It's never been  about accomplishments 
   and related glories.
Our  generations were sucker punched
by realizations of folks not being free
    in the face of treasured documents 
    handed down from the very creator.
We heard of bullets flying with no explanation,
   all the while a foreign war
devoured some of our best and brightest
...all done without logical explanation
  or even believable denial.
Brothers have been pitted 
  against sister and brother.
We've been divided and conquered by men
 (always men)
in dark suits and corporate ties.
Our pockets have been picked
   while we watched hangings.
Our flowers have been trod beneath wing tipped boots
and hob nailed penny loafers.
We dutifully saluted what we were taught,
  ignoring the spirit of the message
while serving on the juries of discontent.

No, it's never been about accomplishment,
   or even contrived stories or painted glories.
Our time is a throw away time,
   this unwanted chaff traded for that bold declaration,
blood and flesh bargained for market positions
and the comfort of this season's royal families.
 
 
 
 
 

another side of the moon's reflection

It ought to be written in blood,
 scratched and scorched across the page
in love and hate and primal needs.

the fleeting show,
it ought to be dragged,
          digging its heels into turf and field.

broken hearts like shattered dreams,
   what could have been
leaning against what should have been...
what might have been.

only the imagination captures the bloody battlefield
   ...the pain of remorse not offered,
souls locked in a war not of their choice,
         not even an event of their season...
so much that could have been seen,
    so much
that pales into timeless tragedy.

it ought to be written in blood
and tearful lament,
it ought to be a cautionary tale
   and an invitation to taste of dreams.

broken dreams that shattered hearts,
  what should not have been
taunting what was
and the future whim of all delight.
 
 
 
 
 

WAYFARING STRANGER

He wanted to see and shout
from mountain top and plains below.
The view from the heights and through the nights
    ...now but a painful pleasing time capsule of eternity.
The sum of the parts 
is nothing more than the sound of breaking hearts.

It'll be this way in the flames of perdition,
   it'll flow and form lava like,
it will roll and rock...seeking its own level
     of course one phrase begets another,
these things travel like that
     these things sink or swim in faded stories
and likelihoods of despondent glories.

This is how it will forever be,
     pages  ripped from journals,
        bloody hands write and struggle for such seconds...
this is how icy stares birth self directed triumphant minutes,
    this is for that,
and those,
and for all things that fade in the heavenly embrace 
of midnight's fleeting foundering grace.

He's been waiting far too long,
   he was on a fool's journey when they organized the missions
      ...seeking holy thoughts and sacred works...
Hell, he was striding  and strutting the walk of saintly steps,
   He was play acting the rituals from the promises he'd heard,
his was a stupidity that failed common reality with the absurd.

He tried to warn everyone...crying in the desert,
He was coherent just this side of inconsequence, 
      that was him in his Third World disguise
Yea, holy shouting conflagration of despair
in sacred chants of amen 
and ever after sublime laments of paths not taken
roads not even fathomed, regrets of such forsaken.

Of course he remembers the organ pounding jabs,
He was  of the prototypical caste, 
    ...they were going to carve their thoughts
on the face of destiny.
They were going to be the lonely children of forever
and forever’s petition with an invisible mighty hand.
What they didn’t get wrong 
   they failed to get right,
They were placed here to warn you,
   no,
They were placed here as a warning.
They placed themselves.
Have you ears to hear of avenging angels?

Ignore the wailing siren of despairing alarm,
that is how your kingdom will evolve,
   there it is...
you have mastered life’s mystery,
you are free to go,
circulate among your massed congregation,
       ...share the sacraments
you are what you prophesied and conspired.

Nothing matters except matter,
      ...this is how stances become legends,
go forth and multiply,
     ...go forth and declare  whatever you wish,
choose your words but remember,
you will arbitrate the definitions...
   ‘not’ and ‘no’
these are but flaws in the organization.

There are thousands of ways 
   (amid ten thousand things)
to get from here to there
and back,
poignancy drips from every lamp post
      ...and gallows...
the prophet writes one eyed,
his laugh a graveyard laugh,
   he whistles past his own plot and predicament.

The prophet wanders through the woods,
   trees begin to look alike...
the wind seems to blow from all directions
before it is calm.
The moss is on all sides of the trees,
legend says direction is fathomed
by plotting the sunrise and sunset,
but it’s cloudy and has been for a season,
the times and signs seem only able to predict problems
   --and coexistent disasters.

The prophet is without honor on his own seas,
    his harbors are distant and shifting,
he should have known of the why and how of shipwreck
and shipwreck’s reason and season,
the child in the midst indeed knew,
but these things had to be navigated by the celestial
     ...these things were of personal consequence.
 
 
 
 
 

CLEAR AND SIMPLE

It's so clear and simple...
          yet it's a thousand miles deep,
   I've sought the meaning of life, 
even the face of God, if you will.
I can't get by the morning dew on the grass,
   I can't get past the smile of a little child...
Such an easy journey,
  a clown or a fool could have done it,
a fool and a clown managed it.

