Parable

She swept the Devil’s tongue

Under the floorboards.

Soon, it shaped itself into the form of a rat.

Sneering at its own wretchedness,

Terrified by his own burning will

To live, he did as his stomach told him

And scurried to the surface in search of food.

There, he met a large gray cat.

Before the cat could pounce, the rat

Spoke in a voice of such subordinating self-pity,

That the cat decided to wait and hear him out.

“Wait,” said the rat.

“Please, let me speak.

I am a lowly creature.

The lowest in the world.

And I am alone.

The shadows are all that I know.

My master, who resides in a kingdom of gold,

Cast me out.

He said that I could serve him best

By disappearing from his sight

And now, I am in permanent exile.

The truth is, oh cat,

I desire a new master—

One who can teach me

The ways of the world.

It is you, oh cat, who can be my savior.

In return, I offer you my body

To do with what you will.”

The cat thought long and deep.

Finally, he spoke.

“Come close,” said the cat

And the rat crept up.

“Get into my mouth,” said the cat,

Who opened wide.

The rat did as it was told.

The cat bit down, chewed and swallowed,

Spitting out the bones.

The cat stretched its back

And lay down for a nap.

His dreams were strange, and when he awoke

To the gentle caress of his favorite child

He completely forgot the rat in his belly,

And purred his purr,

That seemed to contain within it

All the contentment in the world.

Madman

Tell me, who speaks for the madman?

I try, but it comes out as white noise.

The whole of the world is aloof to

the ways of my crazy brethren,

mesmerized by the wars and the circuses.

They dance in time to the songs

that pass like thunder clouds over our heads.

We try and explain our perspectives,

but to them, it’s just plain lunacy.

To us, it makes perfect sense.

There is a general mistrust between us.

You try and cure us, but all the while

it is you who are ill. I’m mad.

Mad at the world. But I will not try

to burn it down. Instead, I will keep on

trying to find spaces between us

where we can love, and learn

and build a world that is fair to all.

I am a madman. If this all sounds like lunacy,

it’s only because we both of us

are mad.

The Infinite Moment

Evening falls and our shadows lengthen,

then fade and merge with the overriding shade.

Our hearts, too, stretch then seem to fade

and merge with the overriding longing

which seems to bring with it such errant temptation.

But if we hold true to our hearts and sing our sorrows,

as crickets sing, at close of day,

the world becomes our shelter, and our tears

purify our longing and give us clarity.

And time is a long line we cannot measure

except by silence and pure acceptance—

a moment without pain or pleasure

or thought of any kind. Here, in the infinite,

one discovers the roots of time.

You open your eyes and see, whether in darkness

or in light, everything in its place became itself

not by fate or accident, but by delight of some

unknowable force. A truth harbored

in every thing that is, deeper than any

fractal penetrated, within, unknowable,

yet known, entrusted to the senses,

understood only as far as the mind can

hold the greater truth. I look upon the world—

ancient, manifold—and my mind cannot hold.

The world exists as a higher truth than I can know.

And so, the mind exiles itself from the world,

just as the world is in constant exile from our minds.

The truth divides itself between the world and our mind

such that when we learn about the world, we lose a piece

of our mind, and the world loses a piece of itself.

This exchange, which we call adaptation, or change,

does not preclude the infinite. It is the infinite’s way

of remaining infinite. Should the exchange suddenly halt,

the universe would suddenly become finite, and matter itself

would cease to cohere. Time, then, is a series of exchanges.

Space is the marketplace. Uniformly, space and time are

the silence beneath the bargaining. One wants more,

always more, for one is like God—a creator. A creator

in need of materials. As poet, I wait in the silence for words.

I bargain with the noise for music. When the music comes to an end,

and all that is left is silence, why should I not weep,

knowing that weeping is all that’s left when words have been exhausted?

Change occurs when something is relinquished, and something new obtained.

I have given away these words, but what have I gained?

Silence, prescient silence, and a moment of infinite understanding.

A place in time that will always exist, even long after it has passed.

The Diamond

One day, a poor man was walking by the river near his hut, when he spotted in the water something pink and shimmering. He waded into the river and pulled up the object. It was a large, very clear, very vibrant diamond the size of his fist. Amazed, he took the diamond back to his hut, where he placed it in a little alcove where the sunlight shone upon it. He sat before the diamond until the sun set, then went to sleep. 

