Through the Fire
Don't say a word.
No matter how close the currents run
no matter how close the paths come,
let it be.
Blood for blood,
ruby streak on her opal chest,
I cannot see in this mist,
I cannot breathe in her wake,
My violin love,
you move so quickly
I can barely hear the shifts,
lying in the depths of your voice,
These ruins extend to the horizon
shall I kiss the fragments?
hold dear the rocks?
revel, in the beauty of this disorder.
Kiss the wine cup, adore the stasis
scrape your soul on the silence,
emerge! the changing faces.
sleep, through every fire.
Wake One
You'd better have on goggles
if you want to watch the metal burn
if you saw me screaming in the darkness
it's because I took a different turn,
I was shooting from the edge,
of this point of no return,
where the cavern doors were broken
where the sharpest eye could not discern
that like any other martyr,
I had an orphan for a son,
like any candle I extinguish,
I fire, like any gun
Cara, can you come?
I've made a mess that you should see.
It happened somewhere here,
between a woman and a breeze,
some fig mouthed Frankish angel,
some catatonic tease.
If I could exorcise the ghosts,
I'd imagine I would die,
alone where all the passersby
mutter all the same goodbyes,
drinking death into exclusion,
singing arias of lies.
in the stillness, spirits wander,
afraid of everything I see,
I would not bask in the deadly glow,
of this atom heart reprieve,
wishing I were someone else,
A man, you could believe.
Please don't try to ask me
what you think is wrong with me.
Sky Syren
The bored string on,
another whore.
God wonders what I'm doing
in this wreckage anymore.
Even the fires die,
the shapes have coalesced
in the contusion of discomfort,
the trap of lifelessness.
I can still pound away,
far greater than you, dear rival.
the scars on my hands
never could stop the flow
of music, and the moment
of the coming train,
sit still, in the placid waiting room,
where the bats weep,
at the birthing of another star,
it was foretold, long ago.
this clear? the razor.
find yourself broken, in the mirror days,
the cannon we could not control.
live, lucid, tender,
these lust puppets stand on an altar
stained with the mist of broken years,
Do not approach. Do not interfere.
We do not know what will happen here.
I called it, a mile away
I shall now take my prize,
and let the vultures remain.
we all sleep in different beds,
and the birds pick at crusts
Surrender Orders
I live, content to fall
because I hope I'll always rise,
it's the nature, of a painter
with the sun burnt in his eyes,
a blind man, walking, alone.
and of the ash, I can't say much
but that my kind somehow survive,
all the madness that we seem to need,
and in fact, on which we thrive,
breathing daylight from destruction,
if not we...then just I...stay alive
to live the tears that I must cry
for sometimes to see is to lie
sometimes my own greatest horror, am I
the grand misfit, the beast
the poet, the priest, someday die.
and to those of you, who watched the road
in terror, wearing children's clothes,
afraid of that greenest...the ugliest sky,
I ask why, without knowing, am I?
To the sailor, yes, I saw the well,
the breaking of face, the salt streaking down
so unholy, the bluest mask of renown
in this town, that we hover around
in the orbit of nothing, afraid we might drown
but instead, collide.
Surrender Orders, II
Even an offer of surrender,
it seems could never render
an order to the waves on which we ride.
the tree has broken open
no words could yet be spoken
until we pass the matter of the tide.
I say I've had enough of death
I speak until there's nothing left,
until I'm finally out of breath, yes, I lied
What brings you then, to be shackled free
what do you seem to find in me?
that causes us to send these paper ships out to collide?
Matthew, May the Storm
A tailor laid an egg inside a hat
and called it Christmas.
Books came wet from the rain
he opened them with briskness,
The sailor met a man who was a man
for all to see.
Matthew, may the storm change
the weathers of this need.
and I could never turn my face again,
it does not matter in the snow
and would I strip my sleeve and show the scars,
of wounds I might have never known
if not for the change of the creed,
Matthew, may the storm color us
bright as the world would bleed.
and if they thought I were alone again,
the dyers would clamor with greed
they knew my body wasn't white,
and that my arms could never straighten right,
and that my heart might be too wet to yet be freed,
Matthew, may the storm clear
may the waters all recede.
as the thief in the temple,
I could not repent,
the priests sat stone-faced when I'd plead
at the cloud line, unborn,
the places the wind had not torn
though I fathered such unholy seed.
Matthew, may the storm clear
as all the lovers heed.
and I'm happy, we're happy
as the birdies told me.
I knew, in my way, it was willed.
my last gift to thee, so perfectly free
of all of the secrets I spilled,
though I came with my thorn, a forest was reborn
from the fire, now finally fulfilled.
Matthew, may the storm clear
may this new life be conceived.
For the Mastodons of Sex
In time the couplets proffer
for the onomastically obsessed
spitting daydreams of derision
for the mastodons of sex
if we could hear the turtle crawl
in the sunlight stretching through the room
we would wonder where these bursts come from
in the blast wake of a decade's tomb
It was I who lit the fuse,
in the daze of wine and night
It was I who lost my eyes by staring
straight into the deadly light.
if you never scream, the violin
will never play again,
we could watch the wreckage heal itself
never leaving bed.
