

I reach, reach,

For substantial belief,

And find my hand empty,

And so,

Throw my lot in with humanity.
Crests

Rising in unison with the road,

I find myself at the crest of my life;

Before me lies certainty and doubt;

I have been here before,

Though in a stilted dream.

Time beats an inordinate pace -

It rushes by while I pluck at my hem.

Before it is gone from my sight,

I will leave this crest,

To make a few paltry signs

That I have been this way.

Humble, humble,

For I will stumble,

And make a laugh

Come from the mockingbird's mouth;

With anger that becomes my hunger,

I'll do what I can

While I still can hear

Time's rushing by.
A Poem For Mother  
You held me so tenderly,

Always giving of yourself,

From the very beginning,

Despite your poor health.

It humbles me now - older,

Wiser, saner and kinder,

How much you endured in those years:

Aching joints are now my reminder.

There was a time of bitterness,

When I broke tempestuously with you;

Little did that wayward child know

That nothing she said of you was true.

If I could see you now, just once more,

I have no doubt that I would tremble,

And fall wordlessly and full of awe to the floor,

For it is Those we worship, that you most resemble.

I would say to you, in sincerity,

That you pointed to the ways of right;

And now that I can see who raised me,

Late in my life, I have seen the Light.
A Poem For Father  
You showed your love in so many ways,

You left me giggling and in a daze;

You weren't the type for hugs and kisses,

Your wonderful ways were a delightful maze.

How often I heard a joke when I was down;

I got an allowance - when times were tough!

And when I was tormented and called bad names,

You showed me how to play just as rough.

I remember you taking me to the country,

Showing me marshes and cattails and frogs;

You'd take me fishing on your worst days,

And at night we'd sing by the burning logs.

You knew the ways of love, like an old soul,

You knew that lives grow like the trees;

And Dad, you knew the best things of all:

You gave me a life of happy memories.

I know now that your heart beat only for us,

Though in your presence you always seemed far;

When I look at your pictures, as each year I must,

I go outdoors, and make a wish upon our favorite star.
Morning

A respite from clarity, despite

Its fond insisting, rings

Round the gourd as a harbinger

Of certain things in store for me.

Cannot the day always yield, fruit in arms,

To my own wicked charms on the world?

I have but the hesitancy of the knowing,

And knowing, it is said, is the bane of living well.

Under my spell, the world is rent apart, into

The fragments of rock that I build my fantasies upon.

Morning leaves, and I must begin to float in murky

Jade waters with the antelope, while

The lion sits by and scowls.

Upon leaving, I must beseech the knowing not to see me,

For it is the art of those who live well

To spurn one who has come to know,

And in so doing, has become free.
The Sky, With Birds

Trembling moon, come down and sit,

For what is the company of all the earth,

Were it not for birds, and insects,

And all that has worth?

Nothing jars the cow bells like

The sky full of starlings, on their way

To loft in the old sire's barn,

Assembling in the same manner as the constellations.

Apple, chokecherry, thistle and wicker,

Ensconce me in a tomb of sensation,

Where I may rise in spirit, kindred with you,

My moon,

A light in the sky,

Made from rock,

Ageless,

And without sorrow.
Atom Smashers

Quayle, do you intend to pound your cobbled feet

Upon my veranda top while I try to sleep?

And sun, do you not suppose, your fires

Might best be left off, while I repose?

I was sleeping the long rest of the earth,

Billions of years if it must be measured,

When a spark touched my retina,

And I came awake - not to the sounds of

All as it had ever been,

But to a thunder and a rolling cloud, not welcome

In my skies.

I am just a cooling ember, let me be,

So that I may go back and slumber

My remaining days.
The Masochists

They return in migrations to the forests

They came form, with appeals to the woodland

Spirits to make them healed, and new again;

But the trees and mushrooms forgot them

Long ago,

When they first left

To experience the pains

That are felt by those seeking shelter

From others.

They are the masochists who ache in lineups,

Fend off the stranger lest she be strange,

Hear mockingbirds chirp car alarm sounds,

And believe that their agony is but the price

Of vanquishing

Their woodland spirits.
In Distress

Eridanus, you are a river in the sky -

Send boats now, for ours is asunder

On the rocks,

And an indigo grave awaits us below.
Trills Of Music

I start my day by the trills of music:

Songs that enter my heart in the night.

I hold you then in my arms,

Your grey hoody letting out a ringlet

Of your long, brown hair.

You are the man who told me of all the revolutions

Fought in vane, and,

Of the even more harried fates of those who wait;

Your kiss brought me down from my loft in the clouds,

And placed me on the brink of despair.

I spy a limb at night in my dreams,

Grizzled and sinewy from a life of labors;

Shoulders that shrugged off an invented world,

And a head that reclined on slats,

While the boxcar swindled its way out west.

I am nothing, yet you cling to me -

Perhaps a frail dove,

Prized for what it means to you;

I swing around back at you,

Happy to take my fantasy man

In his measured ways

To a new place

In the clouds.
The Never Ending Reign Of Superstition

Red carpets for them - though red is a color

That is apt enough.

Stars are born, and made, and placed

In the skies,

Where mortally sinful creatures

Admire the beauty of how they wear black.

My sack of cloth, such as it is,

Is ample only to conceal my beating heart;

And yet it is to them I must pay

Tribute, for they make me rich.

Can my eye look up and not hear a voice

That says, "Behold"?

Those who are known to have magic,

Are those who control.
Buttercup

Buttercup, buttercup,

Why do you look up?

Feet move about,

Ready to trammel you,

Rains may not come,

And see you wither,

In the sun,

You are a mirror,

For a world,

That ever looks up.

Death's dark end,

Does not defeat,

A life so hard,

The heart can but beat,

Yet succumb it must,

For Nature's law,

Is that all,

Of its things,

Come to an end,

And so, my friend,

Buttercup,

We shall return,

To the dust.
Love Me With Your Flesh  
Chill it and check it out,

I'm no chick you chuck the chocolate to;

Try sliding your palm down the cleft in my chest -

And see where your hand comes to its rest.

Deep in the sea, where explorers gambol about

In yellow submarines with strobes and cameras

And the silence of the abyss, beyond their reach

Lie two fish in the ancient embrace, pressing flesh

Together in the ecstasy of the moment that passes;

The craft idles by where love was just pulsing -

Little do seafarers know of the mermaid's lust,

Until they have met a woman such as me.

Shy man, does it irk you when I thrust myself -

Like this!

Does it scare the little boy within when I go down

And kiss your nascent manhood?

I knew who -what you really are, in the bar,

Where I doled out my praise for your timid approach;

I brought you home to my couch, you see, to show

You a favor one did for me long ago,

When my womanhood was just a bud

On a still lifeless tree.

There - your belt's undone - come now,

Little engine that could -

Show me what a man does to a rocketing

Woman's person-hood -

Turn me this night into a scowling vamp -

Let me breathe into your body the airs of the tramp -

Do you not like the woman who becomes a slut

When she takes in the sight of your flesh,

And whispers sweet, scandalous smut

About how she is going to devour you under her canopy?

Dear boy, you must press back with force,

If I am to achieve what I greedily want from this

Embrace under the stars, under my roof, under my groin;

Can you not feel me pulsing inside, waiting to emote

Of passion's blood-boiling parade?

Let me, for a moment, spill my love onto you,

And feel your love surge back into me,

Dear man, no longer a mere boy,

Hold me in your heart all your awakened days

As I have held you down between my thighs

And forced through the wall that contained

Your body's struggling genius.
The Fogs Of Dawn

Drenched in night's bitter remnant,

I am closed by the endless quarrel;

Nothing ensues from hasty victories

Over enemies appointed from above.

Battles lost in dreams' bloody lusts;

Wars everlasting until grave's mark is felt;

Nothing may wake me from this diversion,

Save for a dawn that I did not bring about.
Pursued By Cheetah

Towering over me, in battlements

Of my own hands' making,

Stand men who haunt my day,

And bloody my night.

Would that I could just entwine

With my lover in a field somewhere,

Without panting cheetah claiming

Me for his savannah slave.
In A Stream

Lucidity crushed by the weight of its diodes,

A menacing dream-monster comes from it at night;

There is no turning away from its greedy passions -

Nothingness meandering through the beds of my stream.

Delicate truth, under layers of life's rubble:

Do not cry out so loud in this place - we'll have to await

A fairer time, when you and I might come out to play.
Arrogance

I know not who I am, or what has become of me -

But because I live in this time and place,

I know what must be known,

And see what must be seen.

It is my way or the highway,

I spout from my little teacup -

The law of my nature is to know,

So that I might not be known to another,

Or to my imperious, arrogant self.
Knowledge

Though I might have beached anywhere

On this river's course, fickle sprites

Have delivered me to this pebbled cove;

No trove of treasure for the common journeyman,

Yet the wealth of the land is sung of by all.

The rich make us rich,

But the poor in their swarms

Do not make us poor;

Look up and see who we all are -

Glance downward in peril of going to Hell.

Do not speak of what is seen all about;

For this land is enshrouded in a pall -

Held under a spell -

That it was founded for all.

I might have landed ashore in another place,

Yet the journeyman and I set down here

With purpose.
The Charisma Of The Host

Jars laden with the fruit of the land

Await us at the table of the reaper,

If we but relent for the evening

From our storytelling, and our lovemaking,

Our playing with children and our loading the fireplace -

If we only give in to the command to look up,

We will see that the reaper is also an inventor,

Who now puts our nightly entertainment

Into the sky.

Coolness invades our evenings now,

And a melancholy wind waits to issue its howl;

Brought under one banner, for the sake of

The banner alone in its infinite might;

We might turn from the table and

Reclaim the privacy of the night.
What's Do-Able Is Done,

If It Is Tempting To Do

No law of the land intercedes on the tempter;

No mere brick and mortar keeps him at bay;

If he can but creep under a window at night,

And hear all the peasants' mournful oaths,

He will do so, law of the land or not,

For to tower over others is the tempter's goal.
For The Steely Dime I Go

Bones muttering and moaning of fractures yet felt;

Muscles plying the bones' reluctant tissue;

Nothing of what this body does is as it seems,

For it only does what it must to hold onto its dime.

For that, it must hew the bright forest,

And slay the breathing sea;

It must buy its way with blood

As it burns a hole in the very sky

Where the sun and the moon

Once held sway over feral grasses.
My Child Is An Orphan

Bright cheery checks mark her progress,

If the school klaxon draws her to class -

Draws out of her vim to please her masters,

If their praise is effusive, and their

Honor upheld

By the torture of bristling chides

Laid on the child.
It Is A Second Coming

My tiny dagger, a mere snickersnee,

Is no match for the barons' swords,

So I will hale to thee

These kindly words,

plucked from the tree of knowledge,

When the gods were not about

To save you and me:

It is always a second coming,

As the world turns on us viciously -

Memory knows no other terrain,

And so recalls through the fogs of paradise,

The madness of the old King.

That we have no manners upon which

To make our case that we are the ones

Who built these lands;

That we have no friends in the places

Of milk and honey and tempting grape;

That, in the end, the gods stand and watch

To see if we are worthy of continuance;

We must find revolting the disposition

Of our new masters,

As they find churlish

Our rebellious ways -

Seeking but secrets of our own,

And ways of loving that embellish the spirit,

Free of false gods

Who would reign from above.
The Panicky One

Maybe new master is my friend,

As he says -

Others clamber for no good the hills;

Ah master, you may hold onto me -

I will be yours,

Since you have put your sword

Into its sheath,

And made good on your oath

To keep killers at bay.

My duty to you, in return

For your protection,

Is to wail only into my pillow,

And remember not to

Think too much

In my very dreams

Of the night.
Worn Down, In Time

This world has seen mountains grow and crumble,

Under Nature's reign which cannot be diverted;

Sparrows know not of the mountain's decay,

Though in their breasts beat a drum that will stop.

A tree on the mount has a keen view of its world,

Though its sapling will fall into the valley;

Thrushes and quail will lurk in dark corridors

Of the silent, forgetful wood -

Not hearing that mountain gods here once ruled,

And a sky rose above to the sphere of the stars.
On The Way To Paradise

Having drawn from the well

These so many years,

I fall under the spell

Of fickle memory.

It was a time of caresses,

Tender under the breast

Of sweet loving moonlight;

It was a place where we had our peeves,

Though today, I see, we are lost.

Paradise, I have learned,

Is the best we can do -

Steel etched by bitter sweat:

Testimony to the home built by hand.

Intruding on paradise

Is the white man of old,

Resentful that many spurn

His claim to be ruler.

Vengeance is the way of

The arrogant,

And paradise will be discovered

To have lain in our past

If ever the stone fist

Beats down the dwellers

Of this place -

That in memory, would seem

To be a paradise lost.
The Clock Winds Down

Cluttered against a wall of our making,

Chimes sound out a bellows' need, hastening

The end of the clock's ancient greed, chancing

Upon simultaneity, in our lovers' grasps.

The hour does not call us its own, nor even

Can it pull us to the door of rapture;

Instead, time has spared us the agony

Of waiting for it to summon lovers

Once again.
Silken Wings Brush The Walls Of My Heart

It flits about my garden, pure white,

Brazen in a maddened sun;

Nothing does it light upon

That will not shine, as the oak

Once did in its corner.

Built on gossamer threads that break

With my entrance, my garden

Holds captive such soured memories

That cannot let go, for it is in

My garden that once again

The silken touch of pure white's wings

Arouse my heart to a new beginning.
Doused

There was a lamp by this window sash last evening -

Must you have doused it before you left unbidden,

Bitter love?
Complement Me

As I slide my hand into the cleft

Made by yours,

Remember me as one

Who touched your once

Unattainable flesh;

And if it should happen

That time tells another of our

Mere tryst, then say it

As I would, earnestly,

And with Memory's eager waging:

We loved as two ought to,

Given a night of ample wooing

In the moonlight,

While others left to tend

To their own affairs.
Felt

Your father crushed velvet,

To make it into a fine felt,

I am told;

Have you also the strength

To sell fine feelings,

To give love that pulsation

Of crushed velvet, underfoot?
Sheer Insolence

Why should I care to be carried about,

When half the world is hungry?

Dessert, my love, will embed us

In a place that holds worlds aloft,

For us to inspect,

And love, in turn,

Saving precious drops of passion

For those who have not the time

To be carried about,

Without care,

While a world aloft

Wilts without love.

Insolence, it would be,

To hold the apple,

Still on its bough,

And admire what paradise we may make,

Together,

In a land detached

From a world that withers

For a lack of such love.
Stained Pink Satin

Also, I would like it known,

Before I close down the shutters

For winter's airy blasts,

That you have not been shown

My fine pink satin

With a stain upon it;

I took you in vain these

Warm verdant months,

As a toy, or perhaps,

A souvenir

Of one particular year.

Sad fellow, look up,

For the sun returns,

And you may again

Find yourself taken in vain,

By a woman who knows how

To toy

With a willing boy;

Or perhaps, new growth

In the spring will herald

New life within you -

A man ready to make seeds -

In that case I'll save

The pink satin

With its stain,

And hold it close

To dab away the tears

Of my remorse

For having let you go.
The Screen In My Window

It holds out all but night's breath,

In its silvery drops that splash my skin,

As I lie upon my bed, uncertain

Of the scratching of one

Who wants to come in.

My heart may be torn, and held

By another, consumed for it is

A healthy heart;

Or it may be fed love's flushed fluid,

And grow still until it pumps only passion.

What awaits in the dark,

Beyond the screen on my window?

I haven't a notion -

So at the sound of scratching,

I swallow deep, and open that metal web

So that one might enter

On fickle notice,

Into my silvery bed.
Your Love Is My Poison

Tea tree vapors swirl around my head;

I cannot believe what my senses have said -

Something lies dormant by my willow,

Something that yearns, yet is limpid and sallow.

Sulfur is yellow, yet so is the sun,

Or a buttercup, dandelion, or two breathing as one;

I will take you now, sun, sulfur, my buttercup,

Knowing well that you will be my last sup.

Poisoned by acid, at last, by love's acrid fume -

Steel forged in waters in which fantasy's consumed.
Those Notions

Desperately dying are those notions,

Of the sort that scant blossoms

Mingle with the air;

Bouquets of love are the fairest gift,

To the one whose full circle

Brings her back, high above.

Throbbing music pulses in my furthest parts,

And a lover surges and is caught by my eyes;

Nothing eludes passion's sure grip,

And noble, chaste love is left at the side -

As a needed thing for hobbies,

Crafts, errands and dutiful chores.

What a bore, is moribund spiritual devotion,

When one may chase the twining lure

Of legs moving forward

Through the currents that run deep

In the seas that lovers choose to inhabit.
Parsed Words

Come now, my love,

I haven't all night!

'Tis as the poets once said:

A love left waiting,

Is a love that's found dead

And wanting.
My Secret Dream Of The Other

Long has it been in my garden,

Since I weeded that one corner,

Where lilac and holly mingle

In a dangerous embrace.

This place I find myself in,

Imprisoned within four posts

And a canopy above, has not

The sweet smell of lilac about it,

Though the sharp leaf of holly

Jilts you as a favored lover;

Still, you bring gifts for my garden,

Rose after rose after rose,

Who could care for a heap of roses -

When lilac grows untended,

Unwanted but guarded,

In the corner of my garden?

Place your roses, one by each post

Of my bed if you must;

But you'll never smell sweeter

Than the one for whom I lust.
Gilt With Gold

Your kind lover's words

Do nothing but guilt me

Into seeing that you glitter

As does gold -

Begone!

It is a wise fool I crave,

One that knows gilded words

Are for those who shoehorn

Their lovers into a bed -

Then cast eyes about for lust of their own;

My wizened old fool will save his breath

For the duress of my desiring caress;

Take your fine words and go,

And leave me a woman whose passion

Has not been mocked by the sound

Of tinsel clattering in a breeze.
It Is Not

It is not simply a bird whirring in the garden;

Nor is it the rush of roiling waters falling;

Don't ask me to believe, as it is nonce,

That it is a light bulb going on in the head.

Instead, tell me, it is a body that writhes

In its downy thrum, coming out at last,

Into the light of love's day,

A new life from the old,

Inseparable from its past,

Yet not turning back to where

It found only yearning in the fold

Of a blackbird's wing.
Needles

Who stabbed the pine tree with needles?

How did the oak become embellished with acorns?

What made this lowly woman so beautiful?

Was it love that grew from within her skin?

Am I anything, if I am unloved?

Have I any adornments that might matter?

Come now, give us your kiss

And snap at my garter -

It can't hurt to see if I may yet

Bear fruit, as do the trees;

And also, curiously,

Do explorations -

Find your way about me,

Dear love, and make no map,

So that next time, you'll come across

New paths, not plainly pointed to

By an explorer's compass needle.
I Hate To Admit It

When you won that arm wrestle,

A million wallabies jumped for joy;

When you threw him - splash!

Into the water by the pebbled beach,

Sirens sounded all about the shore;

When you lift me so very high,

As though I were no heavier than the sky,

A torrent of water drops trickle limply;

When I put my arms around you,

I sigh at your wanting breasts,

For this lady adores a woman of such strength -

A warrior who passes my every test.
Gentle On The Road Trip

Sun melts rocks so that we might fashion a road,

Out of lava that spills from a titanium doorway;

Nothing can contain this passion I feel for you,

Save for the mighty weight of a million planets.

Join me, if you dare, in my explosive chambers,

And you will see that the gentlest of exteriors can yield

The most entertaining of fantastic inner lives;

Join me, dear lover, and make me come unwound,

Spewing bits of my love around and over the horizons;

And please, my love, be gentle when you descend,

For I am nitroglycerine waiting to be shaken,

And I want our time together to last more than one night.