The next day, he went to visit a friend to show him the diamond. His friend was astonished. “Well!” he cried. “This will make you a fortune! Let’s take it to town.”

But the man shook his head.

“What?” his friend asked. “But you are poor! This could make you rich!”

“The diamond,” said the man, “is enough. I am not starving, after all. I will hold onto this diamond, and worship it as if it were a god. And should I ever have a child, I will pass it onto him, so that he might worship it as a god as well.”

The man’s friend looked at him hard and long. “Are you insane?” he said.

“Perhaps so,” said the man. “But I would rather worship a diamond than money. For a diamond will never lose its value. It is permanent, like love.”

The man’s friend shook his head, smiling. “You certainly are a strange man,” he said. “But who am I to say what you should and should not worship? If it makes you whole, then it must be holy.”

On the way back to his hut, as he approached the river, he heard the sound of singing. He came out of the woods and saw, bathing in the river, a beautiful young woman. She looked up and saw him. Embarrassed, the man retreated, but the woman called out to him.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “Come here.”

The man walked smiling toward her. She was naked and wading in the water. 

“Why don’t you come in here?” she said. “The water is very warm.”

The man smiled. He set his diamond down on the river bank, took off his clothes and went into the water. The woman playfully splashed him and giggled. She then began to sing again. She smiled at the man. He golden hair shimmered in the sunlight. “Why don’t you come to me?” she said.

The man waded up to her.

“Kiss me,” she said. Her eyes were narrow and lustful.

The man then remembered the diamond, and his vow to love it with singular devotion for the rest of his days. The man saw the woman’s face. She no longer seemed beautiful. He turned and walked out of the river, leaving the woman behind as tears filled her eyes.

When he got back onto the bank, he found that his diamond was gone. In a panic, he looked all about for it, but it was not to be found.

He looked back at the woman, but she too had disappeared. He heard the sound of evil laughter, as if out of the air. Where the woman had been, the man saw something shimmering in the water. He waded in, reached down, and pulled out a diamond the size of his head. Amazed, he carried it ashore. It was so heavy he had to roll it back to his hut. The man sat before the diamond all the rest of the day, then went to sleep at night. 

The next day, he went back to his friend and told him what had happened. His friend thought he was crazy, until the man brought him back to his hut and showed him the second diamond. “You see?” said the man. “I’m not crazy at all! It really happened!”

His friend could do nothing but shake his head in amazement.

That night, the man lay in his bed, trying to sleep, but he couldn’t forget all the strange happenings of the day. It was pitch black, but he could sense the diamond’s presence, as if it were alive and breathing. He got up and went over to it. Feeling his way, he put his hand on the surface of the stone. He felt his breath being taken from him. He removed his hand and his breath returned. As if drawn by some ineluctable force, he placed his hand on the stone once more. His soul, slowly and without fear, moved out of his body and into the diamond, which laughed a sinister laugh as the man’s body fell lifeless to the floor.

The next day, his friend found him there. He took the diamond in his arms, left, and went to town, where he sold it for millions of dollars. 

Many years later, a young boy looked upon the diamond from behind glass at a museum, and he thought he could see the faces of many men within its shimmering facets. He also heard a faint sound—the sound of a woman’s wicked laughter.

The Wayfarer's Road

I've searched the eyes of wayfarers

for truth and beauty,

but always chaos diverted me

and I had to look away before their eyes

made me dizzy with a wayfarer's hopes and dreams.

The sun cannot illuminate the moon's private half

nor the inner workings of the mind.

The eye that looks out is not the same

as the eye that one sees.

The wayfarer is only deemed lost

because he seeks. Who's to say what he has found?

More or less, we seek that which will complete

what we each possess. The stones on the ground

are a worthy find 

to those who possess an ethereal mind.

I seek nothing but substantial truths

for mine is a mind of many questions.

I find the answers I seek on this wayfarer's road

far from those who know, far from

the sea, where so many questions are born.

Sing

 For Taylor Swift

The world belongs not to the gifted

(We are all of us gifted),

But to the ones who discover their gift

And then, without hesitation, give it away

Over and over again.

Like a wildfire, the legend of these people spreads.

A child with a mind to sing

Will sing, whether those around her like it or not.
If she truly has a mind to sing,

She'll make it so that one day everyone

Will want to hear.
Some may continue to scoff

But only because they never discovered their gift.

