Content
Gifts of Big Brother Fox
Catch & Release
Biographia
Howling for Justice
Danton Dancing to the Cross
Notes toward a unified theory of History
Unrequited Revelations
The dead prepare the ground
Inhaling Lightning
Prison Primer
Prison Retrospective
A few stolen hours
Fame
Conditional Surrender
Variation on the Theme of Penitence
Flow
Yes, Well
Quotidian Rapture
Numbliss
for me grasp hold
Teachers
Royalty
Origins
Civilization
The temple is torn down
The bones are so small
Precocious Coasts
Old Gods
New Gods
On the Media, Social and Otherwise
A problem with safety and comfort
Fire in the Whole
Aprés moi le dèluge
Blood deep
The red door
Perspective
Early Morning Exercise
An odd moment
Gifts of Big Brother Fox
Dancing
We go into this madness together
Dancing
through the dark
and through the flames
‘neath the sun
and so too the moon
We dance through this madness
with light-hearts
dipping shoulders
shaking bodies
rolling arms
to the rhythm
of stomping feet
An easy smile
Across such distance
as no man can traverse
And all the weight of manhood
falls through
shivering torso
swinging thighs
stomping feet
Into this earth
that no man
can tear me from.
Catch & Release
The terror of the hunt
in the body of the hunted
makes a desert of the mouth
engorges the eyes
catches the breath
and refuses to release.
The freefall of failure
to be overrun
captured
Not thinking, Is this the end?
Not thinking
anything
the mind catches
and refuses to release.
The freezing of the body
in the four walls
of concrete and steel
fluorescent light
in all that dark
that catches the soul
and offers no release.
Biographia
My life has been an epic poem
and I pray that my dying breath
is but a comma
giving rise to a silent breath
before I embark
on that longest of journeys.
Howling for Justice
God! O my God!
America
you are murdering your children
you rob them of decency
you subject them to filth and hunger
you poison their minds and bodies
America
I care so little these days
about your sprawling problems
but I pray to God that on behalf of the children
you are swiftly brought to justice!
America
you reduce me to howling
you drive me to the outer darkness
where I and your children weep and gnash teeth
for the slaughtered and stunted ones!
America
of all your mighty transgressions
surely this is the greatest evil
and like a half-mad prophet of old
I cry out for justice!
America
your shield remains strong
your talons tightly clutching arrows
but you are rotting from within
and you will be brought to account.
America
great eagle
you must remember
you are a Phoenix.
Danton Dancing to the Cross
It would be so easy, all too easy
to detest
the murderers
of Danton
and Philippe
But what good has come
from scalding the Pharisees
or chastising Rome
for the slaying
of Christ Jesus
or Saint John?
We celebrate their deaths
as unfoldment of the Plan
but tragedy nonetheless
even as a Phoenix
must die
to be
Reborn.
Notes toward a unified theory of History
Out of the ashes of the Republic
Napoleon arose
to gift humanity
with a rose
and with a key
to Egyptian antiquity
With narrowed eyes it is easy to judge
the Emperor a naked tyrant
but Phoenix wings span centuries
and today I read
the great histories of Akhnaton
and humbly contemplate the vast Design
of a global republic,
empire of the poets.
Unrequited Revelations
I shall die a wounded lover
O yesyesyes!
It is beauty
beauty
beauty
I shall show you
how to eat the Moon
from the edge of the lightning
bug’s wing
respect the pebble
draw a ring of keys
from midnight dew
a king running from the ant hill to the soda can
amid moss and mushrooms
drink pure blood
from the mountainside
dance with the dead
along the rails
amid styrofoam
ride clouds
to solar assemblies
kneel before doe’s nose
ancient oak
pinecone
and listen
To dirt.
There is a great squid.
I shall hear you think
and reveal to you
the mysteries
of conquest
and death
and love.
The dead prepare the ground
Prepare a path for me
on the slick effluvium of toxins shed
grief as Autumn leaves
know your divinity
at that sacred space
that I may enter
and return to
know no end:
Prepare a way for me, I and the dead.
Prepare the ground that I will move upon
as one
With dancing feet that tread the air
of air
Prepare the way
to becoming
Prepare a path for my coming
one whom I trust but do not know
oh fickle flame of consciousness
dancing in extremis
whirling in the dark
Light up the way with thine being
fading even as you flourish
Prepare a way for my coming
and my goings.
Inhaling Lightning
Story-teller dance your songs for me
tonight we sing with blood-stained lips
dance your song for me
tonight we wash away all guilt
Story-teller you know me see me
flicker in the abyss
that opens onto the desert
see that my soul is thirsty
on the verge of eclipse
Story-teller drown me in sorrow
let me borrow a little pain
I promise I won’t keep it
do dance your song tonight
while I touch the earth
Story-teller blessings upon blessings
weeping ourselves into laughter
fits of bliss sporadic as lightning
inhale dark earth and night fire
I am a young yet we are old
Story-teller touch my stomach with your chords
faintest caress I need along my chest
where it hurts before we end
I love you I love you I love you
and I love me and night fire earth pain
song dance blood-stain soul bliss
Prison Primer
What is a prison?
