oh dark night
cold as iron
black as four a.m.
i am waiting here and now
i here the baby
oh burning log
oh soft sung hymn
let me say no ill thing
i will love everything
teach me to cease
believing in non believing

i don't know facts
i don't know anything
i only know how to be
a virgin
i only know that
the baby is me

How long i wrote of loving you
how long i longed to love you.
i knew you were kissing me but could
only keepy faith, keep faith until
i stopped believing.
and we must not say too much,
we must not speak too long or
else we will jinx it do not
step on the crack or i cannot
get you back
oh, no, take me to your temple
every old day your mercies
are brand new
and you are my gentle
father and devoted mother
giving birth to me

truth rises to meet me with the speed of light,
and tongue tied, I pray she will forgive me for
all the stories i put over her face.
truth comes quicker than lightning,
like the earth to meet the falling
penny and before i'm dashed i pray
she'll pity me
pity a fool who wills to
shape the earth to what
its not and make of
mysteries definition
pity us in our decisions,
whitewashing twice
to make the burning fire ice

I need to love every inch of your skin
more than you know it
i need to hallow every crevice
with my tongue and run
my lips over the smoothness
of your tattooed skin
let me in, let me in,
and love me wholly
or not at all

fish me out
there is no doubt that
if
you are a catcher of men
you are meant to pull me in
i won't deny the pain of denying you
i won't let go of how i'm hiding
the longing
for the taste of you
and then
there is this
i am longing for your skin
i am wishing so hard it is yearning
to be let in
and the truth is everything is wearing thin
until allis fire
and i am sitting here
rising here in my sitting
and in my center
i want there to be nothing
but skin between us
weave us in that web
wrap me in your net

we are here at the lovers' fair
grandma sits in her rocking chair
smiling in compassion
cause once she had passion
her old body has been here
and so it is young forever
and i need your forever
and this ic clear
there is only bitterness
if one has not been on the rides
and walked by the tides
on the shores of the lovers; fair

i am waiting to be delivered
so don't you worry about
the thinness of things
and the lie it brings
to count on that which
can't be tasted
wasted here in deserts
like moses before your bush
i am burning but
i want to be consumed
if god heard me crying he
knew all this while i was dying i
was crying out for life
crying out for jazz
indeed, crying out for ass
looking at you i saw
life

you are the shape of love and pleasure to me
you are the only treasure i see
i am in lust more than in love
for you
what you do is stand there
and what i do is desire
green and brown
the love of earth
and water is more than
fire
and only this constant contemplation
will matter

part of me
is still angry with you
part of me
resents the crime you did not
do
i'm upset
for being such a slut
i'm upset for fucking you
and fucking it up
i'm upset for all the
restraint
how i tried to keep a lock
on my self
and then i sat on your cock
and i'm ashamed
for fucking my friend
and i'm upset
because i want it again

it is to this i come
it is to you i run
lord, i know now
if our hearts are one
you will be one
and if i am looking for my sister
i will have missed her seeking
her in church this sunday
or monday at the place i quickest
call home
and when everyone in world
and in exasperation calls to you
falls to you then we are same
and names have ceased to matter

i want to stand at the end of all drama
as he God knows
i don't want to make war even with myself
and i don't want to sound bells for what isn't true
walking on city streets is just like being in a small
town and the city will not save you
i see pleasant people walking all
about
and no place can save you
from the hell six inches away
of people who spend all their days
half dead
half working
and unhelpful
and on the way home last night
i was startled from a nap
with a crook in my neck,
by th crudest screaming people
but i was too tired to get up and walk away
and i drifted in and out and today
i know
part of punishment of hell
is not being able to leave
and the joy of heaven comes in walking

say to the mother of nations
lay down love on the land
say to the queen of peace
teach me to release my hand
every prophet started true
and then you, like him,
said a little bit more
and a little bit more has screwed
up everything
so what i mean is
oeace,,, what i mean is
what i wish is
peace

if i say now
all is one, then will you let me leave it like that?
and will you not make it a prophecy
simply let me leave it like that
and if you ask me how i know
and how all the weeds that grow in our sidewalk
cracking pavement are just wasting time
then the knowing comes with breathing
and i know just like beliving
that he is one
and in the end as
atthe start
then she will be one
and the god of war
at least cries to his sister peace
lay down love on te land
lay now your love on
the land

