Anthology Poems

Mark Butterworth © 2003
(These works cover from 1975 until now.)

Clouds

The clouds are trains that make no sound
And drift on rails that cast no hue.
No schedule makes them move through town,
No signal makes them stop for you.

And clouds are carriers of freight;
And mountains, stations where they rest
To drop their cargo's awesome weight,
And bring the earth abundance blest.

And often clouds announce approach,
Resounding thunder warning all;
Then speeding like the fastest coach
Arriving, spills its waterfall.

But clouds are trains that need no fuel,
Nor drivers to control their pace.
They pass, and in their passage cool;
Their shadows run an equal race.

I often ride upon those trains,
My payment is a moment spent;
Then timeless thoughts my heart obtains
In journeys through the firmament.

***

Cold, cold, cold blows
the winter winds and snows
Grim ice fields trip
the mountains with their grip
Dead deers stiff stance
in crushing avalanche
Down windfall trees
in crashing anarchies.


**

Ah, February's like a witch
that's starved for love, a hungry bitch
that whines and begs then counters cruel
if not allowed its sway to rule.

And February's like a child
of venal aspiration wild
and won't endure a fond restraint
but must indulge every complaint.

Or February's like a cat
disdaining this and scorning that
and certain it will not be pleased
regardless how it is appeased.

But February minces on,
a malice dancing marathon;
exhausts the source of its decay
and weeps another year away.

Autumn

Drop down you dying leaves and flutter like
so many days this year in orange ochre
crimson russet gatherings of time
and wind and drifting hours purposeless.
I notice that the growing things are not
reluctant in their dying season. They
don't fight to persevere, outlast their time.
Nor can they trust to resurrection, for
some events: storms, flood, man may ruin them;
increase their dormancy perpetually.

Do not go gently? Tell me where's the choice?
November soul of absent partings, nothing
riles you. No pangs. No sorrow, grief,
or mourning in your acts inexorable.
A simple calm. No fear. No Pain. No wishes,
hopes, or vagary dreams. Lie down, Death.
You win, and fallow is the ground asleep.
It's not so grim at all, for this is in-
nocence nocturnal poppies' grove. There is
no evil in this kind of withering.

No man has stilled the time to one's dismay.
No violence inters the living breath.
No action, impulse, passion has disturbed
this grave adventure of decay. No mask
is gone but colors fade. This planet, globe
of subtle clockworks ticking, fails the prime
and entropy cascades like waterfalls;
eroding every substance, form, and en-
ergy alike - return to something was.
Drop down you dying leaves of task and fade.

Song: A Funerary

When lilacs were last blooming
When the rose had turned to rust
As the Summer fell consuming
And the blossoms gathered dust

When the Mayfly danced its hour
When the bees had swarmed at last
So the Summer lost its power
And the dragonflies have passed

Falling, dying threads of silk
The caterpillar has matured
Monarch butterflies have flown
Leaving shells left uninterred

In Autumn, Autumn I am lonely
For I've seen and I have heard
The sight and sound of what was lovely
Perish like a mockingbird

When the lilacs last were blooming
And the rose had turned to rust
Then the Autumn was entombing
Loveliness cropped in the dust

Song

There's gold on Mercury and Mars
Olympica has diamonds
The Moon is built with silver bars
and amethyst set by the tons.

On Venus there are emeralds
and stones of steely blue sapphire
The moons of Jupiter have pools
of rubies red as molten fire.

Gold and gold in virgin veins
Await the miner with a pick
So find the lodes 'til none remains
And pocket opals by the brick.

These worlds await to make you rich
The ores and minerals are free!
For those who get there first and pitch
their stakes in vast geology.

There's gold on Mercury and Mars
Olympica has diamonds
The Moon is made of silver bars
And amethyst in blocks of tons.

Spring: Again

The redbud blooms
and burns the air
with flaming Spring
for everything is fire.

A wand'ring wind
walks through the world
and shakes the trees
awake to please desire.


**

Beneath the Ocean is a land;
Cold, black, murky, pressing death.
Oblivious and timeless strand,
Graveyard hapless sailors man,
Silent depth that swallows breath.

My father lies below the sea;
Phantom of a man, a ghost.
I am his living memory,
Staring from the eastern lee
Towards the west where he was lost.

