Two weeks in the ground,
and the family’s dried up
so he carries them home-
his bride’s dead shrubs.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
She places the black blooms
in the front room, unforgotten
she admires the dry petals
crisp like starched cotton
He eats quiet, sleeps fast,
and leaves with no kiss,
to tend stones and bones
and she tends his.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
Roses need not open red
with petals silk to skin.
Beauty is, in life, in death,
where it is seen akin.
Throwing decisions over my shoulder
Grains of salt to the fates
Waiting and watching and working
I can’t concentrate
On the weight of these days.
Brooding inside me, in my neurosis,
All the pieces fit,
Falling into my obsessions,
The passions I won’t submit
And who will acquit me in my guilt?
One day more, one more week,
And I know how to fight
Addiction with distraction
Ignore what incites
But I’m not contrite enough
to marathon.
Darken the lights and dim the senses,
These days are long, and senseless,
Feel the same old something different,
Something deliberate or irreverent
To break the ice and crack the dam
Or wash away what I am.
Is the old world gone again
Or dead again
Weathered from self
Or talking lies to each other
weather and agendas and
walking surface streets
near but not together
Is the old world mourned
or underground
or do we hold what remains
of barefoot days
bare headed in wind and rain
and raw, bleeding laughter
After sunset, after days,
I wanted a lover in secret and dark
and whispers of alliance in ears
Too young, too small
To hear the storm
Talking, talking,
but never whispers
Ferocious gale storms
Battering windows that shake
and moan and creak and threaten
to give all- to give way-
Hungry, angry, the tempest grows
Screams devoured silently in its center,
But whispers…
Ah… whispers echo all.
Then the morning,
Sunlight breaking as a fever-
branches strewn like fallen garland
homeless leaves flit and wail
seeking, searching,
never found again
but by death, decay and rot.
The acute pleasure of fear
Eclipsed by the organic waste left behind,
Proof of storms and fury and sin
Proof of mankind
written in waste.
Stumbling and halting
Over my faltering confidence
You stood me up once,
And I’ve thrown me down since
Like a child in the throes
Of tantrum and rage,
So blinded by self
I can’t be engaged.
But the waters will still,
The fever will break,
The fervor I feel
The Sculptor’s hand slakes.
Ashamed again,
Of my all things supine,
I throw my face to the floor
Before The Divine-
The Almighty and Compassionate God.
The weight of beauty
drooping low, dropping childhood
into eager palms
falling petals
Raindrops of time
small explosions, quiet accumulation
incapable of maintenance
or preservation
Born again,
functional, complete,
afloat on the surface
of recollection,
the seeds of beauty reborn.
Perhaps I would, I will,
Not for my pride,
But to spite you, still
Caught inside.
Impossible to shake free,
Tangled in the breath and touch
And yearning of memory-
Every break a crutch.
Maybe one day
I’ll do whatever must be done,
To hear you say
I am your one
and only regret.
He broke in my soul,
Played the loot,
The petty thief stole
And I took no pursuit.
I’d learned defense,
The jab and trance,
But not the pretense
Of the offensive stance.
I dropped my guard
Scuffled my feet
Over the shards
Of my parried retreat
And he knew me, or else
He got lucky, I guess,
To read my tells
To let me confess
Secrets and sabotages.
It was all we knew or wanted to know,
Bouncing on beds,
Singing along, to hardly known songs,
Whatever lyrics jump in our heads.
We loved with our all our guts
Not the skin on top
Our laughter shared was love declared,
And our promise not to stop.
When simplicity of soul and
Innocent intentions
Spawns love, it’s made of
Stuff beyond adult conventions-
Breathless and helpless,
Ageless and selfless.
I always loved Luther,
But I assumed I would be
An Erasmus or Melanchthon
In my own theology.
But now it distills, I see
The terrible gravity of sin.
I can in no way diminish
The utter depravity of men,
Which diminishes the cross, the cross!
We must first die to be reborn.
Look down, self-satisfied generation,
Into your sinful heart and mourn.
Throw all you are into the cross,
Keep nothing for your own,
For when God the Just has punished there
All you are is now atoned.
Put away the talk, the thoughts,
The clatter of self-righteous profanity
Orbiting abilities and results-
These things are vanity.
Put on the cross, the means of grace,
That crushes to death the heart of sin,
For we are a peculiar race,
Whose means justify our end.
viewingcamelot 