Poetry Strewn Along Life's Pathways Read online

compels me, stumbling out into the "Free World"

  days wandering, nights sweating, on the loose, the lam

  weary legs, arms find safety in a shaded spot

  where under a rock I read a crusty message

  abandoned by eyes 20 years ago,

  "I will wait for you under this rock, forever."

  how was she to tell him?

  his child born in the midst of the heaving of the menacing crowd, alone

  in solitary lock-down

  a strong hungry child whose suck marks her yet

  How will I tell him...so that he'll...love us?

  in this turmoil of feelings, trudging, more than weary

  she waits for the messenger, with his note

  with the name, "Call the child...."

  on my way—stopped inconsequentially at an unidentifiable light

  window down at half mast

  a fluttering speck of urban garbage

  alights on the dash; snag it

  announcement: "This is the day of your salvation,

  love and love again."

  Has nothing really changed?

  she was seven, me just turned eight

  how the shadows on her neck fascinated, all throughout the day!

  so unfamiliar with the dryness in my throat

  embarrassed by the sweatiness of palms

  somehow, fumbled to compose a symphony of feeling

  as ancient fathers before had,

  struck I a cosmic tune that fired up our

  hearts with a thump! resounding down the eons,

  "I love you."

  {this note is on its way}

  Another Day, Another Darkness

  though I had sworn in Sweeney's bar

  that I'd find you in my bitter whiskey

  I kept losing you at the bottom of my glass

  (thanks to ole Mack the bartender

  I kept finding you again

  atop each amber shot)

  what was it I told him that night

  as each muscle of my mind melted

  did I remember to mark-off the list

  of betrayals and breaches of promise?

  did I cover all in general outline

  or convey in the clarity of footnotes

  the height, the weight, the color of their heads,

  the socks they left behind,

  the weekly tokens forgotten from Holiday Inn trysts?

  did I deliver the indictment with rising passion

  or did ole Mack ask the stenographer to repeat

  my last stammering phrase?

  they leave their shadows on my pillows!

  I echoed into my empty glass

  —ole Mack poured another shot—

  I bellowed the Litany of the Offended

  with gesticulations, incantations and assorted

  masturbations

  of a soul too long in solitary confinement

  somewhere along the stools

  a sympathetic clairvoyant grasped the vision

  of my liquid dissertation

  extended to me the numbing phial of her perfume

  as I lie here next to her

  face still shrouded by the dawn's late darkness

  I feel the freedom of betrayal

  snicker at the hot leaded pain of my tears

  I can hardly wait to hear

  what ole Mack has to say

  Rages in the Desert (Sandstone Federal Prison)

  when he came to me i feigned

  a shadow boxing and a clout on his ears

  but he stood as simple as a flower

  patiently in place alluring the bee

  this is not to be! i screamed into my ears

  i am not a toy nor a plaything nor a sweet carnation

  i am the rock and the home run hitter and a rose with thorns

  this cannot be!

  what am i to do with these shivers?

  am i to take myself to bed and drink hot tea?

  what shall i do if he calls

  says that he has free tickets to the movies?

  there must be some cruel cartographer of the genes

  who has violated the universe with his dreams

  for this cannot be, i cannot let it be!

  i am a male and so is he

  where is the logic to his dreams?

  why is his shadow so real

  that i wake to chase it from my wall

  jump from bed to check the locks and bolts

  too nervous to judge this fear a hoax

  deep within me lustful rivers run

  my thighs celebrate deltas of the moon

  my hands give praise to the burning of kisses

  yet the thrill that scars me most is of the sun

  —not moon's daughter

  am i to find that there is more within me

  than my father told me when i was young?

  more than the monastic chants assured me

  would be my duty and my obligation, all done?

  i cannot see—i do not want to see!

  his chrysanthemum face and firm stalk

  i want only to die as i was born

  a wailing child in the arms of my mother

  these sentenced days press hard upon my heart

  too many rivers have broken their banks

  giving riot to seeds long buried in the desert

  what shall i take to my grave

  that i did not bring to light from my mother's heart?