Handle me with due caution, head side up,

And remember, my love, in this summer of hot suns,

If you light my fires, I'll not be gentle with you -

No, not a memory of other loves will I leave unscorched;

I will be all that is love to you from now on,

And so if you wish to forsake all others,

Shake me, light me, and feel the sun melt the rocks all 'round,

On a road trip that may be as endless as the earth.
Once

I had a nutshell once -

I dropped it here, or perhaps there;

Nothing grew from the empty shell -

Nothing could, for I did not care.
Peach Tree

Fuzzy smells and succulent textures

Make this fruit the prize of all;

I might yet go to the farmers' market,

And grab a ripe one from the stalls.
Apology Accepted

If you intend to say you were preoccupied,

Then please, go attend to your affairs;

If you tell me you're just too drunk,

Then fetch us wine from the kitchen cupboard;

If you say I'm just too much woman for you,

Then we'll later share it as a private joke;

But if you're just fair, and doodle on the pillows,

Then happily, friend, we'll part - and apology accepted.
There's Plenty More

Shapeless friend, why do you gaze

Into your dream box day after day?

Have you no pity for celebrities?

Their lives are hard, and full of hairdos.

Why not join me for a ramble in the park -

Up by Lusk we'll go into a watery cave -

There in the void you will feel powerless

To stop the world from containing more

Than you have ever dreamt;

And if your hand should then touch mine,

Home we'll go and ponder that dark cavern;

If you desire, you may then have of my dreams,

In my bed, by the fire, with tea on the stove,

And we'll take turns becoming the other one's cavern

Of unbounded possibilities, in the dark,

By the dying embers of the fireplace,

With tea etching the pot, forgotten on the trivet.
Raspberry Jam

Flim flam, Edam Adam, simple yam, stifled yawn.

Apple cider with a strawberry tart;

Making love well is the day's lazy art.

Sweaty skin, luscious legs, let him in, don't make him beg.

Cinnamon toast with raspberry crumpets;

Orchestral music with jazzy trumpets.

Pinstripe suit, out of style, pillow fights, marathon miles.

Three eggs and ham, sunny side up;

Oops, I missed the coffee cup.

Legs entwined, arms all around, lucky penny, look what I found.

Turkey dinner, mace pumpkin pie,

Mealtime with you, flies right by.

Beater spinning, oven baking, fridge is chilling, freezer freezing.

Dinner's late, I just can't believe,

You'd cook for her, when I'm your Eve.
Threefold Your Lover

Know me at night as you might have known me,

Long ago when my skin was bronze, supple and young;

Know me by day as I am known to you now,

Leather all around my erstwhile ample curves;

Know me in your dreams as you will know me someday -

A hag that pursues you down glens and over hillocks.

Know me as one woman, all of the aforesaid,

And know that I have waited;

I dote now;

And I will crave

Only you.
Weeds

Creeping charlie finds his way in,

Dandy lion feasts on my catches;

Honey clover is welcome to stay,

But you, old friend, have got to go.

(The life of a weed is most unbecoming a man.)
Love's Nest

Here in the corner of my shadowy abode,

I find in good repair an old spider's web;

I will make of it what use there is for such things:

I'll place in it a hex on the next who comes in.

Clairvoyant I am, born on the Harmonic Convergence, 1987 -

Under a Hazel Blue Moon, in room 13.

I have eight sisters, 9 in all we make;

And we care not a bit if we burn at the stake.

Some witches are good, and pray to Almighty God;

But others like me are born to be free!

Yes, it's true, I have a yew growing in my garden,

And I have a ewe on tap for All Hallow's Eve;

But the sacrifice I need to appease my Lord Darkness,

Is a man who steps in the web as I deceive;

What I'll do is give him all that he wants,

And then I'll give the techniques that will haunt

His every hour with any woman of his choice;

When he calls out "I love you!" he'll yearn for my voice.

For I am the lover of the ages,

And no men, no priests, nor any sages

Can explain the cruel magic I am known for -

Waste your breath now, and denounce me as a whore!

Your men are mine, in their boyish hearts,

And you, my sweetie, could well fall under my spell,

If I so chose to give you a taste of my Hell.

Now, enough, at last, on the bedroom arts -

Save that I'm known, at weddings, to both kiss,

And to tell.

Farewell, my sweeties, go off to your pious homes,

Live like saints and make your prayers good;

But a pagan woman has stolen your dreams,

Of loving like no others under the Hazel Blue Moon.
Cheap Vase

You adorn my living room with such a simple shape,

And I hold you close as there is no other like you;

I find within you a feather that got there somehow -

Perhaps kind winds brought it aloft just for you.

They said when I found you that you were of a foreign land,

Though you're more like a knock-off than any Don Juan about;

I don't brag that I have you, you've just become part of my life,

And I cannot bear to leave you unsteady, near the edge,

For you are the priceless, found for a farthing, that cannot be replaced

By any manner of high-end vase, or museum piece -

None other will do;

You are my cheap, priceless, clay vase.
Deep Within

In caverns far beneath the ground,

May be found crystals that grow

Slowly over the ages -

Tetrahedrons and dodecahedrons,

And umpteen other crystalline shapes,

In places where the wind never stirs -

Not even a gnat's wing beat to disturb -

And all will crash down in a powdery heap,

If one should intrude impertinently,

Arrogantly,

Where none have been given welcome.

Are you so, my love?

Fragile and ready to crumble,

If I should but beat a wing by your crystalline heart?

Tell me now, for one such as you cannot be put back

In quite the same manner as before;

You hesitate before my kiss -

Is my breath such a dangerous wind,

That will topple castles of glass

Down to the floor?

Perhaps, my friend,

You had best stay in your cave,

If you are to remain so beautiful,

That none may behold you,

For in your heart's cavern, I discern,

None are welcome -

Not even the brave who would love

A delicate one, such as you.
Listen Here, Mister

Next time she turns around,

Why don't you just ask her to wiggle

A lap dance down onto your waiting thighs?

And when you see that other one -

The girl with the glamorous legs and hairstyle -

Take a picture and hang it over our bed,

Why don't ya'?

In fact, next time you ogle another woman,

Consider my love to be dead -

Unless you share with me what went through your head

When you gazed at her so lustfully;

My darling, I couldn't care much less

If you want the warmth of other women's flesh,

Over and over throughout our lives,

As they are the fantasies

That make your love

Real to me.
With Child

Would that it were you and I,

Holding the hands of a darling child,

As he's learning to walk!

Would that you would bend at the knee,

And ask of me my hand.

Would that my garden should grow so,

Every year of my life.

Would that I could be but a wife.

I aspire to grow high and mighty,

As the pine by the creek,

And to assail the sky with my green spires -

And so, my love, I will not be with child,

Though you are welcome to join me,

In my garden,

Down by the creek,

Reaching for the dazzling sky.
Body Juggling

May I be the first to roll all about your sweet flesh?

May I hover about your chest, so close to your heart,

That I might taste the wine that is said to lie there?

All I need is a candle, a drape, mint, oregano,

And a fine violin;

Then I might play about your body,

As I have ached to all these years

Of our acquaintanceship.

May I drop to my knees, at your feet,

And climb along your legs,

Up to where I yearn to be?

Let me wrap my legs about your waist,

And carry me over to the rug on the floor,

And then, my love,

I will roll all about all over your flesh,

Taking in skin, and sinew, and moist places

That invite -

Let me be your first true love,

And I will roll all about,

And you will know what magic

You truly possess.
Omega

The time will come,

When all that can be said,

Has been said,

And all that can be done,

Has been done -

And so things will cease to be

As they had always been;

That is why we are made free -

And, yes, the last thing to be done,

Is to leave this behind,

And begin with a new Alpha -

Until I am tired of these affairs,

And it is time to begin another,

That may transcend this life's

Obsession with novelty.

At the end of my rope,

I can find nothing new under your sun,

My lover - but you might as well stay,

And we will transcend the fickle life,

For a sure and steady love,

And we will never die.
The Conceit Of The Lovers

All you see, all you feel,

All you give, every kiss you steal;

All the words soaked in passion's wine,

All the impressions you make on a mind,

Are as though they've never been done before -

And every tryst, every engagement,

Every marriage, hallowed though they be,

Are only unique to the ones in love.

Sadly, ironically, poignantly,

Aptly, and inevitably,

No one else really cares about your experience;

So go back to your loving, grasping and caressing -

Go back, and know that you are alone,

Blissfully alone,

In your love.
Growth

From a seedling she sprouted, long before my day,

And now she hovers among the clouds,

Helped along her way,

By kindly men and gentle women

Who let her grow as she might wish.

Not every season was one of much gain,

Though grow higher each year she did;

And when rain, and sun and wind conspired,

She made from herself a great harvest for the next.

The days when she might have been trammelled

Underfoot by unseeing men are long ago,

Only ghost realities, of what might have brought her down;

She has lived all the decades, rooted deep in her soil,

On the crest of a hill,

Where no ill wind blows;

She will topple herself down,

In a gale, or perhaps on a mild day,

Happy to have lived and reached for the sky,

Unhindered by those who fear

What comes of life's growth.
Broken Hearth

The sooty black cracked stones

Are all that is left of a love

That once burned robust amongst the hills

And the valleys of this island paradise;

Nothing is left for others to see,

Save that they burned bright,

And made warmth,

Many a starry night,

A long time ago,

When our nations had yet

To be conceived,

Or before books told stories

Of what has passed;

Their broken hearth is all,

A sign that they, too,

Wished it might carry on

Forever,

In the remembrance of the world.

Their breath is among the trees yet,

Whispering that love is more wondrous

Than all the treasures of Caesar's mighty Empire.
Signature

I found deep within one of the hidden chambers

Of my still beating and cooing heart,

A place I had forgotten was there:

Aside a coral reef, storm up above,

And hammerhead sharks all about;

Anenomes pointing hither and thither

At dangers yet unknown to us in youth;

Currents tugging to pull us apart, and

A fearsome shape lifting off from the sand below -

I looked in your eyes, and saw bliss,

And knew that never again would I know

A love such as this

Haunting affair in the waters,

That young lovers plumb but once,

Before retiring to the shallows,

For the more mature and saner commitment.

I knew you then, as you knew me;

Every one since has been a wisp in the wind

Compared to you - why must love be so?

I hurt all over again, and so my still beating heart

Will close that chamber for good;

I cannot bear to remember you anymore.
I Take It Back

All you men I caroused with at night,

May calm yourselves now and recall me well -

When I said I would always love you,

I was mistaken, under lust's dreary spell.
Natural Lovers

The fish entwine beneath the wavelets;

Under a moon, gossamer threads hold spinning slugs;

Spiders beat out a perilous dancing rhythm,

And birds kiss on the beak before feathering their homes.

Blankets enshroud what may be best,

A kiln lit up over the taste of fresh hardwood;

A pillow knows the teeth of the wolf as she champs,

And lovers kiss with carnal force,

As feathers float about.

All the world shrugs at this common sight,

Save for people, who find in love

Passionate reverberations

That seem evil to ones who have

Come to fear Nature's might.
Startled

A cloud appeared in the sky one day,

And rained until grief had gone its way;

That the rain was warm and succulent to my lips,

You'll not be surprised to discover;

But that the greatest comfort I've ever known

Is from the transience of a sheltering lover.

A broken heart has its way of mending,

And the love of a friend is the promise

That holds back the tears,

Until the cloud drifts over my head yet again,

Succulent love's memory upon my lips.
Again I Will Fall

The kitten returns to the bowl

At the appointed hour to dine;

The oak tree tosses acorns about;

They wait for spring to start life anew;

A pulse climbs up my spine

As I dread falling again for a sweetie's words

Of another springtime beginning-

Perhaps, at the appointed hour,

I will fall,

And be caught -

At last, to be lucky in love.
If I Ever Marry

Does will outlast the hounds;

Drought will no longer strike;

Choking winds will be cleansed;

An eclipse will mark the day;

My calendar will come to an end;

And I will presume that my man

Is strong enough, for one

Scarred by an uncaring world.
Prizes Under The Tree

An anachronism, the Christmas Tree

At my feet - Santa went first, then out went the Lord;

Gifts are all that remain on the twenty-fifth,

As well as Bacchanalia for a good twelve days.

There is one present I have never opened,

And it is the one guaranteed for life -

I gaze at it pondering what might be in it;

What do I know of betrothal?

I who threw out Santa Claus,

Mocked his elves and grounded his reindeer;

I who might as well have cheered Pontius Pilate;

I, who have been a Judas to Love.

This year, my Tree is simple,

With gifts of fruit and nuts scattered

Along its boughs - I hope to find Christmas again,

With a love who feeds me its fruits;

By a love who can forgive me my

Callous, callow, mortal heart,

That turned away from Love,

And all that it enshrouds

In its holy blue gauze.
Tippity-Toes

On my toes, I crane to see,

Yet at my feet are the things that be -

I search for illusion to call my own,

Yet here you are on your throne;

I'll wake up someday in your arms,

And in my being will sound the alarms -

For one such as me would like to flee

The call of true love when it comes 'round for me.

So sing of me in your marble shower,

And I will imagine rivulets flowing downstream;

Count me among the worried sheep at night -

As you hold your pillow close - and hold on to it tight.
The Bough We Sit On

We are meant to embrace under the clever moon;

None may know that we cleave paths in the grass;

A nighthawk might spy us from above,

But we are senseless in our sweet sugar cane fields.

Drawn I am, into your world of shadowy encounters,

When I know in the fullness of the sky,

That a tryst kept secret so long will surely die.

I will meet you again, and again,

Under your clever moon,

Silver of freckle, golden of mane,

You are the most beautiful love I have known -

Toss me your laugh as the land is in secret alive,

And I will hunt with you

For the lovers' hiding treasure.

Toss me your laugh one more time,

And let this night end when dawn's indigo arrives.

"Where are you going?" I will ask,

In a way both posing and sincere -

"Back to my fields - I'm one of the vassals,"

You will then reply;

And so it is when love unfolds

In the shadowy lands of starry castles,

And illuminating lies.
Come With Me

I must go now, but in my having passed your way,

Ponder upon the mystery of my being so much like others -

To be another, or not to be another -

Is that the question that confronts all love?

Come with me, sweet flowers' honey, and let idle philosophy be.
A Crush Of Memory

The hazards in recalling a year gone by

Lie in the way colors mix:

Too sanitized by wants for purity,

And the memories are blanched a sickly white.

The most aberrant mix of all,

Comes about when too much is recalled;

A crushing grey fills the mind -

If only the extraneous could be cropped!

No lies may be found in memory's box,

Though the stories we find in the past

Have yet to be carried to conclusion,

And we wait, and add to our memory's list.

Hurry now! Mice dart for the shadows;

Everywhere in my nest I can feel the crush;

Must I retrain my memory each year,

To leave what's passed in the dust?

I prefer to recall my connections with it all,

From my heart to yours to his and theirs;

A Universe wants entrance to my memory box -

So I parse the tapestry's tales and make way

For the crush.
A Comet Rises

I saw a man the other day,

Counting out his money in the mists

Of the merry Saturnalia known

As the Holiday Season -

He dropped his wallet and let the bills fly,

For, he said, I yearn for the sky;

Not, do I hope, for solutions in gold,

And paradise, they say, is a place with no money.
The Changing Face Of Change

Once upon a time,

They said races oughta' live apart;

And once upon a time,

They chained women to the hearth;

Once more upon a time,

They implored us to beat the very child;

The time has now arrived, to embrace

That which is given us - all that is wild.
A Spectacle Within

I suspect the first thing I felt

When I heard the beating of hearts

In that ancient sea,

Was love for having been conceived,

And a want for loving all I encountered

And so I kicked with joy.

Troubles roiled around my head,

Though I had not yet taken to my feet;

I could not pull down all I desired,

And so vexed I grew and demanding I became,

For love is so precious, we grow hateful without it.

Still, I saw within a want for love,

And I leapt to my feet with joy.

My first love was a tender and shy boy,

Who opened his heart to me,

So I could see all the love within;

I travelled the world with this man,

And gave myself to him with the hope,

That something of the love would never die.

Rocking chair on my veranda,

Mint tea and tulips at my side;

I'll leave this world one victorious day,

With still my eyes open wide,

And all the love I was born with,

Still there for the taking, inside,

As the spectacle of living gives way

To the hope for another home,

Where love within is gamely embraced.

Heaven is a place

Closer to you.
Cast Out

Dust does not yield life,

Though it speaks of dusky death;

Little is known of those immoral

Who broke Man's laws,

But made their praises

To the Created world,

While their spirits rose

From the desert floor

To be as One with the Creator,

And look down on a world

Made mad by fools.
A Dinner Held By A Reluctant Host

Danny boy was squelched in the fifth grade,

For being light of build and tremulous in battle;

One could find within him no sliver of jade -

They spun his head until he felt it rattle.

Dan the man spoke to those who gathered

In a choir's place below the church altar;

He raised a goblet while cutlery clattered -

He spoke of a plan to make his foes falter.

"Silly me, I say to my winsome bride,

Chores are heaped on me by my churlish boss;

I'll never do well in this dream world's tide -

Ah, but what's gain for us is to them a loss."

Dan's young wife, who had fallen from

A castle tethered to a roaming cloud,

Smiled and nodded as Dan did strum

The hearts of friends as he spoke out loud:

"In their dreams, I've been put down

In the dirt which has stained my clothes,

And marks me as one not to be known -

But they'll be the ones that Yahweh loathes."

"Knock me down, and turn your back,

As though I did it to myself -

That's the method of your attack,

But love makes the icy road melt."

"To my bride, I give thanks for her save

Of a man who was born a flocking dove;

I'm not wanted in this world of knaves,

But I have the world, for I am in love."
The Lens Effect

Purdy was home at last,

Declining to sleep in gutters;

She made no mention to any other

As she sat down and gazed

Into the bowl with fish in it,

And they looked back,

Not curious about the world

She did inhabit,

Though the goldfish thought,

"She might be God,

For she lives beyond our reality,

Or, she might be the Devil,

For how she hovers is magic."

The one who knows,

Will never say.
Telescoping

Fused quartz amused the courts,

And so they made the defendant pay;

His defence was to blame the judge,

Whose spectacles were there to stay.

Magnifying a fact, keeping it intact;

The truth looked on in dismay,

As fingers unfurled at the accused,

When he intoned, "A year and a day!"

Of course, the man did it,

Broke the judge's sacred law -

However, he couldn't help it:

That's what the court never saw.
Spirits Asunder

When a last gasp is issued,

By one leaving this earth,

Our spirits are all widowed,

For we all are of equal worth.
The Pretty Poem

Abstract orchids swirl in their pink,

Ready to blossom at the roadside;

Intrinsically, I am drawn in -

I will see, unless I am shut out.

Kids canter along a schoolyard fence,

With keen eyes penetrating surfaces all about;

The priests of this world,

Concealing the blood-stained altars,

Dismiss what the children do see,

With throats strangled,

And tears in their eyes.

Those who lord shout to every child:

"Do not see this, do not see that!"

A veil is placed over pretty eyes,

And those blessed with sight are knuckled under

By those with might;

"You'll have no voice if you can see,

And you'll have no rest if you must be -

Surrender to the selfish maniacs,

And blind you will be -

And, maybe,

You'll grow up to be President.
All In One

I am within you,

If you choose to see yourself;

You are in my heart -

Let me tell you what I know....

Do not be the rocking clown,

Built up, then knocked down;

Be instead a drawbridge across the moat,

Into a castle, a castle of hope.

Do not subscribe so much

To "us and them,"

Feel this world's miraculous touch;

Speak the words, "Je t'aime."

Come back from where tornado winds

Tossed you from your turret to the sand;

Come back to me, darling love,

And you'll see a new world is at hand.
Expressions Of Living  
Layla simply extracts maximum pleasure from life,

Never heeding the nodding forest

And it's rueful counsel.