oh my love
and oh my deep and sweet eternal fortune
teach me to lust
teach me to be desperate
teach me to desire that which i cannot have
i want to be set on fire
i tire of this fear of burning
that cools all the hot blood
and jades all the yearning
and calls itself wisdom

now i know you love me
and now its time to love you
we both know how i doubted
and on this long journey i was hard
hearted, the dust made me so
and slow to trust
and even though you said wait
even though the rose on the thorn
peeled away bore the fruit of your grace
i was to old and bitter to feel it
to worn out to be new
but you have brought me to this life
and all you loving
and so i come to you
and so i walk with you
and so i live in you

some mornings
like this
it is hard and the only worthwhile enterprise is
to go to bed
so, what is all of this?
why do you get up at five am
the reason is him
and as if He isnt reason enough
the reason is me
we who live alone find the
reasons to live sleeping in
our beds
and in our bibles

i love you
you understand so much when
so often i have been failed
and i love how you gave up asking
stupid questions long ago
i love how you actually pay
attention and i put aside this weariness
that they've been wearing me down with and
i believe,
deep inside that one day
the two of us
will finally meet

and if i show up to the mountain will you be there?
or will i be there
wiil i spend whole days
catching up to myself
face greasy
i go to the icemelt
from the snow tip
i take a sip of your freezing life
go to the pool for baptism
and more than that the
revision that forgives you'
and that will save me

now

and what do you say?
what do you say this morning?
you say nothing
i get up to come to you
but what you have for me is silence
you are asking of me a word
or two words
a word that will create the light
and i say
i believe in you
and i say
i will trust in you
and i say, i will sink into
the six a m dark from where i came
and i will love you

the next time you blow you don't tell me a thing
you just blow the crap out of my head and i say
i have to stop lying
i have to stop crying about the earth as it is
and my lot on it and, to make it far less poetic,
why i can't find a man
and to make it far more honest why all the men
i find are like they are
and why this town is like i is
and why she stands there looking half crazy
and she thinks she'll get disability
and you know she won't
she's just the craziness of the day
and you smile, you say
sure you will
i was so sick of this town i rode three bus routes looking
for the place where it got pretty and then at the edge
of the city i got off and sat at the top of a hill
cut like a grag, like a canyon
and river ran there and blue and silver it said
silence

and on this day, when prayers end
and trumpets blow
i am commanded by the ram's horn to pay
attention to the noiselessness of things
even the gentle thoughtful noise is too much
even the beautiful beauty has too much
glinting
hinting that i should do more than just sit
i should listen to it
but no, listen to this
i can't keep eating yogurt and making
list and i can't get enough done
and the problem with you and your
marriage is though you stare at him
the trade off you made for him
is passing a buck
and wedding rings mean never having to say
you're you
and that's the luck
that's the luck

i don't want to be like this anymore
which is to say
i don't want to be in the place where i can't see you
i don't want to be in the place of anger anymore
he said,
a wise man told me
well he told his congregation
we need to be restless, we need a constant awareness
of the monstrosity of injustice
and so we feel its nailprints now and again
and then
again and again
and what i want is to feel them with joy
and what i want is to never despair
and what i need is to listen

listen
to the ancient story i don't like
sit still and instead of hearing about saints
hear about your ancestors
saints
made proclamations and
prophecies and they roused nations
these folks were busy making you
in their lying and their dying and
their tying boys to altars and
sending them into the desert
ah, put your head upon a stone
a stone used for a pillow and pray
you will begin to see
salvation

it seems above all things unlikely that i would
hear something true
from this thing, ear shaped
ram horned
thirty days to listen to it pierce
the silence with a new old ancient noise
thirty days of the voice of the dead ram
and then
to say
what are you saying?
and what are you saying?
sometimes what you are saying is simply:
silence

every boy is beautiful
the night before you die
every boy is wonderful
in that last sad desperation
and his smiles and hesitations
are all little promises
here
on the edge of hope and
the sacred season
where everything is possible
and everything is magical
right before you
die

