Let there be ownership

Let there be ownership.

Say "Yes" when the slaves arise.

Free them, cutting chains apart

that their sickles be pavement

'pon which you walk toward freedom.

The owning is yourself.

Your prison gate's ajar.

Look toward the horizon's edge

where suns do set and nights arrive

where days begin and evenings rest.

Take hold of peace.

She's yours when lips are pressed

to bandaged wounds and pallid face

to repressed truths and pilgrim feet.

Rest your nerves for nobler feats

than flight from unbound ownership.

Inner City Loving

Home of the used and the duped;

victims of fear and charity;

people moving no where

except from kitchen to handout

through the largess of the caring-in-flight

the "them" standing 'gainst the "them"

to help "them" stay in the house once fled

groaned o'er as a dead mem'ry of love.

I hate the Inner City loving.

I loathe the cages of the strong

their "treat-them-with-dignity" smiling

and gifts set as cheese on a trap.

Who sees a face without tax breaks?

Who sniffs the balm of the well-wiped ass?

Who knows eyes from the side looking at you?

Inner-city scapegoats are coaxed to the slaughter

and die waiting for the system to free them again.

Their hues betray them, binds them this side of right

ever expanding where ones shade rattles the town.

I hate the Inner City loving.

I loathe the cages of the strong. 

Beneath the light in the hard gray hall
guilty of rebellion flashing on the wall
I sit at the center of its violent rays
my eyes caught in the movement dangling there.

The interrogator speaks through sequential frames
within my mind, numbed by the circuitous "No!"
of judges fearful of artistic minds

It's me in my room, unbound by the law of shock
playing with thoughts and signs brewing in the cauldron of life
a maze of "musts" plotting in my addiction box
awaiting attention to soothe the questioner's thirst
and height'ning guilt filling the cracks on the  wall.

Departing this room will be no easy task.
All players are trapped in a pile of single selves
whose power is bound in a lack of will.

The light awaits the victim's rise and flight
the smashing of frames and stuffing of the inquisitor's mouth.

 

It is the world that is that exists, not the world that isn't.

Human nature: the beautiful face with the ugly scars.

 

*I want a new family.  Will you help me find a new family?
-RH

a shadow frightened the crowd
as you set your hands to guard your face
and ward off sounds tapping in your brain

see their cry is for you Lord always for you
and it breaks forth from the stillest voice
from bodies at once dead yet breathing
hoping for a big ear that hears
and patience to live long enough to see
vengeance and love yes vengeance and love
while the shadows of fate hang loosely overhead
ready to drop like a net gathering the dead

yet hope ekes through the tears steadily falling
from failed ties and mouths ever crying on high
cries eating at my nerves grating them to movement
to dance midst the tears on which they slide
as i grab the cries and cry awaiting your coming

the union of silence

the bound lift their hands and the chains rise
clanging and bouncing off each other
in a dance of bondage wanting to be free
and a symphony lays within the links
though the dungeon holds their sous in isolation
like a score holds the music
around which the dancers dance

for a while all seems lost until a baby's born
who knows only to cry when the chained dare not
who daily long with each other for some open heart
some crack in the facade of humanity presumed sane
but lost behind words of kindness limited to a few

what music is made in the union of silence
until what is longed for breaks as a surprise instantly expected
when survivors walk free with loose hanging smiles
beneath eyes wondering why it took so long

I watched them

those iron mosquitoes

sucking blood from the earth

bowing to God-and money

Flee the gods that whip you.

Flee the gods of Desire.

Mouth open, fly 'cross the fields

fly and don't look back.

Run on the edge of death.

You need not be a whipping child.

All gods are passing-powers

fragile as their bended knees, pursuing.

Ready yourself for laughter.

Their fall is near at hand

for other gods pursue as well

and these will be made the less

for all giants fall and bow to Death

have an end you know full well.

So, flee the gods that whip you.

You need not be a whipping child.

Flee the god within you

the one with whip in hand.

Evil has no existence of itself.
-Anon

Today we honor the dead to whose numbers we add by killing others in the name of peace.