  The Purple Butterfly

  settling upon your face

  illumines the yearnings within your soul

  coded in a message of strobe lightning

  it was an inauspicious beginning

  three men on the hunt in a Minneapolis bar

  spitting piss beer and leering at the dancing dames

  i sat there taut of body, howling in brain

  14 months on the inside yard primed me for that moment

  i chewed the air with a sucking breath

  as pretzels and chips crumbled under foot

  it was a time of savaging fear

  i walked with Lazarus, worried about my stench

  who would touch a man from the grave

  or deign to gaze upon the mangled and mashed instrument

  of his wet dreams?

  it was not your beauty nor this painted insect on your face

  no, it was in the decaying bathroom

  where you chased me away, answered

  that i cannot, could not be yours this night

  Oh! i ached for the dawn

  in time, you brought a basket full of fruits

  some fresh, some moldy, some without pits

  picnicked in the attic for a year

  charming the ants, making mad rituals

  attempting to lure healings from our shaman bones

  when you left me for dear ole Columbus

  i cursed his ship and wanted to declare

  you already sovereign territory

  but you sped away on a snorting motorcycle

  flying the flag of the jaunty buccaneer

  now that you have braked for a brief visit

  that attic in my heart sealed ten years ago

  once again

  has opened for Spring cleaning

  Ah! i am relishing the memory of odors

  the sweet taste of your intense tears

  in every bar, around every corner, in every hotel

  in every city for every day

  i had peered in anticipation of that dancing prancing butterfly

  but now I know that it flits about

  only on the beat which has always been

  our hearts

  Wisdom and Ah! Fond Memories

  bare light-bulb mornings

  before sacrificial coffee

  trash rimming the Hole around

  catches the droopy lidded

  great unrecognized one

  slipping bare threads

  of rec
ycled dreams

  through his head.

  it must be time to turn on the ra-di-o.

  Paragraph 24, section (t): "One radio. One authorized channel."

  four corpses from the dawn's last train

  which left without departing

  took themselves up the stairs

  without an elevator

  banged on his mind's door

  bang bang bang.

  it’s just too stupid

  that they never painted the walls

  after all if they knew how be-oo-ti-ful

  was the glossy shine

  the government puts on solitary

  they would never be civil servants.

  ne-ver.

  the issue

  not on the radio this morning

  was the state of all

  human culture

  which they argued from bits

  of toilet paper

  smuggled from the inner

  sanctum

  of various local jails

  madhouses and pens-not-made-for-bulls.

  only the cold coffee

  made them stop.

  it also started them again.

  luckily, two were blind

  the bare bulb did not give

  away its lightning secrets

  two were deaf

  so they did not carry

  the prejudices of the radio.

  luckily, again, toilet paper

  messages

  are best read in the dark

  by sign language of

  not so sanitized fingers.

  in the end

  there were five corpses

  lamenting the shit-ass

  condition of the world

  as run by free enterprise.

  security after all

  is having someone

  else responsible for

  Lock-up and Count!

  Oh! I languish so

  I can’t figure it out, you

  nurturing breasts of Gaia milk, barren

  of heartfelt impulse to ask me, “Who?”

  I want to know you, why not you me?—“Why?”

  as if I could explain cosmic coincidences or the hard

  rules of astral mechanics, it’s just me, asking

  why the slow elegance of your stocking smooth thigh lures

  me my heart eons of squelched desire, longingly

  I cannot fathom your eyes, interpret the silences, ignorances

  “How wrong can I be?” misjudging others from

  your generation, fems

  not Queens, possibly not even Princesses, maybe mere

  Ladies-in-Waiting, so

  confused am I, knowledgeable only

  of the seething desire to reach over, break

  you in two, suck the marrow from your pelvic bones, delta

  delight in consummation of

  delirious pillar of righteousness, my lips quaver as I kneel in

  adoration before you, incanting

  upward, joyward, into your inner self, bones

  of caverns, ancient longings, you

  naïf, naive, unlearned, I curse

  my prison sufferings, nights with you only in liminal gasp!

