A moment, more or less, of deconstruction:
by which I mean to delve into the soul
that strives to separate life from destruction
and yet maintain some semblance of the whole,
to claim by sacred right the single kernel,
the isolated truth-soaked grain of sand
that by its presence negates the infernal
in concrete terms all can understand.

It does not matter what stated intention
the writer may have claimed explained their work.
Creative types are just show and pretension;
in equal parts: saint, sinner, genius, jerk.
Believe me, I have far more poignant insight
by virtue of not wasting any time
in chasing muses past the hour of midnight
to be rewarded by one simple rhyme.

Besides, too many think themselves creative
and squander precious time lost in that haze.
The world needs workers, not more contemplatives,
who pass up duty just to navel gaze.
We need poetry, 'tis true, but with some guidance:
interpretations that have been approved,
that faced with doubt and free will, choose avoidance
and recommend such options be removed.

It only takes a moment's intervention
to steer a young and growing mind astray;
remember, cure is harder than prevention,
so put those blinders on without delay.
Besides, it only starts with art and culture;
are politics ... religion ... far behind?
Trust me, do you want, hanging like a vulture,
someone with vision checking your design?

We deconstruct to make it seem like science,
instead of art or magic, sacred stuff
that at its core encourages defiance
and shows our plans for what they are, a bluff.
In pieces, the world fits into our puzzle,
and none can see the holes we've yet to fill.
With so-called education as a muzzle,
we can do what we want, and always will.

30 APR 2005

What I have left to strike a spark
is just a book of grayed and dusty matches;
not much good at dispelling dark
when the flint is reduced from ancient scratches
where once I sought to catch a fire
against the troubled wind of youth,
fueled with some bottomless desire
to speak for Beauty, Love and Truth.

It seems as though my kindling's turned to rot,
soaked through with time's stale sweat;
even the bark has curled where water has got
and turned the umber wood to jet.
Still, there is quite enough spare chaff,
cast off from years of gleaning grain,
swept up against my mind's baseboards
to feed a bonfire, this Beltane.

As summer brings its sweltered breath
again, and warms my arid bones,
I will return from Winter's death
and on my hilltop, stand alone
while the flames lick the turgid sky
with their caress of wild desire;
in that bright light, the world and I
are spark and tinder, fuel and fire.

29 APR 2005

so much depends
on an audience that resents
a two drink minimum

so much depends
on people who don't support
reality TV

so much depends
on someone who listens
so it's worth lying

so much depends
on removing education
as an obstacle to learning

so much depends
on how much is recycled
versus thrown away

so much depends
on waiting for someone else
to decide

so much depends
on not rocking the boat
too much

so much depends
on using your wheelbarrow
to haul shit to the garden

28 APR 2005

Thank you for not giving me
the Powerball numbers from the astral plane;
for postponing that move to the Florida Keys
at least another decade;
for the psoriasis that precluded my career
as a playboy Lothario;
for the hesitation, that lack of killer instinct,
that limited my musical ambitions;
for my overdrawn bank account,
for the grey hair on my head,
for the gumption to quit college,
for the brain cells I've lost to self-medication,
for the little things.

Thank for the bathroom walls
rotting into disgusting flakes;
for the vinyl siding hanging down
against the untrimmed rose and jasmine bushes,
for the neighborhood watch that always reports
when my lawn misses a week's worth of trimming.

Thank you for a self-centered teenage child
with a hand full of gimme, and a mouth full of much obliged
(although, truth be told, not too often with the thank you);
thanks for senior year expenses:
cap and gown
announcements
college applications
senior portraits
prom gowns
car insurance
cell phones

Thanks for all those unwelcome comparisons to other parents,
who obviously have their act together,
and know how to understand and respect
the needs of hypochondriac, selfish shopaholic children
who can't be bothered to clean their own dishes,
cook their own food,
or even pick up the bath mat after themselves.

Thank you for these extra hundred pounds
that make me much more difficult to lug around
all this gratitude and appreciation.

