compels me, stumbling out into the "Free World"
days wandering, nights sweating, on the loose, the lam
weary legs, arms find safety in a shaded spot
where under a rock I read a crusty message
abandoned by eyes 20 years ago,
"I will wait for you under this rock, forever."
how was she to tell him?
his child born in the midst of the heaving of the menacing crowd, alone
in solitary lock-down
a strong hungry child whose suck marks her yet
How will I tell him...so that he'll...love us?
in this turmoil of feelings, trudging, more than weary
she waits for the messenger, with his note
with the name, "Call the child...."
on my way—stopped inconsequentially at an unidentifiable light
window down at half mast
a fluttering speck of urban garbage
alights on the dash; snag it
announcement: "This is the day of your salvation,
love and love again."
Has nothing really changed?
she was seven, me just turned eight
how the shadows on her neck fascinated, all throughout the day!
so unfamiliar with the dryness in my throat
embarrassed by the sweatiness of palms
somehow, fumbled to compose a symphony of feeling
as ancient fathers before had,
struck I a cosmic tune that fired up our
hearts with a thump! resounding down the eons,
"I love you."
{this note is on its way}
Another Day, Another Darkness
though I had sworn in Sweeney's bar
that I'd find you in my bitter whiskey
I kept losing you at the bottom of my glass
(thanks to ole Mack the bartender
I kept finding you again
atop each amber shot)
what was it I told him that night
as each muscle of my mind melted
did I remember to mark-off the list
of betrayals and breaches of promise?
did I cover all in general outline
or convey in the clarity of footnotes
the height, the weight, the color of their heads,
the socks they left behind,
the weekly tokens forgotten from Holiday Inn trysts?
did I deliver the indictment with rising passion
or did ole Mack ask the stenographer to repeat
my last stammering phrase?
they leave their shadows on my pillows!
I echoed into my empty glass
—ole Mack poured another shot—
I bellowed the Litany of the Offended
with gesticulations, incantations and assorted
masturbations
of a soul too long in solitary confinement
somewhere along the stools
a sympathetic clairvoyant grasped the vision
of my liquid dissertation
extended to me the numbing phial of her perfume
as I lie here next to her
face still shrouded by the dawn's late darkness
I feel the freedom of betrayal
snicker at the hot leaded pain of my tears
I can hardly wait to hear
what ole Mack has to say
Rages in the Desert (Sandstone Federal Prison)
when he came to me i feigned
a shadow boxing and a clout on his ears
but he stood as simple as a flower
patiently in place alluring the bee
this is not to be! i screamed into my ears
i am not a toy nor a plaything nor a sweet carnation
i am the rock and the home run hitter and a rose with thorns
this cannot be!
what am i to do with these shivers?
am i to take myself to bed and drink hot tea?
what shall i do if he calls
says that he has free tickets to the movies?
there must be some cruel cartographer of the genes
who has violated the universe with his dreams
for this cannot be, i cannot let it be!
i am a male and so is he
where is the logic to his dreams?
why is his shadow so real
that i wake to chase it from my wall
jump from bed to check the locks and bolts
too nervous to judge this fear a hoax
deep within me lustful rivers run
my thighs celebrate deltas of the moon
my hands give praise to the burning of kisses
yet the thrill that scars me most is of the sun
—not moon's daughter
am i to find that there is more within me
than my father told me when i was young?
more than the monastic chants assured me
would be my duty and my obligation, all done?
i cannot see—i do not want to see!
his chrysanthemum face and firm stalk
i want only to die as i was born
a wailing child in the arms of my mother
these sentenced days press hard upon my heart
too many rivers have broken their banks
giving riot to seeds long buried in the desert
what shall i take to my grave
that i did not bring to light from my mother's heart?