What good is life

If we can't share the best of it

With others?

Hermits will scoff.

But I'll say:

Come out of your cave.
Look at the the sun.
Sing.

Exile

A tortured breath wrangled me here,

a calling toward death. I lifted many

a stone in my past life, my back is ancient

as the pillars of Hercules. It was the dust

in the wind that blinded me to my path,

but I walked compelled by the growing

silence, the loss of reason announced

itself in the form of a song. The mountain

challenged me with its boulders and crags,

but I conquered the air’s thinness and the

deepening snow. I descended into the valley,

my shame a shadow cast toward the West

as the sun rose upon the plain. I dared

to breathe unencumbered breaths

as I stood, naked, without shame.

The wind was clear, and so were the skies,

the grass bowed at my feet, the animals

came. I lay down beside the placid lake,

cupped my hands and drank. I waited

all day for the moon to arise, and once 

risen, it shook the devil from my bones.

I wept, as one weeps when the weeping

is all to be heard. I slept, and dreamt of

a fire that did not burn, but revealed all

the inebriated souls I had left behind.

That’s when I heard it, the bells chimed.

I looked at the crystal city to the North,

and went there, expecting nothing,

as one can only expect when one

is undergoing rebirth. A child of servants,

I found my liberation among the

heliotropes and the violets that lined

the city’s thoroughfare. The lost souls

of this burgeoning city greeted me.

Their faces were of ice and ash.

By way of death, I had found my home at last.

Song Past Midnight

I sing to myself and suddenly there are birds shooting through the vacancies of my mind, well-learned stars are holding onto my breath as I fly northward bound to basking in the moonlight. These strange sentences are full-proof and denigrating to the senses, where they come from I don’t know. I should ask the seeker of these thoughts, do you hold a compass or do you walk naked beneath the stars? I cannot allocate my dividends properly to those who most deserve them. They are all stymied in their reason, and I do not trust them to use my profits logically. I will be remiss if I didn’t add that some stranger came as of late to my breath where I declined him the seed of my worship. The lone traveler basks in the glory of the starlight but does not leave any impression upon the earth. Therefore, I will have to remunerate him with everything I have, gold, turquoise, moonstone, diamonds, emeralds, ships and tatters laid waste to breath. I seek nothing but the profound. And there is godspeak in these tragedies. Walk strangely out of the tenement into the night, where diamond wishes and ocean shadows cannot speak but for the breath they die for. I sing nothing awake, until the sky loses its treasure. Float with me if you will, unto the depths of sorrow, where there is no paralysis but the wind, and night shakes the echo awake, where time speeds silence into oblivion. I look at these hands and dive with my breath backward, making music until the night collapses in on itself. Shake patterns out of webs and filigree tarantulas, gold patterned hirsute whimsies. I could be a dead man speaking from the other side, but that is hard to worship. FUCK the worshipping clans, they hold no counteractions with dusk, I live at the seed made of shadow. Night comes. I sit naked by the drier, waiting on the exile to be perfected. Silence. That ham-handed rescuer known as oblivion will come when the night parades are finished. I seek to eschew the night, with its patterns of vagrant shadows and cerebral stars, the stones are finishing their tea, and I have the gods’ orders here, ready to decree all systems unlawful, ready to freeze time and collapse space, like a shadow knocking on my door without any reason or concern for propriety. Drifting as a stone or a mechanical process through the infinite where lines dissect the borders of the infinite, I sift through these pages alert to some penumbral tick-tock shadow and then I will break through the surface. God holds the key to ineptitude—when a nation sinks it sinks into the muck of inebriation, or in our case stupefaction. Learning the code of conduct still and here I am, less verbose than a tongue tangling itself into contrition, I am melodiously hooked. Locked in on a web. I drank a Teutonic’s tumbler of schnapps till I decoded my own devolution. Now I must say goodbye to the thankless worry warts. Goodbye! May you all find what it is you are dying for. There is a deep sadness in these bones, and I cannot excise it nor can I free myself from my dissembling nature. 

Her Love’s Worth

The lover’s eye is a compass

that leads back to the heart.

North South East and West,

in every direction, the arrow

spins. Your heart is everywhere—

in the trees, in the sky, in the earth,

in the sea, in her eyes

the arrow spins. Your heart is everywhere.