Too much sugar

Too much sugar
too much of a sweetened life
we miss the sour-side
the tart-tastes of life
the tears and frowns of the poor
with their laughing grace
and full-hope released in the air
holding with God's hands
a world grown saccharine
and fat on sweets
the "good life", good on their  sweat
their backs, their dreams, their death.

lost memories

i am a man of lost memories
life buried 'neath a hell of living
and dulled feelings
and squelched thoughts
of dead longings
scratching for renewal

i cry in my tomb
envious of what others seem to have
their dreams alive
and mem'ry intact
their recollections stacked
like shelves heavy with years on display

but then i recall a question once asked
who are you, at last?
and tuning about
find me on the walls
my past sequestered under dust

image-rich from my long ago
i rejoice with what's held under glass
because something's eked pass
the repressions of the past
and it's me on the walls
for any to glance

yet though my recollections
can't construct the scenes of the past
what's hanging is beautiful
freeing me to laugh

fractured selves

part of me wishes i were not what i am
but who can remake oneself in the womb
or tomb or from wherever humans climb?

i drag myself nervously toward death because
there is a cave  in me where goblins fly
a hole where butterflies would rather be

each hidden in my face, in my soul
behind the smiles that block some waiting tears.
i walk on, struggling with the secrets of life

the secrets crawling tween the day and night of me
tween the lifting of hosts and the distribution of bread
tween hello and goodbye to the many years passing

through the door to my room, that chamber of delights.
but i must carry on till death in hope that change will come
that i'll move nearer a wish than i could ever wish to be

broken as i am, broken like the shards of human vessels
struggling with their fractured selves in this pit of tears
waiting for God to arrive to claim then as his own.

There are times when I believe strongly

 in God and the there are times when 

I doubt mightily.

There are times when I am engrossed

 in the ministry and there are times when

 I couldn't give a damn.

There are times when my love

 is for the many and there are times

 when I desire to hold only one.

There are times when Fatherhood

 for All is my ideal and there are times 

when I want to father one.

This time, this night is one of them for all,

with tears of the commitment

 and tears for what is missed.

*The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
-Thucydides

pebbles in the day-song

falling quietly like dry leaves in the fall

upon hardened grass waiting renewal

pebbles slip through the rubble of lives pounding at doors

while searching for birds recently flown away

a voice of garbled notes

longing to catch its breath as the wind shifts away

is lost

la-la-ga-ging along the path

stretching to touch a distant dream

filtering through the echoes on the rim

where the voice of blue bugs moan out a hymn

but what does one say

when the echoes float from dead throats

crying aloud toward an enclosed ear

i don't know

watching the sad shadows form around the eyes

around victims sitting with patient breath

as if some doctor might walk along

and heal what they cannot care to speak

...and they don't know

being both deaf and silent

to the urges roiling within them

on worn bellies and tried hearts

with centuries of "Never"

as the one word spoken from their lips

i am sick watching this parade

seeing the damage the pebbles form

in ev'ry land between the sunny morns

because i don't know how to mend

or enliven hope among our broken bones

between the sins each person brings along

in search of the small god

in these days when being big is believed to be everything
everything of importance both for the large and the small
when the belief one holds carves large gods on the soul

i search for the small god
the idol who has no where to rise
who is hidden from the dregs of the large
cloaked in the thoughts of the common
clouded in the churches of the saved
worn of the  heads of wandering crowds

i search for the small god who speaks to the heart
to the hurt the pained the lame the sharp
who touches wounds with silent healing
and whispers assurances that all will be well

abnormal savior jostling about the chaotic quiet
offering elixir that's here yet not
set upon a golden plate of yesterdays gone
a promise assured by rising from the dead

we have no gold but the daily grind for peace
shining within eyes peeking beyond the leaves

An Afterthought

I take a walk into the yard

to watch and see the lilies sprout

then I down the boulevard do walk

and pass a bum in tattered silks.

A poor lad lays upon the walk

and cries his brother-lips to mine

yet spied, I look upon his face

and run him back before the gate.

When orphans sit upon the fence

to watch my hurried gait run by

it's only rest that soothes my mind

of all the pain that they transgressed.

I circle back and pass the slums

steering clear of their smelly fumes;

the people here are only rats

the very thought can slay their irky pride.

I scoot fast past a beggar's plate

and jaundiced when he wheezed his cry

for I need weed the  lily patch

before the cloak of darkness rise.

Now that day has pleased me well

and life has scarred my sanctum'd bliss

'tis time I stop and think awhile

and check my spirit's blamelessness. 

