It Is Not For You

Clandestine patterns
Gathering behind my eyes
Summoned on the strings
Of my heart
Open, wide open
Wearing these patterns
Alive on my sleeve
But it is not for you

Tasting the clouds
Dancing across a frightened sky
Will Spring ever come
Heady on Winter's heels
My tongue finds the clouds
Sweet with rain
Dashing across
An empty looking glass
Filling my eyes
With the light of miracles
But it is not for you

Alone, behind closed doors
I open up
My heart's secured door
Laying naked
The wonders secreted there
Long ago
Specters reveal
Their secret histories
Past lives lived
Without thought for what comes
Eternally ever after

This knowledge jars me
Awakens my mind
When I am alone
But it is not for you

I caught the hot rain
On my tongue
Standing alone
In Spring's welcome beginning
You trailed behind
Each of those delicious drops
Falling

I wondered if we would ever meet again
In some future life
When the specters of your past
Could be peacefully laid to rest
But it is not for you

I became a companion
Of the sun
Shutting slowly Winter's door
Hearing the lock turn, closing
Hearing my heart turn, hardening
It has all been sealed tight
So that my mind can move
Forward
Into the light of a future
Without a past
But it is not for you

I find my bed
Warm at night
Even after the indomitable shadow
Of you
Has fallen
How quickly a looked door
Can be sprung open
By the right hand

A light creeping in
Without warning
My mind startled
Into awareness
Of a brief reckoning
But it is not for you

If I touch myself
Become awake
Between my thighs
Mt manhood becoming my master
I will unlock a door
Once unforgivingly latched
To give myself
A love not hindered
Uncomplicated
Or safely demure

I unleash
The dancing specters there
To find their homes
Again in the forgiving light
Where you have foolishly
Feared to tread

Do not worry
You are not forgotten
There is a hole in my heart
And much more flows out
Than ever flows in
But it is not for you

Khamsin/ Lost In the Afterlife

I rise yet again
From the trappings holding me
From the coffin of the sky
My womb in the hallowed earth
Covering me with the pale light
Of the Ancients, the stars
Of the moon, the diadem
Of the heavenly vault
I rise
Having fallen, I rise
And where were you?

Left alone
In the dry soil
What bed would I need
What comfort could the ground give
With flowers now wilted
Left for dead
I was, I am
Coming into myself again
Watched over by the tender sky
My mother, conceiving again
Giving birth to me, again
As a star, an Ancestor
A descendant of the Milky Way
And who were you?

Hearing the early morning music
A caravan treading
On the shifting sands
Lonely yet crowded
Time watched them slip by
As it all slips by
These ephemeral things
My heart desired to take
And where were we?

We held hands in a moment
Already lost to us
To the temporary dunes
Playthings of the khamsin-winds
Angry, like the Gods
Giving pleasure, like the Gods
But for a fragile time
Gone again, but left
To the treasury of my memory
And where are you now?

Pale, fading
As the wash of stars
Paints the dunes
With timid color
I see the spirit of you
Appearing for the spirit of me
Only to ourselves
Are we a reality
Immortal like the Gods
Standing against time
As the living go on their way
Without us

We cannot consummate
Our vows
Nor halt the shifting dunes
From their destiny
In the tempestuous wind
The khamsin speaks to me
Like the thunder
Of my heart
Beating hard
Breathing the empty air
Over the desert
Where life is ephemeral
As twilight
And where were we then?

Free, my mind
From all of their constraints
Inhibited are they
From the fullness of my love
Clinging only to one
Their eyes could never behold
My many and generous reflections
For I have a manifold heart

One in the earth
One in the heavens
One for the sand between your toes
One for the burning plains
Where no thing grows
For want of sacred water
One for the sun, unforgiving
One for the moon, my lover in the shadows
One for every star, woven amongst the Imperishables
One for the flesh, longing
One for the voice, singing a song
For those who have gone before us
One for your thighs, open
Like sunbeams shattering over the sands
One for the Gods, all living in my veins
And how many do you have now?

I rise again
Forgetting the fall
Tasting freedom
Which is limitless experience
In the heart
Unencumbered by ephemeral conditions
These are the trappings that bind us
Here on earth
But these I have transcended
And shown the many colors
That shine from the mirror
Of my heart

Conscience, you are not bound
To this earth
Not bound to one
But married to many
Your freedom comes
After you have let go
Relinquishing the need to possess

Having fallen in you
I rise
My earth, my heaven
Reunited with them all
I have found at long last
The place where you are

One of Your Beautiful Things

I could not ask
For tenderness
But for your hard hand
Taking possession
Of my weak body
How quickly I became yours
And my will
Deserted me
For the call of your bedsheets

Rumpled, strewn about a sunlit room
Your shirts
Your pants
The sweat in your underwear
I fell hard
For all you had
Hard
Is what I asked for
And my heart got what it deserved

Your scent
A spring morning
Beneath a fresh powder blue sky
I held you so fast
Between my legs
Your stubble cutting into
My soft pink cheek
I was oblivious
To the afternoon
Simply to become
One of your discarded garments

How foolish
In my youth
To think of becoming
One of your glorious adornments
Something to scatter
Across your floor
Like all your other beauties

Now gone
The afternoon in your light
Quickly rushing away
From the spring day
In your sweaty sheets
When fast we rose together
Descended to the depths
And I became
One of your beautiful things 

Icarus

Did you carry my kiss
With you?