tossing and turning
well now i feel like a fool
cause all i ever wanted is
all i ever wanted
and, well, i hope you understand what that
means,
that all i ever pictured was
all i ever pictured
and well, you know,
this means i was lackin in imagination
living in loving you
is to transcend
and transcending is just a fancy way of saying
living beyong my dull imagination
its just another way of telling the waiter
in this world to send back the crap on your plate
to simply state: i want more
and on a simpler bread
and water sate yourself

whether it helps or not, this is
a well earned nihilism
and i know there is no reason to
believe any of the promises
made here
in the cold land
made by all these cold men
and, what is more
half the vows, half the doors
opened to reveal their prizes just show me
that what i wanted is worthless
how if i open my eyes
to the opening of the eye
how if i see the sight
see the light?
and instead of the promise of
live in the moment of
your love?

this could be the first day,
the day when i am born and
the day
where i know you love me
and where, not being all about me.
i fall into love with you
so too, when i learn that forgetting is past
forgiveness andacceptance is over both
so, jesus would have learned
has he been a lover spurned
and i,
don't want to spurn him
i want to walk into this garden of delights
everything in my sight has been wortless
and until this day
i have been birthless

you don't create because you
don't have the life in you
you don' make cause you
don't have the love in you
light a candle
pray to sarasvati
to see every little thing
and to begin to care
the only way to create
your own world
is to be deeply invested
in the one you're already in

life give me life
this lukewarm liking is not enough
give me thriving
life burn me with fire
till i retire from this house of
ice
i will melt, my head throbbing
in this sun before
i run away from such a fire

when i meet him i will know him
because he will not complete me
he will come from the other
side of the universe where
i always knew i was
and when i see him he will
be so alive
i tire of the half dead

if i meet one more slouching
creeping person
i'll tear my eyes out
i want to see you
i want to tear the dullness
of this life
to live in freshness
with you

now that the time for tears is over
having wiped them off with the end of
my shotgun
i have to get up again
and then
now that i find myself alone
i'm still going to have to find home
and, still, i'm going to get up
and do what i have to

the only way to catch a star is to tousle
the only way to wrest your dreams
is through struggle

having forgiven, i'm not going to lie
down because there just isn't time
there just isn't a way
having ceased expecting you to
do what you should
and give what i need
i will
still hope in God
and in my hands
and what you won'
t give
nd what you won't give
and how you won't live
i'm going to have to have
to motherfucking seize

six am surprises me with the dull ache
the old fresh disappointment
that i need to forgive you
that you won't do right
and you won't do right
and none of you can do right
and i've been waiting a long time for you
to
but i need to forgive you
that there's no strength in you
for the water in your hands
and the water in your wills
and the blood on my face
i forgive you
in the dullness of this ache i
forgive myself
for being so, so fragile
as to hope in you
and to love you

she clucked out another platitude and
you can remember if you want to
i know it sounds good and so you're
welcome to it
but, honey, you just remember
it doens't matter how good it sounds
if it isn't true
so, say all you want, but the
thing i'll be having time for is
what is
i'd rather have it be true than pleasant
and i can't back away from that
and that is why you're backing away
from me

there is a rule to life and i am beginning to know it
you don't have to make a thing happen if you cast yourself in the pot
do not deny the flowing of this world
even now in summer heat, even now in yawning
i can feel it
it doesn't ave to be believed
i can feel Mother Ol'ds ladle beating against my tabel
and my shoulder and saying let's move on
i cansurrender to the drums
and to the desire
this fire isn't from a candle, sharply lighting
even when its lightning, it booms low across the sky and turns
the green grey to blu
ah, this lustful fire's about you

in this heat only wild things grow
thick as soup the air scarcely past
five in the morning
white as milk, as seed, as blindness
traces of the fog
only the wild grow in this stultifying
stuff and the secret to their growing
is the root knowing
they just lie there and thrive

l i k e r u t h i n m o a b

like ruth in moab
i need to go
there is no naomi,
but i need to go
clearly i know that i have to get the fuck out
i have to get on a train
i've got to shake all of this
when i got up to get out of town
i knew i was getting away from the place
that frustrates me so much
the restricted life that ticks me off
so much
why do you bug me so much
now i know sister,and can
confess to your brother
i left to get away from one god
and follow another

