Nature

When we see only surfaces, we miss
The complex life below, which we deny--
But in our dives below, we should not miss
The patterned flocks that glisten in the sky.

Heart Rings

Perhaps I have a wooden heart--the light
Shines through it's sliced so thin, and every wind
Will wind the thread on which it hangs--the sight
Of you delights--never your heart rescind.

The Devil's Walking Stick

The Devil's walking stick is crowned in green
And growing in the woods---its thorns, tipped red,
Await their master's hand whose grasp, obscene
In every movement, prickles skin to dread.
An adversary to all touch, the stick
Resembles its dread master, adversary
To beauty, virtue, and the good, his trick
Is making you think he's these, unwary.
The shadows moving in the woods bring death---
The stream brings life and flows and darting fish
Beneath the surface---careful, catch your breath---
And careful that you don't get all you wish.
Go step into the forest's shading stream
Where you will find a land of dappled dream.

The Shirpa

Behold the god I froze in fractal time--
He now survives forever in my rhyme.

Messenger

Before you look at angels with delight
Remember Lucifer is one, named "Light."

By the Granite

Beloved, whose spirit is dancing at night,
You glitter and glisten and bring me delight--
You never have left me, you dance as a star,
A victim of hatred, a victim of war.

Humanity

We are an origami of space-time---
A massively complex enfolding held
In place by constant change---some think a crime
Committed by our presence---we're no weld
Of metal made inferior---we crown
The cosmos with our consciousness---our gold
Is pure and glistens---misanthropes can drown
Themselves to save our coinage from their mold---
There is no virtue in their hateful fold---
They only want to drag all beauty down
And do not know the preciousness we hold---
They stare down awe with their ironic frown---
It takes expansive love to see we meld
With all the cosmos with which we all rhyme---
You do not take the fairest, strongest, geld
It---nature absent us is but a mime.

Bone Dance

My feet are flipping up the bones that lie
Beneath---a wreath of ribs is spreading out
Beyond a pyramid of skulls that sigh
As western winds are winding through, about
The empty eyes and sinuses--the jaws
Are spreading teeth in fairy wings around
The metatarsals sprayed in spirals---laws
Of patterns penetrate the piles the ground
Is trying to absorb. The backbones bite
My soles---I slip upon a femur bone
And listen to the rattles with delight
As past my lips pass my last weary moan.
The bones have played me into sun-washed bones---
I dance around to all their twinkling tones. 

The Epic Monster

The hero stared into the monster's maw--
The darkness and meaningless emptiness
More terrifying than the purposed claw,
A comfort like a nihilist's caress,
Denial that we ever ought to try--
The woods were dark and  none would hear his cry.

The stench that poured from out the monster's breath--
Would this foul odor be his final sense?
The anxiousness of nothingness is death
Before you're dead--live only in past tense
And nothing lives in you--you only die
Before you learn that you have wings to fly.

Saliva glistens in the sudden moon
That breaks out from the clouds of ash that fall
As warm, gray snowflakes. Breezes drift a dune
Of ash along his feet, against the wall
Behind him, adding gray to granite gray--
The hero's certain he'll be dead by day.

And then the hero comes to understand
That he must slay himself to truly slay
The death of meaning his life will demand
Of him--remaking meaning, he'll betray
His past to make a future where he's slain
His monster, transformed joy from death and pain.

Hectic

Alarm and snooze, alarm and snooze, alarm.
The rush begins. The shower, breakfast, clothes
Thrown on, the kids awake and dressed, their teeth
Are brushed, their hair is brushed, their shoes are found
And lunches made and matched with backpacks, out
The door and off to school and off to work
Where all of the incompetence of school
Is magnified at work in everyone
You're working with--you think you must protect
Your job and their jobs, taking up the slack
They make, you are the wall protecting them
From their mistakes and the administration--
If you complain, then you're the ass--just work
Until the evening comes and then go home
And work some more surrounded by your kids
You see for dinner, doing homework, practice--
Piano or their sports--, to clubs and meetings,
Before they go to bed and in those few
Short blissful hours without them you ignore
Your spouse to work some more--and you're behind
On work and all the TV shows that you
And those you love would love to see and sleep
And relaxation, rest of any kind--
The doctor tells you you have diabetes
And high blood pressure, deep anxiety--
Your stomach hurts, your head is aching, pain
Fills every joint--you're angry at your kids,
You're angry at your spouse, you're angry at
Yourself, your job, your boss, your co-workers,
The morons on the road and everywhere--
This isn't life, and yet you chose this life,
Afraid to make a change as constant change
Accelerates around you, random rules
That contradict, your arbitrary bosses,
A stupid butterfly with brown and orange
And black and yellow patterns on your arm
That flits and folds its chevron wings and stares
A moment up at you, or so it seems,
Then flies away to taste a flower sweet
To smell and taste and see--it's judging you,
Or you are judging you, but you project
That judgment, hatred onto other people,
And who could blame you?--not the others who
Like you are driven off the cliff by fear,
By debts you owe so many in your life,
And by the madness that this culture makes,
A madness that is growing, you embrace. 

