I Gathered A Pomegranate

A dramatic desert sunset on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

(For S )

Ripe pomegranate
You fall not easily
Into my starving hands
My waiting lips
Pressed tight against
Your husk
Your seeds staining
Your fresh gemstones

How quickly
The night falls
Light fading
The yew trees sheltering
A silky spring breeze

I waited beneath
For a single kiss
From your hunting mouth

Taste me so quickly
While the silver stars
Fall across a velvet canopy
While lapis blue night
Shatters over the distant mountains

Greedily you devour a pomegranate
Without care how the crimson
Stains your elegant mouth

Fountains offer their refreshment
Like flowers give up their pollen
And I wish to be like those
Industrious little bees
Dancing from flower to flower to flower

How industrious my wings
How sweet the virgin nectar

You turn away
Blushing so quickly
Even though the scent of me
Stings salty and open thighs

Banish dawn and receive night
The hour this bee takes flight
To gather his honey-sweet love
As the moon showers the earth
With regal splendor

Wait beneath the trees
Excited, your senses newly aroused
And I will swiftly gather
The offering of your body
With my lips

Still moon, sweetly glowing
I bask in it
As the pomegranate bursts
Too hungry was my heart
To gather the crimson jewels

Desolate now, my heart wanders
Could life possibly have sacrificed more?

I Swallowed the Mountains

The "floating island" of the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

When I die
I am content
To have lived my life
In love.
The caresses of so many lovers,
The trail of light left behind
By my passion

Where life has dropped
Darkness,
Like the sky at midnight
A blue-black pall
Whose stars have died
Long ago,
Yet whose light beckons
With wild contentment.

I would rather love
And sacrifice all my virtues
For a single night
In your bed,
Wrapped in your brawny arms,
Where security fends off
The angry and jealous God
Of old.

I leave behind kindness,
And in my wake
A belief in the divinity
Of desire,
Whose hands have unlocked
The hidden chambers
Of my heart.

I stood alone
In the midnights of my lust
Awaiting the dawn's promises,
Where pink and soft sky
Removes the sharp
Corners of my experience.

Hallowed earth, come
Silence, I receive you gratefully
Sleep, you are only a dream to me
When I am in the arms
Of my Gods.

I came to the lonely mountainside
Perfectly aligned with discomfort,
For the rewards are granted
In proportion to the sacrifice;
Thus hardship I commend you,
Suffering, I stand unafraid in
Your mighty shadow.

For I am in the company of spirits
Doves carrying an olive branch,
A light glinting with the vitality
Of the imperishable stars.

Clad in somber purple,
The elements come to my feet
With their gifts;
Solitude
Resilience
I shall come again,
And when you feel gripped by passion,
You will know that I am near.

How content I am
To be here and alone in Eternity
Never truly alone
As long as your faith endures.

Remember that the best of me
Has been planted in the best of you.

Remember that I was the strongest
In the dark,
Where the indomitable sky
Takes possession of the earth,
Where the mountains devour time.

But in the end
You will see that my love
Was stronger than Gods or men,
For I was the voice whose hunger
Became the peace in your heart.

I was reborn in your love
The day you first came to me,
When I swallowed the mountains. 

The Memory of Saints

Silver Island after sundown on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

Thunder of prayers
Hallowed spaces, they rise
Like incense in my heart's
Recollections
To stumble in the dark garden
Pricked by leaves,
Falling, falling, falling

Fastly comes the night's veil
A bride that lights
Passions with a single blue flame
Calling, calling, calling
Pounding that rhythm
Worshiped by the Ancients

Call back the folded hands
Of wise men
Clad in cowls,
For the earth has fallen into
Inhumane industry

Do we remember the songs of saints
Who crossed the desert
Where ships sank into the
Unforgiving sands

They survived injustice
They remained compassionate
While the rest of us lost
Our innocence

But I take up the veil of stillness,
Of the heart beating
The mind like a drum

Marry, marry, marry
The two separated souls
And you will have found
The answer

Am I alone?
Am I alone in the desert?
I was, but for a moment,
King of the fallen sky
The stars inseperable
From the ocean of midnight

I will come out from the Veil
My eyes stroking the light
That takes upon itself the
Body of a man,
The mirror alone tells of
His identity

Light a candle
Light a prayer on fire
So that its warmth challenges
Greedy twilight
Silky night, you fall, fall, fall

Sunrise, I call, call, call
I take up with folded hands
The call of the past,
And my future becomes
The memory of saints

Dying Venus

A stunning Winter sunset on the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

Molten, electric light
Seizes my thighs
My mind's eye taken by
Dark firmament
Pierced through by gilded
Storm
Wanting, wanting, wanting

Venus rises high
Such sheer power
Holds tight
My breath, my skin,
The blood traveling hard
The course my veins
Dictate
Rising, rising, rising

Lapis vault grasping
Bruised crescent moon
Where stars paint the light
Absorbed by sensuous curves
Below
How I want inside, inside inside

I take the gold you offer
So generously from the clouds
Moving in, grasped by an anxious moment
Even the sky can be afraid
When the certainty of light is
Obscured in the moment
How far I am behind, behind, behind

Timid blue, shattered by the passion
Of the dying sun
How quickly he gives up his glory
How certainly his light fades

But you
My night sky, my ethereal grave
Without effort hold me fast
In your embrace
When the sun has failed me
When all my life has drained
Away, away, away

I Go In After Water

Small waterfall at Galena Creek Park, Reno, Nevada/ Photo by the author

Death I follow you in
Underneath the waters
 
A cavern I find my home
Leaving behind my body
I swim in the trail
The eternal stars leave
For me

To be one of them
As I have been one
With you
But my body disappointed me
Even after bringing you
Into the presence of
Divinities

Water I go down
Rushing into my new form

I have left you all behind
As life is left behind
As your body is left behind
As beauty is left behind
As wealth is left behind

All I ever was I am now
Floating after the waters
Wet with life
Even in death

Liberation Becomes Me

Detail from "As My Father's Eye Watches Me"/ Painting in progress by the author

Death cannot capture me nor decay contain me. 
Your cage, I am unbound, and my heart is not swallowed nor ensnared by folly. 

Sunset of fire, the vault of a starry sky waits beneath the surface. 
I eat the stars. 
I eat the stars and give birth to the full moon. 

A shudder passes between my legs when moon becomes my heartbeat. 
Deb deb. Deb deb. 
That is the sound my heart makes in your hand, 
When the last drops of my blood descend into the hungry earth.

Fortune or Acclaim

A cool night falls in the desert mountains of Utah/ Photo by the author

Sun upon my face,
Moon at my back,
Stars weaving their magic about my contemplation.

How surprising to find you here, 
In a heavenly mirror without age, without death.

I would rather waste away my day in the sun, 
And my nights in the fire of your bed, 
Than have fortune or acclaim in the world of little men.

Stars, my lovers, 
Sea and moon, my ecstasy,
And my climax my end.

I caress you in my waking dreams, 
Where death is kept at bay by the sun upon my face.