**

And when you joy to smell the new mown grass,
it's pleasure borne from stalks that bleed a scent.
The lawn is riddled with a kind of moan
whose fluid wounds, if heard, would cry - relent!

**

Threaded electrum tapestries dazzle
of fecund, fructal fields. California.
Unsatisfied luxuriance, a thirst
for dust, for gritty gold. California.
Ripe paradise exuberant, a range
of light, earthquaking kiss. California.

**

Atlantis

Atlantis is a land of oranges
and almond groves; of cherry blossoms pink
with petals fluttering as summer snow;
while old men sit on ancient marble seats
drawing grey cloaks around them from the chill
of some imaginary darkness closing in:

An incandescent carmine dusk
like a dying cardinal's breast
slowly ebbing vivid color
fading 'til it's snuffed in ash

The orange poppies of Atlantis spring
among the wild hillside wheat like cups
of elfin gold, dew catching hummingbird baths,
making sheep and cropping cattle drowsy,
putting off appetites, evoking dreams.
Those who smoke the petals rarely stir again.

Dreams of paradise, blissful peace,
visionings senseless, painless, soft;
radiant petals, sunlike lids
close casually sealed by night.

Cities, many spired, has Atlantis,
raising tapering towers to the Sun;
golden mazes and jeweled gardens agleam
of durable shapes, blunt walls, gilded dwellings
as people flood the promenades, and roam
the quarried crystal canyons proud and mean:

Agate eyed cats pad white pavements
sleek silver squirrels hoard bright gems
fat grey raccoons sleep in dark dens
killing small dogs after dusk.

New music in Atlantis wends from wood,
soothes from reeds, and glides through crystal toned glass.
Gone are the days of bones and drums, apish chants.
Patrons sip cordials of amber liqueurs,
slow aging matrons with gold tinted hair
artfully rendezvous, arching plucked brows:

Musicians seduce flesh like wine
breasts become flushed, plump as down
loins swell, luxuriously warm
in drowsy liquid lassitude.

A Temple vaults a golden-silver dome
of fiery brazen red untarnishing,
upheld with violet marble columns rising
from a white paved floor of opal flags.

**
And in our veins flows our inheritance:
our lustrous blood: a ruby treasury.

**

America in Orient Pearl

How shall I live an oriental man,
in Western garb, on wide escapes of land,
with antiques force inventing newer deaths?
Massive name, scrutinizing contact, thickness
descends and shoulders out the standing room.
Forbidden towers raise spangled opulence,
gates close at dusk, the guards and guns come out.
Blue forces cruise the boulevards and shoot
on sight. Dogs bare fangs in alleyways,
lured by a throat; kill command, catch a thief.
Boy blurred on video, warrior oaf,
drinks poisoned milk; dreams of looting Mars.
God reckons movies are more for Him;
part one and two and three, let's make a movie.

Hyacinthus

Hyacinthus strews flowers for the dead.
Eating the petals of black roses down
in Pluto's den. Persephone pours tea
of nightshade; Orpheus sings dull dirges.
Eurydice weaves gray shrouds embroidered
with tales of Ajax and Achilles' death.

Strew flowers on the bier of Hector, I
have seen his shade. He wraps a cloak around
his shoulders: shivering, teeth chattering:
unwarmable, shakes seated on a rock
of steely granite; iron worms wrap coils
around his ankles, sucking out what warmth
there is in Hell. Andromache is chained
against a cypress hanging thick with pale, green moss;
and ever watches rats nibbling the brains
of Astynax. His eyes blink, lips dumbly move,
a chattering of thought without a sound.
Hyacinthus strews flowers for the dead,
and chews the petals of black roses under
Pluto's dome; a candy of dazed despair.
O Hyacinthus, where is any Spring?

Stupid Love

Is it moondeep and milkwhite? Tell the truth.
Is it metaphysical pale and blue?
Is it Mars red and big as Jupiter?
Is it Sungold and torrid as the Tropics?

Siskiyou Song

Crystal blue clouds in a white puffy sky,
motionless as sky floats slowly along.
Pure azure haze enveloping mountains.
I breath blue atoms of colorless cloud.
Sky is a frothy white river rolling like
a lazy drum. I breath blue clouds, I breath
blue clouds. I sing of blue mountain clouds. Ice
blue clouds enlightening dark blue mountains.
I breath blue mountain clouds, crystalline air.