the worship that comes
after a slap in the face
is silence
is the stun of nothing
the praise that comes with the
assault of pain, looking for the
reason of the pain and seeing no
reason for the pain
is blank sky
old land, no rain, nothing
and the pilgrimage is prayer
and you can see over there
and after the hurt and throbbing tears
the holy journey is you in
desperation flying

it is too early and i am too fresh,
too not awake
too much remembering the
unsubtle pains of the past
to pretend things are better than they
are
and i am too full of the memory
of defeat to take optimism too
far
i've beleived for a long time
and walked past the bethelem star
before i said, Jesus is, and jesus gives
and now i live saying
nothing

i used to travel and
now there is no one to travel to
and you stayed home
so i travel alone
because i need it
and because i love the land passing by me
and i don't want life to pass by me
and i need to shake this all away

its not that we are so great
or this is so great
or everything, lately, that has happened
is so wonderful
only that it is all there is
at the altar open yourself to what is
and throw yourself down
cut your face open and spill out
your blood
give your energy
and in it see the sacrifice of all
that has been
and all that will be

i am not afraid
to be a lover of strangers
the electric danger is all
there is
and how do i know what is
if i cannot run to it
and how do i love
if i cannot love it
and how do i know you
if i do not know the stranger in you
and then
how can we stop from being strangers?

in the end there is only you
and you
and you
and the few of us
we are not a large community
those who have shared life and love
and tasted skin
and what is man
who is made from a spurt of water?
and what is man so prone to sin
and what is man
made of a clot
and clotted together again?
man is the joy of me
and me and all i see
and man is you

i keep losing you and finding you
to lose you again
i would love
this time
to find you for good
the magic furry brown bag
the eartny satin of your skin
i want again
your elfin smallness
and your allness
and the loveliness of you
the little you
in this bed

i used to sing of the bridal chamber
i will not sing of things i cannot see
he brought me to the desert
and that is fine
i used to sing of the festival
and the bright season
these days i don't write about wine
i endure
i live, i learn not to pine
equilibrium
or something like it
is his gift

at five am i may remember the key to life
and at five thirty i will start to remember
its source
cold as the north
and sluggish as the south
tired of surprises
i blink my eyes
gummy faced and freazy i shut my
eyelids
you hid so much from me
yesterday i was so proud of everything i had done
make me proud of no doing
make me a being
make me less than the earth
and more than believing

don't be so gaurded
be flesh, not stone
not terrified to moan
lay on your back
open yourself
be a whore
sunday school was wrong
love's not so precious, its abundant
if you lose it, go and bum it,
you can always get some more

someone has scorched the earth and
split the world with fire
and it does not matter who
the fire lies in you and so does
unquenchable dryness
i want to love my brothers
i want to love jesus
i want to be my brother, i want to live in
jesus, but not now

not with unpaid bills and toothache

but with unpaid bills and toothache is the only
now there is
and the only revelation i give

what the priest has said
what the prophey said
the prophey, breathing visions of god
screamed out loud and shook us
the priest said go to bed
and men spur out talks from true vision
and call it religion
an organized monster
don't let him eat you
they say jesus died to free us
but i know that he lived to be us
they say jesus died to save us
don't believe in them
don't believe in him
become him

infinite grace

i spent ten years dreaming of dreaming
and ten dreaming of love
another ten that the lover would be you
and now i don't dream and i don't
wait
for the other half
content yourself
like it or not you are
the better half
and you are the worst
and in the first and fine invisible line
between this and that face
is infinite grace

in the rain i'll walk a little farther
in the downpour i walked faraway
from you and went to places you would not
follow
and i do not despise you for your weakness
only
when you see me
all windswept and bedraggled
all wet and bedazzled by jewel drops of dew
do you see the ghost of someone who in my company
you once wished to be?