  but

  I cannot but not crave you, slash open my

  chest cavity, grip and rip out my heart, desire

  like fire raging, seething, lost among the wildness of

  unbounded craving for

  you I seek intimacy, we

  I crave “we,” you, me, flint and stone, fire spark

  turn me on!—lost

  I am lost in the sweet curve of your stockinet sigh!—face

  flat upon your belly, birthed

  in a fresh soulfulness, I love

  you beyond images that break

  upon, my heart

  Mere

  mere kiss, flashing shadow of desire, I seek

  closeness of exhaled moistness, allure of your sweet mouth, lips

  like celestial communicator, tender yet so vibrant, life

  itself throbs through the mere desire I have for you, embrace

  the slightest presence of you, mere fleeting smile, tender

  strum of your guitar, I

  lost forever in the splashing fiery sweetness

  of the brush of your cheek, a strand

  your hair like electrocuting fiber sunk into my heart, is there no

  relief, no

  cessation to this flow of fever, diamond hard cold

  steely fierce penetration of my desire, you

  is there no other than you, here, this moment, every

  moment, beyond my death, I reach

  blood of your heart in menstrual drip, I savor

  the nurturance of you, the unthoughtful

  reflex, me

  zygote within the tubes of your bio-mechanical delivery self, Mother

  Is there no one else, she

  daughter also mother princess yet my Queen, I touch but

  the sight of her, press hard against the

  memory of a moment, passed

  just this moment, fleeting, you float through

  the world, ocean of gasping desire, I want, no

  need you, know this? I doubt, yet

  I come, faithfully, moment after eon, lover

  you are my beloved, praised

  with lipless kiss, deep embrace of mere

  desire denied, happy

  yet am I, delirious

  mere kiss

  Optimo Café

  Legs crossed long sweater over back of hands, sitting

  as if huddling with yourself not looking

  but sensing me sizing me up wondering

  if the old guy is as crazy as he sounds

  does he want me, want me ancient lover

  remembering the endless sands, long desert dark nights

  with jeweled skies and the chill of moon cold dunes

  now again within driftless time, hours, centuries

  not really a reference as I caress

  your lanky hair stroking you once more, a thousand years

  from whence we have come, discerning you

  through that startling twist of metal, awed I had asked

  back-then in foreign tongue “Who made this?”

  they brought you, servant of a servant, with head bowed

  eyes that pierced my heart though you never gazed upward just

  the bent of your head I knew you saw me as you do now

  with eyes all over, goddess eyes, thousand eyes, like the

  softness of your presence, sitting there, in front of my chair, hidden

  by a space of gentleness and when you turn to talk I know you know

  me, without doubt remember our precious time, no hesitation,

  here it is I who bow before you, upon whose heart

  is etched a pledge of eternal love—Yes! have I found you fatefully

  searching for a gift in your quaint curio shop of twisted metals

  that you flowingly bend like fragrances of desire,

  I stammered, “You made this?” It needed no answer, you smiled, I

  wondered for days weeks month if you’d ever speak to me and tonight

  I said are you alone do you want to sit with us a glass of wine you said

  Yes sweet wine so I sipped you until I felt it safe to leave, trusting

  that you’d call and let me touch the deathless heart that beats

  only for us, ancient lovers.

  The joyful failure of loving you

  The time is right, it is the season

  You plant a row of seeds, press lightly

  with fingertips like kissing children at bedtime

  It takes time, this you know, this you’ve been told

  Time to nourish, tilting a water can just so, as hungry dirt

  and fetal roots suck gently down your tender care

  Time to wonder at the magic dance of sunshine and moon delight

  as on a
given morning there are tiny green shoots, reaching up towards you

  Each morning, another amazement as these fragile shafts rise

  becoming sturdy stems gifting you with fledgling buds

  It takes time, so you know, so you’ve been told

  so you wait, patiently yet eagerly

  until all so sweetly blossoms—a beauty smiling up at you

  Oh, how delirious the moment!

  Oh, how breath stopping, you gasp, your heart races

  as eyes burst with a suddenness of delight,

  you bend and are caressed by the gracious kiss

  of a luscious petal upon your trembling lips

  you tingle within an embrace of fragrant scent

  As you so dreamed upon first planting, you two are now one

  You share whispering coupling words, “I’m yours. Only yours!”

  You breathe together, a first moment of adoration, fiery sparks flying heedlessly

  upon your rapturous words

  “I love you, oh so much.” And “Thank you for being you!”

