i have bunkered down here
in the house on the edge of the world
waiting for the Last Day
in these days every name, every kiss
all pride shall be lost and soon,
after that,
will come the First Day
the day in which i love you

my body is like a just played harp with the memory
of a man who came in a dream
i woke up
he was in my bed, and long and soap colored, and i kissed him
he said not here
in the bathroom, not the bedroom
against the whiteness of the wall
at six o clock in the morning, softly moaning
softly calling
with my mother in the next room
with my mother in the next room
i tasted all the plains of his body
fresh as bread
clean as cream

you don't have to go to church to find me
i'm bored and half asleep there anyway
the heart that is longing will not search long
you will find me anywhere
i am in all places
i am always calling
the long loneliness like a belly growl
everything that separated, anything that
ever howled out horror is now
joining us to we
you to me

i need you and
maybe you need me
this is all i know
though i cannot tell who is me
and who is you
i know
i think
that in the future era
when the world is burned
the only courtesy will be in those
who for the sake of love have given up
all names
and for the love of jesus
have stopped knowing who he is

for love of you
who i am dimly knowing
i will wander homeless with one bucket
and one torch and in living will be
loving every open face

now i know that all my journeys
have only been going to you
now i know that all my rest stops
are restings till i come to you
till i return to you my father
till i come home to you my mother
all my days, while i wander
i shall wonder, loving you

when the angel came
hovering over my bed, hanging in the sky
above me. hair all out, and there was
nothing but flesh under his robe
he told me, not in words but being
believe
he sang and spake in tongues and
every word
from his angelic mouth runs to the one
injunction which is believe
and belief is like a baby's tooth that
grows and grows
and then falls out
and belief is like a river bed
a wadi bed
a desert bed that dries and dries and turns to
dust till you have nothing
belief is like the three day rising,
the tower the desert flower
that resurrects again from nothing
or it
comes up from a little seed transported
in bird shit and blooms and blooms
but first it is a choice
it is better to love than not
it is better to believe and believe than not
the hovering angel sings: make that choice
then faith will follow
it is just so dull to not believe
and so the angel, glowing, his hair all
flowing, thrust out a hand to the holy hill
and commands every atom of your will:
believe

every monday morning--i am used to it now--i
wake up with the thought: i must sleep with you
because i will see you only in an hour
because you were my fisrt love, my first kiss,
though you didn't look like this, like you
do now, i think how it would be to lie with you
to untwist my body from the warmth of you,
how would it be to take my hand along the scrag,
the red gold scrub of your cheek and chin
and then, through the thickness of blong hair,
long and tied with a ponytail
to smell the place between you legs and firmly place
my hands against the little belly
run my hands over infinite ass
at last
in lust is all forgotten and forgiven
in these fantasies there are so many unspeakable
body bending things that we do
but they will all fade like mist when i see you
until next monday morning...

words are just the jangling silver knights
riding around this castle that i can't describe
hope, longing, the shining, growing, the longing, the lust of the earth.
birth to the new creation, james john and peter
beyond the veil
white men to white men
angels hovering up and down
the crown' the cumorah hill
jack and jill
the new birth
i believe in god
i know that there is a revelation
and a revelation
and a revelation
and a book
and a book
and the book is
the man and the man is me
and...

i expect a miracle
and i am full up
with my own bullshit
and i know
this crap i have lived through
this depression i have cried through
when i am through
is the enema
so i will be empty enough
for the enigma

on valentine's day

let there be love on earth
and let it begin in me
let there be hope in the world
and let that shine out of me
today
god is our father, so we are family
let there be love on earth
and let it be born in me
let there be life on earth
and in the sea
let there be spurting growth
and worth and majesty
god is our mother
so daughters all out we
let there be life on earth
endless fountains
eternally
let there be lust on earth
the lust there was meant to be
let there thrusting and sighing
in loins, and mouths, in me
with god as our lover
lovers all our we
and the longing, tingling in your loins
says you belong to me

r o m a n ii

i am crawling to you
i am dying to meet my best friend
i do believe in my other half
though i've sworn that one and one make two
i'm waiting for you to save me
i'm waiting to save myself in finding this we,
this thing they always talk of
this romeo and juliet dagger love
that tumbles
into the tomb
i have run myself ragged trying to live,
what if i die,
what if i sigh with a cupid arrow
and furrow into the ground
and having found love
rise up a fountain?
love is a cloud, love is mountain
love is an oasis, a myth
a smith formed it
and i can't find it in all my waking
so lead me, lady in my dreaming

t r i b u t e

don't you dare apologize
no not ever
you were just looking for a place to hide
you were just trying to get away from the madness,
hide from the demons, turn off
get a break
end the endless wakefulness and get some rest
i know i live in this world too

life and nerves and god and madness
sadness, mice scrambling in the walls,
lovers leaving, demons shouting down the hall
call us to be soldiers, make a frontline
of the beds we sleep in
you didn't ask for this
neither did i
you had to get out, you had to crawl out
scratch and claw your way out work the magic to shrink
and run or slink or jump your way out
and god i get it
got it?

so don't you dare apologize for getting off this ride
when you turned yourself off
turned off of this ride to plunge into so called darkness
i believe that--no
NO! i KNOW that in the end,
in the place where everything is joined
together and every precious thing that was ever lost is found i will meet you
when you took your own way, weeping maybe, out of this starkness
who knows what blazing light was there to greet you

ROMAN I

i thought once it would magical
divine to lead a life tragical
to go mad in my twenties
until it nearly happened
and wouldn't it be sweet, so lyrical
to live a life delerical
till everywhere i walked my heart
pounded like a clock
and i knew fear was not my friend
end the end, health is far better
making it this far
maybe i know far better
back then
to write sad, dripping, lyrics
then succumb to tuberculis,
wan and pale at thirty would have been divine

then i turned twenty-nine

i confess a fear so boring it masquerades
as dullness often sits in the place
where you ought to be
and i make myself into a drudging thrall
all the time you're loving me
with your mouth you made love to me in the deepest
most unspeakable places
in a little bower
in a tiny corner far from
foolish crowds you held me, spelled me
told me
that there is a way out of madness
there is away out of all this
foolishness
a pillar of cloud by day
and a pillar of fire at night
and if your sight fails or
you stumble a bit, drunk and tired and
stubborn a bit
it does not matter
and in these latters days i've been
on this slow, winding path

lord, i am silent
now the hell is gone
there is a supersonic screaming
i hear, screeching over the quiet,
longing to settle over something
one thing, and fill it with drama
secretly breathing, and hoping
and i, in this substitute quiet
having been given all things
am waiting for one thing
that is
like a gentle fire,
like the kiss of a hurricane
your word
to descend
a flaming tongue
and redeem me from all dullness

late morning sun and me alone
with this silence
away from the tyranny of foolish
thoughts
away from the crowd that even one
beside me would make
this is the day, this is the day
that i have been handed to make
and what is more, simply sit in
i would run from it
it is natural, no matter how fat we are
to run from now
so let me love the now
let me live in it

i was john the baptist
and your were jesus
and the holy spirit
and the water roared over
to free us
from the lust for fear
and the desire for dread
and all the demons that marched in our heads
and a kiss for the clinging
gently unhinging our fingers from that which we clutched
and the burdens we carried
the bodies we buried were our own
the widow of nain was mary
we her sons
raised up
raised
up