The Purple Butterfly
settling upon your face
illumines the yearnings within your soul
coded in a message of strobe lightning
it was an inauspicious beginning
three men on the hunt in a Minneapolis bar
spitting piss beer and leering at the dancing dames
i sat there taut of body, howling in brain
14 months on the inside yard primed me for that moment
i chewed the air with a sucking breath
as pretzels and chips crumbled under foot
it was a time of savaging fear
i walked with Lazarus, worried about my stench
who would touch a man from the grave
or deign to gaze upon the mangled and mashed instrument
of his wet dreams?
it was not your beauty nor this painted insect on your face
no, it was in the decaying bathroom
where you chased me away, answered
that i cannot, could not be yours this night
Oh! i ached for the dawn
in time, you brought a basket full of fruits
some fresh, some moldy, some without pits
picnicked in the attic for a year
charming the ants, making mad rituals
attempting to lure healings from our shaman bones
when you left me for dear ole Columbus
i cursed his ship and wanted to declare
you already sovereign territory
but you sped away on a snorting motorcycle
flying the flag of the jaunty buccaneer
now that you have braked for a brief visit
that attic in my heart sealed ten years ago
once again
has opened for Spring cleaning
Ah! i am relishing the memory of odors
the sweet taste of your intense tears
in every bar, around every corner, in every hotel
in every city for every day
i had peered in anticipation of that dancing prancing butterfly
but now I know that it flits about
only on the beat which has always been
our hearts
Wisdom and Ah! Fond Memories
bare light-bulb mornings
before sacrificial coffee
trash rimming the Hole around
catches the droopy lidded
great unrecognized one
slipping bare threads
of rec
ycled dreams
through his head.
it must be time to turn on the ra-di-o.
Paragraph 24, section (t): "One radio. One authorized channel."
four corpses from the dawn's last train
which left without departing
took themselves up the stairs
without an elevator
banged on his mind's door
bang bang bang.
it’s just too stupid
that they never painted the walls
after all if they knew how be-oo-ti-ful
was the glossy shine
the government puts on solitary
they would never be civil servants.
ne-ver.
the issue
not on the radio this morning
was the state of all
human culture
which they argued from bits
of toilet paper
smuggled from the inner
sanctum
of various local jails
madhouses and pens-not-made-for-bulls.
only the cold coffee
made them stop.
it also started them again.
luckily, two were blind
the bare bulb did not give
away its lightning secrets
two were deaf
so they did not carry
the prejudices of the radio.
luckily, again, toilet paper
messages
are best read in the dark
by sign language of
not so sanitized fingers.
in the end
there were five corpses
lamenting the shit-ass
condition of the world
as run by free enterprise.
security after all
is having someone
else responsible for
Lock-up and Count!
Oh! I languish so
I can’t figure it out, you
nurturing breasts of Gaia milk, barren
of heartfelt impulse to ask me, “Who?”
I want to know you, why not you me?—“Why?”
as if I could explain cosmic coincidences or the hard
rules of astral mechanics, it’s just me, asking
why the slow elegance of your stocking smooth thigh lures
me my heart eons of squelched desire, longingly
I cannot fathom your eyes, interpret the silences, ignorances
“How wrong can I be?” misjudging others from
your generation, fems
not Queens, possibly not even Princesses, maybe mere
Ladies-in-Waiting, so
confused am I, knowledgeable only
of the seething desire to reach over, break
you in two, suck the marrow from your pelvic bones, delta
delight in consummation of
delirious pillar of righteousness, my lips quaver as I kneel in
adoration before you, incanting
upward, joyward, into your inner self, bones
of caverns, ancient longings, you
naïf, naive, unlearned, I curse
my prison sufferings, nights with you only in liminal gasp!
