translating

i live in my fingers
stand in my toes
my eyes are for winking
not for windows.
our knowing comes from wanting,
a tenuous seed
our being as flowers
labor to breathe.
my mind is about this
and blissfully dim,
but you are all about me
a luminous hymn.

artricstery

to sing the truth or stay the beauty,
vex the pain and wane understanding;
original thought though reoriginal be,
i load all my words carefully.
handle the message, cradle the noose
and weather the life from which it breaks loose;
the artist is a useful man.
aesthetic appreciation of injustice deliciously supplied
living on others' insecurities and fables
giving and giving the world till there's none left at all
for me-
it's fair trading;
my lies for your lives
and a pocket full of money.
tragedy will be what tragic can come
and a bowl full of apples.

Lifelings

they make work for themselves
with mechanical mirror eyes
power their flying machine wings
swim through the air as a matter of being
yet never escape their own attraction to gravity.
their toil and lineage buoys them up
and death done downs them.
there is no flying away
the only escape is not to.

Blessing the Rain

I.
a wandering weeping ride just in time for two
we kill the man and his to make our labors do.
fairly fickle and wildly ill, our ailments send us working
to make the day a wishing got, a life for us and few.
across the land it takes us
to the worlds beyond.
it is far from kansas
but really really gone.

II.
I know not this weird familiar land.
it beckons low and out from me
and straight into my guts.
my head hangs down a pitiful mound
and loses your other regards.

III.
dark dark all about and not a place to hide
I'll go down town and waste a while
to make my mind bigger-
till change; and wonderous resalvation.
I will be a phoenix that knows how to die
cause I know when to die-
lying here in bed.

IV.
you and yours are floating to the top
about the windy drifting storm
eyes about like weather.
my body in the ground grows quietly safe
soon to take in the violent life above.
its fires will speak again to you
take into your quickening and root into it all.
bless again the rain.

Respite

i am ok, even though i'm empty
i can get laid and get high and try an education
my life burns the same, now as ever
and this is not the end of the world circles or world story
all after all is progession
towards and about the ends of ends
and not the destination
..of fulfillment
..of destiny
..of the damn pettiness of things
of love
or whatever it is that we do with one another's hearts
as objects and people and playthings or money
those trophies and made up perfections of unity.
but i and all the people who are me are ok
we're fine and empty, perhaps past redemption
perhaps resting.

Overfed

my heart is dead and satisfied
full of old love and regret, it has eaten its full
to bursting. all that is left are soiled dreams
and fleshy craving.
my blood will call out for thirst never again to another,
for it is in abundance to an overflowing in tears.

I, Mover

moving again
moving moving again
its the dance of life and living and stuff
its just that i've moved before
and the old moving moved
and though i don't like it here
i miss where i was going
then and then
and again.
but that's gone. used up and stored away
in the other people i was or were
and there's no time
when you're moving again
you won't ever get there unless
you move.

Friendly Sex

friendly sex brings us one unto another
Ulysses'sees for each and all
love and almost love and social love together
we string the seeds in rows
one and twos and so and soes
through the spring, the summer, and fall
till we grow up around each other
and pull one upon each other
and kill the souls of all the others
who lean on us
who went out with us
into distant oceans of unknown.
so we must overboard
for the mouth of whales
brave the viscous waters wild
alone alone. and make our way apart
forget our love and selves and selfish heart
make new tales, reap new rewards, be Jonah to an alien world
and die unwilling martyrs
or surpass our wily hero and pray -
pray we bring down the gods instead
of friends.

Courtly Love and Consequences

The courtly lover is not extinct
Though he is as pointless now as ever.
..to serve a tireless master
..to work another's field
..to cryptic give and feel
These only are his solace
And become the bountiful fruits of his heart.

Blue Moody Prayers

when a moon blue comes rolling round to boo
we sing our reckless pagan prayers.
i do too-
Rome hasn't died and neither have you
you're still there with your ponytailed wishes
and daddy do's.
i'll just have my boobs and eat them too.
but i don't really like them much, not much
compared to you. you're too too much
for me to.
but we all like these songs,
more than i'd like,
i want these natural moody prayers
anything to be like love; to think like you-
be near you, and feel you, too.

Devil Games

i can be the devil
too-
there is wind about,
wind, wind all about
....and not a breath to breathe
without being here.
so i will play a devil and bend it all.
my words will break and bend and fall
....on all.
do you dare to fear me, to "tell me off?"
will it make me make you better?
can't you escape
too?
we all play him for awhile,
times and sometimes.
we all play the game of games
with winding, windy, scary games.
it's good for us. i guess.

Apart

what can the wind say
that my blood does not already tell me
does it know better the ways of the world
....than the forged cataracts of my body.
if it be outside, apart, unalive from life
a distant terror and gentle friend to imagination alone
my imagination or the one which I am in
then it should not cut God
god of this world
I of it
alone it's witness of witnessing
damn the nasty evil wind
coming unbidden
what does it know about being to one such as me?
if I feel it to me,
what me does feel that which isn't really real?

The Feast of Bridges

About the watered main we trickle round the fringes
of dangerous bridges.
The fish about are hungry and so are we,
We have gone through so much pain
to see it end this way, a crush of thumping rhythmes
and newer beginnings. It is all too much,
much too much for a meal.
Maybe a storm can come to blow it all gone.
There would be a comfort in my forgetting this windy, windy dawn.
Then I might eat my heart and leave this building of bridges.