Beyond the Beyond

The desert plains and mountains surrounding West Wendover, Nevada/ Photo by the author

Take my body
Alone with you
Into the empty spaces
Beyond life

I hear this calling
To my heart
From beyond the beyond
Where shadows and specters
Haunt time
Passing the hours and days
Without even a spell of light

Take my broken body
Alone with you
Awakened by your arms
That life may abide once more
In this sculpture
Of flesh and blood
What artist could have dreamed
Of my colors and textures?

Somewhere beyond the beyond
I will be renewed
In another form surpassing
All the ephemeral forms
I have ever taken

Will you remember me
As I once was
Naked and wet
Hugging your skin tight?
Or will my new body
Carry you away
Into new memories
Of skin, flesh and heart
Never had before?

Take my willing body
Down with you
Into the depths
Far beyond the temporary
Garments
Clinging to all
These beautiful people
Holding on tight
To what inevitably flees them

I do not cling to them
But put my trust
In the steadfast presence
Sheltering me in you

I touch the sky
Before I fade
But only to the eyes
Of little men
Who fall when their beauty
Falls
Who lose hope when
Their wealth loses vigor

I have never put faith
In these disintegrating things
Whose reflections, like a mirror,
Change and disappear with time

But your face remains
Constant in my gaze
Striking like a sunset
Reflected crimson and gold
Across scintillating waters
The light finds my eyes
Filling them with life
Cascading from your fire

My heart finds solace
Where your footfall
Draws ever near
Removing the shadow of doubt
Plaguing my reason

What reason is there in love?
What logic can follow
Such folly as that?

To believe in a beyond
The beyond
A life coming into being
From the seed of death

Such is the inspiration
You light
With the fire
Of your constant body
That an eternal beyond
Seems logical
Defeats all illusion
Calls me down
Into the luxury of your arms

Take my body
Alone with you
Before their reason
Descends to tear us apart
Their 'God', I promise you,
Is an idol our love has
Thrown out
And our light has replaced 'Him'
As a beacon of the heart
Beyond the beyond

Beyond 'His' chains
Beyond 'His' jealous possessions
Beyond 'His' inscriptions
And injunctions
We embrace the embrace
Beyond the body that
Disintegrates

Take my body
Never alone, with you
Deep down into the empty spaces
Where there is a voice
For love
Speaking powerfully
Within the silence
Beyond  

A Doorway To My Heart

Natural cave-like formations in West Wendover, Nevada/ Photo by the author

Alone in a desert land
Not abandoned
Not left for dead
Yet finding solitude
In a barren land

Tucked high in the bosom
Of ruddy cliffs
Piercing the flank
Of a turquoise sky
Cloudless
The sky drifts by
My eyes
Drinking, drinking
Drinking deeply
Of the turquoise fountain
Flowing above my head

Security waits
Even in lonely valleys
Where rams rut
And bleached bones
Tell a tale of life's fragile struggle

I find a purpose
For life to continue
Far outside the temporary veil
Of mortal existence

This is a doorway to my heart
Worn into the ancient rock
Where my ancient memories
Wait
Clad in the ages
Of lives lived before
This body came into
My mother's womb

My real mother is above
Stretched out in Her turquoise body
Kissed by the shards of sharp sunlight
Tumbling down
Over the empty landscape

There is a doorway to my heart
Where one finds a portal
Into the spectral world
A ladder to heaven
The doors of the sky
Sheltered by monoliths
Raising the hot earth
Skyward
Up and into the etheric vastness

You cannot help
But make pilgrimage here
To the place where my heart
Has hallowed a shrine
To the near-forgotten Gods
But Their voices linger
Here where the one gives way
To the Ones who went before him
Their spirit lights
Calling down lightning
Given from a bare sky

Heaven calls from above
Earth makes love to my feet
And open up
Before me
At the doorway to my heart

I leave behind
All I thought I knew
And give way to
The company of spirits
Who, in silence, bestow
The Wisdom of millions of years

My real father is below
My feet firm planted
In his sacral history
His battles
His deaths
His resurrection
I gather up his bones
And call him to my counsel
At the doorway to my heart
Where the Ancestors
Make quiet pilgrimage
To speak without language
To initiate without action

Gratefully I receive
The spectral lights
Emerging from darkness
Where every seed grows
Before it flourishes
In the Light

And I too came from darkness
Into the world of light
From between my sacred mother's thighs
Like the sun
In the rosy mantle
Of the dawn sky
Renewed beyond death

If you travel here
To meet me
You must give up
All that you thought you knew
To enter the sacred portal
Burrowed deep
In the desert shrine
Where the Ancestors
traverse
To make communion
With their kin

Hear the drum
The awesome heights
Of my heart
Secreted in the ruddy mountains
Where a trail of light
Moves like quicksilver
Through a lens of spirit
Cutting through flesh

This is where I meet you
Again
This is where
You pick up the pieces
And love again
This is where
We begin again
Here at the doorway to my heart