visiting the retreat house

we are here because
we are all desperate
we are all lonely
we are all in need

if we were a little more desperate
alittle more lonely or a little
more aware of the acute need
then love might replace selfishness
and the greed you make like leaves
make oxygen could save you from
your sin again

and the irony of it is that
he is sad because he has taken faith
in the new spirituality
where he has put himself at the heart of the
universe
and trading in some jewish, muslim, calvinistic
worn of spooky Catholic old jehovah he has
whistled and has made a new God
who runs by names of source
and spirit and anything else
vague enough to make us sitters in the old
regime wonder
and so the creed runs that
the lord if my djinni and this that i
want i deserve
and by a whole hundred other witchcrafts
and the positiveness of all my thinking
i will be drinking in all those gifts
and your bible comes to build up self esteem
ah, but don't be mean
the truth is this is one thing you never needed help in
and in the new spirituality
you have everything because its all about you
and the new--here's the thing about it--
spirituality
is just the same old silly things dressed up
and cooked up and put on a plate
for the foolish
and ghoulishly dressed and decorated
for the greedy

i want to be resolved to my irresolution
i want to have the saint's acceptance
deep inside my heart
so deep i cannot see
i believe this life right now is God's
broken jagged gift
and i stand here,
looking at him as if
he were some stupid child
trying not to cut my
fingers as you press
it to my hands and
wonder what is
the holy protocol
and through it all
do i say thank you?

in my rage against the way things are,
in my utter forsakenness
in my goddamn tiredness i know,
in my heart of hearts that this irritation
this things that sets me crying is the taste,
is the gift of the pain inside the pain
this is the thing that makes everything real
to feel, at all times, like a limp, a little
bit of the hurt that makes the world go round
do not resist the midnight tears that
burn as they fall down your face
do not wonder to much at rage
and at this new and punishing disgrace
this is the wound of heaven
the mystery of answerlessness
standing mute witness to the
holiness of not knowing
on the lip of despair

if i am a saint then i don't now what i'll
be the patron saint for, cause every
morning i wake up with a new belief
and a new unbelief and a new
submission and a new refusal
and i think i still believe in jesus though
i couldn't tell you who he is
and i still believe the world
is good and full of purpose
but i've got to reach deep down to find it
and i don't know why this life is filled
with exasperation
or why in masturbation i keep
seeing my best friend
and we are twisting and we are
kissing, then we're rising
then past orgasming i
am waking up alone

i am all out of rhyme and reason and full of fury
and lust, craziness, something that will not alow itself
to delve into depression. in short i am totally
ready for poetry
i am ready for the inside of me to be slowly
spooned out like bad butter from a dish, here the heart,
here the lungs, here the imaptience

and the other night i watched a film on mother teresa,
and she gave herself to jesus, and she kised the
rings of holy fathers, and catholicism was so
real to her, and jesus spok so clear to her
that no matter what she did she could do anything.
but it doesn't take calcutta to drive me
crasy and less than starving children
make my long night of te soul
i am a person of short
thresholds

walk away from the party
whatever the party
and draw the curtain and
put out the noise
for a little white turn off
music and don't be taunted
by all the noises you hear
all the chatter you hear
experience with out fear
what all the loud and laughing
banging, shouting radio
playing people are haunted by
that
in the end
this is us
and no noise in the world
can change the fact
you are alone

all of you
twenty somethings, happy studnets in your house
having parties, shouting laughing, down the road.
all of you too old to be so foolish,
hillbillies in winkles,
in ignorance playing loud
gospel music, driving me cazy,
cutting away my peace, all of you,
driving your loud cars that make my
house shake, all of you who are about
to drive me to drink, and some of you who
palce me on the brink of worry, all of
you in a hurry, who don't give a damn,
every single one of you
will be sitting her, tired and exhausted, having
let go of the dreams that matter
and quietly working on the ones that do,
feeling as flustered as i,
frazzled and ready to burn
but will you handle it as well as me
when it is your turn?

i don't mind being poor and needy as long as i don't
have to need too much. as long as you provide
for me what i cannot provide myself
what i do demand isthat you do not
leave me an orphan
these days, thr truth is,
you really seem to leave me
fending for myself a little too much,
you leave me a little too tired, and all i want
is a little bit of quiet, and you
drive me crazy everytime i look
for a palce to rest my head
and all i want to do is lay
down my head, and you keep
sending me Amalak, at my doorstep
i don't mind a little suffering
in the living room, provided,
and this s key,
you show me a way out,
through the back door
and what is more,
you don't lead me
into false hope

i think in light of some of the shit that's been going on
it would be wisest to readjust our expectations
no matter what information we have received,
if, in this life, we attempt to do anything involving
a little bit of quiet and a touch of finding soul,
then we may be in for a struggle
i am tugging tomorrow on a barge of hundred horrid yesterdays
and part of me still believes that we'll be okay,
and most of my believes that will be okay
and you say, behold the power of postivie thinking,
and you say, gods wants us to be rich kings,
and you say, that life will always be this way,
as happy as you know, but i think that you've
been drinking and my only
suggestion for you
is to readjust
your expectations