Thanks for long hours, high standards of living,
neighbors that vote Republican and think they're doing the right thing,
and will debate me,
like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons,
that society is to blame.

Thanks for the patriarchy, and for right-wing conservatives
that help me keep in perspective my own radically different value system.
Thanks for the 78% of Americans that call themselves Christians,
but act anything but. It helps me with my own hypocrisies.

Thanks for being there, even when you're not there.
Thanks for the dawn, and for twilight, and the hours in between.

Thanks for all those payroll deductions that represent money
I'll owe to the IRS anyway.
Thanks for credit card interest, for installment loans, for insurance premiums.
They help me keep it real.

Thanks especially for those big, flying cockroaches.
Killing them gives me some fleeting sense of power.

Thanks for keeping the sources of my inheritance alive
but not making me resent them for it.

Thanks for nothing. Thanks for everything.

I don't say it often enough.

28 APR 2005

Who says that poetry dare not describe,
except in abstract, the signs of the times,
when modern culture abounds with sound bytes
from cinema, like Puzo's line
that all business is personal,
and we hang with pride by electron pins
our ragged, besmirched angst,
so that a global web of public noses
can share our hampers' contents:
the tattered, faded t-shirts (now vintage wear)
that in high school twenty years ago
could get us suspended for dress code violations
(I think of the Ramones, the Clash, and Bauhaus,
who sell more accessories now than
they ever dreamed of during their lifetimes).

Who says that poetry must first, before all else,
be small and disheveled, a Pigpen trailing the muck
of his own me-o-centric dust bowl,
or soft and insecure Linus, grasping desperately
to the security of psychosis,
lamenting years of analysis that have left us,
as a people, addicted to neuropathic drugs
and fattened the wallets of countless would-be-Freuds
and their pushermen?

Who says that language must devolve
to suit the temper of the times,
instead of lifting, by the scruff of the neck,
its whining, self-centered congregation
beyond the dry and brittle pews of academia
into direct experience with the Divine?

Who says that poets must wait, patient,
while the world argues and decides their fate?

Who says that poetry dare not touch
upon the sacred? Without tangents
such as these, what good is it? Why, then,
keep on, and on and on, 'til break of dawn
insisting that the pen is mighty?
Wherefore comes that might? From lashing
oneself to the mast of culture's speeding craft,
so that the Sirens on the rocks
may loose their soft, seductive stream
of sacrilege,
and yet not sway the poet's course.

24 APR 2005

There is no good in writing it,
for no one cares to read;
no point in baking word-filled pies,
there's no one here to feed.

There is no point in singing it,
for we have all gone deaf;
besides, no one remains who knows
a bass from treble clef.

There is no worth in painting,
for we're all as good as blind,
and tend to favor style and flair
instead of good design.

There is no use in playing;
Why not sample? Why waste time?
Those who can tell the difference
are but few and quite sublime.

There is no good in writing it,
except to help preserve
a history beyond these times
that poetry deserves.

There is no point in singing it
except to save the voice
so in some future silence
those who wish, will have a choice.

There is no worth in painting,
save to safeguard fading skills
against the simple, quick and cheap.
If you don't, no one will.

There is no use in playing
except that future museums
will not know about instruments
if all you can do is see them.

28 APR 2005

I wonder why it is that the folks over at 43 Things picked the number 43. Could it be related to my favorite David Crosby song?

Page 43

Look around again
It's the same old circle
You see, it's got to be -
It says right here on page forty three ...
That you should grab a hold of it
Else you'll find
It's passed you by

Rainbows all around
Can you find the silver and gold -
it'll make you old
The river can be hot or cold ...
And you should dive right into it
Else you'll find
It's passed you by

Pass it around one more time
I think I'll have a swallow of wine -
life is fine
Even with the ups and downs ...
And you should have a sip of it
Else you'll find
It's passed you by

-- David Crosby, Stay Straight Music

David Crosby, in the liner notes for the CSN boxed set, says about his song "Page 43":

It's about the mythical instruction booklet to life that we all wish we had and don't. An optimistic song nonetheless.