On Mt. Shasta

I cannot dream too much of resting there
on peaceful slopes of mountain air.
Among the fir trees purple-red
a Shasta lily nods its head,
nodding in a sunbright breeze: fare you well.

A freshet trickles from a mossy spring,
icy water percolating.
Cicadas hum and bluejays squawk
while overhead a circling hawk
drifts in lazy circles faring well.

**
City like a cemetery, stone dead
where copulation thrives among the tombs.
Lecherous flies in the air over graves
wantonly breed. The wren and sparrow nest
in mausoleum vaults, and rabbits feed
on dandelion leaves and swell a brood;
while feral toms fight breeding rights. A stag
leads does at dusk to drink. Goats butt at gates.
A boulevard of graves teems with mating sounds
as grubs bore through coffins underground
and ring around a lady's neck like pearls.

**

A half moon sinking on the western sea;
a dingy orange boat about to launch
and sail away beyond a dark horizon.
A yellow moon, a golden hull, a planet
falling on the deep to broach the waves.
Smothered by a wall of clouds too dark to see,
the ancient mother moon descends and fades.
Love by the moon, soft as dust, soft as ashes,
sweet as wine; reflections full
of time and age; a beaten, weary moon
embarking on the western sea,
its soft light fading dim. Push away
stellar infinities. Revisit Love:
the wide and dreaming sphere of night.

**

Somewhere there is a story 'midst the madness.
It clings like precious sanity; it grips
like ivy; hangs tenaciously to hope.
There is a vivid tail upon a dream
that swings across the sky splashing colors;
a weaving wake of airy hues of light;
a vibrant brush of liquid opal;
something glorious and everlasting.
There is a fountain from a rock, and dew
of manna gilding morning in the desert.
There is an idiot speaking plainly
to a deaf-mute listening entranced.

**

Consider the ways of men. They are varied.
Law erects one standard. Mercy dissolves
the iron rules. Men aren't eagles or angels.
Decisions will be made. Despair or hope
will fall like thunder, or break into dawn.
Things are said and done. Judgement stands alone.
A solitary Proteus of iron.

**

Sword strikes a stone begetting only sparks.
Invoking ghosts and fervid spells, fools rage.
Reason means the narrowest chance will wait,
and always wait. The idlest spectator.

**

The winds blow. Storm rages. But we are warm.
Last night the same. Today we saw the sky.
Saw Autumn on the land, saw snow on mountains.
Saw golden orange oaks in patches on
the slopes. Gold and green.
Like tufts of flaming fur, we saw the oaks
amidst the evergreens.

We live in seasons.
Here we live in seasons: cold, hot, cool, warm.
These things are mixed deliciously. Delight,
despair, alright, so what. These things are mixed.
Yet so, the oaks are gorgeous in the Fall.

**

The final flames of summer: oaks' outrage
and immolation. One last warm day. One
not spent sun. One final butterfly
and bee. One subtle promise of a leaf
in immortality. A paradise
behind a glacier's throne, a frigid sky.
The glory of a golden orange leaf.
An oracular sea of golden leaves.

**

The lawn's abuzz with glimmering filaments.
Fine spider strands across short blades of grass.
And light shoots through those wires like thoughts.
The earth has spun a web of ideas from
the grass, the light, and sky into a work
of messages amongst its silent partners.
Tendrils of glass that grasp a blade and breeze,
passing light from strand to strand.


**

At dusk, a mighty mountain of rose quartz
enlusters purple skies and little stars.
A cloud may hover quietly nearby.
Far, far away an infant cries for milk.

**

The Theme, of course, is love, and what it means
past, presently, and futuristic
for man, woman, child: citizens of Earth
in mirrored fealty to Creation.
I've notes on Death which teaches what love is,
and love which leads us toward accepting Death.
My Hero is the man who holds his own
amidst confusion, relativity,
indifference. What man can know the Truth?
Babes know. So why not men? There is no system
except discovery. What man with eyes
wants blindness? So begins debate of love.

Can the color Blue be sold or trade,
fashioned into jests, and oratory?
Then there is something Blue in this. It begs
a question, smashing atoms in its wake.

The lonely heart will find no remedy
in this: a curse for impotence and tears.
Turn. Turn. Turn back and turn again. Revolve
sweet memory and greedy learning toward
beatitude. Just half a chance, I beg.
The innocent can never be deceieved.