The lover is on the doorstep, waiting

for you to answer the door, for she has

lost the key in her travels from distant countries.

Open the door, welcome her with open arms

and open eyes. Her eye is a compass

that leads to your heart.

Be silent and still and watch the arrow spin,

feel the heart expand and take on everything

that is precious, that is true, that is worthy

of your love, and let her love’s worth

define you.

Fires in the North

The air is filled with smoke from the fires in the north.

To walk outside is to barely breathe.

I weep on a bench beneath a maple tree

for mother Earth, and for humanity.

Still, I hear the sound of bird songs,

and a steady wind blows out of the west.

Slowly, the sky begins to clear, and sunlight

illuminates the patch of grass and the trees, 

though a haze still dominates the horizons.

What the earth needs is for the sky to weep.

What the sky needs is a respite from our industry.

Meanwhile, the forests in the north

continue to burn. They will burn until fate takes

mercy. We started the fire—we cannot put it out.

What humanity needs is a respite from its industry.

The earth and sky are screaming for mercy.

Between them, humanity is being crushed.

To walk outside is to barely breathe.

Lord, have mercy on us. May our healing

be the healing of the earth and sky.

May my weeping not be in vain.

May the world be cleansed, as are my eyes.

 

She Loves Another

The moon is full, and the night

once again slips through my fingers.

You will hear me howling at the moon,

but not because I long for the moon,

but because somewhere, she is bathed

in its light, and I long to be the moonbeams

that caress her. This heart, that is cold 

like the moon, orbits her, as the moon

orbits the Earth, and rises above the horizon

just to see her, and sinks below the horizon

to weep, for she is another’s, proudly another’s,

and my heart aches to be near her—it pounds

at the door of my chest, wanting entry into a world

filled with love, pounds so hard that tears flow

from the ache of it. The moon is full, and the night

slips through my fingers. You can hear me howl,

but not for the moon. She slips through my fingers,

and my heart knocks at the door of my chest,

demanding love, and the tears flow like a river.

Such terrible longing. She howls, but cannot

hear me howl. She loves another, proudly

another.

 

The Old Fisherman

The Fisherman

I went out, as I always do when I am feeling the rage that has no scapegoat to direct it towards, not even myself. I walked for a mile or two and came to a lake in a park where some old men were fishing. Ducks were waddling around, coming within inches of my shoes. I remember thinking how easy it would be to kick them—that was the level to which my mind had sunk. An old man suddenly called to me. I approached him. He had a queer face, like that of a man who has integrated one’s inner child into the haggard body of an old man. He looked me over and said, “You have promise, young man. You ought to consider yourself a prince! Why do you hold yourself so low and mournfully? Hold your head high! Women will want to be with you.”

I told him that it was really none of his business how I held myself, and that he was better off focusing on his bobber than my posture, for, at that moment, the line went taut and the bobber went down.

The old man began to reel. “Oh, it’s a big one!” he cried. He reeled and reeled and I found myself utterly bored by the whole thing. Then, finally, the object the man’s hook had caught became visible. It was a pail—a large, rusty pail. “Damn!” the man cried. “Nothing but fodder the whole damn day!” He pulled up the pail. Inside there looked to be an old book of some sort. The man took out the book, opened it, and said, “Well, I’ll be! It’s an empty journal. Here. You take it.” He handed me the soaked-through journal, as if I might find some use for it. I took the journal and walked away, throwing it in the trash. The old man saw me do this and shouted, “Don’t throw away your life, son! You have something to say!”

I didn’t turn around. I wanted so badly to believe that he was right, and tears welled up in my eyes. I looked back at the old man, and said: “Thank you. It’s true. I see so much. I want to say something of value, but it all seems so paltry.”

“It’s OK to be just good,” he said. “You don’t have to be great.”

“Good things die very quickly,” I said. “Great things last for a very long time, maybe forever.”

The old man smiled. “I’m an old man,” he said. “I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. And I plan on seeing a lot more. But you, I will remember. That I can guarantee.”

“Perhaps,” I said. “But you will die soon.”

Then the old man took off his shirt, and to my great surprise, spreading out behind his back was a pair of huge white downy wings. 

“I will never die,” he said. “And, neither will you.” Then, he winked at me, and in a flash of yellow light, he was gone. All I could do was to go back to the trash can and pull out the old journal. It was miraculously dry, and my name was emblazoned across the front in gold lettering. I went home, and wrote down the first thing I had written in months.

