Heaviness

A millstone hung,
On my neck slung.

Easy burden,
Nothing sudden
About easy
As I'm queasy
Of lost passion.

Dark consumption
Of the base grind,
Unethused mind.

For the day came,
I missed His Name.

The lesson learned,
Another earned;

That passion must
From Him sought first

As the day dawns,
And life reborn.

The Ant Farmer and the Ant, Buddies

The ant farmer and the ant, buddies...
Yet funny the former takes on the name of the latter, the lesser, the pet.
Funnier still how I, an ant can, by sheer benevolent sarcasm,
Be permitted to do some farming, fellow ants farmed,
Led perhaps by nice scents secretly imbued by the kindly old ant farmer.

Sometimes I farm unaware but the odors wear off
(In my mind, at least), and if I farm then
Maybe I still reap, knowing that in secret
The nice scents are the ant farmer's
Not mine.

Gaping Hole

There will come a precious coming
A time when one's slippery grasp
Of how one can,
As with a silver-ore shovel,
Dislodge dark brown earth
(Depravity)
In the already blood-red
Flower bed
Of another, prove to be
Far better than now;
The now of mountains,
Heaps of rose mountains,
Beside hungry-mouthed valleys.

The Guys

Rummaging for these famous ones,
The luminaries, the word-craftsmen;
Their produce not always lauded,
As what earth-dwellers would suppose,
Yet refuse and riveting pieces
Both find their way into
The coveted muse,
Spiriting away rusty shackles.

Towering Hunks of Stone

My enemy is a towering hunk of stone, high and Babel-born;
Rising from the ground from when in a time thought done
It had been rubble, yet from ash to mud to rock it forms,
Thwarting my pilgrimage.

Plowing through this black, soot-caked edifice
Is why today was hacked away; but I need plucking
By what lies on the other side, the undergirding.

I wait for the thundering crash, the fire,
The blood that must be drunk, that sets one plodding again
Across walls and valleys: the earth.

Stream

Gush...flowing slow, unhurried, clear and cold,
The stream into stillness.
White, with gentle patches
Of light blue, brown and green.
In a deserted spot near water,
The grass is mellow,
The trees wide with shade,
The smell is of the virgin country.
Now and then coy chirping,
Then stillness.
The clouds, the only ones
Busying themselves
With moving.
True, the stream speaks,
Saying nothing but
Be still.

Grace Place

Making one the inner man and my drums,
This was in the morning.
Compromised that more of this in moments future,
A few hours coming.
I was meaning to miss it.
The missus dismissed it.
Making one the inner man and my drums,
This was in the noontime, nearing dusk.
My host and his cohorts, beautiful dames,
Crooners, ministers, I see them smiling.
The text message says blessed.
I think I shall sleep well and do it again.

My Rib

My rib, plucked in a season when no swelling of time
Had ever seared the brown earth with its tears of wet fire,
Is what I should be.

Her diamonds, her gold, all that she would
Offer as ransom for the life of her children,
Are not stones glistening nor the metal of the sun
But what primeval in God's mind was formed:
Her soul.

My hand in hers, (more than my hand is hers),
And no blow of icy wind, sharp as steely knives enough,
Can carve what, if God's mind can be changed,
He has forged; that is to say: Never.

So it really is that Adam never lost a rib,
And tonight mine is mine.

The Fly

If men had their way and sentiments became law
Then the common housefly would exist for the splat.

Even now they live such short lives
But who can deny with what fervor they fly.

To and fro sucking marrow to the dregs
As if aware that blackness must soon pass.

How different are we really,
From the common housefly?

We suck life less but die as quick.

The One Day

The day when the mother
Of paradoxes bulldozed
Through what the textbooks
Told to be foolish
Was the day the first
Became last,
The day First Cause rose,
The day Death froze,
And the day I lived.

Spurs

Spurs, those jagged implements
Of accomplishment,
Intruding upon flesh
To bleed one's pay's worth.
Must spurs bleed?
Can't spurs be as what flowers
Do to a lady wooed,
The nectar sipped...
Do without the violence,
Mostly on feverish minds,
And labor for everyday
In a garden of flowers.

Camel Through Needle Eye

The rich fall off trees
The poor look on in wonder,
At bottom in peace.

