firebath

firebath

A voice once told me of my beloved.
It told me my final path was through relationship,
that transcendence or peril would be mine through some Other.
This declaration of coming union sent me nearly mad!

Propelled by flame and disbelief,
I barreled back into the fountain of prophecy.
All the while remembering that from my mother’s womb
there dawned a haunting glimpse of future love.

Years later I emerged from the waters of hell
with naked starfish in my hair, startled, but eerily bathed of conditioning.
The slow trod forward of putting fresh limbs back into gait
re-grew a teacher in the place where mind once heaved.

The emergence of victory over death came as life,
the invitation, the acceptance, the reacquaintance, and nothing more.
Simple, clear being, bereft of wayward voices and fidgeting inner fight,
the flight to nirvana wontedly an hourless breath away.

Basking in the plentitude of signs over vast ages,
detachment had brought me so fully to the precipice.
Meditation, my complete existence. Loving, my one action.
And wham! The Other stood there.

No sooner had I said “How could this be? It is impossible!
I am unutterably alone and whole in my aloneness.”
than you appeared.

How could it be that attachment was begging forgiveness for my misgiving?
Just when I had so contentedly painted over the scars of oracles past
with fearless living and relentless discovery?
I became dismayed at the thought of becoming whole again through love!

No sooner had I laid my soul down to the earth to cry,
than I looked up in rapture.

My veins turned to canals from which harbingers of union sprung tall.
Through meditation, I took a blade to them;
and they gushed forth a tsunami of paradisiacal creatures’ mindfood.
Parrots flew by on giant great waves, asteroids landed in my freckles,
lust in my lunchbox, and embodying this world a must.
I saw the future. 

No sooner had I said “You have a magic in you that is only yours”
than I saw the very same magic was in me too.
The apocalypse of visions would not stop.
The avalanche images of completion shattered down on me
growing my heart organ into a universe.
You stood in the center of it; and I opened my arms to it all.

No sooner had I said “I am ready. Take me to my lover”
than I saw my own sex rising to meet you, then running ahead of me to the bay;
and there you were again in the curve of the shore, embracing my breaking body.
I saw galaxies of stars through the icy sea,
mountain peaks of vine-laden planets rise through my tea,
snow leopards bounding through strobing breakfasts.

Fire-capped treetops seared the pawpads of ecstatic lemurs
as they joined fingers with rings of rejoicing.

It turns out I had forgotten who I am.
To love had become the easy truth,
until love became a temporal reality.

How could I have known?
The ultimate kindling had just begun.

No sooner was I,
than you were too.

The firebath still yet to be.

Photograph by Tom Clark

home

home

If you were a stray dog, I’d be your home.
But you have a home.
So I can only feed you from time-to-time
with my affection.
You seem to be hungry.
But you’re well kept, clearly unneutered,
and smell really quite wonderful.

But where is your collar? Where are your tags?
You come to me with leash in mouth,
not tethered to neck.
We play together with the abandon
of two souls dangling from the moon
not caring if we are in web or pond-
and each time, I swear I discover a new star,
a new height to reach to.

And yet you return time and time again
to the same yard you wandered from,
to the same pole untethered.
I don’t know what’s over there
and don’t ask.
I get concerned when you return to me
different from how you left.
Ruffled, bewildered, a little lost.
But soon you settle in,
tail again wagging.

To me, you always find your way.
It seems you know my gate is open,
and this is true.
I may even install a doggy door
no doorbell required, just for you.
But is it my hand you prefer?
Is it my food? My bed?

You trot alongside me, my long lost pal,
as if we’ve been walking together forever.

I already know the games you like
because they are the same games I play.
I cherish the grandiosity of your dreams
because I too dream big.
I know you like to lie by my bedside
and lick my feet-
I like this too.

But I don’t know, dear companion-
I have to tell you, I really don’t want to own you.
Do you want me to hold your leash?
Cuz I’d rather walk side-by-side.
You in front and me behind,
then you behind and me in front.
I already want to go where you want to go.
You needn’t seek my approval.
It’s the unspoken truth in our meetings
week after week, month after month.
But I love how you howl at the moonlight-
finally someone to be unhinged with!

I find your fur to be so beautiful,
the many tones,
a reflection of you.
Which is why I caress you all over.
It’s really not because I want to please you
and ensnare you back for more.
I want to rub my face in your hair
because its bristles make me lovesick.
Your tail wags and I giggle;
and you allow it to brush my feet,
knowing how it makes my heart jump!

I’ve never had a friend like you,
who is simply finding me in time and space
to find a way to play together.
I see now what they mean:
“puppy dog eyes” don’t ask for a thing,
just a little patience, and always adoring.

You know, I’d like for you to come live with me,
be my prime interloper, my de facto companion.
But is it ownership you require?
(Is that what I am lacking?)
Or is it love?
I can offer only one of the two.
And I already love you.

But what if we decide to play together always?
Would I require something from you?

Even though my testament says that we are strictly free,
I don’t know, you’ve kind of got me wondering
what it might be like.