Off down a weathered bluff,

Never following, for there is no path there -

Stumbling against knotted roots,

That languish in the pools of predictability.

Neither dice to be thrown,

Nor a plan to be executed,

She sees in life only the opportunities

Found in spontaneous combustion -

She has flamed in Hell,

And danced in the clouds,

Yet the morose forest trees,

Rooted as they are in macabre duties

To refrain from spontaneity,

Only pray that Layla trip on their

Knotted roots,

So they might sway their leaves

In laughter at the impetuous one.

Yet, for all the supernatural silence about her

At the end of the crag,

She has suffered no regret

For having committed the sin

Of making mistakes along the way

To a life lived as an

Expression of her being.
Fishing For Meaning  
The Orinoco swells with the rains

Of suffering clouds over a grateful land,

And no being in its swaying ways

Signs its pleasures as subtly as

The flashing neon tetra:

Darting in shoals shivering under

Baleful eyes of ones they call "angels."

Neon signs that it is time for

A new energy in the sliding waters,

And so a she fish,

Delicate in orbs of moonlight,

Lays down her eggs,

In solemn celebration

Of the genesis of love

That the fish share with

The uncomprehending sky,

And the mournful clouds that cry -

For life had just one beginning;

The neon tetra knows.
Less Is More  
Those boys down by the levee,

With their polyester shirts

And plastic plates

Filled with chicken stir-fry

From Frannie's up the highway,

Don't have a clue what the world is

Outside their blissful partying with

Wild girls and weed and boom boxes;

They drag on civilization, weakening it's foundations,

For they do not know the sins of their ways;

Tethered to the boondocks as they

Might as well live in caves,

According to the sages of the cities.

Living less in the dreams of the civilized,

And dreaming that life has no gods,

They know what life is,

In wordless powers of being;

Though they know, as they gaze upon

The mirthless pursuit of happiness

In the cities,

That all dreams

Come to an end.
The Calling Child  
Purple clay snowmen huddle on a warm tiled floor;

Green sun shines down on smiling cats in the blue grass;

The curious answer that gives life to play,

And that calls to the birds in their free ways:

Why not?

The child's muse tells him to say,

When a ghost of a child leans in and asks,

Why are the snowmen friends,

And why do the cats smile?

Why not?

The seer in the child says.

Compelling the child to dispense

With passions to join the birds,

Is to turn his eyes from the sky,

And downward, where he can think

Only of the muddy grave

That seems to await him.

Let him imagine.

Why not?
The Customer Is Always Right  
I come to you with grey tales of woe,

Dropping my feelings at your feet -

You know that they are never wrong,

And that's what I love when we meet.

You prop up my joy with celebrations,

And offer your pillow if I declare myself free -

I come to you night without end,

Because what you see is the actual me.

How I dread the day we might say goodbye,

For how can a fool survive this world alone -

So I come back to you when the sun goes down,

Because in your dreamless presence, I am known.
I Am Culpable  
Settling down on the earth,

By freedom's joyous song maker,

I know that slippery meanings

Make concrete words,

And so I feel without deceiving thought.

A clever magician of history

Might make of me one who doubts

The value of living in a dream -

Though that dream seems to deliver

Life within it's cement walls;

I am guilty of not believing

In vicious moments spent at the wheel,

Nor do I partake much of television

With it's offers of trivial pleasures pruned

Of life's little branches

That give me so much joy;

The ways of this civilization tantalize me not -

I would rather live my own life,

Than give it over to a dead tree

That now reeks of its own rotting wood;

It is spoiled,

And a new way is emerging

Among those who disdain the serpentine logic

Of monument-builders who say

That glory is the goal,

Though life must be trammelled

To reach that exalted cloud

Where God Himself will

Excuse the blood and sorrows

Of those inconvenient ones

Who stood in the way of

Progress.
He Knows  
He knows a psychic who is always right;

And a scientist who is always wrong.

Don't bother him with your faith that all is well,

Among the burgeoning throng.

He drinks to the dead,

And raises toasts to the born;

He'd rather not drink so much,

But revery is his that you scorn.

His wife claims that he lives

To see her happy and content;

But a slave to others is not

Exactly what she had meant.

If only we could taste what he does,

And find within us the spark of life -

He can't teach what it is he knows,

But he is a stranger to all of our strife.

He stares at the grave like it is

An enemy he chooses to keep close;

And ponders what flowers might

Please his friends most.

He's not a hero to anyone at all,

Save for those who know him best;

Into the sky he will go when he dies,

Where his striving spirit will find its rest.

All these years have gone past,

And still he never shirks his friends;

The mere memory of his presence

Is what my own spirit now depends.

He's just a beautiful guy.
Will I?  
Can the desperate clouds catch me with their rain?

Is a gnarled tree going to fall in my way?

Can adventure be true to my life lived,

If I ever follow the ways of the beautiful in spirit?

"I will,"

I have said to life

Long before I became

A good wife

To all my friends.
Only perversity can save us from the consequences of logic.

Out From Beneath A Rock

I call on you, Creator -

Though I know of no reason

To suppose you'll hear,

Since you can't be found,

Nor seen;

You leave an essence in every room

I enter,

In every heart I ponder;

It is absurd of me to know this,

But I think I know where

You are:

Under the last rock to be turned over,

By the babbling brook,

Among the acorn scatterings of an oak,

Held up by the holy earth,

And sanctified by the unquestioning

Life that lies around you.
Tastefully Colorful

Amber has its ancient way

Of filling eyes with visions

Of Time;

Smoky quartz, in its day,

Dazzled me with vows of love;

Desperate aquamarine floodlights

Lit up the Legislature,

Calling on the hopes that hang

By the threads

Of suspended democracy;

Cherry red alarms us -

Whether the news reader

Be cheery or harmlessly distant;

Wanton white,

As pure as doves mourning,

Waits over those

Who cannot dream in colors.
Failure To Absorb The Lessons

How could tyrants tear down the child,

Who only wanted to weather the wilds,

By invoking her nature and spurning their lessons -

She only wished to be alive.

Take the death of ostracism,

Over the false freedoms to be found

In this civilization's prison -

Listen to its empty sound.

From the earth, and back to it,

They say we go,

When in truth we never leave it -

Stand strong, as it is so.

Nothing tears us from the earth,

Though a dream persists

In the minds of the mad,

That life consists of feeling sad,

Of leaving earth as gods do -

We are fallen angels, those who

Pivot on firm feet planted true.

They make gods of themselves,

Those who believe

They have left the earth beneath -

They sow litter, then reap the decay

In a nightmare they call reality.

"Oh, let's make a dream world,

And punish the child who dares spurn it!"

And so the evil will unfold,

And we're told: The billionaires earn it.
I

Venomous truth slithers underfoot:

Time goes on without me,

Endlessly.

I look up at the stars and see

That I am nought but a gnat

On the back of infinity.

I will assert, to those who differ

On the consequences of logic,

That, perverse as I might seem to them,

I matter.

***

I love

I care

I give

I take

I struggle

I show

I tell

I ask

I wonder

I invite

I surrender

I carry on

I come

I go

I grow

I could go on

With countless ways

I am perverse.

***

I am alive.
I Feel I'm Being Watched  
My sofa groans that I've gotten heavy;

Floorboards creak out that I approach;

You wait in the woods beyond my window -

A fearful eye that casts a reproach.

I have, as we say, been there, done that;

I have lived, I insist, without regret;

You have cowered in shade counting rules,

And seem to believe I owe you a debt.

I look in your hollow eye, and I hear:

The whispers you have sent about my ways.

A rascal, I am, in your deadened dreams,

A villain's hurly-burly I cause in your plays.

You, of all people, who wish not to be seen,

Might turn on a heel and let the living walk free;

Still, {oh!}, you return with your standards,

And prey on the hearts of tramps such as me.

Are you gripped with paranoia, my fitful one?

For fear's under my skin when our meeting is done.
Mercy on Your Soul  
Say a little prayer for me tonight,

As I also gaze at the day's twilight;

Ask that your saviour show us the ways

Of acting with mercy throughout our days.

For, my friend, you have been so loved,

Though you deny what has come from above;

I keep by your name a small mark of doubt,

For you believe that my God is heaven's cast-out.

Only Satan loves a sinner, you piously preach,

God alone judges, you hypocritically teach;

Why you fall apart, as I keep myself whole,

Is simply because you lay curses on souls.
I Saw You There

My free ways tie you in fits;

You hate me now as you did

In those fiery days at Auschwitz.

{I was your devil when I scampered and hid.}

My love for the weak and trammelled

Enrages your jealous, starving heart;

With fists of judgment you have pummelled

The innocent and the hurting right from the start.

I saw you follow her about in the forest,

As she found a still place to give birth;

"The child's no good," was your chorus,

It does not belong here, on my Earth.

This one's no good, and that one's evil,

And multitudes of free spirits have no worth;

You descend during eclipses to slaughter people,

For it is the cur's way to kill with such mirth.

Keep your executioner's axe hung on your wall;

Leave the free, the weak, and the hurting

Alone in this world, but above all:

Open your eyes to the love that's emerging.
Why Hate Me?

Have you no bravery left in your heart?

Haven't you read the common epitaph?

Come closer, friend, and I will do my part -

Why do you hurt me with your scornful laugh?
The Enemy Thrives Within

A tree toppled in my yard,

Dappled in autumn hues;

Within, it was hollow, eaten away,

Left without a center, without substance.

Some blamed the winds of approaching winter;

Others the capriciousness of a god;

Still others blamed the Vandals,

In their cloak of night -

Though they were nowhere near the tree.

From the roots up, it was chewed up,

By something that was always within.

_________________

They were the ones who climbed ladders

That sprung up among the throngs

Of people too busy to watch above.

Some of them had galaxies of wealth;

Still others preferred the power of the sun.

They knew not how this world was made,

Though this very world they set spinning,

Gyring to their own purposes.

They had the Luck of the ages -

Put in charge of things they had not built:

Could not build on their own,

For they hadn't seen the blueprints

Of civilization.

We made not of the wisest our leaders -

We have left that to reckless men

Of golden beds, and altars of power,

Who lead us nowhere, and now, soon,

The tree will topple,

And it will be seen,

As we gaze in horror,

That at the center

Was a void -

And tricked we were,

Upon its boughs,

Into believing that

All was well

With the tree.

They dance in moonlight

By the altar of power,

Clear of the tree that

They have hollowed out;

They cast blame

Upon the weak

And the powerless -

For it was they who demanded

Most of all,

That the land be led

With wisdom,

And not the wintry desire

For the warmth of

Power and money.

_________________

A sapling will grow come spring -

Make its center strong,

And wise -

And behold a tree that will last.

My Day Within

Drums bang impatiently upon my heart;

A trombone approaches from the horizon;

Silky reeds stir in my eyes, which open;

A new day has arisen, unbidden.

Slowly, aromas of brass and ivory,

Wood that is polished and metal strings,

Pungent in the air,

Fill me with purpose to have a strong day,

When at last I peek out the curtain.

Summer skies of indigo and crimson

Compel me to abandon reason,

For this journey will be like no other -

The first step of a thousand miles.

I hear an acoustic strumming as velvety waters

Flow over and around me,

Caressing the moment as much as me -

And now I am to be dressed in the finest

Clothing:

Basses pluck at my hips as I waddle

Into my denim;

Bells erupt when I pull on

Short summer socks -

And still!

Still - I hear the sounds of cannons.

Every day is interrupted

In this way.

Inhaling deeply with a tinkling of keys,

{The black ones stir bittersweet memories

Of earlier breaths,}

I recall my debt to hunger and need,

So I'm off to brew a pot of coffee,

Adding the muffins in their due time,

And suddenly plush batons pound out a beat,

So nighttime's dreams sound a hasty retreat,

And I am thrust into the midst

Of the orchestra,

And choral singers invite me to join in

Their compulsion to yet again

Seize the day.
The Day Around Me

I know little of what cats and goldfish do

While I sleep in their midst;

But I feel them pulling at my dreams,

Twanging banjos in jamborees of the night.

At times I awake to find my clutter

Has crossed space,

And landed on the floor;

With bells going off,

The cop arrives from her dreams

To see cats scamper away to the shadows,

And the goldfish hum that they saw

Not a thing.

The smell of wood fills my day,

From every corner of my abode.

It seeps in, fragrant needles in summer,

A hint of sap in the winter,

And a piccolo picks me up

By the laurels,

Reminding me that I, too,

Am alive -

And so it goes with the air:

It brings me fanciful stories

Of what is going on about me,

Each aroma will leave in me

A memory

For my later entertainment.

Waltzes swirl around my head,

Begging me to swoon in the light of day -

I am on Main Street shopping for

A Christmas gift;

The snow piles into my footprints,

Reminding me

That most of my life will be

So forgotten,

And a metal drum rolls its way

Into my ears

When I purchase a package of tinsel.

I look at the faces around me

And expect them to sing -

Then I recall the cannons' roars

That tighten the throat

And mar the day.

Is anyone packing lead?

I wonder, as I leave the shop,

And the mockingbird soothes me

With its favorite songs.

Brazen appetite, heedless of

My physician's assertions;

Wants to put more on my lips,

More on my hips,

When I have a creamy, smooth, cool

Dessert before my main course -

After all, rules are for children -

And a chaotic clarinet

Beckons me to be seduced

By the charms of the evening -

One last crazy cabaret of emotions,

Sweeping around my cabin,

Entertaining me with a remote

Saxophone, which plays on

Long after I swish the bed covers

Around my deafened body.
Signs From Around The World

The cannons blast here and there,

Loud enough to be heard from Mars;

Sad, crazy people, much maligned,

Take guns in hand and astonish

The world at shopping malls

And universities.

Their is a maelstrom of madness in the air,

And those who have suffered without care,

Sink down as violins mimic their maladies,

And poison fills the flute

So that it cannot be played.

Discordance of insanity

Fills the world;

Nothing is done about the madness

We inherit.

"Nothing can be done,"

Violins mock our sorrow,

And the music of life,

So beautiful in its melodies

In our inner sanctums,

Becomes an orgy of amplified

Chaos,

When the powers-that-be

March to their own drums.

If we could live but one day

Without government,

And let the people alone have their say,

There would be dancing -

Dancing in the streets,

And a chorus of hope would fill the world.

Would that a life as beautiful as mine,

And yours,

Be the world's fate;

Perhaps, a clever composer

Has a grand finale in mind,

When the shrapnel from cannonballs

No longer interrupts the orchestra,

And all are free

To share their love of music -

The orchestra of being alive

For a time.

A Decision To Bide My Time

Placed in a vice, in a public place,

My heart was wrenched from me,

Inspected, rejected, proclaimed foolish;

And so, child I was, I kept it hidden

By my pillow, writing my diary on it,

In scribbles of what I yearned to be -

Until it was forgotten by me,

Save for the pounding in my chest

When love looked askance my way -

And so, unknowing, I have waited for you,

Faithful to you, for no other has been

Privy to the words of you

Written on my famished heart.
Baubles On The Tree Of Life

One was a brilliant man,

Bespectacled and interjecting;

How could I not swoon for a mind?

Another was bashful, aloof,

Long of hair and poetic;

We lay in the fields entwined.

Some were pretty baubles,

Seducing me for I willed it;

There's no shame in love of beauty.

A few were friends

Who stayed a little too late,

And friendship knows its duty....
The Grail Of The Collector

An obsession with toys will keep

The keenest mind childish in

The ways of love -

Counting the baubles as

Does the accomplished collector,

Until the yearnings of the heart within

Are but a memory surfacing

In the dreams of the night;

And so, with you, my new love,

I have thrown away childish things,

And let your love with its gilt wings

Into my waiting flower.
Becoming A Woman In Your Eyes

The orchestra plays unbidden;

The Universe unfolds before the eyes;

Time announces its exit from the stage,

And so we are left alone -

A man and a woman, becoming

Such as Adam and Eve

In the arms of the other.

I want to show myself to Heaven,

And say, "Behold, I have become a woman."

The world has stopped turning,

And the sun now shines on us -

And a moon in the sky of day

Looks upon the miracle of

A man and woman in love.
By Day And By Night

My home is cluttered with

The accumulations of a lifetime

Spent in the vanity of wishing to be;

But with you, my best of friends,

I feel no knickknacks staring back;

My bureau holds no secrets;

The walls, bless them, have no ears -

I find in your presence the warmth

Of atmosphere;

The play of light on inquisitive eyes;

The tricks of gravity as it pulls me

Across to where you are -

You are a new law of physics to me,

And I reflect on these equations

With each meal we share -

In a home that was once so cluttered.

Night arrives on the wings of the owl;

"Who {is in love?} I fancy it hoots to us.

I share this secret joke with you,

And we smile each time the owl calls.

Before long, we will languish on our bed,

Wondering if we have the time,

The energy,

Or the inclination to make love;

We will smile as we drift off to sleep,

As the enquiring owl

Asks in the glow of light around

This home,

"Who {is in love?}"
A Better World

There's not a thing we can do about

The sullen march of history;

Let us, instead, be in love,

And, for a time, make a better world.

What if it's a girl?

What if it's a boy?

The pleasure of giving a life its name.

Ah, I've been such a heathen -

Pagan, practically -

Would the only true Power-That-Be

Say we defile a church with our vows?

Oh, what a quandary!

Just in time, you have come to save a world,

My superman -

And so my heart is well again,

My soul has hope lighting its way,

And I may yet be saved -

I pray that our love is so

Valuable to you,

And makes for you, as well,

A better world to live in.
The Bard From The Sea  
I said at Luxor that it was all doomed -

As is the line of Pharaohs,

Gambling in their dens under the stars,

Acrimony spreading under the spell of

Monumental stupidity.

It was at the beginning of this course

We set out on, long, long ago

That the world was flooded

For its new ways of wickedness -

And the bard was born:

She who could plumb the depths

Of humanity's agony -

Such searing pain that it is submerged

In the bitter waters

Of shared memory.

Sage, dignified face of the feral human -

Look at what has become of your kind:

Paradise was lost when the world came

To be crowded,

And shoulder-to-shoulder,

Under the yoke of fantastic discipline,

Men and women have come to suffer

The fate of those lost in a land of strangers:

Neither trusted, nor trustworthy,

We make merry of the plights of those

We rend from happiness -

Wicked is the world that has happened,

And the flood waters grow even

As we turn our eyes skyward.

It is the fickle hand of Nature that has

Placed within our reach the resources

We need for each Age's way of living;

And each Age finds its end in the destruction

Of those resources.

Make a dollar, kill a resource;

Kill a resource, make a dollar -

The dollars will run out when

The resources are gone,

And so another Age will end

In the acrimony of bitter flood waters.

That men of little wisdom rule still,

While masses of the ruled ferment

Dissent for the laws and ways of

Those ignorant few,

And when the ill-gotten gains of the rulers

Spoil their lands with the stench of failure -

It is not the greater mind of the many that

These rulers turn to;

Instead, the mass of the ruled are placed in prisons,

So that the criminal rulers may remain free

And carry on in their wicked dementia.

I have dredged up these memories from

The sea of our shared suffering

One more time,

And I advise the peasants

To gather while there is

Still moonlight,

And plot to take their lands from

The ignorant few who have spoiled so much

In so little time -

Take a moment to bridle your passions

To a feral beast that lies within us -

Anger,

My friends -

That most disdained emotion,

Is your only recourse

If the flood waters that civilization

Brought to the world

Are ever to abate.

Your land, your laws;

Your votes, your cause.

Give your leaders pause,

Make democracy

Humanity's last great hope -

For there is no other.
A Thousand Deaths

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

What gift, this sanity?

Lucidity for the sake of silence.

There is nothing more to acknowledge -

I am getting old, again.

This moon shines down upon me,

Love twisted into limbs under linen;

Once more I set forth in hopes of gaining

Trust - or at least, a taste of life.