While I agree that the song does present an optimistic outlook on life, particularly if you adhere to the "Be Here Now" philosophy as espoused most popularly by Ram Dass (a.k.a. Richard Alpert), I think that far too many people on this earth feel that their particular "instruction book" is somehow applicable to a wide range of individuals with which they have little, if anything, in common except their humanity and the natural milieu upon which their lives are dependent and inter-related with (which in fact is quite a lot, when placed into perspective against their cultural and societal differences). In any case, it is my philosophy that each person must write their own guidebook, and that "book" must be by default more a memoir than a practical "how to" reference. You can investigate and evaluate the memoirs of others, hoping for a bit of insight into some of your commonalities, but, as they say, the Divine is in the details, and there's where it's always necessary to stray from the recipe. Then, too, Mark Twain commented once that if you truly want to describe a person so that another would recognize them without question, you cannot paint them using only their good points as a reference. The individuality of humankind is determined by its flaws, the aberrations from the norm that make us each unique.

I want to tell you something
in a few short locking lines;
you may find the concept shocking,
or reject it, but that's fine.

You may not think it a poem,
for it doesn't show a thing;
it does not just throw out pictures
like a TV set with springs.

It employs some form and function
(precepts you may not embrace),
and provides no shallow unction
or catharsis, on its face.

There will be no critics fawning
on its radical design,
its unorthodox construction
or bold use of the sublime.

It will never make a journal,
never win a poet's prize;
it is far too straight and simple
and wears no arty disguise.

You may not think it a poem,
if you trust your teachers' rules,
or judge it by its reception
from most modern writing schools.

I want to tell you something;
that's my sole intent and aim.
Whether you accept the message
or not, to me it's the same.

For I do not write for your sake,
to mesh neatly with your truth;
that you out of hand reject it,
without thinking, is my proof.

I want to tell you something,
but if you choose not to hear
it doesn't really matter
for it's only art, my dear.

It is not a revolution,
nor a glimpse of the divine;
not a new proposed solution
for the trouble of these times.

It is not some tortured pretext
by which I excuse my rage;
just a small and rusted latchkey
that I've used on my own cage.

I want to tell you something:
if you read between the lines
you'll find I've communicated
more than these few words of mine.

26 APR 2005

Rescind your tortured sentences; let words
escape like AWOL soldiers past the fence,
like sullen rocks that would grow wings like birds
and fly out into fresh experience.

Rethink your injured poems; let each line
cascade in a cacophony of sound
where all the images you dare define
in simple rhythm's ancient tongues resound.

Don't cast your works in broken, fragile stone;
they will not last beyond the dusting brush.
Instead, seek for the essence that alone
reduces recent shouts and cheers in hush.

The modern lasts no more than single days;
its history a palimpsest of mist.
If you would build a temple worth more praise,
you must do more than exercise the wrists.

What vision can withstand the critic's bile
unless the artist draws it from within?
What good to end up in some dusty file
where fickle fancy's fads end and begin?

Let no one else restrict the words you choose,
nor help you seek the spirit of the age;
If you would seek to please others, refuse
to put another letter on the page.

24 APR 2005

When you think about it, what does a jury of one's peers really mean? Legally, I suppose it means that because all individuals are theoretically equal under the law, one's peers in a litigious sense means other equally theoretical equals.

A peer might be anyone who shares with me age, gender, ethnicity, race, education, geography, nationality or religion, in some combination. But considering any of these factors in isolation does not make sense to me. This does not seem to be the basis by which I identify my peers on a daily basis. For example I do not consider all men to be my peers, nor all southerners, nor all people who did not quite graduate from college? Not on a typical day.

