Apotheosis

A tender heart is only fit for pain;
The world thinks gentle things invite a prick.
One's love too freely given bids disdain;
A treasure needs a box both hard and thick.

Make safe your heart; grow rings on rings of wood
While fields of garish flowers die below.
The hand that picks them soon forgets they stood,
But you'll remain—a skeleton of snow.

Or slough off growth entirely; be the man
That Nature strives to shape, but always fails.
Become a god to rule the terrene span—
A haughty statue that no life assails.

But know, though flesh is prone to bleed and peel,
A rock, once duly scathed, can never heal.

The Sadness

I am the happiest sad man you will ever meet.

I am happy and optimistic about almost everything

But in my heart is a seriousness

A sadness

A sharp-bladed truth

But the sadness is not something I do not want

It binds me to a purpose

It shows me a path of symmetrically methodical exuberance

Each step is meticulously paved and positioned

Very few can or want to follow it

Because it is not a follower's path

It opens up to be formed and led by the force of that sadness

The inner sadness that brings order and sensibility

It does not bring tears or pain or anguish

It brings stability and pragmatism to a world run amok in the fantastic

It is the sadness that allowed there to be a foundation to fantasy

It is true fantasy, and therefore is not fantasy

It is truth

And it is mine.

A burden, but a blessing

As it weighs down it teaches

As I struggle I am strengthened

I embrace the sadness

Truth

There is a point at the tip top of the tallest building

It means nothing.

There is a summit on the highest mountain

It means nothing.

There is a spot in the depths of the human heart that can only be found by true seekers

This is everything.

I float on clouds for days and weeks in an endless aurora

The peace, the calm, the progress never stops

There is no ceiling but the infinity of light and space

Continuity and complexity come from the simple, rawness of matter untouched

But it all has the same origin and goes to the same place

Only souls of men can choose this complexity or writhe in simplistic instability

The great perfection in this complexity is God, and we approach him or we balk in ignorance

For if it is done in pure knowledge, we deny our progression and our defiance destroys us

I cannot be taken from this path

The light and truth has penetrated my soul and filled my heart

It beats for life, love, and complexity

It beats for Godliness and charity

It cannot contain the glow

The fire burns and needs to fill the great expanse

A desire to love, teach, create, and grow into the everlasting

No bounds exist

I, we, all are limitless potential.

Giving in

He has taken you

You have no more control

You have been slowly coaxed into a tar pit

The sludge silently swallows your clean human skin, catapulting your spirit into a fiery chasm of ineptitude and dalliance.

You cannot feel anymore

It is all the same

You only notice ever so slightly the extremes

If there is too much noise it is garble and delicious debauchery to you

If there is too much laughter it is the tender kneading of a shiatzu massage

Your lasciviousness is frighteningly predatory

You are becoming a demon

You ooze an animal irrationality and feed it with raw meat

You see no need to turn

You cannot bear the sun

You do not see the sun

Only in fairy tales

The dark is real

The dark is palpable

The void and vacant nothingness is tantalizingly tacit in your request to rule it

You are your worst fears, doubts, pains, and nightmares

You feel no security and slide into the comfort of a momentary pleasure

It is all malleable, changing, shifting as the wind on the dunes of infinity

You are falling in a shaft, a chasm of endless futility

Suspended but falling

There is no hope for progression in your eyes

Just a faded reflection of a jaded pragmatism

It feeds your nothingness and soaks you to death a thousand times

Forever

I wish to trudge the mud

A distant rumble of a car engine
A whisk of wind
A bird chirping
The flip flop of my flip flops fittingly sounding off as I walk
The sun is high.
The day is hot.
Few leave their air-conditioned caves,
But I walk.

At night now I hear the dull roar of a plane overhead.
Those same cars whish by.
I hear the hum of the air-conditioners.
But otherwise still night
The birds have gone to sleep.
There are no crickets in this town.
Two young girls peddle by on bikes gossiping about the inane frivolities of a somewhat pointless life.
And then the sprinklers go off giving life to this desert.
The cool water makes the air thick and refreshing.

The day as always, has been full.
Full of work mostly, and little reprieve.
I hope to one day get a little and I think the day is vastly approaching.
I see the twilight of my summer work just as I see its promise emerge.
It has been interesting, consuming, and altogether a bittersweet symphony.
I don't want to think too much on it now because that is all I do.