Spell For Raising the Dead

A child's tombstone in the historic mining town of Bodie, California/ Photo by the author

Come, o voice I have loved

Let me hear you again

For I am the worthy listener

Clad in the dawn

Possessor of the spectral light

Come, fine notes

Heralding the rising sun

Warming your bones

Surpassing the cold earth

Slumber, I will have no more of you

When the swallows return

When the conversation of morning

Puts a swift end to silence

Music unbound, I am your composer

Lover in my youth, hear again

The music my heart has woven

Come, flesh

Renew your vigor

Let me touch you

With the quickly approaching

Dawn

Jasmine, whose dew-embraced petals

Caress my nose

Whose senses are alive

Beneath my hard moving body

I summon you to please

To touch

To invigorate

Your renewal is felt by the bees

Returning to gather

By the sun

Enticed to shed its grace

By the earth

Clad in green stems

And wild carpets of lavender

By this lover

Whose skin, both hard and soft,

Is waiting to be filled

Come, sun

Come fragrant morning light

And dappled mountains

Rising with tender illumination

Whose shadows are long departing

I summon your resilience

Your strength

As the power of arms

Encircling the resurrected child

Of the sun

Come, lips

On a silent morning

You break the stillness

Of my heart

Because silence is momentary

But you are an infinite melody

Harmonizing on the dawn's northern breeze

There in the north

Your voice is quick

Like the sails of ships

Returning

Your face in the east

Tied to the glory

Of the rising sun

Come, dew

Falling on my thighs

Dappling my navel

Stroking my back

Opening my lips

Kissing, kissing

Setting fire to the secret places

Of my heart's desire

You know no rest

In the confines of the earth's

Darkness

You know no solitude

No gestation

No confinement

I will not have you

For my passions are quick

Lit by a flame of Eternal source

And impotence, I know not your name

Nor feel you in my blood

Come, youth

Softness again

A rosy light flushing

Skin soft to the touch

Upon whose sentiment

My tender touches play

I cannot abide you

To languish in the earth

For the sun refuses

To set forever

And he knows

His return is imminent

I will capture

His illumination

On my face

My eyes will blaze

In the splendor

Of an eastern fire

Sleep, I deny you

Rest, you are unknown to the excitement

Coursing through my hungry veins

Earth, I alight

Upon your weary mountains

Injecting new vigor

Red hot touches

From the tips of my fingers

Lips that speak in melodies

Haunting

I am your benefactor

Come back, o beauty mine

I receive you

As the earth has received you

But heaven cannot have you

Earth cannot hold you

Nor gods possess your soul

As I do now

Come, and listen

Lover of my youth

Hear again

The music my heart has woven

Ophelia

Blue Lake, outside Wendover Nevada/ Photo by the author

(For Brent, omnipresent in my heart)

If ever you leave me
I will go down to the lonely edge
Of water
Where the day and night meet
In unwatched embrace
And I too will embrace the water

My face to the sky
I see not sun
My back to the depths
No limb finds rest or rescue
My eyes open to the clouds
They see nothing beautiful
My blood settles
In my veins
There is no breath
To fuel my battered heart

I cannot breathe
When you leave the room
I hold my breath
And wish the Gods had not
Granted you free will
How terrible is freedom
And how daunting
The changes of the seasons

I warned you
Of my intemperance
Sweeping in like the blustery days
Of Fall
Covering the mountains
With a penetrating chill
This is what happens
When you leave me alone
The flame is deprived of oxygen
Lungs of breath

How I am drawn
To water
And fear cannot placate me
My greater fear is the absence
Of your flesh
Your brawny legs
Thighs built like monoliths

To be alone and strangled
Between those thighs
I would condemn my soul
To everlasting purgatory
Never fearing God's displeasure

If you ever leave me
I will go down
To the very bottom
And never come up again
For air
And when they find
My body
Wet and disheveled
And without life
They will say that in the end
I could not be deprived
Of your life in my lover's veins

Flight of the Jabiru

(To S, for the sake of remembrance)

The Sun has been swallowed
Like a ripe mandrake
Intoxicating the tongue
Of the Sun-God
To sleep
His heaven, His veil, His firmament
Glowing defiantly
Harboring the wings of spirits
Going down, going down

I never feared
The flight of jabirus
Whose winged grace
Signals the death throes
Of the sun
His kingdom, once on fire
With liquid gold
Cools my breath
A heavy, drowsy curtain
As the wings of spirits
Go down, go down

Did you hear
The flight of the jabirus?
Their wings disturbed
My placid countenance
Rippling like the waters of a mill-pond
Stirring, casting doubt on permanence

I waded in after them
Those ripples of wet blue
An azure mirror of the sky
Flaring above
But the shadows of their wings
Gave my heart notice
That you were gone
Gone, all gone now

A lonely torch burns
As the sun retreats
In a torrent of red, orange
And sanguine illumination
My heart stopped
When it saw that you had stopped
Gone down, down, down