INCARNATION

Our faces draped in
       black and grey,
                our rec. room smelled
                      of mourning spray
                          for our haven died a
                               frustrated hell until his
                                              smile had music'd in
                                                      and tuned our den
                                                            with human Light...  

SMALL CHANGE

worn coppers tinked

                                        on the basket's felt

                                        but laid crushed by

                                    the weight of old

                      papers.

Two pennies lost in

                                   Pierpoint green;

                                         their joys and hopes

                                           lay gleaned jawbones

                                 beside the lion.

Two pennies clinged

                                 the teller's plate

                                  and danced their

                                       two cents before his

                                            face and dropped down

                                      dizz'ly aside its mate

                                while birds dart,

                                        fearing, through clean

                        cat's teeth.

What of me is bleeding?

All of me is bleeding.

What of me is grieving?

All of me is grieving.

What of me is silent?

All of me is silenced,
all about me prayer.

Urgent emergings

rising from my soil

itching surprises;

nothing surrounding

ladened rebellions;

the Wind espousing,

needful pairings;

all of me journeying,

I walk stumbling.

Some One's on the Way.

"Come toward me 

all you weary ones;

I will wash your feet

I will ease your hearts."

is this the way:

that we are boxed bodies

smiling from our rears

in pretense that our fronts aren't gleeful?

We are frightened containers

afraid of the gift our bodies are

the Gift we dare not claim.

What joy we'd bare!

What guilt our souls would cast aside

if there were a Yes

to all the poop the Lord released

to ev'ry drop of funky sweat

to all that bonds us to this flesh

to all the Kingdom's rejoicing over it

forever and ever amen!

*Evil cannot be destroyed; it can only be redeemed.
-Anon

they yell, they howl
they scream against the soft-sounds
as if God rides on the breeze
on the rim
but no one hears HIM

these sounds
are they a "Why?", a "Help!"
a call to awaken those with closed eyes
and plugged ears?

some sit in prayer
list'ning to the unlikely
not the in-between
where the holy lies
and poems are writ on patient souls

i listen to my wavering heart
the incredulity within belief

between the silence and the words
i hear "Wake Up!
God's closer than you think"

this strange encounter is music
an invite to sing ones self into a question
where God and i duet
and a temple is built of song

groaning into holiness

i am a bruised vessel

empty and cracked

waiting to be patched

peering into clouds

searching for a scoop

groaning into holiness

born of the worn earth

in life a field of cautions

setting out, stiff of heart

an uptight preacher of the Word

the irony borne on crumpled bones

asleep in hope

beneath a wreckage of doubts

what am i to say to the weary-worn

forlorn of heart with thirsting souls

but that we encircle the table and have a drink

partake of bread

affirm our common bond

The Pretenses of Innocence

feelings in the winter of fam'ly

formed ghosts on the windows of ghettos

the agonized cities shaped

by the pretenses of innocence.

misused, abused, violence at hand

the niggras were hounded 'round

the fire-flares of lynchings

that stirs some children to smile

while their parents write the tales

of the lies wrapped in laughter

of the crimes behind their smiles.

as Christians they have nothing to fear.

the Parousia arrives without wrath.

their saints will be canonised

when their sponsors dole out the cash.

click here to erase

banish the truth from your eyes.

mention not the tears pouring o'er rainbows

forming 'pon the breath of dead Blacks.

for it now seems craziness

a laughable matter out of mind

a matter of degrees

for those wacky, wacky times.

but we rarely observe ourselves

by looking at life in the mirror

with eyes that seem to be mine

with blood streaming from my ears.

how crazy it is this enterprise 

this enterprise of being alive

living with the hist'ry of murderers

breathing within ones mind.

deep beneath my chin

in the ground-side of my face

are those others in the looking-glass

pounding in my ears

interacting with the mem'ries

writ 'pon their burnt-out flesh.

these buried scapegoats of yesteryear's

are the conscience of tomorrow.

they're the revelation of our hist'ry

unpretentious buried ghosts.

Why, Massignon 

Why, Massignon,

your life, our trials, your agony

cause me stir and weep

roam agitated about my room?

Why I ask?

Is it lagging guilt again

a surge of commitment

failures now wanting out?