I'd like to escape life for a while.
Run free from the restricting bonds of time to do anything or nothing and not feel guilt, pain, or pleasure.
To be free of everything with meaning would give way to nothingness.
It would be drowning.
It would suffocate life and make it worthless.
Oh worthlessness! I envy thee.
Well, we can't have that.
So onward I trudge.
Wishing it were through mud, but only sand in this desert.

Lost Art

It's not like I was some magical potion that was irresistible to all who tried.
But she was the only one who didn't seem to fall under my spell.
I suppose that's what made her all the more attractive.
She wasn't stunning or strong, but delicately nuanced.
A rouge flavor that escapes palatal description, but once tasted becomes all that one wants.
But it becomes a man to differentiate among a want, a need, and perhaps an obsession.
The former two are healthy, and the latter frightening.

I don't even really think on her anymore now.
As I look back I realize I only do so to understand a pattern.
I thought I had an art perfected to the hilt,
But she maintained a demeanor that made each brush stroke like painting on sand.
Not a sand that is static on paper, but a shifting dune that enveloped me, swallowing my art forever.
It was the dethroning of a system.
But 'why?' is the question that makes it all worthwhile.
An enigma that escapes me, just as she did.

Enough with Shooting Stars Already!

"Whatever dies, was not mixed equally."
--John Donne

Let foolish love, itself to immolate,
Trail fiery clouds below more stalwart hearts.
Unfit to stand, too volatile to wait,
It kindles blazes from discordant parts.
Celestial matter sundered from its source,
It clashes with telluric atmospheres.
Intent to run a self-consuming course,
The torrid sigh descends—and disappears.
The love that spans the sky illumines more
Than silly fancy with its streaking flares,
So let us make no specious metaphor
By which to justify inane affairs:
The foreign lamps we deem to be less bright
In truth burn brighter—but with distant light!

A Pauper's Plea

Make perfect tally of the debt I owe
for every kiss you rendered me,
and I will pay with interest.

What currency can so indemnify
love’s debtor for the pains accrued
except a kind repayment?

What's now the going price for ardent smiles?
I fear I trade in deficit,
so let me make requital.

In truth, I know the stumbling rites of love
cannot be quantified or priced,
though they may seem a trifle.

But we have fallen out of pure exchange,
and so, I pay—at least in part—
with hours spent on verses.

Make no allowance for this debt I bear;
I'll stay however long I may
within your debtor’s prison.

The Reader

I suppose I am my own worst demon
Controlling my every thought and perception
I mold my reality like a ball of clay
Supple and malleable; it does what I want
I suppose some could say I control nothing
But I do control my perception of control
If I believe I do, I do
And that's really good enough
I think I can feel more than some people
But at the same time I think many see me callous
I am constantly watching
I observe the world
I live within my own snow globe
And shake it up from time to time
I can allow myself distractions
Or I can be closed off to just one
I can sit by myself, but I'm never alone
I constantly think of someone else
It just seems impossible to think of me and only me
Why should I be so important to myself?
If I serve no one in serving myself it is futile
But I suppose the fact is that I do
When I think of me, I think of you
It's strange how some people affect me
Not bad, but peculiar
Some are fat, stout, tall, lank, lean, or absolutely delicious
I am led to consumption of some types more than others
I feed on the lively ones
Their energy is contagious
But it does not infect me, for I have it already
It recharges a battery already working
Skin tones, eye color, hair, curves, faces
Patterns behind the eyes
Mannerisms and inflection
There is little that escapes me
We are all so transparent
It is impossible to avoid inspection
Just give it time
Your beauty is exquisite
You intrigue me fully
There are so many facets unexplored
So many shelves and tombs that you don't even know
You have so many blank pages
So many full pages
You cram some things between the lines and in the margins
And other things go ignored
But on the whole you are delectable
Not in any way of impropriety
But you create a fascination
A growing fascination
And I think by exploring you I will find myself
A peace that I have not felt yet
A calm that I want
It will come
As I am an open book or books
Let us read

Spiral Slide

I.

I yell at myself and fight with a side that is me and is not me all in the same moment
I agonize over what could be a supposed death of that angel that sits on my shoulder
The devil thinks he has a new sand box
Filled with hot wheels, buckets, and plastic dinosaurs
But what he thinks is a play place is actually a sifter
And I catch all the weevils in the flour
I don't like extra protein in my bread

II.

I am placid and calm, directed and comfortably moving
I am irreverently seismic and as inconstant as the wind
I am angry and irritable, my eyes fill with red
I am happy and ambitious, success happens like a Midas touch
I do not want to be what I am
I want to be what I was, am, and will be
But at last I am me

III.