For me, a peer is a fellow traveler. Not someone on the same path as I am, nor someone who has been where I've been, but someone who has been faced with the same kinds of dilemmas, made similar choices, and lived with the consequences of those choices in order to a achieve a similar goal. That means that in order to decide who my peer group is, I have got to get the order of the questions right. Often, we ask "who is going with me?" before we ask "where am I going?" As a result, whether or not the traveling companion is suitable, advantageous or even compatible for the journey cannot be in any way intelligently determined.

Who are my peers, then?

People who have lived in more than one state. People who have been divorced. People who read books daily. Curious people. People who vote their conscience and intelligence and not the party line. People who believe that life and death can be defined as energy borrowed, energy returned. People who feel that art, beauty, kindness, compassion and doubt are essential elements of human existence. People willing to get their hands dirty. People who recognize that all ethical systems are based on the principle Thou Before I and actually, where possible, live according to that standard. People who believe that love is not ownership. People who seek commonalities, rather than differences. People who seek beyond institutionalized anything (schools, churches, governments) in order to discover how Universal Truth becomes Personal Truth. People who see beyond all of these Aristotaliarian compartmentalizations. People who know there is no such thing as prehistory, who draw outside the lines, who accept personal responsibility for who they are, where they are, and how they got there, who believe that a meritocritous egalitarian society is not only possible, but achievable, one person at a time.

If my life were on trial, I would insist that 12 such individuals be found to weigh my fate.

Reach down to touch the waiting earth
that there beneath your feet, alive,
in constant movement hurls through space
and yet seems solid in the place
where through your bones, like vibrant roots
its energy expands and shoots,
infusing marrow, flesh and bone
with strength from every tree and stone.

Reach up into the far flung sky
that just beyond your tiptoed grasp
becomes the wind that pulls you on
and turns to clouds, and then is gone
until you slowly breathe it back
to watch the gap begin to slack
between each molecule of air
until there's only one space there.

Reach in beneath your surface skin
under the epidermis where
a million cells each pulse with life;
dig deeper, like your mind's a knife
that probes each inch of sinew, vein,
and stretch of bone from toe to brain,
until you find your inner core
that will live on when you're no more.

Reach out just past your fingertips
and touch the edge your sense permits
where science teaches your range ends
and leaves to faith what there begins
connected by some unseen thread
that spins between the live and dead
transcending time, and thought, and space
in patterns saints and madmen trace.

Reach all around, hands outstretched wide
and offer out what is inside
Push up what fills you from below
Pull down an armful, then let go
Expand in all directions, free,
Beyond logic and sanity
Past expectations, good and ill
Grasp all of life. Come, get your fill.

23 APR 2005

I paraphrase the Dalai Lama a bit here, but the gist of it is that most of the world focuses on having what you want--- which is a constant state of acquisition, of needing to augment with more, of rampant consumerism that ultimately ends in devaluation of anything that is not imminently disposable.

If you find satisfaction in what you are, where you are, who you are right now, that is peace of mind that is not illusive, transitory or subject to entropy. Wanting what you have is the ultimate expression of living in the moment. The goal is to be here now, not to dwell on how much better your life could be if only ...

What is secret song that the whole world
hums underneath its breath, too soft to hear
unless you sit in silence, in the dark
and listen as intently as you can?

And when you hear it once, why it is so
that its refrain eludes your memory's grasp?
Does it vibrate on some harmonic scale
that with its very echo self-destructs?

The melody, so simple and so pure,
seems to be shifting constantly in flux
so that each phrase is new; no line repeats,
nor lends itself to rote and mindless chant.

The rhythm pulses static long enough
to catch your heartbeat's diastolic thump,
but suddenly it swells in pregnant pause
to fill all time in but a moment's breath.

I have heard music played beyond my ken,
so wild and free it stretched my sonic grasp
to breaking; and then all the pieces slipped
back to their assigned cells of time and space.

Long past that last note's echo I will know
what symphony the universe conducts;
and in that gaping chasm, my small voice
awaits the cue to loose its single note.

