Gods

All the gods have gone completely insane.

Even Jehova finds himself tearing out his hair.

They know everything, can do anything,

But they finally realize, it all adds up to nothing,

And this, really, is just too much to bear.

Vishnu just punched through a mirror—

The blood from his hand rains from the sky.

Allah is screaming in tongues in his chambers

And pouring sand into the goblets of the imams.

Even the Tao itself has closed the gateway

And wants nothing to do with the universe anymore.

Satan weeps in a corner of Hell, and the damned

Have found a passage to Heaven, which itself
Is dissipating like the vapor of a cloud.

Soon, time will come to a screeching halt

And space will collapse in on itself.

Some say Zeus and the Olympians will 

Have their day again. There are others still

Who work feverishly on their new religions,

Crafting gods with iron, silence, blood,

And vague-sounding words. Something is being

Pieced together. Look around. Gods will

Be destroyed, some will die by their own hands.

But it is by the grime-covered hands of man,

Steeped in the clay and the fire, the spastic

Tongue of man that is on the verge of proclaiming

The god of tomorrow. Be prepared to kneel.

 

The Ocean Depths

I sit and I ponder the ocean,

blue, as blue as her eyes.

It crashes in, makes love to the shore,

as her eyes made love to my own.

Nothing could be grasped, not the endless depths

of our souls. No sea can know

the full breadth of the land.

No country can know the full extent

of the sea. But the waves keep

crashing in, and the land slowly gives,

little by little, pieces of itself to the sea.

I swim out past the breakers

to find her, but alas, my strength

fails me, and I am drowning.

In all this blue, there has to be

a pure light to guide me

to the blackness of the ocean depths

or else to a new country

where a love more ancient

can be born.

Night Walk

The moon, which has long been my confidant,

has grown tired of my wistfulness and my complaints.
A faint afterglow on the horizon—a light 

like distant sea waves—surges and recedes

into shadow, into oblivion. I look at the dizzying immensity,

the panorama of stars, with its circus/menagerie

of constellations, and think: The universe is a glass house.

One slip of the foundation, and all comes crashing down.

Meanwhile, crows caw overhead, their beaks bloody

with the flesh of some nameless dead.

 

 

Youth

I rushed out of the gate, expending all of my energy all at once, uncoordinatedly, stiffly as it were, without grace. I yearned for greatness, pushed myself as if impelled by some devil, grasping for pleasures but always coming up short, flailing madly in the dark, striving and yet not daring to hope, risking nothing except my own mind. I was lost, and I didn’t know it. Now, I find myself alone, my senses dimmed, with just a small flicker of hope—enough to get me out of bed in the morning and to go through the motions of the day. I am defeated, broken, and still lost. Only now, I take pride in the fact that I know that I am lost, as if that might mean I were not lost, at least entirely. It’s a fool’s pride, but it’s the only pride I have. My youth is gone, and with it, a litany of possibilities for majestic sensual pleasure. The fruit has fallen from the boughs and has already begun to rot. I taste the bitter juices because they are the only nourishment I can get. 

Irrelevance

The liberals don’t want me.

They think I’m too conservative.

The conservatives don’t want me.

They think I’m too liberal.

My curse is irrelevance. 

I walk around. I’m just another familiar face.

The only people I know

are irrelevant too.

They sit alone, waiting for someone

to talk to, someone relevant,

but sure enough, it’s just me,

another irrelevant human being,

filled with old news and stubborn views.

We never laugh together.

That would be an obscene display

liable to get us in trouble.

The things that we say

have no relevance.

We are stuck in the past.

Everyone looks at us as if

we were passé, as if we were children

who were stuck in time-out.

And maybe that’s just what we are.

Nobody is interested in the old ways.

We stand our ground, though,

refusing to budge.

We’re tired of feeling dragged along

like old mules. On our backs we carry

all the thrown-out junk of a society eager

to build what’s new. They are leading us

to the dump, and by the time we arrive,

we, too, will be old junk to be disposed of.

In the meantime, I’ll sing these stubborn songs

just to let the people know

that the past is not completely gone.

Wandering

You wander in the fields before sundown

to calm what nerves you have left.

The blue birds are singing in the giant oaks,

and the sea-green sky shimmers

in fading sunlight. 

The moon is a sickle, or rather, a fang.

You drink in the fresh country air,

though perhaps it makes you insane.

Go and ponder the past as you make your way

up this hill toward the future.

It seems a charade, a masquerade, just play-acting

in preparation for now. You’ve been busy

hollering at the winds in every direction

all your long life. Now listen for an answer.

The song of the blue birds ties bows in your mind,

gift-wrapping the places where memories 

otherwise would remain. You have so much to live for.

Dreams cascade down the rocky river of time.

You wander these hills, alone.

There is no going back.

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.