Those We Should Not Sing For

They all drowned in the river that we made—

From the banks to the roofs we raised the level

To match their bitter wrath;

Overflowing with the color that

Pronounced my certain fear, lustful trembling:

Red, red, was the color of the river.

Sticky and thick, as it curved around the trees,

Suffocating them with a thousand years

Of anguish—we bled for it, yes—

So all the leaves fell,

Diving into the veins of pain.

Oh, miserere, where did you go?

As we sit here, huddled, protected by goosebumps,

Wielding the strength of the last, last song,

When the choir has fallen dead,

When the last sound is the echo of a head hitting floor,

The strained gasp for stolen air—

We’re weeping for the love that would not come,

This tower of hunger, deprived of virtue;

Doctor, do you see this?

Father, do you not see this?

The stone, cold and unrelenting.

We’re killing flowers because we can’t kill trees.

We’re screaming because we can’t sing.

Deliver us from delivering vengeance!

How I can already see the hot, barren plain,

The dry, crusted earth, with the lone, crooked tree remaining.

To those we should not sing for, kill us now—

Stab us—and make this world run with

Hateful blood and cruel blood as one.

Ha, the joyous celebration that will be!

I’ll fling my arms wide open, yelling, screeching,

As my chest bursts with the heart of the devil, unleashed!

My cries of fury will bury the mountains

And shatter every bone of every child, ever.

Our skewered heads will line all the streets,

Making faces at the pale ghosts remaining.

Oh, miserere, how could you let me be?

Winter Poem

Peaches lie on the table

As I like, sitting

As I do,

Listening to jazz as the

Winter day lapses before my breath.

Tables start to talk at this time of year;

I’m so cold, you see?

I just want to dance.

The windows are all fogged up,

My veins clogged up with defroster

And loneliness—

You poured happiness all over the floor.

Now it’s a stain on the carpet,

A little patch of brown.

I find that the peaches have all rotted. I toss them

Out back onto the frozen grass,

Where even the birds and worms won’t touch them.

Rooms With Windows

1. The Room with the Stained Glass

How inordinate is

the dust that flutters in,

casting visible rays across the

monumental space—

beaming like those forgotten spirits

hung by the day and the

rose, wishing to rise.

2. The Room with the Small Window

It was upstairs where

no one had gone in for years.

The floorboards would moan,

the caking walls asking what time it was:

“Is it when the poppies bloom?”

The answer, solitary,

comes in the form of a lawnmower,

humming from outside,

teasing a lowly tune that sneaks in,

from which the walls dutifully vibrate to—

hugging the dirty, framed window

from which the living see

the living, before the cut of man

sinks in.

3. The Room with the Big Windows

“How lovely!” she once said.

It had been raining,

leaving tear marks on

the window panes.

Though light still floods in,

washing the floor with

the shimmer of a placid lake,

I can’t help thinking

that all the gold makes the room

look oddly dull.

4. The Room with the Broken Window

A feeling of vulnerability—

the angst of wind

sweeping up the stillness.

But you could see clearer now,

out to the street where laughter

and shrieks lingered.

Those sounds would wander in,

coming to rest in a bowl that sat

on a relic of a table,

collecting sorrows.

5. The Room with the Curtains Down

Only the golden afterglow passes

through,

yellowing the carpet.

A woman sits close by,

reading quietly. The birds speak

without the image of the

object of speech.

It is in this way

that the world seeps through,

filtered and dampened.

Still the luminance

of something else

(something in the sky, perhaps)

makes it to the book,

possessing the paper

between

the ink.

6. The Room with the Skylight

I hoped things would be ok.

Lying sleepless (as always)

listening to the stars die

insomuch that stars

were dreams

and dreams

were

life.

These people,

passing by;

drifting away and

away, up to the little

window of heaven.

I could see it so,

tasting the honey that

trickled down before dawn.

Was it inside, or out?

We gazed up—

dazzled,

in the soft edge

of the

surreal, awake,

awake

awake.

7. The Room with the Barred Window

The sun goes down:

fleeting days,

fleeting years—

shadows here

stretch and grow,

shadows I eat

for supper.

Lexicon I: Variations on John 1:1

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word—was.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word fell from the sky—the Fall, ever glorious, burning in its descent, stolen from the mountaintop—

The Word, which was alive; that gave light—life—eternity—energy—

In the beginning was the Word: muttered under His breath, humming, droning: “Aummm, Auummm, Aaaummm, Aumm.”

