Your Eternal Dance

Your Eternal Dance

Some say you should be my queen,
but I am more Fool than king.

A Fool will not rule
or be ruled,
but is always open
to worship,
drawn to it,
like the flame
to the moth
fluttering
close enough
to be illuminated,
to have its magic
made clear.

I will not crown you
my Queen;
instead I will adore you,
pray under your divine light,
whisper your name
to the sky
to invoke you,
venerate you for the goddess
I know you to be.

Some say you should be my queen,
but regents are too prone
to tyranny, to staking claims,
to bending nature
to their own whims;
these things are beneath you.
Your proclivities lie
in creation, inhaling
death to exhale stars,
consuming stars
to excrete Life.

Some say you should be a queen,
but you rise
above titles,
beyond law,
past present or future.
I bow before you,
not out of obeisance,
but in reverence, hoping
that, given your place
in the pantheon of my heart,
you will allow me
to partake in your eternal
dance.

Bloom

Bloom
My Love,
my Moon,
my Muse,
my wide Night Sky,
my sweet lotus flower—
O, sit ol' lotus,
perched upon your pad,
sit & stay with me
a while.

I want to watch
you bloom, under
the rays of the moon, watch
each precious petal
spreading itself
to embrace the Universe.

I cannot bear
to watch you 
hide inside yourself, 
within walls
you would build
to block out
the very light 
that makes you shine.

So be wise
my sweet lotus,
as you wander to ponds
old & new—
your head wants left alone
while your heart wants to roam,
but your spirit will carry you
home.

Blood Moon

My latest Moon poem, composed a couple of days after last week's partially eclipsed Blood Moon...

Blood Moon

My moon bleeds tonight,
not from harm,
but because nothing can stay
Full, forever; everything
must empty
lest it burst.

My moon bleeds tonight,
& I worship her
as I always do,
more so, knowing
tonight we dance
in shadows
so thin,
only I can see—
She feels
the sliver,
like black
thread dragged
across her body,
a taste of the wane
that is coming.

My moon bleeds tonight,
& She will draw me
to her & I will slide
inside & together
We release—release
the world around us
for the Universe
about Us,
release the heart
& the mind
for the spirit
We have been
neglecting,
release resentment
for Love.

My moon bleeds
for me tonight.
¿Will she bleed
for me, again?
Only Destiny
has that answer.
I only know
the moon
must bleed,
as must I,
as must we all.

Firefly

firefly

My Muse
is a firefly
& temptation tells me:
trap her,
capture her
in a jar, screw
on a lid pricked
with just enough
holes to let
her breathe—
trap her so that I can imagine
she fires for me.

But she doesn't.

Fireflies fire
from their desire,
to flee, to breed,
to be! 

So I keep 
my firefly free
of jars or nets
or any constraints,
& she flutters & floats
& flitters about
& she burns,
she burns so bright
she ignites the sky,
& sometimes I catch
her just within sight,
on my right,
& confuse her
for a meteorite—
shooting stardust:
memories
of a Universe
more ancient than gods.

My muse is
a firefly, free
to fire anywhere,
& my blessing is
that she chooses
to burn brightest
near me.

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.

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. 

Less Than Self

How is One
supposed to Love 

selflessly
when all that One
has ever received
is love tied to strings
or grandiose things
or worship, which
is not Love at all,
but a need to believe
in someone, something; 

when all that One 
has ever known 
has been a lie, 
or little more 
than inconvenient truth, 
or love out of convenience, 
out of proximity: 
nothing from nothing 
leaves nothing, 

 or less? 

One can learn, 

perhaps only after breaking, 
often destroying, 
the only person 
to ever offer 
selfless Love, 
the one person  
who needed 
Love the most; 
but One was too blind 
& ignorant 
to even realize. 

In Love’s loss, in lost Love’s pain, 
the lesson is learned, 
but often too late 
at a cost that’s too great. 

The Jewel & The Shogun

The Shogun got locked up, again.
The Shogun’s spent quite a bit of his life
locked up, but The Jewel isn’t concerned
about this. The Jewel’s concerned
with how much of their time
together The Shogun will spend locked up.
The Jewel’s concerned with whether to pay
her gas & electric or her rent. She can’t
afford both.

The Jewel’s a sweet girl, sometimes
too sweet. A few weeks ago, her bestie
used $150 worth of her Food Stamp money
& never paid her back. The Jewel has a hard
time turning men down. This often gets
her into trouble. She knows this,
so she’s trying to stay celibate
for The Shogun. That’s really fucking
hard because sex is her favorite thing,
& there’s really nothing else
to do. She can’t watch TV. She can’t
use her computer.

