flight

the branches were weak

but very tender as he sat

there above contradiction

or so it seemed in heaven

the others scraped for space

and bowed among the lower

branches among branches

and his so high, the loftiest

he was content for a while

wondering how long he could

remain in the heights

maybe it eternity could be

the wind acclaimed him

the sky his oyster, his frame

head turned like turrets

of the heights, from depth

he peered down, disdain

filling him for such ill advised

ones who lowered themselves

and feared the heights

his heights

is this how god felt

he wondered

and then even god felt small

his head a restless entity

was full, small but full

but then and there

and then it seemed silly

the loftiness, this loonery

to be separate from the ugly ones

he would need to be separate

he did not hesitate

flight

intimacy

i walked among brokenness

even the flowers had fallen

and rancid lay in layers

oblique within ruin

the rest of the house

was torn from ever side

this was as random as humanity

the collected remnants lay still

like abandoned mannequins

sinless and devoid of life

i broke with footfall some

of this anarchic order

satisfied with the signs

that human beings had loved here

had lived and cried there

had released land to unkeptness

my hand touched a stone

my feet restless in this dearth

i watched the angles of the brick

against the shadow of the sun

and wondered about the order

the order of fallenness

somehow i paid homage

and knelt in photographic prayer

a woman came and spoke to me

believing i was the gardener

and soon i left thirsty

 

posthumous discourse

it had warranted death

the silenced words

cut like the end

of isaac's ram

it was all over bar

the shouting

and ram's sure can shout

isaac had seen the knife

knew the god swindle

and until the saving

had never contemplated

anything but dying

there upon an altar

god's lamb slain

he had gloried in it

had wept for himself

and his own regard

but when the bleating started

bloody bleating ram

he had swung around

and with eyes that wept

for lost death's and martyrdom

had surrendered to this life

as if it were the second death

of lazarus

terra firma

 

the painting she gave

was not grey

instead its ochre

was split with oranges

and the eventless

grandeur of sky waves

i put it at eye level

and often did gaze

at this split earth

consumed abstracts

with eyes, rationality

without a presence

fled and remonstrated

with the endless reds

i pictured myself there

as if a man on earth

reddened by the sky

until i lay my head

at the foot of the sun

 

in a movement

in a movement

is a gradation

the slipping shade

of a day interloping

reading an angle

from yet another

angle, detaching sides

from other desires

until sides become ribs

and these wings and

these metaphysical wombs

and sudden is rapture

more than application

it is the eve, the oeuvre

a manoeuvre of kindred

from light to darker

in a movement

here solace is captured

and god is silenced

for this is god

depth erate

depth

 

if god were king

i would odysseus be

and ithaca my prize

i would have troy

vanquished and returned

to blue to languish

would not the ark

of journey be

for it would ithaca

were the now

i would flight

upon the harbour

adorn my love

would stride onto

sea driven lanes

to action the word

would i walk

i and arraign

as if penelope

were only mine

and there would

i cyclops and the fair

antigone lease, release

to tother tale

i would my briseis

lay upon the wind

and from the river

lethe my weeping still

for until now

i would not ithaca

so sing Ulysses

sing an island

it would now

and then

and presence

be

it would now

and then

and presence

be

other

if one could possess, grasp, and know the other, it would not be other.

emmanuel levinas

 

other

 

instead of me

it is not

but it is

 

and another other

mirrored there

 

i cannot touch

we are not here

but we are

 

one here

other there

 