Sadly, sleigh bells do not chime

On my roof this winter's eve,

Nor do men sing merry tales of my love;

I am an old maid, bitten by snakes

Here and there,

Swallowed whole by whales,

Spat upon by women who should know better

Than to call a lonesome heart a whore

To her face.

I am bereft of reason, again,

Cleft from the Yuletide tree,

An ornament smashed into shards on the skirt.

I'm in love, and too lazy to clean myself up

For the proper company that will

Spoil our privacy with intrusions

Into our inner world.

A long probiscus sniffs at my door yet.

A thousand deaths, I will die for my love,

For he cannot save my life;

A thousand years I will wait for him,

A gossamer angel in bright moonlight.

For him, I will kill the ogress who loves to taunt a man;

For him, I will dash my heart of jade, and replace it

With one grown from his own;

I will never weary of dying for him,

As I've been so many people before -

I've been a lady under streetlights,

By taverns full of eager men;

I have danced my way out of trouble

With men who tried too hard to please me;

I was once an accountant of sorts,

Counting lovers' sins for fun and profit.

I have been that goo in the lava lamp,

And, ladies, I have been a tramp.

I have tasted honey from a woman,

I have rolled and lolled with pairs at times;

I have been, in short, here and there,

And - if Santa should care - I have been

A naughty, naughty girl.

For him, I will reach farther back,

And kill that child that lingers within;

I will strangle the spendthrift shopper,

And make myself presentable.

I will walk into my closet,

Torch in hand,

And set ablaze those thing I wore

When the world was cold,

And I yearned to be hot -

Like the dunce cap I earned in

Eleventh grade.

Still, I have yet to find a reason

To marry him -

But I will kill that doubter if it pleases my love,

For a thousand deaths I have suffered before,

And my face still blushes at the thought

Of falling in love with another,

Leaping off the cliffs,

Only to find myself

Not caught.

I've been dashed down by devils

And temptresses

Many times before -

So desperate to find my love,

Even waiting for,

Ever expecting him

From around this corner or that one -

I lost my way,

And entered the world of vagueness,

From which I sensed no more.

You are an easy man to love.

A thousand deaths already,

And thousands more in store,

Are what it's worth,

On this earth,

To seize at love once more.
Seedling  
Yearning, yearning, twisting and turning,

I strive to grow as tall as the trees;

To be among the lilies, spinning like Daisy,

Forever out of reach of the Time Before Me.

Pedantry calls it a miracle, and slothful science

Tries to describe my first nine months -

As though I'm going to speak of that watery time!

The doorway is here at last, and I struggle free,

Find myself where I always wish to be:

Close to the giants, on the ground, and breathing;

Breathing, as though each breath is the first,

As though each breath may be the last.
First Memory  
Was the dog such a clown,

Or was I the jester and he a patient friend

And dinnertime ally?

Was that purple light on the tree

Such a splendid sight to behold?

Or was it simply my first purple light?

It was a time of marvels, when things were

So shiny, new, white and fluffy;

Air could have rushed in at any moment,

And made it all real -

But no, I can't hear a sound from that place,

Save for a delicate crackling as I went on the floor;

And all I want to preserve is the spirit of the new world

From that very first Christmastime, and onward.
Crayfish  
Dancing beneath the air,

In the real world of dreams,

He makes a little sound in the sand;

A bubble rises - it does not belong,

And so it takes to the wind.

I am there beside that crayfish,

Breathing the water,

Dreaming of solid things,

When out comes a shout from over the trees -

"Dinnertime!"

And soon I must go, but in the pale light

Under the waves, my friend stays in the dream,

Only to surface that night,

As I smile silently at the thought

Of all the friends there are

In this dream-lit world.
Strange Sights  
Cruelty etched into her face,

She is one who will make us wise.

Rita tears pages from her exercise book,

Hides them in her bag,

So that she may show off that her work

Is great and plentiful -

And a new color for the next book!

Like at church, I know to sit near the back

With the poor kids - poor us, in all ways!

Surrounded by the cardboard towers,

Larry and I wink in the knowing way

Of those who are already cast out

From the proper crowd;

"Don't be a sheep," he says -

I don't follow him,

So I resign myself to taking pictures

In my mind,

Of all those children

Being led astray.
The Astronaut  
Away from here, on high somewhere else,

I float when asked what I'll be -

It's a game of sorts, saying what I'll be

When I finish growing,

Though, truth is, I don't know

And hardly care.

I want to play with my pals

And Mary next door,

And I want all those older people

Gone!

With their impertinence

And put-downs,

And insults meant to teach me

My proper place.

Down I go when amongst them,

So my cunning answer to them,

Cryptic with meaning only a child would know,

Is that I want to be an astronaut-girl,

So I might be away from this world

And all its problems

I can already see.

Floating away, floating away,

I might never return.
Soliton Frown  
Symbol, sound, soliton frown -

Some go on, and some go off

When bodies mature.

I escape as best I can,

Pinching boys' bottoms

And smoking the tobacco weed.

I hate this world already

With its prerogative

To shape me to its needs -

So I signal a tactical retreat,

And remain, bored and distraught,

In the world of child's play.

Apathy is the only way out

Of this world that is not made for people,

But that makes human beings serve its demands.

I will not be obsequious,

For this world will not be

My master.
An Honest Try  
I wore out a pair of shoes,

Breaking them in,

And my feet grew tired of the pain

And endless circles my mind was going in.

With precociously proper hair,

Proper boyfriend and friends,

I entered the laboratory

To see if I could exchange my life within

For a shocking existence

In service to the great being-without-life

That is proper society.

In a dream at night,

A giant trapping spider grasped my head,

And withdrew from within me what

Was left of this child.

Before long, I went back to the world

Of apathetic play,

Hoping for a way out of this hell,

Someplace within a bottle,

Or perhaps within a casket -

I wanted to die by my own hands,

Not by the monolithic power

That is the State,

Though not called so,

For it is improper to call it

The Machine

That destroys life.

In a world like that,

It all starts at the top,

So I sunk to the bottom

Of my watery dream world

To save my very life within.
A Little Anarchy  
A fine place to make a little anarchy,

I whispered to the wind

As I drew a circle in the sand

By my new castle-in-the-wood.

You cats shall be my friends,

And the goldfish my children;

The yard will be my savannah,

And the roof shall be treetops.

Off with the yoke!

(I tell people I listen to jazz and orchestral

To throw them off -

But I really love rock'n'roll and reggae.)

Here, at this moment, was Kevin;

Over in the kitchen was Robbie;

Kyle, John, and Benjamin

Sat on this very couch with me -

(To all the men I've loved before,

Did you know you were dating a whore?)

A special spot for Karie,

But I don't speak of her.

Pots in the bedroom,

Cushions on the kitchen floor,

Television unplugged,

Radio in the bathroom.

At least, my friend,

People come alive

When they enter my

Castle-in-the-wood.

(Anarchy forever!)

My soul is a survivor,

My breath is warm,

My lips are in love,

The cats purr away defiantly,

The goldfish know not what they do!

I am free

And alive,

In a world that envies my kind.

(So be it.)
The Rewards Of Loyalty  
With loyalty, I may find friends,

For I will prove to be discreet in all ways;

With loyalty I will find love,

For I stand with my own for all days.

With loyalty I will forgive,

For life is not without its betrayals;

With loyalty, I will be forgiven,

For my flesh and spirit are soft and frail.

I may dance out of your life for a time,

But as a true friend I will return;

I can be preoccupied with my own business,

But an eye is kept on you, you will discern.

I want to know what is in your heart,

For loyalty beckons me to understand you;

I love to gaze upon your face,

For memory is a vital and lasting glue.

Each friendship is as a shared life,

And our loyal ways will keep it alive;

For what you bring me with steady eyes,

Allows our friendship to always thrive.

And when one day I lay me down,

My thoughts will turn with concern from above,

To you, my friend - how could I not care?

For we made loyalty the rock of our love.
United, We Stand Shoulder To Shoulder  
Without loyalty, we will not know unconditional love;

And, when we are untrue to each other, confusion will reign;

A home without loyalty is, sadly, but a den of snakes;

And when we embrace with trust, we begin, finally, to feel what is sane.

Without loyalty, my world would drain empty of meaning -

For there can be no touch of the heart when we are adrift;

I would not know the oneness of family or a group of friends,

Nor would I look up to see a hand when I'm in need of a lift.

Without loyalty, I would not find my center, or know it exists -

I could not weather the storms of this ever-changing Universe;

My love of freedom would be but futile and self-mocking,

And my life would be a progression from bitterness, to even worse.

I cannot see the human behind the face if I am not loyal -

Loyal, at my core, to all those millions I will never know;

I might love a flag or my country's name instead of what it stands for,

And I may see the sad day that forgotten freedom finally has to go.
I Bite  
Nothing restrains me now.

I have slept through the day of laughing children

And well-tended gardens;

I have slumbered while lovers made love,

And the blue sky beckoned to those with life.

Now, the sun is setting,

And I stir anxiously in my tomb,

Thirsty for the blood of the billions

Who now dwell on this world,

Awaiting the Great Darkness.

Thank you, Osama,

And thank you, George;

Thank you, to all the people's chosen leaders.

I told your ancestors long ago

That I would be back.

Allow me to reintroduce myself:

I see all from my vantage point in the sky,

Flitting about, spying on you;

I stalk you as you go about, knowing every place you've been -

A wolf in the fold;

I am an aristocrat,

With more power in my gold-laden finger

Than in the halls of your Congress;

And, my dears, I have no conscience at all -

Do you not feel my breath in the wind?

Fattened by supersized burgers and fries,

Sweetened by colas and beer -

And sleepy from a hard life

Of distractions,

Your blood will be more delicious than ever.

You will discover that I have risen

Just after you have watched the sun disappear,

And an oppressive mist descends on the land -

You will find the night painfully familiar,

As though drawn straight from your nightmares.
The Bitten  
I have been impaled by one with no regret

For the suffering he creates;

I have watched the fires crackle around cities,

Towns and houses,

While inhabitants hid inside,

Silent with fear.

I have been bitten.

I serve my Master -

He's your Master as well -

With punctuality, efficiency,

Observance, and relish.

I cannot wait for his signal to me

To pounce

On you.

I may drain you of life,

And leave you dead on your lawn,

A sign to others of what may befall them,

Should they peer out of windows

At the wrong time;

Or, perhaps, you will be seduced,

And instead of dropping to the ground,

You will rise again, now bitten,

And loyal to Master.
A One-Time Friend  
I trusted the people I voted for;

I admired those I enriched;

I idolized the spies and soldiers;

And when they turned on you

And your freedom-loving friends,

I feigned shock, dismay -

As though I thought things were looking better those days.

Now, I hear your screams next door to me,

And know that your blood is flowing out

From your living body;

I feel a tinge of sorrow,

For I once supped with you at

Neighborhood barbecues -

But you thought you were so smart

With your gentle children

And your wild ways -

I always hated you,

But kept you close,

So that I might turn you in

When the troops spread through the streets,

And they ran with blood.

Now, I hear a knock at my door -

You always said that I lacked foresight,

Comprehension and empathy.

I suppose it must be a colonel, here to

Thank me on Master's behalf -

Or, more likely, as I hear a cartridge clicking into place,

They have come for me, as well.

Who would imagine that someone of such pristine

Outward manners, as me,

Could have enemies?
Flight Of Dreams  
I fly in my dreams to know what it is to have my feet on the ground;

I capture stray moon rays, and the owls call out my theft;

Crimson dawn awakens itself in the east while vampires leave the world -

Is the gold I have lost among newly lit trees, shivering where it is found?

Others will see their way through the maze of my thoughts,

But I, myself, am condemned to circle eternally, searching in vain

For the life I was given by others, long ago - I spread my wings mightily,

Yet do not fly; leave me to my somnolence now, for even better than the grave,

My dreams know who I have been, and who I will be evermore.

The Sly Harbinger Of Night  
Behind a castle wall is a haunting figure,

Who will overwhelm us in his caprice;

At what moment he will strike, the clock knows not,

And even scientists with probing minds cannot endure

The confusion he has wrought on those who seek

To penetrate his mind.

We wait, in horror, for his mouth to finally snap open, as it must,

And the world will spin away into the mists of nought -

Never to become or be again, in lands bereft of the living.

An Apple  
A road leads from that place, where there were once no roads at all -

Were it a knowing nod that sent us so, and not a blind fool,

We could say - "What an extraordinary journey!"

But, without maps or astrolabe, we find ourselves back in the same garden,

Wondering where things went that were once there, in abundance -

Could it be that several tons of the shame we have felt

Got loose and lay waste to our ancestral home?

Or is it merely the trundled garden of those fools without maps,

Who hear not the crying sparrow, the wincing trees, nor the laughter of children?

The Third Wall  
It sits still in a corner,

Yet moves my inner compass.

It glows like a fire,

But lights nothing in me.

I tell myself, "It's just illusion,"  
Then I am drawn to it again,

And again, and once more,

Until all my hope is gone.

I wither away, lifeless, and vanquished.

Bizarre Is My Hope  
The doorway to my soul is littered once again,

With ornaments left over from my first Christmas;

When I am lost in the present, I cannot see a future;

So, knowingly in desperation, I seek answers from the past;

But I am trapped in the doorway, for their is nothing there.

So I look outward to Mercury for a message,

One that might grip me with its reason,

And compel me with its appeal.

I have become unreal, even to myself.

Who Reads Of The Grasshopper And The Ant?  
The whittler sat with a bony stick on his thigh,

Doing nothing in particular,

Chatting with whoever came by.

It was his goal to bring that stick,

Piece by piece,

To a neurotic end.

So he did, and in the manner of the surprised,

As a new dawn hastened to arrive,

He turned to see that all the sticks were gone.

All The Rage

It was fashionable, in those days,

To watch opponents bring one another

As close to death's door

As escape might allow.

Salt seared the vision,

And dust spoiled the taste

Of contentment.

Like a pool of blood at the apex,

It all trickled down on them.

The Cult Of The World  
By magical incantation did they come about,

And by some sorcerer's tempting they went astray;

They lived in lands of visions and phantoms,

And knew better and more than those weaned on science;

And so, they became more gripped by the words

Of their prophets and messiahs -

Until, at last, God Spell fell away, and their lands

Were left without magic -

As they had always truly been.

I, The Great

Broken down and hobbled by a thousand cursed woes,

She stumbles about in a fog with a stolen cart.

Dignity, it seems, is earned, not inherent,

To those who rule this land

With a fistful of dollars.

I have become great,

In that I am complete;

Together, if only that could be,

We would see with the mind of a god.
The Courage  
Death's first visit was when you were young;

Striding with menace upon a carpeted desert,

A hesitant hand pulled you back from love,

So that you may be pleasing to the omnipresent brute.

Nothingness wound its way around your heart;

Tears became a sign of the weak,

Tempting even more gruelling punishments;

The Destroyer brought you into his land,

And you tried to accept his ways -

Now you stand before the omniscient mirror's eyes,

Be-speckled with the waters from a spring;

Rain has been upon your brow -

I can tell by the melody of your bird's song.

Chant, little friend, for your voice is a delight;

Come back from the palace that says wrong is right;

Withering autumn leaves blow around you now,

And you may find, next, the courage to grow.

Want, want, even craven things more, for wanting

Is the essence of living -

And much is said of you by what you want.

Splay out your passion with beckoning hands,

For any you meet who may become a friend;

Courage, my little bird, comes from wanting,

And why you are brave says much of you.
Love Yourself  
A tyrant first wants you to hate yourself.

See the peach tree with it's spidery limbs,

Upon which two lovers gazed, remarkably attuned;

Knots in your shoes work their way up your veins,

And before long, you'll need to unbind your heart.

Delicate morsels of love drop from the couple's bliss,

Entwined as they are, though not bound forever,

To the ensuing call that it must remain hidden;

(Remember, if you love yourself, walk softly and without shame.)

Sincere tidings of hope fill your mailbox,

For only friends can care for you;

Look to the one who knows you best,

To be your loved one under the peaches,

And the spider's lovely nest;

Stoop to catch yourself when you fall,

Right yourself, and your heart will never fail

To capture you with its beauty.
Love What Is Good  
Pious villains make much of their charity;

The eyes of the loving are everywhere.

How did we become so stilted, I ask again?

Ponds have their way of attracting life

That eschews the wending ways of the river;

Find a still place, and within it, you will find

What was, is, and always will be the possession of the living;

How we touch our lover is the manner of our living,

For the living give,

And the dying take -

All they can, to the grave even, it would please them;

Some devolved tyrants once said that we live to compete

Against one another; live by the contest, die by the contest

Is true Nature's dictate.

Bestow upon your love the gifts of your heart,

For in its purity there, is all that is good.
Embrace Ambiguity  
You cannot love another, without embracing ambiguity.

Sometimes, she says, I want for me, sometimes I want for you;

The kindest lover's touch has also spilt blood in this world;

Our teeth are pretty and sharp.

The hue of the sky sharpens my desire,

To float away across the sea,

To another isle where a new love awaits,

Even while I embrace the one with me.

I am happy with my life,

Though a thousand others I wish I could also live;

The things I may want, but not want, are perplexing to me,

And beguiling and ghostly to you.

I am a pacifist;

I am a killer.

I love,

I hate.

I build,

And be warned, dear lover, I've been know to destroy.

The living cannot but twist the flesh of others,

If one is to truly live;

Broken bones are found within me, and I've known the touch

Of a sadist;

From him I learned cruelty -

My last and only weapon should I be scared.
Forgive, Love  
Those who can't forgive, know no love.

Waiting for the sun to appear in the night,

I turned to see no one had come

To appease me with forgiving words

For my cruelty to myself and another;

Under the moon, I let the tears flow from the

Self-inflicted wounds to my heart;

And the silver light turned the wounds at once to blossoms,

For in my errors, I knew to grow and become a new person;

I am one with forgiveness, and so I can turn to another,

And give my warm embrace,

Even though my lover's pursed lips

And parsed words, nuances of a troubled soul,

Tell me that I need to forgive again,

So that my love might also feel he is worthy

Of me -

Of us.
Passion Unleashed  
Over on the rock wall, I splashed a variety of color

Never before seen by the eye;

Something bubbled up in the crevasses of my heart,

And I flew to the sounds of my very own song.

I touched my lover gracefully by his side, for he knew

I had come for him,

And out from his heart flew a colorful bird,

That sang to me its very own melody -

And we sang until the dawn.
True To You  
Synchronizing the feet that pound as we walk,

One foot over brambles, another touching grass;

Forever may you find the way

To yourself;

For in truth,

There is no one you may be but you;

And in the end,

We walk alone,

On that path to find ourselves.
Stand Like A Weasel  
Salacious journalist, mouthing crap

Put into her mouth

By another weasel in the field;

Bust me down, break my spirit,

Till I silently creep out

To the voting booth,

Where I will defiantly

Cast a spoiled ballot;

I refuse, my friends,

To stand like a weasel.

(Not that there's a darn thing wrong with the animal variety of weasel.)

Hijacked again by some kind of primate,

Bellicose in white robes,

Pontificating on the need to believe

In the sins

Of each other,

And forgive those sins

After an apt flagellation by flamens.

(Not that there's anything wrong with praying to Mars.)

Treacle flows from my lips

As I shift to one leg,

Pondering Shakespeare;

Sombreros and guitars greet his entrance

When at last I find a map

To the Globe Theatre.

Benjamin Ruse, his name was,

The guy who invented free verse

By forgetting to rhyme

Stornge with orange;

Information nausea fills my fickle day;

It's all going to explode, you see,

In a great splash of revolution,

Or something like that.
I Toil Not  
Dancing on clover,

Waiting for the bee to come

With my honey;

Nothing smart comes of endless work,

And no work is good unless it is smart to do.