It's so clear but no ways simple,
   God's smile is so sad,
and the cold winds blow anywhere 
and everywhere.
I can't get by the mountains,
   I can't get past my lover's smile...
there are no easy journeys,
fools and clowns have tried,
their bodies line the road to Golgatha.

It's so simple, it should be clearer...
  the rain is harsh and forceful,
it predicts tough times and cold times,
I can't get past my soul,
    my heart,
it's a confusing journey,
these times...they'll never come again,
these times are the times.
Bodies and souls
and spirits,
line the road to forever
and forever's Gods.
 
 
 
 
 

A PROPHET'S SIMPLE OFFERING

I have nothing to offer but sadness--
   a reality of lament that surpasses understanding,
I know dark foreboding skies,
   I've held sadness beyond cure or caress in my arms,
I know mighty truths
      and heartaches that go beyond existence.
I know nothing even as I know everything.
   Life is defined by death
and death remains a mystery that confounds life.

I can't offer happiness
   ...I can't even begin to feel loving regret,
what I lay before pilgrims is despair
    and its comfort of reality.
 
 
 
 
 

fade to pure black 

  i like the purity of black, 
its questions are of eternal things, 
black 
the color of my true love's hair? 
hardly, 
is it black then, 
   as in the shroud or the arm band? 
yea and amen 
 but everyone dies or is dead, 
   the death rate is absolute and unforgiving, 
  a net taking in everything in its path... 
 i understand black, 
    it matches the Rorschach blots  
  you claim explain my soul, 
that makes it yours  
to debate, lament, contrive, 
   fathom or fear, 
 and mine to explain and explore 
    or most likely just ignore...  
  you have to love the refuge in black, 
 a finality of all hues rushing together 
giving way to the absence of all color, 
 the colorless 
  pitch dark calm of the cave  
and its total disregard for intruding sun, 
    a sublime disloyalty to anyone's light... 
i'm drawn to formal black, 
basic black, 
   a statement without fashion, 
   fashion without a statement, 
deep dark dismal near alliterative 
  shade of despairing black, 
  its stark companion is the driven snow, 
its temper is the gray of age...
 
 
 
 
 

So Many
    (Chronicles Of The Holy Among Us)

Would the holy itinerants really care
about how they walked and sat
In a world 
where so many are so close
to living on a park bench,
...where so many 
     are just an exhale away
from living on the road
and where so many
are just a sigh away 
     from not living at all?

Would the Holy Ones
study their profile in the glass
or practice a smooth entry...
would they if they could,
saunter cool 
and speak with practiced inflection?

So this is really,
the ways and means,
   the how and why,
of worlds in shattered shards?
 
 
 
 
 

SPECIAL GROUND

Ah, my friends,
  we played here...on this special ground,
we ran and jumped,
    we thought we competed in serious work,
we were oblivious to real worlds looming
and the harder games yet to play,
    but for this place and time,
we played...we laughed and trained,
     we boasted and bragged,
we became what we are.

Someone said the Battle of Waterloo was won
  on the playing fields of Eton.
I don't know much about that...
     I've not been to either place,
     but I know this,
for a season and a time,
    these fields made me happy.
I loved here,
     I learned and grew here,
whatever I am began on this surface.

Such places are special ground...
   they deserve to be remembered.
 
 
 
 
 

SO HIGH...SO FAR

Been gettin' high
  most all our lives.
A pattern,  would say the crew assigned to explain,
so it goes...a transistor radio in  one hand,
   a billowing...crazed..."don't  give a damn" attitude
   in  our other. 
The  child of society in hesitant beat,
   would that  be right brain or left?

None of it and  all of it,
  pales  and fades,
from here to anywhere and everywhere...
   it's a joke only if someone laughs,
it's truth only if someone hides their eyes.
 
 
 
 
 

APPARITIONS

Starlit autumn nights
   many eyed sky with cold breath come stealing
       ...the stuff of literature
the cycle of wonder continues
an argument for summer
    if not early spring
yet so surely death's cogwheel churns,
   praise the days
and a million memories flowing
    ...a cruel reminder
that dark always follows light,
   a painful joke...
for once,
   the night foretold the day.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

reason and rhyme

wisdom ain't got nothin' to do with it
  when the heart knows of pain
don't go plyin' yer guilts an' crazy fears
  when souls struggle in rain
keep yer gold gilded insecurities
  where spirits die in vain
hold yer conscious doubts of all the ages
  lest even hope be slain
the times come full circle
    friend you see
finally and forever it's time
    to see about me.
 
 
 
 
 
 

DON'T TELL ME

Then don't tell me it's a democracy
  endowed with self evident rights
and liberties
if you choose to censor
the print, the song
and the bedroom.
If you choose to institute a god
     and a theology,
then don't tell me it's freedom.
And if you choose to make war...
   sending boys and girls after men's gold,
   killing and being killed
in farcical low comedies most lasting,
then don't tell me it's of the true God.
 
 
 
 
 
 

NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES

Man the meteor
briefly,
the journey that tries the soul
and leaves the truth exposed...
    a raw nerve
angered by hot and cold,
by wind
and oddly, by time...
slow and fast hands
    of a gargoyle grinning clock face.