The Jewel’s neighbor, The Yoruban, let’s
her come over to charge her phone. She
was fucking him, until he started getting creepy,
saying shit like, “This pussy’s mine, right?
Tell me this pussy’s mine,” & she decided
to stay away from him. Then she lost her power.

The Jewel recently
rededicated herself
to The Shogun, so she has resisted
the attempts by The Yoruban
to take ownership of her cunt,
especially after learning
that The Shogun will only lose
2 years, plus time served,
which with good behavior could end
up being 18 months or less.

The Shogun got locked up for selling $20
worth of weed. No big deal,
except he was still on probation
for that time he hit that cop. He’s lucky
he’s not serving the rest of his 20 year
sentence. The Shogun’s lucky to have someone
sweet & nonjudgmental, like The Jewel,
willing to wait.

The Jewel won’t.
Eventually, The Jewel will give
in to The Yoruban,
or to one of her many
other suitors. It doesn’t matter,
as long as The Shogun thinks
she’s true, as long as he has something,
someone to rely on, to lessen the weight,
to soften the time, as long as The Jewel
shines.

The Jewel can be honest,
or The Jewel can be true.
She can’t afford to be
both.

REALLY Old Poetry

The following poems are two of my oldest, written when I was in my very early 20s, before I took my first college level writing course. Laugh at me if you want, but be kind. Besides, vampires are still vogue, right?

Eternal

I'd love to be a vampire
& entice you with my grace,
seduce you with my bedroom eyes,
take you in my dark embrace,

Then we could both be vampires
& watch eternities unfold,
witness history come & go,
never growing old.

We'd be creatures of the dark,
free of mortal complications,
free to love a million years,
melting in with each new generation.

The seven wonders of the world
would exist solely for us to admire;
we'd watch them crumble to the earth;
we'd create new wonders to our desire.

I'd show you the land;
you'd show me the sea,
yet our greatest pleasure
would lie 'tween each others knees.

We would live together,
                  run together,
                  love together,
                  hunt together.

Until at a time of our choosing,
once we knew we could no longer be,
You & I would walk hand in hand into the fire,
to join the ashes of eternity.

Under the Whatever Tree

¿Strolling? Yeah, strolling:
Strolling, with an adolescent giddiness
I haven't felt since my days of scholarly pursuit,
(Yeah, right! More like my pursuit of a good time.)
strolling, with her strolling next to me,
& I'm a clumsy little schoolboy again
wanting, trying to hold her hand;
but I don't, not sure if I should,
not sure she wants me to,
not sure she wants me.

So I settle for sly touches
disguised as clumsy little bumps,
& we stroll & bump & sip cheap tequila
trying not to make funny faces,
(¡God that shit tastes terrible!)
until we feel all good & tingly,
& we stroll under a sycamore
(or whatever, I don't know trees)
to relax on a bed of grass & headlines.

Frolic? ¡Yeah, Frolic!
We frolicked just a little bit,
under the Whatever Tree,
pinching, prying, tickle-poking,
a bit of laughter, a bit of joking,
having fun enjoying the bit of numbness
between our ears.
We got each other sticky sweet,
(Or she got me, I can't speak for her)
Until our eyes catch,
(kinda like what always happens in soaps & chick flicks, you know?),
& of course, we kissed,
we kissed,
& we kissed
under the Whatever Tree;
& of course I wanted more,
but it wasn't my place to ask,
& I didn't.

I just start strolling, again
all the way to the subway;
she watches me leave,
leaves me wanting more.

Jasmine

The one poem of mine that I've memorized, always ready to recite on queue. Written circa 1992.

Jasmine

I put my fingers to my nose
& smell the sweet scent of jasmine.
It seems amazing that once I touched her
the scent never went away.

I close my eyes, fists pressed tight
against them, & through the stars
I see her face.
It seems amazing that once I touched her
the scent never went away.

I lick at my tears as they roll
down my face, & through the salt
I taste the essence of our sin.
It seems amazing that once I touched her
the scent never went away.

& through the static of my speakers
I can hear her sweet,
sweet jasmine voice, speaking
to my soul, singing,
"I love you."
Is it so amazing that I needed only touch
her once, & now I know
the scent will never go away.

Chosen

Howdy folx. I'm feeling a bit broody today, which sometimes makes for decent poetry. Here's what came out. Let me know what you think.