i am alone now

i am alone now

with the sounds

their odd voices

coloratura

the earth is tired

beneath me

it is stilled

and as silent

as its core

i realise i have not wept

for a few weeks

dismayed, am i

human still

i listen now

for other sounds

beyond the now

the now is stifling

too needy for now

i hesitate to dream

alone except for words

and they say nothing

hidden in the backyard of eden

i lean rather than sit

eyes regarding the bonsai

and linger as if denying green

on a foliage matter

in a glance taking in blue

and the palms and the rain

skewering leaves with a lengthy down

at times i count the offbeats beating off

in random times upon the puddles

with a watery splintering, softened thudding

plaintive within me, i feel a freefall

feel hidden here, in reality hiddenness

is not a possibility in a conscious world

i cannot hide even here, the rain touches me

and i am found,

i wonder if i should relinquish eden

the possibility of hiddenness, but i deny even this

to myself

subtle

how subtle the tender

ministrations of love

like kisses in minutiae

their everpresence

like a god, god

defining blueness

in a prelude

an afternoon of faun

intransigent

if infinity were a god-song
it would be pleading

like ladders of ladders

descending and ascending

it would rise and fall, fallen rise

like a love song to an adored

like a love song deferred

if infinity were transient
surely it would be flesh unending

the claim of love on death

the everlasting wares of being

manifold verbs of mortal hallelus

if infinity were insistent
i would insist on intransigence

all is night-quiet

and i am alone

no truly alone

no cats or creatures

no breathing to hear of

no talk nor ambience

just a man, on a bed

i feel so bruised

so cataclysmic

i don't know where

i go, going gone

and search for words

and phantoms, gods

to know how, why

to live

i am torn by empty pasts

and ransacked by marauding christians

armies have raped me

malevolence has seen me

i am sure that i am as tender

as i was nestling a baby

but now the world is expected

of me, from me, forms me

and i am unkept of soul

and in wildernesses of my own making

all is quiet and i am alone

no truly alone

 

red shroud

the face was more than body

it was an edge

moving from time

and smudged there between the reds

it stood inelegant and obtrusive

one cannot avoid a face

and there under its tempera

a human shrouded as turin

glaring back to front

incessant, insistent

this was no entombment

just flesh and blood with eyes

intermittently blinking

often, ever so, surges

revelations of soul

and a knowing under, neath

 

 

 

the word

breasts to suckle

hands to hold

arms to contain

this is the dream

the inner words

here life is a tree

harbouring its own life

uncouth and derelict

the sentence of a seed

like Poseidon longing for sea

it stands erect and arrogant

as the arid earth its father

arms bequeath its fruit

descend, ascend

a Jacobs ladder

it bends in pain

fraught with denial

manifold and barren

like an empty seed

instead being beckons

and fragile old man hands

hold the young bosoms

beings opens, closes

and thighs are lost

within the circles

the fleshly gestalt

until death and life

alone in words-ship

 

I dreamed of Avalon

stepping into a tintoretto

like entering a door for the first time

enter

waiting for epiphany,

for mystery

wait

ceilings clad in white

while reds beckoning

beckon innocently

innocent but dangerous

i turn and take in

take in the gathered crowd

scanning to see

scrutinise

as if dreams were concrete

eyes alongside eyes

eyes meeting and missing

i wade through the mass

of interlocking doors

passers-by pass

instead of finding

find i not

but i move and will

and insist on inquiring

indefinite but resolute dream

of avalon importunate

consumption

i cannot fall asleep

for dreams will o'ertake

and vanquish me

i bend vivacity apparent

afraid to sleep

for to surrender

is to never wake

 

cannot i sleep

for a dream is o'er

drawn and vanquished

i fall and asleep

until i am all but sleep

for to surrender

is to never wake

glossolalia (tribute to Stephen Crane)

yes, i have a thousand tongues

yes, i have a thousand tongues,

and nine and ninety-nine silent.

though i strive to use them all,

they make no melody at my will,

but ones alive in my mouth.

 

yes we have a thousand tongues

a thousand thousand tongues

and none are silent

their voices stem the tide

the sea, the everytime

stem the melody

stem the will,

voices of joy

in hallelujah

 

yes a word betrays a soul

in innocent timbre

moving in resonance

like an ancient god tongue

calling forth poema

summoning elegant harmony

i have a thousand tongues

and nine and ninety-nine silent

 

if love

to see and never look away

 

in all external grace

i wondered about the day

the drive to work

the circumstance

i noticed but a murmur

i knew that love

were all there was

the need to fall

from grace

the need to stay

to be steady, to be

 

i wonder whether love is

to see and never look away

 