Admiring from a Distance

 I walked down the steps and out into the street. No one was there, so I lit up a cigarette and began kicking a bottle down the street. “Fuck ‘em,” I began to say. But I knew deep down that there was something erroneous about this. I was actually not in tune with the music that was playing from the park across the way. People were dancing, you see. Strangely, so it seemed to me. I walked over. Everyone turned and looked at me. “Strange music,” I said. They all looked at me as if quizzically. I began to dance in my own awkward way. They began to laugh.

 “Change the music to fit his silly dancing!” one person yelled.

 “We can’t find music for his type,” said the DJ.

 I spat across the field in the direction of the dancers. There was a collective gasp. “I only did that because my mouth is full of phlegm. I meant nothing by it.”

 Again, they laughed. The music started again and they began to dance again. I followed them with my eyes. My eyes seemed to be dancing, and that was enough. They couldn’t, after all, make fun of me for the movement of my eyes, could they?

Grief

There is a massive lot across from my place of work

dug out of a hillside

with eight or nine basketball courts lined back to back

only one of which still has its hoops.

When I’m waiting for the bus I gaze at it.

On the north side it is lined with gray thorn bushes.

Beyond it, to the east, one can see old church spires

and massive brick tenements.

Conspicuous in the thorn bushes dangles a single black bag

like a flag of some forgotten revolution, or one that has yet to come.

All of it engenders a kind of errant hopelessness,

or hopefulness, I can’t say which.

Above it, the moon looks faded

like the face of an old man who has begun 

to comprehend death, or life, I can’t say which.

The chain linked fence that blocks it off is lined with trash

and the basketball courts, though covered with dust,

look pristine in the late afternoon light.

People walk up and down the street, not noticing.

As far as I can tell, nobody plays here anymore.

The sun goes down in the west, and the sky is beautiful.

Here, in this spot, something will be built

and in time, will be destroyed.

Not all things that are lost are grieved for.

Some things—like the black bag and this old lot—

can only grieve for themselves.

Dark Woman and the Algae Muse

A dark tale

Of a dark woman

Exposed by vanity’s looking glass.

Hair of sun rays, looking glass eyes.

She sees herself seeing herself

Seeing herself an infinitude of times.

Muse by the river, won’t you come to me?

Muse by the river, sticking to the grass,

Muse by the river, made of algae.

Sand in your green hair

Pours down as you rise

With a groan and black birds

Pour out from between your

Liver-colored lips.

Dark woman in the mirror,

Expecting deliverance.

Bang bang! A knocking

On the front door.

Dark woman floats like an octopus

Down the stairs.

She opens the door, the algae-muse

Is sopping wet.

“Won’t you come in?” she says. “There is tea.”

The poet is laughing, hysterically.

All of it transcribed by his fountain pen,

The poet is laughing at this creation.

Then the moon, too, starts to laugh

Its low guttural laugh, mist rising From its silver lips.

The stars start to titter, too.

The very ground shakes with laughter.

In the garden, the roses bloom.

The wind runs through, shaking

With laughter.

Meanwhile, the dark woman

And the algae-muse are sipping tea,

Oblivious to all except

The bob and weave of a candle flame.

When the poet stops laughing,

He wonders, am I going insane? 

1/3/2023

I walked out this morning to find it raining

in January.

It was sixty degrees.

I had just watched a 60 Minutes piece about

the impending mass extinction.

I heard the caw of a crow overhead.

My life, so insignificant, will someday come 

to an end.

What of this world?

I read the great poets because I think

it will make me a better poet.

I watch 60 Minutes because I think

it will make me a better human being.

I try to live in the present because

I cannot tolerate my past self

and I cannot bear to think of 

what the future has in store.

I do know that there is no point in 

remaining silent, no point

in remaining cool anymore.

I’d rather be exposed for the fool

I am than sit complacent and be considered

a wise man. I’d rather follow those

who are foolishly endeavoring to do some good

than those who stand by and say,

“There is no point.”

In a world that is falling, what can one do

but strain oneself to keep it upright?

What can one do but shoulder the burden

with all of one’s strength, no matter how slight

that strength may be?

I walked out this morning and it was

sixty degrees and raining

in January.

I heard a crow caw overhead.

It was heading North for the winter.