  Ah, my sweetheart, as such with every season and in my heart at the sunrise and

  moonset of each day

  so I suffer this joyful failure of loving you, my Beloved.

  For I have not sufficient words, so I regret, not at this moment, not at any moment,

  that justly convey my heartfelt gratitude and the never-ending aching desire that

  humbles me like the embrace of a flower in bloom as I open to hold you in my

  arms, my Beloved.

  There are no songs, so I ache, that I can sing that rightly and richly convey the

  sighful sweetness

  of my being one with you within our coupled flowering

  Though words fail me, my sweetheart, here as I struggle to write with my heart

  and sing with my soul celebrating all you have graciously shared and given to me,

  I offer you this day, this moment, all that I am to be born with you anew in

  everlasting embrace, planting today as you did that first day long ago your seed

  into my heart now my seed into your heart so that we may be Beloveds,

  blossoming throughout time-unending.

  May our earthly, time-bound love nurture the seeding

  of our coupled heart and soul

  as the seasons turn and we blossom into

  the everlasting Love that nurtures all Beloveds.

  Written in honor of and with deepest affection for my beloved friends, William

  and Barbara Motlong, and Vic Straw and Katherine Koenig, read at the celebration

  of their 50th and 25th wedding anniversaries, respectively.

  Excuse

  I was looking for any type of excuse,

  a large glass case a hundred items, each an opportunity

  you were so quiet, not shy, not even taciturn, truly gentle

  it threw me off my game, sly fox that I’ve become, silver streaked

  I could find no words, me the man of a gazillion words, not a solitary sigh

  I floundered like a stupid fish caught by a small hook, cursing my own

  garrulousness that ended with nothing said, no protestation of my awe

  at finding you there like an angel at lake’s edge, here in this stain of a town

  you tended the store, listened to customers, took my money, wrapped up

  the gift I was to give to another woman but bought because it was yours,

  in giving I would receive you, the heart of you in delicate bronze.

  I tried to find a workable excuse.

  Something not too embarrassing if you axed my heart with rejection.

  Just one or two, even dumb excuses to see you again.

  You are a silky web

  dangerously alluring, enticing, seductively comforting to my heart.

  Yet only I, heartfelt, treasure the fierce thrust of your demure presence.

  Only I treasure how your eyes never faded from my memory despite centuries of lonely wandering,

  eons of pained desire, through the ages just a handful of other women,

  each and all just a bookmark as I waited to sense your eyes upon me,

  so it came, horse and buggy town, fated to walk into your store,

  oh, if only I could kiss you forever, from toenail to hair-fall caressed upon my face,

  how little you know of the howling anguish of the ages in between,

  damned to accept that I am December in your April.

  Here once again I cried so that you could not hear,

  Bury me! Bury me within your heart!

  An angel visited me this eve

  Took my hand and touched her lips

  The forever unspoken word of love she proclaimed

  With tender caresses and caring eyes, a press of hearts

  Which drew a startled light from the precious darkness of my being

  Upon her hair we latched sweet desires of our embracing soul

  Upon her breasts I laid full sigh in restful endless joy

  Upon her cradle she spread me a sensuous quilt of comforting yearning

  Upon herself as me and me as she cuddled we, dreaming

  When I awoke this morn it was I an angel to be

  To walk the day between night’s mysteries a lover

  Embracing all who be, truly simply a loving endlessly

  For within me now is she and he be I her unspoken word, proclaimed

  [Wednesday, May 19, 2004]

  Chisels

  It is the terrors we share, caged

  slashed by good intentions, caresses of

  lovers gone wild with our juice, blessed by

  our loving openness, vulnerable, tear they our

  hearts

  souls

  cocks

  cunts

  nothing left but detritus of a misplaced love.

  Brush lips, whisper praise to stirring hearts,

  it is good, most mornings

  caresses yield to the fierce fire of acceptance,

  submission, kneel we so

  most mornings, others

  wrenching blooms off swollen blossoms, yielding

  crushed, mangled,

  swatted, threatened, all this pain yet

  love like liquid healing oozes through veins of twined hearts no

  longer lonely

  angels of lost dreams, nightly

  on pillows sodden with sweat, passion’s residue, suffering

  hours, minutes, seconds till he she leaves, intent upon returning

  Shall we suffer again, rock yielding to sculptor’s chisel?

