Night Falls

Night falls
& I rise
to meet her,
bury my mountains
deep, so deep
her stars burn me,
turn me, I churn
& erupt
in torrid ash clouds
& magnificent magma.

My Night erupts
simultaneously, 
pouring
forth liquid life,
cooling my fervent fire,
whetting my thirst
in rivers that flow
to form oceans
where only desert—
empty wasteland—
once stood. I would 
be nothing
without Her,
my Night
bearing the water
of Life
to this once
barren Earth—
her air fueling
my fire inducing
her water infusing
my soil seeding
her air until
Creation
has been acheived—
& I am relieved,
knowing She leaves
Me with the arrival
of the Sun,
leaves me
with reminders
of our love,
crawling, swimming,
running, flying—
filling me
until my Night
falls again,
& I rise.

Eight Blades

Eight Blades

You seek security,
safety, freedom
from the things that ail
the World. Would
that it were so simple,
so easy to escape 
problems inherent 
in probability.
 
I know You feel 
You might have found
a viable option,
the one solution
to making it
through this cruel,
cruel world,
& it lies in the arms
of another,
another who can offer
a simpler life,
a life free
of the concerns
the rest of us
have to face
head on.

Do You truly not see
that what You think
is security,
safety, freedom,
is merely an illusion,
a mirage made
specifically for You?

You will enter that oasis
only to learn, too late,
that you are trapped
in a desert,
condemned
to survive in a jail 
with no walls,
surrounded 
only by dry,
lifeless sand
for untold miles
everywhere you turn,
no water to bear
anywhere you stare,
no Life to share: 
a prison disguised
as paradise.

My Love,
my LOVE,
my undying love,
these are not my words,
these are prophecies
handed down by the gods
your would be jailer 
does not even believe in!

Eight blades. Eight
blades jammed
into the sand, 
into the Earth,
driven deep 
within my heart,
& You stand
fastened to one,
easily able to free
yourself, but only
by choice,
only by Will,
only by the wisdom
You try to deny.

Please, please
my Love,
my One & only
True Love, listen
to my counsel:
the answers You seek
will not be found
by looking
for Oases
that do not exist; only
within our own heart,
within your own mind,
within your own spirit,
never in the arms
of another 
too simple
to understand 
the complexity of You.

You know
I’m right. Denial
will serve no purpose,
except to drag
out  the inevitable
& expand the pain
someone will have to suffer
in the end.

The sooner You free
yourself from this
prison mistaken
for paradise,
this iron maiden
of the mind,
the sooner You can accept
that You cannot substitute
fate for Destiny,
the sooner You can begin
to be the difference
in this cruel,
cruel world,
& not just one 
of its remainders.

Alchemy

alchemy
I’m just the Fool, 
Nothing, Zero,
crying at the back
of the bus, Muse
blowing through
my head because
my muse is so far
from me, drifting,
drifting, still
drifting away,
& toward,
& the pain
weighs on me
because holding up
the sky alone
is no easy task—
ask Atlas—shrugging
is no option.

So I cry,
the Fool
at the back
of the bus,
& I hide
my tears
behind her mirrorshades,
wipe with a wedding
napkin, hoping
that I might
still have a chance
at that dream,
because that's what fools do:
dream the impossible.

Nothing is impossible
for the Fool whose
muse finds the Will
to drift back to him, 
finds the Words
to awaken him,
finds the Way
to infuse
her power 
with his—
power to transmute 
nothing into something, 
Zero to One—
to slay a Fool 
to make room 
for the Mage.

Cake

Cake

Let him eat cake.
Let him gorge
himself on that
sweet confection,
until his face
explodes
in streams of
colorful confetti.

Flour, sugar, eggs, butter—
Go on. Have another!

Enjoy every morsel.
Lick every last, lingering
crumb from your filthy, 
flaccid lips.
 
You’ll never taste the icing.