The pain of secrets known,
suspected before their time...
false secret myths
    tales by which men live,
excuses to die,
parables of comfort for the living
caricatures of truth for some.
And thus is created worlds...
   empires of the mind
all powerful in narrow limits,
serious subjects of ultimate humor.

Fools gather to watch the unveiling
  of the ultimate secret...
and the fools are disappointed.
 
 
 
 
 

OUTSIDE THE LINES

Your secret's not safe with me
it isn't hidden
  in dusty library tomes
though the journey passed that way.
Your secret is unlocked
  under silvery moon skies,
cold breath of winter on bare skin,
yea, your secret's in the sky...
  geese honking, flying
life's blood slippin' in season.
There it is,
   on the rocks of shipwrecked despair
scattered,
amid mainsprings and clock hands,
crashed and dashed by the waves
   of pulsating blood,
yea,
your secret's not safe with me
and you'd be wise not to listen further,
no,
don't tarry here
       even for an instant,
prices demanded here are paid out of sight
but not now or ever,
out of mind.
Your secret drew its strength
   and last breath
from the realization
that maybe no secrets exist
outside a strong willed self taught lie.
Careful now,
we're both far too close to the trees
to fathom this message safely...
but it's here and there...
   sweet message of equinox mind delight,
   faithful beliefs,
      born of hoping against hope,
this litany of faith that binds and guides,
chanted by blind men with telescopes
   and microscopes...
all manner of glasses through which
  lies grow solid and visible.

Ah, the old sweet message,
  the malleable message,
hammered and formed to any shape needed
  to cover any need...
some kind of strange debt service measured in years
before an artificial throne of mist and rain
and acid bitter haze.

Yea,
I know your secret,
   the world knows what you've tried to hide
even if the trees still obstruct your view.
 
 
 
 
 

TWILIGHT TIME

Do the gods have night?
And if they do,
   do they doubt
and fear
and wonder?
Do the gods have night?
and if they do,
   do they worry
and strain for dawn...
   feigning disregard?
Do the gods have night?
And if they do,
  do they hurt
  and cry
  and die those little deaths?
 
 
 
 
 
 

FOR THE SAKE OF MADNESS

What a shame
that this be the extent of it,
hollow core of essence
and so brief it is,
   far too brief...
some of us have tried looking at it,
  even trying to live it
each and every conceivable way.
And the same conclusions wedge
between the hopes and dreams,
  the self taught lies
and those taught to us,
such visible destructive intruders.
The first thought was the fatal one,
  that one bought the ticket
for a strange journey
   on a strange highway...
exits which circle
and re-enter without fail,
minor diversions that kill time
    and shorten a trip
that no one wants to make.
 
 
 
 
 

 OLD SWEET SONG #5

It's not fun anymore
     a chilling thought
     three A.M. phone ringing chill
something bad coming
God
it's not fun anymore
punctuation no longer matters
    bad follows good
    and bad follows bad
nature's laws
    include the climatic
as night follows the day...
there may no longer be the substance
    of any kind,
to validate the journey.
The pilgrim suspects he knows
    ultimate truths and big secrets,
why men look down from mountains
and tall buildings,
why men who are strong swimmers 
   succumb...
not to currents mind you,
the water no more than the height,
but to that which is hiding...
the despair of all ages.
The pilgrim tried and died
   a thousand times,
feigning success where he could
   but knowing what was real
and crying.
 
 
 
 
 
 

STRUCTURES OF REALITY

Folks, come now,
surely
you must see
it's all an illusion...
   a farcical world needin' 
only (and all) our willingness
   to exist.
Folks,
it's a sham,
it's shadow more than substance.
And here we sit perplexed
by the heavy blows of mist
and wafting images...
God and man come crawlin'
in the realm of plastic platitudes.
See now and know now,
by the presence of all gods,
it's a mind's concoction
  built on  needs
    and wants
and wishes...
hopes impregnating fears
  and bearing fruit
in the world of rain,
dyin' souls
 picking the very same fruit
and limping into oblivion.
 
 
 
 
 
 

MIND CYCLE

How easy it'd be
   to see their light
and build that city on a hill.
What a deadly seed to sow
   to  buy their scene,
to enlist in the plot.
Sanity is for sale...
let devils keep the notes!
Such simple acts...
buying minds and selling souls,
  spirit deadly pacts,
claiming life in absurd roles.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

NOTHING COMES FOR FREE

Wind, rushing...roaring and driving
twisting through canyons of discontent
   steep sided despair
torn by deceiving winds...
the source of  eternal truth
and the lies of all ages.

Some misty gray dawning
I'll be there
   and I'll have the knowledge
     of what's hidden...
the key to it all.

The faith that sustains is built
   in sand,
bricks made of wind
on foundations of sunshine
   and starlight...
the will to believe
  in battle with absurdity...
the desire to be real
    the drive to simply be alive...
looking in the glass and seeing
eyes that share respect.
One is what one deserves to be
There is no greater exaltation
and no greater lament.