This is what wise men say
Happens to us all
Even in the flush of youth
Sensual, carnal ecstasy

Lovers exhaust love
Climaxes leave tingling skin
Wanting more
Hearts left alone
In the startling sunset
Pine still for more light
Your promises made
In the heat of the moment
Now whisper and die
Away, away, away

I could not halt
The flight of the jabiru
Those Souls in light-dappled plumage
So I brought a candle
To illuminate your grave
And tears gave renewed life
To the hot desert sand
Flickering, flickering, flickering

The sunset called your name
My heart, still in love
Could not help but to listen
Listen, listen

I let them carry you away
Enfolded by wings
Whose tips had stirred
The Imperishable Stars
A host of spirits
To make light the path
Once trodden by darkness

Darkness, you let in light
Light, you kiss the darkness
And make love to twilight
Even as Mother Heaven swallows
The golden flesh of the sun

I cannot call you back
From your lofty flight
The jabiru comes and departs
Again through the western passage
All of the things I have loved
Have been removed
With those elegant wings
Softer to you now
Than the kiss of my bed
Naked and charged with youth

I call to the West
Waiting for your return
Like the face of the rosy sun
Bursting in blood and fire
Between the legs of Mother Heaven

They make their flight
Signalling the departure
Of all cherished things
Coming and going
Coming again and going again
Through the endless
Passage of the night

Gold Covers Me

A liquid gold sky spreads out over the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

(For S, even though it doesn't quite make sense)

Gold covers me
To live in your twilight
Where no man has access
Jade becomes my heart
You greedily possess
Locked away inside you
The flame of me strikes
The earth like turquoise

Uncover me
I will find you
Having thirsted for redemption
I find in your cool arms
Cool arms
Warm fingers
Marble lips, sculpted by the Gods
A light you once concealed
I bring back to the world
Above

Gold
The sun brings me back to life
For loss had claimed me
I staggered to and fro
To and fro
Wading through casual flesh
Skin and thighs

And so many available beds
Regret has never known me
But sorrow has taken me
As an ardent lover
Not as tragic as death
When darkness falls
Is it still not dark?

Gold
A treasure clasped
In patient hands
A heart gathering souls to it
As light to shattered glass
How you cut so deliciously
To feel you
Even in this terrible way
Is finer than the vain promises
Of God or man

What have I not sacrificed
For you?
My treasure, once guarded
For only the Gods to see
So easily revealed its turquoise light
The dewy leaves of trees
Playing in the breath of Summer
Faithfulness undaunted
By deceit
Love uncowed by a heavy hand

How could I fail
To serve the best in you
When the light in me
Longed to rush in
And placate the shadows?

Gold
Let me hold you again
Press my lips against you again
Hard and wet and salty
Let me cut loose my eagle's wings
To wrap around you
And in the dead of night
Defend you

Finally life descends
Into the other world
Casting out what frail breath wove
Into the fabric of your flesh
All is gone, all is silence
The earth reclaims pleasures and triumphs
But in its stillness is covered
In the spreading gold of the morning sun

I Carried Them Away With Me

The startling beauty of the mountains west of Wendover, Nevada/ Photo by the author

(For S on your rainy day)

I am not afraid
To give everything away
For a moment, an hour, a day
When, with you, time has lost its validity
The power of the future is undone

Immortality, I can taste
The beginnings of you
Which the Ancients sought
And some found before
Their own glories collapsed

And what monuments shall you
Leave behind?
Fame, fortune, the admiration
Of the masses?
Those pale and are ephemeral too
I want none of them
Between my legs

What takes hold of my senses
Is the present field of your body heat
A light-dappled shadow
Casting its essence
Through the room

I feel as if I never lost you
Your skin was my skin
Your sorrows, my suffering to carry
And where have I carried you?
With me, with me

Sunlight gives way to invading darkness
I know you dwell there
Secrets half-revealed
I know you unveiled these, too
Did you ever reach the bottom
Of these mysteries?
I did
And I carried them with me, with me

I had a dream
When you and I were alone together
That you and I were alone together
Your fear having been lassoed
In a golden net
Your tongue was the sun
And my body the sky

You drew a map of stars
Across my trembling sky
Where I felt the Milky Way
Burst as a shower of white
Liquid light
I took you all in, all in

When we were done
I left behind me
The invisible scent of my passion
Well expended
Sun, you knew me
Moon, I will never fear you again

My arms may once have been empty
But this mythology I had written
Is now dust on an empty page
And as for your fears
Your disjointed memories
Your fine-tuned misgivings
I have carried them with me,
With me

Let the clouds gather
I laugh and defeat them
Let the desert storm take hold
On the horizon
I cast these out of my heart
Quietly you make love to me
And I take you all in, all in
But now that you have gone
I turn my back on the lacerating present
Let you all in, all in

Darkness, I call you the companion
Of my days
My days the companion of him who
Departed me
And where have I carried you?
Away with me, with me