The Story may begin with poets or
with heroes. Hard to say when mush is dead
whichly rightly makes a farmer hug his knees.
So maybe anytime, half a dozen
understand. Meeting points head on. Will do
when there's no other choice. Some dogs must bark.

Epitaph for a Fetus

One beaker of blood, gorgeous bright red.
One broken, sharded beaker of glass.
The brilliant murk of blood seeps into dirt.
The soil cannot cry out - what trespasses?
Bright eyes observe, weeping arrows of light.
The earth, or mud of marrow, guts, and veins
cannot cry out. What is able to moan
when rocks, bones, sand and shade are mute as dust?
No loon or curlew's cry disturbs the air.
Clouds gravely pass unloading griefless tears.
Brief flurries of snow sweep past barren strands.
Blood, unanimated blood, clots and coarsens.
Beakers full shatter and shatter and shatter.

**

My child, infant girl, newborn to light,
looks searchingly - a disconcerting eye
that peers in quiet wonder, serious
and apprehensive; trusting what she must;
undoubtful yet unknowing anything.

Her cries become breasts; milk assuages gut,
for sucking is her pleasure. All the rest
is something inexplicable. She vents
an urge, and soils pants in utter dumbness:
an impenetrable wilderness of sense.

She gazes on a rainbow 'round her bed
absorbing miracles of color splashed
on dim dark brain cells reveling in sight.
I cannot call it chaos of new nerves,
something is formed, already there. She gets
more than she sees. It slants toward memory.
Like pips upon her tongue, words seem to form
but won't fall off. They're immature, unripe.
A sensible grammar was born before
awaiting willing conduits of sound.

This baby girl was born intelligent.
I hear the click of keys unlocking stones,
and sense a gush of many rivers winding;
of flowing pinions unbending in dreams.

A child (her head no bigger than my fist)
evokes the dream of remembered times;
the brilliant bursts of things awakening:
when sunlight sparkled like a throne of God,
and faces radiated glow as angels!

Thoughts form from Heaven. She breathes incense in
the inscrutable marble palace of her mind.

**

The Spring wind is blowing
the cattle are lowing
and new grass is growing through old.
The wind chimes are ringing
the meadowlarks singing
and sunlight is flinging its gold.
The baby that's sleeping
in mother's safekeeping
too soon will be leaping and bold.

**

The cat is on the roof
the cat will not come down
the sun is shining on the roof
the cat will not come down

the cat is sitting on the fence
the dog is going mad
the just laughs and flicks his tail
the dog is going mad

The cat will not come in the house
though clouds are dark and heavy
the cat ignores the people's calls
the water falls and falls and falls
the cat is drenched and cries - meow
the people cannot hear him now
the cat cannot get in the house

**

You rule me, little tyrant. Yes, you do.
I cringe at cries, and run to serve, and weep
when failing to absolve your anguish. Oh,
you are a little, holy terror, babe.

**

Baby will not play
Baby will not frolic
Baby is no fun
Baby has the colic

We give the baby whiskey
No, she's not an alcoholic
The doctor said to do it
If baby has the colic

**

Wake up, little babe
c'mon, get up on your feet
the Infant Olympics are here
and you've got to compete

Don't sleep, pretty babe
time is running on
your event is coming up
to run the Infant Marathon

Well, babe, say goodbye
to all the hoopla and the fun
since you slept the time away
the Infant Marathon is done

**

The child goes to bed
but no, she doesn't sleep.
She lies awake and talks alot,
perhaps, her room is still too hot,
she's acting out a story plot.

She hears the pop of fireworks
she jumps to look outside.
evening close of the State Fair,
hearing shells burst in the air,
sees a flash but not the flare.

Some slight soft breeze
sighs cool air through the screen.
She lies back down upon her bed,
arranges pillows for her head,
golden where her hair is spread,
and falls asleep.

**

My little girl is half past three
not as small upon my knee
not so free with kisses now
she's growing up

My child speaks with perfect sense
her eyes glow with intelligence
she'd rather play with friends outside
she's growing up

**

I took her out to see the stars.
I carried her out into a field.
We looked especially for Mars.

And there it was, a bright, red dot.
She said that it was beautiful.
We gazed a long time at that spot.