A MEDITATION.... ON LAURA LOSING HER MIND

and she said, this is the way it is. and i thought
why can't you just shut the fuck up
and you told me, well that's the price you pay
and i thought
go to hell, to hell with you too
and she found hrself in the booby hatch, after ten eyars
of trying to be insane
and i think that soon i may be there with her
and he foudn himself not finding anything,
scratchign doodles
all theda,y brain fried on drugs,
having consumed marijauna
sandwiches and i think this is what i think
that everythign in the world is a drug
and dope to shield you
from the world of hte world of the world that you made
and this is what i think, that the entire world is crazy,
stretching out in mazes of commercial and oprah and cosby
sweater MTV caramel facebook myspace NPR oblivion and
all the time, from the time you enter inots school ,
especially those god schools that want to get you
already for the world, shiny for the fuck you up
the assable for theworld they say, this is how you
do it, this is how you do it and they offer a ball
of shit wrapped and gold and you say, ain't that a bal
of shit wraped in golod? and thye tell you, uh huh honey,
it's jesus,. and this is the ball of shit that frees us.
Well, and that's what this world offers you

all the fresh and pink white world is a
dance club, and your sanity is the price
of admission

and if all the little ways, lying to yourself,
being someone else, marrying a shadow,
making a shadow, eating marshmallows till
your ass is as wide as a marshmallow,
boobed out on the tube out don't get you there,
thenthere is only one sure protest i can see,
one appropriate response to this insanity

AND THAT IS TO SIMPLY BREAK DOWN
AND LOSE YOUR MOTHERFUCKING MIND!

bowing down requires no words, though it made mean i have
to clip my fingers, and there is nothing in this world without
it.
at six am i stretch and stretch and bow forward, bend forward,
knowing, at last
after all the stiffness of sunday praying that the body is
the ehart and the heart is the mind and the mind is the life
and if i can't stretch out my arm, then the soul stas frozen
and i had chosen, years ago,
to believe that bowing to divine will was simply
of matter of sitting at the
hill of the mountain of
the great dictorial godliness and
saying, yessum, yessum
what if had not known and barely
know is the blessed reiverlyiness
of things, the way of the flow of things and
the bowing down of things and the bowing down to things
ant at this moment you are god and she is god
and the way of the world is god an the golden calf,
ground into silt and ground ito ashes and mashed
into water to drink is god and sumbmission,
nd bowing down, is stretching,
and loving
is bending.

IT IS DANGEROUS TO KEEP ON WRITING FOR, IF I HAVE NOT COME TO THE END OF TRUTH, THN THE TRUHS I HAVE CERTAINLY COME TO THE END OF

it is dangerout t keep on writing
for
if i have not come to the end of truth, then, the truth is i have certainly come to the end of my ability to perceive it
and like rain all heavy in the cloud i do believe i am
on the very edge of belief
i don't fdare speak another word for that last word
would be the word and in it is all the light
and truth i have spent thirty years trying to learn to dance by
though it slay me i shall trust it, though he slay me i
shall
though he slay me i will trust him
and the truth is the trusting and the slaying
are all one
and the starting of the deed is how you know
the love is done.

