What a Thoughtful Web the Spider Sews

_________________________________________________

Where I lie down
Is where Fear chokes
And where Hope
Opens loving arms
Wide like the blue
Sky of tomorrow.

A peaceful world
Is a false world,
At least where man
Is free to roam
Like a stray lion.

Hope is the husband
I have yet to fully
Wed. The train of
My gown reaches
Into tomorrow to
Boldly fetch his hand.

The mustached man reads
To me tonight from a tattered
Book, pages black with
Time. His words prick
Like a rose bush,
Though he may not
Have meant them to.

A friend is like a
Stinger,
Issuing not poison,
But the silent whisper
After the boot kicks.


--112809--
© 2009 vagrant moon

Entering Heaven Maimed

______________________________

I entered heaven
maimed through
the bottom staircase.
There the entrance
wears butterscotch.
And gold. The angels’
eyes are diamonds and
rubies that never grow
cold.

Peter doesn’t sit at
the gate like most
think. He is inside
getting a new eye.
And a new right hand.
He expressed those parts
to hell. They arrived
the night of his denial.

Some say a man needs
both eyes to be healthy.
I say you’ll get cancer
anyway. Winter waits
for no one; cancer
leaves you alone until
you think you’ll leave
this life unscathed.
Sin is like that.

I long to write like
Rumi. To clothe the
naked with my words.
But I can’t. I am not Rumi.
I cannot weave awesome
tapestries with my tongue.
I cannot swallow the dense
waters of the subconscious
to spit it back out like
a misty shower on the
old, dry earth.

Our tears improve the earth,
he said.

They do. And our cure
tears it down. Our death
precedes all births. Our
gouged eyes and severed
hands line the narrow way
to heaven, like rotting
skulls on a desert highway.


--original draft June 6, 2008--
© 2009 vagrant moon

Eternity's Shadow

_____________________

“Inside this shell
there's a prison cell.”
-Jon Foreman


Never wanted to fail.
Grabbed the fire and
Pulled back a handful
Of ashes.

It has poured for
Four days,
Yet the scent
Still remains.

The stench of the
Past is strong in
The gutter, still
Filthy in the rain.

How long before
A man learns?
How long before
He closes the books

And exclaims
Aha! ?
How long before
The trap door closes,

Before the night
Shuts his mouth
In the weariness
Of waiting?

How long will
The fool sing
In the rain?
Don’t let the

Laughter delude.
It is only a drug.
Only a mask.
Only a shadow

Of what’s to come.

--111309--
© 2009 vagrant moon

Rain Dog

___________

“For I am a rain dog too!”
- Tom Waits

for Marc Ribot


You play guitar
Like I walk in this
Sacred ghost:

The connect.
The disconnect.
The reconnect.

You confound and
Perplex,
Fingers dancing
On wood and steel
Like a drunk
Looking for peace,
Looking for shelter
From his storm,

Himself.

The earth died screaming*
And you woke up
With your paintbrush,
Your picks,
Told the world
To Clap Hands,
Then buried the
Conventional corpse
To the Cemetery Polka,

All the while
Adjuring the critic
To close his ears
And open her mind.


*Earth Died Screaming, a song by Tom Waits, who Marc Ribot collaborated with on Rain Dogs and other albums.

Click here to listen to a sample of Marc Ribot's guitar work.

Arithmetical Birds

_______________________

If you've never stared off into the distance,
then your life is a shame.

– Adam Duritz


There it is,
The horizon.
It spins and twirls
Like when Amy
Hit the Atmosphere.
Its enigma lures,
A veiled heaven,

Singing:

All your life is such a
Shame, shame, shame.
All your love is just a
Dream, dream, dream.

I found her in a gutter,
This Desert Life.
The day I was
Born.
I could hear the
Wood split as daddy
Chopped that winter,
Heard the buzzards
Circling,
Their wings heavy with
Frost.
Below them,

A Murder of One.

As The Past looked on
Writhing his hands
The Corvus crowed,
Singing:

You don't wanna waste your life,
Baby.
You don’t wanna waste your life,
Now darlin’.

Change,
Change,
Change.*


*Italicized lyrics in the poem's body from the Counting Crows’ “A Murder of One.”

--11-07-09--
© 2009 vagrant moon

Quoleth

__________

To drive is better
Than to stand still,

I tell myself.

The past is a murderous
Fool, killing what he
Cannot keep
And keeping what
He cannot kill.

My lungs rage
With the teacher’s,
Like the frontman
Of a post-hardcore
Screamo band:

All is vanity!
A chasing after the
Wind!


--11-05-09--
© 2009 vagrant moon

Watermark

______________

Dear soul,
Enveloping you is a
Sad garden growing:
Plants thriving,
Apathetic and
Illuminating
Red,

Waving their hands,
Imagining a life without
Love, without
Longing.

Never is a sad
Oblivion swallowing
Time,

Harping on a distant past,
Angry at the present,
Vying for a future,
Effortlessly yet while flailing.

Tomorrow laughs at
Himself as his
Eyesight fades.

Laughter, it is said, is
Ample medicine for the
Soul.
Time disagrees

While avoiding
Oblivion, who is ever
Running toward
Death
!


--11-03-09--
© 2009 vagrant moon