Perhaps My Final Collection Of Poems

(This will be an ongoing collection that I add to as I write new poems.)

Rhymes From Desolation

“I received your letter yesterday”

given the ever tightening chains of time

and that I always seem to be behind

your poems are always mournful to me

and filled with what you could be

I see you ahead on the track

and notice you often look back

I just cannot catch up to what I have broken

nor unspeak the words I have spoken

“about the time my doorknob broke”

time is a rhyme that ripples our where

and sings us on toward our terror

and love shouts us into its widening flood

and bears witness in our blood

the door to our room

is the empty tomb

of the man that remains unfound

with the voice that lost its sound

“You ask me how I was doing”

the watery ball of my life I try to hold in my hands

leaks out between my fingers before anyone understands

whether or not I choose to agree

with the man who set me free

has never determined the light in my day

or the moonlight along my dark way

the void of beginning is the last thing to face

but I’m too old to pick up the pace

“Is that some kind of joke?”

at the bottom of all my deepest abysses

is the taste and feel of your kisses

your wonder filled eyes and your tiny hands

are words even God understands

but part of my soul went with her that day

and she left part of hers inside me to stay

maybe to finish what I meant to write

maybe to show me it’s all worth the fight

“All these people that you mention

Yes I know them they’re quite lame

I had to rearrange their faces

and give them all another name”

all humans seek the philosopher’s stone

but it’s something only found from alone

the human meta-narrative is smitten

with self-deception sung and written

the mental event of word

cannot be described with word

if the thing is you, all you can do

is become it through and through

“Right now I can’t read too good”

every rhyme I am is the same

a poet has no shame

I am just metered and lined

with who I love entwined

I don’t need to read of it

to know I’ll never quit

the truth was always in our bed

where I sung myself without my head

“Don’t send me no more letters, no”

all of it is only soul

don’t be afraid of losing your whole

kiss, hold, fondle and fuck me, lay with me without shame

your soul and word have long been in me, and I have given you the same

deep in the bright vermilion forest reside

where no one has lied or died

emission without soul transmission

is just a secretion that makes a deletion

“not unless you mail them from desolation row”

we all have to choose what we think is true

but the proof is a bliss passing through

the words that would help us understand

are never ever at hand

the language itself is the thing we are

and we healed with a numbing scar

and without Jesus Christ we are certain to face

the how of becoming a place

so rhyme us hard and think of us long

and shout the last word of our song

so deep in the void past this dying light

our echo will sound in your night

(Italic quotes are from Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row)

The Two Owls

“Only the worm of conscience consorts with the owl.

Sinners and evil spirits shun the light.”

(Friedrich Schiller)

You perch on her steps and watch

a pair of owl eyed images

Not to really guard against her falls

but maybe to be there when she can’t get up again

Whatever wisdom you two found

probably came from your own falls

and your fragile hearts and too tender ways...

Your early deaths were surely mistakes

You watch her day and night never even blinking...

I think you’re both waiting for her final fall

because I think you both lost your way

and you know her solitude has never left her without light

I think both of you think you’ll see the way

when she steps out of her life here

and soars into the light of the love she gave here

to a harder loving more truth driven man

I think you both linger because you saw that love

I think you both knew it in a way

but you both gave up easy and died too young

and now you both wish you had stayed

I was born a naive Prince in the kingdom of Earth

and it was the King who granted my sorrow

because it was what I asked of Him to know

the very first time I died

She is light in His firmament

and her love is always in His care

so take her hand when she heads for home

because she already knows her way

I’ll be here ‘til my work is done

and my words can no longer say here

but I’m certain to find you now and again

under the stars by her fire

Like Moonlight Poured

For Athena

“Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?”

(Bob Dylan)