far

i am far from fragile

though i break i will not

be movement

for i am behemoth

and stone , rock

and relevance

i am pegasus

and the resurrection

i am the construct of a thousand constructs

and never built

i thrust and furnace

and oblivion

with negation and meditation

for god declares

and then is gone

and i am bereft of even self

but i am far from fragile

far

i have a theory about doors

they are the remonstrance

of an ending,

their mark is entrance

their shape flight

this one opens

and the next is a ship

fellowship

doors bamboozle me

and then collapse upon

me i take them some

and then never again

soon i will return

to a doorway

where i am invited

like a solemn invitation

to a memory

start prelude now

door becomes theory

candles

they held but a shifting

a too and fro

a neverland

tasked to change

to movement

toward god and apparition

the darkness and the light

their wayward voice pleading

like smoky agents of god

messengers to the shade

 

waxy movements, fragile

in intermittent desire

lengthening until a silent

spasmodic end

concord in the garden

i observe a turn

turning turning

tourniquet

all but absolution in a turn

an evening of circles

circumventing

circulating

until a kingdom returns

as whole as god's

a true as grace

fully encircled

i hold my head

as the sun revolves

an uneasy revolution

for what is steady remains

conversely what alters

mellifluous remains

 

a serpent in a silent garden

injunction

he withdrew

for a secluded moment

his memory holier than before

for attendant drew the breath of god

like a soul mantel's sanctity

transcendent and illumined

with manifold epiphanies

 

he remembered the chamber

and the pleading, oh the pleading

beating stubbornly in the grey matter

beating within the bloody flesh

the searing mnemonic

like a grace deferred

and he held it there

as if all were within its ambit

all within its hallelujah sphere

and without surprise

he knew this, this

he would rather succumb, than exhale

indecent

a man and his blue

like the margins

of an unending sea

suspended by mortality

became harbingers

the kind of prophets

like a god voice detached

and seizing passion

until the bloom

of a thousand seeds

falling into an un forgotten baptism

surrender to a night

as deep as red

in a movement

it was like transferring sense

from hand to hand

the next moment touch became

a kind of sensual truth

demarcated by these limits

inside the sea could not be stemmed

 

and somewhere on that sea

a man adrift

 

poem

i wait to hear

and in that gap

is a lingering doubt

i doubt not me

i doubt not god

i doubt not words

i doubt not love

i doubt not fallenness

i doubt not seas

i doubt not waves

i doubt not light

i doubt not fear

i doubt not longing

i doubt not need

i doubt doubt

the kingdom

insouciant and neon

like a poema on a stalk

intermittent dialogue

the drums in a distant swathe

corrupting all but god

into the night of a fallen one

grasping the fallen

grasping, grasping, grasped

until the god arrives

with an innocent kingdom

some kingdoms

are the stuff of legend

 

a piano stuns with synchronised notes

fugue

bach before god

i bled in black

i bent my head

and holding the others

waded into the dark

like a fearful wave

under the arms

 

a girl bent, clasped the bed

narrowed eyes until

even i could not see

we listened within

until all but a low moan

 

when i became aware

that the randomness

of this was all but

i felt my hands

clasping them like the others

 

sometimes we closed eyes

opening them too

until we were looking within

and no manner of looking

could find what we were looking

for

ruach

the wind,

i become aware

no longer has simply

the well of a nature

instead, it claims me

like angelic visitation

delicate but insistent

it has no energy

but its own

i bend to its gnaw

to the soul of its whirl

i am infused by less edges

feel the freedom uncontested

god cannot limit

god i whisper

and hear this awe

sigh

wind echoing wind

hal-lel-u-jah

predilection

i have knelt here before

while the innocence

of nectared breasts

cried hallelujah

i have seamed

the faint lines

on hands attached

and wondered where,

in fear, their homage

did mirror,

i have wanted, waned

and straightforward

head against the mooring

cried until god had left

and i was stilled

silent in the fancy

of early ache

i kneel again

undone by laterality

side to common side

substituting redemption

for the finality of judgment

the scary apocalypse

here jesus does not wait

nor beloved john

for but hades is replete

with this hoary tide

until hand to common hand

in reciprocal mimicry

we reveal the sign

of a night cry

untamed by its

savage predilection

 

