A Look Inside Life

There’s a fire in my soul,

if there’s a thing inside I know.

Sweet internal strife,

well that’s just fucking life.

There’s something that I stole,

in every breathe I owe.

My wheezing whistling fife, 

well that’s just fucking life.

There’s a feeling in this hole,

it was empty, I let it grow.

Black roses inside so rife, 

well that’s just fucking life.

Madness of Making

It starts at the fountain of white liquid gold.

Brick walls the closest thing to sky blue you’ll ever see.

Orange brick floor a shade off the flicker of flame- 

      a wet death trap, the ground that gives way

      to the fall to hell.

It is a wheel of innumerable locks with dates.

An electric sensorium, stretched over the line-

      wheels turning, jaws snapping and grinding teeth.

      A plastic river that breaks and stops and goes.

Men in white uniforms like orderlies- 

      keep the crazy process moving,
      we are explorers
      into the madness of making.

A Lie in the Sky

     We flew up into the sky.

There was a thunder storm that night, dark clouds like anvils while thunder boomed all around and the lighting came down in fierce sheets across the sky.

And we flew up, past dancing lightning strikes and the roar of thunder into the black billowing roof over the world. 

It was wet and cold and the air was electric with the loudest sound pounding your ears, but the taste, the taste and smell now that was something more peculiar. 

The mind is a storm, my neurons franticly flashed in my brain like the lighting strikes in the clouds, the words to understand it all came like the sound of thunder in my skull, words so loud in the mind they terrified and amazed me to my very core. 

     We flew faster, and plunged head first into the clouds.

We hurtled through the misty darkness with light flashing everywhere. 

I felt the mist in my eyes, I truly felt what I saw. 

Up and up we went, until the clouds themselves began to glow, like a fire beginning to grow in the sky above. 

Still there was the thunder pounding but as we broke the surface of the cloud cold and wet we were no more.

     There was still the sound of thunder pounding, and the peculiar smell there in the air. 

I thought I saw angels, I thought my flying escort an angel here in disguise, for there were many people with golden sun kissed skin dancing and music was in the very air. 

Those heavenly bodies they moved just like angels I tell you, I swear. 

My Own God, the Sun

I want the Sun

           the life that it grows

           the star living deep in our bones.

I want the Sun

           the world that it shows

           the world’s warmth shining in our homes.

I want the Sun

           the explosion of cosmic flows

           the stars exploding out of our souls.

Naturally

There’s something about this greenery,

this ever-changing scenery,

that caught me sitting serenely,

then thinking about the Sun’s energy,

though feeling apart completely.

Global Glob

Somewhere there is a million people

kissing all at once, 

somewhere there is a million people 

spitting simultaneously, 

this mass exchange of saliva, 

this mass collection on the ground.

      I know this because 

there is an aged couple, 

a foot away from me, 

in tender embrace exchanging a kiss,

as I spit to the ground, 

trying not to corrupt their kiss. 

     I’ve made this number, 

a million times in my head, 

from a fanciful equation, 

from the prediction 

of the eternal exchange 

of water, 

of the source we all come from, 

of the contradicting ways

which our waters are used. 

One makes a million, 

a pool of numberless droplets 

of unthinkable shape and size. 

A kiss can lead to a million seeds 

either captured, or released 

onto the ground. 

                                 Seeds, 

grown from spitting skies, 

mingling beside the 

couple where my spit lies.

Kiss goodbye, leaving spit. 

Black lung death kiss, yet, 

Flowers lips opening to Apollo’s shaft.

Eskimo brothers, all spitting and 

kissing into the same flowerpot.

Drooling, who are we fooling, 

it’s stimulated saliva, 

drooling, who are we fooling,

it’s the marriage of kiss and spit.

An Argument for Love

I met the Warrior of love

the other night,

he challenged my cynicism 

to a fight.

Fearless French lessons,

of “rape and atomic bombs”, 

in love’s language,

“touching spiders

just to get close to them”-

to love them.

Finding meaning in the meaningless

“circles that bring us closer”,

and further away.

I met the Lecturer of love

dressed in armour,

(wine, a weapon)

harassed in amour. 

The drunk philosopher

teaching drunk pupils 

about the “ripples 

of the water,

circles of wisdom” 

coming to teach 

you about love.

I met the Lover of love, 

I said “love” is just a “word”

He said “No! 

You must have misheard;

it’s a feeling,

it’s spiritual, 

it’s the excited chemicals

within that make you scream

EYYAAHHH”!

Immortalitree

We are the Earth.

From dust to dust, 

As we must.

Still earth is alive with you.

Wooden coffin holds a tree,

With seeds above, dying to be free.

Bones buried, will rise again.

We grow with our demise,

With the leaves up to the skies.

Soul of the Sol

Set with a moving

     painting in the sky,

     white canvas with

     endless borders blue.

     Apollo’s Picasso in the cloud.

          Atlas smoking

          pomegranate puffs.

-don’t mention the lighter

that ends the world,

     He may take it

     as his paintbrush

     for his final master piece.

Same old Sun set, 

yet lights anew for few

-don’t fear the dying sun

Look to fire in the sky,

Kindling for the Artist’s eye.

