First Snow

________________

Sweet winter,
who told you
to rise again,

wearing the snow
as your festal robe?

You stole the show
much to spring’s chagrin,

you who swallow
the sun
only to cough up
stones.


--121809--

Winter's Shadow

____________________

Sweet winter,
Who told you
To curl up and die
Three months early,
Wearing your autumn
Clothes, pretending
No one notices?

Looks like you squabbled
With the sun and came
Up limping.

The world reveled when
You went on holiday
And hopes you will
Forget to return,
Forget to remind
Us we are living.

We now take the
Light for granted.
For we never knew
The clouds.
Never danced
In December rain

Like children.
Never made pools
At the kitchen door
While the liquid
Cold kissed our
Skin until fire
Received it.


--121509--

Fourth Man Walking

________________________

When will the vessel
Burst forth from the blaze
In a translucent,
Resplendent glaze?

How long will the devil
Dance on a dead man’s grave?
I look to the skies, but
Alas! Only rain.

Yet, God is not dead
As Nietzsche has said,

But the fourth man*
Walking in the
Midst of my flame.


* "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods," said the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar as he described the being in the blazing furnace with the three Hebrew youths whom he had seemingly executed (Dan. 3:25, NIV).

--121309--

What a W@?#!?ful Life!

___________________________

Sweltering summer of discontent*:
Thought I slew you
Last winter,

Thought I buried your body
In my mental graveyard
And threw out the body bag.

Why then
does your stench
Rise like a chimney’s smoke,
Like a bloody phoenix’s black ashes
And take wing?

Why do you sell memories like
Toys on Christmas morning
And rub the money
In my face?

I want out of this body!
Why can’t he who did
Not ask to be born
Ask to die?

What use has the world
For such questions,
For such candor,
For such despair?

The man would’ve jumped
In had the
Flailing angel not
Almost drown.

Where is this drowning man?

I will give him his
Wings.


*Line borrowed from Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

--121209--

A Lullaby to Sleep By

________________________

Sleep has lost its virture
Has lost its solace
Its Eden

Has come up short
Like everything else
Under the sun

Now is something
To run from

Tomorrow has lost its promise
Has lost its flare
Its resplendency

Hollywood has lost its marbles
Its grip on reality
Its tongue

Has lost its innocence
Its honesty
Has poisoned minds

Has dressed its corpses
In kingly costumes
Has sold mags

With aliens on the cover
Men and women
The world has never seen

Has made us believe
Buying will save
Our souls

Will free our minds
Our spirits
Our mortal skin

Has promised immortality
While delivering
Only immorality’s mortality

Only ashes

Only the dust
From which we came
From which we sprung

And to which
We shall return
When it’s all

Been said
And
Done.


--121009--

1,981st Dream

__________________

“We all have a chance to murder.”
– Dan Haseltine

Dig graves for your guns.
Make your tanks naked
at the junkyard. The terror
is within, not in sandy desserts
across the oceans that keep
us safe from the bearded radicals.

These men are not crazy. They
say they hear from Allah. At least
their authority comes dressed in
antiquity, comes with unaltered
words from of old, comes on
ancient papyrus pages.

We are the crazy ones, believing
the lies we tell ourselves, dressing
them up with brand new truths
like a fancy whore, saying
God is dead.
We take notes from the corpses we buried
long ago. What good is a dead teacher?

The man on the t.v. screams because
his father is dead. He would rip his
hair out but instead reaches for me.
I point the finger at him:
The war on terror begins with him.

Murder sits within him in a cozy recliner,
feet propped up, comfortably home.

Sitting up in bed, my finger pulses
with heat and tremor, turns to
me with crooked nail, and I repeat
what I had said:
The war on terror begins with him.

Bin Laden and I hold hands, walking
through the battered streets of this crumbled
and crusty earth. I am no better,
I mumble under warm breath.
If I throw the first stone
I cast it from the
electric chair.


--050609--

YHWH is Salvation!

______________________

“Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved.”
- Billy Corgan


What bride is spotless white,
What sky is ever blue,
What knot is forever tied,
What love is ever true?

What man can never fall,
What king can ever rule
With a crown of peace, justice,
Mercy and love for all?

What heart can never break,
What body cannot fail,
What ragamuffin soul
On this crooked little earth
Can flee the fires of hell?

What life is worthy of heaven?
What song is perfectly sung?
What god would ever suffer
At the bloody hands of men?

Jesu,
Everything
Seems
Useless.
Seems

Sin
Assails
Virtue.
Everything
Seems

False,
Opaque.
Religion
Evades,
Vacates.
ELOHIM
Rescues
!