You cannot force me down this spiral slide into a box of wood chips
I can see the puddle at the bottom, brown and murky
It has just rained and the light refracts from the metallic surface
It blinds and heats, and the humidity is palpable
If I sit much longer on top my thighs will burn
Simmering flesh and a sweaty brow
Letting go I slide and the metal grips my skin, squeaking me to a stop

Goldleaf

They bring me gilded things in prickly hands
and stroke my spine with vomit lines
that chill and daze in wonder.

There lies a loneliness in that embrace
that nothing buys and nothing frees;
it only shuts what’s empty.

What messengers have bloody rapier eyes
and skin like frozen lunar plains
that shroud the sun a moment?

I know what makes the blinded spirit bleed
when reaching out for greater things
to come and bloom within it.

Unfold the cage they’ve made of trembling arms;
not all that grasps will bind you down.
Put down your empty boxes.

Come fill me up with something I can feel
before my stomach shrivels up
in one great gush of hunger!

Damn Beautiful

Damn beautiful!
The rain falling so sublime
Idle chatter of demigods
Soft blanket and quiet repose
Glimmer of street lights
Reflecting on asphalt puddles
Serenely chaotic
Sensuous lullaby
Feel of comfortable omniscience
Regurgitated silence
King of man
Bane of nature
Fulfilling my existence at rest
Contemplating unbeknownst
Changing the world
Swiftly, deftly, now.

The Milk Maid

Have I forgotten myself?
Swept up in a delicious delirium of playful love?
Is it folly or future?
Am I fearful or inept?
What step to take or path to cross I know not
I cannot know for sure
I must put my neck to the guillotine and hope for mercy
Ann Boleyn is not me
I am Sir Francis Drake
Defender of the English country by sea
Destroyer of the Spanish Armada
How can a milk maid make me weak at the knees?
She is so fair
So joyful
She makes me happy like no Spanish galleon ever could
I would fight ten thousand fleets to see her smile
To feel her warm embrace
To touch those soft lips
Such tenderness the sea will never know
But I can know for a moment and it would be enough
A glance of affirmation would suffice as my heart yearns for sweetness
The sea has battered me and left my tongue dry and salty
It thirsts for a water of life that she only can give
A milk maid coming with her pail
I shall not wait for meat
Milk will suffice

Trifles and Reticence

To disannul a single trifling word,
How many fervent lines must I compose?
A seed of love, in foolishness interred,
Would take a hundred thousand to disclose!
A pittance were a hundred thousand lines
If they could free this spirit’s eloquence;
A field of seed lies dormant and repines
Beneath the dryness of my reticence!
A hundred thousand lines were not enough
To coax each pious seedling into view,
But once we’ve gathered all the fruit thereof,
I know I’ll find another line or two.
(For that in which the shattered sunlight shines
Is surely she who streaks the sky with lines.)

I Am Corban

My plea may be to take me as I am,
But not because I cleave to mortal flaw;
My vices to expunge, my faults to damn,
I’ll venture forward when your waves withdraw.
I’ve feared your eyes—not shying from reproach,
But only the reflection I would find.
This ocean path is daunting to approach,
But only dearth and darkness lie behind.
Myself to kill, myself to recreate,
Myself to lose and gain where you reside:
I’ll brave your rift—myself to consecrate—
And smile upon you from the other side.
For loving eyes must dare to rise and see
The image of the man who ought to be.

Ex Nihilio

There is an answer in your smile,
but questions die like hydra heads--
or blooming things
that spill their seeds
when picked.

If I'm your light,
your world's too dark.

But how can I deny
that nothing shines like you
when all you see is me?

You know that I deny
the nonexistence of the gleam.

So there's an answer to your smile.

Humility and vanity
can blame each other all they want.
I only see one tide of life
in cutting hands that quake to hold.
I only know that shadows flee
when you make wonders of my wondering.

Mired in Progress

Drifting, floating, yielding to the current
A steady push of ticks and fluid flashes of dim light
Opulence comes and goes as does eventfulness, usefulness
Wallowing or wading through sandy breezes of mind masturbation
A trickle of truth and a glimpse of glory fading as the sun retires
"We must live for the moment," they say, and fill our calenders to the point of bulging and explosion
Well get me a belt, suspenders or a bottle of laxatives
We are not meant to be so full of this mindlessness
There is more to be said for the calm reticence and meticulous craftiness that an idle mind and a patient nap bring
So I wallow. But mired in progress. The kind that the world cares little about.