but
I cannot but not crave you, slash open my
chest cavity, grip and rip out my heart, desire
like fire raging, seething, lost among the wildness of
unbounded craving for
you I seek intimacy, we
I crave “we,” you, me, flint and stone, fire spark
turn me on!—lost
I am lost in the sweet curve of your stockinet sigh!—face
flat upon your belly, birthed
in a fresh soulfulness, I love
you beyond images that break
upon, my heart
Mere
mere kiss, flashing shadow of desire, I seek
closeness of exhaled moistness, allure of your sweet mouth, lips
like celestial communicator, tender yet so vibrant, life
itself throbs through the mere desire I have for you, embrace
the slightest presence of you, mere fleeting smile, tender
strum of your guitar, I
lost forever in the splashing fiery sweetness
of the brush of your cheek, a strand
your hair like electrocuting fiber sunk into my heart, is there no
relief, no
cessation to this flow of fever, diamond hard cold
steely fierce penetration of my desire, you
is there no other than you, here, this moment, every
moment, beyond my death, I reach
blood of your heart in menstrual drip, I savor
the nurturance of you, the unthoughtful
reflex, me
zygote within the tubes of your bio-mechanical delivery self, Mother
Is there no one else, she
daughter also mother princess yet my Queen, I touch but
the sight of her, press hard against the
memory of a moment, passed
just this moment, fleeting, you float through
the world, ocean of gasping desire, I want, no
need you, know this? I doubt, yet
I come, faithfully, moment after eon, lover
you are my beloved, praised
with lipless kiss, deep embrace of mere
desire denied, happy
yet am I, delirious
mere kiss
Optimo Café
Legs crossed long sweater over back of hands, sitting
as if huddling with yourself not looking
but sensing me sizing me up wondering
if the old guy is as crazy as he sounds
does he want me, want me ancient lover
remembering the endless sands, long desert dark nights
with jeweled skies and the chill of moon cold dunes
now again within driftless time, hours, centuries
not really a reference as I caress
your lanky hair stroking you once more, a thousand years
from whence we have come, discerning you
through that startling twist of metal, awed I had asked
back-then in foreign tongue “Who made this?”
they brought you, servant of a servant, with head bowed
eyes that pierced my heart though you never gazed upward just
the bent of your head I knew you saw me as you do now
with eyes all over, goddess eyes, thousand eyes, like the
softness of your presence, sitting there, in front of my chair, hidden
by a space of gentleness and when you turn to talk I know you know
me, without doubt remember our precious time, no hesitation,
here it is I who bow before you, upon whose heart
is etched a pledge of eternal love—Yes! have I found you fatefully
searching for a gift in your quaint curio shop of twisted metals
that you flowingly bend like fragrances of desire,
I stammered, “You made this?” It needed no answer, you smiled, I
wondered for days weeks month if you’d ever speak to me and tonight
I said are you alone do you want to sit with us a glass of wine you said
Yes sweet wine so I sipped you until I felt it safe to leave, trusting
that you’d call and let me touch the deathless heart that beats
only for us, ancient lovers.
The joyful failure of loving you
The time is right, it is the season
You plant a row of seeds, press lightly
with fingertips like kissing children at bedtime
It takes time, this you know, this you’ve been told
Time to nourish, tilting a water can just so, as hungry dirt
and fetal roots suck gently down your tender care
Time to wonder at the magic dance of sunshine and moon delight
as on a
given morning there are tiny green shoots, reaching up towards you
Each morning, another amazement as these fragile shafts rise
becoming sturdy stems gifting you with fledgling buds
It takes time, so you know, so you’ve been told
so you wait, patiently yet eagerly
until all so sweetly blossoms—a beauty smiling up at you
Oh, how delirious the moment!
Oh, how breath stopping, you gasp, your heart races
as eyes burst with a suddenness of delight,
you bend and are caressed by the gracious kiss
of a luscious petal upon your trembling lips
you tingle within an embrace of fragrant scent
As you so dreamed upon first planting, you two are now one
You share whispering coupling words, “I’m yours. Only yours!”
You breathe together, a first moment of adoration, fiery sparks flying heedlessly
upon your rapturous words
“I love you, oh so much.” And “Thank you for being you!”