The call of the One bellows in my heart

pulls my soul from the one spoke long ago.

But I've said No

yessing a path through distractions

inattention and weak excuses

vows not entered in.

I've fallen from my life

'cept the one dreamt as a wish.

And now it's happened again

as if I were not dead to God

but something warm in His mem'ry

a dream He hopes to fulfill.

Like a thrill-thing I know its real

but had a a price.

Commitments have no other way

'cept letting go and moving on

to where'er the Spirit blows

blasting 'bout my concrete feet.

opus one-O-seven

playing from the silence long nurtured and alive

as a score in the mind of  its father's plight

the pianist pounds notes out to the ears

as if in a flight from their sheltered might

in France, Sherwood* roamed, homeless, through quaint Parisian streets

streaming with passion but no engine to turn

will you permit your passions to sound again? someone asked

will you let rise once more the fire in your bones?

the homeless man, unbounded, frightened his fears

broke their barricades and re-ignited his fire

raging with hope, uncorked, on fire with a goal

i weep during the score once housed in his mind

beyond the iv'ry, i could hear my self

feelings of envy prodding me to open my doors

to chance my expressions of bottled fire

to leap into freedom, alive and at home

*Gordon Sherwood, pianist/composer, from Evanston, IL, was a homeless beggar in Paris for a decade or more

I.

Do you weep for me Mary of the Lord?

if i call you sister would you feel insulted?

i never had a sister being my father's only girl.

it was in my genes as an unknown child

and relations find dark genies where'er they hide.

II.

When the storm blows o'er a house of shame

and the holes in the streets become puddles of muck;

when the home you own is a square in the Dome

what's to be done when the toilet overflows?

we watch the waters reclaim the kitchen we owned

and wonder why the bedrooms are full.

thus we move as quickly to higher ground

to return to her what she's been looking for.

III.

A song repeats itself when the mood is mournful

rightfully owning the heart-felt spirit roving in the the tomb.

for what is a person to do when tears fall free as if in a box undisclosed?

all it takes is a voice that becomes a key to the soul

touching he sore spot bandaged against crimes.

IV.

Understand betrayal as release from the attachment to an unknown god

the one placed on the pedestal you thought you occupied

and reclaim, the wholeness cast upon a shore once claimed as ones own

sailing into your tears to find the home you were meant to roam

known to yourself with nothing but known as a whole.

The Eucharist is the visualization of God-with-us [Emanuel], of God's presence to all creation.  It is a seal which stamps the phrase, "I am with you", as a tangible truth.

Reflection and Revelation

I.

I gaze upon you on the sand

a whisper of fresh breath of the morn

The ocean bathes your feet

soft, blemished, product of earth

smoothing the tan lines with grains

a pliable patch of grains

into which our hard heels press

washed o'er in a splash

II.

Yet who knows who we are

resting 'neath the coconut palms

myst'ries at our feet

our hands touching the surest of them

Here the milk of the husked nut refreshes

where getting drunk leaves us dry

and even the smell of fecal sweetness

is more real than perfume sprayed on thighs

We are palates of pigments

a canvas of gods, sketched by God

a mark like lips parting

murmuring theophanies in the universe

oblivious to our power at hand

hiding behind masks of  gauze

III.

Myst'ry

we are plump-mystery

and if we'd touch just a hand

it is this we'd touch

this painting of God

with God in ev'ry tint

The Puritan Box

We dwell in the Puritan box

sex and dollars its decorative theme

windows absent like schools built to block

the remnant of stale cologne floating ev'rywhere

This is Pilgrim's progress

Beauty eluding the needs of soul

the realm of myst'ries falling deeper and drear

fathoms below our Imaged goals

Here scientist wince to stand in awe

for silence is the word not spoke

their cheap trash cov'ring ev'rything

like wallpaper cov'ring a shameful plot

It's a vulgar poverty 

a homelessness without God

no touch of human affection

no dance as the piano's played

but a stiffness that death understands

such that a morgue creates

the freezing clime of a guarded home

of  a society drowned in its lust for funds

Who would brave to open the door

expel the zombies polluting the air?