What secret song is known to the whole world,
yet takes a lifetime's listening to hear?
The sound of living, one breath at a time,
and finding sacred every sip of air.

20 APR 2005

Philosophy is considered one of the humanistic studies, which are studies intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills (rather than occupational or professional skills). That is not to say, however, that they have no "practical" value. I would argue quite the contrary.

The classic philosophic question is "what is the meaning of life?" Typically, that question is posed in a highly theoretical environment, with the querant never actually intending to apply that meaning to their own life, only to a "life" in general, or a laboratory "life" to see what happens. Plato's Republic, I suppose, would be a case in point.

In contrast to this strictly idealistic goal, the practical philosopher asks instead "what can I do to make my life more meaningful?"

The former presupposes a meaning that is somehow divorced from action, that is fixed and for the purposes of growth requires only the action of seeking, which if the search is well-directed and not in vain, may culminate in the act of discovery. The latter, on the other hand, does not separate life from its meaning, or more precisely, requires that all actions, including the "seeking", be incorporated into a permanent state, rather than an isolated act or instance, of epiphany. It does not say you do not need to seek for meaning, but refines and focuses that search to begin within, rather than in some applied external condition.

Practical philosophy is a classical example of removing the barrier, or glass, between the observer and the observed. It postulates that there can be no meaning without subjectivity. That there is no "objective" or primary Truth, no universal that is not at its core absolutely and irrefutably personal.

Practical philosophy, then, can have no universal dogma, nor tenets. The fact that multiple people find the same truths to be self-evident does not make them universal truths first, only secondarily.

The question then is this: is civilization as Julian Jaynes defined it "any group of people gathered together in sufficient number so that it is impossible to know each individual on a first name basis"? Or is civilization in fact the natural coalescence of those individuals whose personal philosophies are compatible with each other to a sufficient degree to enable cooperation, coordination and coexistence? Can any "civilization" whose boundaries and philosophical framework are externally imposed hope to survive or progress?

How do ethical systems of behavior (which can all, since the beginning of time, be reduced in principle to a simple statement - "Thou Before I") and codes of morality (which are in essence guarantees of punishment from one's peers or superiors [i.e., employers, homeowners' associations, communities, representatives, rulers, divinities] for wrongdoing either immediately or on a future payment plan) fit into a frame of reference where the ultimate requirement is personal responsibility?

"I have nothing to say and I am saying it; that is poetry." -- Thirteen Words, John Cage

What it is or was mulled over like cheap wine
we drank although we didn't know it and so we
called our passions sad mistakes and so refused
to comprehend but never mind it overall and if
you're sorry that's the price or so you say but
I was giving it free of charge in case you didn't know

(grow old with me I said
as childishly I pulled you through the grass across the lawn
behind the backs
of those
who paid themselves to watch)

What it is or was and in the end became to be
because when I just happened to you accidents
can happen to love you and there's nothing else
to say and my mistake was letting you believe
that I could accept nothing free of charge.

(grow close to me I said
as hopelessly I let you block the light across my soul
behind the house of cards
I built myself
to watch fall down)

Where do you think those words came from?
Did you think I was kidding?

Would I have struggled through this:
aborted our unborn children,
burnt our home together down with deliberate matches,
killed the part of me that made you love me
just so you could sleep easier knowing
it was one less decision you had to make?

Look, here is the moon you wanted!

In my worthless, bloodied hands you see it;
it is what you want, but my having it makes it dirty;
you look away - the sight of me
with your sky makes you weep.

I am the sacrilege in your dream.

Your emasculated knights could never bring it close,
the feeble soldiers for whom you feel appropriate,
but I have held it here with me for three months now,
fought dragons and returned near death,
in vain, to hang it on your wall.

Although you want it, you must not take it from me -
that would mean something, a commitment.
I refuse to let myself be shamed by your refusal
of it; it was not the moon at all you sought,
but mere reflection of it:
substance, not the style that hides it,
is the gift you turn from.