Ah, my sweetheart, as such with every season and in my heart at the sunrise and
moonset of each day
so I suffer this joyful failure of loving you, my Beloved.
For I have not sufficient words, so I regret, not at this moment, not at any moment,
that justly convey my heartfelt gratitude and the never-ending aching desire that
humbles me like the embrace of a flower in bloom as I open to hold you in my
arms, my Beloved.
There are no songs, so I ache, that I can sing that rightly and richly convey the
sighful sweetness
of my being one with you within our coupled flowering
Though words fail me, my sweetheart, here as I struggle to write with my heart
and sing with my soul celebrating all you have graciously shared and given to me,
I offer you this day, this moment, all that I am to be born with you anew in
everlasting embrace, planting today as you did that first day long ago your seed
into my heart now my seed into your heart so that we may be Beloveds,
blossoming throughout time-unending.
May our earthly, time-bound love nurture the seeding
of our coupled heart and soul
as the seasons turn and we blossom into
the everlasting Love that nurtures all Beloveds.
Written in honor of and with deepest affection for my beloved friends, William
and Barbara Motlong, and Vic Straw and Katherine Koenig, read at the celebration
of their 50th and 25th wedding anniversaries, respectively.
Excuse
I was looking for any type of excuse,
a large glass case a hundred items, each an opportunity
you were so quiet, not shy, not even taciturn, truly gentle
it threw me off my game, sly fox that I’ve become, silver streaked
I could find no words, me the man of a gazillion words, not a solitary sigh
I floundered like a stupid fish caught by a small hook, cursing my own
garrulousness that ended with nothing said, no protestation of my awe
at finding you there like an angel at lake’s edge, here in this stain of a town
you tended the store, listened to customers, took my money, wrapped up
the gift I was to give to another woman but bought because it was yours,
in giving I would receive you, the heart of you in delicate bronze.
I tried to find a workable excuse.
Something not too embarrassing if you axed my heart with rejection.
Just one or two, even dumb excuses to see you again.
You are a silky web
dangerously alluring, enticing, seductively comforting to my heart.
Yet only I, heartfelt, treasure the fierce thrust of your demure presence.
Only I treasure how your eyes never faded from my memory despite centuries of lonely wandering,
eons of pained desire, through the ages just a handful of other women,
each and all just a bookmark as I waited to sense your eyes upon me,
so it came, horse and buggy town, fated to walk into your store,
oh, if only I could kiss you forever, from toenail to hair-fall caressed upon my face,
how little you know of the howling anguish of the ages in between,
damned to accept that I am December in your April.
Here once again I cried so that you could not hear,
Bury me! Bury me within your heart!
An angel visited me this eve
Took my hand and touched her lips
The forever unspoken word of love she proclaimed
With tender caresses and caring eyes, a press of hearts
Which drew a startled light from the precious darkness of my being
Upon her hair we latched sweet desires of our embracing soul
Upon her breasts I laid full sigh in restful endless joy
Upon her cradle she spread me a sensuous quilt of comforting yearning
Upon herself as me and me as she cuddled we, dreaming
When I awoke this morn it was I an angel to be
To walk the day between night’s mysteries a lover
Embracing all who be, truly simply a loving endlessly
For within me now is she and he be I her unspoken word, proclaimed
[Wednesday, May 19, 2004]
Chisels
It is the terrors we share, caged
slashed by good intentions, caresses of
lovers gone wild with our juice, blessed by
our loving openness, vulnerable, tear they our
hearts
souls
cocks
cunts
nothing left but detritus of a misplaced love.
Brush lips, whisper praise to stirring hearts,
it is good, most mornings
caresses yield to the fierce fire of acceptance,
submission, kneel we so
most mornings, others
wrenching blooms off swollen blossoms, yielding
crushed, mangled,
swatted, threatened, all this pain yet
love like liquid healing oozes through veins of twined hearts no
longer lonely
angels of lost dreams, nightly
on pillows sodden with sweat, passion’s residue, suffering
hours, minutes, seconds till he she leaves, intent upon returning
Shall we suffer again, rock yielding to sculptor’s chisel?