A crown of light
Haloed your fine brow
Hard lines framing soft skin
To touch
I put my heart in
And watched my blood boil
Is there a way
Within you
To cool my wayward desire?

To love you
Is like touching a flower
Whose most beautiful petals
Fall to the ground
I take them up
One by one in my fingers
My lips poised
To catch you
As you shudder in release

How I long to be there
When you fall, like Roma fell
When you triumph
As presidents and kings triumph

But loss
Is the hard edge
Of your sword
Felt too swiftly
Before I garnished satisfaction

My eyes unwrapped you
Stripped you bare
In your glory
Like the midday sun
Captured in a glossy blue canvas
I tasted the air
Pretending it was your skin

Did you carry my embrace
With you?

You stand so proud
Commanding even the free birds
In the clouds
As you could command me
While your fear holds you back
Inflaming my desire

I reached too high
And fell back down
Into the mortal earth
Icarus became me
And I became a fool
Ensconced in my passions

The sun incinerated
My ambitious wings
Tempted my ego
For all the beautiful things
Far outside my grasp

Did you carry my mortality
With you?

I thought to become a god
So carried myself above
The mountains
Where the shifting sand
Could not burn me

A tender wind caressed me
Promising a deeper communion
I held fast to my vanity
A reflection in water
Enticing me to draw near
How hard the fall
Beneath the deceptive surface

Did you carry my ambition
With you?

I fell through the air
Cut to ribbons
On your airy tongue
Such things you say

To burn my feathers
Beyond repair
To bring my vanity
Crashing down
Heavens cannot hold me
The earth will not receive
My singed countenance

Without regret
I fall much further still
Back down into you
Of air
And my heart's desire

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

Icon

(S, light a candle)


Unlock the Light
While clinging to your darkness
Searching beneath the stones
Incandescent with hope
This is what Spirit has promised us

So do not give up hope
Even when stumbling, stumbling
Reaching so hard
Deep down inside despair
You will find me there
Tucked away beside
Your darkness

A little Light
Like a sparrow
Hidden in the eaves
Somewhere just passed
Sundown

Fragrant night jasmine
The incense always finds you
Beside me
Hidden away, secreted beyond
Despair's hungry clutches

In a museum, perhaps
But sparkling in a holy place
All its own
Where there is an eternal youth
A texture that will not crumble
An ancient language
Whose voice dapples
With light
Falling from a window high above

Clerestory
Bringing down heaven
Isn't this what Spirit promised
On the tips of my fingers
Alone and unsullied
For you

To capture your pain
And send it back to heaven
With the swallows
Across the shining sea
Which eats all darkness

I am your icon
Alone in a dark place
Yet suffused with a light
Of my own
Steadily flickering
From within

Your lips have never touched me
Yet in Spirit we have kissed
Your fingers have never undressed
My gilt edges
Yet in Spirit we have met
Naked and liberated
In a realm beyond time's dictates
And delicately you have absorbed
My glorious light-radiance
Taking it away with you
Into your darkness

Can despair touch you
When a candle lifts sorrow
And kisses its fingers
Into silence?
Has the Veil ever descended
Never to part again?

Can darkness have you
As I have had you
When, in the loudest silence
Of the night,
My golden face
Called you back
From the Other Side
Of the night
To be reborn in the rosy-gold crown
Of daybreak's new
Incarnation

All of these things
I have given to you
Without wanting so much
As a thread of your hair
In return
So still beat my heart
For fear of startling you away
In this lonely monument
Lit only by a high window

Reach up to me
And find
Your prayers answered
When the footfall of despair
Draws near
Call to me, and pray
Light a candle, and pray
For my name is a prayer
A dark companion to the Light
And Light's answer to
Dark's enchantments

Time cannot wipe away
My gilt edges
Nor tarnish the glittering
Pigments
Sealed tight by an amber
Varnish
Somewhere in time
Where you shall find me
Again, and again, and again....

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

What Do You Care For?

A cold Winter evening falls on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

A blue veil
Clings to the hot mountains
Your silence unnerves me
Carries me back to an ancient time
Before language divided us

I search the scattered clouds
For answers to my plight
What wandering spirits
Will come when invited
I would rather lose myself
In loneliness
Than be reminded by
Their solemn touch

I parted that veil
To look beyond the ridge
Of fallen twilight
Gathering droplets
Of fragile dew
On my fingertips

Your navel excited my tongue
When found
Your flesh invited me in
To swim in the clouds
Without regrets
How I wish you had invited me
To stay indefinitely

When called
I risked all
As I always do
The sacrifice justified
By the infinite pleasure
Conjoined in your heart
The radiant amber light
A high plateau
Crowned by a sunlit summit

Why should I go down again
Only to be deflated?
These heights of yours
So exquisitely constructed
Will endure on my lips
Long after the moment of you
Subsides

But what do you care
For a poem
A naked heart
Two hands open in desire
Two legs entwined like tendrils
In a verdant field
What do you care
For the one thing
You can never fully possess?

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