  Embrace

  mine eyes have seen, lips

  pressed in silent code, heart

  thumped by stillness, hands

  blinded by unsated desire, arms

  tightly wound binding wounds unclosed, ears

  lost in echo of whispered delights, me

  in pieces, shards for assembling, body

  full, swelling, relentless longing throbbing, you

  our eyes have seen, us

  return to top

  Simplicity

  you never asked, so sent was me

  you never wanted, so needless was me

  you never invited, so unruly was me

  you never complained, so awestruck was me

  you never forgot, so forever is me

  you never withheld, so beyond love am we

  Nothing but

  I am to pull the shade aside that day when you shall die

  This assignment unrequested they have already assigned

  To sit and set my soul within thy sun my face towards your moon

  And all that I be be best within thee, this already mine

  It is for me to taste the sweet kiss of life upon your cheek

  To press my heart against thy breast and know the flush of thy feral heat

  To lounge within the summertime of rest next to your soft thighs

  To play wi
th all your soul and prepare for the moment you expire

  For some of us it is given to run the race so full

  To go the extra distance and end atop the hill

  There to look upon the valley below and yearn with all our hearts

  To capture but a moment of a smile a kindness of one so sweet of heart

  Yes there is fate and there is choice and there is wisdom kind

  But nothing ever can repay the steely faithfulness which is mine

  Nothing but the tender kiss of your forever lingering lips entwined

  All this for each of us but ever yet a moment sublime

  Tis this moment thine a flash of you as mine

  I sit here wondering why the world has shown me your face

  I sit here unable to move, enrapt by your lingering smile on my lips my fingertips.

  I sit here inside a patience long-preached but just now dancing.

  I am not sitting for my form is all sighfilled desire.

  I am not, no longer, unable not to be you.

  [October 15, 2003]

  I’ll bring you tea, unrequested

  I’ll butter your bread, in solitary anguish

  I’ll rub your feet, in celebratory submission

  I’ll read a bedtime story, fearlessly

  I’ll hug you with arms tireless

  I’ll laugh at the comics while you sleep

  I’ll think a thought not thoughtless about your wiggle

  I’ll dance to catch the rising moon upon your cheek

  I’ll disappear so that you won’t forget me

  I’ll burn with fire so that you are not cold

  I’ll carry you in my arms beyond the deathless desert

  I’ll lie down next to you braced by the courage to die

  I’ll bring you tea, when requested

  [8/25/03]

  There is a love

  Which only I bear

  Drawn from my heart

  Without despair

  It is a love not yet divine

  Which ever labors to entwine

  The sweet enchanting lullabies

  Of inner soul and kiss sublime

  And so become the song we be

  At such moments of lilting reverie

  There is a love

  Which only you bear

  Drawn from your heart

  Without despair

  It is a love so enchanting and so alive

  That I seek merely to survive

  Simply to be but a memory

  Of your kiss, a touch, a revelry

  Within the warmth of your embrace afire

  Knowing no end to such a desire

  Of all that I am as I adore

  Your sensual holiness evermore

  [Monday, February 02, 2004]

  Upon Our Passing

  This day of our dying

  Earthen death

  Flesh celebrated by those we love

  Gathering here in rain and snow they come

  Wondering how it could have happened

  Not knowing that in this passing

  So do we live

  For now we can say I love you

  Without fear of betrayal or forgetfulness

  Utter it with tonguelessness and arms decayed

  Embrace each other with legless clutch

  Ha! yes, what is dying but the freedom

  To proclaim our love so everlastingly?

  Let us not ask how this is nor the why

  Let us accept the universe as it plays us out

  Mere voice this moment now mere embrace

  Everything which is lost is now regained

  In eternal decay is our flower reborn

  [Tuesday, March 09, 2004]

  Waiting in prison's visiting room (for her)*

  Grass knee high, bugs

  buzzing doing what bugs

  do,

  Dig it?

  Smooth silvery slither, she

  dig it?

  Like, man, the vibe that created it all!

  Dig it.