Embrace
mine eyes have seen, lips
pressed in silent code, heart
thumped by stillness, hands
blinded by unsated desire, arms
tightly wound binding wounds unclosed, ears
lost in echo of whispered delights, me
in pieces, shards for assembling, body
full, swelling, relentless longing throbbing, you
our eyes have seen, us
return to top
Simplicity
you never asked, so sent was me
you never wanted, so needless was me
you never invited, so unruly was me
you never complained, so awestruck was me
you never forgot, so forever is me
you never withheld, so beyond love am we
Nothing but
I am to pull the shade aside that day when you shall die
This assignment unrequested they have already assigned
To sit and set my soul within thy sun my face towards your moon
And all that I be be best within thee, this already mine
It is for me to taste the sweet kiss of life upon your cheek
To press my heart against thy breast and know the flush of thy feral heat
To lounge within the summertime of rest next to your soft thighs
To play wi
th all your soul and prepare for the moment you expire
For some of us it is given to run the race so full
To go the extra distance and end atop the hill
There to look upon the valley below and yearn with all our hearts
To capture but a moment of a smile a kindness of one so sweet of heart
Yes there is fate and there is choice and there is wisdom kind
But nothing ever can repay the steely faithfulness which is mine
Nothing but the tender kiss of your forever lingering lips entwined
All this for each of us but ever yet a moment sublime
Tis this moment thine a flash of you as mine
I sit here wondering why the world has shown me your face
I sit here unable to move, enrapt by your lingering smile on my lips my fingertips.
I sit here inside a patience long-preached but just now dancing.
I am not sitting for my form is all sighfilled desire.
I am not, no longer, unable not to be you.
[October 15, 2003]
I’ll bring you tea, unrequested
I’ll butter your bread, in solitary anguish
I’ll rub your feet, in celebratory submission
I’ll read a bedtime story, fearlessly
I’ll hug you with arms tireless
I’ll laugh at the comics while you sleep
I’ll think a thought not thoughtless about your wiggle
I’ll dance to catch the rising moon upon your cheek
I’ll disappear so that you won’t forget me
I’ll burn with fire so that you are not cold
I’ll carry you in my arms beyond the deathless desert
I’ll lie down next to you braced by the courage to die
I’ll bring you tea, when requested
[8/25/03]
There is a love
Which only I bear
Drawn from my heart
Without despair
It is a love not yet divine
Which ever labors to entwine
The sweet enchanting lullabies
Of inner soul and kiss sublime
And so become the song we be
At such moments of lilting reverie
There is a love
Which only you bear
Drawn from your heart
Without despair
It is a love so enchanting and so alive
That I seek merely to survive
Simply to be but a memory
Of your kiss, a touch, a revelry
Within the warmth of your embrace afire
Knowing no end to such a desire
Of all that I am as I adore
Your sensual holiness evermore
[Monday, February 02, 2004]
Upon Our Passing
This day of our dying
Earthen death
Flesh celebrated by those we love
Gathering here in rain and snow they come
Wondering how it could have happened
Not knowing that in this passing
So do we live
For now we can say I love you
Without fear of betrayal or forgetfulness
Utter it with tonguelessness and arms decayed
Embrace each other with legless clutch
Ha! yes, what is dying but the freedom
To proclaim our love so everlastingly?
Let us not ask how this is nor the why
Let us accept the universe as it plays us out
Mere voice this moment now mere embrace
Everything which is lost is now regained
In eternal decay is our flower reborn
[Tuesday, March 09, 2004]
Waiting in prison's visiting room (for her)*
Grass knee high, bugs
buzzing doing what bugs
do,
Dig it?
Smooth silvery slither, she
dig it?
Like, man, the vibe that created it all!
Dig it.
