there is sleep / the kind that burns

there is sleep
the kind that burns
eventually forgets
then dreams come
about loss or new bodies
castles ruins churches
plateaus on the verge
of dry endless moutains
details that cut into the eye
brightness you can't look away from
details in detail in rivers of memories
recollections that aren't yours from others
stashes and jails and barns and valleys cold water
turning and going and returning and waiting and not knowing



xx

malta's red tower

malta's red tower
wrought iron balconies
below it floating on
tan stone walls

a brave flag
over the battlements

windows in zig zag
patterns of life
and death played
almost like a play

until night
the sound of the waves


***


malta's red tower
dedicated to st agatha
staunch like a lion
looking over the sea

a brave flag
over the battlements

terraces below
patterns of life
and death stones
stubble and thoughts

until night
the sound of the waves


***

let us go farther and farther

where is it the farthest
i want to reach it
let me not linger or doubt

any journey undertaken
has certain risks or dread
even the one we are on now

let us go farther and farther
if you see that horizon star
you might know me


*

If I Do the Right Thing

living a patient bourgeois life

living a patient bourgeois life
as time fritters my charms away
i read lamantia and his dreamlike horror
of all the surrounding implications
red lit clouds and the sky or rain
in the inner dissensions of things
the things that come next
like a searchlight can't stop
and whatever is in the beam
of the cone of light is death

poems offered to starving minds
offered to starving eyes offered like
clouds of offerings from a holy meal
that might be catered to in the nick
of time for motorcycles owls
in the inner dissensions of things

don't step out into the cold
for your share of horror
until you've been fed

__

for Latif Williams

you can have sugar water as pets

you can have sugar water as pets
snakes or loaves of bread as guards
keeping the safe place from ________
or any other hi flyer you don't like
because of their condemnations
and lack of real love feeling




**

there isn't any more there's us

there isn't any more there's us
we are and anything else is not
you might think the deus ex machina
is coming down through the clouds
but it is your mind that can't be hid
it is coming through in all directions
lights blazing trumpets playing
fireworks blasting sweet days bloom

because of you and us my what tall trees
what a sparkling lake under the ice
or a spring dawn kissing your face





**

Eagle Lake

there's a picture of you looking lost in a room

there's a picture of you looking lost in a room
holding a white tiger but you don't seem worried

you know you are in the right place
whatever happens next is perfect

the window above you shows a bright blue sky
sometimes it rains when it is clean

you're half turned away from the viewer
in motion
could be coming or going

when it all turns out just fine its clear
having or losing
is all the same if we are free


**

i stood at your doorway/ but you were gone

.... for captain beefheart &
.... 'the same ol blues'

i stood at your doorway
but you were gone

just like the song
wrote you a letter

you must have
read it wrong

other poets write
on the threshold

at night looking up
at blank windows

being full of tears
a story as old

as there have been
broken hearts

night sky stars
closed doors

and the separated
missing someone

as time goes on
you might forget

the doorway
and the person

but never
the feeling


**

we don't have to forget or remember anything

we don't have to forget or remember anything
we just keep seeing ultra clearly with no interruptions

we move gently lightly brightly through oceans of sleep

we travel together seeing speaking and being seen
that is how we find happiness beyond control


**

i hoped all of your lies and all of my lies would come together

i hoped all of your lies and all of my lies would come together
to become a enchanted castle of lies full of whimsy and finery
where we could live in style forever but it was not so
such things cannot be though you can try to perfect it
by being untrue as much as possible


**

at night when i get tired and it is late / i want to talk to you i always want to talk to you

at night when i get tired and it is late
i want to talk to you i always want to talk to you
it will never happen and it is okay but it is a bit sad too
all these causes and conditions and the intangibles that rule us
and beyond irony we think that we make conscious choices
when the impulses of most of our decisions are based
on whims or however we happen to think we feel at the time
then permanent set and ego testifies this is how we always have felt
nothing else matters and someone else will make us happy

someone else has the solution
we believe in with all our heart

to a problem that does not exist
never existed but we created


**

love is like money / you can't get it by wanting it

love is like money
you can't get it by wanting it
you have to earn it

it is a bad thing
when you don't know how
to work for love


**

i can't make it rain / or get you to love me

i can't make it rain
or get you to love me

like finding a desert
but wishing for an ocean

how can i complain
or be dissatisfied

wherever you travel
we are where we go






***

maybe you can teach me something i want to know

maybe you can teach me something i want to know
a lesson i've been praying to learn because i know how badly i need it
instructions that will ease my skillfulness and insistence on creating drama
seeing everything and everyone as how i want them to be not how they are
because talent i have for this and inventiveness to color in and out of the lines
skill i have to attribute drama and plot pacing the rising and falling of stars
to conjure people out of shadows and significance from incomplete delusions
is a misery

the end of the day
me here and you there
a great moon rising into the dark sky
getting brighter as the sky darkens

i cross the dark space
into a bright series of rooms
and everyone i know there
has seen how big the moon is



*