Soiled Red
___________
Today is a good day for pomegranates
the old woman said, slipping a thumb
through the white meat to release
glistening red seeds, on this quiet
old summer afternoon
Because when the rains come
the earth will not return our call;
The melodies and rhythms of the turning will have passed
and there will be new lands of charm and cruelty
that each man must sing to.
Cynicism is a sign of barrenness in a civilization
and when anything that moves invites its scrutiny
the wise fool will still his mouth
and fill it instead will all the richness
that he might accidentally or willfully harvest or muster
as a tribute and a prayer.

A day only dawns once
the old woman said, dusting the seeds
of pollen from the corn kernals to
reflect all the brave and wonderful nuances
of a winter morning
And all that is accomplished on that day
and all that is Not
and all the afternoon dreamings
and the squawks from the schoolyard
and messages sent
and concerns unstaed
become a background for a new dawn
that no man can return from.
To hold up to the light a fruit before it is eaten
is to try to stop the sunset from yielding to night
and the wise fool knows that the three mischievous boys
who steal those apples will grow to be wizened old men
<whether or not> they eat them.


Remembering My Name
___________________
By moonlight I dream of hauntings
I dream again and again.
In real life, I live alone
and sometimes only the animal within me
remembers my name.
Regardless, I glow with energy,
I dissolve,
I make myself soft like a willow
and dance between the raindrops.
At midnight all calls are the same,
the call of the other AND the call of the soul.
And crawling down from the treetops of childhood
carrying in my pockets the apples of the world
I know nothing of inconsistencies
And carry on intricate conversations
with the ancestors of my dreams.

The World was Born in Urgency
and Lost Itself in Its Hurry
________________________________
And so it was in the meantime and then again
in the meantime and then again
At those last grief-filled moments at the edge of a cosmos
you will be at the place where the wind licks its own heels,
at that same still point also found at the
turning center of joy and ecstasy and creativity,
but you will find yourself
witholding your soul from the terrors of the world made flesh
and the tortured galaxies of winning and loss
and suffocating amid the low notes of an endless darkness
painfully challenging the sin of completion
that is our destiny
with the crook of a finger and one step to the side,
the world can flip from heaven to hell and back again
and the only control we have over it
is our own centered stance and
the scented healings of our calm breathing
we are our own celebration
we can be our own celebration
we are our own darkness
we cannot help being our own darkness

Does the heart work any less hard while its pounding goes unheard?
Does the orgasm hit less profoundly
if one masks the shivers or conceals the moans?
And so is grief any less devastating if one tries to deny it?This is where we fear to find ourselves:
Sinking in the devastation of life not giving us what we want
This is where we wish to find ourselves:
Swimming in the ecstastic union of the borderlands of being.
Yet they are the same constantly ebbing and flowing tide
the same clenched fist raised against the composted entropy
of non-being.

There is no place where the winds never blow,
nor would one want to live there.
When you grieve, grieve with power and majesty
and borrow honesty from those who can afford to give it.