America 2012: A Prophesy

What happens when the wealth is gone, is spent
Because we all buy the wrong metaphors?
We give the world democracy through wars
And live it up on what the future's lent.

We try to make the world resemble us
And guiltily condemn ourselves for all
The things we never did. We want to fall
Together, throw our pasts under the bus.

We face the certainty all this will end --
The arrogance in us will soon collapse
So we can humbly face our ignorance.

The sudden social shift will surely send
Us into chaos. We'll redraw our maps,
And in our new society, we'll dance.

Transcendence

Descending from the mountains, down the plain,
Into the valley, I have found a cave
To live in and to contemplate my pain
And joy, the love and strife designed to save

Me from my selfishness, to be reborn.
Do not mistake my constant strong desire –
The animal is transformed to adorn
The unity whose friction brings the fire

Of love out of apparent fleshly lust,
Erecting a true temple to embrace
The higher life of love and joy and trust
That life will lead me right and bring me grace.

When I want to make love to you it’s so
Our spirits can emerge and merge and grow.

Courtly Love

Oh loving troubadours, you brought us love,
The love we know, to birth – a love of death –
From fairyland and from Medieval minds
Brought modern man to life. And me, my love.

Their love is not a love of things. Their love
Is not for neighbors. Sex is not enough.
It is to find completion of oneself –
It’s one’s rebirth within one’s lover’s love.

Dear, sweet, sweet suffering you bring me, love,
I sacrifice myself, my love, to you.
I could not bear a thing before I rose
In you – now I can bear it all, my love.

Personified romantic love, my love,
Is what you are, the beauty of my song
And life. You are the cosmic dance of life
And in you flows the tree of life, dear love.

You are my revolution, greatest love –
With you my world is finally set right –
I always will return to you in joy
Because my heart can never leave my love.

In passing through your body I found love
Enwombed and ready to, in us, be born
Between us. Thus our song is always here
Transforming us to make us constant love.

Reborn

I am anointed by the dews that flow
From you – you raise me up,
You bring me to myself and make me know
Myself as I drink from your cup.

I thirsted, drinking only brackishness
And thinking it was clear,
Pure water – order was in fact mere mess –
Until I met you, life was fear.

I ’m born within the water of your womb
Once more – I have returned
To walk among men, recent from the tomb,
The place where my soul, tortured, burned.

Whatever Happens

Whatever happens, I’ll love you – I’ll hold
You in my heart as ore grips tightly gold.
I cannot dream a world without you – cold
Steel is the world where we would not grow old.

My world is one of constant touch, your skin
Brings me alive. Release would be a sin,
And so I want to hold and hug, caress
You always with my eyes as you undress.

I love where I am now – with you. I trust
My future if you’re in it. You’re my lust
For life, my one desire – each cliché
That lovers all have thought now come my way.

I want to sink myself more deeply, fold
My soul into your soul. I feel more bold
With you. There’s nothing I would not have sold.
The love I feel for you cannot be told.

The Limits of My Language

A single bird upon the wire
A final flickering fading fire
A white upreaching Catholic spire
And you alone all I desire

A cloud is shifting in the sky
A loon is lifting its low cry
A fading sunbeam watch it die
My love for you you can’t deny

A red fruit filling up the trees
A fragrant lilac on the breeze
A candle’s light will only tease
I hug you tightly on my knees

I want to express my delight
In loving you the words aren’t right

Cured

Your love’s a pharmaceutical
Which wounds me as it heals
I never knew that I’d been sick
I now know how it feels

This pain I never knew I had
That flows into my heart
Is cured by you who gave it life
I see it on my chart

Beloved doctor medicine
You’ve poisoned all my veins
So that a deepest love for you
Is all that now remains

A Previously Undiscovered Quatrain by Nostradamus

The eagle's reign within the eclipsed moon
Will end upon the lion's call across
The sea. The house will fall and change at noon
And all the world will weep upon its loss.

Flows

The streams all flow to rivers flowing out
To delta trees into the ocean waves
As flows of trade converge and then flow out
Creating networks. Each of these flows saves

Us energy, the short and slow, the long
And fast, in fractal beauty, making Phi.
We see these patterns and we find we long
To create them and hear their songs' reply.

In science networks truth and knowledge flow --
In all the arts the canon's beauty's flow --
In ethics' canon we see virtue flow --
In beauty, truth, and virtue's what we know.

And in the leaves of books, and in the trees
Of knowledge, business, ancestry, and mind
We find the flows of man, the bronchial trees
That bring in oxygen for iron to bind.

The streams of poets, scientists, and wise
Philosophers converged in streams of me
To intermingle in a fluid wise
Enough to language them to poetry.

The Constructal Law

The world is a tree

We are rooted, branching out 

Just go with the flow 

Made, And Made Anew

The stones are worn with even, weary waves –
The ships are rusting by the rotting dock
That constitutes their cold, collective graves –
As weather runs down every object’s clock.
I look at you, your each new crease and gray –
The sand swirls, eddies up around your feet
With waves which wash so no sand, stone will stay
The way or where it is with every beat.
And yet our children play and chase the birds
That live with what the waves stir up. The seals
Are nursing pups. Sea grass will feed the herds
Of deer who make for cougar mothers’ meals.
Destruction is a part of nature, true –
But first things must be made, then made anew.

Lost Girl

She had the words. She knew she had the words. 

They forested her, dimmed the light. Her limbs 

Spread, palms outstretched to block her movement. She 

Had no idea which way to go. She cut 

The roots, expecting she would float away – 

She tumbled, crushed the touch-me-nots. Brown seeds 

Shot out from curling pods. Forget-me-nots 

As blue as bluets made mere scents of crushed 

Herbaceousness the moment her trunk landed. 

So certain, she set out, discovering 

New lands – she named new things – but she will not 

Return to tell us what she saw. No blaze 

Was ever made. She’ll be forgotten, turn 

To soil, become the forest floor, mere food 

For fungi. The words will mould, fertilize 

A future poetry upon her bones. 

She had the words – for one of future’s branches – 

Should other poets trim the tree just right 

With all their wind and lightning, rhythmic storms 

That shape the art by felling forests. Then 

She’ll be discovered, newly unforgotten.

Bureaucrats

The
Prick
Slipped hard
Into the
Soft flesh. Blood dripped thick,
Attracting leeches to the shard.
The leg grew red and quick, permanently weak and marred.

Pattern Break

Wind
Waved
Gold grass
Bushes broke
Parting prediction
Made men move mysteriously
Lions leading lithely laid low lyrical lovers

Under Each Mask A Mask

The mask is made to hide the face
It can be used to hide disgrace
To cover beauty with black lace

The mask allows you to be true
And say in safety all that you
Do really think would love to do

The mask is censor for your voice
Dishonesty what it employs
It hides from view your honest choice

The mask exposes your abyss
Exposes every hidden bliss
Convinces you a rape’s a kiss

The mask allows your evil reign
And lets you act in ways insane
You revel in your other’s pain

The mask can also be a hood
Of virtue morals and the good
Ensuring you do as you should

The mask allows each man to mask
Himself from others that’s its task
Thus hidden in sunlight we bask