From Yang to Yin and Back Again

The Goddess reigned in ancient days of stone,
When caverns were the temples to her soul
And sacrifice was made to bless the hunt
And ask the herds forgiveness for our toll.

The God and Goddess rose to reign together,
Proliferating into spirits, sprites,
More gods and goddesses of place and weather,
Emotions, actions, all the mind's delights.

The Goddess got demoted to become
God's mother, mother of mankind, serpent-
Seduced--the masculine emerging from
The desert and demanding we repent.

The God emerges, fully masculine
And motherless--the goal is to protect
The women from the world of men--the sin
Is failing to be bold, make gold, reflect.

Lip-service to the Goddess while the God
Is granted fullest reign and many goals
Are all that's worthy just elevates the rod
Of Hermes, justifying sexist trolls.

Affirm the feminine in freedom, fill
Yourself with all her virtues--Goddess true
To who she is should never feel the chill
Of merely manly virtues are her due.

The masculine and feminine must reign
With equity and we must look upon
Their virtues as on par to make us sane
Like sun-filled lunacy at break of dawn.

Alive in Memory

We are dissolved in every little death
That dissipates our energies into
Each other and the world--the cosmic breath
Ensouls the swimming, crawling things, and you.

And in a flash of light our life begins--
The shadows deepen, make distinct the dawn--
Our aims will not improve without our sins--
Yes, when will no one notice that you're gone?

We know the poem makes the subject live--
The object is to keep each soul alive
In minds and in that way their minds will give
Long life like that Achilles chose to strive.

Each death becomes a little death in art,
For when you enter it, you don't depart.

Harmony

The poem tells you what you are afraid
To know--and that is your discomfort. Verse
Transformed into the Way, made myth, won't fade
From mind--disturbing rest you think a curse.

You manly men, embrace your feminine--
The cold, moist moon that casts your shadow--find
Your Hermes, Aphrodite and begin
Your transformation to their child, unwind.

You women, too, embrace your masculine--
The hot, dry sun that casts your light--bind
Yourself to Mars and Aphrodite--sin
Is failing to embrace their child, their mind.

But balance does not make us negatives
Of who we're born to be--we need an eye
Belonging to the other so she lives
Within the him, and him in her, won't die.

Employ your taste, employ your sight, and listen
To what the ether says and smell the earth,
So cold and dry--upon the grass will glisten
Dew drops reflecting what we're truly worth.

Angel Flight

A flock of ducks, of geese, of swans ascend
From off my brow--I bow beneath the moon
That lights the willow by the pool---I mend
My soul into the Earth---the golden noon
Lies far upon the other side---I lift
My eyes up to the soaring swans whose wings
Will lift me through the night to my great gift---
The lead swan sweet of Leda softly sings
As over war-burned ruins we all soar---
The knights take up their place to guard my flight
From my coal cave onto the sandy shore
That shimmers diamond in the cold moonlight---
The messengers have come in swirling breath
To wing me wiser from my time with death.

Birth, Love, Death, Rebirth

A third of life in death, the winter cold
Comes from a pomegranate seed, the taste
Too much a red temptation--just ask Eve--
Persephone had laid the land to waste.

Yes, death is in the world and we've been thrown
From off the heights of Eden, and we fell
Until our deaths devour all we've loved
Lined on the executioner's stone wall.

The fruit of death, blood-of-Adonis-sprung--
Fruit of abundance and fertility--
The red globe bursts against the wall and spreads
The seeds to bless the home and family.

The seeds of death on Eve's and Adam's lips--
The fruit of life in Jesus's, Mary's hands--
The crown upon the poet-singer's head
Is how the blood moon fruit spread through the lands.

Persephone and Hades, twisted serpents
In double helix carried by the soul
Who carries souls to death--the merchant's wings
Lift through the skies to each soul's final goal.

The serpent twisted through the earth-tree's roots,
The serpent twisting in the eagle's claws,
The serpent twisting words so subtly
Will fall, has fallen shedding nature's laws.

The serpent bears the pomegranate crown
To gown the virgin lunar bride in fig--
Reborn into the bridegroom, as the son
Of man who, seeking, 'round the roots will dig.

Disturbed, the one-eyed eagle will lift up
From off the top-most branch and disappear
Into the sun, returning as the wren
Who flits among the serpents without fear.

The tree is felled, its wood is sawed and planed
And raised into a wall, the windows hung
With curtains red and pomegranate-trimmed--
A room where words are written and re-sung.

The wise will spend a third of life within
This room of holy wood, the book-filled den
Of nature's shattered seeds and learn at last
To love the the subtle song of the king wren.

