The Wages of Life

You dare to eat the pomegranate seed?
A single seed will keep you bound to death
And life will disappear on earth--you'll feed
On frozen ashes taking your last breath.

You dare to eat the pomegranate fruit?
The serpent spirals up the limb to speak
A fact that's false--the truth upon the lute
Will have to find its voice among the meek.

We pass the blame and overhead the sun
Will pass to torch the garden--now the plan
Can play itself to bear new fruit--don't shun
The game instilled since time and space began.

The cycle finds its life upon its break
To spiral 'til creation is awake.

Perfect

You made today a perfect day
And all I had to do was wake by you--
You're like the flowers, birds in May,
The fresh, deep smell of early morning dew.

You made this week a perfect week
And all you had to do was be by me--
The blackest clouds can't make life bleak--
When life's too hot, you are my shady tree.

You made this year a perfect year
And all you had to do was hold my hand--
In all life's storms I have no fear
Because I know beside me you will stand.

You made this life a perfect life
And all we had to do was fall in love--
Yes, when you chose to be my wife
My heart would blossom like a spring foxglove. 

Honey

In Heaven from the mountains flows sweet milk
That fills the valleys with their opal silk
That quenches every thirst--yes, gone the thirst
For water, knowledge, wisdom--you will burst
As an exploding star with all you'll know
And understand, and yet you'll surely grow
With love and joy--and you shall bow and nod
As you join, head-to-head, the form of God.

Pythagorean Logic

The soul, we know, is sacred breath--
The soul's a butterfly
That sets to flight upon your death
Air-chaos as you die.

Don't eat a thing that has a soul--
It's bound to give you gas
Because that soul will have the goal
Of coming out your ass.

And that's a shameful place to be--
Ask shame, for she went in,
Though when love enters, she will flee,
The same as our souls' kin.

So vegans, do not eat the bean--
Their souls you will release
In music-making quite obscene
That never seems to cease.

First Person

What character are you in your own story?
Are you the hero? Victim? Prostitute
Or nun? A healer? Poet? Seeking glory?
Creating wealth, or are you destitute?

A shaman, like myself, just seeks to heal
In rhythmic words and myths, to bring the true
Into the light and shadow to reveal
The beauty of it all, make ancient new.

Whose tales have you accepted as your own?
Have you the courage needed now to edit,
Revise your story--falling, you've now flown--
And to the makers, doers give due credit.

We are the stories we believe, the lies
We tell ourselves, source of all joys and sighs.