As I prepare to take the plane
to flee the country of the scene
to run, to face the ocean, turning back
to face the dream.
the fruition of a magnet
so carefully observed,
turned the poles from memories
to what we all finally deserved.
Story of Shalem
Welcome home, Chavera!
You emerge from the long winter
It is clean, I do promise
I have cleansed the venom from my eyes
Are we two ghosts then?
Melting in the madness,
Springing from the ether,
Maybes, in the morning?
The dewstars of this fragrance
that tears the fabric of the borders
in the tumult of disorder
where we watch the dandies fade
(breathe)
I will drain the poison from my mind.
(breathe)
this touch is ever healing,
it calls from all the sickness
in the airs of Saint Ignatius,
in the honey of the spring.
(breathe)
two sad men sit, weary of approaching
from my soul one goes a-poaching
for the trickles of the rainfall
only known to boys of amber
who keep fasting through the harvest.
I was nothing. I adore you.
I am velvet, let me bore you
with the sprigs of this insipid
catalytic masquerade
if you stand here for a moment
immune to the mists of hornets
and all the sharp bodied creatures
that the kind Lord did ordain;
I will wrestle with the comfort
and the breast of edelweiss
that I reached for in a tantrum
in a gesture of disdain
(breathe)
I will torture all my pain.
Shalem and the Rapid Spring
I revel in the unforgivable
afraid of anything less.
than certain death.
The amazing vulgarity of begging
was the warning shot,
the Iron etiquette,
of a loser's love. a half charred heart of sticks.
who could know these unborn things?
but some mistress of needles, some master of flames.
if I am to be a symbol,
let me be the spear tipped heart.
let me be the scorpion.
and I will promise not to sting.
with the burden of the metal
you are the ugliest of gods.
you only smile when you're horny
you stay obscene against the odds.
in this dazzle of a walkway
where the colors form a crest.
let the atom soul attack you
may the birds pick at your chest.
if I cry on highway one tomorrow
it is not because I'm sad.
it is not because I mourn the moments
that in another life I might have had.
it is only for the ether.
it is only for the rapid spring.
it is only for the mother heart.
for these paper pebbles that I fling.
across the ghosts of Matthew's door
across the sheets of alkali
where we will sit in the manic shadow
breathing the world's softest sigh.
Shalem and the Absinthe Snow
It is so beautifully final.
that it borders the border of a tantric tedium
wasting gods like an angry Jesus,
who might I add, was quite self destructive.
it mires in papers,
that cost sixteen thousand dollars,
for an army of ants to tap dance and tip toe
through mountains of killers, bullshit and blow
and Salieri sings and suckles
while Robespierre beds Anne Boleyn
a parasitic parricide
he longs to learn of the burden of sin.
and the Ode to Joy is blaring
drowning the love of Figaro
mad Mingus is waving goodbye to Auden
while Cara lays down in the absinthe snow
the wind it now whispers, "Father, please go."
Shalem and the Pathetique
Quite mild.
It brushes on the carpet,
a litter of incandescence
Ringing, marvelously
Cold handed,
Manya plays the Pathetique
Allegro molto e con brio
I squirm on the sheets.
...embroiled in polymetra
with whisky loose hands
and chimeric eyes
I string another, too bored
to return a fool's invectives
or spit elegiac tatters
for the headless horse of April
borne from the grayest winter
that I have ever known.
for that saturnian Salieri
or the whore who was so hairy
they are nomads in the minefield
they are sputters of decay.
Plaudite, amici!
Quite mild.
Shalem and the Finite Heart
From the dichotomy of the finite heart
we breach the happiness of spring
the three tiered love of a hapless beggar
we trade for more exotic things.
if the sparrow sang, I did not hear
I was a captive of the glass and skin
if I burned into your mind, I'm sorry
we are just victims of this peaceful sin
An ode to Katarina comes
it moves quite high and bows quite low
it is a sample of that sparrow's song
it does not rest, it does not slow
She is the apple glass, I'm sure
it's stained across the heart
the filthy love of Turgenev
an ocean could it part
Shalem and Bob Dylan
With no more beast heart, left to burn
the insects will turn,
on each other.
It begins with a stare,
among the dead and dying Dylans
and a new motive for intoxication.
from a most ignorant aperture
the glass is disturbed.
quite frankly, cogito ergo futuo sum, bitch
Schadenfreude Shalem
Caught you were in the chasm
of motive force,
where the beast and the orchid made war
It is better than Lisbon
the ultimate revenge, simple happiness
for the ultimate backfire. a most plastic crime.
We argue Gödel, in the great happiness
of a monstrous night, clinging to air, like grand vapors
in the shelter of flesh and cunning.
The motions, testing Turing,
in a musical ether,
the violin logic that proves the point of passion.
Grander than I have ever known.
