Beauty reduced to base desire
Is no basis for lasting love.

If this present will not satisfy
there can be no case made for 
my presence. 

Did we ever belong to one another?

What a silly question. 

There is no reason to dream 
when I saw you standing before me

Hours spent alone 
in the silence of myself

I hear a strangers voice

only to hear an echo
of the words from my throat

Cut out my soul

to make room

in me

Oh, Sea of Longing

You must be crossed

For hope to become action

The eternal lives of ghosts

Carve out the boredom from my heart

Turn this inert life

                              into action

wood turning to stone

silent petrification

eternal season

Erasure Piece #1 2/28/16

Beautiful is beautiful / Cut loose your cares / Come home / Never leave

In Solidarity

WE
the great Unwashed MASSES
will Stand

and DEMAND

not ask

DEMAND

CHANGE

but first

we must take action

to enable the waves

of the ocean

to flow back

into the rivers

and tributaries

from which they are fed

Painted Moon

Is there any time left to leave things undone
Mother says there is
It happens to everyone

Did you see the moon last night
Hanging like a painting
In the ink black sky

Basking in moonlight
Call me a seal
But I feel alive again

Caught in the wheels of living
I try not to despair
We're not as alone as we believe

Sing me your song of love
I need all the faith I can get
To push through these desert days

Unwinding the Thread from the Spool

The price of gas goes up and down
while alcohol is affordable enough
to keep you just behind the line of insanity.

Truth does not need a pretty image
or metaphor to convey it's message.

Truth is blunt like a sledgehammer
breaking bricks into bits.

The road drives me numb and mad
in alternating measure.

A young man pulled out his hand
like a gun and pointed at me

and I was furious. Not at the threat
of violence and death

but at the demands of our ill times
on us all

and the prospect of my future
becoming a severed branch.

I'm drinking alone because
I need this meditation

even if the methodology is flawed.
I would be with you tonight

if only we were not so far apart
you and I.

I don't wish to die
but I need to prove to myself

the will to live and smash
apart the lingering grasp

of my self-doubt.

transpose

Everything that has been lost

will be found again

in another time

in another place

in another form

The words don't need 

your help.


They can speak

for themselves.

"Help me.

Everything is falling apart."

Moral Truth

Object to morality that spits in 

The face of our shared fraternity


Fragile creatures of a dying planet

What is it you believe


From clay and ribs

To dust we turn 


My dying eyes 

can see clearly


Open your mouth

Let the voice from your belly


Erupt from your throat

And scald your tongue


With incontrovertible

         Truth

A Call to Action

I am Here 

and it is

               Now.


This is the only fact

that matters.


You are Here

and it is

              Now.

Act.

We can't predict the strength 
of the waves but we can always 
be assured they are coming. 

Tie Your Dreams To The Passing Wind 

Memory is a Reincarnation of the Past

Words of the Inevitable

If there is soul I will find it
This is an exercise in nothing
This nothing is merely a representation
of a temporary something
What is can not be said to be non-existent
What is non-existent cannot be said to have been
In this time we have there is time enough
to be lazy and dream and there is time enough
to work to till the soil to watch the flowers bloom
Life is never wasted
Death is certainly no end
Transitions are always the hardest
and always inevitable
Right now is the only now worth anything
Yesternow has ceased to be of any value
except through the clarity of hindsight
No matter what matters matter cannot cease
the state of its existence
Kiss and bring me to life
Take off my clothes
Place me beneathe the sheets to sleep
To dream To while away time
While here and now I sit
impatient and waiting
Waiting and patiently thinking
of everything Thinking of
letting the river of the cosmos
flow through the fleeting strokes
beneathe my finger tips
Morning has come
and evening is hours away
but it is inevitable
and so
these words are
as well only when
     laid upon the page

Love is a common impossibility. 

The Impossibilities of Love

Can There Still Be Miracles In A World Without Ghosts?

It's a complicated issue thats been discussed at length
between scholars and practitioners of many faiths
but there has been no consensus of which to speak.

I spoke with an empty mind when I was a boy
who was sure of the machinations of the world.

I knew a priest who was kind and wished to show me
the existence of the goodness of God.

He died. He died young and suddenly. I went to his
funeral at our parish. I sat alone in the back of our church.

I had wanted to be a priest. I desired to know the full
measure of God's love and spread His gospel.