Living Classicism

I traveled once to Greece, the ancient land
Of tragedy, philosophy, the gods--
And there, beneath the plane tree I would stand,
Escape Apollo's heat, take Plato's nods.

In Athens in the paths of Socrates
I walked--agora and the marketplace
Today where women sell their wares. I'd seize
The very air, the ancient time and space.

In Naxos where Apollo's gate still stands,
Where Zeus hid Dionysus in a cave,
I ate in mountaintop cafes, my hands
Felt marble mountains--Naxos I still crave.

In Delphi where the oracles would speak
Apollo's prophesies in vents now sealed--
I stood within the theater to  peak
At what great Dionysus once revealed.

In Thassos where the ancient Greeks had sailed
From Naxos, Dionysus first set shoot--
A dining archeologist regaled
Me with the findings of this ancient root.

I lived in Greece a month, and there I found
An understanding of the things I'd read--
And having traveled I have found the ground
That grows the sweet figs that keep me well-fed.

Facebook Commenting Blues

The stupid, stupid, stupid hurts my brain,
And though I know engagement isn't gain,
When stupid rises I cannot refrain,
Though showing such contempt is but my bane --
Have an opinion? Please stay in your lane
And don't create a fake news daisy chain
With answers complex we can't make it plain
On formats that are mostly made to train
The brain to feel a little twinge of pain
If we don't quick-react--and from this strain
We feel the stupid just will never wane--
And that is why I simply cannot deign
To let you by believing stupid things
No matter all the anger that it brings. 

Dedication

I find the everythings I'm chasing wind
Their ways on wings of wrens within the willows
That wrap themselves around my very wrists unkind
To keeping friends who flee before the billows.

Beloved friends who feel that they must flee
Before my new obsessions and impatience--
I have Cassandra's gift of truth--my plea,
I know, has never willow-bound relations--

I write these verses you won't read to tell
You of my love that doesn't end when you
Abandon me, deny me, curse to Hell
Me--so the Muse will help me say what's true.

I live in isolation with my Muse
And all our children--them I'll always choose.

Caridwen and Taliesin

When crafty Caridwen concocted stew
Of knowledge in her cauldron, the strong brew
Brought poetry to life--Taliesin
Had tasted three mere drops--transformed
Within the womb of Caridwen and born
Of her, reborn out of the sea--and now torn
Apart and put together--in his rhymes
The truth is told--his rhythms are the limes
That keep us straight--where's good Taliesin
Today so that our minds will be transformed?
Mankind can only be reborn again
From poetry's own goddess Caridwen.

My Ride Upon the Night Mare

As I lay down and closed my eyes I heard
Outside my open window whinnying--
A sound that's out of place here in the city--
Yes, even when the city is in Texas.

I crept around the bed and glanced outside--
A glance was all it took to transport me
Onto the back of a moon-white mare, black
Eyes absorbing all light into abyss.

I had no need of saddle, bridle, reins
All unprovided--I heard no owl, bird,
Cicada, cricket in the nighttime sing--
I heard no cries of danger or of pity.

And so we rode upon the very nexus
Of life and death and dream--my equine guide
Rode me through prairie Native ghosts who'd flee
Before--not me, but--my companion's track.

From danger, fear--from rhythmic hoof beats, bliss--
I listened, could not hear the faintest strains
Of music luring my mad mare--I miss
The bison filling up the shortgrass plains.

I'm haunted by the past that fills the earth
And fills me up until I pour out time
In present draughts to make a future worth
Our having as we make our complex climb.

This place does not belong to me--this place
Is not unique to me--this moon-white mare
Does not belong to me--she fills the place
That unifies all poets, we the rare.

The charming, cheerless chants of tribes that chose
To live their lives on lolling plains that lay
Between the hills and mountaintops--what grows
Out of the underworld that makes us play?

The mare has masqueraded me--the spirit
World winds in front of me and does not mind
My presence--ignorance and all who fear it
Remain in battle here among the blind.

The plains dissolve to deserts, rainbow stones
And trees of stone, of crystals, shades of brown
More numerous than rarer rainbows, tones
Resounding everywhere in moonlight's gown.

I lift the gown to pleasures of the mind
More numerous than of the flesh--I taste
The musky midnight, melt and then unwind
To find that I won't bind myself, be chaste.

The mare is climbing up the mountainside
And at the peak she leaps--from peak to peak
She takes me to a cooler place that's wide
Enough to hold my mind and all I seek.

At last she lets me down beside a cave
From which emerges a great serpent, heads
More numerous than those who found the grave--
He's everything the past and future dreads.

I know I can't defeat this demon, sword
Or other weapon I don't have--the mare
Transforms into a woman, steps toward
The serpent with her milk-filled bosom bare.