The Redwood

The redwood that now befriends the sun, stars,
And moon, was once the plaything of the earth,
Betraying an old worn-out road to far
And ancient glories one with every birth.
Creeping did it blossom from infantile
Seed, sprouting shyly from its wormy bed;
With the love and hate of nature virile
'Til its tender stalk for sturdy bark shed;
Ascending at a snail's pace unruffled
By beasts of sorts and cries of wind and hail,
It's shell shielding a heart vulnerable,
Yearning upward for the heavens availed.

Having kissed the denizens of the sky,
The redwood calls to man with him to fly.

Kawasaki

My little child, shy of a year then, by the stroke of Divine Providence
Drew near death's play pen with nagging arteries and inflamed veins.
How the tears streamed across cheeks of us her vessels of deliverance
As we cradled in our arms eyes bloodied and lips full cherries.

As she lay as a leaf those 2 weeks I heard the cries of a ram's shrieks
Caught in the underbrush; an angel speaks staying Abraham's cold hand for the pierce.
My little child, shy of a year then, by the stroke of Divine Providence,
Was given the angel rainbow for hands. For Abraham's God she will pictures paint.

Ontological

I may think of anything,
Any twisted froth brewed
From my small, finite mind,
And all they ever will be
Are reflections of reality.

See that pink, proud, flying elephant
With the polka dotted hide
And white fluffy feathers,
See him soar weightless.

You scoff and call him fantasy
And right you are,
Yet my elephant could not have been
Without birds, pride, color
And the dotted pattern.

You think of God
Because He is there.

They Are Friends

Many play at war with two sides
Forced to engage.
On one hand, Reason is made to fume
At the other, where the Heart rages.

I am one to propose peace
Where no enmity by nature exists,
For to think truly
Is to feel rightly.

Milky

Fair, silken-smooth oak
Walk the streets,
Every stride a radiance
Of sunstreaks.

A look sideways
Spills the butter
That melts into eyes,
And so with the smiles.

Vertigo

A twitch of the eye.
Light switched dimmer in the head.
The swirling of night.

Clean River

What does a lapse in grasp
Of integrity
Mean in terms of tomorrow?

A cascaded hill betrayed by its cracks,
Now one flowing in the laughing
Racing red river.

Muddied.

But the universe in blue ocean
Opens its mouth and swallows
And spits back the muddied river.

Upstream.

Clean.

I Love the Smell of Freshly-Brewed Coffee

I love the smell of freshly-brewed coffee,
The smoky scent as if of burnt wood,
Of a kind of dark musty ruggedness
That never waxes old.

I love the twist of freshly-brewed coffee,
Sipped with a good book.

A House Burned

It rose from behind trees and houses and a mountain,
The smoky plume blacker at the bottom and fading gray on top.
It drew eyes and ahhhs from all around,
And tears and blood from the crying.

Emblems

The crossing of the sun across the sky lights up the scenes below,
Of loves lost, of new loves birthed, of triumphs and tragedies,
Of ashes that once were dreams, these in emblems live;
Pick up a picture, play a song, or go to that place,
Plucking heartstrings that soon give.

Order in Spring

In disarray, like the landscape
After the blackness, as if blind,
Of a stormy day in June,
Is every soul.

How odd that order begins
As one's felled trees
And another's uprootedness
Make for monuments
To a sunny spring day.

Morning Walk

On a freshly painted morning, when the colors of life were at
It's most blinding ardor, there walked a man and beside him his dog.
I paused to spectate and slowed was then the sands' trickling off to sea
As how soft a man's smile may be, the tree and beside it his dog.
Bowed in a posture so humble, seemingly, as master and friend
Shared earth and grass and filthy streams, passing cars, beside him his dog.
The sun had leapt, high and orange, pearly sweat on skin and slobber
Beckoned them back to the brown lodge, the man and beside him his dog.
I saw them become specks far off the stony road that led to home,
As I too made my earnest way back to strife, beside me my dog.

Exhume

Beneath the morning earth wet with dew, worms
Mingle.

Before the mourning birthed now eyes wet, hearts
Jingled.

Worms and dead hearts mingle and jingle here,
Under a morning earth wet with dew.