San Joaquin Dog

Salivating, dripping in a metal bowl.

Cold, silver in the edges that corrode on the earth

An orange tree above, smells of over-ripe citrus and wet weeds

Squashed blossoms scattered by his ears drooping as his eyes see nothing

Cataracts, debilitating but enabling and even enhancing his life

His nose has gotten better; he can smell chickens

Clucking with droopy giblets flopping on corn kernels

Tasty like pig ear chew and old boat shoes

Slyly waiting, feeling the crunch of gravel beneath biped feet

A rattle of a pot with a wooden din of a moldy unwashed spoon

Salivating into puddles as the metal bowl fills

"Whoa buddy, you were hungry."

Bowl upturned and scattered kibble makes for a welcome pillow as the day fades into black.

Refrigerator Magnets

The beach island woman did a magnificent turquoise dance in my blue heart and by evening I devoured her eternal morning beauty, though Cupid burns chocolate lust and desires to wave flames all night.  I felt the fresh moonlight embrace my tongue for a sacred caress with naked hands, and music between us clouded this delicious fantasy under a gentle ocean aroma of champagne.

There is no moon--the colinas of Salina Cruz are too tall, too steep.

I am tired; tired of hills. Tired of walking. Tired of the smell of burning, of castoffs, of gutter-rubbish. Tired of junk-metal chabolas,[1] of dead-end roads.

I follow the rim of the street-lip; discreet—near-invisible in the unlit edges; Close my eyes.

Gather my jacket in close around me, pull it tight; shut it to the curb lamps, to the door-lights, the tapers in the windows—

Shut it to the voices; costermonger voices. Cantina voices. Dog voices:

Shut it to the calls for Matias Romero, for Ixtepec, for Juchitan-tan-tan. Calls of "Ven, Papacita"[2]

from the crimped putos and night walkers pussyfooting behind their drab maquillaje and jacklit posterns.

He stopped me at the corner:

A short man. A swart man; a lank, A-shirt, rag-head man. Chupado[3]:

He holds up a hand: the empty one; tatuada with gang signs: Tres Puntos.[4] Lurches:
"Help me, for the love of God." he stammers. "Me voy a matar:"[5]

He sits on his heels, rests his face on his cauama,[6] on the adobe.

I turn to pass him, pass his ratty piss-reek alley. Drunks always try to touch me, wheeze in my face, cry on my shoulder for money.

He touches my shoulder. "Talk to me, Hombre. talk. Talk! Hablame pues, por el amor de Dios!”[7]

You are a man of God, no?" Gestures up. I nod.

He blinks hard, falls back a pace— "You must talk . . . forgive me—pero tu, que sabras?[8] My sins . . . I've sinned against God, against projimo?[9] Tu sola, Virgen Santisima!"[10] Crosses himself.

I don't want to know.

"You must!" Pauses profoundly, extends his finger; "you are hombre de Dios. My sins . . . I killed a man. Two men; one was murder;" he bends over, sobs, bites his knuckles.

I cannot pass him. He has lain down in the middle of the street.

"What do I do? Tell me . . . how am I forgiven hombre de Dios? Tell me!" I prop him up.
"Save me hombre de Dios!" He tugs my hand. Begs.

I cannot save him.

"You don't understand: you didn't feel how the knife entered his neck, opened it . . . you didn't feel his sangre, his blood, how it spilled! How like a cochino!"[11] He weeps—sibilates in his throat; slavers on his bleeding knuckles—heaves, wipes.

There is blood on his shirt; he has broken the bottle somehow, cut his palms.

"And where is his money? I don't have his money! I am too tired and sick to live, too covarde[12] to kill myself."

He is screaming now (not at me)."My crime—you must talk to me—you must absolve it: you are hombre de Dios!"