Abandoned Bicycle

A woman's bike in dusty rose appeared
One day right on the corner lot--it flaunts
Anachronistic bars slung low, a weird
Retention of a time of dresses haunts
Us as arational tradition bent
Across such time that reasoning is spent.

The bicycle is sitting by the road
For days--unmoved by owners (who are they?),
Unmoved by thieves--unsung but by this ode
Which seems the only thing that wants to play
With this pink bike beside the broken street
Absorbing the October summer heat.

Suppression

The rocks crunch beneath my soles as cruel black heat
Ascends, sharp against my calves--it won't defeat
My dull drive to wander--to my feet repeat
Their blue-black soul beat.

A thought tempts, but obligations gain the ground--
My walk waits, perhaps forever--life will bound
And bring back ambitions to harmonic sound
Which swell songs around.

To go slow and gather all I see and hear--
That goal grips me, trips me--down the road I fear
I will wander, will not dare to go nor steer
That far future near.

A breeze, balmy, blowing through my thinning hair--
A grim grackle calling from the ground, its stare
Demands more from me--the dandelions wear
My down, dancing fair.

Is this truly what I want, a homeless life--
The earth's girth my home, to live without the strife
Of hard human expectations?" That's the knife
To rend reeds a fife.

A Chinjikijilu

A poem is a crystal made of time
That's built out of the future, made in sounds.
Emerging out of the unsayable,
Where I have known all the unknowable
And proven all of the unprovable
And reasoned through all the irrational,
I brought to complex order all the chaos
And disconnected the connectedness
That disconnects the future where I'm from,
In all the beds and shadows where I sleep,
In all the coffee houses where I dream,
And after I've returned to you from death
I'll bring to you the undefined, defined
In lines of rhythm, rhyme and patterned time.
I come upon the river of the blood
Of all the ancestors that fill my mind
And wade across it, slip to be baptized
By all the echoes they make from the future
Where truth is all that's spoken, if in rhyme.
The rest is all prosaic lies. The ground
That rises brings me back to Athens, life
Here in the city where the sophists lie,
Deny the past and future, beauty, good,
Light and shadow, complexity, and love,
Are hostile to the makers of time crystals,
To anyone who brings dead back to life,
To anyone who triumphs over death,
Emerges pure and clarified and true.

Narcissus o Christos

The egomaniac declares he's "woke"--
Parading through the town to his own tune,
Impressed by his own narcissistic stroke--
He's certain all will see his Truth real soon--
He's certain that his every thought's a boon.

He wants to strip down every woman, man
And cut their hair to his, dress them like him
And make each one conform to his own plan--
A plan that's brilliant just because it's brim
With him--your difference his blades will trim.

He thinks the world and he must be the same--
They are the same, except the evil parts--
He'll cut the tall down--better they are lame
And following behind him in their carts
And worshiping his ego in their hearts.

He wants the world all "woke" like him, with eyes
Of adoration for the things he's done
For them--and who'll lay low and terrorize
Those who refuse to see that he's their sun--
Through him a brand new world has just begun. 

White Bird of Paradise

A blue boat with white sails taking turns to rise
Beside sailors indigo in dress that sail
Among massive fans of green banana leaves--
In sharp shade he grieves.

The tree twists into the sky and butterflies
In brown breathe a baby's breath into the blue
And strong-streaked canoe that's destined not to flee
The cool canopy.

The swift sunbird, iridescent scarlet, tastes
The sweet syrup cargo of the ship, is paid
In gold given to this thirsty messenger
Whose wise words recur.

The blue boat will boldly lift its sails of white
So swift sunbirds, butterflies can bring the words
The tree twists into a song the wind will fail
To sing strong to gale.

Truth or Ideology

I took a break from madness, then returned
To find I could not stand to patronize
With willful ignorance, all knowledge spurned
For ideology. Contempt the wise
Show for such wastes of time--an awful crime
With life so short--we should despise demands
On us that drag us low. Come smell the thyme
And rosemary, a virtue that commands
You to devour fragrant meats to fill
Your stomach with true nourishment, breathe deep
The true aroma, clarify your will
And then you will be ready for a leap
To all the joy that knowledge, wisdom bring
When unified to beauty and then sing.

