To night
Fight back the day.
Sudden drafts
Of howling winds
Carry cries of pain
Across dry fields of summer heat
Into a pool of despair.
Lost voices echo
Off banks of hate
Disappearing
Into the future.
A future of lost,
Dying voices
Crying out to God.
The God of love.
The God of light.
The God who long ago
Turned away.
Fatigued,
Night gives up her battle—
Retreating
Into the distance
Across ocean waves;
Tumbling,
Crystallizing,
Breaking
Into tiny beads of death,
Sinking beneath the depths—
Beneath the lost,
Dying voices.
And I lie awake
Listening
To day
Assault the living
Across dry fields of summer heat.
As Night Stretches
As night stretches her arms,
Stars explode in her eyes—
Crosses float in her tears,
But I won’t drown.
The waves rise to meet the sky,
Driving splinters into my flesh.
I hear the moon laughing—
Pointing at me.
Soon,
Daybreak will call night
To her sleep.
Sleep Comes Down
Sleep comes down heavily,
And I feel your breath on my chest.
Out in the night, winds beat against
The haven of rest I’ve found.
I wonder what you’re dreaming just now—
Does my heart pound like a drum
In your song?
Sleep comes down heavily.
The Lover
I
Listen—
The drum
Pounding slowly in the night.
Perfect time
Rhythm.
She stops for no one,
The drum.
Silent
Beats my heart
Under her thunder.
II
She lies naked
In an open field
Of dust and rock
Watching clouds
Form patterns
Of life
She grasps her knees
Trying to smile
At the phallic shapes
Which remind her
Of man
Her shadow dances
Across dust and rock
Colliding
Merging
With darkness
She closes her eyes
Not wanting to leave
Slowly the clouds drift
Into the shape
Of God
A circle
Without beginning
Without end
III
How cruel she is…
She wakes me
From the sleep of youth
Into a dream of
Passion
Then, she drifts away
While I still yearn.
The Launching
Should you talk about the launching
Speak of perfect circles
On an evening sun—
Curling whitely.
Could you understand these images
Understand the fruits of labor—
Sweating, dying;
Would you act as if you’re still alive—
Praising death from a distance?
For me, it’s the sound of laughing
Lapping—
Puddles spilling onto everything
As all these circles on the sun
Brightly damage any thought
I’ll ever have.
My Pretend Jesus
I’ve lost my place.
The sickness clutches me more tightly
And I cannot consume the weight.
I play Jesus
More aptly than before—
Healing all that is broken,
Turning my back on me,
And allowing darkness my counsel.
I am eaten alive
By placid memories
Groping freely at the mush of bone
That encases my mind.
Nothing has been finished
And I do not have the will to begin again.
So, my pretend Jesus,
What shall become of us?
If you’ve the strength, take flight
From this world.
I will watch from below—
Fastened thick within the sickness—
Hating a sky that will not bear my wings.
Home
Home: where the dragon is waiting
For me and fire designs
A worshiped sky.
Home: where in broken waves
The heat lies beside me
Then withdrawal
And I am more hollow than the pattern.
Behind This Day
Behind this day, dreamt
And perfected,
I’ll hide unaware
Letting skyward temptation hold
Fast despair—
An indifferent landscape
To sing my life,
And barricade the vandals
Of my mind.
Into freedom’s broken promise,
Allow me run
Off the backs of birds
Mid-flight
With flapping harmony
In a still
Moment of absolute.
The Pain Has Left
The pain has left and I am empty.
Hate filled drunk and desperate—
I am here musing a better demonstration.
The battle has grown weary—
This soldier shelved and doubtless;
Sure of contempt.
I cradle discourse of dreams forsaken,
Of boasting erections
And conquered messiahs—
I am a liar.
An Evil Muse
I
What bonds hinder
The quick’ning of your feet
Toward attaining the peace
You honestly seek?
Are your wings entwined
In the fowler’s snare?
Are they too heavy
For truth’s pure air?
There is no sin
To blind your eyes
Nor sovereign God
Would your lusts despise.