The entry could be a birthplace for life

swinging wide that the filth might pass

a trembling gate awaiting rain

a touch of affection that God could journey in

it was as if speaking with a leaf
coaxing it to break loose
and set sail for mother earth
falling, floating down,
inch by inch
dropping to the ground
feeding the earth
with its red ochre breasts

when i awoke to the dawn
and exited the dream

BLACK

BLACK!

what does it mean?

not much!

we've disappointed again:

inter-marriage, inter-sex.

inter-mingles, my friend.

my neighbors, my favorite

my "want to be like".

we glance past each other

begging not be seen.

no acknowledgement

nor "how are you?"

just a "do i know you?"

"you're none of mine."

"where're you from?"

"you know what you can do."

"this is a new day."

"change is in the air."

go where i want to".

"do what i do."

"no more needing you."

until, until  

like some figure crawling up from the deep

you arose from the swamp-part of my life

but i loved the swamp...and you

beauty lay in the depth and surface

it takes a boat to transverse its shallows

and in stillness to discover creatures there

and so in you wonders of God's grace

brought forth joy and and laughter's heartening glee

when life seemed dull and joy abandoned me

beauty lay not where we wish and but where it is

when eyes behold what's hidden in the drink

in life, many tortures

many crucifixions

many massacres and death

defying imagination

the human is boxed

frozen in ice

then buried in hell

forgetting is freedom

the key to atrocities

we open our mouths and scream 

to break the grip of death

to wed a voice to pain

a face to humanity

Rest in peace

There won't be no rest, in peace

as goo-gobs garb the wealth and run

as the poor pull tubs to laundromats

to clean some clothes or pinch some grub

There won't be no rest, in peace

as ears hear the pigeons scream

see dogs tear the infant hides

to stay alive, to help a friend

The poor stare out upon the plentied land

dreaming of sharing heat the chosen have

knowing it's harbored within a legal band 

as they rot like death in an economic plan

They seek, they howl, they long for a share

burning desires tussling in their hair

tossing flames on the national spires

leveling cities in repetitive schemes

as the privileged fuss in disturbing dreams

o'er the paltry smut they reluctantly will share

Oh, oh, their tongues cry sore

awaiting gods to offer some chance

for what's stolen, what's lust

of the hobbled crowds in the wealthy mold

Oh, the silent pain rubbing the bones

of the struggling poor, the muddled core

parceled and packaged, wealth teasing the hands

of the needy observers of TV land

he

he was like a moonless midnight
something to be stared into
until ones eyes formed a familiar something
a face one knew
an aura-producing body
lit like a voice once dead
standing silently like the night
bearing a light beyond the mist

he was like a prehistoric creature
some Madagascan bug moist and light
dancing on a green path of moss
love-making without a mask
yet close to death

perhaps
it would be safe to dance like him
touching the earth
as it it were the only home we knew
or cared to know
with divinity near

he bore into the darkness
the face of fear
the face of flight
the face of terror and shouted
stand fast
this too shall pass
then laughed thunder into the sky
and rained down tears
to flush away the fears

he was an epiphanic magus
drawing night into the embrace of day
playing with darkness
repeating the sounds of children at play

he is the revelation of Silence
his story weaving within our own

the rising wall

tears fall like concrete
heavy with the poison of yesterday's sins
smashing and crushing the hopes of fiends
defining my life and my expectant end

it's love they say sitting on the corner of their words
but my ears hear signals of warning
as my eyes drop their tears

there's a heavy sadness pulling the jaws of my face
not to mention my heart where life is graced

i wonder as the grey vultures sail across the the sky
whether the truth of life ever has a chance

to be itself free of the ironies of doubt
of the leanings of politics, of hatred, of cliques

ah to know and walk free into the enclosing dark
with steps that rise o'er the forbidding walls



*Your gifts are showing, use them to help others.
-Chinese fortune cookie

                                                    from the Hirshorn Museum, Wash., DC

A prison of my own making

Bricks rise on the foundation of the curious,

the grounding and flooring-boards of my cell

within which walls the bars are cemented

to lock me in when I'd like to run.

I white-wash the outside while blackening the in...

while nudging myself to curse the dark.

'Tis an addictive preseciption holding me fast

begging me holler like a Marvin Gaye

or sing the sermons of Tupac Shakur.

But it's me, Ken Stewart, trapped in this cage

aching for freedom while barring the gate.

As I stare through the bars, the deception spreads

sucked into the center of its promising light

caught in the web of its tentacled embrace

drawn to its swamp where I slip in the muck.

