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?