The azure in my eyes tempts me to climb,

But I'd rather spend another day down here;

After all, toppled castles are the price of hubris,

And life is lustrous enough for me.

A wise man lies beside me in this field,

So all I need for now is here:

A cup of honey, my lover and my shield -

They shelter me from what I fear.
Out Of The Labyrinth  
"You can take it," the whip master would shout,

As he laid it upon my back;

Around in circles I would go,

As gold piled up in his chariot.

I had rations of food and drink,

And a bed to lay down on when sleep

Was allowed and owed;

I was told by others who endlessly

Felt the whips,

That toughness would be my reward

For living in this real world.

I felt myself weakening and being broken,

So from the chains I slipped away;

After years of wandering a dark landscape,

I came at last into the light,

And could see the maze I had lived in

All those years;

And in the open air, I knew that what

I had found could not be taken again,

And I marvelled at the delicacy of my flesh,

The sturdiness of the animal within me,

And the ethereal flames of my humanity.
Sludge Of Hope  
I'll confess to hoping, at times,

For a better life than the one I've ruined;

But wishes, you see, are heard by gnomes,

That then tell the faeries to fasten

A licorice rope to my ceiling light,

In the hopes that I will swing myself

And my loyal cats

From the sweet string,

To be found by a loved one,

Who would grimace at my jovial suicide note

And say,

"She gave up despair for hope,

And now she is dead as a doornail."

For when at first you learn to hope for things,

Disappointment will be your constant companion;

That is the sludge of life.

Expect energies to flow from within and without you;

See that giant, ridiculous oafs block your path;

And, the sun itself casts a shadow

Everywhere you go -

In that shadow, the truth of your past,

And your future, will be found;

Not a twirling daisy in a field,

Nor a soaring eagle skyward,

And not a precious gem in a rock

Waiting to be opened -

No, climbing hills leads us to valleys

And the depths of darkness,

So, stay on the plains of reality,

And be mindful of the shadows.
Who Said?  
Caricatures of heroes hold up dreams,

As though, I think, they may come true;

Oafish villains counter with dull punchlines,

As I wander from the exit,

Yet again.

In this world made for children,

I just want a place far from the ruined buildings,

And a sweetie to hold fast to,

While I contemplate what others

In this Universe would think of

Suicide

In this place.
At First Blush  
Desperadoes, don't you think?

At least thrill-seekers know

That Death is on their side.

I squirrel down from the human tree,

Too often, I think,

For my own good;

There are things on the ground that

May grab me by the shins

And hurl me far from the

Teeming branches:

Philosophy, and Van Gogh,

Miscellaneous puns, and statistics,

Conspiracy theories, and comic books -

They all tempt me to their arms,

Where I will be flung, at last,

To a place of safety,

Far from the maddening crowd.
Call Me "Mud"  
I don't believe in fairy tales,

I don't sniff that kind of glue;

Memory tells me that boats have sails,

And so I am sight unseen to you.
Over His Shoulder And Far Away  
Sweetie's cinnamon sweater draws me in -

I am captive to all he shows my weak eyes;

Tremulous I am as I spy the beast over his shoulder,

Though in my dream it is yet far away.

Resonant cries of lovemaking joy fill the house,

And seep outside,

Where another kind of threat awaits

For us who dream of different vistas.

No, we scramble about the bed, frantically

Trying to hold the beasts at bay -

If we stop in our lustful ways,

Disaster will come in upon us at last.

Day and night we keep our touch upon

One another and kisses we place on

Our eager, frightened bodies;

Time, in fact, compels us to sleep.

I lie unaware in his arms

For my own sake,

And my only hope is to never awake

From this desperate dream.
Sample Taboo  
Auspicious times, these,

What with ev'ryone waiting for doom;

I lie back and laugh with my lover,

For having no cares will bring no regrets.
Chameleon On The Wall  
I sidle down onto my love,

His calling body arched with desire;

I give him what he wants, and a little more,

As life without him would be such a bore.

Cast him out! an unwanted angel persists

In muttering epithets in my ear

About my most carnal love -

He brings pleasure, desire, distractions -

Better, I suppose, would be the long rope of ennui?

The blast of music that starts my day,

Notices that I am sleepy still,

And so it beats upon my brain,

Till I can at last clean the frost

Off the window;

I have no need for orange juice,

Now that I have my sweetie.

A giant sways over my home,

It will crash down on me some night,

I suppose;

A gentle breeze calms me and sweetie,

For the vicious world breathes a pause

As we take our turn to make love.
Logical Stuff  
A teacher of mine made no sense -

She read from the textbook

Like it was her gospel;

Nothing could surprise her,

As she couldn't sense the absurdity

Of it all.

Complete works waited in the gallery;

Patrons gobbled goodies like

Hens taught to peck at symbols;

Communication was cut off by

Shrewd analysis of the sculptures -

They had to be felt to be understood.

I have a cat that mews in conversation with me,

Moreover, she talks at length;

I wish I could understand the world

Like she does:

It just is what it is,

And no more.
The Point Of It All  
Seeing in color is a special trick of mine;

I see love in the rainbow, the butterfly,

And your blushing face

When I touch you like this -

Does it scare you that I am so forward?

Maybe if I get down and beg

For your love, then you'll deign to caress me;

Perhaps if I shyly present myself,

Like a maiden needing your rescue,

Then you'll unleash the wolf;

Or, sorry to say, if I get drunk,

And lie down defenceless by you,

You may seize the opportunity.

Why does it startle you,

One of such worldly reputation,

That I merely undress before you

And tell you do likewise?

Must I push you down,

Hold you down,

Start with a pressing kiss,

For you to hold steady,

And let me have my womanly way

With you?

For when we are equal,

Woman is the stronger -

I don't need my modern strength

To conquer you

With my lust;

I need only your willing surrender;

I know desire -

And if you come to know me,

You will know

What it is in truth,

Depth, and sorrow,

To love a woman unencumbered

With the shame of propriety.

I am your flower -

Though not delicate,

Nor to be kept pressed in an album,

Like pictures of your mother;

You are my flower -

Accepting my embrace

In your reticent way,

Like a man who has not known

The revealed strength

Of a woman.

Come to me,

And I will carry you

To place you never knew

Could be, and were told,

Should not be -

For love, my friend,

Is not proper in this sad,

Tremulous world that scatters

At the sound of

Unbridled lovers.

Come to me,

And you will know.
Shades Of Darkness  
He sees that you have been trammelled under feet of clay;

He knows your broken bones yearn to be broken yet again;

He exploits your vulnerability to being mastered by a menace;

He only wants to gain power out of your desperation to be loved.

Spurn his ways of sadism, and grow your love without whip,

Or the lust put in you by his kind:

To be crushed

By his authority.
The Place Of Cruelty In Love  
He says it is your nature, as a woman,

To be held down,

Subservient to his flames;

He wants to own the cruelty,

And keep you from knowing

That it is yours to dispense,

Not his,

In the ways of love written

Into our hearts -

Before we were brought down by his

Brutish tribe.

Contest his love,

Put him against rivals;

Watch his tears flow,

Listen to his heart ache,

As he learns that he needs you

More than you need him.

Shackle him with your wisdom,

Bully him with your stronger heart,

And if he is man enough -

Human enough -

To become your equal;

Then so be it.

"Mother him not,"

They shout, who do not know men;

Be his mentor,

For a man is not complete

Without the tutoring of a lover.
I Magnify His Fears  
So that he might see,

I tell him of an ultimate rival

To him:

She is taller than a man,

And much more beautiful to behold;

My Queen in my dreams,

Whose passion and cleverness

In my bedroom eclipse his

Troglodyte manners.

She is a woman,

And that is her greatest virtue;

She is not a man,

And that is her failing.

His humility comes in knowing

That the best partner to share my branches with

Is a she;

Though, sparing him no further pain,

I let him know that it is a man

I desire -

And so he wilts in his humble way

Forever after.
Let Me Become  
Purple is the color of my choice;

Destiny is the silver of the moon.

Lonely are the stars,

For they do nought but shine

In a heavenly sphere;

And they do not know love:

Such is vanity.

The Galaxy has arms which embrace me

On my roof at night;

Do you also wish to fix me with eternal light?

Come up with me,

Make your love by multicolored starlight,

And you will see that most of love is too faint to see;

We cannot describe the myriad ways that we glow

In the arms of another.

Can every atom of my body speak?

I cannot tell you how I want you

In the infinite time left to us -

How I want you time and again -

Around me, within me, upon me,

Beneath me:

Passionate with me, always.
An Eagle  
Where is my love, I asked an owl

One morning beneath the bright planet;

How could he forsake me, I pressed the watcher

Of all that I do.

The owl stared into me,

Within me,

And I saw an eagle soaring high,

Ever higher,

And knew that such was my love:

Within me,

Not from without.
I Do Not Need  
I am filled with the light of love,

And so do not need another;

I am loved by a sun within,

And so I carry on without another,

Though I know I am not alone.

As long as another breathes in this cosmos,

I have the pleasure of company;

I am never alone

In this world of many,

Though I want another in my bed,

To have and to hold,

And to see his light within

Shine on me with love.

Come to me, lover,

And we will swim in the spaces

Of tranquility,

On the moon,

Around a star,

And by the ocean

From which we came.

To embrace with you in that sea!

I want your love,

And, always,

I want it now.
Goddess  
Something rises in the east;

Glows permeate the horizon sky;

She comes upon me while I dabble in sin -

Does she not know that my lover's image

Is a man?

Why must she slip into my dreams,

Where she torments me with her beauty,

Her passion, tenderness, and grace?

My lover beside me seems so delicately unneeded now -

Perhaps I will forget his face, as well.

Nothing upon this moonlet of ours

Spins in just the expected way -

Out of the east, surprises come,

And though our destiny lies to the west,

I see myself now, a goddess in the sky,

Searching the land for that woman;

I have met her in my dreams,

And this man beside me -

I wonder what he means

In this sapphire upon my finger?

Perhaps, if I but let go of childish hopes,

I will see that mine are not the norm -

No, I aspire to be true to myself,

And so, this woman will leave her man;

With love.
My Decision  
What is true, if we ourselves are not?

In my circle, I saw Jerry proclaim -

I am an atheist, despite my family's wishes.

Marie said she believes an animal's life is

Worth as much as a human's.

An aspect of Lawrence made itself known,

When he cried at the spectacle of violence.

Sondra carries the woes of the world

On her shoulders,

And we all whispered,

Conspiratorially,

This is not democracy,

Nor are we free.

In the company of such

Brave men and women,

How can I not leave the ghost behind,

And step out as I am.

I did not decide to be a lesbian,

But I did

Decide to become brave.
The Binding  
Sex is sex, love is love;

The two meet in the middle,

And become one.

Our feet touch, and I know I am with you;

You make the bed in the morning,

And I see a new light;

You call me your pal,

And I know you are right;

You've never deceived me,

For you are deceptively honest.

To you, I will be true,

As I am true to myself;

For you I will find courage,

For it is found next to love;

And for you, I yearn for peace,

Though I haven't the power.
The Others  
They're as cold as ice,

Those that would sacrifice others.

"For my God, I will deny your true nature,

And deny you happiness."

"For my kind, I will hate the skin you're in,

And deny you justice."

"For morality, I will despise your ways,

and deny you inclusion."

In the end, they spill the blood of others,

So that they might fill their empty hearts

With that blood.

I am proud to be one of the others,

To them that are cold as ice,

For I would sacrifice my life before

I would sacrifice my humanity.
How I Love You  
You have the finest bouquet, and the quietest way

Of reading what's sent, and not meant to say.

I could reach for a star, though it wouldn't be as far

As the place you're from, so come to my yard.

You've always been near, though I trembled with fear

Of reaching for you, when it's true you were my dear.

Till the end of our mile, when dark flags are in style,

I will be your true love, and above the sun will still smile.

In the back of my mind, you're all I can find

To make this life real - I can feel you in kind.

At the end of our days, lovers will all leap away -

They'll hold on to what's true, and with you, I must stay.

Shooting stars will fill the sky, tyrants will tell their terrible lies,

Seers will say good has won, when one sees so many who wish to die.

You, I'll hold up as my own, and together we'll sit upon the throne,

Two lovers who conquered forces of hate - it's not too late to cast the stone.

I rebelled to have and to hold you,

And for you I will fight to the end.
Vengeance Unleashed  
The bigot, the rapist, the common terrorist -

They all shame us with their undeniable humanity;

Reluctance to scorn the stupid, and bring them down,

Has wrought on the mild the scourges of the ages.

How do we hold back the hateful, while we send soldiers out

To kill the murderers?

How do we contain our leaders' ambitions

To control all they survey?

How do we escape this darkness?

Desperation finds a way -

It is the mother of invention;

The earth quakes and we sway -

It is too late to prevent the past.

So, we know, there will be a tomorrow;

And, we feel, hope will spring once again;

But nightmares in Paris

Have brought this to a head:

We will not stop now,

Until the last murderer is dead.
Misjudged  
A paper tiger, we have been called by the infamous one;

Did he still think so, as he died?

Our tolerance, our patient search for the more peaceful way,

Has come to an abrupt stop.

I can only plead, I can only pray,

For the honourable amongst us

Who look to Mecca -

That we send only the soldiers,

And keep the Tiger bound up in his cage.
Poem To A Guileless Lover

A cavern moist with anticipation is where I find you,

Lover who has lost her way in these lands of mine.

Love, you knew, can liberate – little did you think that lust

Would trap you up in a snare, fed on by she

Who promised a moon, a star, and a sun, and no less.

I cannot put up a front of indifference to your sad predicament –

I intend to pontificate on blind desire in a poem most shrewd,

And shed an easy tear when your name is brought up.

My wile, my vices, and the signs I placed pointing to love –

They have all served me well, as you beckon to me

For more of my practiced affection.

Do you know a maze when you are in one?

Do you feel that I have led you here,

To the edge of conjugal dreams,

To the brink of proposal?

Down on your knees now,

And the words of betrothal come

Like blood from your pores.

Sometimes, my foolish friend,

Love is freeing when it is let go of;

Out!

Do not return here,

For I may yet place a ring on your finger,

And spend a lifetime writhing in the clutches

Of your fantastic charms.
I Wrought You

I hunt shapes for a living, stalking them and bending them

With my furnace, roiling in the flame of will.

I'll not tether you to my anvil –

No, one as soft as you, raised on puffs of hubris

And pelted daily by the rainstorms of disdain,

Shall suffer the blows of my iron fist into the smirk

That betrays your ignorance.

Down your nerveless spine I'll send a shock of plasma

To stiffen your plastic legs;

Up into your loins a licking tongue from the embers

Of my last love will unman you,

And set you free from the precedents of machismo;

Finally, I'll take your brains, wobbling as they do on your neck,

And switch them with your beating heart –

I'll not tell you why I do these things to you,

For you would cry Mommy!

And she would send you back to the therapist,

Take you in, let you live in her basement,

And forever care for her darling drippy boy –

Oh, if mommy knew you were with a tigress like me,

She'd grab you away before I could light

The eternal flame within you.
A Poet's Share

We gather in the growing night and ebbing storm

To listen to the wise warlock plot his prose before our very souls.

He hasn't come yet, we hear, so I remark,

In the manner of one accustomed to remarking,

That these sots lining the downtowns seem to be

Getting restless for something irks them in the winds;

What is it to be a rolling stone?

How does one repose on concrete?

Then, out from the gutter, freshly stabbed in the forearms,

An old fallen god rises and enters

The fabulously fashionable and oh-so boho vegan café

And begins muttering a rambling treatise on the inanity of the rich,

Their clowning puppets – the politicians – the unclued masses -

And finally praising those with the foresight to kill themselves.

That, remarked the barista, is the best po-mo poem he's spouted yet!

We gather round him now as he aims a chuckle at us wannabes;

The poet, they say, digs his own grave, verse by tortured verse.
Monster

Mist rolls down the hillsides where it meets the loch in a clamour of thought;

It is in such places that I find fossils, of sorts, that tell a tale no teacher ever told.

Nothing of the flesh is left here, only rain-bleached bone, protruding from

The concrete laid by ancient giants, godlike in their ether.

Why I winter here, I can't say in all truth;

I can't speak the obvious truth –

My fascination with –

This obsession of mine that wrecks the spirits of so many.

I'm waiting for a dark object to surface, and approach me,

And tell me why I am so –

No, I can't say.

I'll let the bones speak –

They can tell you what I fear most of all.
Strange Friendship

Supple you were, lithe in spirit,

And amiably endowed with smiles

When first we fell in love.

I kept a pillow under my willow for you only,

Yet you never came, shying woman.

Is it that man you cavort with who holds you?

Does he fuss and fidget at the thought of

Sharing you with a sprite?

Now, cast out your demons,

Roll your dice on the Ouija board,

Utter an atheistic prayer to an idol,

Make a pin-doll of your man –

Waxen and eager to melt –

And lay yourself down by me.

You just might like it,

And leave that Sappho-phobic wretch you're with.

Flee when they clutch you!

Life is too confined as it is,

Without living in the prisons of the frightened.

One day you'll see what a waste of light

You shone upon him.

Throw him into the darkness,

And be with one who loves only the free,

And frees those she loves.

Love me, and I will love thee.
Spirits In The Trees

You were planted here, in my forest,

In the sunniest of spots, so that I might

Watch you grow in my heart as the years passed.

A marvel it is to see what you've become,

Though you are dead and sitting in moping silence

In a closet somewhere.

You'd be glad to know I've loved you so,

Pruned away the barbs, nurtured the flowers

That give such nourishing fruit.

Only those tired of fearing, fleeing, fighting death

Can succumb to its cornucopia of virtues.

You are more alive now in my forest than ever,

Though I confess, I sit under your boughs

And dream that just once more I could hear your voice.
Reclusive Days

Coffeemaker on, two o'clock, sunup soon enough;

Will she rise and catch me again,

Will I be put back in the pen?

Rocking to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof,

Mocking the thought of me come-aloof,

This voice distracts from the colours of my thoughts –

How can I get any work done in this house?

Terra cotta wine chiller calls out to be filled –

So be it, take the edge off.

It's not poetry or prose so much as rambling –

The days drift by in a haze,

The damn doctor is right,

Righteous, taboo-stricken

Pill pusher has me again.

Bottles on the table, white and red pills –

In the morning I'll take them,

One more glass of wine.
Ride

I crane my neck skywards just in time

To relish the sight of your thrill.

Hands clasped, the engine takes us up again,

And we look down to the receding ground.

Once again our stomachs slide up to our chests,

And someone touches me on the back.

Hair flying round in the wind,

Teeth clenched for another descent,

And the ground returns, then we step out,

Glad for another amusement ride.
Praise

You are my very own antique, holding enough pages

To enthral me for a lifetime.

Polishing you up, so you look good for the company,

I find my hairs scattered about on you.

This story you told me last night, I'll put on your shelf;

The one for tonight – this one's steamy –

I'll keep it out for a while.

In your knotted boards, I can see shapes

Of others I've known before;

And in those volumes,

Those wonderful volumes,

I can see myself in the life you've lived.

Older things don't usually charm me,

But you, fine addition to my home,

May stay until it's time once again

To remodel my life from what I have learned.
No Regrets

Since I left the station and began walking this morn,

I've seen ravens and doves, thrushes and cardinals

On my way to this country cottage near the lake.

All these birds have shared their songs selflessly,

Lightening my load of the needless burden of ennui.

Though I may find my journey over unexpectedly soon,

I'll not regret having lived by my senses.

Within me I have found a fulcrum,

A sort of circle lit by both moon and the sun;

Without my centre, life's journey would be wearying

And ever drifting off course.

Without me, I have seen some birds soar,

While others plummeted and some stayed

On the safety of the bough.