It’s okay, you need not decide now.
Even though you seem to be mine already,
really I am a little scared.
I am a little shy to ask.
I can’t offer you my home because you already have one.
And I want you to know that you are free.
All I’ve got is our cherished moments,
the precious days when I find you seeking my love.

And although these days become closer and closer together,
the in-betweens sometimes garner doubt
from my faithful heart.
When my thinking bud opens,
I can’t help but wonder
what will happen
if I start to need you.

I never wanted a dog before,
but things change.

 

Brooklyn Yard

Brooklyn Yard

Mother soft joy balls at a midday wake:
Pleasing pleasing prisms does not do to you
.        what you do to me.
Neither do sandwiches make messes when
.        your mouth is closed.
You are neither left nor right;
.        how vague can we get?
You are neither food nor are you hunger;
.        is that better?
You are clearer than prisms could
.        or should ever be.
A refractory image of being, not being,
.        of eating, of not eating.
Of getting so close to the spot
.        only butterflies could not be.

Inside the box, not.
Without the box, within.
You are you are you are.
I am in you of you me are in side under of
.        to with me for us we not yes are.
Then the next thing is, is not, is of, your allegiance to being,
.        to wearing, to not trifling, but chortling instead.

Giving me bliss does not deposit your nugget
.        of self, at least not
without automatic departure, at least not
.        withdrawal from this onslaughts of idea.
Of flowing flowering rivers
.        of chunks of heart–
Not of sweet chakra juice, but of
.        poignant gusts of you and of me. Of we!

 

The Sandstorms of Tomorrow

Viking premises can no longer handle
the newfound promises
which roll along the water’s edges
without any bearing,
without plush safety vests
or helmets.

There are some things
I’d like to say
but still cannot find;
because they are stuck
where they cannot be known,
in the grey corners of even greyer sandstones.

Expecting the sandstorms of tomorrow,
which were promised long ago,
to whip us up,
to flip over the sandy chariots,
the sweetened maelstrom
that stays buried beneath
tired conches and flippant shelves of kelp.

The last whale already passed by.
On his way to the shore.
The mating season has expired,
but a new one is on its way.

 

ere deluge

ere deluge

Crisp gorgeousness and easy bliss
do not shuffle up feelings
with weather.
Welcome him, finagle her;
get them into candid cure.

Day fell already, hard to miss.

Triptych, she knows.
Leave future.
He stills, parsimonious.
Dip. Paw in, paw out.

Waiting to know.

Image: film still from Casablanca

the melancholy of replacement

poem III of The Chelsea Chronicles

Petulant epigraphs sign themselves away to hell,
to devil’s not of their making.
Easing down into the graves of gradient yesteryears,
they shout: “Define me!”

Chance fling gives way to flight,
the nuclear smile’s conduit to sight.
And the cannon hurdles herself
up against the wall. Again.

Fish sleep in her underwear,
doubting the waterlogging of their reality.

What perfects her sight shall not be lackluster nor salty.
Those furtive chops she’s got whisper to her
about closets and doors and crows-
in there, where love is kept.
Swinging with bats and fans of you.

Smooth and protected early selves,
a spliff to the right, errant or not.
Bebop greats swim with great dreams.
And the shelf.

 

the threat of happiness

the threat of happiness

poem V. in The Chelsea Chronicles

She’s placidly
slipping down from ecstatic
pockets
into the calm understatement of bliss.
Which
rides its own horse-
the threat of happiness.

Sinister treads the heartbeat,
regular and full-fledged.
Then your porcupine smile
replaces her with heart,
reduces ego to mud;
and life filters through blood.

The little and mister devilish
masters conciliation of the spiciest recanters,
then smears
monkey core with ticklish.

Don’t pleasure
the
killing fields
without protection.
You’re better off
here,
where honeysuckles proliferates
new visions of her.

You’ll need remembrance on the galloping trail,
to cradle your body
with draconian bliss.

Cool your blocks before stepping in,
so her feathers won’t hurt you.
She’ll dot your eyes
and you’ll cross her teasing contagion
with cramped ridicule and haughty marauding.

And finally, wherewithal will ensue.

 

Fantasies Charted

We named our anthill The Plymouth,
with a peculiar closed-captioning for shorter people
(and those who excel at limbo).
Remember how we draped, we draped the white lace doily over the top?

It did not mold to our muddy musculature,
but instead, flattered with that peculiar nostalgia,
of etiquette and quite intentional courtship.
In the tide we sat, and peered up
at our droopy, white awning.

We realized
that it would never be the threshold of daisies;
for daisies only remind us of not being petunia,
that is, of not being so small.

No, our deeply carved tunnels are of Oz-like luster,
so they don’t cling to our many-minded legs.
For we really only fit quite haphazardly,
if we fold our legs, up and under,
into an origami crater of make believe.

So, I saw your peach-fleshed fingers
pluck together
the doily cortex. And pull down.
Pulled down our spirulina umbrella onto our hairy heads.
Then, veiled by our innocent mistake,
like just showered kitty fur heads;
we laughed.

