“Inspiration,” composed 8 June, 2012

Like an Eagle soaring,

For a moment visible,

Through a break in the clouds,

By the sun illumined,

I once caught a vision of hope.

Yet here I lie,

A leper in my filth,

Clawing through the soiled vestments

Of my own imagination,

Filled with lust

For power and fame,

Delusions and illusions

Of a twice forgotten mirth.

My mind is as a rosebush

Masquerading as a thistle

(and prickly to boot),

Filled with the question—

My purpose in the garden—

When all I have is

Bad fruit.

Seasons fade, yet I remain.

I could be a daffodil

And dance beneath the clouds.

If only I could,

If only I would,

If only,

But I prefer not to have the will to try.

I laugh,

I cry,

Wet drops of suffering

(glistening and troubling)

Burn at the corners of my eyes

Filling me with fear,

Filling me with doubt.

If only I were a songbird,

Flitting, flying, free.

I, then, could sing

The mystic song

That’s part and parcel to my soul,

But I am man—not man—a boy.

I simply prefer not to.

“Mr. Whisper,” composed 5 June, 2012.

I once observed a whisper from

The corner of my eye.

It bounced beyond my ear-drum’s reach

And hid within the sky.

“What caught” I thought “the whisper here

That made it run away?”

“I was not caught,” the whisper said,

“I did not wish to stay.”

“The Stranger,” composed 5 June, 2012.

 

I stand upon a crossroad with a monster in my skull.

It lives inside (skittering)

And I outside (jittering)

Disguising all my pain.

Atop the hill beside me stands a dark and daring man;

He’s calling out the weather

From the shadows on the heather

With an insight like to Pan.

                                                Dear my Lord remember me.

I look askance and as him of his knowledge of a rhyme,

With homonyms all slanting,

And synonyms all panting,

Dancing all the time.

                                                When you come.

A memory of time is an illusion of the past.

It comforts and assails,

Dismembers and then trails

Into the vagueness of the verse.

                                                But only speak the word.

The stranger (my dear friend) with the knowledge of the heather

First tipped is hat for courage,

Then knit his brow at marriage,

And then we parted ways,

Never to speak again.

            `                                   When you come into your kingdom.

I’d prefer not to.

“A Vision Revised,” composed 5 June, 2012.

A vision, revised, appeared in my eyes,

Reversed itself and walked away alone.

It left my eyes with a vision incised,

And vacuumed out the light within my soul.

The vision lied and tied my tired eyes

Together in a small and shapely ball,

But then—reversed, revised, incised—my soul,

Returned to task; to you it turned and lied.

-Dedicated to Patrick Simmons and Martin Heidegger.

“Evening Star,” composed 5 June, 2012.

“Evening Star,” composed 5 June, 2012.

I’d kill for a smile

And die for a kiss,

But the western star

Has fallen far and

Left me alone

In the dark.

So now I weep and gnash and tear,

Being, now, all filled with fear,

And wond’ring what horror will appear.

But, in the East, I see a light,

As Venus comes to break the night,

Breaking the dawn of my soul.

“Questions,” composed on 27 May, 2012.

Questions, the darlings of the able mind,

Making their toilette in the back of the eyes,

Waltzing coyly at the tongue’s dex’trous tip,

Gossiping gaily in the inner ear

(Never too shyly, but often too late),

Killing the cat with their careless fever—

The gentle-bred, feudal foes of grim tact—

Vibrant and gorgeous, deadly and shrewish,

Mother of truth and yet father of lies.

“A Path Untraveled,” composed on 26 May, 2012.

Walk with me now, if you dare,

Under the heat of the sun, failing to care,

Like a petunia, blushing bright and fading sour.

All around now, you and I,

All around now, beneath the sky,

Splayed and rumpled,

Wanting nothing.

And the light from the sun, filling the view,

Building the hopes of me and of you.

The paths at noon, in the park

Separate, combine, insinuous and slithering.

Stalking through the blowing silent grass;

Solemn travelers, journeying early,

Never arriving.

Follow them now will you? Follow them far?

Guided not onward except by a star—

A star that whispers to you in the night:

Stella Maris, verdant comfortor, saying nothing

Of note.

Here in the day it will not avail you,

Here in the noon it cannot entail you,

Entail to impale you, shiv’ring with rhymes.

As the light from the sun, filling the view,

Burdens the souls of me and of you.

Which path to take then? Which path to follow?

Both have been travelled, neither is fallow,

Both have been tramped on, stomped on, disheveled.

Neither will ever dissent and be leveled.

Always accepting, leading, and guiding.

Always preceding, receding,

Bitter and incorrigible.

With the light from the sun, filling the view,

Crushing the spirits of me and of you.

Left indecisive,

“What did you say?”

“What?”

“What did you call me?”

We come round full circle; the circus of rhetoric.

Hollow sounds:

Signifying nothing as the something that they mean.

Filling life with gross expectation,

Building dreams through crass emulation.

Childish and juvenile, the clown’s coup d'état.

If you allow it, he will be crowned,

Speaking wise-sounding folly through three diabolic mouths,

Leading us down in the slow circle dance

“With kings and counselors.”

And the light from the sun, bleaching the view,

Consumes the consciousness of you.

I’d prefer not to choose.