Ivory-Pillar Legs

Somehow a flaming torch
Sleeps nestled inside her,
Belly like a walnut
On ivory-pillar legs.
Seems when the night owl hoots,
As the song freely floats,
Is the shell the weakest
For looks like he's kicking
On ivory-pillar legs.

Devout Simpletons

God requires of man a love thrice
Burned in heart, soul, and mind;
But now a sorry state we find
--- Reason unexercised,
Sacrificed for sheer sentiment
--- Emotions unbridled,
For firm foundations a riddle
To devout simpletons.

To Melancholia

Fair lady, what draws them out wet
Those dark pools of red lashy eyes?
Virginal and raw, you as yet
Are brought to blue by sheer surprise.

When years under the fiery cloak
Should've now forged tough tainted skin,
On paltry morsels still you choke
With fervid cries that court heaven.

But the blossoms harden the bark
A fairer sweet rose shall fluorish
As the seasons of wither mark
A new pain-wrought petal brandished.

From My Loins

You will eat of my meat
And drink from my flask,
You will share my air
And whiff the same dust.
Of the words that soar
From them you will rhyme,
Of many stumblings yours
In truth they are mine.

In time
You will close my eyes
And in better ones
Look down, below
Upon my grave
And up
To where I go.

The Usual Pickings

The red, black, and gold roses litter the path to the fountain
Where a thousand silver apples water the blue sky.
Every soul that has clenched lungs of sour breath
Carry all three bundled and tucked beneath woeful smiles.

The Radiant One receives these tokens, a thorned hand...
Miracle of miracles! A silver rose emerges.
Come and taste of the apples, the red, black and gold gone.

Nubs

My little me, I saw you nubs moving,
Lips twitching, sucking on golden nubs.
My heart you held in those little nubs,
And when you yawned you were preaching
Songs from the ages, and I wept.

When the fresh-cut grass draws a fullness in you,
Your nubs shall embrace me as I lift you up
To meet the sun, as your nubs dance
On my wet face.

The Splendor

The end of the day comes, but I miss the streaks
Of angry red the sun spreads across an ailing sky.

Holed-up and going only when darkness has won,
I need but wait for tomorrow to kiss flashes of yellow
That feed my bones.

Hung

Thinking it is but etched on sand,
The impassioned scribble letters
Foretelling love and forever
Just for legs hung on a tree branch.
But the moon summons the splashing
Of the cold waves upon the shore;
The flowers unmoved upon rock ,
Thriving on the rain and our pain,
Plucking close to never
While legs hang on a branch.

Mountain

I went up the mountain on foot
Where a holy river,
Poured from a crack on heaven's side,
Wet sojourners' parched lips.

Lips courting for the heart's filling,
Tasted never enough,
That my feet bare with sandals part,
Up the Sunday mountain.

Red

I will hold you
Like an apple clutched
By the gentle river

Neither hard, to crush,
Nor fluttering,
But enough to flow

You red to shore.

Go, Lieth

My head has rolled, what has become of me.
I see my hand twitch for an itch
But with no brain to lead it.

What is all this laughter?
Cursed be the laughter that is
Not from my quivering lips!

Oh, cursed a thousand-fold be that upstart!
Take your foot from off my face, shepherd-boy!

CSTER

Cretins, not many litter these grounds
Soaked by dew Divine;
Truth dined among the redeemed
Engender soul savoring of
Right, Truth, and the Master Class.

Cretins, not many but few
Seemingly in their eyes
Think their thoughts founded;
Entombed, to say more aptly,
Refugees in caves of heresy.

Come, cretins who are cretins no more,
Seek the end for which your heart fails
To savor, insatiable for none but He,
Eternal and the Chief of Pleasures,
Raining soul-satisfaction on once-cretins.

Why You Wake

No exceptions, no one's by the wayside
When the twinkle of day gives way
To the blaze of the full-blown morn,
At once we are in gear for pleasure.
Noble or not the things we engage in,
Plopped on a condo's layered bellies
Or whipping caffeined corporate slaves,
Not once are we not out for pleasure.
Now the triggers of that which linger
As every day's dangling carrot,
These winds and fertile gusts that move
A man, these mark him and him measure.

Before the Cock Crows

Oh, a day covered
By early-risen prostration,
Of boulders and dust and the filthy world,
Off shoulders onto pierced Hands.