**
Despair Enters Here

**

Dead birds sing. A soulless sound.
Skin crawls, bones shudder. Why?

Dead birds sing. I can hear them.
No music but an eery chorus.

Dead birds sing. Robin, finch, and lark.
Most horrible are eagles.

Gulls cry out, plaintive grief,
the songs of stillborn infants.

Dead birds sing. I turn away.
The dead can make no music.

**

He roams the fields of Kingdome Come.
Wild mustard and gold poppies ply
their trades amongst the grass.Green. green grass.
Green waving fields of wind swept grass
peopled by creatures of eat and feed.
Sheep condense in herds before a breeze.
Lambs falter, follow ewes, suckle happily.
I shall lie down in meadows of Heaven.
Sweetness is mine, a harvest of pain.
Remember me. Remember me. I loved.

**

Museums of agony, parliaments of pain,
crystal sorrow, tears like fossils.
Books of misery, I shall not cry.
It's not enough when apprehension screams a storm.
Sunrise, moonrise, heart rise up and holler
springtime in Mojave. Flowers bloom,
distant mountains misty blue,
sparkling sounds of waterfalls.
Far to walk, I'll fly.

**

Rain, rain down drops
cold and shivered air.
Up pops long worms
drowning on cement.
Old grey thick cloud
dormant in a coma.
Mindless, sightless
chills a verdant lea.

**

The world was formed without a word,
for music made the atoms gleam,
combining in a trance of sound
as joyous melodies of light
built rock and water.

Time has tone
and symphony. Cathredral Earth
is music given body: Song
of choirs; vast, organic grandeur;
and terrifying holiness
where worms chant blindly within walls
of dung, and eagles add their cries
across the bright and brittle air,
while Man stands stuttering and dumb.

After the Fall of Atlantis

Many years must pass before great loss
is fully gripped; like a blow whose ache and throb
grows slowly until, at last, pain comes
that buckles knees on beds of sharp wire.

I have sat and brooded somewhere on a hill;
looked back with cheeks wet, red with salt and blood
lamenting all that's lost; destruction that's
complete: golden cities crushed to dust.

All things green have gone to rust. Not dead
but lifeless like thin stones. Many white stones
in mounds trailing behind me. Empty plains
where once great herds and beings lived then vanished.

Rivers run low and brackish. Oceans slap
the shores in sluggish motion. Waves are dead.
The winds that come bear scent of carrion;
and insects have their kingdom, now, at last.

But I am prince upon this wasteland,
riding sorrel mares across its deserts,
and make my camp in anyplace, and brood
upon the desolation and the loss.

**

The light in Crete shines bright as lemons. Air
seems slightly sour: dust, salt, sweat, and heat.
Parched soil stunts the olive trees. Light glares
in hazy skies. The sea with turquoise shores
seems tame with ancient use. A plowed blue field
of gentle furrows free of rocks and bones.
It's Summer. Rain has business elsewhere. Heat
has set a table on the land, and all
the dogs are somnolent. The land is still,
dry and vacant.

**

Dead nights of supplication. Waiting. Where
will radiance strike? When? I ask for storms
of being; cataclysms of purpose.
No gods appear. Just demons waste my soul.
An aching, inner heart cries - where is me?
Barren tasks, remorseless days, ugly nights.
There is such little radiance at night.

**

The purity of insignificance:
a life like a vast momentary pause.
The bafflement of time which leads nowhere.
A plain without paths or cities or farms.
The domination of air and cloud.
A pitiless rock whose future is sand.

The Poppy

A poppy bloomed outside a yard. Then died.
Seeds of it may bloom again next year.
The orange poppy, petals like tissue,
is passed away, though. I picked that flower.
Carried it some moments. It was orange
like I'd never seen the color. Brighter,
warmer: brilliance shining out of green.
I held it to the cool, blue sky. The sky:
austere in blueness, cool and deep. It was
as if I grasped a portion of the sun.
And I admired it: that particles
condense in gorgeousness I could clutch.
But gradually it wilted in the heat.
Its petals shrivelling. And was cast down.

A Hymn of Earth
or Ecclesiastes, Part Two

I will not alter the world.
I will leave it as it is.
There is nothing wrong with the world.
I had my doubts, once.
Now I am certain.

There is a destiny of pain.
There is a destiny of joy.
There is no destiny of love.
Death is not a reward.
Love is not a reward.
Pleasure is a reward and a betrayer.