Their stories interweave in ways they cannot see,

But from me, they expect to hear such a tale.

Having lived, and lived well, I can let go of what I've

Brought and finish my journey lighter and barefoot.

Better to have lived in service to others,

Than to have towered over my fellows.

Those who demand obedience cannot love,

And we who command the affection of our fellows

Cannot be brought low.

It is the way of no regrets,

This lesser-travelled path;

Pray that a world comes to sing its praises.
Taming The Feral Woman  
Blue waves in the night sky

Beckon me to bring order to this

Chaos of God.

I send my warriors to her tent,

Where she is healing yet another

Miserable soul.

She learns of a new word

From my general,

Drawing his sword:

Witch!

It is the word of God.

Not consumed by the sword,

Nor the fire,

She flies into the night sky,

Riding the Goddess' waves,

Beckoning to women still,

To come home

And be with her.

She is the spirit of Woman.

†

I hear the news;

It is chaos again,

Out of this order

They have promised for

Ten-thousand years.

It is imperative for them

To draw all into the corral,

Place us on ranches,

Where we are tamed by

Their brutes.

Meekly, we agree,

War is good;

Heroes who kill are great;

Such men are the finest

Civilization has to offer.

And the news again -

Chaos.

†

She fights yet gently,

Though she is stronger than he.

Like pyramids to the deaf sky of Pharaoh,

They crush us with

The weight of their authority.

The order is inverted:

She is beneath he;

Though she would be the kinder force,

This world gone mad,

Mad in its crowds,

He insists that the fist

Is the way of the world.

He bows his head to no woman,

And tips his hat to kings.

He is a son gone mad

From the power of ruling

His better half.

†

She cries out, does she, Esther,

Our mother,

For he makes a world of weak minds.

The reign of Adam wrought murder on the earth,

And again,

We are told,

To fight chaos with chaos;

The fist, it seems,

Never relents in its pounding

On the earth.

†

Cruelty is strong;

Kindness is weak.

So the mad son preaches to his sons

And daughters.

His daughters, then,

He raises to be cruel;

And a cruel woman

Is akin to a

Weak man;

But a kind man is akin

To a strong woman.

Our sons will grow strong,

If we but raise them to be kind.

Flowers for our sons.

†

Wild man on the loose!

We need a man to save us now!

What of his parents?

They might have spared us

The scourge of

A wild son.

†

Tapestry of history,

Have you no remorse?

They are dead,

I am relieved.

Their suffering is over,

Though mine has but begun.

†

Cemetery songs praising

Those who have lived -

In their hearts,

They were good, good people.

†

She lies beneath him,

As she is told is right.

She bears him sons,

For it is the way.

They go to war with

Other tribes' sons

Who also lie on top

Of their women,

For it is necessary now.

She who lies beneath a he

Is committing a terrible,

Terrible crime against all.

†

She is a masochist,

She who desires to be dominated.

Sickness will follow her

All her days,

And no one to thank her -

For the obedient gain no favor

From their masters.

She may not discover her sickness

Until the very end,

When she is tethered to a shopping cart,

Alone and disabled

By the fists of man.

†

The untaught are furious;

Darkness enshrouds them.

They fight, fight, fight

To be free of the rulers

They cannot see.

They collide,

And chaos is here again.

†

It is not her child

To do with as she sees fit,

Rulers and mad men say.

It is within her, of her, to be fed by her,

Though, most truly so if it be a son,

He belongs to the tribe.

Not so, whispers she in the forest,

Not so.

†

Do not try to be strong, child,

For you will find the cruelty of the men

Unbearable.

Better to be weak -

Give in, surrender without a fight,

And let the men go out and

Destroy this world.

†

Given the father's name,

Each child is then said to be his.

Subvert the man,

And take each child to be

Your own.

Skies are not above,

If we do not dream.

†

They toy with us

Middle class women,

Letting us become a little stronger than our men.

The reins of power are held by them,

And they will not marry strong women.

Progress, to a point -

Then slapped down again.

Always, their chaos.

†

She waits in a grave,

To be resurrected.

Pull her out, let her wildness be.

For when she is not tamed,

She cannot be ruled by one

Such as a mere man.

Let freedom be her guide,

And the bruises will heal,

And she will be stronger than ever,

Feral once again.

Peace will be hers.

Look within,

And raise her from

That watery grave.

It can be done.
Sweet Sentiment Saves Me

These moments with their lustre in your presence

Tick as the world spins its wrath my way;

A web of others' deceit has ensnared my life,

But with you my retreat is itself a new day.

Vengeance curled its fist 'round my heart

Till I felt my blood stinging at their laughter;

Not a word said I to their empty sockets,

For I knew that I would feel your ribs after.

It was a year of thorny torment, with demonic

Slipping of the noose around my neck;

I could crawl away, wrecked by their scourge -

Those hours were a wasteland's lonesome trek.

I've never had much feeling for the shining sun -

It comes to me too late in the day;

By the moon I've made my way in this world,

By glimmering fountains I quietly play.

I strain the rope not to laugh madly;

I've disposed of the earth over my grave.

I have no taste of iron on my tongue,

With teeth on my dagger, I'm mild yet brave.

A song sung by owls enchants the forest,

For who but they can spot what's wise?

I heard your shining voice in the chorus,

And sensed a moment within your eyes.

You, from the lake, held up as a sword,

May return there still one enshrouded day;

But with you I can battle all my demons,

Withering they are at the news that I play.

No knife in cold hearts can slay such beasts;

Only love's warm bath and the moon's silver beam

Can hold them at bay while you, my friend,

Soothingly pull me from their eyes all agleam.

Still I wonder at the war you have won;

Still, I feel your stirring within me.

The demons you slew may laugh no more,

And now I ask what our love will be.

This cratered landscape we call our home,

Is where your brave spirit rose over my bed;

I look up at you as the owl turns away,

And know that soon, we shall also be dead.

Nothingness used to enthrall me,

With its candy stores and tasks without end;

Laziness has crept into my bones,

And my gaze softens your will till it bends.

Dear lover, don't leave this fine table -

The bread I will serve goes well with my wine.

Gentle you are as you pull out my chair,

A promise to never be a demon of mine.

The trees have watched as you made time slip away,

And leave me with not a single foe;

You may follow me now to my bed by the garden -

We have sown the one sweet sentiment we know.
Intrusions

Nothing is what it seems to be,

Though things are what they just are;

Our love is plain and unadorned,

Spangled with mirth as we play.

A man was shot down south -

What colour was the man?

Blue lives taken, a politician sighs,

And again people see what is not there.

Others' cruel fantasies continually intrude,

And our boat is buffeted by those gales

That turn on us from the direction of the TV,

And insist that our love is in vain:

Is it not selfish to smile while the world

Is so vicious?

Can we not feel the futility of love?

Nothing can withstand the madness of the crowds -

They'll drink the blood of misery

Till doom cracks open its face

And the fossils emerge from ancient ground

To dance as we make way to our graves.

A Universe that may be eternal,

That may be ephemeral,

And that certainly touches us

Through an ether,

Signs that our woes matter not a trifle,

And the butterfly is as real as you or I.

We are but ghosts, feeling substance for a time -

It is a gift, this illusion of being;

But glad we are to return to the mist

That rolls over the waters of this world.

I come down from my hill now,

To look the mad in their shimmering eyes:

What was here before us, shall gladly take us back;

What follows from us is our voice

Given to the ages of this world we visit.

You only are what you were before your birth;

You can only be what you'll ever be after you die;

Love this moment, with all its artifice;

We are alive, and so the rest of my story

Follows.

Those who cannot see others, kill them;

Embrace the madness

Of love, and leave others be;

We'll dance 'round our graves for a time,

Then return to the quiet of mysterious existence.

I am a knot in the wood,

I am an eddy in the stream,

I am seen, yet not here for long;

Love me as you would the gold,

Or the moon, sun and stars,

If you also wish to possess their light.

Love me for a moment,

That's where it all begins.

Love yourself as well,

And grant me that right of living,

And soon we'll dance by our very graves,

And return to the mist, whence we came.
When We Were Friends

When the winds howl so even the witches lay low

In bunkers crafted from the tombs of wise prelates;

Even in despair I look there for where else have I ever been?

Down I go through the matrix of memory to the mother-lode

Of all my vain beliefs in my petty cottage life's earnestness –

Finding nought but boughs unbent by my wished-for gravity,

I look to where you touched my side with your heavy friendship

In the days of yore before such friends were flung into the prisons of my past.

Why did I leave you behind, and ride this crystalline curse called time?

How am I to secure such a one as you again, and be stars in each other's skies?

Languid sex with ephemeral lovers brings me close to that place

That held you out to me, like an offering from a hidden god.

Happy dreams at night swirl like tempests of pleasure around my heart,

And in those dreams, I see you there, as young as ever, eye-to-eye with my aged self,

And, for a chiming moment, I am young again, and still in love with life.

Things were better in those days, Lollapalooza and all in our portfolios;

The wine was sweet, and the smiles were, too!

Shared thoughts, secret glances, squabbles about Lennon and McCartney –

Our lives were cobbled together by such moments, before our parting

And descent into the clammy caverns of remorse.

The mistakes of the young inform the wisdom of the elders,

And I truly rue the day I left you and began the perilous spiralling

Into the hells of hallowed maturity.

I am but an amalgam of memories, though I've come to hide

From the more fraught with bitter tears, and embrace the impression left on me

By the good times:

Music playing effortlessly into the rhythms of being,

Others visiting our shared paradise, where thought ruled

And tomorrow was disabused of its haughty self-importance;

And those others! If only they could come visit again, I might taste

The waters of that eternal fountain that is youth.

As long as there be people, perplexed by their solitary existences,

There will be youth comforted by the breath of one another –

Joy in living depends on the moment of life we look at,

And from you, old friend, I find within me a little wren still,

Glad to be alive and lightly bouncing on the bough,

Until it takes light and searches yet again for that freedom,

Such as I knew with you, long ago.

The witches knew camaraderie at least, as they gathered in their covens

Under the shade of the yews; we knew that nothing mattered but the moment,

And so we gathered the strength of youth into our memories,

And gassed up our tanks for the journey of heroes.

Mighty you are now in your wisdom, corrupted by the ways

Of this illusory world, dented in your armour by the will of the petty who

Surround you like buzzards awaiting your cast-off ideas,

Awaiting your death so that they may then secretly steal from you.

I'll not be at your funeral, nor you at mine;

But the same wind that blows hard through my hair also ruffles you.

Even after these decades, I still have you, my old friend, and I hope that,

When witches such as we gather again in covens,

They will light candles in praise of the trinity of

Youth, friendship, and loyalty.

Time has shifted the ground under me; I seem to stoop,

And I amuse the young with my travails in walking the mortal coil;

No longer do I bustle and blunder down blind paths to my fate –

Now I tread carefully, for the years remaining may dwindle to moments

Before my astonished eyes, in a tortuous instant.

I leave those now young to their own devices, for in my freedom

From admonishments I discovered doubt and its twin, certainty.

Opposites attract, and the hopeless have gravitated to my disguised hope

All these years.

From them I have gained meaning, and from me they have been liberated from

Needless purpose in life.

I make my own life, and draw from its waters the essence of purpose;

In my memory of you, old friend, I am refreshed by the spirits of just being.

Find me now, asleep under a tree, and you'll see an ageing sprite,

Animated by the fires you left within all those days ago.

The logic of living is such that us only gripped by the spelling

Of words backwards, palindromes, and perilous old Poe

Can glimpse that penguins rule our lands from icy Antarctica,

And that true heroes carry humour as their shields;

I hope you're still all there, old friend, intact as the day we last gazed on

Each the other, knowing, but not saying, that it was our morbid goodbye.

I eschew the high school reunions, for I fear you'll be there,

And that the bitterness of our parting will evaporate from my senses.

A friend such as you is a hero to me, and should I find you beaten by life,

I would find myself abandoned by the road on this journey of life.

You're all I have, old friend, and I can't let go of you till I'm ready, at last,

To join Poe and Hitchcock on the other side of the mountain.

Peace is there for me, I'm sure, and if youth is ever bestowed on me again,

I'll seek out one just like you, so that I may live well in that other life.

Don't go, old pal, don't go.

Stay by my side, inside of me,

And us two battle-weary heroes

May live again, ever so free,

Laughing at a prejudiced world,

And knowing what it is to just be.

Down I go again into the labyrinths of memory,

And up again my spirit soars to the sky,

As I dream of remembrance's gift to me from receding youth.

Remember that we never did say Goodbye?

I sigh as I recall that day, now sweetened by my tears.

We never said goodbye.
Window On The World

Cheer-up! Cheer-up! The robin sings;

Springtime brings many new things.

Like puddles of snow-melt on my grass,

And watching daddy reel in a bass.

Everyone says I'm a very good girl,

Writing thank-you cards for treasure-gifts,

And helping mommy whirl around;

Sometimes I think they don't really care,

But then they hug me for the little things.

Cedar trees are my favourite smell,

And the purple Christmas light is my favourite colour.

I don't know why people look so sad –

I think the newsreader on TV's a handsome man.

Daddy's beer is a bad drink,

And there used to be a fireplace till they covered it up.

I live in Ottawa,

Ontario,

Canada,

Earth,

The Milky Way Galaxy,

The Universe,

K1Z 7A6.

Steak leaks blood, so I don't eat it;

Dr. Schreyer' always saying I'm in a phase,

And older kids say I'm fun to tease.

I love my white wool sweater,

And my softy dolls –

I can't be without a stick in my hand.

Abraham Lincoln was a great man,

And the Indians were killed to take their land.

An old Indian on TV weeps at the garbage,

And Archie Bunker hates bleeding hearts.

My friend's posters are strange to see,

Rainbows that kill,

And big fishes eating the little fishes;

They say he's tough, but he cries a lot,

And everyone knows he's just mean.

I love my softy dolls –

I don't want them to ever go,

And I'll always walk softly

With a stick in my hand.
The Wind And The Light

Sentiment is rooted deep and stands sturdy for the weak –

Under its boughs I've married the storm that batters you.

Time crystallises and memory cries at my touch –

I am here for you now, fool that thinks the past matters.

You say all is sweet in those old photos –

How they fly now in the gales I have brought;

You are owed a debt for apologies not given?

The truth I tell you will blow you high.

Do not die in the storm; life is here, not back there,

And when it passes, you will be gifted with sight;

The future is seen by those who live in the light.
My Sky At Night

Grasping at the sky and opening it wide,

I took a star and made it mine.

In my pocket I always carried it,

By the TV set, I knew it was there.

Over drinks at Roger's I'd feel its warmth,

And in my dreams it glowed by my bed.

Rebellion came and I cast off my clothes,

Only to find the star still burning.

I cannot be without it, as it has shone within me

From the beginning of my days.
Gary

Gary never was much of a child –

More like a man waiting to die.

His father was gone and he didn't speak much;

His mother was a drunk so he never cried.

I saw him one day looking at the ground;

Kat and Sylvie tried to cajole him;

I never saw him laugh, come to think of it.

The Sunday school teacher locked him in the boiler room –

Told him, That's what Hell is going to be like.

He became a rider, all dressed in black,

His hair flying free at last in the wind.

He rode away, until it was all behind him,

And drove his bike straight into a concrete support.

Gary never was much of a child,

And for that, they said, he must be forgotten.
A Married Lover

Your broken life moved me

To mend you, as best I could;

Your heart sighed its sorrow yet again

When I left you by the side.

Waking up years later,

I find you still in the fabric of my life;

You were half-healed by our tryst,

And I, my friend, am forever half-broken.
Insecure

In those days, long ago now,

I walked so lightly,

Buoyed by the feeling that nothing is real;

I dashed about, hither and thither,

Up and down, inside and out.

Where was I going?

I did not know;

I was always confused,

But didn't feel so.

Death was ever near,

Though I ignored the cold.

I count the blossoms now,

And Death has retreated;

But I need to manage in this withering world,

So I move forward, confused still.
9/11

What once soared into the sky is nevermore,

And innocence, then battered, is entirely gone.

Three-thousand lives lost that day,

Thousands more yet to be taken away.

An endless procession of funerals circles the world,

Bodies drowned in shiploads of oil.

Sweet sentiment, where are you now;

This maddening terror is making us

Lose our minds, sell our souls,

Listen to the neurotic cries that Freedom is the enemy;

9/11 was the daydream that haunts us to this day.
Much Ado

Want this, want that, want-want-want,

And there's no gas in the tank.

Shop for him, shop for them,

Oh – we're not greedy, just consumers.

Second-hand is for losers like me;

I get my thrills, cheap as they are,

Watching the cars stall

On their way to the mall.

It grows exponentially, can't go on forever;

Future people will say we lived for nothing.
Sweet Memory

Sweet memory, grant me a smile.

I need to know my past wasn't for nought.

Sweet memory, they cared for me then;

They that now look the other way.

It was good to be young for a while,

And I'll enjoy being old as well, someday.

Standing in the middle-ground of my life,

I've forsaken children, wealth and most vices,

Only to find, sweet memory, that you inform me

More and more, as time passes by.

Stripped of sentiment, you are honey to a bee;

Denying myself bitterness, your guidance sets me free.
Untitled #1  
This cog is wearing out,

But the machine goes on forever.

Was I a good cell in the body?

Would my statistics please those on high?

I wound myself up, churning out dollars

To enrich my betters – the ones that matter.

I assembled toasters, sofas, iron-grip glue,

I made dollars and threw them down canyons,

I put baubles on the economy,

And stood back in awe as wealth grew,

And towered over me in the castles of my betters.

I blew my nose and paid taxes to lighten

The burden for my betters;

I exhausted automobiles, ran water over tomatoes,

And delighted in the miracles of processed foods.

I confess that a tear rolls down my cheek,

Contemplating what comes next;

Two pennies lie beside me, ready

For me to be so spent;

I haven't much more to say,

Save that I've always preferred the company of animals

Over people and their endless fantasy worlds.
Untitled #2

Boiling water on their bottoms!

How I've always hated them.

Me, the loser of the family,

The spoiled, indolent cretin of a brother,

Not worthy of the slightest respect from

My older siblings.

You – who stomped on my heart,

And who yearned to see me destroyed -

I hope nothing comes of you but rotting.

You – who lived to torment me,

Drive me insane –

You came so very close to succeeding;

You, I hope you find a watery grave

In the deeps.

And you – you slimy maggot from a pig's shit

Who molested me, ruined me,

Finished off my dignity -

I hope when you arrive in Hell,

Satan seats you beside your soul-mate Hitler.

I'm the youngest and the first to die;

I know all these years you've had a compact,

To protect each other and keep your stories straight.

My final torment at your hands is knowing

That your tales of me will always be your armour;

You will always be safe, as long as it was I,

Your disturbed little brother,

That brought the family's name and reputation so low.

You're all cretins to me.
Silent Wind

Emptiness has returned with its sallow cheeks,

And bones protruding, ready for chaos

In the darkness.

A statue for the age gazes blankly,

Suddenly unable to shield her masses

From the coming wind.

The deathly rattling of a civilization issues this breath,

And those who listen, hear:

"Despair!"

An array of lifeless battlefield automatons,

Fighting for the wilting of the flowers,

Stand ready to play their trump card,

And bring about the glorious reign of numbing empire.

A whisper can be heard,  
Wending with a wolf's wile

Down desert streets:

"You," it says,

"Stand in the way of mighty empire."

All tremble in its wake.

Birds fall lifeless from the sky

That is stained with the smoke of living so dangerously;

Newborns look at an inverted world,

Not knowing what they have entered into.

There is no life left in the fold -

Relentlessly tracked and harried from above.

God's self-anointed children play their Devil's

Ruddy game, as the boot heel of Satan

Descends upon the anguished face of Freedom.