  Smile, hers, slicing my heart, man,

  Tell me, man, did you ever, I mean ever,

  cell block hard ass lover’s tears, man,

  did you ever?

  I mean ever, know she was comin’?

  Touched her face, outline, soap on mirror

  four thousand times, drawn, washed away, my

  tears

  nothing else will do, no Bon Ami, no Brillo pad, just

  tears

  long silent nights under coarse sheets, numbered

  8867-147,

  waiting, knowing, she’s there, hoping, knowing, damn

  they don’t want me to hope, not to know, but I know

  she’s

  about, in fragrance of a walk, drop of the left hip, saunter

  I melt in the Visiting Room, knowing her Sister waits

  for me,

  yeah, for me, not you, but me! Goddam

  life is good here in lock down!

  Dying on cold Minnesota mornings in Sandstone, FCI, she

  comes

  on slither of ice, spars blinking sunspots in my eyes, I know

  “Her.”

  “She”

  “Goddess”

  no name, unnamed, yet, now I know

  her name

  In dreams I walk the streets of a small nameless town in a forgotten state

  ever present to her blessedness.

  I am in love.

  I am loved.

  Amen. Amen. So it is.

  [Sandstone, MN Federal Correctional Institutions

  8867-147 = inmate number]

  What is love but an unknown desire

  Raised by lust to a heat afire

  What is love but a cold refrain

  Driven by the frozen rain

  What is love but a hoot and holler

  Flinging hay onto the pyre

  What is love so full and strong

  But a lover broken-hearted in full song

  What is love but a passing fling

  Of timelessness and suffering

  What is love why do you ask

  Do you think I am not up to the task?

  What is love if all conspire

  To douse the flame of sad desire?

  What is love

  Do not ask

  I am but a man

  In mask

  :she for me is all:

  [Thursday, January 29, 2004]

  Why us?

  In the calm of the sunny afternoon we drink iced tea

  The child plays on the swings, we relax to the rhythm of the swaying

  There is air which we can taste, a blueness in the sky which entrances

  As we walk back towards our home there is sweetness of love touching fingers

  For thousands of years the gods have experimented

  Taken flesh and mingled it with soul in hope of a magic moment

  They have cursed and sworn, issued incantations and declarations of doom

  All now seen as a gesture of desperateness since they are only gods

  It is for us humans to teach them the ways of less and more

  For them there has only been eternality and fulfillment

  They have not suffered the pleasures of the incomplete

  Nor the sated joy of betrayal, such has eluded them

  Only with the gesture of forgetfulness do we triumph

  Walk away from their eternal embrace and hungering

  Only we able to jam all zest into a coffin of time, five minutes

  We take ecstasy and reduce it to a comma

  Lay it between our legs and turn aside to sneeze

  How jealous can they be these daemons from another dimension

  Queer folk who conjure with our flesh but cannot feast

  Cannot taste the deliciousness of tiredness and rejection

  Cannot fathom the weariness of doing it the 100th time

  Of taking heart-fire and turning such into a cipher

&n
bsp; Of reducing all of life to a yawn

  What is passion this they ask, what do we say

  But only shirk, we do not know what cannot be asked

  We only blunder forward whacking at each other

  Creating like the blind sculptor

  What else is there we shout at them

  But endless boredom of dreams unending

  For we are fools who oft miss

  The sweetness of the simple kiss

  [Tuesday, March 09, 2004]

  A letter to her

  All that I do, meager effort that it is, is

  to awaken the deep memory of yourself, goddess

  Majesty, Queen, Potentate of Creation, Womb

  you who give life to all, our Mother, our Sister, our Beloved

  this merely my task, honored am I, loving you as death am I willing to die, fleeting seed

  ejaculate offering myself for your absorption, consummation, mating, you

  loving you everything it is all that I do, poorly do I, broken-bone servant yet fearless, courageous, I

  kneel before you, Queen of the Sky, Beat of the Cosmic Heart, Blood that Nourishes, Amen.

  Even your feebleness, transience, flaw of being, aging ardour of embrace, in every pore, every

  flaw of your being, peerless are you to me, I kiss your chin, toes, small of the back, succulent ear lobes, I

  mere slave of desire unrequited, ask of you

  sister mother lover crone

  but