Bad words

Bad words, bad breath, what fumes you spread
Accusing life of being dead
That tills your crusty soil to seed
Promoting growth where you have need

Apparent in your tumbleweeds
Your petite flowers quick to bleed
Your dust is mad and lost and free
Your scorched earth called destiny

You’ve named your desert beautiful
Serene because it’s unfruitful
Your peace devoid of life’s murmur
Sun baked, deprived of rain’s whisper

Yet you would tempt my tears with yours
Sucked from your cacti flesh, its store
And trade for my monsoon your dew
So rare it disappears from you

For what – that you might be refreshed
And bathe in what you choose expressed
The nectar you do not perceive
Discarded through your un-bowled sieve

The lost will tolerate the stench
Of what they drink in ignorance
If thirst has bored their holey mind
So shadows fool them desperate, blind

And they will protest, curse aloud
And feign offense until they’re proud
And insist that they have been wronged
And answer none who come along

With bad words, heard words given meaning
Spent and meant for your believing
Bleeding through your faculties
Experience escaping thee

Call it nasty, call it rich
Call it vulgar innocence
Offensive to the shaded eye
Unsophisticated cry

I'm sick because I know desire
And bare myself to sun-pure fire
Absorbing all wavelengths of light
Reflecting truths that tear through night

Obscene because I speak my mind
Piercing hearts deaf, mute and blind
Awakening that consciousness
Which screams out from its dark abyss

The tear pulls soul thoughts scraped through cracks
Contentment’s sediment broke back
Where sentiment has swollen pride
That warps the floor on which you stride

Emotion paints pictures benign
Flashback’s experienced design
And I’m condemned, constrained by rules
To be what you would call a fool

Uncouth because I entertain
Beliefs that make the world insane
A rage consuming common trash
Scorching the earth to reap the ash

Desecrated blasphemy
You judge meant to soil beauty
Bad words ugly to the spoiled
The truth unfortunately coiled

Pupil of the universe

Nothing is ever quiet
Not even the night
Whose irreverent spawn
Mock the weary day
With a cacophony of incessant chatter
An audible static mirroring
The billions of microscopic starbursts
Which give black its color

Still nothing
As compared to each galaxy of thought
Filling the bowl of my soul too small
For such violent moon tides, spilling
In waves of deaf insects
Pouring over the landscape of my sanity
Immune to the wrath of my attention’s vehement protest
A flood of filth
Corrupting my peace with the stain of its undeniable being

And when the moon is absent
I cannot see the forest
Not for the trees
Whose roots hold the earth upon which I stand
But for the shadows of my mind
Whose insatiable hunger often turns on itself
Shadows strengthened by the brilliance of my insanity
Attempting to comprehend the incomprehensible
For what is man at most
But what he is at least

In this time of darkness
I desperately climb through the soil of history
Starving for the virgin air my spirit would breathe
Never-minding the stench of defecation which clings to me
Or the blood I spend to make my sky a new ground
Ever seeking love’s light
A pupil of the universe

At an inconvenient hour

At an inconvenient hour
I am awakened by thoughts
Knocking at the door of my mind

And rush, grumbling
Down the stairs of my dreams
Struggling with the robe of my senses
To answer

I am met with eye scalding flashlights of inquiry
Which force their way, armed with the machine guns of urgency
Invading my peace
I am afraid

The police of my fears sit me at the kitchen table
Interrogating me with restlessness
Stuffing my head with shoutings
And implied accusations of impotence:

What can I do to make the world a better place
If I tolerate less than I desire at home?

Let me be the one to corrupt her

To touch her first
Upon her have revenge
For swords of fire...

Serpent's well of echoes
Giving me headaches
The curse I crave
And prayed and paid for

Sorely beautiful

~

Unaroused by flowers common
Love is best when unconditioned
Want would have her reeking
In the blood and afterbirth of brand new life
( no knife should bury her )

Primitive, of bone and flesh
The smell of voodoo on her breath
That her labor by stranger might
Make birth pangs of her be-coming
All the more electrifying

Screams so sweet they pierce my soul
The nails of redemption’s toll

Let me be the reason she is torn open
Consuming the insatiable desire of my issues, broken
By her bond to me
Insane, in love, enraged by me

Let me pull her head back by her hair
Enjoy the grunt of protest's fare
And charge her for my misery
Before expended
At her mercy