I will not alter the world.
I will leave it as it is.

There is no destiny of wisdom.
There is no destiny of peace.
There is a destiny of war:
mental war, sexual war, economic war, physical war.

There is a soul.
It has no height nor breadth.
It has only depth.
It cannot be grown.
It can only be plumbed.
It is not immortal.
It is not a mystery.
It is a living thing.

There is nothing wrong with the world.
I had my doubts, once.
Now I am certain.

The Self is perverse.
The Self is inconsistent
The Self cannot judge,
for the Self is biased.
The Self is experience.
The Self is egotistical.
The Self is never innocent.
Only the Soul is innocent.

I will not alter the world.

The Germans murdered 12 million people
who never took arms against them.
The world did not weep.
Julius Caesar killed 3 million Gauls.
Man, woman, and child.
Genghis Khan and the Mongols
slaughtered more than either.
The world did not weep.
The world does not care.

Empires arise. Empires decay.
Revenge and Greed are constant.
Forgiveness is a sin.
Prosperity and comfort depend on slavery.

There is nothing wrong with the world.

Unborn are vacuumed from the womb.
Infants are murdered in their cribs.
Children are tortured for pleasure.
The world does not weep.
The world does not lament.

Only Souls can lament.
Souls must be plumbed to their depth
or they will not exist.
Buddha plumbed his soul
and returned with: Pity.
Christ plumbed his soul
and returned with: Forgiveness.
Gandhi plumbed his soul
and returned with: Satyagraha.
The world sings.
The world practices rituals.

I will leave the world as it is.
The world is not sick.
The world is not dying.
The world is happy and glad.
The world is alive and jubilant.
There is nothing wrong with the world.

**

I am a thing of flesh. An animal.
I have a certain mass. I have no mind
or soul. Those are abstracts. I have a brain,
an organ of perception, processor
of stimuli.

I am material.
No more. No less. And if I love, I love
what makes my brain release a chemical
that coddles happiness into my cells.
And all of this to propagate a species.

I am material. The iron in
my blood was forged in bursting giant stars.
I am the dust of galaxies long passed.
So is my dog. So is a cockroach. That
is not unique.

I am material.
But matter's made of atoms; atoms made
of particles; particles of energy;
energy of light. Thus, actually,
I have no substance. I am only light.
What that implies I will not say I know,
but I know this: there is a universe.
I live in it. I'll die in it. And what
remains of that is universal light.

DNA Riddles

What color are the dancing threads of life?
What climbs their spiral ladder? Where is up
inside a microscopic cell and center?
Are you dumb to your creation? Am I?

The Other Day

The other day, when I was dying (yes,
a cancer of the brain), I spoke with God.
I asked, "Lord, why have you afflicted me?"
God responded, "It was my wish to do so."
"Well, make it stop and go away," I said.
God said, "Perhaps." And went away.

I thought
"perhaps" was indecisive, so I feared
that I would die. But no, I'm living still.
Surely, I am the luckiest of men.

Failure

Fury. Fantasy. Tears. Despair. Numbness.
Friendship. Embraces. These, the rules of it.

The kingdom of folly fullfilled. The quest
for endless days where time is not; unfound.

The truth is fond and comforting: we lose.
We always lose. If that's untrue, lose more.

My birthright, messes of pottage. Eaten slowly.
The salad days, emergencies of groin.

Willful spirit, weak flesh. Another dram
of incapacity. Courtly old maids.

You could save me. You plus millions more.
My gob 's insatiatable. Never enough.

It's best to fail. No tomorrows to plan.
No Roman feasts to be exceeded soon.

Happiness is loss of enterprise. Loss
of yearning clutch. Failure is wonderful.

**

This mind that starts and stops, what are its plans?
A speck of coil blossoms eyes and scans.

**

In mystic rapture, I dismiss rapture.
The clowns of God agree: folly is wisest.
In council with the elders of my tribe,
we secretly denounce the sacred. That
is why we persevere. The flaws of time
erupt like cancers of the breast. We laugh.
Others seek serenity. The serene
seek annihilation, gross death. It's not
enough that tides quit. Time must quit the game
and wander like an unrequited lover.
Who grasps the savage soul and eats its flesh?
I eat my soul and lie unfed.