That is my flaw, that I have substance without style,
truth without flowers -
these are my bitter pills,
presented without their sugar armor.
What it is or could have or to have not anything
about will never weep my secrets:
I have cast myself into this pit
and wrenched my heart from where it was
and burnt it here upon the hearth -
for rather than the something different

something

I would have the nothing that we shared and then made sorrow
by denying
that it mattered, that it felt,
that it was real, that it was anything ...
that it was everything.

Look, I can be more than just your mistake!
I can stop hurting, just like that!
I can deny that i will always love you!

I can look forward to Hell, where
I burn now for lying,
and you commit yourself like murder,
while we stand aside and watch ourselves
drowning in the fire.

1994

Society, your dream would have me beg
for pittance from a cruel employer's hand,
and from my knees downward, not use my legs,
preferring that I genuflect, not stand,

to act as servant, bound to divine whim
that your appointed middlemen report.
What's more, I must be weak, and bow to Him
who you insist directs my fate for sport.

No wonder I am just a half-grown lout
who spends my life in seeking childish joys,
when you have counseled me to forgo doubt
and are ashamed when men emerge from boys.

You take my destiny and claim my fate
should stay within the limits you proscribe,
denouncing me when I will not conform
or meekly take your bright and shiny bribe.

Who would choose the adulthood you profer,
all duty with no right, nor chance to rise?
No wonder most avoid it, or defer
a servitude unending 'til you die.

Yet when I pout and act a child of ten,
which seems how you and God define a man,
you feign surprise, and claim it's always been
my choice to make; and either way, be damned.

13 APR 2005

Let those who would reform the world desist
their feeble mewlings at the citadel
that those they choose to fight built to resist
more legions than the gods themselves could quell.

Let others beat to useless, bloody shreds
their fist-clenched hands against that firm defense,
with dreams of victory to fill their heads
in vain attempt to breach its competence.

What good is it to use the self-same tools
that those would enslave have honed so fine?
What use an end achieved, if the same rules
we claim our foes have bent, we break to climb?

Let those who would upset the status quo
seek first to change the sameness found within
that would by smoke and mirrors try to show
a better cause, or one more fair, should win.

Let others claw and scrape that would behold
outside themselves, a world less prone to pain,
where right always prevails, warm comes from cold,
and sunny days require no spells of rain.

What good are dreams that do not change the self,
that would with mere illusions seek to please,
their promise a slight shift in fleeting wealth
or kneeling pads to those still on their knees?

Let those who would reform the world begin
their revolution from a different spot:
instead of struggle to get what you want,
appreciate a bit of what you've got.

Let others take the parapets by storm,
their banners bright and bold against the flame;
For me, such revolutions don't perform.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

12 APR 2005

Now to the Doldrums we have come,
our sails gone limp, weighed down and still,
and not a breath of wind is left
to draw from old Poseidon's lungs.
The brackish air insults what brawn
we strain to heave against the oars
to gain an inch or two, no more,
while taunting, sweltered hours crawl.
Long gone, momentum seems a dream,
and progress but a pale mirage;
despite the months spent on the seas,
and endless leagues beneath our keel.

Who has the strength of faith required
in times like these, to feel for breeze,
or raise a moistened, hopeful thumb
against a parched and vengeful sun?
The nights are like the days, they stretch
beyond the far edge of the world,
where one can see the salt consume
the bitter water in dry foam.
The wine is turned to vinegar,
the citrus shrunk to rind;
the bread, once relished hard and dry
grates like a knife with every bite.

So many who began this trip
have fallen o'er the side;
Who knows what passion drives a soul
to certain suicide?
To hope seems vain and fruitless,
just an exercise in pain;
who knew a curse on dreary climes
would end with prayer for rain?
Beneath the deck, the foul air sits
just like an old, despotic king.
He sits in judgment on us all.
Who can arouse his clemency?