On a Hill

To you who walked with me
Ankle deep in the mud,
On a downpour night,
'Till knee-deep wade,
For up the hill we went,
Choked-up like kids after play,
Soaked yet the wind
Carried our laughter away;
To you, in your hand,
Atop this hill of the night,
May you cup 'till grey,
The mud, the rain and tonight.

Turon

Wrapped and encrusted,
Infested with festering sweetness,
Brittle when intimate
With the salivating tongue.
For a few, she can be yours
Pandered by scantily-clad damsels,
Through feather-sad eyes, they
Try a smile to win some.
In my hands rough enfolded
Brown but often red,
To my lips she creeps
Crumbling broken on paper.
Moments and shreds entombed
In the dark that is fed.

Crude Oil Days

There are days,
The crude oil days
When the waves coil so timid;
Thick, and thick is existence,
Merely being here, so heavy;
And those eyes gleaming,
Teeth bared of the laughing
Commoner, I muse, what keeps
Them amused amidst the falling wall.

Without a Face

Maybe it's best to not let you see
The wither and ache in this tree,
Of worms in feast at my rooted base
As fungal decay my skin deface.
Then again the pretty you have grown
To relish in this man erect,
Shed and bare if when to you is shown,
Will you still come and call him perfect?

M Blues

Mondays march us to each our chosen fate,
Like an iron-clad taskmaster resolved
To bleed us of the past couple of days'
Ease from Adam's curse, Eve's felicity.
But how Saturday came with courtesy
As soft gentle sunlight eased through the sheets,
And with a mind tranquil with coffee whiff
On the bun-soft couch with Aristotle.
For a day like Sunday's forever bright,
The first half of trees speeding by and church
Faces, warm though worn, as with clasping hands
Among brothers and the ladies kissing.
So sure as flux is unchanging it ends,
And the latter half assumes its looming
Stance over the sleep that lulls everyday
Of every age and arises Monday.

Song

When a song catches you off-guard,
And it's the kind you wish
You'll never have to grow tired of;
When the words, the rhyme, and the melody
All point to your throbbing heart,
And you can't hear it play enough;
When everytime it catches you,
It's her still in your heart,
And her sad face in every line;
And hearing is believing that
She's alive and lives on
In melodious words bearing rhyme;
Hearing becomes seeing,
As if kissing a song.

Me in You

If I am able to impart upon you
The thoughts that I think to myself;
And if those thoughts you find
Are what runs through your mind,
Then have I begun
To be human
And to be found out
And on parole.

Hero Worship

You, the gifted one
With the countenance of fair symmetry,
With an intellect above the masses,
With enablements that inspire;
They, the masses, require you to lead,
To assert, dominate, and crush.
Yet you may be of the opposing disposition
And with meekness and regard do conduct your ways;
You walk in lowly trodden paths
And sleep where vagabonds lay.

Now then will you be scoffed at and maligned,
And relegated to the heap of human refuse,
For failing to be the hero
That huffs and puffs,
Is rude and gruff,
To the misaligned masses.

What We Pursue

What every man pursues, is it not happiness?
For whatever toil and contortion he distorts himself,
Is it not for love?
Pitiful creatures we are, driven but unwittingly;
For it is nature we assail
When these we deny.

She Sorrows

She aches from the stark incongruity
Of her mind spells from primal tendencies
That ever so forcefully she buries,
And yet her claimed dignity fails to ease
The ache that never leaves, and so she weeps.

Her men have all failed her as she failed them;
A parade of sorry clowns honking horns,
And mufflers she wears as she goes about
Playing the noble part of redeemed dame
From whoredom to the palace of the pure,
Cured of her self-hate, or so it may seem...

But leave, never it wanes.

The Three

Plato screamed Utopia,
And justice is you as you being you.
Beauty and truth remain mysteries,
Yet the common man recognizes both
When the maiden he sees
And fact his senses confirm.
Better yet to not have opened the eyes
In bitter entry to reality,
And to have stayed unborn in nothingness
With no need for grasping...gasping
For breaths of light.

Choose a myth to wake by
And in it find hope,
Only to find at the end of a sickle
The revelation of
Justice, beauty, and truth.