Kill bliss.
I'm out for words to end annihilation.
I'm out to make time reveal its sad facts,
and crush itself against atomic light.
It's much like Adam who knows everything
yet cannot rest. Time spoils knowledge, too.
Time must be killed. Dancing doesn't quell it.
Death wrinkles nothing. That's not a challenge.
Rapture loves its face. It's withering, though.

**

My daughter often sleeps beside my wife
and me. She's five years old. I know it's bliss
to her, secure between parentheses.

Lacrimae Rerum

Feeling soaked and limp with grief, I awoke.
This morning overhung by last night's dream:
my mother, years dead, appeared young but strange.
Wise as the Dead. Orphic looking; sounding.
I spoke with her along a golden shore.
We walked along the slant sunned beach. The waves
were smoothe, gold crested. Air, too, seemed of gold,
but all seemed darkened, dusky: warm dimmed gold.
Our conversation - serious and sad.
"There is no hope," she said. "Not any kind.
You breathe, you wish, you fail, and you are nothing.
Less than these sands we scuff. Waves wash our trail."

And I looked back to see our footprints gone
and disappearing even where we stood.
A pain, a pang arose within my chest.
I gasped in watching her as she dissolved,
her face golden, smoothe, unbearably sad
for me, herself, and all the years endured
in living. All for nothing. All for Death.



Psalm 23b

Failure is my guardian. I'll not want.
I am never lonely. I have despair
as my companion. Nor do I ever thirst,
for bitter waters brim full quenching me.
I never hunger, for I am fed on roots
of nightshade. Nor can I lose my way;
every path is stoney, full of briars.
I need not fear sleep, for I do not rest.
The moon as my witness casts hollow light.
Night flowering jasmine perfumes the air.
Roses look black in a bouquet of thorns.
I never die. Time murdered me at birth.

Despair

When the rose smells too strong; when grass is green,
too green; clouds too white, sky too blue; and days
are thick as pondscum choking fish and frogs.

When night is dark as coal mines long collapsed;
and flesh feels like a tumor. Malignant.
And language proves to weak to curse or tell.

When men seem spawned as roe throughout the streams
of streets; and women look Venusian
as plants; when children shouting sound throat-cut.

**

Salvation Enters Here

**

In my hand I hold a certain key.
It locks nothing. Opens nothing. It works
on nothing. Nor does it work for me.
Only when I'm nothing can it be.

**

What knowledge is, there dreams a cause.
Caught not by capture but a pause.

**

This rude, debauched, and wicked mind of Self
I hate and love - a demon's playground weird -
is burning shame, lust: proud, arrogant wealth.
I gyrate torture, thus for torment geared.
Fickle mind, fickle feeling - agony!
Decide and act - some good great way release
divisions all at war and let me be!
Dear God, decide me, act me into peace.
A moment's fling of charity is kind;
a moment's song created new and bright
survives me; this kiss, word, embrace does bind
and I am gracious for a moment's light.
Then to my hated Self return and burn;
my flesh a rack. I pray forgiveness learn.

**

The nature of my Lord is love. There springs
the cosmos. Perfect love, perfect song. No trace
of anger, fever, cruelty, or greed. Just things
of sweetly wrought force inside a heavenplace
of souls; all infused to goodness: the same
bright fire of being aware. Hope hearts -
whose hope leaps like promises kept aflame
with music food of ample joy. No starts
of fear but soft air, soft snow; gold in green
as light on leaves; as light like manna bread
and blood wine of water like shards of gleam
in rippled, silver, slender river. Red
rose breathes white air, exhaling exalting glow
as breathing builds on love the God we know.

**

Hush! God's talking to the world. Did you hear?
It's like the wind; sometimes vague, sometimes clear.
Let me be still so joy of it comes near:

Stand up! in yes! Declare your heart of love.
Stand up! in light! And live for what is good.
Stand up! in truth! Let no one punish joy.

As faith is trust, and hope is nothing grim
but favorable; as gifts increase at will
of One who loves: Plenty beams on bright souls.

This richness of us, this thrilling the eye;
this merry and gentle delight in our Friend.
Stand up! And clasp the heaven surging in!

God says Sing! No tongue mute in any mouth.
God says See! No eye false in any face.
God says Love! No heart failing in His grace.

Spring up! like grass and carpet green the eye.
Wing up! like eagle in eternal sky.
Sing up! like angels who will never die.