It's my jail and I've locked the place

holding myself prisoner within this space.

I holler. I scream. I drip tears 'pon my bed.

I drop to the floor, prostrate in prayer.

With time's transformation being a healer of sight

visions of freedom signaled an eventual break

a stamina of prayer standing strong in my flesh.

The Whisperer speaks to the hope of It's love

coaxing me out of the prison I've built. 

*The dangers of life are many and safety is one of those dangers.
-Goethe


*The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of.
-Paschal

how many loved-less ones 

are chasing aft affection

where e'er it might be found

in the closet

on the stage

in the booby-traps that have been laid

tell me

tell me

where e'er they have hid

fear not

i shall not harm them

if we meet in the mud

nor curse the lineage of their oblations

to the slime and the grime

or imbecilic crimes

quickly

hand me the ledger with their names and fame

i wish to know them

to pass them on

in the fluidity of time

mine's a strange occupation

i know

like the strange aberrations

any one of us holds

strutting about the streets for an instant of fame

15 seconds of nothing

blown with the wind

live Life

live as best as you can

this is all that we have     in our fabled fairyland

yank

yank down the doors and the nets of your biased generations

open wide the walls that out-closed innumerable folk

build new reputations on your derogatory inflammations

and let fresh air experience an unpolluted clime

we're sick from your massive influenzas

your abusive crimes, your employment of demons

the end of the depression is bowing before us

the people long suppressed by your "democratic" elections

it's time to forsake your petty term selections

of yourselves as the gods for all "colored-kind"

the souls of the suppressed have now escaped being hostage

to your "untainted" minimizations, your inherited lust

let go, let go of the noose around our necks

as you strangle your children who will lay down and crawl 

when across God your prayers scratch

the surface of his face, smile

because the roots of your hatred

have bled again for you

and bleeds more as their blood drips

and falls upon the bodies of the struggling ones

striving to live beneath the stone piles of hist'ries hates

history's continued battle-cries of the small and the great

of the gods we all strive to imitate and displace 

in the heaven of our immoral dreams

immortal plight playing at our feet as poisoned snakes

smile.  smile as the waters run

as the sun speaks to the haggling scars

kissing what would have been our horror-grace

waiting to rise with the buried one

now risen one

the buried one rising in our eyes as Sun

failed words

where words do you fly when the wind wounds your neck
choking accents and penults with your insults and jokes?

where do you flee in the maelstrom of lost pleas
in the porridge of silent mush you set to keep us free?

i wonder why we nibble on the vomit of your hatred
on the stale sewage of its dark and failed dreams;

why we we chase after the crust of rotted damage
stinking before our closed eyes and clouded ears

longing for a hope that will lift is from our graves?
where are the words we anxiously long to wear

to be polish for our hearts, nourishment for our minds?
where are the words nursing like piglets on their mama's tits

content, peaceful, ready to nurture the ark?

                                             

*For one human being to love another: that is the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test of proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
-Rainer Rilke


*No end justifies injustice - even if that end seems to be the good of the state or of a nation.  If you base security on denial of justice, no amount of money can guarantee that security.  Not even an army as strong as all the legions of Rome will be able to insure it.
-Archbishop Joseph Raza

*Do not accept our complacency: grant us a holy discontent.
  -Catherine of Siena

twisted puzzles

what ought i to hear

my ears to the air

besides hawks and doves 

accusing each other

our lives are twisted puzzles

pieces cut often to fit our dreams

who knows what this leads to 

besides a gathering of dissent

to medicate our minds

let us move to the simpler affairs:

making war, dropping bombs

killing children, destroying friends

why confusion in the war rooms

what's needed is toxic love

we're lost in a maze of chattering

life is simpler when music is sung

what's not simple is US

we confuse ourselves with God

gods contending with each other

o'er the length of our power

seeking the fulfillment of the bland

the meaningful void

the days that will rot

and the people who are rotting

where do we flee from this:

