Trust

I can’t do it again.

Not that thing.

Not that beautiful whirly-whirl of unknown pain and sadness

Till it’s known and you can’t escape it and the only thing you can do

Is tell yourself not to cry

But you don’t listen

Because your fingers are in your ears

In a desperate attempt to seal off your insides from your outsides

When the real problem is on the inside already and you know it

But you won’t admit it.

No.

I can’t do it again.

In fact, I refuse.

I refuse to chase the wind into a sandstorm that turns into a tornado

And sends me hurtling to a tropical sunset where we make love beneath

The hail and then I’m drunk off the water I drank while trying

To escape the hangover and I prayed but she took my crucifix

And now I’m bleeding but the bandages don’t stop it.

I can’t do it.

No I can’t. No I won’t.

I can’t do it again.

Not that thing.

The Magi's Apprentice

And I should be glad of another death,

Another journey

Beyond the veil of fear and the scope of Time,

An abandonment of the absurd in the pursuit of the truly Absurd:

It is amazing that wars should be started over shopping carts

And steamrollers;

But to think that Eli Whitney could’ve forgone the cotton gin

And lusty fields might still be littered with guilt:

There is some redemption on Earth,

But certainly not enough,

Not enough for the electric blues and the purple hazes

That are all the rave today;

And yet the last breaths of the caveman are those of the Tyco VP,

And Puritan prayers echo far too often from not so pure lairs

Of Gottis and Gambinos,

Which is why I should be glad of another death,

And I feel it coming…

The Road

There was a road I travelled, long and hard,

The misplaced musings of a mind distraught by sin and man and God,

And I toiled with the toilings of one demented,

Sweat of the brow and agony of the brain,

And I pushed with the pushings of a mother in labor,

Striving in vain to give birth to my swollen dreams.

Then I reached the end of this road and found not a respite,

Not even a cliff from which to plummet in hopeless triumph,

But yet another path marked with suffering and pain,

Another road untraveled, unmapped, unknown;

And so I took it:

God alone knows why.

"Cry,----"*

The tribe is broken and so are we,

Masked by our own fruitfulness and the boldness of the ground

To give into our hands that which we so lusted after.

The Milk of the earth has shot itself into our mouths

As like dogs around a bitch in heat

We all sniffed and waited with hardening parts for our turn

To harden our hearts.

The tribe is broken because of us,

Because of our lust and our false comradery,

Because of our queen and our dream for suns that never set,

And we were invincible for a while…

The Jewel in the crown made us fat and swollen

And yet we lusted for more

So we made the Transvaal bleed.

The tribe…what is a tribe?

All we hear are voices crying in the night

And gunshots echoing out the angst of forgotten souls;

We feel the terror in our hearts, terror that is not quite our own,

But that is there because of us, because of our lust.

Oh God forgive us for we know not what we’ve done,

Tixo, we know not what we do.

They are broken.

We are broken.

And yet the chains of bitterness and bondage still hold fast

The hearts of this broken but rigid land.

*a white man’s meditation on Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country

Dulce et Decoram Est Part II

I’ve worried my soul into oblivion,

Starved and irresolute

I cannot fathom peace

For peace is but a dream

In a world of war

And dreams are but

Wishful apparitions

Of a time that was

But that no more will be

Yes, it is a hard, hard world—

No place for the young

And excited

Things that cannot be understood

Are taught and acted upon

As if they were the words our parents

Teach us to speak as children

But we will pay

For the wages of sin is death

Said one dreamer to many

And that has been what this

Manifest Destiny built itself upon

A rock of the nebulous

The laughter of the brokenhearted

The embraces of the abused

Oh but that death would be beautiful

And all this

For which we will pay

Would be meaningful

Maybe. 

Take Me as I Am

“Take me as I am I pray, for there sure as hell ain’t no other way”

This is my offering:

A broken heart, two misplaced rings,

A bleeding child, a tattooed back,

Four self-rolled blunts, a twenty stack;

A dented bumper, maybe two,

Forgotten friends except a few,

My passport has a million stamps,

Each one a couple hussy tramps,

My stomach aches with endless guilt

For all the virgin blood I’ve spilt;

And now I’m empty, naught to bring

This is my offering.

This is my offering:

A broken heart, one purity ring,

A busy schedule, no more time;

I’ve lost my passion for the rhyme,

Unread books, unspoken words,

Scared to satisfy an urge,

Bottles keep on stacking up,

Don’t bother bringing me a cup;

I can’t go on, I’ve met my match,

The quota calls, while I detach

And now I’m empty, naught to bring

This is my offering.

This is my offering:

A broken heart, a cellphone ring

Away from cops right at my door,

A toaster falling from my floor,

Grannie’s garden smashed below,

All I hear is one echo,

Rat-tat-tat machine guns roll

Johnny’s life, that Viet stole

Bleeding out, I’m all alone

Jerking off to Rolling Stones

And now I’m empty, naught to bring

This is my offering.

The Romantic

I want glitter and glamor

Without the slimy residue,

Castles and dragons

Without war and destruction;

Wishes without witches,

Blessings without curses,

Battles without bleeding,

Birthdays without hearses.

I want needles in haystacks

To be quickly recovered,

Golden endings to rainbows

Easily discovered;

Mysteries without misery,

Life inside cupboards,

Jokes without truth,

Asses that aren’t stubborn.

But most of all,

I want my Guinevere without Lancelot,

Love without pain,

Chivalry without dishonor,

Kisses without shame.

And may fondness

Always accompany my name

In this fairy tale we create

To lucid remain.  

The Death of Kim Jong Il

There’s poison in the streets,

Wafting through the air,

Belching out its wishes for the world to stop and stare.

Cameras lend their flashes

To the tears that fall like ice

From the thronging crowds who mourn the loss of tyranny and vice.

Reporters bark their stories

While the guns ring out like bells

And the portrait of an autocrat a chilling story tells.

And all the while we clamor

Thanking God that’s not our life

As we bend the knee to MTV and democratic strife. 

Sanctify the soulless

Sanctify the soulless, the sultry and the sot;

Renegades are renegades, in hell their hearts will rot

And I’ll be one among them, Baba among his thieves

But wither not, I’ll dither not like Adam with his eaves.

I can’t escape the fracas so fricassee will be

The menu of my heart with my blood the gravy sea,

But falter not for Walter, nor for Raleigh on the way

To the falter of the halter on the steamy Orlean’s quay.

Squash the squash, and wash the wash, it’s pain for pain in pay

If you’re working on the railroad every blasted livelong day,

Or Astor’s appellation is the Hancock from your pen:

This life is just a playground round and round as we all spin.

Nostalgia

The golden days are memories of never-realized times,

The charges are realities of over-paid-for crimes,

But though despair may find me alone and obsolete,

I’ll never dare forget her hair that brushed against my cheek.

Youth and provocation walk always hand-in-hand,

But never did my wayward feet attempt to kick the can

Until of late in sorrow I’ve drowned my waking hours,

Remorseful of the chance I spurned to have my soul devoured.

I’d rather be a wraith and called you once my own,

Then thrive in all but spirit in this house that’s not my home,

But choice and second chances are few and far between,

And so I’ll die here dreaming how you could have been my queen.