Go and do
As you please—
Let your life soar
Upon the breeze.
Sing I Am,
The holy song;
For who you are
Is never wrong.
Allow your soul bask
In this illumination;
Life is but once—
Afterward no damnation.
II
If thou must worship,
Do so what is real.
Cast a graven image—
Bow before thy skill.
The songs of praise,
Which thy lips proclaim,
Would better serve thee
If in thy honor sang.
And prayers! Let prayers
Be as they are.
Thou might as well had
Wished upon yon star.
As wisdom has rightly
Instructed me—
Serve only that
Which truly be.
I Gnaw My Tongue
I gnaw my tongue to stop
The vows sworn midst waves of passion.
My head I hide in ignorant verse.
I blind my eyes with fear.
But my hands are loosed—
My feet swift to betray.
My heart is split and pleading
For one innocent day.
My soul I bar
That it should not pray—
Lest I mock the gates of grace.
In torment, I lie awaiting
The wrath of he who mercy gave.
Were it possible to do an act—
A penance I would pay.
But never did I earn this faith
Nor this faith did I send away.
The breath of doom is upon my chest;
At my back the endless night
And I am stooped over
Bearing this burden light.
Desire Cornered Me
In time for the fool’s birth,
Desire cornered me with a father’s pride.
From limbs just out of reach, desire
Picked the sins of my youth
And like a dying man believes
In the strength of his final meal;
I ate the darkness.
With winter’s wilted wine
A fading scent on my breath,
I suffer the bone chill sober
Thoughts of a coward’s life.
The sun will soon consume
My bed of impatient leaves
And there is no stake
To hold me;
No ropes bind my feet—
Only I persist in this execution
Where my shadow becomes the stumble.
Thirty Pieces Of Silver
I also throw my thirty pieces of silver
Into the temple’s court—
For I have betrayed innocent blood.
I have gained nothing for my sin
And even what I had is lost.
Are these not my hands stained red?
Is not this corruption of my doing?
I have sought out darkness
And lingered deliberately in guilt.
My heart I hardened—
My mind I set on ruthless schemes.
Until this very hour
I have plotted against you
And my reward is paid in full.
What price can conceal
The tower of my sin?
What payment would rid me
Of the agony I now suffer?
My Lord, My God, your light
Has consumed my darkness;
I am left exposed before your eyes.
I am ashamed to speak your name.
My bones collapse within me.
The breath of my existence cries
For mercy and I hide
My face from you.
The Furnace
Lay to waste my ambitions—
The fraud of self-help.
Give light to the sword
And bid it cut cleanly, swiftly—
A severed nerve,
A deadened pain.
I facilitate the numbing.
This kinder world bears me not,
Nor I its insidious doom
Collecting followers
For the buried furnace.
One raging spark
Turned populace inferno—
Engulfing.
Hold Me
My actions claim no righteousness—
The lips that kiss me;
Curse me.
I provoke the hypocrisy of my accuser—
A fond remembrance of laughing eyes
Excludes the brevity of wounds
Too dark for healing,
Of love too strong for forgiveness.
The wailing indulgence—
Calm, horrified combatants
Lock me into mortal embrace.
O, savior!
O savior, here is the scent—
The maddening psalms of heroes
Praising your androgyny.
O savior, I am an ape.
I do as is done
And you regret me the spoils of stupidity.
Should you speak, speak softly;
My ears are bruised by threats of solace—
Hold me in your arms and condemn me.
Run, As Always
What same shallow verb shall I adopt?
Run, as always.
Back and forth
Between madness and apathy—
Half-hearted attempts at a beginning;
My beginning.
Floating—
(No!)
Falling upward—
White, pure, bright—
Toward the glow;
Then sinking.
I splash in a sudden bath of nothingness.
Salvation’s Muddled Sea
Salvation’s muddled sea
Stirred occasionally,
If not by rumors—
By lies,
Floats the primal
Into passion’s jovial morose.
Jugular sweat carves canals
Through mortar waves
And tangled prisms fallen
From the flaming tree.
