Halloween

The shadows covering the abbey
Scream from within.
The bells ring,
But the monks sleep on,
Demons flying like lesions over their skin.
On the doorstep, a young man is bowed
In prayer.
His exile is one meant for the dead.
The cold wind is drowning him,
But he must--he must!--last the night.
The asphalt responds to his prayer
With luminescence and cold.
Salvation comes at the moon's flick of a baton
And song, like an unraveling cloud,
Covers the sky.
God, to the young man, suddenly dies.

The Land of Opportunity Waits

The Land of Opportunity waits,
Even as your blood thins and your skin
Hangs like detritus from your bones,
Even as the walls of assurance
Close in around you,
Even as your vision fades
The Land of Opportunity waits.
Even when there is nothing to reach for,
Or when your hand has been cut from your wrist,
Even as you watch all those you know
Digging your grave
The Land of Opportunity waits.
As long as you can identify yourself as yourself,
As long as there is space to see in front of your face,
The Land of Opportunity waits.
Gather what strength you have,
If only it be the strength to breathe
And see that the Land of Opportunity waits
And will be waiting
Long after you've passed to your grave.

Killing the Conscience

Conscience commanded the flesh to act,
But flesh refused, and conscience fought back:
Such pain and suffering the flesh endured
To withstand the conscience, which was but a word.
But the flesh soon discovered the power of song,
And silenced the conscience, which lived on
In the words that you are hearing now--
All that's blessed deserves renown.

Land of the Elite

Take the vertical road in your sleep
Up to the mountain home of the Elite.
Along the highway you'll see
The Gothic skyscraper hotel.
Its buttresses are ornate,
It's pointed arches intricate.
But don't go inside.
The rooms smell like cabbage
And the staircase is rickety.

Further on is the futuristic mall.
It's sleek and eloquent
But inside the walls, the shoppers are grotesque
And purchase inscrutably.

Then there's the village
Full of beautiful mansions--
All architectural wonders, if not anomalies.
Look from the outside, but don't get too near.
The owners are private and live in fear.

There's a party at Roderick's mansion tonight.
It's full of debauchery, gambling and wine.
The women wear satin and precious jewels
And laugh at cruel jokes
Made at the expense of hired fools.
The poets quote Shakespeare
When simple laughter would do,
And the men smoke cigars ,
And tell stories from their youth.

You can stay in the Land of the Elite all night
And wait for the sun to rise.
When it does, you awaken
And remember it all,
Tears of rage in your eyes.

Ludlow Ave.

I return to the street where I exerted
So much indifference in my youth.
Now, the indifference is inverted--
No one minds me at all.
The faces (and they are many, and all unfamiliar)
Are so bright with stories
I can't even imagine them.
The shadows locked in a death grip
Remind me that I am alone here,
Except of course for the ghost of my youth,
Who floats above the gas lamp,
Chasing itself in circles.

The Naked Eye

The naked eye feels the shame of its nakedness
When first exposed to beauty.
But love like a matchmaker comes
And binds beauty to the eye.
These tears I weep are a shroud
That covers my nakedness
As you say goodbye.

When You've Gone Mad

When the outside world seems a game of charades,
And all that you do, or know, or think or say
Becomes aware of you and not the other way around;
When the trees start wearing diadems
And string music plays when you lie down--
You have flipped your brain over the platform of the sane
And nothing you perceive will seem the simple truth
Ever again.

The Devil's Advantage

Masochistically the Devil walked through the woods
Marveling at the wonders of God.
He watched the graceful white-tailed deer
And gazed at the towering trees.
He listened to the singing of the birds
And the humming of the bumble bees.
He saw a beautiful blooming violet
And picked it, and pinned it to his lapel.
He laughed a most horrible sinister laugh
And transported back to Hell.
From above, God had seen
From behind the clear blue sky,
And for the life of the now-broken violet,
He released a mournful sigh.

The Poet at the Bookshelf

Confounded by the chaos in his mind--

Chaos in the form of a rapid-fire litany of phrases--

From pretentious platitudes

To defeatist minimalizations--

The poet searches a bookcase

For a line pregnant with Truth.

Indomitable and doubtless Truth

Which will stand even in the face of chaos

And the poet’s youth.

He finds it in a book of old, obscure poetry--
This simple line:

“To repair the desolation of a lost love,

Love again, more deeply.”

It does not so much destroy the chaos

As become it,

And chaos cannot be bound.

The poet reaches for a pen,

And writes till his love resound.

The Seven Deadly Sins

Greed comes easy to the glutton,
As does slothfulness.
Pride is common among the wrathful
As is envy, and lust.
Greed makes wrathful the envious,
And envy wrathful the vain.
The proud are often slothful,
And greed and envy are the same.
The seven sins are like musical notes
Written for a score.
They bounce off one another
And come together in chords.
The finale, of course, is death
For no one can avoid
The sins of life as they come,
And thus be destroyed.

