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