An insane asylum
where insanity is the aim
and a hit of thorazine
costs $7.50.
Prison Retrospective
It was not so much a stroll in the park
as much as
a walk through a cold empty strip mall parking lot.
The thrill is gone after the first few years.
A few stolen hours
In the ringing of the night
i have lost silence
In the hollowness of survival
i have lost innocence
In the slowness to heal
i have lost youth
In the darkness of the earth
i have lost the path
In the depths of exile
i have lost solitude
In the growth of memory
i have lost friendship.
But in all this loss
i have gained
a few stolen hours.
Fame
Can there be anything as precious in all the worlds as little children?
It is a horror to behold, this innocent adorable girl standing before an audience, staring out into all that darkness.
It is like seeing God staring at the Devil.
Conditional Surrender
I have found Eternity with a grain of salt.
Variation on the theme of penitence
Upon the lattice
against the window
no roses bloom
nor magnolias
no sweet peas curl
but nonetheless there remains an echo of piety
a monk, an austere cell, dutiful penitence.
Flow
Devour me
that I may crawl inside
Expel me
that I may be swallowed
by your lover.
Yes, Well
Our lips dance
trace my lip
with your tongue
release
earth pain rising
bubbling
eaten by stone.
Quotidian Rapture
for the beloved poets whom I cannot bear
My breasts are sagging
flagging worse than national morale
but what’s far worse than that:
I have a dentist appointment
and I have not yet even begun
to make the morning’s toast
and I am really quite tired
of eggs and rye
but the coffee is always welcome.
Maybe this time I will let the eggs
run a bit, not so much
like my tits
as much as
a middle aged dog, still fit.
Will I don my emerald necklace
or leave my neck
as barren as my verse?
Numbliss
Tongue dance
lip trance
hum-um-um.
for me grasp hold
We end I.
Fire I am.
The desert sea.
Teachers
A raindrop speaks to me
of biology, and physics
Then vanishes.
Royalty
Not even Emperor Napoleon
nor any King
is ever as regal
as the Robin.
Origins
I have come forth into the world
from the world
a wave
upon the shores of Lake Erie.
Civilization
I know Jeffers had the right of it
but God, Mother, look at that
Son!
The temple is torn down
What, tin roof and rain drops,
is it about you
that when you meet
I
Vanish?
The bones are so small
I.
eyes brown and black
large as a cat’s
(and just as silent)
cute purple dress
from her fourth birthday
in San Salvador
which she shall never see again.
Where is the savior?
II.
eyes brown and black
sand mattes the hair
raven black on brown skin
just a child
could be anywhere
Among the dead, again.
III.
eyes brown and black
stare into the Unseen
stomach round and swollen
testament to the obscene
the very fingers of death
steepled over that little chest
arms as thin and useless
as the last breath.
Precocious Coasts
Oh! Nature can be such a tricky foe
As all your precocious coasts preoccupy
She creeps up and floods your Heartland to bursting!
Ah! such cleansing, purging: the poor will not survive.
All the children are weeping
And all the adults are laughing
Isn’t it really quite funny?
But that was another dream…
Old Gods
During the War Between the States
Union soldiers slaughtered animals
in the City on the Hill, and blood
splattered the Monument.
The Obelisk thirsts once again.
New Gods
Screens casting a cold dead light:
This is your new fire, frozen
O Humanity!
Gather round, each alone
to starve beneath
this Monument
On the Media, Social and Otherwise
Sometimes
I make love
with Beelzebub
And later
I wake
with maggots in my mouth.
A problem with safety and comfort
Oh oh oh, it hurts
it hurts
it hurts
to be born.
Fire in the Whole
The people have nowhere to go.
The poor have nowhere to go.
The children have nowhere to go.
The elders have nowhere to go.
The armadillos have nowhere to go.
The salamanders have nowhere to go.
The butterflies have nowhere to go.
The River has nowhere to go.
Nowhere is now here.
Here is on fire.
Aprés moi le dèluge
O Humanity! What cruel paradox
even as you dowse the flames of Hell
the world is burning.
Even as the fool speaks of a new age
of unity and glitter forged in the flames
our Mother smolders.
All the King’s men
cannot rebuild what they do not comprehend.
Has no one told them? Do they fool themselves?
The Ancient Mysteries are closing themselves off
to a race only concerned with outward forms.
Build your pretend cathedral while
Paradise burns.
Blood deep
Flowers speak
with voices deep
Lions hunt at night
The Red Door
An urn.
I dig fingers down into the ashes.
Seven years can fit in the palm of my hand.
Perspective
No verse ever written
equals the splendor
of ice shards
enflamed across Lake Michigan.
Early Morning Exercise
You may well wonder what your greatest resource is:
When so much else has been lost this remains:
breath.
That bastion of redemption
forever pouring forth from the face of God.
An odd moment
Loss of life
dismemberment
captivity
mindnumbing
soul-crushing
flesh-eating
teeth-gnashing
long-haul agony
rebirth
ecstasy
death
rebirth
Et Cetera
for seven years.
But now, standing
upon the precipice,
in retrospect:
an odd moment.