The wind carries a burdensome stench of failure,

As layer upon layer of dying humanity writhe

And slip silently into the growing wind.

They found themselves naked and prone

When they rejected the dreams of equality.

Now, a storm approaches from the land

Of holocausts,

And, wearying from the harassment of

Those with the billions,

They have grown ready to succumb,

As the beast from the thundering clouds

Prepares for the final exploitation of their weakness.

A child cries out,

"Am I not human?"

And the wind around her stays silent.
Weapon of Choice

The way of the cowardly zealot,

The way of the easily confused,

The way of the authoritarian.

Love cannot win when we are outnumbered.

Peace is not ours when we are set upon.

So, it is winter in democracy,

The death of the freedom to live,

And just be (left alone.)

What will become of us,

Surrounded as we are now by the bloodthirsty?

What is left of the life we once cherished?

What is left but desperation -

Is it not the mother of invention?

Rise! And do something...

Do something.

Their weapon of choice is hatred,

Ignorance is the shadow they lurk in,

And chaos the circumstance of their attack.

Safety in numbers.

Remember, what is good is not good to them.

Freedom, equality, love, sisterhood and brotherhood.

Frightened they are by the light of love.

Solipsistic oxymorons they spew,

Making a nation great in fear and injustice.

Look long and steadily in the eye of hatred,

And watch it flee into the abyss.
Winter Song

Find me where the grass once grew tall,

Lay me down, love, in the snow.

I am willing to surrender,

You are the one I've longed to know.

Warmth in winter is so precious,

And you can entwine 'round my fires.

Heaven knows only what it knows,

Hell has no love such as ours.

Life goes on all about our nest,

Birds sing, rabbits pass, and more.

We who have never died inside,

Know what it is love is for.

Love is not simply biology,

Nor the signs we make that we need.

Love is a culture that carries us,

Through time and space, planting seed.
The Secret of Ana

Protect Ana from the brute's heel,

Stand arm-in-arm in the street.

Her heart endures what it must feel,

Our love without her is incomplete.

She has loved another woman,

And the brute hates the human love.

Tell her, please, come in, come in,

Friendship scares the wrathful above.
The Difference

One prays to God, one not at all;

Another is kind to creatures.

Some say science is the way,

Others reason with self-knowledge.

A world is dying from neglect,

Abuse of the weak on the rise.

With one great mind combined,

We can wind our way out of here.

The differences in our ways

Of loving, speaking, and thinking,

Make us diverse and immortal;

Yet still the bigot fears our greatness.

The eyes of the many see much more,

Than the sad sights of the eyes of one.

Together we are inspired to survive,

And the fearful heart joins with ours.
How We Got Here

Hiding love is a fault,

There is no doubt of that.

The silent heart stirs no one,

The world goes cold and flat.

Abuse of the child kills her,

Only hope can save her life.

A girl becomes stupid,

When she's told to be a wife.

High ones and lower ones,

False belief in the great;

Hierarchy breeds illness,

And favours those who hate.

Each is born to reason,

Yet some are mired in lies.

Superstition rules one,

When truth is in disguise.

Show your love to others,

Now is the time to be.

Make your goal equality,

Know you are born so free.

Hope is not action,

And gods have no eyes to see.

Nothing good comes with ease,

So dispense with vanity.
Boadicea

These ancient lands, enshrouded in mist,

Have yet to see her pummelled down;

She's sheltered in a corner of the maze musing -

What wrath the marauders have yet to feel.

Honour her, honour her husband and her tribe;

Do not bow your head down to any equal.

Savour the astonishment of the rulers,

When, at last, they scurry from her swords.

Caesar tells her a woman is not right to defy -

If she might grasp him by the throat -

She is a queen of all she surveys,

And menace glances off her sinewy will.

Halls above were painted by such as she,

In the mirrored palace upon the hill;

She wears the crown made for the mighty,

And to the stars her enemies will flee.

There is a well that springs by her abode,

And the rocks within bring her good health;

She flings them at fools who cross the line,

And summons good warriors with her word.

The men who would mute her daughter's voice,

Like blackened souls from the Underworld,

Make lies of the ways of her hallowed people -

Mad rulers crazed by the straws of fame.

She loves all and all are welcome;

None are cast out from her encompassing realm.

Fools throw themselves at her lance -

The conquerors must meet her furious might.
Ghosts

Sentinels cannot perceive them;

Diggers for gold know them not;

They are sisters of ours, over time -

Hearts crushed, flesh that was bought.

Simple men make simple rulers -

Beware the dolt that holds the mace;

No good comes of denying truth -

It lights the crooked vandal's face.

Empty hearts make the weak despair;

The thirst for power betrays the wolf;

"Mighty am I," says the Mouse-King,

When he feels the trembling underfoot.

Hear the words of ancient women,

Crowding our lands as armies of ghosts:

"Do not let them retake your freedoms,"

And, "The fist is but a powerless boast."
Deference

We are not here by the mercy of men;

The clouds rain of their own accord.

Our lives are not men's to meddle with;

A cat has no play when it's abused;

My life is my very own dance;

Such a waste to squander our water;

Delicate are the minds of madmen;

The raven knows what becomes of kings;

Laws must set us free to build and grow;

The flower, it's notable, has no master;

Bring down the fools who hate our freedom;

The dolphin knows of no cruel god;

Arrogance is the father of the diseased ruler;

Millions of drops make a rainbow;

Indifference is defiance in the eyes of tyrants;

In the end, Nature brings all to her humble home;

When Destroyers rise up in the crowded world,

The mind of Woman has answer to their anger.
An Equation

Misogyny is the hatred of life,

The frustration of nurturing,

The disdain for one's wife,

It is torturing, and nothing less.
Fate of the Vain

I am dying

This is the end

Nothing leaves here

My teeth fall out

In my mirror

Bone can be seen

Flesh is rotting

I reek of death

No one loves me

They'll forgive me

When I do it

The trigger waits

To be pulled on

So many times

I have suffered

Indignities

From my sickness

This is one more

Humiliation

I can't do it

I will drift on

Carried by winds

As I wither

This fallen leaf

Will be trampled

Ground into dust.
Better Known As

I shine a certain way

Do I not, my love

Appear to radiate

Wisdom's light all about?

Darling, we work all day

For peanuts and crumbs

Does it make any sense

To live without reward?

It's not worth believing

In gods or afterlife

When we suffer here now

Unattended by grace.

We can do better, pet

We could ascend the hill

And look down on the fools

Who throw us the peanuts.

Invert the world, I say

And all will be made right

By the fist of my will

Somehow, I will do it.

Sweetheart, come closer

And tell me over here

What it is you want now

I can't read your mind, dear.

You have come to me, love

Because you wished to learn

Of the dark ways of creeps

And you find nothingness.

Little better, am I

Than a clambering

And tenacious ape

Lacking only power.
Coming to a Turn

I came

I am

I will

When I see the constellation

Of meanings

Life dapples the world with

I cannot help but regret

My days in the dark corner

Of vanity, and mischief

I know only too much

How could wisdom be evil

In the precocious actor

You will find evidence

Not of power

Unleashed by knowledge

But of turning away

From the painful light

Into the indigo above

The sky only knows

I cry for my grave

To be

To come

To be filled

By the earth

I have betrayed.
Desert Rain

Bales of peonies

And azaleas

Radiant daisies

Royal irises

Turn the ochre

Into a rainbow

Of tended beauty

So I have striven

To make myself pure

By eschewing lust

Corruption of souls

Ascetic living

Has given to me

The hope I can soar

Far above the crowds

And look down and laugh

At the fools living

Slavishly to whims

Of the mortal flesh

God and I are one

For we hate the weak

Who succumb to wants

For pleasure and love

When it is written

That the cold will find

Truth by ascending

Above their vain peers

Vanity is key

To understanding

The ways of false truth

Stepping on the path

To nowhere above

And then a great fall

From where I thought grace

Was there to save me

From my cowardice.
Ambition of the Inheritor

Nothing I do is spared

The scrutiny of the wise

They complain that I'm proud

Of what they cannot see

Deep inside is hunger

For a win over fate

I fear the learned know

That I am a buffoon

And so I reach for more

I claim the wealth is mine

And mine alone I say

Until I grasp for too much

And cannot keep it close

I thought I could lead men

But preen in vain instead.
A Despot's Power

They say I am insane

Those in other places

How could I laugh louder

Than to take this mere child

And deliver him dead

To his trembling homeland?

When I rise to the day

The earth shakes at my step

And people cower low

Into the shadows they go

For not one knows this morn

If I'll be feeling well

And then I show mercy

Or if the dusky corners

Of my heart will erupt

And another human

Will become my quarry.
The Lights of Life

Muscles aching

Bones protruding

From my struggles

I leave this cave

My heart bleeds at last

In the bright place

Where people live.
Sage Ones

There is a place below

Where the soul finds torment

It is not actually there

Beneath our trekking feet

But some journey to it

In hopes of finding truth

Only to discover

Life is beautiful

We hunger in vain

We could have known enough

As mere children long ago

If only the young ones knew

Their wondering eyes are wise

The sage ones in disguise.
The Dreamer

One man's dream

For himself

Is jarring

To the bone

The wan life

Of this man

The nightmare

Never ends.

Pulled under again

To the shadows

We must struggle

Against the dreamer

Who dreams for himself

He has emptiness

In his hollow heart

He needs to fill it

With the blood of others.
Toys that Destroy

They build more such things

As they hasten to replace

Their minds with computers

Their eyes with cameras

The heart drains pallid blood

In this world that can't last

Tricksters lie in wait

To bring them to their knees

Too fast, too much, too deep

Have they gone now

Into the virtual reality.

The tightrope walker

Has but to slip once

And his world expires.
The Terrible Child

He takes his toys from their homes

And makes little worlds for them

Some make mirth, some do cry

And all look up in amazement

At their master, the child

One gets broken, stepped on

By an indifferent boot

And another howls in grief

Unheard by the monstrous boy

Bored he becomes and hungry

For something that boils the blood

And so smash smash smash he

Dispenses with half his toys

Laughing now at the the other toys

Some hiding, some shouting at him

He takes up a shovel and clang

Clang clang clang clang clang clang

They are all broken now and ruined

He sheds a tear and pouts now

Feeling like the fun is over

Nothing to do now but take the shovel

And bury his playthings for good

In a mass grave

And the toys

Might as well have never lived.
Gentle Annie

She lays down the pint

Collects the money

And spins away

The smell of stale grog

All around her here

She goes home hungry

Needing more than food

Into the loft now

Her lover greets her

In a whisper

She replies to him

Once again she's unbound

As she ties him down

Whipping and chiding

She sleeps by his side

Happy in his hair

The smell of her man

Brings back a memory

She had long forgot

To think of the first

Who pounced on her

In the nighttime heat

And her mother didn't know

Why she ran away

From the darkness

Into the deep abyss

And never went back

She cries now, Annie

Alive and gentle.
Damaged Goods

The little child

Within Susan

Wilted flower

Gone in a trice

By brain damage

Caused by yelling

At the precious

She is gone now

Buried inside

She will struggle

In vain desire

To leave behind

The cruel venom

Of the childish

Shipwrecked life

On an island

Waits for the voice

To go away

Her mother lives

And will not die

Nor let Sue be

A child is lost

In her childhood

And cannot grow

Out of shadows

Cast by mother.
Seeing Myself

It is my destiny

To climb this mountain

Though I do not believe

I can appreciate

The view from the summit

Until I am old and wise

I am a fortunate one

Who can grow like a tree

Rooting myself at home

Or I can slide along walls

Like the vine I once was

Perhaps if I will it

I will fly overhead

And see my life growing

Climbing, reaching up

The bird in me teases

And rustles feathered wings

But won't take off just yet

I have yet to grow tall

Spread all over the wall

And find myself seeing

I am not yet that wise.
A Calling

Something calls me out

Into the wider world

My people, humanity

May perish from this earth

If madmen collide

And a thousand suns

Boil the life below away

Quietly, now, I go

Into the dark corners

Where madmen ruminate.
Grasping at Straws

Blood smells good, when it dries

Upon your lip, and you've quenched

A fire that threatened to kill many

And scar the survivors

Into prisons many would go

Hobbled by innocence

Bereft of hope, no cavalry

Would come to their rescue

A lunatic demanded loyalty

To his unsavoury cause

And brought many to their knees

In obedience to the trumpet

Calling for a strangling order

That would put the decent

Under the boot of authority

He demanded you obey

And you gave him the straw

For his hand to grasp at

While the crowds heard you shout

He is deranged and dangerous

And now he is gone

Your battle scars testify

To your courage and humanity

For your heart full of love

Pounded the blood from your lips

And you knew it is right

To bleed for the world.
The Black Swan

I find myself in a strange place

Beside you, under these silks.

Not once was I expecting such things,

Things such as you have brought.

A rare sort of bird you have become,

From the wilds of where, I know not;

Your shallow heart hasn't betrayed you yet,

But I know that you mean me harm.

It is the way of those put aside in youth,

To go about taking their revenge

On everyone they come close to,

And I don't see how you differ from them.

I lie hear going over all we've said,

And my puzzled brow turns away from you

Why did you compare me to that girl you knew

Long ago, before you left home?

Was she radiant, caring, kind, like me?

Oh, you say certainly to all three.

Was she kind to you, I ask you now,

And your turn to blush is upon us.

Why was she cruel to you, I ask,

And you're telling me that she brushed you off -

Not with a shrug, but with a disgusted manner,

As though you were a crumb on her knee.

So what am I, Sweetie – your first love put in her place?

Now you yawn and say they all remind you of her,

Because in the end, they all brush you off.

Let me be the first, then, to keep you for a little while -

I always think of one like you, that irritated me long ago,

And the thoughts I had of naked passion -

Oh, well, we seem to have been waiting for each other.

This dappled light we see ourselves in,

Is healing a rift that time left till now.
The Nose

A box of tissues sits to my left,

With pictures of pretty flowers

On the dead wood's stiff carton;

They cry – the tissues – each time

One is torn from their neat stack,

And put down into the crack

Between the cushions of the chesterfield.

They are not even accorded the demi-existence

Of being statistics on the bee stick of a bureaucrat;

Not even footnotes in a history book!

No, they are quickly forgotten,

Like a snowflake on the fire,

For they are the snotrags of life.

I dedicate this poem to my ex,

My grade eight teacher,

And the next booger that jumps from my nose.
Blind Evolution

Scaly little vertebrates, these fish,

More basic, more fundamental,

More primordial they are to this world than we.

I swim beside them, in the air,

The mysterious, tenuous atmosphere,

I cannot breathe in their water,

They won't come out and live with me,

So we swim alongside the shore,

Catching glints of sunlight from the ethereal yellow,

Clear is their water, clouded my vision is still,

For I cannot grasp the departing time,

Flying away at the speed of starlight,

That reduces me, rightly, to a fish out of water,

An animal among skyscrapers.
The Illusion of Time

A beret's owner fit for a garden,

Does not charm me so.

A clock chiming the time of my birth,

Did not strike me as did your appearance.

A fate of turning to dust,

As our essences swirl among the living,

Isn't such a cost as when I leave you.

Nothing that you are to me,

Could grow from a mere seed,

As though you have always been here.
Virtual Reality

A long thought on a short life,

Is the best way to fill the time.

Short thoughts make for a long life,

If you're knowing, like me.

No images here, self-conscious reader,

Save for the one of that audience,

Looking at you over your shoulder,

Waiting for you to self-destruct,

Wanting you to turn away -

But no -

You return to Facebook,

To see how many likes your last post has now.
It's Enough to Make Me Drink

Sex is exactly like booze,

Except the government's not taxing sex yet.

Sex is like a hummingbird

Plunging its tongue into the welcoming flower,

Over, and over, and over,

With nectar oozing everywhere,

Until a censor comes along,

And chases you out of the garden.
Merlin the Fly

Some flies don't shoo when they're told to,

And some flies get stuck in amber.

I had a fly named Merlin some time back,

That played the gnat in shining armour to a tee -

He's now imprisoned in my crystalline memory,

Though I've seen his image peeking in my window,

When I wake up with a nostalgic feeling,

And face nothing but ennui between dawn and dusk.

I yearn for the day to return,

When he told me to hold him forever,

After I saw him doing the unspeakable,

And he wouldn't just go – shoo!

So I opened the window and pushed him through,

And his life is a prison now that he's without me.
Fool's Test

She walks up, rainbow hair flopping comically, tragically,

All about her teary face, stooped shoulders, and hunched back.

She lets out guffaws as you take her countenance in,

And she starts to commiserate with invisible friends -

Invisible to you, that is -

Over what, or who, to have for lunch.

She's not insane, she's just a fool,

Having a particularly ironic day.

She knows, all too well, that some might kick her,

Seeing that she is vulnerable,

So she stumbles down the cobblestone,

Smoking someone's cigarette for them,

Acting drunk so the meanies will think twice, for once,

"No more fairy tales fer me!"

She shouts at half-volume,

One lung drowned by her inhaled tears,

And she spits out gobs of remorse for having been born,

Not into her particular life,

But into this fucked-up world that spits on harmless fools like her,

But praises those that do what good fools wouldn't ever do.
My Turn at Now

I slipped up the other day,

Let my monkey out, so to speak,

Without first training her to sit still on my shoulder.

I've had parakeets fly out of my mouth,

Dropped dung beetles on friends' carpets,

And been the elephant in the room,

But never before have I been called politically correct -

Simply because I said I generally like people – all people.

Something's changing, catching me off-stride,

And I threw an epithet at the (fascist) idiot.

I don't whether to whip a towel at all of them -

Or just throw it in, and spend my remaining years

Laughing, living, and imagining what might have been.
Once Alive

The river has a source, a watershed,

And the blood that courses within,

Returns in a cycle to the heart,

Where it begins again.

Clouds above obscure the sun and moon and stars,

But the rain they let loose on parched lands wet faces,

That look skyward,

And hope begins again.
Modern Spiders

You can hide in a darkened corner,

You can sit and spy from a web of deceit,

You can always jump from the ceiling to your death -

But you can't go back on having lived.

Spiders are watching everywhere,

And things run amok in their hairy brains.

They mean to pounce when the time is right -

Until the broom comes in and sweeps the room clean.

It changes me not whether I am watched, for I am alive,

And neither death,nor censure, nor shaming frighten me.

Go – spiders, begone!

You are not real, nor destined to ever be such as me.
Fidelity to Fate

I know well what the hive will do,

In coming to life in warm air,

Sending out honeybees to search the fields,

For flowers, for the hive's sustenance,

And when the air cools,

The hive succumbs to the darkness,

And becomes still.

I can't say, though, what each particular honeybee,

Engrossed in its plans, will do,

From moment to moment,

Save for that it is a member of the honeybee hive,

And will remain so all its days,

No matter how far it strays from the nest,

Nor does the queen exile any of her honeybees.

They have loyalty, you have to give them that,

From queen to drone to worker,

They never imagine themselves apart, above, better than another,

The hive is both will and fate,

Just as I am both living, and dying, simultaneously.

Is it so hard to see?
Fool's Gold

Lustre is the quality of polished metal,

And heavy is the weight of raw gold.

Plain speech cannot muster the meanings

That come to me when I stare at the stars.

Am I even real to them?

(What do they care about a collection of particles that considers itself alive?)

The stars are not made of gold, but light themselves -

Spontaneous nuclear combustion.

I can't escape the feeling that they are more alive than I,

Those stars,

And I am not yet known to the Galaxy at large.

There is still time for me yet,

If I can get my hands on some gold.
Man Overboard

My lover came home to find me wilting on the couch,

Never to open up again to him,

Because she came to see him,

To find out if he was available yet -

I told her, soon, he would be free to take up with her,

He would show up at her door with a candle and a bag,

And before she knew it,

Another would come along,

Inquire about his availability,

And she, in turn, would pass him on.