The Burden of the Ass

Why grieve to have the burden lifted--lift
Your hands in joy--no harm can come when all
Your grievances are answered--it's a gift
That you reject, to raise you when you fall.

You want to wallow wet in your misfortune--
You want to play the victim in your wealth--
You never want to bravely stick out your chin,
But live a life of weakness, war, and stealth.

You cynically reject the beautiful
Because it leads to virtue, truth, their source--
You'd rather make sure that you're seen as dull,
An ass who thinks the world needs simple force.

Extend your hand to mine and let me throw
You through the source of all you think you know.

The True Conflict

The dragon coils at the spine to dine
On all the darkness that you want to eat
To breathe its fires, incinerate, defeat
The innocent--it's part of its design
To eat up souls and so thereby refine
The rocky paths down which we fall, retreat--
The wings are hurricaning with each beat
The failure of ourselves and our design.

I stab the serpent through its silver eye
To calm the storm within and set the path
For me to take away from all the blame
The fires once made--and so I, joyful, die
To this cold life and give my soul the bath
It needs to rinse off its resentful shame.

An Astrology of the Soul

It's raining diamonds from a Neptune sky
Of methane blue within an indigo
Eye watching you from near the edge--deny
Near death belongs among the gods who go
Around the center of your soul--don't shy
Away from who we were so long ago.

Love looms large--strife is small among the stones--
The evening and the morning are the same
And there's no message that would dare atone
For all the snows of war, fires of the lame
Thrown out of heaven, landing with a groan
And making us face up to all our shame.

The very ring of wealth and plenty will
Renew us every weekend as the Earth
Brings life before the light. Tree shade will fill
Us with the longing for a brand new birth
Of spirit in the kingdom and we'll kill
The sky itself to demonstrate our worth.

The Third Way

Today is not the time for complex thought

You have to pick our side or you are bought

By evil forces. Nuance is for naught.

You’re for us or against us—there

The evil plot begins—I can be for

The truth and virtue, beauty and the fair

And be against two evils I abhor.

You have to hate, and you must hate who we

Are hating—no, you cannot disagree.

I will not play your party game

Of pick-a-villain—any evil’s odious—

I will not choose your evil aim—

I won’t bow down to pick preferred infected puss.

We do insist, we do demand you hate

Mankind the way we hate him, or your fate

Will be to be associated with the gate

That guides to our twin opposite as mate.

The only thing I hate’s your hate—I love each one

And everyone, all humankind, their warts and all,

And trust an open, loving world will beat the gun

That’s brandished by the hateful right before they fall.

We will destroy you, for we hate your love—

We ground beneath our feet the mourning dove.

That’s better than a life within a world in which you rule—

Before I love your hatred I would rather be a fool—

And I would rather take your bullets than turned into your tool

To make the world your image and transform it to your runny stool.

The Parable of the Pots

One time there was a village where the men
And women kept their money stored in pots
They carried everywhere they went. They held
Them low and so each saw what each one had
To pay the rent or buy the food or clothes
Their families needed. Many had large pots
They filled to nearly overflow, and more
Were modest, and many more were poor
And carried almost empty pots, and some
Were destitute and carried only air.
One day a man of modest means went down
Into the market hoping he could find
A brand new pair of leather shoes. He saw
Some people walking by with much-filled pots.
He looked at his, half-filled, and to a stranger
Complained, "If I had what they have I would
Do so much good." The stranger looked at him,
Then looked into his pot. "Well, sir, I see,"
The stranger said, "You have much more than them."
He nodded at a pair with empty pots.
"Don't look in others' pots wishing for all
They have. But look instead for empty pots.
Your excess is another's meal or rent.
Instead of envy, generosity
Is what you ought to choose, and from that, give."
The stranger then took from his pot---a pot
With far less money than the other man's---
And gave a portion to each empty pot.
The man then gave in turn, and others saw
And gave to other empty pots until
Each there had something in their pot. The men
Stood there, amazed to see the others give.
The stranger said, "If you can't copy good
That others do, then do a good your own.
Don't envy what you cannot have or do,
But rather spread the virtue only you
Can spread, and watch as people copy good
Instead of vice, for coveting's the source
Of every evil, and the viciousness
Of envy will destroy each virtue you
Should love. Determine to do good and you
Will lead the world to doing good as well."
And thus the stranger nodded, and he left.
From that day forth, the man chose to do good
And never envied any other man---
And thus he modeled virtue to the town,
Which prospered as resentment never found
A soil rich enough to sprout its weeds
And spread the deadly poison of its seeds.

