The Day i Saw God

yesterday
or was it today? i can’t really tell
i saw God
more clearly than i’ve ever seen anything

She was
struggling to breath
unable to understand
why everything was pain
why She’d been so alone
away from all those She loved so much

Her eyes bleary and fading
joy erased
but we were there with Her
She could feel us again
along with Her children and sisters huddled against Her
for one last image
equally at a loss

but the last image She gave me
was when the sedative finally kicked in
and i sat face to face with Her
gently stroking Her beautiful head
She finally made sounds of joy again
or they could have been pain
but i think they were joy
and i think i saw joy again in Her eyes
i think the medicine had relieved the fear and pain
just enough for Her to feel the joy of me loving Her

but that moment was cut short
as they took Her away
i cried “goodbye sweet baby”
sweet Angel, sweet Love
then i fell apart
completely

the next time i saw God
all the life had departed from Her
all that remained for me
was Her still, beautiful form
eyes open, but lifeless
and my eyes are open, but lifeless
until I see God again

• In loving memory of Boo, an angel who was taken from us too soon on 7/10/2021

Just More Nonsense From Within Our Captivity

i and i wept
by the waters of Knoxville
remembering Zion
repatriation, what a notion
slowly, we came to our senses

the brave new world
closing in around us
we sought our refuge
at the doors of perception

timothy leary and
Marcus Garvey
were on a bad trip
together one day
when it began to snow outside
like grace
from heaven, falling
i was there with them
the angel of death

my thanatalivity
is all i know now
i will make it
to the end

ca. 2012

Ephemera II

even now has come to an end
the world that once was then
when
the nights were young
full of natural electricity

you may find yourself
standing in a place so unfamiliar
yet so full of such bewildering
similarity
to something you knew before

then, 
you may just be watching
the wind as it plays
in ripples on the surface of the water
which passes under your feet
standing on a bridge 

ca. 2011 – 2012

Cells

remember when you sat in asylum
and heard sounds from the other side
when i soothed you with that children’s song
high above the lamentation
up on the desert plain

remember when you sat among the violent
and heard through the haze
the passionate rhythm 
the voice always with you

remember when your eyes were opened
to sun-colored fields
and to fields of radiant souls
each one cut and multi-faceted
each one perfect in its own poverty

remember when you looked down from that hill
on the sparkling city-lights below
and the city was transformed
and lived and breathed
and ran through you like divine blood
like Zion itself, consumed in your holy communion

I run through your memories
christening them holy
I breathe into your crowded slum
until every rock, and the dung strewn on the dirt path
are all lovely
worthy of worship all along

remember the fury with which I destroyed you
when you paced, heart racing
in your jail cell
when I set my wolves on you

remember the endless, stretching months
that all seemed like years and years
when I unleashed my plague of locusts
into your scrambled brains
when you found no rest in sleep
and your flesh burned through the day
when I breathed fire and consumed your little house
and you stood there naked and aghast
in a mechanistic universe that hated you through and through
a starving animal, you cowered in fear
thirsty longing to find shelter from the sun

i run through my memories
latent and potent in every cell, every member
i remember 

ca. 2012

Apophemi

paint me a picture
without any words
with blood and with guts
like nothing i’ve heard

write me a song
but leave out the lyrics
and leave out the music
just give it the spirit

breathe me a breath
like a dying one
one that whispers the hope
of some rising sun

help me to end
without any beginning
and to burn out bright
without ever kindling

ca. 2015

Begging for Bread

is it my age-old blasphemies
that keep you at arm’s length? 
screaming for life
begging for bread

i sit by the silence
wrapped in the shade
the glories of youthful dreams
beautifully fade

my name in lights
my name tonight
forgotten
if for a moment
if i could hold it tight

if i could only make love to my demise
open to skies
swim in your eyes
with the rest of the teeming sea
of humanity
lost 

ca. 2011

Gehinnom

On a world with no moon I pondered deeply on a starless night
Wondering what happened when the sun fell silent with the light
And yet the black sky told no story, no star-man seen with belt alight
Orion quiet as the darkness still, unthought, unformed

Not because of clouds or want of sight was my world formed in darkness
But because the sun had gone and was the only light
The nearest star was just too far, and so to me had never been
Like I must be to it as if it were I wasn’t born

All the light I knew this night was fire; fire was my own
Nothing out beyond myself had gave this fire or had shown
One sign of having helped me strike the tinder into flame
I didn’t even know it “fire”, knew it by no name

On a world with no moon, no stars, no clouds, no name
I forgot there was a sun
but it was all the same

The Dialogue

Money protect Me, for i am of money
Power protect all your children who love You
may it be always, that we remain one
till’ all accounts settle, and we transform into none

passion for poem, wanton weakness in words
I am nothing
like anything
you think you have heard
chaos of rough draft
order adds on each edit
I give bread, and give breath, and you give me no credit

my father, my father, tell me why did you leave me?
the lust of a dust castle
seduced, she bereaved me
she robbed me of every singed hair, I remember
she left through the cold chimney late in December

I struggled to speak, in a world without ears
I sought long for weeping, but never found tears
I the day, I the night
I am time before years
I the moon
I the sun
I your most hopeful fear

Me is not I, unless words could deceive us
my bitterness feeds on the truth that you leave us
you leave and have left, and are leaving again
Me equals Us, and you leave us my friend

not leaving or coming, see
I’ve all come and left
I have no where to go, I have no where to nest
no bed and no pillow
no blanket or tree
you refuse to accept that my rest is with me

don’t tease me
or mock, with your promise of wages
you, the dumb-deaf demise of our weak-minded sages
you, insisting we work seven days of the week
you leave my hand empty and return me to the streets

it is for want of a road
you must sleep in the streets
I offer you rest, but you are always asleep
I ask you to walk
Your sun crumbled your feet
I ask you to walk
so you severed your wings

ca. 2006

Hexakosioihexakontahexaphobia

i insist on suffocating slowly
still
i refuse to die
imposing my will to weakness
avoiding applying the “why”

implications are closing in, oppressive
my mind is open, fluid
suggestive
interposing meaning and form with
the spoken and written letter

the light source filtered through all this
wreckage
the squeaking moving in, oppressive
regressive, the way my vantage remains
a disjointed unit-whole

you persist, and i suffocate quickly
you ask so nicely for me to die
deposing my God damned will to power
why do i seem to avoid the “apply”?

THE SYMBOL ON MY HAND IS BURNING

into the flesh, and back out from inside
illuminates Prison, a chasm, a prism
dividing a spectrum of impossible light

we wholly refract the soma, the psyche
The Panic transforms into beauty inane
compulsion, obsession, redemption, addiction
we know we’re alive
we perpetuate pain

ca. 2006

nameless

worlds within
and without are all waning
insatiable
chaos
vacuum
the void
which sat between heavens
heavens splitting the waters
the waters, the weeds
create living geometries

etch-a-sketch drawings
of silent mandalas

now the dreamweaver
lotus
now the lucid unwaking ones
who appear at your bedside
disdaining your closet

while you lie
awake
sleeping
hypnogogically paralyzed
their eyes burning green
freeze your skies
red
as

Christ
comes

you
trapped in misogamy
you
flying through tattered air
you
stoned off this oxygen
burned by the stare
of a mirror 

ca. 2006