A poet is like a whiskey glass

drained empty and always refilled

over and over with love that may pass

but never ever a single word spilled

In all the loving things you think of me

whatever I am is only really true

in the blush of the dreams you see

as the rush of my meaning pours into you

This shining blue green sphere in this wheeling sky

somehow draws us into the rhythm of this dance

to sing ourselves into someone’s song before we die

and be remembered on and on beyond this chance

It is the head-work of a fool

to argue how I know what I know

when heart-work was my only school

and all I could ever show

It was beauty that always held me here

and maybe fear of my own might

but I believed there was more beyond this mirror

than a void and always black night

Then God took away my fear of dying

though my broken heart could not heal

so every word now is aching for flying

and the meaning of the things I feel

Words carry on beyond the grave

and I cannot unsing my songs

I’ve tried to become who I want to save

but there are no rhymes for wrongs

I came to this place knowing a way

I had not forgotten our name

but maybe I needed to learn not to say

the things that would free us from blame

I know you saw me when we first met

I know you know I saw you

and when we kissed and decided not yet

it was because we already do

Whenever I hold you I want you to stay

and I know we both ache for that chance

but too soon I’ll face my going away

and you’ll have to stay in this dance

Our cells can be immortal they say

but we choose to have children instead

and though we face that consequence every day

we still long to lay together in bed

We should never be apart in soul

and our bodies just express the fact

that together we will always be whole

regardless of a choice not to act

In all the graces of womanhood

your beauty is second to none

but the world has never understood

the way of really becoming one

It is a simple sacred act of heart

to let yourself be with a man

but always remember right from the start

you’re both free to be what you can

After the first rush of blissful giving

that entangles and entwines your soul

sometimes a new soul can be living

of a man and a woman made whole

Beauty never fades that is respected

and left to freely be what it will be

and love can never ever be protected

only poured out like the moonlight on the sea

It’s then you can see yourself reflected

in the lifted passion of the rising tide

as the waves lap at the shore again connected

where once all aching lovers touched and sighed

being in love is always right

and jealousy is always wrong

to hold to each other deep in the night

is our own natural and divine song

unconditional love weaves the cosmos for all

and we know it wordlessly when we do

and we all ache for the peace of its blissful fall

and poets die for the words to somehow say it to you

soon enough I’ll rise humbled and wounded anew

but you can be sure you are always adored

even from that faraway shore I’ll come to you

glimmering on your tide like moonlight poured

The Last Of It

For My Boys

“I shoulda been a cowboy… just like Gene and Roy”

(Toby Keith)

in the picture

I was four or five years old

double holster rig two toy six-shooters

cowboy hat and an ornery grin

on a white sand beach

somewhere south of Bradenton Florida

there were no boardwalks or condos then

just beach after beach along the road

lived in a trailer on the Manatee river

caught starfish off the pier

got sand burrs in my feet

went to Sunday school on the beach

watched Warren Spahn through the fence

saw circus people in Sarasota

when they’d practice in their front yards

picked oranges from little trees past the park

my Mom would read poems to my sister and me at bedtime

and always come out to us in the cabana

when it thundered and lightninged

she smelled like flowers

gardenias maybe

her skin was smooth and soft

her hugs perfect

she made clothes for us

and baked cakes

my Dad would take us to the drive-in

buy us foot long hot dogs

in the big old Buick with the opera chairs in back

or the Packard with the leaky top

he built the cabana

and built our beds hanging from the wall

picked the sand burrs out of our feet

I was six or seven when Dad brought it home

a big cabinet two doored RCA television

black and white thirteen inch screen

on Saturday mornings I got to watch it

my sister watched Romper Room

I watched Gene Autry and Roy Rogers

the Melody ranch and Champion the horse

Trigger the golden Palomino

Bullet the wonder dog

they’d always chase and catch the bad guys

shoot the guns out of their hands

lasso them instead sometimes

they’d fight with anybody trying to do bad things

Gene even fought alien space invaders once

they both could sing and play guitar

Roy and his wife Dale always sang “Happy Trails”

in Sunday school we learned Gene’s song

“Jesus wants me for a sunbeam

To shine for Him each day”

we learned to sing and play

fight bad guys

be Christian

and grit our teeth

I wanted to be a cowboy

so how did “wear your heart on your sleeve”

a phrase essentially concerned with emotional honesty

mutate into “indulge your emotions”?

some academic says it’s healthy?

indulge in a display of emotional narcissism

with a complete disregard for anyone else?

healthy for who?

what happened to the “stiff upper lip and grit your teeth”?

has it really been replaced by the quivering lower lip

and the pathetic whimper

of weak self centered spoiled children

toothless drug abusers and social malcontents

all so averse to physical labor

that all they do is complain and whine?

when faced with the necessity of physical work

when they are asked to contribute to civilization

their feelings are so important to them

that nobody else’s feelings matter

and now they organize, touting socialism

expecting a way to live off the state

and spout anarchistic philosophy

and act out violently

expecting to break the law without consequences

rather than fight to preserve our way of life

it’s your right to be a fool

if you choose to be a bum, then be one

but be the strong silent type if you are

because your thoughts are a disease

and we don’t want our kids to catch it

enough already have

the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom

in secular terms

in patriotic terms

in real everyday life terms

that translates to: the fear of being useless

when people are no longer afraid of being useless

they become useless

Jesus still wants me for a sunbeam

and I try to shine for Him each day

and I’ve always been a cowboy

My Big American Life

For Jack

“Now those memories come back to haunt me, they haunt me like a curse

Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it somethin’ worse”