 

green lilies

she bequeaths the ends

to an early grave

its ambit rent by spade

like the earth

she is but dust

and then dust

 

until an early mourning

she is undetermined

and shallow as the gave

 

soon she will be rested

as auburn hair did once

upon a shore, new

her habitat an easy god

her grace the monotony

of aimlessness and unlike crystal rivers

this apocalypse will be earthward

 

to the gathered

and the heretics

wine to the fallen

and bread to the grave

The ferry

the ferry

 

we stood waiting

the sea stood still

arms hung there

limp, lopsided

some with baggage linked

marked the bags

as souls gazed around

while others marked a spot

and fixed did silently set

their dull eyes on it

 

the ferry awaited us

older than sea

tainted by it

murmured, moaned

we crossed its frontiers

delivering ourselves

to its dark hold

i wondered

were we leaving

or arriving

 

 

the night wind

intermittent

the sound of wind

can be heard

it shapes the house,

ransacks it,

touches

the wind

i hold the door

and weep,

while hearing

instead of sleeping

i am motion

mirroring the wind

in a dance of clay

the wind

i wonder aloud

if breath is god

and wait for the moment

when i will meet

the night wind

and be free

Still

still

 

lead me beyond the darkness and give me light

 

she sits still

and bends

she is the light

her head touches the ground

this nether world is hers

there are no other lights

no spun words that break

break upon her prayers

she speaks into this underworld

riven cloth listless and limp

her eyes move linear

until her forehead is gods

crimson

an elegy spoken

became a bird

who flew to hell

its mouth held cries

its wings icarus

it knelt at hades feet

wings flailing while

hades held his heart

colder now and gazed

away into the cobalt

underworld inured

finally a word was spoke

an final one denied

till now

to life this crimson life

in erebus crushed

 

 

Silent

there are softened silences

that wake us in the heat of the night

and those that make us sit without murmur

becoming conscious of heartbeat and echo

becoming conscious of heartbeat and echo

some that will us to move and mark the ever present

mark us to kiss and fall upon the world with love, with love

silences that summon friends, silences that summon mourners

that wait at graves, longing, lingering, like gravediggers

then there are those within whom god will not creep

wild and ferocious as memory, that clog the words from within

and pin us to the mere mention of hope, while knowing all along that hope

resides in the tangible and in this present silence the tangible no longer praises

it simply mounts the eaves, the embers of love and empties it of all except the hollow

everpresent void.

 

sometimes god may be silent

god is love the good news says

sometimes god is also in the silence

god is the silence

god is

god

 

 

 

Mirth means

my hands surrender

like the final nocturne

betraying their past

I sense their sanity

and their taut tautologies

 

sometimes I deny them

for they are too eager

and they rebuff me

 

once I held a baby

cooing and lullabying

until it went still

my hands brushed her head

and never knew such

incandescent purity

 

another, hands held me

undergirded and aware

I needed others

 

I send words now

through these hands

they tap for me

bringing but the echo

of a mirrored way

 

now they touch my head

as if to plead for more

they lure my mind

and from the rub

beget inuring

 

are they me

or am I them

late night missal

late night missal

 

i have heard it said

that all is in the text

and surely the essence

is there, the perspective

the mood, hermeneutic

 

i know though that words

though replete with echo

with instances, with irony

are but the rib of us

 

they mark us, and others

they scream to us of strata

bequeath only stigmata

 

these bruises of ecstacy

the wherewithal to love

the summoning, pleading

its all there in the glossolalia

 

tonight i have few signals

fewer now because

i have set some on stone

 

remember those

Whisper

whisper

 

soon this sound

will abate

in the sense

that it will be

non-sounding

its heart was whispered

detected in art, in angel

softened, golden sounds

chrysostom

 

some sounds fade

and some live in symmetry

shaded by life, by love

by the searing pillows

of sense and swaying,

soothing me, till now

and echoing soon

 