The smallest serpent head strikes out to find
Its fangs embedded in a swollen breast
Where milk and venom mix and, mixing, bind
The serpent's drinking throat to kill the rest.

The venom spreads out to the woman's limbs
And roots her to the rocky mountain ground,
Transforming her into a blooming tree
Whose flowers open, white, with subtle sound.

This sound resounds within my inner ear
And through this sound I learn to cherish fear
As much as love and friendship we hold dear--
And through all life and strife will truth appear.

I know that's why the mare has brought me here,
To witness transformation, her death bier
Poeticizing to a higher tier
My soul, Cassandra-like, no one will hear.

Gnosis

Too many have mistaken art for self-
Expression--only when the self's expressed
From hidden knowledge not found on a shelf
And not out of your bared and barren breast
Will you become an artist, poet, mage
Who's able to bring forth in metaphors
The future and from it be a fair sage
Whose images, rhymes, rhythms open doors
The select few are able to unlock
Upon the passing of the ancient test
Of memorizing all the ancient stock
Of verse and myth, inspiration, the blessed.
The bard who fills his cup to overflow
Pours forth in verse all that he cannot know.

A Little Song

The soul, it needs to sing--it needs to sing
In mountain meadows, needs to sing on hills
And on the stormy seas--it has to sing
To find itself, luxuriate in thrills.

It cannot sing while stuck in traffic--curses
Are opposite of song--and bare routine
Is searing static--raze these daily curses
That starve the soul until it's weak and lean.

Turn off the T.V., internet, and song,
The background chatter widening the hole
Within the soul that's only filled with song
And music emanating from its coal.

The soul, it needs to sing so it can bring
Itself to wisdom in its dancing ring.

Success

Not knowing how to play guitar,
He dreamed of rock-n-roll,
But if you're not a practice star,
You'll never reach your goal.

And yet, he felt resentment life
Should keep him from his dream--
A job, a mortgage, and a wife
With children filled time's stream.

The years went by, he found his work
Fulfilling and he passed
Up through the company--a perk
That childhood did not last.

The years went by, he worked to found
A company his own--
Some tougher years to lay the ground,
Then lift up every stone.

He found his happiness, when true
To family, work, and friends--
A deeper, healthy wealth was due
By seeking higher ends.

An Ode to the Still Voice

I've never ceased to hear the voice that called
Me to the Muses' realm--it's sometimes mute
Or muted, melancholy, maddening,
But always seeming welcome all the same--
I named my firstborn son the name it called--
I learned by then I must obey--I learned
To listen to the smallest voice, perceive
The smallest curt command it gave--the goal,
The destiny remains unclear--my wife
The voice commanded me to marry--she
Was walking up to me, the first her flesh
Was present to my touch--the voice sent me
To Mississippi, then to Texas, sent
So I'd diversity my mind's contents--
It's made me wise and foolish, ignorant
And full of knowledge, ugly, beautiful,
A madman and most sane--it made me know
Myself and hide myself and show myself,
Transform myself to become who I am
And truly was--I heed its call and dodge
Its call and pay the price for every slip
Off of the mountain trail it leads me up--
Behold the vistas it has shown me, darkness
Unveiled by it, lush valleys dense with trees,
Wide mountain meadows pointillist with flowers,
Sequoias on the slopes, bare rocky peaks
That rise into the clouds of thought and meaning
And scatter and collect before the front
That chills it all to senseless sounds that stream
To torrents of tales, then to waves of verse
To pour into the oceans that surround
This land that lifts into the peaks where I
Am led up to proclaim apocalypse--
Behold the house and debt, suburban life
That tame the voice that drives me on and on,
The voice that only sometimes speaks--I catch
The voice in random silences that swell
Into the ceaseless chatter, noise, and music
That now define our lives so we won't listen
To still and silent voices that could transform
Our lives--we like the hot and humid places,
The swamps and the mosquitoes draining us
So we don't have to hear the voice that drives
Us to distraction, creativity,
And innovation, art and madness, love
And new technology and ways of life--
The debt, the chatter, politics and strife,
We choose anxiety before  before we'd choose
The voice revaluating values verse
By rhythmic, often-rhyming verse to raise
Our thoughts to music echoing across
The valleys we make fertile with our songs.