Suffer the lash.
Profit the grimace.
A fortune built
Upon the economy of sodomy.
Succeeding. Succeeding.
Seceding—
We achieve the idiot.
Then You Will See
Come to the sirens—
Join in the lust of all that is sacred.
Take the silence from your ears—
Call faith to reprimand
All that you find.
Reach out to the desert—
Pull the fire,
Pull the pain;
Gather dust from the coming rain.
Pour sand into your eyes—
Then you will see.
Then you will see!
The Measure Of Death
Our prophets worship
Like sour secret lovers—
Selling their souls a pint at a time
While the future is decreed
Over unwanted voices.
Stumbling on the second guessing of God,
They have chosen to lie face down
In drunken guise—
Suppressing sobriety’s plea for response.
Who but death can measure their worth
At the end
Of some never occurring tomorrow?
You Are Not
Lord, do you not hear
My rumblings?
My soul is vexed
And I curse your name.
I watch the innocent suffer
And say that you are not
A God of love.
I see the torment of war
And judge that you are not
A God of justice.
This Lord, is me, your creation—
Lost to the drudgery of life.
This Lord, is me, born of your image—
Torn by the certainty of death.
I have deemed all of life a burden
And you, O Lord, a lie;
For in the depth of my pain
I find no solace
And in the midst of my joy
I find no hope.
Who then, shall say, “God hears,”
To one who has lost the will to speak?
Is This The Ride
Is this the ride—
To cut hope free
And gamble with fate?
For too long it has been
That I am not.
So, I surrender the pen.
Press penance upon me—
Naked, fertile sickness.
It is my soul and I
Repent not its searching.
God, the prey of my awakening,
Holds quick burden.
O good-bye my love.
I will bear your fears
On the bed of my loneliness.
The warmth! The silken flow of flesh—
I have grown into my species,
My beast.
Let Us Drink
Let us drink the water of sleep—
Fade into
another today.
I’ll bury my thoughts deep within
Your distant hesitance—
Wrap the cardboard night around you.
We’ll shiver in darkness
To the cicada’s continual drone;
hypnotizing us—
Calling us to rest.
Maybe we will sleep long enough
To stop dreaming.
A Soft Regret
She pulled sorrow’s stare down—
Brought it to meet my eyes.
I filled the frame then looked away;
Demanding our ceasing acquaintance rebirth.
A touch for the scarecrow—
Soft shining blue.
She coughed to disguise the truth
Of me shifting in her bed
As she clothed me with forget
Stolen from the dawn.
Morning’s hue had broken—
Lifting my mind’s fog.
When mother is gone
Who will suffer this incestuous child?
Obsession
Obsession lingers under me—
Outlining vague notions
Of penciled-in sacrifices;
Hallowed eyes
Within the stranger.
A longing
For its teeth sinking
Into my flesh;
Teaching me the passion of hate.
Masks wet wind circling—
Watching
As I become obsessive.
Liquid Attraction
The liquid attraction of
Heaven twisted—drowning
Clouded tide torrid ebb
Excess in moderation
A muddled exaggeration
Silhouette self
Feigning modesty—
A voyeur tapestry
This dream world dance
Void of color
Black
White
No one will know
Secret Dance
Your secret dance has aroused me.
Remove the sweat from your body
That I may see your flesh—
The eyes of addiction open more slowly.
Undress my face with claws of hope—
Gnaw my chest until I am released.
Bring on the crucifixion.
I am ready to believe.
The God Of Gods
Am I the god of gods
Dying a thousand deaths
Under hungry hands of hate?
Kill me—if I am god.
Kill me million little gods
Wallowing in the fear of witches
And priests and bastard sons
Of bastard sons.
Kill me—if I am god.
Kill me—boastful fools of fire
Stealing away between the thighs
Of queens;
Quivering in beds of sin.
Your folly is my sport—
I am
The god of gods.
To The Lotus Eaters
There is sweet music here
And the stillness of the water
Lies against the sleeping sky.
The moss is cool and softer
Than any I have known.