Cyclops

“Stranger, you are a fool, or else you know nothing of this country. Talk to me, indeed, about fearing the gods or shunning their anger? We Cyclopes do not care about Jove or any of your blessed gods, for we are ever so much stronger than they.”—Polyphemus

You’d like to think
me Οὖτις,
no one of consequence,
a mere Fool, lost
in the wilderness,
but you’d be wrong.

You are the one
unworthy to be
my rival, my equal,
my superior.

I may be Nobody,
but you are nothing,
nothing but an uncouth
cyclops feeding
from my crew,
coveting what is mine.

I pity you, Polyphemus
condemned to see
the world through
a hub, only fit
to cast straightforward
glances, always
missing the periphery,
blind to the Universe
outside of your myopic 
vision. 

Narrow vision leads
to a narrow mind.

& it will take nothing
but my guile
to intoxicate you,
to drive my spear
through that eye,
blind you so that even
your savage world
goes black.

Throw stones,
if you must,
curse Nobody
as if it were my name,
cry to the Gods
you have no faith in, 
shout for your father,
that wrathful Poseidon;
it will not help
your cause.

As you draw the spear
from your eye,
I will already be flying,
sailing back to my dear
Penelope. 

I will climb
the topmast
& reveal 
my true name,
you will know it,
and say it,
& curse Creation.

Cursed, perhaps
I’ll be, but I can’t
let you trap me,
even your father—
Tosser of Tempests—
can only delay
me. Nothing
can stop me,
keep me
from returning
home, returning
to the arms
of my sweet
Penelope. 

The Longest Day

Another Poem inspired by Nüt & Geb

 The Longest Day

How long must I burn
under this cruel Sun,
expose myself
to the light
when all I want
is darkness? 

I miss my Night,
cloaked in her blueblack
robe full of the infinity
of stars, spread
only for me, 
to show the Moon
glowing in her womb.

There existed only me,
& Her, & our lust. 

But Shu, in wisdom,
knew The Earth
needed Life,
needed to grow,
needed to prosper,
& He blew
us apart
with a promise:
Soon enough
my Love & I
will be reunited,
if only for a few, 
brief hours,
until that Sun,
that cruel, cruel sun,
returns to chase
Her away.

I already hate
the Sun,
& it's only 
the first day.

The longest day.

So I wait
for this day
to give way,
for this Sun
to drown
in the horizon,
for Night to descend,
to envelop me
as she once did,
to fill me
with her darkness,
to dazzle me
with her stars. 

Will this day never end? 

Won't the Sun
at least suspend
His cruelty long
enough for me
to simply taste
the bliss that is
my Night,
my Night,
my precious
Night?

Purgatory

Purgatory

I put You through Hell,
so I suppose I deserve
no less than purgatory.
 
I must climb
that mountain alone,
without You. 
There is no other path
to redemption,
to forgiveness,
no other way
to wash
these wounds.

So I will begin
by scaling Pride,
bearing the stone
of my own creation
upon my bare back.
I will stare down
on my way up,
learning to see
everything beneath me
with more clarity.

Envy seems easy,
as I have a generous spirit;
but here too,
there is work to do,
to roam with my eyes
sewn shut
until I learn to listen
to my heart,
to stop hating
those ready to take
what I’ve lost.
Ownership is
only arbitrary.

I will rise
above Wrath,
allow my meek 
nature to shine
through, not let
myself be blinded,
choked,
by wrath’s acrid 
smoke & seek
harm for those
who’ve caused
me pain.

I shall not be beaten
by Sloth, by my desire
to fold,
to hide,
to die
in the face
of each failure, 
to get lost
in perpetual mourning.
Rather, I must work,
keep busy,
keep moving,
keep living,
for death before dying
is a Hell in Life,  
a perilous prison
in whose residence
my soul would only rot.

I will glide
through Greed,
as my desire
for things, for riches,
for great gain,
has never been
debilitating.
My desires have always
lain elsewhere.

Nor am I saddled
with Gluttony,
being One of
moderation,
for the most part.
That is not to say
that there are not times
when temperance
is needed,
when I allow
myself to get lost
in the smoke
forgetting how Holy
the fumes are. 