After the funeral I no longer considered it.

Can we make a covenant right now between
the two of us? I ask for nothing you cannot give.

Let us give our word to one another and make
this bond in permanence.

Let us commit to exhausting ourselves in this life
to the pursuit of possibility and to create joy

in greater measure than any harm we may will
or encumber accidentally.

I will pray for you. I hope you will pray for me
as well. Let the Holy Ghost descend on us-

in union we shall succeed no matter the distance
we place between.

Bitter Angels

As Quickly As An Angel Falls

I watch the world from 
the windows in my attic

Strange Dogs

You can't be a fool if you've never been foolish.

The Fields of Heaven

Infinite Wave

Start with nothing

Object of existence

Place of unthinking

Pure sound of release

Fragments placed carefully

Create a collage of memory

Break the mirror

Rearrange the pieces

Glue them to a wall

Peace of mind

Doesn't last forever

Play the record

Until the grooves 

Are worn out

I hear nothing 

When I sleep

There is no danger

Only possibility

Sentences can't convey

All the thoughts

I wish to release

Words are insufficient

But they will do

Open up the part 

Of yourself living in fear

Let the beast go

If there is a God

She lives as wind

Flowing through 

The universe

An endless wave

All can feel

Feeding A Starving Beast

It's a long walk to get back home

I'll make it 

even without you

This is what midnight 

sounds like after 

the apocalypse.

Tear a whole into the sky

and let the tears

rain down

                   from heaven

A Season of Revolution

Fallow

I don't need to get drunk but
I do want a drink.

I'm alone and thinking about
what you said to me.

You were you and joked
about it as best you could.

We laughed nervously
as though giving permission

to be ourselves in that moment.
I don't need to spell out

the explicit moment to anyone.
We know and that is enough.

I feel as though I am mourning
with you. I think about

how I loved you and
how I love you still.

I can't help but feel heartache
in a place I rarely let be wounded.

It is
and now all I can do

is this. Alone-
thinking of you

in the darkness of midnight
with a drink,

trying to numb that ache.
I can't, I can't, I can't

know the contents of your heart
but I feel an invisible ache

like a seed that never took,
like a land left fallow.

Carried

Sapling pulled from soft soil

           Roots exposed



Trembling
                   the evening breeze



Together

                 we ask why


I say something

You laugh nervously


We walk away

with a new memory to carry

Intimate Sea

Sleep less

You forgave me
I never forgave myself
Fiction writes itself over forgotten truths
Creates the illusion of reality
The baby is crying
You ask me to
come over
I walk from my chair to you
My steps are measured and uneven
Night will not pass and
I cannot sleep
Eventually the cries lessen
The calmness of the dark
bores into me
The ceiling fixes it's gaze
on my open eyes
until tears burst over
the edges of my eyelids

Threading Halves

Damp hands and stuttered words

that barely leave my mouth

much less

reach your ears


What season am I living in

to be so lost


They say it is winter


I watch pregnant grey clouds

and wonder when they will give birth

The Image
& The Word

Magic & Ritual 

Did you hear
God moved out of Heaven
Left the keys to St. Peter
Ol' Lou came to visit
But couldn't stay too long
Going back home
Going south
Going to where he belongs

Jesus Outside the Liquor Store

I am not opposed to shaving my beard
or cutting my hair
based on any religious considerations
It's more a matter of personal preference

Threads of whiteish gray striations are invading
and I have no way to defend against them
I am content to let them colonize
a territory that will fall to them
regardless of any defensive tactics

On a recent faceless night
I was at the liquor by house and
as I was walking in two young men
walked past me very much looking like stoners

One said to me "What's up, Jesus?"
I stopped, raised my right hand
and said "Blessings, my Son"
We walked away from one another
Into an evening of blurred memories

Tall Oceans

Even the morning feels old. 

Brief Moments of Immortality

There was the time Bear listened to Olive sing
in her living room. Bear was enamored
with her singing as he always was.
Olive was performing that night
to celebrate her new album.
Bear was driving her
and they brought a bottle of whiskey
and a bottle of tequila to share.
Walls intimate with art,
a bare floor with a chair for her.
She sang and sang
and sang, until there were no words left,
until there was relief and joy,
until the bottles were empty
and the night could barely
hold itself back from morning.

We aren't alone in this place

No matter

What signs to the contrary

there may be