Chosen

I love you,

said the Universe

as she pummeled me

into the Earth,

ripped my corpse

out of the dirt

only to throw me

against weathered mountains.

I have chosen you,

She says as I slide

into cool rivers,

chosen you to show

humanity its foolish folly

its varicose vanity

its egregious ego.

I rest upon a riverbank

feeling no pain

because I am pain,

& I remember

being a child

being beaten

by my mother

beyond submission

beyond comprehension.

Afterwards

she would always hold me

in her arms, cradle me,

rock me softly,

& tell me tenderly,

I’m sorry. I do this

because I love you.

You can’t fail.

You are hope.

You are chosen.

Easter Snapshot

snapshot
Staring
at the only photograph
I have left, Easter—your head
wrapped neatly in a paisley
scarf, alabaster skin set
off by the scarlet of your top,
all 5’ nothing of you dwarfing
over the 3 of us, [how small
we were, and how as big
as the world you seemed to us
back then] holding JoJo’s fragile
little hand—JoJo, in his blue denim
overalls with a strap dangling
off his shoulder and his Buster
Brown do, free hand gripping
one link of the chain link—your other
arm held hard against KiKi’s heart—
KiKi, with her baby doll dress & her baby doll
smile & her white knee highs— and
there I am, the Little Man all grown
up at 8 or 9 or whatever, hair,
as always, waving wildly in the wind,
stylin’ in my plaid polyester belted lounge
lizard jacket, with matching bell
bottom bottom, foot propped
up, arms spread like I owned
the world like I knew I did;
all of us there, at the base
of Lady Liberty, Manhattan &
its now extinct towers barely
bursting through the fog, celebrating,
not God, not Jesus, not life, nor liberty,
nor the pursuit of happiness, but
love: the love that we could squeeze
out of this fucked up family that we
shared, that we accepted for better
of for worse, or for worse than that
because how can we forget those times?

I stare
at this, the only
photograph I have
left, & I imagine
the others, the ones
I don’t have, the ones
lost, the ones destroyed, even
the ones that never existed,
like the picture I never
took of you during one
of your dazed for days days,
lounging & lost in your
euphoria, hiding from problems
I didn’t, still don’t quite,
understand, like the picture
I never took of you bruised,
battered & beaten by
whatever flavor of the month
macho-sick monster you were
sampling, like the picture I never
took the day you cashed your
first paycheck, leaving the drugs,
the drink, the drunks & the drama
packed away neatly with your past,
or like the picture I never took
of you bloated, bleeding & bleached
on that hospital bed, your past
unpacking itself to prevent
your progress,
your present,
your presence…
your life briefed
down to vital signs & bad
mistakes you had already paid for
with interest.

Staring
as I tend to
do quite often, more
often than I like to admit,
at the only photograph
I have left, I am left
wanting more:
more than these faded
foggy fucked up fragments
that I can’t quite feel,
these pieces of memory
that float around in my head,
incomplete & inane,
that I can’t touch
or hold or strum
like a stringless guitar,
or cry on; they don’t
have the power
of this picture,
this one picture
this one last picture
where life was set
aside one Easter Sunday
just so
that we could remember
that even the fog
could not hide
the love captured
at the base
of Lady Liberty.

My Night ( A Poem)

This poem was inspired by the myth of Nüt & Geb, a personal favorite.

My Night

¿How can I

stay away

when You wrap

so tightly

about Me,

sealing,

enveloping,

protecting Me

from Everything,

leaving room

for Nothing

else but the feel

of You wrapped

tight about me

like wet rice

paper?

¿What else

can I do

Sister Sky—

Heaven full

of stars,—

but grind

inside You

until My mountains

are raw

& My rivers

boil beneath

Your pressure,

Your pleasure,

Your gravity?

¿So what

if there is room

for naught—

nothing but

us, no space

for other Gods

to roam between

Us, to breathe?

The feel

of Your breath

is all I need.

Let Them separate

Us if they must—

make room

for Creation,

for Life,

for Other

than Our bond.

¿Could we expect

Them to continue

Existence smothered

between Us?

It matters

not, my Nüt—

They can keep

Us apart—

divided for only

so long

before Night

once again wraps

itself around Me—

when

the Sun hides

You fall

& I rise

to meet

You.

Perhaps

the time will come

when the Sun

abandons its

task & We can

again join

in perpetuity,

when You & I,

and nothing else

will reign

supreme—

Our Love,

Eternal Lust,

Chaos.