To My Conscience

If you have a plan for me,

Then work with reason and let me be!

But if you think I’ll take your hand

And let you lead me into your desert land,

Without food, or water, or money to spend,

You had better think again!

I’d rather die here, drunk on wine,

Filled to the brim with lust and covered in grime,

Than die of thirst for your sake.

Off with you, conscience!

Now let me sleep!

After I am Gone

Even after I have left behind the world

And been long forgotten by the ones I love,

There will still be space for my soul to fill

In the hearts of the lonely and the tired and the ill,

And those who dream of a purer love

Than what their hearts have learned to feel.

Their eyes will find these simple words

And my soul will fill their precious worlds.

A Regression for the Lonely Soul

Regression.
That is the stairway that leads back
And always down down down.
I once knew a girl
Who was the light of my world.
She had eyes for another.
I never moved on from that.
Now, I spend my days writing poetry
And she is somewhere, probably dancing.
With a man?
Who can say.
I dance alone
When I can.
If by chance we meet again,
I will not speak to her.
Whatever I have to say
Is right here, in this poem.
If it lingers in her memory,
I will have moved on.
And if she never reads these words,
She will,
And still
You, lonely soul, will know my love.

My Trip to Michigan

One winter, on a whim, I drove up to Michigan to see Lake Huron.

Big bodies of water had always done me good, and despite the cold,

I wanted to go north.

The south was too easy, not rustic enough for a bold, adventuresome spirit like mine.

When I merged onto I-71 North, I felt the spirit of freedom overtake me.

I rolled the windows down, turned up the radio, and sang along to “Running with the Devil” by Van Halen.

Along the way, I stopped at various rest areas to smoke cigarettes and look for beautiful women.

I didn’t find any, and even if I had, I’m not sure I would have had the courage to talk to them.

Driving through Detroit was tumultuous, with its lofty byways and labyrinthine system of expressways.

I got to Port Huron in the mid-afternoon—the birthplace of Thomas Edison,

A small port town right across the water from Canada.

I walked up and down a commercial street, and stopped in at a coffee shop

Made with dark oak beams and designed like an old Gothic pub.

I sat at a table drinking coffee, and stared at the reflection of a beautiful girl in a mirror on the wall.

The waitresses all had brightly dyed hair, and the shelves were filled with old books,

And wooden gargoyles looked out from above the bar.

I felt for the first time like an independent adult, secure in my body, ready for any adventure

That might come my way.

I drove to the pier, and stood in over a foot of snow, looking out over the water

At the Canadian shore.

The bridge connecting the two countries hung like a giant frown in the sky,

As if a part of the upper atmosphere.

I drove further north, and found a park overlooking the water,

Which stretched all the way to the horizon.

There, I watched the sunset and wrote driveling poetry.

That same night, I drove back down to Detroit and walked around downtown.

I passed the ice skating rink, where happy couples skated by holding hands

And little children took careful strides on their own, away from their parents.

I happened upon a dejected bum, and bought him a meal.

He sat and ate a coney dog while I recited him poetry.

I gave him twenty dollars for a cab, and he embraced me.

That night, as I lay in bed at the Holiday Inn, I thought about this bum

And the gift I had given him.

An unfamiliar peace fell over me.

The day felt complete.

I soon fell asleep, and when I awoke,

The sun’s rays were just barely turning the sky a light shade of blue.

I got dressed, packed my things, and went home

Knowing that life had more in store for me when I needed there to be

And time is not measured in years, minutes, or seconds—not when you are truly alive,

But rather moments shared with those who need you the most

And the eternal love that lays so often dormant within our souls.

One Too Many

A festive eve of lust and beauty
Upon a winter's night
Full of drink and dapper song
Left me reeling--oh, my plight!
A beauty kissed me with a torrential tongue.
She was drinking whiskey, and her breath, it stunk!
But passionate throes, it kept me close
And I loved her--my heart did drum!
With a cry I made her mine,
And I thought, "The night is young!"
One more time, after a bottle of wine,
We plunged into each others arms.
Ah, but I was too drunk, and so I fell
And oh! I couldn't come!

Keeping the Promise

Waging war with the pretenses of my mind,
I find that I am encroaching
On a life I had left behind,
When my shadow lay in a pool of Truth
And Time was nothing but a rumor on my father's tongue.
Now the shadow of my youth
Waits on Fate to deliver its truth
And all my thoughts are delivered for proof
Of a promise I cannot retain.

A Poem Which Nobody Asked Me to Write

Basho wrote that a poet should never create a poem
Unless asked.
Basho was not God.
In his haikus, Basho often wrote of transient things
Like a frog jumping into a pond
Or the sound of singing from the distant rice farms.
Transience is needed in the world.
This may seem obvious, but it is curious
How the soul wishes to make everything last.
Like this poem, which was not asked for--
At least, not by you,
And certainly not by Basho.
Its place is the reality of the moment,
And, perhaps, you never had to ask
Because, deep down, I already knew.

Ambition

To gain the world with ambition’s grasp

Brings no life but the life that is past.

To forsake wisdom for eloquence

Shields the virtue in a death-face mask,

And light, that gift of God to man,

Is wasted in a sleep of hellish ash.

Virtue’s call becomes the death

Of all that life for man has left.

Shalom Dancing

Pressed for silence,

He believes there is something sacred in the boundaries of his dance.

With eternal gratitude,

And without a yamaka,

He presses onward into the night.

As if stone could be made dust,

The light that surrounds him betrays nothing lacking in the sacred

And the watchful eyes trust in his glory.

He is the last pillar of a dying truth

And he moves like a storm unwilling to move eastward,

That chosen soul held up to the undying light.

Praying

In the devout shadow, I pray to an unwelcoming God.

The lash of my presence disturbs Him, sinner that I am.

Through the threshold of my life, I awake with a new dream:

A vision of a saint pressed to change the agenda of all of mankind,

To turn ash to air and to set free the maniacal love in a form counter to the violence

That binds man to his unwelcome visions.

But there is no turning back from my visions now.

All of my lust and all of my knowledge is reflected in the mirror

Which God holds,

And only through force of the will

Will the mirror be shattered

And my blood nourish the ever-thirsty ground.