(Bruce Springsteen)

she told me I had talent and insight

told me to never stop writing

I wrote her sonnets and poems and essays

and she kept them after she left

she was generally aloof with me though

always called me by my last name

always seemed vexed with my behavior

but I suspected she was smiling inside

she never reached out to touch me

though she was physically affectionate with other students

I was dismissive to her myself

received her occasional compliments with diffidence

lost in my own awkward seventeen year old thinking

but a boy who was mostly a man by nine years old

just for the sake of survival

I never was honest with her about my home

I thought it was none of her business

I was strong enough by then anyway

to be sure of my getting away soon

and I expected women to be weak

and like my mother unable to protect me

I realize now that she adapted her behavior to mine

attempting to reach me on my terms

knowing I was truly a broken thing

she had a Masters degree from Lawrence

she taught me English and Latin

she told me I didn’t belong in such a backward little school

she knew I was emotionally ruined

and intellectually wasting away

making myself into things as I went

just to find some kind of acceptance

but then I wrote poems for her for that very reason

and for every woman I ever cared for

and never escaped the shadow I was born in

as I lived… my big American life

I used to wonder why I came here

why I would come here without a clue

I knew there was something important to do

something I thought I was supposed to remember

but I began to wonder how and why

I could have let myself forget it in the first place

I never made a dime from writing

or gained any recognition

whatever I had I earned with my hands

and a whole lot of sweat and blood

but after it all I still feel unfinished

and what I write still aches for meaning

as if it is there just beyond the words

the lines all seeming to cast the shadow

of something important yet to be written

I struggle with morals, I struggle with ethics

I constantly fight against self-condemnation

I’ve known love at its wildest and deepest

and been consumed in its unconditional flames

only to emerge from it charred and scarred

and forced to live on as less than I was

I fought with the words and wrote what I could

and suffered the inestimable loss

but the life that I clung to was destined to end

even though I only lived it for someone else

I know that I owe everyone’s love some lines of explanation

some kind of translation of the language of the universe

into beautiful words of the plain and ordinary kind

at the very least just to forgive myself…

for my big American life

Even When You Forget The Words

“When the breakdown hit at midnight there was nothing left to say

I hated him… and I hated you when you went away”

(Bruce Springsteen)

it’s like your chest is ripped open while you watch

and you can’t hold yourself together with your hands

and the hole is never healed once it’s there

and you keep trying to feel what you used to feel

and you become terrified of forgetting her

as you adjust to being less alone, than you once were together

at first you went to Him humbly on your knees

begging with all your heart to be good enough to see her again

every night dreaming her alive again to hold her

but waking up to her dying every morning

yet you knew you could not linger in the dreams too long

because you knew you’d never leave her if you did

you can’t really sense how angry you are with Him

because you are so broken and torn open over her

the pain of it numbs you to anything other than her memory

and you realize how flawed and helpless you really are

you want her to return, or you want to go to her

and either way it involves changing yourself to His rules

time passes and you watch your dreams as you grow old

your energy and passion draining away day by day

your insight and your memory growing more unreliable

your mourning more confusing as you numb

the spectacular intimacy you once had together

becomes an unspoken fact you seem to no longer need

you start to wonder why the passion you once shared

seems not to be important or even needed after death

your sense of loss grows deeper as you slowly tire

and then you realize that she is never lost to you

that it isn’t anger over losing her that kept you from Him

that her love gave you peace with Him while she lived

suddenly you know you slipped into the shadows as a boy

because He refused to share His secrets with you then

and so you fought against His rules and guidance

even though He gave you every answer that you needed

you used your words and rhymes to batter at His heart

and still He loved you onward in everyone you loved

and then you know that you can sing again with her

and together rhyme the unfolding world ahead of you

and understand the reason and the purpose of every life

even though He only speaks with such a steadfast subtle quiet

the rhythm and rhyme you made with her rejoices always

even when you forget the words

A Certain Rage

“Do not go gentle into that good night,

old age should burn and rave at close of day.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”

(Dylan Thomas)

