THE THEME
When I play my house to visitors---
Replete with pure accordian walls,
Roofs that drum in rarest rains,
Wind-chimed windows riddling all---
I might---
To underscore the theme---
Pause
And touch you:
"I feel the scheme."
(1990)
ENDING WITH REQUISITE CRYPTIC LAUGHTER
She sheds lightning like her coat
Of clouds
And belches thunder;
She is weathered, seasoned, true,
And will let loose what is due
In time ---and thrust us under---
Calls our names with cracking whips,
Sinks the Sun and sinks our ships,
Bores great holes in our defenses,
Unjustifies our petty fences
With her bold communism---
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha...
(1988)
THE LOLLYGAGGERS (SENSE REWORKED)
Nears now Giles with his bow
To set this scene to music.
I'm thinking they must know
You all have ladles and the urge
ARIADNE
Ariadne, I was coming---
I was ever on my way---
I was in the deep night ---hunting---
Much too free of day
And bagged for me an animal
And gave to her your name---
MEDITATING ON A WATERFALL AT BULL CREEK
My guide ---descended from an eagle---
Has gone to walk again
Our pathway ---backwards--- towards the Sun
To find my writing pen.
The turbulific fight
That's going on---
Below our souls---
And will ---to swim the night.
ON BEING CALLED EVIL
You'd better kill me if your fire:
Those horns are growing ---you suggest---
And blares a madder choir...
I won't be offered any more
Nor give you petty alms
Beyond the
Feeding from my scabby palms
ON THE QUARTER
On the quarter by two
By a madman
PROGRESSIONS ON THE ONLY SUBJECT
determination hammer circle
expression silence struck a square
decapitation fury mortal
and forced through nothing even there
triangular concussive why
destruction ritual rot despair
undone becoming madder think
and find it fitting even there
devaluation laugh a game
mistakes suspicion never care
disturbe'd isolated scream
and face an idol even there
CAMERA OBSCURA
I will take my life by hiding it---
And the brilliant visions, too.
I will pose my thought by cloaking it---
And the worthless words that do---
For I, alone, have found this bright---
Yet I don't care
To bear the light---
And whosoever frameth me
Shall have his Christ cropped
Where he sees.
THE THRONE of GOD
The throne of God is an electric chair:
This song I sing I sing from there.
I haven't been condemned to die---
But, live ---to understand just why
Their reason
Never speaks to me---
Their faith's
A hopeless mockery---
Their mass
Exerts no gravity---
Except the part that makes me cry
At this ---our stranger majesty.
LOVEDEAD
I'd sell my soul for womanflesh---
And She would love a soulless man---
But wouldn't She, were nothing sold?
(What's unsupplied has no demand).
But, where's the warmth that's surely mine?
I thought my piety the way---
Though mine is only generous cold...
So cold that I must work in clay---
And make a face ---for there's no promise---
Bend Her limbs and say some grace---
I've found Her ---She's not looking back---
Our souls are gone ---some other place.
MY HALOED HONEY
I'm losing sleep ---I know it's true---
This sick deliberation grows.
But only lying takes me back
Into her arms to close.
I cannot find it in my heart---
Or anywhere alive---
The way that leads me to the fold,
However I may strive.
Sleep is one of heaven's names,
But truth is in translation.
I want her, but her family frowns
Upon these incantations.
(1991)
