I Sat Near A Stream

Fall leaves give way to Galena Creek, Reno, Nevada/ Photo by the author

I sat near a stream
To see where your love
Would take me.
The trickle of cool water
Carried me away
From the frantic heat
Of a mid day sun
Set high in the empty sky.

You flow with the clouds,
Away and beyond my grasp,
Though once I languished
In your bed
Even long after the sun
Captured the innocent sky.

Tender leaves, falling
Blue-bellied birds, calling
The pallid moon, never falling
Asleep in my waking dreams.

I sat near your coffin
Awaiting your return
To life;
Your chest to rise and fall,
The love in your voice
To call.
But the Summer sun faded
Before my very eyes,
The rising crescent moon
Smitten by midnight skies.

How short are the Winter days
You left behind,
Your hot lips a memory
I have jealously locked away.
The eager pleasure of your
Hard body,
Staying green in the field
Of my abundant memories,
Though the touch of your hands
Has faded, never again.

I sat near a stream
To see where my life would ebb,
How many breaths could I take
Beneath the water
Filling my lungs
With liquid slumber
Like a baby in my mother's womb.

Will the empty sky miss me,
The earth taste my still fair flesh?
How long will the waters flow
Without me,
Once my soul is flying high?

I Could Wring That Sparrow's Neck

A happy bird enjoys Fall trees at Galena Creek Park, Reno, Nevada/ Photo by the author

The Truth was
What you taught me
In my bed at night
When mother slept
Not soundly
As her house crumbled down
Around her
As her heart crashed down
Around us

Stillness throughout
Our prison walls
The birds outside were free
And how I could wring
That sparrow's neck

To be so free
In the bracing clouds
The fields of sapphire blue
Singing as the walls
Fell down around us

Mother, how peacefully
You slept
While my innocence
Disintegrated inside my sheets
Your sheets
His sheets
Wet with my salty sweat

How quickly faith dies
While everything I held to be true
Became lies

Your perfect red lips, your illusions
You slept
While my childhood fell to pieces
Around us

How pious
To feel the words of that black book
Pass clean through me
Like a sword
Cutting, tearing, slicing
My innocence away

Your one "God", your prophets
Your commandments
All lies
And the world falls down
Below you

Sleep soundly now, mother
I dare you to dream again
To feel safe in the silver sky
Lit by a delicate moon
Waning

Are you free
In your sapphire sky
Your affluence?
And do your tears
Taste like diamonds
Cutting hard, tearing harder

I have passed through
All these ephemeral things...
"God", prophets, commandments
While the sparrow sang
Free and embraced by the clouds
As my idealism crashed down
Around me

Now I pick up my two feet
While the earth remains
Still beneath me
Gently calling, calling, calling

Even the free sparrow must alight
To find its home
In the full, green branches
As time passes on around us

One "God", I have no use for you
Prophets, your words failed the naked child
Commandments, your anger and jealousy
I banish from the citizenship of my soul
Black book, your pages have no wisdom left
To bind the passions of my heart
As humanity goes on and on
Without you

Little sparrow, free sparrow
I make peace with your liberated nature
Now that I have let loose
The binds that kept me
As the walls of my boyhood
Crashed down around me

Hush please
And let me sleep tonight
Alone and in peace
In the silver sapphire of the sky
As time and the world
Pass on without me

Pelican

The flooded ground of the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

You swallow the sun
Every morning
When the fragile earth
Still sleeps
Beneath a pallid sky

Fragile too is my home
Beside the churning ocean
The air captivating my eyes
Its memories dancing,
Laughing, crying with joy

Bereft of wisdom
I came here
To find what was left of me
After the broken glass
Of my childhood

I buried my father
As deep as I could

As for my body
It awoke to find freedom
From the storm of parentage
Blood is much more thin
Than water

I learned this in your bed
But I opened up a window
And fled to the dazzling ocean,
To a bright shore
Unscathed, unsullied,
Still a virgin, untouched by
His desire

Far away, far beyond the horizon
I see a shape glinting,
Promising a relief from my shadow

Will it come
Before the Afterlife?

Sinking beneath the waves,
Shattering, my old life dies
Yet I am renewed by solitude
In the silent kiss
Of your contentment
Content to lay without touching
Lips without posessing
Ecstasy without violation

Where did you come from?
From the raging blue waters
Or from the naked sky
Decorated with gilded stars
And the hallowed moon

It is all a wonder
To my boy's eyes
That life should hold
Such ancient mysteries
That an entire life
Can be renewed
After it was lost

Not by chance
Did you come
Not by a happenstance
Did the ocean part
From his lover's embrace
With the sky

You open up your mouth
To renew the light of the sun
To spread my wings again
To stretch my two wings
Over the salty and dangerous sea

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

Floating Island

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

It was no sacrifice
To follow you here
To empty, burning stretches
Where the eternal sky
Meets a horizon
Married with pure and spiritual
Quality

What do our eyes see
When they are filled
With such sights?
The passage of time
Which is greater than all
Our aspirations
Floating, floating floating

A form
Cradled in the firmament's
Gentle glow
Sends out its power
To strike a claim in my heart

How can we ever go back?

Let us keep to ourselves
The Mysteries of the ancient spirits
That haunt these stretches
Of salty, barren earth

Ghosts that wander
Seeking a drop of water
Send messages still,
Though their mortal forms
Have long since vanished

Where have they gone, gone, gone

I cannot touch
But with my wandering eyes
The beautiful curve of the earth,
Where sky falls into the lusty embrace
Of scintillating terra
Will they find release?

You alone brought me
To this hidden paradise
Where one can hear the
Footsteps of the Gods
Like giants

A crash of lightning
Stings the desert sky
An oasis becoming the
Fruit of my soul,
The acrid salt in my mouth,
The stillness, utter stillness
Ringing between my ears

I cannot go back
To my youth
To my first love's consummation
To innocence
To water washing the desert
Away

But I can, with you,
Come to this,
A frozen hot moment
Where the earth marries the sky,
Untouched by the brutal passage
Of time

Someone Walked On My Grave

Distant footsteps
Echo in my heart
From far away places
I have tried to escape

But someone walked on my grave
Reminding me that Summer's
Sensuous brilliance will always be
Overtaken by Fall's jealous chill

How I tried to forget
Languishing in the tide of desire
Hiding my demons
In the dusty back of the attic closet

But someone opened the door
And peered inside
And now I am naked
In the advance of
Winter's ravaging hand

What more could I
Have done to hide?

He couldn't have recognized me,
And yet in my dreams he found me

Knock, knock, knock
Father, you opened the door
To my demons,
Letting the rampage out

I thought for sure
I was safe
In pleasure beneath the willow trees,
Spilling their sorrow in bright green
Cascades over the damp earth

But someone walked on my grave
And I recognized my mortality
In the mirror
Where once youth had promised
To hold me tight