Now whispering: "Por mi culpa," fist beating his chest, turning little circles;"Por mi propia culpa."[13]

He burbles incoherently; can’t hear me.
I leave him on the curb—desperate, babbling: chewing his fingers—too terrified to confess to the police, to the priest, to abreact: just suffer, self-flagellate; cut himself on the broken glass, Embriagarse[14] . . .
[1] hovels
[2] A prostitute’s come on.
[3] Drunk
[4] Lit. Three points. A gang whose symbol is three dots tattooed on the hand.
[5] I’m going to kill myself
[6] 2 liter glass beer bottle
[7] Talk to me, for the love of God!
[8] What would you know?
[9] Fellow man
[10] You only, Virgin most holy! An invocation of the Virgin Mary
[11] pig
[12] Coward(ly)
[13] Lit. for/through my own blame/fault. Part of the Catholic liturgy
[14] Inebriate himself

Jam and T

Poor sopping wenches slicing

T slippery jam

Masking lost dreams of surrender

TO SEE FOR a DAY BEYOND

Self-love gone from panes

Broken by inconsequential    Butterflies

Remember the CALL

Of the chosen lamb

Chops

Liver or deceiver but giver of life

Lost in frenzied silent romance

BY Beethoven bridged the gap to twin

Cities on a Hill

A BEACON to beckon the lost and found

 

She calls for more T

The Idiot Myself

For months I toiled unnoticed but lauded.

My pen was mighty and my ethic apparent,

But all the while I my good friend defrauded, 

And the reality of my morality transparent.

Day came and day went on the train I would sit, 

Kneading through my thoughts unrepentant a twit.

The tasks came and went as a show starts and ends, 

My will not His, too afraid to make amends.

I had broken a bond forged in love and trust,

For nothing more than momentary lust.

My mind inward said, "Leave it for another day,

The morrow soon cometh and it fades away."

The truth was it dug a whole in my heart, 

Not tugging the strings but shredding the soul, 

The integral man, made a watery tart, 

Crumbling like a bridge with an unpaid toll.

Justice sought me, and I left it buried, 

Along with myself and my life I once felt,

But He came to collect, my chains he carried, 

To bring me to terms in hell to melt.

Out with the lies, the deceit and the pain, 

I had nothing left but tatters and reflection.

I came clean with my indencency in a way so sane, 

My words seemed hollow and full of defection.

I expected no relief, nor exoneration.

I played the cards given me with no expectation.

My crime forgiven by him I forsook, 

But forgiveness of myself for that I still look.

Goodbye Innocence

Everyone knows that the innocence is gone:

Run away with the whirlwind breeze of life's depravity, 

Jumped the fence to supposed greener pastures.

It left me like an astronaut leaves earth's gravity.

What was thought to be known is away and done.

I saw the light as it departed the white fixtures, 

But I see it close and it's not white nor so bright.

A darkness fills the sparkling specks of glimmering nascence.

There is no pure light; all is through jaded prisms.

If it be, I fear not but embrace the fog with might.

The truth is more than the light but its essence.

This life is not a void but a piss poor euphemism.

Driving and the Day Lilies

I got seven.

I got three.

That's only half of yours!

But you're better than nothing.

Thank you. - gladly compared to nothing

You're better than the day lilies.

They're not even blooming.

But if they were you'd still be better.

Aw, that's poetic.

Perhaps you don't stop traffic.

I look scared.

And I just glare.

But I'd stop for people.

That's because you're better than the day lilies.

But then the others are not better?

Not even a smidge.

But they must be better than something

But that something is most certainly not the day lilies.

Aw, like me.

Yes, like you.

Renaissance

Spring.  Easter. Rebirth.  New life.  Not perfect birth.  But a beautiful birth.

Buds.  Blades.  Blood.  Suffering.  Renewal.  Cleansed by death.  Made pure through pain.

Outrun Dark

Can I outrun the rain when I'm walking under cover of darkness? - ESCURO

Can I abate the flood of tears that well up in the cold? - FRIO

Pools overflowing, trickling from the corners of my eyes - OLHOS

For a moment I thought I saw spring

A placid thaw caught up in the moment

But not to be

One moment the sun pours through a hole in the sky - CÉU

The next moment the sky shuts up and cold fills my glass - COPO

I drink it deep with delicious disdain

So good to feel the contrast

So splendid to taste the bitter - AMARGO

Tempted by the sweet into believing it is all - TUDO

But it means nothing without the clouds, the dark, the rain, the cold.

A flake flutters past me

Another trailing to the spongy soil -TERRA

Like a piece of paper from a desk

A desk seldom written on by man but but God

The sky fills with a new white light - LUZ

That blinds as the flakes turn into clumps

For St. Patrick's Day I saw green but now no longer

Winter reclaims the life for today - HOJE

But I appreciate the whole

Every little drop, patter, splash, gust, rustle

It reminds me of a beam, chirp, smile, breeze, light

It envelopes my heart and enwreathes my soul - ALMA

Hope from all angles!

Lovely she comes

Riding High