Hermes

Your reign is over, Dionysus. Man's
Descended into nihilism. Zeus
Lost his divine throne to you--time for you
To ceded so all the earth can grow and change,
Emerge into a brand new world and leap
To newer heights from off the mountain peaks
You raised, but which erode beneath man's feet
As your divine enthusiasm fades
Into mere relativity and art
Without a touch of beauty, social life
Dissolving--atomistic collectivism
Now breaking down society. A new
Enthusiasm must take hold so man
Can rise anew, refreshed, complexified
To brand new heights--I'll bring a new old art
And revolutionize their science, help them see
Just who they are, or who they were, and who
They're destined to be when they follow me.
You have grown old within the minds of men--
Your powers dim, you're left with drunkenness
And nothing else. I am rejuvenated,
A younger god, and if we fight, I'll win.
But if we fight, mankind will be brought low
Before I raise them up again. Resign
Yourself to this transition both our fates
Have brought us to. Please spare our love, mankind.
Please spare them a transition that's traumatic
And let them rather ease from god to god
By hearing what our prophets have to say.
Relinquish now your throne for all the love
You harbor for mankind. I wait, my king,
For your decision, praying it is wise.

The Order of Things

I sit and watch as mankind blindly gropes
Its way to patterns that the cosmos found
Itself, self-organizing wish to hope
And placing everything on patterned ground.

Did life, like mankind, fight against the trend
Within the cosmos that gave rise to it
And all it needed to survive and bend
Environments to thrive, not merely fit?

Release yourselves into true personhood,
Become unique by showing that you flew
With others and rebelled to do your duty.

Release yourselves so that you do the good
In a society that now is true,
Emerging to the just and sacred beauty.

A Better Time

We all are searching for a better time--
It drives the restlessness of feet and mind--
It is the reason that creators find
The newness in the world that is their crime
And on whose wooden steps the world must climb
Even as they are burning it and bind
The makers and discoverers, unwind
This complex world and return to grime.

A world of beauty--that is each one's aim--
Some want a Rothko world, so simplified--
Some want a Dali world, a nightmare scene--
Some want a Michelangelo to flame
The world in deep complexity denied
By those who fear what isn't pure and clean.

Values

Important are the fleeting things--
Enduring things we leave as nought--
More gossip in our ear will sing
Our souls to do things that we ought
Not do because we think our friends
And enemies have us in mind--
But honestly, we're not their ends--
Peak at their thoughts, you will not find
You there when you are out of sight.
Yet we neglect the work we do,
For few will learning dare delight--
And almost no one loves what's true
But only listen to what feels
To them supportive of belief,
Ignoring medicine that heals
In favor of a lying thief
Who tells them what they want to hear--
Why do you want to believe hate,
Embracing those who peddle fear?
Why do you think destruction fate
When all the evidence is clear
That life is ever everyplace
Rejecting all that you hold dear--
That is what lifts the human race.
Important are enduring things--
The fleeting things, please leave as nought--
Allow the truth to always sing
Our souls to do things that we ought.

Moloch

The kings by every name--the bureaucrats,
The legislators, presidents, and queens,
The Secretaries, all the true fat cats--
Devour all the children. Moloch cleans
The flesh from off their bones, discriminates
Against them all, accepting no debates.

The children in the belly of the beast
Are roasted and their screams turned into moos
As gentle as those cows before a feast
Who feast in ignorance that they will lose
The peace of pastures in the morning sun,
Milk-suckled veal before their life's begun.

The sacrificers hear the sounds of peace
And virtue emanating from the bronze
God's lips--they know these children's souls' release
Will bring the jailers to release the bonds
That their imaginations bind them by--
Contrary facts they always will deny.

Their bonds are gone and have been gone--they bind
Themselves and feed their children to the flames
And lift their blackened bones in hopes they'll find
A place where they'll deny their secret shames,
Where finest pheasants fly, cooked, to their plates
No one has placed before them, perfect fates.

They only have to feed Moloch each child
They nurtured at their breasts--the sacrifice
Of all the future's worth it--they're beguiled
Into believing evil can be nice
With just enough burnt flesh and bones made smoke
For Moloch's hunger you cannot revoke. 

Reactionaries

The new, the strange--these things the people hate,
And have to hate to have a healthy home--
Creators of new values, virtues rate
As evil--burn them on the gate you'll roam
Right through in celebration as you pass
The body smoldering, the hero dead
Who opened up the date to bring the mass
Into a future beautiful, the bread
Of life available to all. The bones
Interred into the columbarium,
A statue raised, we hear the mourners' moans,
The mourners who could never make a crumb
The hero made now praise, indeed they hail.
The meaning that the nihilists reject,
The everything-has-meaning folks bewail
New meanings that he made, while some reflect
And think the changes obvious and true.
A brand new gadget? Please protect the old
No matter who it hurts--it's what is due
So some are safe from brand new wealth untold.
A brand new style of art? Reactionaries
Reject it, claim themselves the avant garde
And poison all the sweet-singing canaries
To warn off people from the gold the bard
Uncovered to enrich our souls to health.
But all protect the order that they know--
Except the hated makers of all wealth,
Who plant and water, make each person grow.