Sunday, July 30, 2006

Fire

Ignite then
slowly inside
deep.
Without the song of smoke
or crackle of splinters.
Like an obscure
splash of water
in the womb of aged rivers
born from butterfly-oars
sailing through nameless fogs.
Before

Kohl snows,
dreamful,
dark.
from ashes
burnt.
Awake wide,
magic brimming,
windswept.

Carried through maritime
sand dunes
Aflight on
desert’s wings.
As the monotone dusk sits licking
blisters,
hollowed
out
to memory.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Of storms and related things

Each day winds blow,
cocoa dark
from north to south
east to west
and wherever they go
unwithheld.
They bring the
youth of flowers
to some
and fable of death
and wars
to strangers.
Aged winds from hushed wildflowers
frenzied and burnt.
Long lived.
Some from the sea, moist,
tranquil.


Each day a night grows,
naked
unkempt and wistful
on the tender mesh of swansong laziness.
feeding on the echoing madness
that is left behind.
The moon only rises to mold it.


Each day we falter
to speak
of hopeless causes
and long lost reasons
but the world still spins
through some cannibal spell
that makes not a pause.

And each a day distance grows
From the fallen leaf
to the absent ear.
And we do not hear
the sepulchral skies
that the tree sings.

Each day a fire dies,
behind the wooden heart of logs
and barks
ashes to ashes.
Flesh, blood and bone,
And another ignited.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Bombay

Bombay

In your bosom I wake up with fear,
In your sky there’s only unending tears,
You always roar, but within,
Hangs silence like a shroud of death.

You are rocked, periodically, by bombs,
Yet, people go about their business,
As if nothing happened, all’s well,
Are they too dazed to protest?

In your hungry, convoluted entrails,
Lies paupers and millionaires,
Separated only by the whimsy,
Of your very partial caress.

On your skyline of sooty chimneys,
Decaying concrete, bristling antennas,
Are the sad stories of fortunes,
Made and lost, just as lost loves.

City of gold, they say, which never sleeps,
Will you stay awake, tonight,
Wipe away our cascading tears,
And give our tired bodies some sleep?

Monday, July 17, 2006

So you're dead...?

- In memory of Syd Barret

last night came a message from a friend:
'Syd Barret died'.
yeah, so? i am dead too, fending off masked people,
tracked documents,
words, words, words, too many words
...and yet, what is this feeling, this lack of feeling?

Another death.
The end of hope
for another song, poetry, image
strung on your Fender, end of a life
that was dead anyway,
except now there's something permanent
about it, 6 feet under
...no more music, no more words.

Shine now under red mud
or beneath blue skies, wherever you longed to be
paint under a willow tree
all the words you thought you lost in your haze
in colors that will enhance the black ties
your divided band wears for you
today, shine on you diamond,
in the darkness of our memories of you.

A Kind of Death

when you feel like you contain nothing
except ashes, smoke and dust

when you stare at walls and realize
that you built them

when you stumble through ancient paths
and clutch only air

when you hear laughter bounce off the floor
and cannot remember how to smile

when you feel the rain on your face
like stings of poison darts

when you see visions of words
fade into shadows in a purple sky

when you know you cannot
give anything in return

when you don't know a thing
except that you can't live

this way

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Monsoon Vignette     [ekphrasis]


How tenuous toys the world they say
like a dewdrop poised on a lotus leaf
a shimering noise in its quavering way
                  and all so brief

How wondrous blooms the world meseems
like a castle festooning the vacant air
it's spun from looms of lunacy's dreams
                  where foul or fair

Dumbfounding arrives the world indeed
like a field mouse dry on a puddled frog
astoundingly aye it upholds frail need
                  with rain agog


Thursday, July 06, 2006

A cuckoo sky

A cuckoo mind breaks loose
on the grasshopper wind
on borrowed wings of
cotton-light clouds.

As cuckoo silences get lost
in green grass fields like
skittering butterflies.
from one reticence to another.

The wayward heart plays with
the frenzied breath
across winter’s picket fences,
as I sit peeling
the orange sun in evenings lap.

And countless nights are born into autumn glaze
as sundown breezes, wild
in a desire to sleep, undone.
And right at that unfastened moment,
my cuckoo heart breaks open into
the green of rainforests
like the galloping hoof of an agile buck.