He is not a man to be kept, but shared between women,

For he is fine, and too good to be torn away from other women.
Punctuality

The window opens onto her world,

Where cherry wood tables hold baskets of lilacs,

On lavender lace doilies.

She doesn't come into that room often,

It smells – feels – of ancient people,

Wise people, perhaps, and this frightens her,

So she keeps the rest of her home sparkling, shiny,

Black accents and chrome furniture,

Just to remind herself that she fears being alive.

But she holds the memory dear,

Of having once been more than a ghost.

She could return to those days among living things,

But she went numb one day,

While trying to catch the rush hour bus.

She walked into work late, and the boss...

That ruined everything.

She may never come back to us,

Having climbed back into the bus,

Resolved to never be late again.
The Technologically Naïve

Ivy with all sorts of creatures climbing through it,

Like people travelling through time,

They mark their progress brick-by-brick.

But someone had to make the wall, hmmm?

Such am I with new things:

They could be made by a god, for all I know.

Like an ant on the ivy,

I can't comprehend an iota of what is known.

Nor need to,

For there are others,

And the ivy just seems to grow of its own accord.

The wall keeps getting higher,

Always higher than the ivy grows,

And still, we are not gods, but creatures on ivy,

Capable of what only gods ought to be able to do,

But mortal, infinitesimal beings, in a world that glimmers

With the promise of freedom,

If only we breathe the air around us,

And take our eyes off the wall that science builds before us.
Leadership Inc.

Guns going off so rapidly,

The air is filled with a lethal hum,

And tracer fire illuminates a white flag,

As we march off to war, for them,

Yet again.
Janus

I hide my crying face,

Turn it so only my inner light can shine on the tears.

I show my braver face,

That exhorts others to smile as I do,

Knowing that each of us has two faces,

One outward face,

And one that looks inward,

And always cries.

I'll not pry into your thoughts, friend.
Passing on the Torch

Choosing an apple from the bough,

I find it swimming in my mind -

Something bigger this way comes,

And it just might be the seed I spat,

That will grow into a mightier tree,

Or even more than a tree,

Food for another one's thought.
Self-Knowledge

Cascading down the falls of memory,

I land in your waters,

And once again every thought you had is traced,

From your face and into my heart.

I loved you before you drifted away,

And when I return to this place,

You become captivating to me again,

As I swim in your pools of tears.

I wish I had known your pain then,

And been a better friend to you,

But I was entranced by your depth,

And didn't stop to ask why?

I would have drowned in those days,

Had I known what you already knew -

You were my better, in the useful sense of the word -

And now I can see that you knew too much,

For such a young life.

Forgive me or not,

I still envy your young self,

And I just hope you have not grown bitter,

As the precociously wise often do.

I won't bat an eye if I see you now,

But let you have your peace,

For you may think that I know you too well,

And blow your cover of being happy-go-lucky.

The next time I go for a swim,

I'll go by myself,

And see what I can find.
Fool's Epitaph

I thought of this one day,

When there was nothing on my mind:

What if all good, all evil, all right, all wrong,

Just disappeared?

Would things really be so bad,

Then, in a world of beings,

That flit from place to place,

Paying scant attention to the weather,

For what can be done about the rain?

What we want is good, right;

What we eschew is evil, wrong.

Childish thought, isn't it?
Painful to Watch

Slipknots don't hold up to scrutiny,

For they disappear if you try to pull them.

Such as it was with you, old friend,

Inertia to my momentum,

Dead weight to my levity,

I dropped you when I tired of your endless company,

You who vainly gave up without really trying anything at all,

Who read some books, then hid an unwise spirit behind their bindings,

Never quite grasping that the rest of us had grown up,

No longer hopeless dreamers, no longer desperate rebels,

And your tired, stale jokes ceased to be anything but painful.

I said goodbye to you long ago -

Now I find this letter in my mail,

From you to me, you address it,

But nothing more than a message in a bottle,

Sent adrift by a castaway,

That pleads, between the lines,

For a friend to go over the old times with.

Figure it out yourself, and before it's too late -

I cared, long ago,

But you didn't,

And I gave up.

And don't try the slipknot -

It leaves nothing behind.
My Latest Roommate

Eating cricket powder is the new thing,

At least among the in crowd.

I've never seen such an elegant spinneret,

As I have on my cool pet spider.

We chat idly while she waits for an insect,

Or a delectable mate to come along.

Nothing I say surprises her -

I like that in invertebrates -

And she sits quite still,

Meditating on my latest quip.

I suppose I should ask her to move -

Across the room, I mean -

She's very much in my way when I walk,

Which I do quite a bit.

I'd say she must be three, maybe four years-old,

Guessing from the enormity of her hairy leg span.

She's a smart spider, building her nest in here,

Out of the springtime rains.

Now I hear the front door,

And in walks Suzanne,

Her habits as yet unfamiliar to me.

She strides blithely – arrogantly - across the room,

And – no!

Too slow by a hair comes my imploring shout,

And Suzanne steps on my new pet spider.

Cra-ack goes the spider,

And whack goes the mail onto the table,

From Suzanne's palm.

My latest roommate,

My latest pet spider,

Meet tragically.

At least the spider was quiet and well-mannered,

Unlike Suzanne,

Who's always putting her foot

In the wrong place.

That Suzanne won't last here long -

Her manners make my skin crawl,

She bugs me too much,

And I've noticed she eats cricket powder.
Our Sky

Lost in a sea without light

Pale fish and creatures extraordinary

Dance in the play and pleasures of life

Making love and giving themselves

To a world of beings unchained from cares.

Grains from the trees yellow the skies

Communications that travel the globe

Delicate is the flower that exists

For its own beauty alone

When a sun above shines equally on all.

Bright birds attract the eyes of others

But a bird is so within and without

The air around us supports any who fly

The pine waits for its friend to arrive

Caught by an eye in their expressions of love.

So desperate are they who break rank

And see themselves enlarged in a mirror

Believing they are more important than others

Seeing the sun shine for them only

Life withers and blinks within that small world.

Calm waters invite the curious to plunge in

Sleeping is welcomed for its peace

Grey is the colour of clouds shining with rain

Night is but the refreshing of life under the sky

We grow together, or we grow not at all.
Eye Deceived

In a crowd of frightened people

I saw what unravelled long ago

In their haste for solitude

They forgot that they belong together

Little is the old man who is timid

Giant is the courageous child

We are not created equal

But created to be equal

Each life a world to itself

No eyes are more celebrated for the life within

There is a meaning to words

A subtext illustrating what we mean

I want to be special is a cry for love

For those who have not tasted it enough

(Translation: I want to be equal and loved.)

I want to be famous means I want someone to know me

And a world that separates one by one

Cannot make anyone equal

So we strive for the vanity of being better

Or we descend for the comfort of being forgotten.
Kindness Flies Far

Invisible we are in our essence

Felt as a stirring in the midst

Of bustling life chiming the hours

Golden is silence and silvery is light

The eyes that have felt you from far away

Prodding a reaction in that stranger's heart

Do those eyes shine?

Do they hide when they feel you?

A life lived for oneself

Doesn't see the stars sparkle in recognition

As you speak and as you act

So others will somewhere down the line

Whose world is it?

It belongs to all

Therefore belonging to none

They greatest kindness we can do ourselves

Is to love others and care for them as though

That other person is really me in a different disguise.
Hermit Society

By Rori O'Keeffe

Copyright © 2018 by Rori O'Keeffe

Published at Smashwords by Rori O'Keeffe

License Notes

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of authors.

The image on the cover is courtesy of Pixabay.
Table of Contents

Part 1: Ram

Trip Through the Neighbourhood

Rented Room

Welfare

Why Doesn't Matter

Garbage Day

Part 2: Rori

No Gods Without Men

On the Head of a Pin

#ustoo

A Day at Home

Why I Left Ram

More by Rori O'Keeffe and Links

About Rori O'Keeffe

Hermit Society

Part 1: Ram

Trip Through the Neighbourhood

Driveway behind him now

Street feels grey beneath his feet

No-one watching, everyone watching

Pebbles by the curb bounce tellingly

Oak trees, lilacs, juniper bushes

A story behind each life

Trapped in the crystalline present

The sky rains grey overhead

Shopping centre around the corner

Humming with eyes and ears

All thoughts are captured

Radio waves passing around him

Unseen, not felt, keeping him company

Never alone, never in solitude

He joins the crowd for the comfort

Of anonymity.
Rented Room

Smoky air, beige walls, white ceiling

Hardwood floor, grainy like his arms

Cat on his bed beside him

Not knowing when they'll come for him

Out his window trees surround him

The walls close in

Like an old children's drama

He's crushed until he lights a smoke

And the walls let him go

Water on the floor

Rain on the roof

Blood-stained water rises

Engulfing him in its tomb

So he has a drink

Waters recede for now

Holding onto his sanity

He appears mad to the world outside

He stays inside where the predators

And terminators can't see

Up all night

Darkness has waited for him

The knock on the front door

One last cigarette

He's gone.
Welfare

Can't work, can't move, paralyzed

Trapped in amber

A museum piece

Yellowed letter

Daguerreotype in an attic

What else is up there?

Throwing out books

On the Origin of the Species

Nineteen-Eighty-Four

Metamorphosis

Now he's safe

Can get a job

Purify his mind

Conform

Join the lemmings

Drowning in a panicked tide

Won't work

They'll know

They always know

Try anyway to blend in

Talk trash

Careful

Stuck on welfare

Can't work.
Why Doesn't Matter

Always comes back to this

Porn from the web

Not close ups that shock

Beautiful people posing well

Arms and legs and sinew

Why do I do it?

Touching without mercy

Playing in his mind with the muscular people

They love him

He loves them back

Sometimes for minutes

Sometimes for hours

Sometimes once

Sometimes twice

Sometimes thrice

He's a wreck for days

Secure for an interval

Until the next episode of madness

Sweeps over him

He closes the bedroom door

Alone is different

Anything is possible

He starts touching, playing

Why do I do it?

Less lonely, but safely alone,

Loved, comforted, safety in numbers

Better alone than not at all.
Garbage Day

Awakened by the knocking

Or maybe just a nightmare

He's dragged out by the hair

Kicked senseless

Bullet in the back of his head

Left there

All can see

Addicted to death

The garbage truck comes

Two men swing him onto the pile

The garbage truck leaves

With his life trailing behind

Will he ever wake up from this dream?
Part 2: Rori

No Gods Without Men

Wild eyes terrify me

When I look in the mirror

I see plenty of lines

Drawn in the sand

Paper cuts me as I look

Particles obey me when I sweep

Nothing obeys me larger than a mote

I'm letting go of why I'm here

Giving up on a better place than this one

Still I'm sweeping without thought

Without thought

At last I feel the numbness

Invading my body

Starting in my groin

Spreading to my limbs

I won't come back

The living shall die

And the dead shall rule

The Kingdom of God.
On the Head of a Pin

Father, join me now

I am wanting some advice

How many people can dance

On the head of a pin?

How many people can live on a ball

Of earth

When they need no much

And crave even more

Father, let me have a condom

A pill

Or a man with the nick

I don't want to murder

Billions

The tipping point

For every child born today

Five will die tomorrow

Wars will come

Loot will be apportioned

How many wars can we have

On the head of a pin?

#ustoo

Master says to keep my hands off

The gold that glistens in his mansion

Master says to work harder, harder

And maybe I'll earn me a pension.

Driving nowhere on a lazy day

Countryside seems to be alive

It all goes on damaged or not

Whether we wither or strive

My existence seems without goals

When I eschew the material things

I have no way of being true

When what is true no longer sings

Master says I would be a thief

If I were to take back my share

Laws have been written to profit the rich

As though the rest of us have no care

I can only serve if I be selfish

Live for myself and myself alone

I look with longing at the gun

Master would be pleased if I were gone.
A Day at Home

Passion flows throughout this house

Currents of love have known this bedroom

Rage here and there is pocketed in eddies

Rushing around the drapes light pours in

Terror

Somewhere in the corner lies a pool of sorrow

Off in the pantry is dusty despair

Bones sit about like ghosts come alive

Waiting for the endless wars to heal them

Trumpets

Peace, a spirit, once filled my cups

Till I was quite drunk and afloat

Still the weight of my body sinks

I am drowning in the tears of others.
Why I Left Ram

No courtesan am I

A beast in a woman's body

A woman in the body of a beast

Alone with Ram, I could feel sorrow

For the world that has seen its day

Somewhere in my past

Light shines on Ram's sweet face

The only time he smiled

Was he real or is he still alive?

Only time will tell the truth

About his forays into the wild

That left him so depleted of energy

Damaged by a world that didn't care

About the weakened

Those in despair

Nothing could be further from my mind

Than wishing harm upon Ram

I hope he still dreams of our nights

Love was made real to us then

Fireflies have never been so clear

As the signs that we were meant to be

His arms have been pulled off me

His bright eyes dulled when I said those words

The first time I said I love you

Was the last time I saw Ram

Where he is now I haven't a clue

But he follows me about

As the future comes

And the past recedes

As I remember

I didn't want his love

He hadn't the strength to leave me

He could not stay

On account of him loving me so

I was afraid

I hid my true feelings

Now Ram is gone

And soon I will be no more.
Old Friend Faith

Somewhere in the deep misted blue,

Out where I met you long ago,

Is rusted sign that says True,

A spot in time when you proved so.

Missing from this room is your mind,

Watered plants breathe a paling air,

Nothing is left of you I find,

And these photos fade as I stare.

Sentiments are but delicate,

They crumble under the hard light,

Silver words climb to where I sit,

Holding back tears is now my fight.

Am I not right in calling you,

When years have passed beneath these planks?

Stirring the life that broke in two,

An ogre might break into our ranks.

Spotted teacups clank as I pour,

Hot liquid that swirls debris,

I can't say what promises are for,

But a simple oath once set us free.

You will be surprised at my sight,

When you look across this table,

And see yourself as you once were,

No harsh hand will write your fable.

We resemble our younger selves,

Though in darker, greying tones,

The chapters written clutter the shelves,

Of the halls like sand-polished bones.

I am a crone, I tell you now,

Dead before I've met my waiting grave,

I kept not the word on my brow,

I wiped it off when I grew brave.

We'll save ourselves from early death,

We swore in the presence of God,

We'll not give up the final breath,

For life is eternal, we thought.

I know you brought yourself in need,

Of an old voice to cheer you up,

I'll tell you I've planted a seed,

That will take in you as we sup.

The bond ruptures as I start to shout,

You hear the words you'll lament,

I died when I threw my Bible out,

For I have become quite content.

I cannot regret my dying young,

It came when it willed itself on me,

To the old ghosts I once clung,

But now I've raised my eyes to see.

The cross that dangles on your chest,

Is a sword I see in history,

The magic beats within your breast,

You find your feelings a mystery.

Wipe that tear from your brow, old friend,

My body's still here, I'm not in Hell,

What I said about death, in the end,

Was the wish of one under a spell.

I nearly fell when you left early,

Your back now so tender a sight,

You are softly, vulnerably,

My favourite friend on this starry night.

I will fight to hold back the tears -

Am I wishing you gone from my dream?

It's out like a light, I now fear,

That I'm no more in your esteem.

It seems an empty ritual,

But I'll say goodbye to you here,

For you went your way, in circles -

You'll see when your eyes clear.
The Lottery and Electoral Democracy

I have no voice, so I resort to gambling

Filling in papers with a surge of dreams

Maybe this time I will be a lucky one

Though I know it is only false hope.
You Abandoned Me, I Will Save You

How my heart was wrenched from my chest

I will never know enough to say

I see you need me more than ever

Though you showed me out that one day.

The streets were a hard lot in life

The numbness was both yours and mine

Swept away in the wind were the words

That drew between us in the sand a line.

Let me try one more time to help

You might forgive me for what I did before

Something comes and goes within our hearts

I stand now hesitating at your door.

They say that heaven is a real place

I haven't seen cloud nor angel of it though

A murmuring fall I'll make in your life

If you just take me back, I'll never let go.
The Sea and My Breath

Moving in and out and connected to the sky

It feeds the world with a gentle tide

Back in the day before it was alive

It was sadness though nothing died.

It comes upon you when you sleep

Hear it in a conch by your ear

Pollute it not with foulness that sears

And it will always be kind and near.
The Lesbians and the Avalanche

A distant tremor in the foot of a hill

Far away from the round lips

Of a mouth that kisses the tumbling rocks

A heaving landscape that is transformed.
The Guitar and the Loved Man

I pluck at strings that resonate

Deep in the body of this instrument

A melody of anguished joy erupts in the air

And a contented sigh escapes my lips.
War and the Living

Shooting skyward under the sun

Prey for those in flight

Each one's fate seems a matter of chance

But the strategies to survive are many

Drops of life pool on the ground

The war must be won if this life is to go on

There are no prisoners in these contests

Only the dead and the still-living.
The Photons and Society

Spreading out like a wave through space

Endlessly until you look there

The touch of the eye reveals individuals

Where before you thought it was a milieu

The closer you examine the system

The more you see discrete agencies within it

Though it challenges perceptions

They are simultaneously mass and energy.
Rendez-Vous

Silhouettes up in your window at night

Are scratching for your pain

The arch of your back tells a tale

Of how you spend your dreary days.

I wait downstairs in a velvet lobby

I see your lover vanish through the doors

My turn for taking life from your skin

Is upon me now as I push the button.

Into your arms with muscles taut

I can sense the feelings you hold me with

Your love is for love itself and lovers race

To be the body you will embrace next.

By your window you will me to go

Gauze curtains brush my knee as it climbs

How your hand can reach me there

Is a mystery I'll dream of on other nights.

Nipples press dimples into my breasts

Water from our skin makes a moist slope

Out of my mouth comes your sweet name

Again I am filled by the passion of life.

A finger has touched the small of my back

And seems to hold me gently aloft

All of a sudden with pulsing abandon

It is over and I am at your feet.

As you touched me on this evening

I caress you with my curled tongue

The taste and scent of autumn leaves

Draw me deeper into the mound.

When you've come for me you lay a hand

On my hair and twist it around your thumb

I am the only one who returns your love

And I wish forever we could be alone so.
Savage Love

I've waited days for your reply

Dust is strewn in the air around me

A meandering finger on my thigh

Is the the only sign that I think of you.

There is always a way out for me

If you decide to drop me flat

The faucet here in my bathtub

And the pills I have brought for comfort.

One too many and I will slip under

Hidden forever from this world

Would it pain you in the end

To know I'm better off dead than without you?

The sunlight has given way to moonbeams

And now I hear the clink of your decision

Oh you strange narcissus bloom in my life

The little death you've brought me is a delight.

If we only had money we could have love

Your note to me glows in my weary face

I tell you that coins take the place of passion

All I desire is the gold in your secret cave.

A sound comes into my bedroom now

So much like your own heavy breath

It sighs as I pull another pill from the bottle

Would you believe I have come this close?
The Final Proposition

Dear Merlin was a wizard so entombed

In a crystal prison with no escape

There is you and there is nothing else

For what have I come this far?

It is so that happy endings are not for me

Another will know your angelic hair

I anticipate the worst from you

You who've always spurned my promised love.

Live with me a moment and we will live forever

I can't drop to my knees over and again

Are you willing to become one with me

And end this charade that you are a loner?

Your tears have told me you share my loneliness

Your body knows that it can be one with mine

What would be so wrong with a cottage in the country

Where you and I could make love in golden fields?

Will you ever let your surly self slip away

Into a place where pride vanishes?

In our travels as they would unfold

I ask you to join me on this trail I've found.

Take my hand and follow me, sweet woman

Time is dissolving the chains that hold you so

Wrest yourself free from the eyes that imprison you

And be a woman embraced by whom she truly loves.

The End

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