My Burning Heat, My Light

I do not mean to burn you out--my wife,
My friends, acquaintances are blistered, red
From my white coals--I'm meaning well, but dread
Is why I've bred from blackened soles and strife.
You dance around me--each flame feels a knife--
I only want a welcome warmth to wed
Your weary soul to mine--I find instead
I only seem to transform every life.

I cannot seem to follow, lead--I stand
Alone--too conscious, too oblivious--
I know each of the rules and cannot play.
You're standing on the boat that you call land--
When I shine light, my flame's called dangerous--
You'll die of lies so long as I don't stay.

The Left Bank

I have no obligation to be right

I only have to show I’m interesting

For everyone to choose to make me king

My stories and my words must but delight

To be presented with the wedding ring

I only have to show I’m interesting

For everyone to choose to make me king

To grant me power you will never fight

My words persuasive in untruth that bring

You to your knees so cheerful so willing

I have no obligation to be right

I only have to show I’m interesting

For everyone to choose to make me king

The Strike

The armored vehicle was rolling down
To meet the men in armor, masks--the black
Of each were shadows in the evening sun--
The heavy vehicle smashed out a crack

Into a pothole none would come to fill.
With heavy arms, grenades the men in black
Joined with the armored vehicle and turned
Into an alleyway for their attack.

And in the aftermath, a pregnant woman,
Two children under five were dead, their black
Bodies were smoldering out in the yard
Of their still red-glowing charcoaled old shack.

And no one dared to care for the deceased
For fear that they'd also become well-policed.

Trapdoor

Beneath the ground and holding down the lid
And waiting for vibrations on its mesh-
Weave tube to cash in on its patient bid,
A spider the color of human flesh
Is waiting just for you so you will sing
Your siren-song, your sullen song, your black
Swan song before the needle-straws can sting
And lay you, writhing, upon your fleshy back.
But in that final song that charms the birds
And makes them weep for your eternal loss
You'll find at last the music in the words
Whose toadstools trip you--lay now in the moss.
The door is closed--it opens to a room
Where all your songs are wafting from your tomb.

Poetic Existence

A Song from "A Continent of Kings"

The sun is rising, dragons fly
We celebrate the dawn
The gods are smiling, won’t deny
The children who have gone.
The children who have gone to live
Among the unicorns
Are happier in death to give
Their spirits to new morns.
Their spirits in the morning light
Are dancing to the mell,
Are dancing to young girls’ delight,
Are dancing to the bell.
The dragons fly and lift their souls
Beyond the desert heat
And griffons growl and feed their foals
Upon the children’s meat.

A Dialectical Sonnet

You threads who make the warp and woof the world
Emerges from and which dictate the shade
Of who you are and out of which unfurled
The patterns out of which the world is made

Are clothed in neural words and storied form
You edit in your minds and social lives
That make you each distinct and cold, yet warm
In unity and all your social drives--

You duel with the dual and the third
In chaos comes, attracting stranger strife
And love, reflecting nature in each word
To bring forth children as a husband, wife.

All virtue must have freedom to be true
And freedom must have virtue woven through.

Renewal

The bark is rough on the back of my hand--
The river is gruff in its reign--enough
Of this gray demand, of this grimy, bland
And morbid brand of moldy fluff--

I'll bring from these woods a brighter song
To wind our coulds into wild new goods
From the crimes and the wrong you crafted so long
In the wretchedest throng, I wrenched from all shoulds--

The thrush is now singing through my thought
In single sounds ringing in a symphony spring
That rages from naught into a river of ought
Whose newness has bought what no one could bring--

I borrowed from nature her beauty, from time
I nurtured the clay of the now, yesterday
And I clasped them in rhyme and clambered to climb
From the righteous day's grime to ride and to play.

Inteview of Troy Camplin on Diaphysics and Hear the Screams of the Butte...

Your Words

Behold the supple sounds of words that slip
So easy from your fluid tongue and trip
Across your teeth and fall across your lip
That help you hold or make you lose your grip.

Do they make bonds of beauty, boundless--bear
New knowledge, wisdom, virtues, make us fair
Here in the world--do they bring smiles of care
Or bring on bravery and make us dare?

Beware the sinister, cruel words that weigh
And break and bruise, intended to delay
The births of dancers for the dawning day,
Designed to trip, make slip, our virtue's play.

With every word you utter all the Earth
Will tilt to Heaven or to Hell in worth.