A bar, quite still.
schadenfreude from the ringing voices
but still, quite still.
Shalem and the Serpent
In the ease of my half life
the serpent reappears
Jealous, strange, whimsically clear.
he buys staid bottles,
they whisk with cold time
in the maze of this madness
to trial we go.
Against the yew of evening
we bring the bold spring
all the secrets, all the lies
now come uncovered.
who is terrified?
Apparition Again
She said to me,
"Remember the winter of two-thousand-eight?
stumbling and fumbling through the streets of Vienna.
Even you, the teutophobe, were in awe
at the simple majesty and vicariously nostalgic
for the days of musical kings.
Referencing, The Spice Box of Earth
you said you wanted to linger in a monastery
conceive and abandon some brilliant plans."
"No." I replied,
not sure when, where or who I was,
"but it sounds about right,"
A Point of Style
Some staid Stockholm flavored naps
the full Svengali stack,
bring us to the blissful apogee.
any priest can lie,
but it takes the twinkle of the eye
to show what's really happened here.
the requiem's been written
the gods have all been smitten
Salieri stares in the mirror, satisfied.
the blasphemy complete,
the Mother takes her seat
the history is written, dignified.
As a man who cannot read through rhymes
nor see through any thin disguise
As a man who never heard of verve
who lacked such a basic learning curve
I suppose that I can say that I just take it all in stride
for only now can all the lightning take the slow step to subside.
for the blue one comes, perihelion
and she will only deign to yawn
at the story of such vacuous, bloody nights
for the first time in forever, it just feels right.
so a lesson to the men of greed,
who want and want, and wind up in need
Just think about what Mick Jagger said.
The Foolproof Cabernet
A faux Londoner
assume the identity of a wallflower,
imagining you can spit in silence.
the guise of a guitar,
pressed against such clichés
so as to avoid slander
no, they never truly disappear.
it is not their way
to consume the foolproof cabernet
withdrawal is a must,
even from these embers could an artist make a blaze
a poet's paper burns brighter than oil.
I do not lurch at shadows,
some things are just clear.
a chemokaze ampule
it dazed away the nights
invoking the surrogate symptoms
of your metastasized mother
unable to move
in a hairless nightmare
Someone call Saint Anthony
for the girl with the hostile womb
somehow, I am the offender?
bless yourself,
if you can't breathe in the wake
you might need new lungs
yet even I am stricken
by the sight, of the failed body
For Shahid
His name was Shahid
his Christian name was Theodore
he was never born.
When he was two,
he was stung by bees in the park
I plucked the stingers from his skin
he cried, and asked me what they were
I explained that sometimes,
parts of trees, are places we should not be
I wish I had known at his age.
At age seven,
he sang in the choir of his school
Mozart's ghost stood in silence.
At age twelve,
he met a beautiful girl,
they were simply children,
and simple, as only children can be.
He lived in a grand house
near a mountain,
near a spring
and played in the springtime
his parents watched him from the window
adoringly.
Young man, all that you are
and will never see
are things that could not be.
in another timeline,
in another life.
You will grow,
You will know
beta, I cry with you
For the Nothing
I cannot enter the other room
where the ghost sits,
with crossed legs, a dissonant eye
immune, to the waters of my craft
great symbol! this song must have an end.
in all regards, the door is locked.
we can only explore the years before
this heart, one world removed from the moment
that pervades the silence.
that slips through the walls
that pours from the bleeding Moon.
Old friend, if we turn this life to strings
and sit quietly in their shadows,
time at an angle, the pivoted Earth
might they not move, in these colorless frames
telling the tale, of the aborted life
we will never lay with the orchid again
that life is past.
we will never hear the tones,
of the pistil, of the prideful, of the solipsist
of the God.
What relics we save, are our crumbs.
O, hemorrhaging Moon, please be still!
For the Storm
There is no time for the cold and callous
when the heavy breeze sweeps death
where the bodies are pulled,
I too, envy the dead.
It had been known,
it had been shown
that the center would give,
Saint Ignatius, once again
stands glowing in the havoc
amid the dogs of a Mother's war.
the prolicidal tantrums
of the living sea
but for the grace of God, it could be me.
but for the grace of God, it was not me.
who is to know the mists where they may turn?
passed on, in the auburn night,
the child cries not because it can, but because it must.
if nothing else, the storm has shown
that man is truly made, in God's image.
even he, destroys his own.
Splotches on the Glass
Lucid legerdemain
in the agnostic night,
as we argue about the relics.
One wants to throw them away.
"They are my history." I argue.
One bottle, a broken glass, another bottle.
I call my small exhibit,
"The alpha and the omega"
the beginning and the end.
a quarter inch of cigarette ash,
sits in the stem of the broken glass,
purple splotches surround.
below it sits some papers,
ink blurred with tears,
a mystical maze of intertwining years,
for many, I did not exist.
for others, the scene was alive as I
for each person, the same year played different.
this piece, combines them all,
the tapestry of torture,
the beauty of the orchestral order,
splotches on the glass.
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