The days and nights become the same,
both dreamless states that sour
the taste of pride to curdled milk
and drain the well of meaning dry.
Perhaps tomorrow brings the wind
and thus, an end to this malaise;
What good great fortunes won, if lost
to these despairing, heartless days?
And as for dreams turned dry and bare,
what comfort are those bleaching bones
that mock, like mists from distant isles,
the eyes that take this watch, alone?

11 APR 2005

'Tis said there lurks a boy inside each man,
whose unhealed wounds from childhood form a part
of how he goes about when it is time
to find the man inside the young boy's heart,

whose grandiose bravado and fierce pride
will not admit his battle lost to age,
nor for a moment take his unclenched hand
away from the great sword there at his side.

The world may change, but not his frightened soul,
that rages against clocks and seeks its wings
among the chimeras his mind creates
instead of laying up such youthful things.

He fears the loss of innocence, of grace,
invincibility and boundless joy
that beat retreat with each line on his face,
to the stronghold of that small, simple boy.

And yet, some dragons are not only myth,
content to parry blows with wooden swords;
they roam the adult kingdom to corrupt
its spirit in both evil deed and word.

Against such beasts, no childlike rage will do;
mere lads have little hope, despite their zeal.
It takes a man to strike such creatures down,
with blades not made of wood, but hardened steel.

For this, were young boys destined to grow old:
to wrestle demons beyond childhood's ken,
despite their wish to stay forever young
and thus avoid the battle scars of men.

The boy will never fade to naught and die.
If that were so, no men would learn to dream
beyond hardship of a grown-up life
where everything's exactly what it seems.

And so, half man and still half ungrown child,
each seeks some purpose that will suit the whole.
Some lose their way, and wander in the wild,
while others struggle vainly for control

Of time, that does not heed, but marches on,
each step after another, unto death;
then of its own accord, the game will end,
and either win or lose, claim the last breath.

So dream big dreams, stretched out from where you stand,
and whether young or old, seize with both hands
the time and place you are. To realize
the magic of each moment is the prize.

07 APR 2005

No more sad weepings of regret
for could have beens and not quite yets,
for rituals left incomplete
for locked doors facing empty streets

for words lost in a tempest's rage
for missteps on an unlit stage
for ancient wounds now faded scars
for long burnt out, far distant stars

for fashions past that won't return
for matches far too wet to burn
for verbal gaffes, for unrhymed verse
for knowledge gathered and dispersed

for books unwritten and unread
for love once endless, but now dead
for rusting bars on unlit cells
for buckets drawn from empty wells

for seeds and wild oats never sown
for first together, then alone
for motions carried just for spite
for daylight's retreat into night

for a whole lifetime spent for naught
for fish, and punchlines, left uncaught
for seeming more, and being less
for each new forwarding address

for moments passed that are no more
for losing count, for keeping score
for hours lost in speechless grief
for seeking elsewhere for relief

for finding fault, for feeling shame
for wanting to assign the blame
for wasting one more second's worth
of this brief span we have on earth.

06 APR 2005

The stars are fixed; they do not move.
Instead, what we call firmament
is just a shifting lens that's bent
to suit the seasons. To approve
or disapprove such things is vain
and futile; our whole history,
that we would carve in stone and brick,
is but a wisp, a palimpsest,
that the next epoch writes anew.

And gods, if such are said to be,
perhaps employ more lasting inks
yet too will fade to faint indents
and leave no greater marks than men.

What once was center is now freed
and to circumference lays the lie;
great spheres of thought that wise men hold
more dear than life itself, deflate.

So what of fate, no more ordained
and best left to the seer's glass?
What purpose do those notions serve
that would enslave the yearning mind?

We are in motion without end;
there is no point at which, full-stop,
the world could even for an hour
reflect upon its then-new state
so that an unseen force could smile
and praise his finished handiwork.

The stars are fixed; they do not move.
Instead, we hurl through space and time
in some eternal dance of life;
and no stiff doctrine made of men
has power to change the truth of it,
nor outraged, claim as heresy
what they, while blind, deny my eye.

05 APR 2005