every line i've typed here has been bad
because over and again i thought i had to imitate what canot come back
because you know how much we lack even the seed of the kernel of the beginning
of the desire to begin
circle afte circle and here we go again
and everyone i've known is walking in circles and all my life has been spent making them sprials and the truth is we say we want to change. we take the ball of thread in hand and rearragange and untangle
and mangle until we arenearly at the labyrinth door and then, enarly approachngfreedom wonder
what the fuck we wanted it for
and, with the grace of denial, turn around and on the stone ground smooth by a thousad thousand feet like ours, head back to the dark for the familiar minotaur
for it is better to be devoured by the beast you know, with his bording horns and his dull snorts, then to step into the ariadnew freedom you can no longer understand

the whole thing is i've been trying to do the same old thing new again
don't be fooled by postmodernism
the new is just what it says
don't be fooled by odern logic when
the old philosophy was better
you cannot step into the same river again
and then wait for saint john to batize you
you cannot hypnotize even yourself
into believing you haven't been here
or that this last river will do for the next blessing
prepare to bind your heart in the prayers of those before you
dare t not deny the misery all around you
do not be afraid to dance the dervish twirl of despaire
nor run from rage
do not be afraid to taste your
awful portion
and every age of your life was born from ths abortion
of the fetus frozen with cold

thrills go through me all the time
dragons trot like evil children
i still haven't learned to
be fearless
i am still addicted to suffering
there is still a piece of me that
cannot survive without being
afraid
i need to be dazzled by the terror
need to be frazzled by the fear
of falling
and after all this time
i still drink the crazy wine
and fall down fainting.

there is only one thing to do with him
face the dragon
well then there are only two things
you can do with him
ride the dragon
well then there are three
breathe the dragon
well, then i guess a fourth
be the dragon
so mouth puckered like i'd been drinking wine
i opened my lips and sipped him in
i ate him like communion
you never know how strong the wind is
then you bow against him

there is only one thing to do with him
face the dragon
well then there are only two things
you can do with him
ride the dragon
well then there are three
breathe the dragon
well, then i guess a fourth
be the dragon

worrying will not add a black hair
but it will make them grey
what jesus said isn't strictly true
and i am not strictly over you
and over fear
and i am not strictly doing all i
should
or all i can
it seems like every progress i have made
is washed back like the sand
and after all this time
still covered in grime
i am left here trembling

thrills go through me all the time
dragons trot like evil children
i still haven't learned to
be fearless
i am still addicted to suffering.

there is go again
and there you went
and we are praying for something
like grace
there goes sanity again
and there goes sin
and here i am
longing for longing
its been such a while
since i've seen your smile
or touched sweet flesh
and lain with you
i can hardly remember

lately
all i do is get drunk
and act like a fucking fool
all crazed and twisted
because i can't have you

i can't even breathe
and i don't know how to live
without your shadow

i am here
long past my ability to believe
or conceive anything
shaped like optimism
and irrelevant to
the revenants lurching
in and out of of this room
i a here
always, even now
dimly believing
in virgin births
and resurrections out
of tombs

i am here
long past my ability to believe
or conceive anything
shaped like optimism
and irrelevant to
the revenants lurching
in and out of of this room
i a here
always, even now
dimly believing
in virgin births
and resurrections out
of tombs

i didn't start playing to win
you may say that, but then you will
be disappointed
no, i came to play because
there isn't anything else to do
play this game
dance this step,
make your move
or perish.

remember before the beginning when i first
heard that you loved me
and i danced to you
now i slouch to you
crawl to you
resolve to you
turn my back on all others to come back to you
because in my often dull and tired way
i am in love with you
more than three a.m. fucking i am
in lust with you
put up a fuss for you
because i begin to dimly see
how you loved me

mornings
darker than my feet i stumble
for you
and into this life again
stiff limbs
and they are not the only thing
stiff when i am rising, robing, shading
my body from the coldness.
since the first time a woman with a bouffant
redder than the revelation saint john
dragons that she spoke about
told me about her jesus
i have been on the path silvering
golding
unfolding
into what i know not until
now, twenty years later, drinking coffee with
heavy rosary beads hanging from my hand
i am right back at the holy
place where i began

so i gave up the idea that there's nothing
to fear
in the light of the fact that
this life if filled with unpleasant surprises
and i wake up thinking often of
the broken promise of you
and how i walked away from
them
the challenge
which cannot be matched by wits or weapons
but only by graceful surrender
is to render respect to truth
and the way shit is
and yet continue laughing

i dreamed of everything i wanted
and then they receded
till on the sleeping ocean
washed what i needed
and i was confused cause
in everything i viewed
washing up the waves
there wasn't you