I listen again, whisper it,

surround myself, fill

till all is this, this

this

Between

Between

 

between the nomads

and the even steps

of the next dune

are the evening deserts

and the makeshift tents

that transport me

from wilderness to wild

to forage in such excess

is to gaze at times

into an open abyss

and contemplate

the thrill of oblivion

today, though

I am stuck between the petty

and the awful intolerance

of the few, who despise

the middle ground

for the end to symbol

and type

instead, am caught between

wisdom and the e'en

sided ambivalence

of tomorrow

surely instead of hate

we can contemplate

the temerity to love

with hands raised to grace

and bodies bent to love

to love and live

live and love

 

Re-volition

revolution

 

women cram the streets

in frenzy to all, for revolution

their arms outstretched

their blood our own

a grotesque revolution

goyesque

we inhabit the earth

but not the meek

for these voices

betray the cold

while apathy crowns

our mediocrity

surely there are no angels

surely there are no angels

 

no arrows, slings

waiting on the cold footsteps

for the grey stones

simply assert a passive sentiment

like unguarded wounds

resisting ancient feet

 

for thought

from unlikely towers

stands upright

defending this fragile realm

with a phantasy

an emblem's symbolic wing

the wavering of sign over saint

 

i look above these to the end

to a metaphysical dénouement

to honest beginning

where child and underling

await a simple unveiling

a godly wind

Womb with a view

womb with a view

 

I am the cry of a beast of burden

the mimicry of the womb

whose abject fellowship there

became a born again way

 

as a neophyte I bit into

the softened apple, life

and yearned for more

with a milky longing for god

 

when I was more advanced

in the follow years

when i walked and crawled

from the agencies of mom

and dad the face of my inner man

became the man I was not

 

fallen thus from ma to pa

and then to reciprocity

I wait to wean myself

to break the wan methods

of rite and ancestor

that had grafted me in

when all I wanted was wine

 

now I look at wine and drink the grey

I bask in the brokenness of flesh

sweetened by lees, malnourished

 

thus with desire has come denial

and with denial, denouement

and with the end in sight

 

I waste away, to sleep, to dream

to love, and dream, a dream

this one, of birth and far away

 

I don't know why I long for an eye

to tell me once and all, but I do,

like the first breast

the first taste

Vision

 

In contrast totem

And feudal lords

Defy the dreams

We call the brook

Of moods and words

And nomadic things

The call of sight

To vision

 

Today

today

 

i lived once on ithaca

a blue upon a green

 

walked to town

slept in the sea

knelt at seasons

 

i remember the beach

on an isolated morn

where undiluted

i suspended disbelief

 

the road to levki

was arced and dry

a contradiction

alongside cobalt blue

 

being was word

phrased life

 

i felt the earth shake here

with quaking dread

like innocence escaping

held my ears to ground

while fright became

 

i deeped under cool salt

tear-tasted

until i was ithaki

skipped among stones

till the stones

were tired

 

breathing and soon

breathing again

 

i eat the milk

of feta goats

and loved

the layered moon

upon the flattened wet

 

i left one day

upon a boat

watching a red scarf

waving at vathi

and never return

until today

 

 

 

 

 

Troy

we are the remnants

the envying echoes

the returned exiles

whose tale

desires but telling

ransacking the others

we have become them

 

in an aegis of return

we sing now of them

our narrative bound

in defining us

now links us for ever

we are one

 

from horse's heart

and doubting

we beget an end

as insiders who crept

into core to bed

a beginning

and an end

 

in black and silence

we wept for fear

and finally birthed

raised weapons we did

and sought the enemy

all died, even us

 

sometimes we long

for the seas, the siege

the salutation of troy

for it bequeathed

an hope to us

anthem to the war

 

many years, then

i saw crow fly

transcending all of us

from barricade to barrier

he landed in the fray

he seemed nonplussed

at all this death

and flew away again

 

 

 