**

God works at walking speed. Remember this
while waiting for His grace; while hoping for
your health; or languishing to feel His kiss.

God doesn't rush upon the senses, nor
clamber noisily through ears into mind,
but gently strides beside and touching more

by word to heart of human conscience lined
with soul: God's seed identical to each
that patiently wills every patient find.

Hurry never helps us sing in careful reach
or reap in bounty what is ours to own.
Motion, desperate and whirling, cannot breach

into blossoms what love would have grown.
God, hastily sought, is hazardly known.

**

God is a Raptor

God is an eagle circling aloft,
quietly hunting; in patient will - fierce,
that waits to glimpse some creature soft;
then swooping down with talons spread to pierce.

God is an owl scouring the night;
seeking the movement of mice in the field
who creep out from burrows dim in moonlight,
then wrenched from earth where they secretly kneeled.

God is an albatross high in the air,
peering through water at fish swimming there
up to the surface, and closer to light.
God dives, plunging in, catching fish with might.

**

The way to life is simple if I trust.
Impatiently, I strain and make it hard.
Desire is everything: yearn, I must
and seek to know, but gently greed discard.
My need (and yours) is peace, the calm of time
dissolved: eternal, soulful dance of fire;
it's an ascent, and yet, we cannot climb
unless commanded, beckoned to aspire.
A mustard seed must grow. We aren't the sun
or rain, but ground; unequal kinds of soil.
Each seed the same, designed to copy one
in soul and mind depending how we toil.
Simple trust is never vain, though I churn
and twist to reach what I can never earn.

**

Flowers in heaven look different than here.
There they are more beautiful and exact
as art; and a kind of light that is sheer
and tactile, particular in impact
like birds. Here a goldfinch, there a bluejay,
there a scarlet shouldered blackbird - a rose
in stripes, a priest in purple, golden hay
at dawn, a Mars red sun at evening close.
All day, a triple colored peace expands;
and tulips cup their colors like a wine
of liquid light as prisms shelter sands
in fluid clasp that fling an opal's shine.
Diamonds, rubies, emeralds here are all dim
compared to heaven's flowers, and to Him.

**

Recalling my awakening:

I saw the sound of God in singing light.

**

There is no sorrow in this sprinkling rain,
nor gloom in this gray sky.
But peacefully like holiness, and plain
as time, is earth's reply.

There is an innocence about the tears
which fall without a grief;
for there's a happiness surpassing years
of praying for relief.

The rain, the rain is soothing all the earth,
caressing field and tree;
and softening the stones for sweeter birth
in perfect sanctity.

**

Roses are red, white, yellow, and orange.
Violets are blue, and white, and yes, violet.
Rose for Mary who said - aye - to let
Christ enter life; her being the door-hinge
for the Door; and both bathed in blood purple
from that birth: God's and human love fertile.
Fertile in life and death: white, red, and blue
that we may die and live, reborn in light:
His blood, blue death, bright glory cleansing sight
for faith that shines, I pray, in love with you.


**

A Song

Green sings the grass
blue sings the air
gold sings the Sun
on the earth everywhere

Red sings the blood
white sings the rose
violet the dusk
of the day at its close

**

There is a kindness that comes over me
recalling that I'm loved. Not for my deeds.
Instead, because I am. Not much a saint
nor sinner but simpler: simply myself.
Not worthy of a lot, but worthy as I am
for one great act of love. Thus I am bound -
a slave to heaven - friend across of time;
borne for eternity; made for love
to know the joy of every living thing.
Recalling I am loved spreads consolation
through the solemn agonies of service
as that patient kindness comes over me.

**

Mary

Spring then, you are and do.
A burst of yes sky blue.
Young eyes, and soft, smooth cheek;
how clear your glow in skin;
green good growing within,
soft raining light shall speak!

Spring then, you do and are,
and blossom doors ajar;
great something will be - you
blest brightly ripest fool,
sweet jest and greenest jewel,
you being you will do.

Sprung then, and kept springing,
simple laughter singing
such charming lullaby
to be and was and is -
aborn from humble His,
before the starry sky.

**

I saw a leaf, and it was full of green.
I saw a sky, and it was full of blue.
I saw a sun, and it was full of gold.
I saw a child, and she was full of God.  ¶ 6:38 PM