The Night the Stars Fell from Heaven (ca. 2018)

at last something broke you
and that thing, it was you
you were closing your eyes
you were seeing it through

you blew up and sold
the world outside and within
and i fell on your black day
you showed me how to live

you showed me how to die
and no matter how hard i try
to stare at the sun
it is black to my blind eyes

and suddenly my eyes are open
somehow things begin to focus
high

we are all illuminated
light is shining on our faces
blind

until our rapture
falls to pieces

these are stolen
bits and pieces

*

new york is hot
how i loathe where i’m living
Bharata, you fought
now it’s i who is giving
up 
and now fly

now fly from your empty cage, girl
you are rust and the sky
always killing the bird
see, i am the night
jesus christ i suppose
see, i am the light

i don’t mean to remind you
of anything you gave me in song
you blessed my muse with your light
what you did was so wrong

the light in us was darkness
how the night is so long
light a fire, wait for summer
we black stars wander on

smoldering embers
september’s come and gone
here comes my december
half beast
and half gone

*

broken and cold
but all is still holy
halleiluah and through you
yes everything, holy

did we want it darker
so you turned out the light?

now i’m doing time
playing with meter and rhyme
longing to be in the house
of my own secret life

until the sea must free us
i’ll wait for you there
you came just to see us 
all we sailing where?

all of us sailors
rowers, keep rowing
now no light is showing
now the danger’s approaching

row gently, never gently!
upstream to ignite
row never gently!
rage at that night!

oh captain, my lying captain
turn around and take me home
a long time ago
i thought you’d died alone

everybody knows this boat’s leaking
all the white horses stopped sleeping
the ponies stopped running
i the band just keep playing
though the girls now are aging

lilac wine, sweet and heady
how my hand is unsteady
how aghast and unready
like my love that is ending
like the last night you danced me

when the music was over
you turned out the lights
you kissed me goodnight
with a thousand goodbyes

still in my dreams you walk dripping
from the sea where i’m slipping
from the sea that shall free me
to my hut that is ripping
through the masterpiece 
tripping

how my soul is worn thin
i can’t even begin
to speak
so i’ll speak no more

and if it be your will
i’ll sink beneath your wisdom
like a stone

like a stone
i’ll wait for you there

alone

8/30/19

Everyone’s been talking about how 
the universe will either expand 
indefinite cold star death
or collapse and then repeat itself

meanwhile i’m a slave proper
in every sense of the word physical
bound to the elements hunger
a criminal for speaking my thoughts aloud

a loud or a soft noise unheard
unseen and unknown and unthinkable
still I would try to define it
humanity, always effing the ineffable

i’m one and apart and the same all the same
the universe cloaked in name after name
every man and woman a star
in their own drama melodrama how dramatic

i am in a word addict
again you might say i’m back at it
rhyming with rhythm but static
sense or nonsense and i’ve had it 

Hubris Geneseos

Kerouac, if i share your life
must i also share your death? 
the inherent conflict lies in striving
only to be laid to rest

it weaves itself like black golden thread
through our dreams before we were human
collectively we are so much less
so much more
and soon

then i was face to face 
with the limits of love and grace
and every word i said
echoed back at me in the silence of my own mind

there, no sorrow
there, no regret
there, only me
and yet
and yet…

the hubris of giving birth
is the prime mover of this universe
and bearing the light, if i consume
my body, my soul, inside this womb
and draw all men into myself
until i am a living, breathing, burning tomb

until reality is compounded and condensed in me
until i’m a light which cannot see 

ca. 2011

Hippocrates

it’s ready to happen
hours count down to launch, but the burners hum already
the structure is taken up
siphons slowly into the bloodstream

the catalyst, the moment
the agonist, the imitator

the perceptual set is set, and it’s famished
not even lit, and it’s waiting for more- 
the stimulant, the ignition
the doctor, the system

like inlets of blood, the freeways carry us to the city
like carcinogens, like poison medication
like aluminum, like exhaust

i too am carried
and when i reach that center
i am deposited, and begin to take effect
while i wait for my own poison to take hold of me
blood within Blood
and
poison in Poison
medication in Medication in MEDICATION
we make sure all of our cancers are medicated

it has happened already
but i am waiting for it to happen again
the freeway now quiets itself in anticipation
a new day to repeat
the city is ready for more

ca. 2006

Gloria Inferni

hell is not hot
if you think it is, it’s just because you haven’t been there
hell is like cool drink of water
but it gets under your skin
gets right where it hurts the most
understands your weaknesses
anticipates your failures
its always there waiting
crouching
silent

hell is not
anything you would expect
because the glory of hell
is to give the unexpected

ca. 2012

Gently

go gently, gently, into that good night
i will not rage
against the dying of the light

the light is blinding
and i am burned
leaving forgotten, all i have spurned

hello Darkness, my old friend
please impale my two-part heart
with the bleeding tip of my black-blooded pen
that way, maybe
that way, we will never speak again

in that sleep, surely no nightmares
may come
that are worse
than the present one

send me quietly into that good night
i will not fight
the dying of the light 

Written ca. 2011

Eulogy

renaissance
San Francisco, a whisper in the wind tonight
tells of rebirth
not Beat
or beaten down
not beatific simply being

it is whispered that soon
we will all see our visions and dream our dreams
amidst the microchip mindbending screams
can you really, really believe? 

The true dawn begins tonight
at which I woke, and was alight
and the wind rushed through me like 
the rustle of dead leaves

San Francisco, I never knew
you but I hear of your deeds of renunciation and renown
they have echoed across time and space like starlight
that is evergreen

I have seen, I see, I will continue to see
me in you
you in me
I was born
not anachronistically
but just in time
just in time 

ca. 2011

Dry Drunk

i was born
to a mother who always is
trying to destroy me

my father
left
long before
i was born
i can never seem to find
where he’s at

i’m so dry
such a dry, dry drunk
white knuckle sober

ca. 2011 – 2012

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

The Four Corners

this four-cornered cave, i’ve been calling my home
the sun has dried up
and left bleached like a bone

this bone i’ve been living in, like an old woman’s shoe
but i have no children
and i have nothing to do

this deed that i’ve done, it has been done for me
but I was condemned
and condemned to be free

this freedom is nothing, not like freedom at all
i sit staring at shadows
shadows play on the walls

ca. 2006