The Mad Poet

He spoke the truth as it was never imagined--
Apocalyptic and beautiful.
Like vultures, his words circled the room.
His eyes, like humming beehives,
Were full of the vibrancy
Of a dream coming true.
His voice was as certain as a river
And his mind worked as a collage-artist works--
Rearranging the pieces of a broken mirror
That reflected his and our own fears.
He pulled the reality from beneath our feet
And we fell further and further from our sanity
To an ocean filled with tears.

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The Stranger

In the distance, I see him
Like the pupil of an eye.
Absorbing light,
He moves towards his future,
Outside of mine.
Nothing can claim him,
Except his own mind.
We seek the same end,
Despite the parting of our ways.
He is headed home perhaps,
And I should do the same.
But the presence of his absorbing figure
Causes me to linger
And I wait
For the space within him to move outward
And surround me
Like the grand cathedral this it is.

The Old Man on His Death Bed

The old man was dying,
So he called his loved ones close.
"I love you all dearly," he said,
"But all but one of you should go."
He pointed at his brother.
"Me?" he asked, with tears in his eyes.
"Not you," said the old man,
"Your bottle of wine."

The Jester in Hell Speaks to His Jailor

I.
You whose passion guards my Hell,
Take heed of this
Before you lock me in.
I've whispered tales to maidens
That have made them unlock their doors as well.

II.
First to you I give my name:
Ivan Douglass born from pain.
But built on lust
And sardonic wit.
Your mother I knew.
She sold me her...

But I jest.
You are the master with the key.
I am the ass
Who yearns to be.

Play me a tune,
Won't you sir?
I've been kept in silence
And my own voice is...er...
Just a nuisance, can't you tell?
Oh master, please, just the sound of a bell?
Not the church kind,
That wouldn't be fitting.
I'll tell you what,
Just sing!
No?
OK,
I'll continue my song instead.
It's bound to be long,
Since eternal are the dead.

III.
Know any jokes?
No?
I do.
There once was a boy
Who owned one shoe.
He walked about
With a limp.
He seemed upset
So his mother,
Who was a gimp,
Tore off her skirt
And sewed a new shoe.
But sadly, it was her only skirt,
So she became...
A flooze!
Isn't that a joke,
And a funny one too.
But you're not laughing.
OK, it's true.
I'm no comedian.
But apparently, neither are you.
We both are the same thing:
Guards, I suppose.
You guard me
And I guard...
My woes.
No comedian, it is true.
Ah, my friend, if only you knew...

Birds on the Window Sill

Birds perched on my window sill,
Chirping ever finely.
Cardinal, robin, wren and dove
All together chiming.
What brought you here,
In such motely style
My little friends together?
Did some god of birds let you know
I could use your company?
The little birds just chirp away,
As if to say,
Oh merry, merry!
We came today to share our song,
For we are poets too.
We long to be heard
And appreciated.
That is why we've come to you. 

On A Night of Love Making

Ever-effervescent,
She came in like a moonbeam
And stayed the whole night.
By her light, I sang,
And wrote poems that made my soul change.
Then, I slept.
When I awoke, she was gone,
But on the ground
Was her silken gown
And her scent filled the air
And my soul abound.

A Single Youth

Forever bound to a single youth,
We must go forward recognizing that it had its glories.
And we must ask ourselves,
How did it end?
To answer this is to know we are men.

The Key to All You've Known

When the world gives up on making you whole,
That is when you look into your soul
And find the key to all you've known
And the light rises from your feet
Your lifted by your own nobility,
And you take the step as you float in air
Towards the life that you believed was there.

Behind the Clouds

The rain falls down
On the dark street.
A boy is alone, reading, in his room.
The summer's been dull, as summers are.
But behind the clouds,
They are waiting for us to return to ecstacy--
The stars.

A Wedding

A table is set
For man and his bride.
Hear the chords of the harp
The glasses knocked together in celebration.
Where is the sigh, the cry, the moan,
And the silence?
Nearby. Nearby.

Orpheus Gazing in a Mirror

All who seek
Shall not find
Unless their love
Come up from behind.
And in the mirror
They shall see
The face of their love
As it seeks to be:
Kind, and knowing the answers
That they seek,
Lest you look behind.
Lest you look behind.

Space Grows

A noise is heard
Beneath the staircase.
A child is learning its way around.
Don't bump your head, little one!
Space is tricky for one so young.
As we grow, space grows
If we know how to get around.
But only fortune can decide
If the child will grow
To see space grow in around him
Or if he will get the chance to arch his neck
And gaze upward at the vast dome
Of the Capitol.

Advice for the Lacking

Should you be in wanting for love,
Don't blow kisses to the wind.
Learn to love the stones at your feet
And the body that you are in.
Seek out pleasures of the here and now,
And don't ask for love
The way a ghost would ask for life.
The wind won't return your kiss
And God won't bring you a wife.

On Adam and Eve

After God created man,
He did not rest--
He gave man a plan.
But this he put in a woman's breast
And called it love
Or maybe sex.
One can't be sure,
Despite its truth,
That man was made in the midst of youth.
He did not last as a fool,
But terrible knowledge gave him cause to pull
The very heart from nature's breast
And all the secrets ended incest.
Eve and Adam too bare to bare
Sex and love destroyed then and there.