Let me love her first
While she is yet unknowing
Growing under my malevolence
My jealousy against her
As I shape her thoughts, and prove her sense

Before the wild becomes the terrible
Before the reins of fear are lost
Behind the fury of her being
Behind the interest of its cost

Let me hate her lovingly
Remembering when she is gone
That there was something I died for
For if I lived, I couldn’t bear
That at my best she wasn’t mine

But at my worst I scarred her
Even as my hands begged for her
As much as my eyes and ears and mouth
Terrific as lightning seeks the ground

And that the shame of my intrusions
Were deliberate, her earth my grave
To punish her with ecstasy
Infecting her to grow enslaved

Let me crave the tender kisses I ignore
Want her no more and watch her weep

Let me be the one to break her heart
That she might damn this that I keep
My love for her, corrupt
Banished yet on fire for her
To suffer 'til eternity
This passion for my wife

e.6.9.2006

Jewel of life

A far away horn before the shadow of the sun
Morning crawls over the dunes
Pushing a beautiful wash of air
Into my dreams

Her whisper is a tingling seed in my ear
I am smiling before I awake
Her hair a flaming banner of love against the sky
Pulls me up into the strength of my joy
Braving the living to love her

For man was not meant to be alone
Fear un-conjured, heart open
With the hope of anticipation
Knowing the shining of day would come
Its promise as evident as breathing

I watched my dream like a cloak caught in the wind
A kite in the sky, raising my eyes and thoughts
Promising the comfort it provided
Would be given by something better
This
I believe

e.6.9.2006

Or since

I’ve fallen, innocently and afraid of the truth
A casual beauty, sky-minded and barefoot
A cool sweet air needing no invitation
Belonging wherever it finds itself

In awe, owning nothing of myself
Green as grass under an absent sun
Fireflies resting in the lushness of my quiet
Dreaming carefully

In the growing warmth of an unendurable patience
I’ve sought in vain to recapture our first kiss
Your lips forbidden, their fire exquisite
Slaying me softly, reborn in love

And have wondered if I love you less
Watching over you while you sleep
The moonlight remembered on sleepless nights
Reminding me you are less beautiful, more cherished

A memory my heart adores
Enslaving its self willingly to someone you will never be again
Sentimental and grateful to have experienced love
Such as I never have before

e.6.9.2006

The goodness, the fullness, the beauty of His blessings

SIDE A

I enjoy
The weight and give of water balloons
Sticking my fingers into a bowling ball
Eating a soft serve ice cream cone
And... climbing trees

SIDE B

I enjoy
Plucking grapes from the vine with my mouth
Putting my nose in the scent of a flower
Brushing my cheeks against the creamy silk of its petals
And wading in warm water

I enjoy
The look of moss on a water stone
The juice of a cantaloupe slice
The caress of a mid June breeze
And shade from a blossoming crab apple tree

I enjoy
Watching a butterfly rest
Feeling the tide steal the wet sand from beneath my feet
Seeing sun shine through drops of honey spilled on the table
And peeling an orange

I enjoy
Watching my reflection in a pool of water
Standing naked in my back yard
Going barefoot in the cool morning grass
And feeding the ducks

I enjoy
Listening to doves in the morning
Listening to crickets at night
Listening to children laughing
And watching children sleep

SIDE C

Inspired
I come into this world fully awake
My senses clear, curious and wide
I am nothing and wonderfully empty
Reaching out to pull all of existence within me
To experience fully every precious moment
A child excited to learn
Eager to be born into every fascinating possibility of life

Things sweet and satisfying
Sour and difficult
Pull me, push me
I stretch out my arms looking at the sky

I stand on the tips of my toes looking at the tops of trees
And jump into the air seeing birds
I lay in the grass watching a sleeping lamb
And laugh at puppies playing

I jump into the water seeing a fish
And love the sun climbing out of the cold stream
I run after butterflies and rabbits
And feel my heart beating when I stop to sit down and catch my breath

I wonder who I am looking up at the stars
Calm and alone beneath the moon
In the quiet of the night I close my eyes
And dream as if awakened into another life

I take back my mind, my joy, my life
From the man made madness
Of acquired tastes and preferences

I take back my mind, my joy, my life
And take my time to appreciate
The goodness, the fullness, the beauty of His blessings

e.6.5.2006