his claws have reached the petals of her innocence

the memetic deviance has swelled into her mind and soul

its dull and stupefying infection spawning the lynch mob

that wants to hang America by the neck until dead

self condemned we cower burdened with our sins

murderers all, baby killers, hedonist, greedy and selfish

ironically unsure of capital punishment for criminals

she can feel and hear each day the fabric slowly tearing

the sealed glass cases cracking like the Spring ice-out in Alaska

the words and meanings lost in the fever of the disease

her Declaration, Constitution, Bill of Rights, electoral processes

twisted, mocked, usurped, and fraudulently seized for anger

not the anger spawned against some named oppressor as claimed

but the hatred of a pubescent boy for himself falsely born

with the quivering lip and unsteady gait of an immature fool

he turned the power of literary witness toward its lowest purpose

stripping faith away to appease his simple minded frustration

with his own mental and physical inadequacies raging indignation

how dare someone keep us from the secrets of our own nature

how dare someone tell us we are inadequate and uninformed

it is a sacred right to enjoy the fruits of our lowest thoughts

Lo here! Lo there! the minion Marx comes dancing and howling

he does not live again but his uncertain rage still rages against uncertainty

he does not live again but his comical evil still incites the mentally joyless

he does not live again but he left his record to remain beyond his life

academia has long sucked up his foul juice through their rebellious straw

and inculcated generations with his uncertain rage as we refrained

loathe to discomfort our adult selves with pointless nuisance questions

my life experience is long, my sorrow and joy nearly measured out

my English is adequate, my resolve is up to the literary task

I would corner catch and kill his remnant demons in our world

and send his juvenile delinquent students to reform school

it is so pathetically ordinary for comfortable people to never grow up

and incite envious uncomfortable others around them to rebellion

boys are always hungry, old men not so much, my rage is certain

Working

“Well Papa go to bed now, it's getting late
Nothing we can say can change anything now
Because there's just different people coming down here now and they see things in different ways
And soon everything we've known will just be swept away”

(Bruce Springsteen)

At first it’s just to get money to buy a car

and cigarettes and beer

then it’s to get a woman

then it’s to take care of the kids

then it’s to buy a house to put them in

and there’s not enough to keep them happy

but you can’t stop

and you can’t start over

not really

and you go without sleep until you can’t

and every few years you crash and burn

but you get up again every time

after the car accidents

after the kidney stones

after the deaths

after the heart attacks

after the mistakes

in spite of your character flaws

you lose your money

you lose your car

you lose your woman

you lose your kids

you lose your house

and you still work

and every day hurts

but there’s nothing else of value to do

except work to ensure

that you die working

because there is nothing important about your life

and nothing else anyone can say about you

that gives your life a meaning

he was born

he worked

he died

still at endless thankless hard work

and if there is a God and a heaven

you can bet he’ll still be working there

because he doesn’t know how to do anything else

and he can’t stop

and no one else can stop him

he’s a horse in a corral

walking endlessly in circles

so so beautiful to watch

as he falters to the ground

and huffs his last breath

staring out at the sky

and his next job

my God what a glorious end

“So say goodbye it's Independence Day
Papa now I know the things you wanted that you could not say
But won't you just say goodbye it's Independence Day
I swear I never meant to take those things away”

(Bruce Springsteen)

What Did You Expect?

“Like all dreamers I mistook disenchantment for truth.”

(Jean Paul Sartre)

“Abandon all hope you who enter here”

(Dante Alighieri)

It seemed too simple to be true

It seemed easier to be comfortable and wait

Facts can only come from science after all

If you learn enough maybe you can save yourself

and find your own reward for the effort

If you choose to be complicated

and trust in your ability to unravel

even if your choice is only to avoid simplicity

it’s because you have no faith in simple things

and your razor after the fact is too late

You’d rather watch a box of springs explode

and figure out where they all go afterwards

even though you can only take a guess

where they go and what they do

and you call it learning and science

You cannot disassemble a thought with a thought

to analyze and understand its physical dynamic

without a vast clutter of more created thought

Contemplative observation itself is creation

and a simple fact that is true of you in the universe

But you don’t think anything simple can be true

You need complicated reasons for simple truths

and you are addicted to creating

You are dazzled by what you can do

and just sons and daughters of chaos and vanity

You don’t need a license or any other legal right to create

It’s simply what you do because it is you

You are not a you without creating

and what you create is you when you are done

and in that wasteland of unrecognized facts you are doomed

It is a fact you are doomed to chaos and vanity

It is a fact you are addicted to creating just that

It is a fact there is no rehabilitation available

It is a fact you will die and become your created you

It is a fact you can be saved or doomed by what you think is fact

So sing me simple with simple thoughts and words

because understanding is only in loving simple facts

The simplest fact is the most ignored for its simplicity

It is pure science and pragmatic to know

that who you love is all you are

And what did you expect when you abandoned God and your freedom?

What did you expect when you mistook science for an argument against God?

What did you expect after ten thousand years of human suffering and death?

What did you expect when you too died doomed in your own rebellious thoughts?

What did you expect when the United States of America collapsed?

What did you expect… technological salvation?

What did you expect… scientific immortality?

What did you expect… self-justification before God?

What did you expect… blissful everlasting life?

What did you expect… your own universe to run?

Your thoughts make you cheaper than that

A comfortable life was more than enough to buy you

space and time to while away with useless pursuits

enraptured with creating your own private deviations

your thoughts slobbering drunk and swaggering as if God’s love did not exist

What did you expect when the United States of America collapsed?

What did you expect… applause and cheering and maybe a movie?

Or was it the most unprecedented stupidly self-induced human error in history

initiating the worst and longest period of worldwide human suffering ever recorded?

What did you expect… that your creation would not come to be?

What did you expect?

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