Again

i broke once from you

i slid and fell then

while you watched

there were no others there

it was a semblance of privacy

but helplessness is never private

i stayed there, wondering if you'd go

but you kept looking, in surprise

at the aftermath

i winced, head down

unable to see your eyes

unwilling to, wanting to see a look

one i'd seen before, long ago

i felt nonplussed, the floor cold

almost inhabitable, dust to dust

my body began to ache and burn

insisting on relief,

before i arose

i fell again

Dreaming of lower

 

I have felt a flower

Crumble in my hands

Like falling manna in my mind

 

A god desist

As feet path-play

upon a sodden path

 

I've claimed an end

To soon,

too soon

 

Have left my sacred space

To linger in

another's den

 

Until then I had

never dreamt of

the margins of melody

The danger of allure

 

Ophelia lay upon her bed

Bedded by the blue

Until her head bent

Gravel

 

I step onto the grey

Feet already searching

Linger and devolve

Linger and devolve

 

I feel I have not understood

Not lost but walking

Again listless to the crunch

 

This morning I listened

To Pärt, tabula rasa

An empty beginning

 

formless and void,

darkness ,

the surface of the deep

 

I move in a line

It is not a straight one

I hear voices way away

 

Soon I will see them

And I will not be me

Listless to the crunch

 

 

 

Whether

 

Bent in metamorphose

I held the desk like a casket

Mood, sombre

While in my stomach

A whirring knot

Stirred unselfconsciously

Any movement slight

Unbearably stilted

I felt the idea flow

Fraught within

The desperate acquisition

Of context, a poem

A moment of clarity

A scream

But instead I clutched

And bent longingly

At the abyss

Swirling

 

In some voids one swirls

But time-some voidless swirls

Link us to the blue

 

Peering into this indigo

rendering

 

the host is more than the host

he beats with more than the blood

more than the obtuse wanderings

of cells and improvisation

this is a rendering

a portrait of life

a life within a life

glances are never just sightings

eyes not the lay of vision,

for in this creature's whim and fancy

is a dedicated machine, within

the soul like a beating heart

without the elements

so seemingly perfunctory

and as random as a birthmark

are distinct and as uniform

as a personality disorder

this is an exquisite rendering

so novel and linear

that even the lateral

seems patent

 

to render this

is to render

an unwieldy portrait

one that cannot be subdued

body

i hid one day

up a koppie

near my home

it was warm

and my feet

tired of hills

became slow

i looked for a place

a rock on which

to rest

i found a blue stone

and fell back

supine, body to

the ancient mass

i felt the ground

resist my self

my skin between

me and the core

and lay back

astonished

warmth like this

is rare, i thought

and like a seed

upon the fresh soil

became a man again

body to body

earth to earth

dust to dust

eats his own screams

 

purity can be so hard

thwarting the echo of a mind

long wavering beneath the faith

negating life and mourning

 

i scream a little scream

it gains momentum

and becomes a globe within

 

i mark the moments

like a clock watcher

pinning his hopes on

armageddon

 

i begin to louder now

partake of the breath

it becomes me

drives me on

like a strange spirit

lofty and dead

but hidden within

 

i scream now

in falsetto

words cannot escape

sounds, disgruntled

and afraid, scare me

sacred songs of the deep

 

without moving i eat

eat the screams

feed on them

like a mantic eucharist

 

this is my life,

my death, i feel

strangely alive

and blown away

by the strength

of the pain

i eat and i scream

transparent now

 

transparency is further away from purity

than a scream from a soul

 

Sometimes

 

Defending oneself is no use

Once you have reached that point

It's too late

You are already wounded

Rorschach

blot to blot and

then we lodge

an even interval

a mode to art

a contemplation

side to side

the even landscape

is as black as ink

hieroglyphs on words

as language is

to new words

so is sentiment

to the hidden soul

Seal 

I break open the clay

Handling its core

Like an unborn child

I move with hands

Denying life

Recreating

gods great moment

A handful of dust

Denied by touch

 

I remember childhood

A frozen sentiment

Within infants remains

Bodies detaching

Umbilical’s obliterated

Till silence and a savage cry

 