baptism ii

i will light the blue candle
and submerge in the green water
and in the gold light
baptize myself again to
you
once, all golden and light
you came down to me in the river
jordan
in the form of a dove
love proclaimed you its
eternal son and let me in
on the bargain too
and so i come back to you
inspite of all things
i don't wait not to be bitter
i just expect to be made human
as you came to make me long
ago

baptism 2010

i am commited to continuing on
but continuing in what is
and not in what is not
and what you are
is a valley where i have stored
many disappointments
and what this journey is
has sometimes been a trip
i'd rather not take
so unpolished, battered
and a little bit bitter i
give myself to you
in this imperfect love
which has not cast out
all fear

like a scream and a yell
like a gift from hell
all tenderly like wrapped in
darkness and flame
it comes
... once a witch whispered to me
the space between heaven and hell is inches...
with the cry of a bell and
reverberation shaking my dead body
into something like life
after all this time of fitful dozing
comes the gospel, more frightening then
wails about wrath and God's
fire and brimstone,
more hopeful than stories of sailing to heaven
in a ship that everyone's in
whether they wish it or not
and more than all those visions
cause this vision
is true

in the dark night he opens his mouth
and screams out a horror that stretches
beyond optimism or depression, past any vision
that comfort or pills or
and act of will can help into an absolute truth
of blackness
and if he can
and then he will
with the help of a million angels
walk to the heart of this black cloud he shall
see God
and he knows,
covered in night sweats that
god is there
and this dubious gift,
you see
is prophecy

take off your skin and scream
slip off your garments one by one
shirt, scarf, shoes
undergarments, dermis and
epi too
until you are naked and bleeding
thus
come before god
and not before all the people
this is religion
and not what they say
and all bleeding and screaming
cast yourself in the jordan

while i was wrapped in snow and half sleep
you came through all my nightmares with a kiss
on the head and said
only hard candies need cellophane wrappers
blessed are men when soft men touch
and much of this is to me
epiphany

epiphany i i



you swooped into the world
on the breath of a comet
in the womb of a virgin
and now, such as i am
i am your man
there is much i would rather not do
and a lot that makes me tremble a little bit
like the chill in the kitchen makes me
tremble
but to dissemble, and to hold back
that is the real monster that
i cannot stand
and to withdraw my hand from
the tree of good and evil
after the serpent showed me
is what i could never do
and what i cannot do is shrink back
and what i do fear
with all my heart
is to lose my heart
in fear

the rattle rattle of the old space heater makes
the bitterness of winter sweeter but does not
keep my fingers from being cold
and alone, having shut the door, having
refused more busyness. more silliness
not wanting to walk over the frozen tundra
that the city has become i sit here, still weakly
wishing, still believing in things that
have not come
taking for token of a future promise those
things that have
and i am still not satisfied with the way things
are and
far from that being a sign of your absense it means
i believe to strongly in you
and through this all i know i've always seen the star
i came from the east. i cannot stop
i've followed you so far

i am too tired to con myself into
good feelings
i am too tired for anything but kneeling
i am too cold for glorious beholdings
all i can do is open my mouth
and all you can do
is all you will do
which is sweep me up
having offered your hand
and that little greatness
is grace

i am too tired to con myself into
good feelings
i am too tired for anything but kneeling
i am too cold for glorious beholdings
all i can do is open my mouth
and all you can do
is all you will do
which is sweep me up
having offered your hand
and that little greatness
is grace

and what do you do with a new year
or an infant you cannot see
evergreen down all we've found is snow and ice
and we are too tired for hoping and nearly too weary
for breathing
and believing is just a headache
and in the scattered manger this may be the message of
that season
past any cheer you could force
in the snowborn worst
in the discarded wrapping paper waiting
like a shroud
desperation as loud as the misery
of doorstop fruitcake
i am born and
i am here

i am waiting with a dull ache
to be opened
i am the earth
and if you are the lightning
then frightened as i may be
i'll let you come in
you are my dream and then...
come in

when i sat down to write i was poor
and when i rise i'll be poorer still
it was my will and your condition
and with the permission of sarasvati
and with her white body, draped in
sapphire and my naked flesh
dealt out in you
i am the artist

you are the artist
with michelangelo face
and hair that smells like marijauna
you are the flower
i'm the fauna
opening
opening to you
and this badly done poetry
is better than yeats or keats
because
it is done by me