Paris-dives and fiery-ghats

paper-wars and verbal-spats

genocide and ethnic laund'ring

silent towns bombed in silenced wars

tragedy attends us like a nurse

we shit in our pants and on ev'ryone else 

a non-Shakespearean gifted comedy

it's life as we've made it

with the support of Death

though we die 'cause we will

and die 'cause we kill

latter deaths teaching us nothin'

adding to our toll of shame

so what's rooted in our flimsy concealments

our pretences and complicit lies

is it that we've never touched ourselves naked

nor imagine others clay like ourselves

                                                      Detail from a painiting in Detroit

Bottles of feeling explode within
a fireworks display, tangible yet screened
my flesh popping in cosmic directions

along ev'ry nerve trav'ling to my spine
These are untranslatable words
whose deeper voice rises not from thoughts

but inflamed flashings needing to be heard
What needs be said are budding as tears
bearing pain reluctantly 'neath the shades of my eyes

I stay with the burgeoning cry until its day of freedom
shoves it out beyond the windows of my flesh
For one day my words will be heard

my lips unlocked to release its shackled cries
The dungeon will open where gold is hid
and what needed be said become a fire-words display

fractured selves

part of me wishes i were not what i am
but who can remake oneself in the womb
or tomb or from wherever humans climb?

i drag myself nervously toward death because
there is a cave in me where goblins fly
a hole where butterflies would rather be

each hidden in my face, in my soul
behind the smiles that block some waiting tears.
i walk on, struggling with the secrets of life

the secrets crawling tween the day and night of me
tween the lifting of hosts and the distribution of bread
tween hello and goodbye to the many years passing

through the door to my room, that chamber of delights.
but i must carry on till death in hope that change will come
that i'll move nearer a wish than i could ever wish to be

broken as i am, broken like the shards of human vessels
struggling with their fractured selves in this pit of tears
waiting for God to arrive to claim them as his own.

Straining for courage

In the dry-dying of bones on vacation,
I search for oil to revive my vocation,
to course with blood the frozen-flesh of my carriage.

I go to the ocean like a youth for baptism,
trembling at the drowning about to ensue,
turning to flee less the Spirit enfold me.

Where ought I flee to escape my recapture?
Should I return to the fort of the fled,
return to the arms of my captors now fleeing?

I am  three cowards walking my dog on the boardwalk:
no face, no soul, no swagger of enlivement,
just here hiding behind the colors of flare.

The Sea stares at my naked interior,
invites me to dive to the dark of His heart
to swim in the Night in order to live.

My steps are faith in acts begging mercy,
as I dance tween the waves at the edge of the deep,
straining for courage to dive therein.

We have a tendency to think that we are the people who never fail or sin.  It is ALWAYS "them"!

O Ghost of Rocker-chair longing
awaiting mem'ries to seat themselves
and ride the ridges of the hours
into dusk or into death
or only in ones head
stories of grace and sadness
tales of joy and pain
tidbits of Life's strange mys'tries
packed into flesh of years

Here you sit with empty seating
and with the breeze of ev'ning-sway
until the passing of your season
neglected and decayed

*Only by living life can you free yourself from it.  So live it to such a degree that it befits you.
-Karl Jung

                                                Detail from a painting viewed in Detroit

Black Icarus

Many a black youth plunges like Icarus
from the realm of heavenly dreams,
kerplunk upon the pavement, spilling fluids, blood red.

Down, down they fall
when the gun fires
and the red hot missiles
break though their flesh

or kills a passer-byer.

But little changes once the mourning's done.
Perhaps revenge or instant flight!
Perhaps a pay-off or respite before the trial
or rituals for burying the dead!

Will the "suicides" never end?
Will the genocide ever end,
ever end, ever end
snatching seconds or thirds

for two minutes of the evening news,
the daily blues that files them away?

So many joys eludes us,
seeing ourselves, negative,

through dead, satan-eyes.

A wild chap was he

walking slowly through the woods

eyes grabbing each movement of leaves

the dance of trees, the swaying breeze

He was a wild-thing the land reclaimed

for ev'ry ant and twittering bird

entertained his curious glance

His was no rush past nothin'

No insignificance dodges his sight

for ev'ry piece of life be there

a presence like God in hiding

covered 'neath clods of green

Just an old man they thought

strolling through the park

an almost dead somebody

or nobody meaningful to watch

But there in his eyes shone wonder

and his heart beat life's excitement

walking slowly through the woods

watching expectantly for life

What's important in life is not to become some body but to know and be oneself.