Sometimes we hesitate

With innocent clay

Indifferent but malleable

 

Soon the clay will leave

And become a harder man

But for now he lingers

Longing for touch

 

remonstrate

he held the child

within his mind

the ark became

his arm, its curve

denied the present warmth

and sought to remonstrate

he knew if he would bend away

deny this need, this cry, this wing

he would become instead this babe

this need, this gaping ope

demanded he did hear

Grapple

Angels become the beasts we tear

The rapt intentions freed

Their insolent eyes forbiddenness

Wing-ed hands their grasp

 

Belief is born from all the worlds

From sin, disease and earth

Wayward wills, forgotten means

And but not the sacrosanct

 

My words are not the bible

Their claim is not so god

But they deceive the other

Become the author word

 

Hesitant to battle

To ring the fleshly void

They claim an old eternal quest

Is thus the core of me

 

Linger here and not therein

For silence is the key

It hold the rush within its smart

And never speaks again

 

 

Deliberate

I think as if i never did

And spurn as if there never was

I wake to sleep and eat to burn

But never weep to weep

I thought a man was just a man

A way a path beyond

And now i think upon a dream

A beat beyond a beat

Indeterminate 

The boy became a silence

And bowed his head

Hands prayer-raised

As if to ward off blessing

Fingers paced and raw

Urgently touching god

For this god was flesh

Bourne upon the sadness

Like a bon-voyage

Here waited this young one

And without the convenience

Of a timeless future

Became a toneless march

For here they bent around this tiny skull

Mourners replete with grief

Announcing their presence

Noisily in the sand

With an alien wetness

Some wondered how long

Like crowds before the lions

Willing the end

Screaming for a morsel

Until at last

Eased by the silence

They grasped in wayward glances

At other faces

And stepped into the next death

Glass to glass

Purity can be so hard

Thwarting the echo of a mind

Long wavering beneath the faith

Negating life and mourning

 

I gaze into the measure of a self

So toned and tuned upon an evenness

Like mirrors of souls turned inwards

Looking towards the core

 

What i see is not but for words

Nor bout the new day

It is simply an echo future

Calling one into the other

Other into the one

If i am caught 

I think of children playing

Of memories caught

In times as soft as breasts

Of nights in safety

Reading words

That escaped years ago

Of mysteries told

And world found

In tiny tapestries

Interested and awake

Lying in darkness

With prayers caught

In the Jesus hands

Of Debussy on

an autumn morn

an imperfect insecurity

i stayed there

hesitant to ask

unwilling to break

while worlds stammered

around me like unconscious

platitudes mouthed at death

i feed myself these

pretensions and look

the other way

unwilling to be caught

in the silent now

Turnstile

Solid death is a graceless thing

Wanting bit never giving

 

I watched a wind

It grew and swept

Beyond what god

Would have wanted

 

Swerving here

And never there

Like peace without

A war

 

I saw it turn

And never did

I saw it stay

And never quite

Become the host

In me

Reflection 

Wait for silence

And disembark

Before the roar

Of the spirit

Descend into paths

That link with others

Await the words

Of syllables and signs

Silence the inner demons

And clutch the gesturing face

 

For in this other

Is an author

A way beyond

A movement so similar

That one is tempted to touch

And linger and manifestation

Becomes another

 

Evolution 

It began as a song

Hid itself within

Like locomotion

Melodies replaced

Rhythms and blood

Began to course

And scheme and echo

Twinning rhythms

And doppelganger

 

Flesh is so slow to grow

It moves and alters

Like words upon a text

Widening and narrowing

Without mean

And then within

 

Songs begin and end

Their scope

An eventful mode

Of decreasing fugues

But the muse cannot impede

What is to stir

Or stir what impedes

We move sloth slow

Singular and extended

Until we move again

A piece a time

gaza 

stripped down to this

an end in itself

dust but marked

in seizure fallen

 

limits of sea

and margins of blood

masking flesh

 

women

huddled in shells

anticipating more

 

we will not cease

until the last breath

we will not end until

god is dead