4 My Muse

Now I need something more, nothing less
than to fire off into cosmos
the essence of dreams
desires
any notion of conquest
for I am slain
splayed upon the alter
of words
sliced open by your tongue
sweet weapon vanquished my arrogance
destroyed conceit held false,
loss idea of who ever I might have been
without the tender image
of the sound of your words
beating endlessly
against my ears

Now I truly feel my hunger
and am awake.

Do I thank you
curse you
wish you closer
so I could
turn around
push the on button
spin the disk
play that cut over and over again
and dance with the music
spilling out of that
vastness between
you and me?

Easter 2009

So we decided to tell them the truth today
that myths don't have to be true to be important,
that they tell you things that are more significant
than what did or did not happen.

Is it really important that anyone believe that
someone rose from the dead, more than Lazarus
like as he supposedly did it without help, that he did it
because he was god, God, the Son of God?

We decided today that they could say whether or not
they went to church, we had decided a long time ago that
they could decide, if they wanted to, which place of worship
they would go and they asked us where it was we went to worship.

We had decided a long time ago that the cathedral of trees
was best for us, so we decided today that the breeze
the sun, the smiling faces of passerby's were the most
beautiful of all the sacraments not listed in the seven...

We decided today that it was not sacrilegious to believe
what we believe as we find god, God, the Daughter of God
wherever goodness resides, in the church around the corner
the mosque on the boulevard, the temple on the hill.

We decided today to teach the chant, the sacred six
of nam, myoho, renge kyo
said over and over it expresses with each breath
what we decided today was all that Spirit wanted from us...

Dog (PAD #4)

she wants a dog but
her mother always says no,
so she barks at night

The Problem with Memory

Fierce eyes seared into my wasted soul
like water on heated sand thirsty for new
life,

seeking to green garden with sweet gloved
hard hands you oxygenated my flinty
topsoil turning over my years of walking away

walking from the sunlight but you were the new drug; the vitamin
D deficiency I had compelled me to wanna mainline you into
every vein, every artery, pumping you so far into me

I couldn't tell the difference between us, couldn't see
where the stem ended and the leaf began, you grew me...

grew me and then forgot to prune me, forgot to water me
and just left me in that wasted pot straining to glimpse the sun
heliotroping into this twisted, gnarled Bonsai that will
never look better than this

never feel better than this, never be greener than this.

Like Dutch elm disease is a blessing cause it will
cause me to wither and die, a tree better in my memory.
Not looking at all like I do in reality

The problem is that, Johnny Appleseed like,
I know you will do this again, be water to thirsty souls again
like some tragic Greek story doomed to repeat itself
there will soon be a forest of dead trees looking
never better than me...

Saint Bridget's Other (PAD Day 2)

You had the same nun the rich
girl had in eighth grade

they called her Bulldog cause she was so short
and grumpy

and you were no Grace Kelly, no
you weren't like any of the others

rich and poor they no longer
fought about being Irish or Italian

they fought over you, Nigger Boy
or Chuck, just another kid from the projects.

One of them or one of us? Which one
you quickly found out and after awhile

it no longer mattered who it was that
called you that name.

Your fist was your best friend, sainted
hand of retribution

Full of all the grace you ever
needed.

Day One PAD Challenge

A poetry test/
write one of these e'ery day/
be sure it makes sense