Lust.
Ah, Lust!
How to even begin
battling those flames,
fighting the fire
that consumes me
for You? Here,
like Dante, I
will lie in wait,
afraid to face
my flaws.
Here, You must be
my Virgil, reminding
me that only in
risking getting burned
can I ever hope
to reunite
with my own,
beloved Beatrice.

& here I will summit,
each sin purged,
brushed away
by the wings
of angels.
I will summit,
reach Paradise,
find my innocence, 
redemption,
forgiveness. 

Yet I am full
of fear,
fear that for all
my climbing,
for all my penance, 
I will learn much,
but earn nothing:
No Beatrice to guide
me through Heaven,
No Love to fly me
over the hard,
cold rock I have
traveled. But I cannot 
allow fear to stop me. 

I walk this path to heal,
not to be rewarded. 
Your Love is a gift
which I must be prepared
to never receive, again.
But I tell you,
My Love,
MY LOVE, 
It is what drives me.

If You do ever offer
Your blessing again,
to feel Heaven again,
I swear to keep it
Holy, for Heaven 
is no place 
for the lowly.

Spiral

Spiral

I

know

right

know

it

feels

like

all

is

out

of

control,

like Life

is

just

spiraling out

from

under

You,

like

no one,

no thing

is

there

to slow

your

mad

descent

from

your

shattered

tower

into

the dark.

Not so.

The Universe never let you go.

Jealousy

Penelope unweaving her father's burial shroud

Jealousy

I’m not blind
to the subtle
changes: new
passwords,
emailboxes,
making certain
that your facebook
is always logged off,
your face
perpetually booked
into your phone,
the way your eyes
& lips smile slyly
when you’re flirting—
the way they once smiled
for me—
stories
that add up,
but don’t.

Subtle, except
in sum, & I expect
not as subtle to some
less dumb than I
have been of late.

& I find
myself
jealous,
not because other men can touch
you, I know they can’t,
but because they reach you
like I once could,
like I once did:
with a word
or a glance
or a smile,
because they can reach
you more easily than I can
with little more than a text.

So, forgive me
my baseless suspicions,
excuse my infinity
of questions,
ignore
the self-inflicted
anxieties laying waste
to me from the inside
out. I was the One
to make a mess
of things, the One
who allowed the suitors
to swarm
during my selfish
odyssey.

I will return
to hold the high
place in your heart
I once did,
& you will not
have to undo
the burial shroud
you shrewdly weave.

I will return
& I will see
your eyes
& lips smile
slyly
for me
again,
& jealousy
will die
painfully,
like each & every
one of Penelope’s
suitors. 

Nothing

This one was part of an exercise to complete the beginning of someone else's poem, in this case, Katherine Foreman's "Washed Away."

Nothing

Nothing's changed 
except me
& the facts
& the sadness
I didn't mean to start.
But it feels different
now you've said
it's wrong,
& I can finally feel
your point.

Everything you asked for 
I gave, save for the few, odd
fuck-ups—granted, that ONE
was huge—Pandora
opening the box big.
But were any so fatal,
so final to warrant
such contempt, such
abject disdain?
What can I do to get you back
in joint?

It stings
that I have fallen 
out of your favor,
that the adoration
that once shined
in your bright eyes
for me has dulled,
like fish dead too long
& knowing
that every word
I write for you,
every deed done,
no longer carries
weight. I might
as well be blowing
bubbles & watching
them pop
when they touch
your prickled skin.

Your love for me
has been tainted,
painted by my procrastination,
flavored by my apathy
& I can buy you
lots of pretty things,
& shiny rings
& gossamer wings
to complement
your angelic nature,
but none of that will change
how you feel, right now.
Nothing will change,
except me,
& the facts,
& the sadness.

Sky

Sky
Open the Sky for me.

Let me see the beauty that lies

underneath, the air of Life,

the bearer of stars.

I am not worthy of such glory,

a greater Fool than me

does not exist, but if the Sky

will let me peek

under Her glorious clouds,

my gratitude will be shown

in eternal

worship.