Yes.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word pulsed with the ocean waves, vibrated with the sound of the great Sun, which cast warmth upon the Earth and made the plants and the animals rise, rise, and proliferate—yes—rise among the rocks and the valleys and the depths of the seas…

In the beginning—in principio erat Verbum et Verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat Verbum.

Deus, Dios, Dieu, Gott, Бог, θεός, 神

In the beginning We were. We were with the One, the Only, spoken with the Unity of It. And It was Good. The Word was good, the Word was Good; the Word was love, the Word was Love; the Word was. And It is.

The beginning was with God; and He was Good, like all things. Then, there was Light; the division. Man from God, Man from Woman, Heaven from Hell, Eden from Earth, Good from Evil. And Good remained with God, and Man with Evil. So it came with The Knowledge.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was—say it—Deus. ex machina. The light from our mechanized grids—the Word from the Machine:

...and the word was 01000111 01101111 01100100.

We are the Word. We are the beginning. Let there be light, the light of men.

And the Word had rhythm. He spoke, and the World obeyed. The Word, one light away from the World, a single line: la la la le le li  li lo  lo  lo  lo  lu    lu    lu    lu    l      l       l      . The Division, from the Darkness, visible, to the invisible Light: let there be, Let there be, let There be, let there Be.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word—breathed—the air of the Spirit of God, contained within it the soul of Man, the soul of every Man, of the sole Man. The air was crisp and fresh and Good. And the wind blew across and planted the Seed of every Man into the ground, the ground he would toil by the sweat of his brow to live, to live; to breathe, to sin—after the Fall in which Man laid his mouth upon that which was not the Word.

The Word was with! was with Him, the Only, the One, the Unity. And the Word was God until he rose and made the Light and divided the darkness and made the Day and the Night and Heaven and the Earth and the ocean and the land and the grass and the tree and the Sun and the stars and the fish and the bird and the insect and the cattle and in His image Man and Woman—and only then, did the Word become Good.

So the Word was Good. Shining, glowing in the shadows, in the raptured, ruptured crevice between Light and Darkness, under the shade of Olympus.

“I am, therefore It Is.”

And as Day and Night blend and spill over the edges of the horizon, may the Word command attention, and set the globe back in order, and shut off all light that is not His, that pollute the sky and shield Man’s eyes from the beauty of the Universe, which He created for the Eye’s feast so that all men would know of His greatness, and the power of the Word: “Let there Be light.” But the wires and the electrons still coursed through the copper and made the cities shine and let the restless minds evade sleep and Sleep; staring deep into men’s souls, photons seizing and shaking and saying, “You are, you are,” and “Build now, a City upon a Hill.” And Man did, crafting great works of technology and architecture, wiring the World together into one great tower of power, Earthly paradise.

And God saw this and came down with His Wrath, and confounded Man from his Creation, from His creation, confusing them so that they would not understand each other’s speech, scattering them across the World. But in His Work, Man then could not understand the Word.

In the beginning was the Word. It hung there, echoing through the abyss, longing for something to latch on to. And It found a great tree, Yggdrasil. From there, through fire and ice, did the Word become the World, and the good became the Good became God.

Alas, poor Woman! The missing Goddess. Cruel He, who spoke but spoke with the Word that was only half the World. Speak now, Goddess! Your Word shall complete Us. Your Word will make this World One again. Your Word shall save Us from our fallen Grace, from the distant Love of our lost Father—Mother’s love, only you can save us now.

In the beginning were two Words, of which one was cast into silence. The other is the reverberation beneath the ground we stand, in the air we breathe, the flesh we love. But the one that never spoke—that Word is in our soul, wrenching its way out. That Word which has no sound, but the breath that gives us Hope.

Ah...oh...ah...[the sound of air passing through your face]

The Word decays, and echoes, lost easily in the open World, but resonating madly in valleys and canyons, distorted by eons of haunted replies and warped walls. New words must arise, as the old Word slowly dies out with the Wind.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. May He speak again, of lost Glory, and lost chances. The Word is His rope which pulls Us out, the sound which wanders down to Us in search of lost souls, if We should listen—listen.

Beyond the silence, beyond the wishing ear:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Old Campus at Night

State of Mind

You know—

                        the thing

the

            which binds

heaven and earth

                        and

man

            and

everything else

(The Sickness)

pulsing in the stars

shaking the constellations

/          \

monuments to nothing,

                                    really

as the clouds rumble and coalesce

as do we—raining down

wetting the ground with broken

            afterthoughts

love of

hate of

When we think of

                        good

do we

or do

            we

            (not)

think of

us

                                    ?