We tumbled and turned over as children somersaulting in a pool.
The unknowing delighted us, tussled our hidden hearts into unshackled joy.
And, forgetting about the confines of the love tunnel we dug,
we fell into each other, forgot ourselves in our kittenish pretzel.

Unsalted and doughy is how love
finally saw 
the white white sky of blue
expand
into the smoothest doily of protection.
And in our gaze, we slid down, the warm icy slope of recklessness
into the very original white rabbit’s hole
of
impersonal and accurate reflection.

So onto our threshold, we finally fell, lighthearted and fluffy
as doughy, unsalted bunnies.

 

TITLED

Fortuitous berries stain our mouths furry
with Rorschach patterns, behavior fitting
for hedonist artists, derisory
and eating less until at last quitting.
Naughty plans release our minds from pining
for cream with our plate of appetizing words
for freedom from our elaborate stages,
for our way out of archaic attachments.
Springy noodles bounce out of the sky
into my motor center, and you know where from there.
You’re digesting them now; eat your fill.
To please me, to please yourself if I dare.
Dare ensnare, enlist you to my side
of this fanciful life second we get.
Come play with me, give yourself latitude
to be and not care, to care so so much.
The moon will bring you to tears.

Gigantic phrases energetically tease me,
flying by my apartment window in boldface fonts.
Subliminal by daylight, brazen by night,
they scream: “Write, write, write!”
My fishing net lays limp by my side;
but I refuse to trap them, to box them into my mind.
I’ll let them fly free to flap off their meaning
and drench my neighbors with their passion globs.
My miniature ledged Buddha goddess turns her head
away from me to wave control goodbye.
I think I do, too. But freedom keeps getting bigger.
Just when my notion of flying becomes unreal,
I die again and rebirth into more sky.
Only dregs give understanding of bliss.
I did not know you then,
but still I met you for an unexpected rendezvous
outside of pure chance, and inside of self-actualization.
And in between, life happened, struck me love.
I’m an eagle-watcher, go-getter, Earth Mother,
more feline than femme, mirage than mate.

Rewind

The tide has changed the color of my sleeves!
Are you familiar with merry-go-rounds? Neither am I.
Do you know why the earth moves beneath us??
It’s just that yesterday wasn’t my birthday.
Not that I would care; but things are different now.
The spaces are filled with a different kind of icing.
That sparkles and sweetens the spackling for sponges.
Sponges soaked many times over by learning, sex and woes,
And  shriveled most recently, into disguise and forgetting,
Masses of calcified promise.
Wrung out into the immensity of universal pores,
Drained into every passing glance,
Sinking the curious many with wetness. Transcendent and fortifying.
But alas, the sponges live and spawn and giggle again,
Like unschooled fish, naughty caviar spread on aristocratic crouton rounds.
Feeling pregnant. Eating pepreroncinis by the jar. And grapefruit by the ladle!
What? In love, you say?
With who? With what and how?
You’re playing mind games with yourselves again, silly voyeurs.
Leave the sponge to her she-mania.
She’s not alone; you needn’t worry anymore.

 

love in eight stanzas

love in eight stanzas

I.
We have each traded ourselves in
for the other.
Seeming to fulfill the dense plot of desire
that we continually harvest,
the perennial property of our existence.

II.
Do not love me, for you do.
Disengage the affording branch
from my corridor
and plug it into your own.
Reintroduce your ambition to its origin.
Here it may meekly dip only one trait in
(but permit practice sessions).

III.
You are being beckoned now.
Your old self of reality
screams through me.
Breathe yourself in;
I know that you see me
and think that you love me.
In fact, you do. 
But the love for your soul
must thrive in harmony,
strengthening each individual love.

IV.
We are one.
And previously, as two,
we found ourselves, alone and connected.
Brief brushes often maybe, at times,
even now; elemental brilliance is still possible.
Merely, understandably, in hiding.
Don’t you think,
that sometimes, we should all just live
from within the masquerade?
Like it is a masquerade.
(For it is.)
Here, we star in our own plays
allowing ourselves to be playwright
by entitlement and luscious capability.
Ultimately culpability, I know!

V.
Will you join me in the forest of decadence?
Wear your costume of true self.
Not the daily duds of conformity
that we have become so accustomed to,
but those that exude
the exuberance which draws.

VI.
This game is not for them; it’s ours.
Shear your landscape
into the most outrageous design imaginable.
Curse the censor;
fold him up into his can.

VII.
I cannot fall in love with you anymore
as I repeat every three beats of my heart.
And yet, I will.
Regardless, bubbles do brew and tumble
voluptuously, so far from our union.
Stop scrutinizing!
Encouraging eruption, minus becoming,
will not.

VIII.
Just take the swell of the storm
into your body
and simply allow yourself to become it.
Feel that you will lose yourself;
and there, sitting divine and naked,
you will find yourself.
And meet the one that I love.