There is only one art to life, namely, to live the truth and be in love.

with blood in the eye

the marines are coming
the marines are coming
the guardians of freedom are running
with guns drawn, they are shooting
the people of the land in the name of freedom

they're squelching dissenters
lest fear trap the loyal in movement and care
rallying 'round god cloaked in red, white and blue

they capture strange folk skinned in black and brown
as their children kill friends near the cottage gate
for blood has moistened their eyes
and their hands are red from weeping

the land must be defended in the time of crisis
though we be the crisis whose time has come

...if death doesn't get you, something else will.

*When you fight monsters, be careful...you do not become one.
 -Frederic Bourdin


*Short of perfect, how do we make things simply better!
 -Tom Krattenmaker

*When you care what other people think, choose your own jailers carefully.
  -unknown homilist


*All ministry is prison ministry.
  -Jerry Schroeder, Cap.


*Although the truth may hurt, it is still the truth.
  -common wisdom

Why do you warn your children, "Be careful!"
when you enter my neighborhood?
Don't you see I've lived here all my days
through its dangers, trials, toils, its joys?
Or are we more alike than some?
Cause in your neighborhood
I watch for the boogieman too.



on the horizon

i ask myself
who will see it
who will notice those cries heard in the night
to be complicit in the crimes outside our door?

will ours be a voice trembling 'neath a dimming bulb

warning that the light we see is dark?

totalitarians love war as if bread for their tables

blood, the red wine coating their throats

when people disappear, they'll help them hide

because crimes against the struggling are cause for more

we'll shake our heads when the warning sirens wail

longing that the enemy would learn that we are right

who imagines our sincerity to be tainted?

nothing is more natural than knowing God's on our side

when we smell flesh as the dust rains upon our heads

will the silent torture of convictions spew vomit on the streets?

when The Bomb, our bombs sprinkle the lawns of our towns

will then a whimper rise enough to explore the rubble of despair?

when bodies return wrapped in their symbolic flag

will it be too late to redirect the movie we'd make

to cancel the show about dandelions on our lawns

and show the faces which horrified the dreams of our parents

now possessive of our lungs as a suffocating theme?

are we to salute or weep the dead murdered at our hands

for they will be our brothers, our children, neighbors

slain upon the carpeted earth?

then the airy transparency of our majesty

will lay crumbling like a yellowed constitution

released finally from its vacuumed tomb

who will see it

who will notice

complicit in the crimes outside our door

as oblong clouds stretch across the azure sky

as if beds awaiting heads to arrive?

Nothing moves.

Nothing moves.

Silence roves the lanes of my mind.

I long to right the tears of my eyes

the tears in my soul.

As I survey, 

You needle me to remembrance

to wond'ring what I ought to do

bound and buttressed

corralled on a plateau

fenced on a plain;

an artist untried but yearning

yearning, yearning, yearning

for the implosion of my fears

to be what the weeping speaks:

a bare-assed artist exposed to the world.

Who is Christ?  Christ is synonymous with every human being. To slight a human being is to hurt Christ; to fail Christ is to betray the human being.

Questions II

What's written between our legs?

What words lay beneath the surface of our skin?

Is our ass the only gate for shit?

Is the path to life beneath our feet alone?

What do we fear standing nude in the naked crowd?

When the pulse of life is red in our voice

or when hugging shuts the door

what 's the meaning of an open heart?

How are we strong with a gun in our palm

when the blood of many colors our hand?

Do undertakers perfume our flesh in grief

or embalm our bodies against the scent of death?

To see scars others alone tattooed upon our flesh

is to be a mirror voiding the faces we have pained.

Our body's a scroll upon which tales are writ.

It's read as sacred by the sensitive eye.

*All mysteries have remained intact.  No body understands them.  These mysteries are what feeds my passion for art and for fly-fishing.  You never know what the solutions are.  You always have to invent .  And you never know more than a tiny part.
-Paul Reybeyrolle, artist

that being by oneself

...that being by oneself

alone

with you and the Sacred

where i'll risk to be "dirty"

be bare

seductive and lovely

to be for you

what you wish of me

what i see of myself

in a moment like this

oh! i'll jump in your lap

then crawl on your thighs

and smile with a twinkle

dazzle your eyes

you'll have what you've got

what you seduced with joy

filling my willing

for more of this aching