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