Monday, January 23, 2023

The Song of the Prophet

Eternity is present to the soul

That pain brings to the light. I follow fate

On which my will will freely dance. My bowl

Is filled with spirit. I will not debate

With God for what He’s given me—a voice

That speaks in only truth, in poetry

That sings. Come sing along. Come sing, rejoice

In all the complex love that makes us free.

You thirst? I pour out what has overflowed

The bowl God filled. There’s more than you can know—

Perhaps I cannot speak all that God showed,

And I am but a rhyming afterglow.

I am the moon who in the night will pour

The light out of my bowl to show the door.

Monday, January 16, 2023

At the Abyss

 I stood upon the edge of one of these

Before—they look the same, but different—

You stare, they stare, it’s you—the slightest breeze

And you could fall, it seems. I have been sent

Again, sent to stare at the abyss—bliss

Of love, bliss of death—nothing would dare tear

Me away from the source. My love for this

Was hereby made and made all that is fair.

 

But now I know where I am standing, dark

And infinite below—the things you know

Don’t bring the fear that you once had—I grew

Into this daemon-driven poet-lark,

And this new black abyss will help me grow,

Direct me to the nothing that I know. 

Monday, January 9, 2023

In Fragments Shall I Live

Your soul contains my self—I cannot die
So long as you, my children, live—

Death rises on the sunset—it’s a sigh

Of shadows every life must give.

You stare at the horizon, and you say, 

“It’s death.” I say, “Approach.” You say, “I can’t.”

Indeed, the red horizon of the day

Recedes—you run, you run, you pant,

But all horizons must recede—the sun

Descends behind it, though, for you 

Can never reach the setting dun—we’re done

One day, and we pay what’s due.

 

Your soul contains my self—each poem I 

Have written someone reads, each book

I publish, play someone has seen, reply 

In scholarship—my words a brook

Delivering my mind to others’—my songs

The music of my mind that flow

Into a delta—all my rights and wrongs,

My vanities and virtues grow

And grow with all the minds who take my words

And make new meaning out of them, and eat the curds

That form out of my milk—are for your sake. 

 

Your soul contains my self—this poem’s worth

Is measured in remembered rhythms, rhymes—

And after I am dead, they will give birth

To minds all holding mine throughout all times

That people understand these words—the sun 

Will never set—Apollo rises soon—

The earth will turn—daylight has begun

Upon another face—another noon

Will bring enlightenment—under my tree

Will others seek to flee the heat, but light

Is dancing through the leaves. I’ll never be, 

In my becoming, night, the moon in flight. 

Monday, January 2, 2023

Flight

The leaves are made of emeralds, chrysoberyl

jade stems supporting amethyst flowers

opening to opal needles hovering,

darting in and out of their tubes.

We watch, hovering on wings of air

without caring where we go,

drifting among the smoky quartz trees,

malachite weeds tickling the soles of our feet,

long leaves sliding in between our toes,

nose tickling from amber pollen

drifting, flying through the quartz air.

Our freedom comes with consequences such as these,

pollen blown from trees and weeds,

diamond serpents biting our heels without warning—

but we'll always choose our waxen wings of air,

our flight, so lifting, so brilliant— 

amour.