A Poem for Chester

A new aged man,

     touching ancient mossy stone,

walking alone, but not as one,

with ghosts of Romans. 

     Our conquerors and conquests,

     are our own. 

Walls, bridges, and fortifications

     of old. 

What are we trying to keep out-

What we are trying to connect to.

One Walks

To be one in a crowd, 

the solitude, the shroud. 

The mind begging

to scream out loud.

Hello, hello, echo, 

smile and echo away.

To move and not be moved.

I’m still here, I’m here still. 

The One I Don't Want to Name (Untitled)

Pulling water from my eyes,

I grew a thirst for the

Rain of English skies.

She put a spanish seed in my brain,

The desire grew and I flew to Spain.

She started a dance

That kept me in trance,

Then sent me spinning to France.

Slip away into the night,

Slip away into the garden,

Slip away into the flight. 

My Cell

I keep this cell in my pocket,

held in place by invis-

-ible airwaves.

Sometimes I take it out,

just to look-

-at myself in the glare.

I forget I’m held here,

I forget I’m held in the mirror,

I forget I’m held as I hold my cellular.

Last Call

There’s a hole in the wall

a tiny bar in a tiny town.

Stone oven, taps, and candle light-

Something for the hunger, the thirst

and the loneliness in the night.

Saw the prettiest little thing

          and tried to converse,

          in our small universe, 

over how loud the spirits did sing

         within.

Stayed out late, drinking in 

the beauty of the night-

         -Taps running dry 

         and the fire is dying out.

She’s got me by the look in her eye

and I don’t wanna say goodbye.

Grandfather Clock

My father says life is like a pendulum-

-I think it is a pendulum of a single swing

     we are babes

          we are men

               we are old

                    and then, the

                         pendulum freezes-

or does it break in its swing,

oh so violent in its final stroke

or - do we swing back (to life?)

                           from old

                       to men

                   to babes

then back again?

     ...to something else?

     do we turn to birds?

soar to a lie in the sky

          or 

sink to a fear in the ground.

     Oh wise Grandfather clock!

that stands so patriarchal

    over the graves and airs of men,

Where does your pendulum place us? 

-Tell me how 
     you keep on swinging on

after your maker has been gone
   for so long.

Backside of Fear

I’m getting my back back,

     My Mama says “There, there.” 

The world screams “Attack! Attack!”

     My brothers say “Here. Here.” 

All I can feel is this Hack’s hack,

     Fighting to breathe; “What does Fear fear?”

Queen of Gasoline

She's dancin'

                     a trail 

                     of gasoline, 

She's smilin'

                     behind the flame

She's playin'

                     with her hair

She's twirlin'

                      the very air

                      burning, dancing

      She's the 

     Queen of Gasoline.

Grotesque Grotto

-Like a lick of the grotesque

“Carry your demons with you like a double; 

a lost rubble of long forgotten trouble” 

Its all that anger, 

destruction come from

your lungs, and the

hurt on the tip

of your tongue.

“Exercise your demons 

and let them dance

upon your tongue”

Its that negative energy 

beaten back within-

beaten black and blue.

With eyes bulging

with outward hatred true.

“Hug the darkened embodiment

to quell the cannibalistic tide”

Its home - hidden in 

a pit of bile,

in a cage of bones,

a welcome mat

of teeth which moans.

“Kiss the carnavelesque creation

and love your demons’ dreams”

Its a path for evil unfurled,

your tongue like

a red carpet

unto the real world.

Black Water

“I am but a vessel 

who treads through 

troubled tides” 

-a warning to the reader.

There-

was paradise on the water black,

before I turned my back.

There-

is a man pouring

a barrel of oil on a boring

bikini clad model this morning.

There-

as she posed in the sand

he touched her with his hand

saying, “Sorry- for destroying the land.”

There- 

is a black oil slick,

a rainbow in the sand, 

a beach once loved, makes me sick,

I hope you understand. 

A Poem to Entertain a Travelling God

A home of brick and wood,

my bungalow 

     sitting on a

          ravine below

where I played as a

child long ago.

I've tended the 

     leaves of grass

and 

     made my fort

“fit to entertain a travelling god”

     on the forest floor

          of my childhood's sod. 

We made a trail 

     to the meadows

and made footholds in the trees. 

We made dinner in the kitchen, 

my dear friend climbed the 50

     foot cedar, I watched him, 

          like a bird in the trees, 

               as free as a child could be.

As I looked at him he must have looked at me 

for we both had a sense of infectious glee. 

     I knew what he could see, 

he could see me in my bungalow, 

50 feet below, 

he could see the town of hills, 

the farmers' fields, 

the ravines and rivers, 

the trails that we walked long ago. 

     

     My friend is now long gone, 

across the ocean, 

he took to the blue 

of the sky and the sea. 

     Maybe he saw something more

 from high in the tree, 

something I couldn't see. 

     A part of me went with him, 

up that tree, into the sky,

over the ocean,

and the waves of the sea.

I wish I climbed with him,

took to the air, 

and the bodies of blue.

     I wish I had 

shared his view, 

and climbed with him.

    My friend, 

Dear Benjamin,

where now are you?