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.