Smile, hers, slicing my heart, man,
Tell me, man, did you ever, I mean ever,
cell block hard ass lover’s tears, man,
did you ever?
I mean ever, know she was comin’?
Touched her face, outline, soap on mirror
four thousand times, drawn, washed away, my
tears
nothing else will do, no Bon Ami, no Brillo pad, just
tears
long silent nights under coarse sheets, numbered
8867-147,
waiting, knowing, she’s there, hoping, knowing, damn
they don’t want me to hope, not to know, but I know
she’s
about, in fragrance of a walk, drop of the left hip, saunter
I melt in the Visiting Room, knowing her Sister waits
for me,
yeah, for me, not you, but me! Goddam
life is good here in lock down!
Dying on cold Minnesota mornings in Sandstone, FCI, she
comes
on slither of ice, spars blinking sunspots in my eyes, I know
“Her.”
“She”
“Goddess”
no name, unnamed, yet, now I know
her name
In dreams I walk the streets of a small nameless town in a forgotten state
ever present to her blessedness.
I am in love.
I am loved.
Amen. Amen. So it is.
[Sandstone, MN Federal Correctional Institutions
8867-147 = inmate number]
What is love but an unknown desire
Raised by lust to a heat afire
What is love but a cold refrain
Driven by the frozen rain
What is love but a hoot and holler
Flinging hay onto the pyre
What is love so full and strong
But a lover broken-hearted in full song
What is love but a passing fling
Of timelessness and suffering
What is love why do you ask
Do you think I am not up to the task?
What is love if all conspire
To douse the flame of sad desire?
What is love
Do not ask
I am but a man
In mask
:she for me is all:
[Thursday, January 29, 2004]
Why us?
In the calm of the sunny afternoon we drink iced tea
The child plays on the swings, we relax to the rhythm of the swaying
There is air which we can taste, a blueness in the sky which entrances
As we walk back towards our home there is sweetness of love touching fingers
For thousands of years the gods have experimented
Taken flesh and mingled it with soul in hope of a magic moment
They have cursed and sworn, issued incantations and declarations of doom
All now seen as a gesture of desperateness since they are only gods
It is for us humans to teach them the ways of less and more
For them there has only been eternality and fulfillment
They have not suffered the pleasures of the incomplete
Nor the sated joy of betrayal, such has eluded them
Only with the gesture of forgetfulness do we triumph
Walk away from their eternal embrace and hungering
Only we able to jam all zest into a coffin of time, five minutes
We take ecstasy and reduce it to a comma
Lay it between our legs and turn aside to sneeze
How jealous can they be these daemons from another dimension
Queer folk who conjure with our flesh but cannot feast
Cannot taste the deliciousness of tiredness and rejection
Cannot fathom the weariness of doing it the 100th time
Of taking heart-fire and turning such into a cipher
&n
bsp; Of reducing all of life to a yawn
What is passion this they ask, what do we say
But only shirk, we do not know what cannot be asked
We only blunder forward whacking at each other
Creating like the blind sculptor
What else is there we shout at them
But endless boredom of dreams unending
For we are fools who oft miss
The sweetness of the simple kiss
[Tuesday, March 09, 2004]
A letter to her
All that I do, meager effort that it is, is
to awaken the deep memory of yourself, goddess
Majesty, Queen, Potentate of Creation, Womb
you who give life to all, our Mother, our Sister, our Beloved
this merely my task, honored am I, loving you as death am I willing to die, fleeting seed
ejaculate offering myself for your absorption, consummation, mating, you
loving you everything it is all that I do, poorly do I, broken-bone servant yet fearless, courageous, I
kneel before you, Queen of the Sky, Beat of the Cosmic Heart, Blood that Nourishes, Amen.
Even your feebleness, transience, flaw of being, aging ardour of embrace, in every pore, every
flaw of your being, peerless are you to me, I kiss your chin, toes, small of the back, succulent ear lobes, I
mere slave of desire unrequited, ask of you
sister mother lover crone
but