Poem from the train to Paris
In to the field of time
we blossom
from the seeds of timelessness
the roots gnarled in improbability
we strut on to the surface,
to take our form and stretch our arms
and wave our furious green fingers
we brush against the wind
from our coffin like cave
of improbable impossibility
on to the field of time
we are honoured by our name
no matter how ugly or how strange
HYDRA POEMS
A man with his hunting dog walks up the road
He carries his rifle in a green suede case
The dog is eager to get off the leash
There are wild cats perched on every corner
The rain hangs over head in a river of clouds
But the war is over but who will he kill?
-
Could an island be any more quiet?
My own foot steps sound like thunder
-
When you meet him
You'll want to talk to him
Like he's a god in the flesh
Time bound and tied to the rock of the skeleton
His wild hair
Unwashed for weeks
Rich in oils
-
Never heard a louder alarm
The screaming of the cricket,
Along with the rooster
The dogs
Rickosheing off the hill side
Their cries being heard by the murmur of the sea
Wake up!
-
With the boats groaning and the ghosts moaning and the windows shaking and the world on fire
With the water washing and the lights flashing and the waves passing
And the world on fire
With the spring singing with the washer women ringing their hands over a funeral pyre
With the waves passing and the girls chanting and the everlasting
World on fire
/////////
Me
Before the wind
Without pride, I pronounce
She laughs
We are in a play
Between other worlds
We dance
And that trance
Of shadows and songs and dust by the bay
And the night throws the ball between the dusk and the day and the twist of time fits perfectly straight in to arrows and bowls and structures and shapes
We ride our wild horses over fields and earthquakes
We ride our wild mares over crickets and rakes
We ride wild as fire in perfect space
We ride wild as fire as the soul starts to break
To quivering bone that we're all born to take
To the impulse of scaled fishes and ivy grapes
It's this that's the thorn or this that's awake
Or that that's the rhythm of thought that you make
The in take and out take, that in take the out the outtake of in take and out
And in the inspire, the ire, the fake, the fortune, the digger, the sugar, the taste
The syrup the sound the wailing the pace, the hunger I've said too much now she replaces
Slowly listlessly softly
She rhymes and reasons
There's no rhythm in trying
She calms the fire
And says whistle softly
The flags wave lofty
And we return softly
The stones settle in
The violin twins with the bow of the string of the boat sitting there
The reeds by the gate
The gatekeeper waits
The bite of the open sky
So hollow and bright
Defined by our searching
without the right
The torrent of stars
all all beyond ours
And never too far
LONDON POEMS
Women are wearing your perfume
In London
New businesses are springing up selling nuts where the vendors dress in pea coats and wear caps from the 18th century
Diamond cutters are already at work
London is a city of hard workers
Down to the last undying detail
The grey sky cuts a clarity in to the skeptical and prodding lot
As if the sky was a diamond cutter
Or you were here at the station
Undressing yourself
In public
-
Teignmouth
with her silver reigns of water
And red rocks reeling out the sand
And her foul mouthed felons
Singing and swearing on the commuter trains
Busy along the beams of steal
And the brick hangars
The magenta clouds
And the sun setting differently every day
And the greens of circumstance
And the intimations of immortality
When looking down an English road
Consciousness
Poca Hontus
haunt us with your promises
Listless drifters do define
what’s the fabric of father time
mother nature in her manger
of the ever lasting eye
and diamonds lie at the ocean floor
the bubbling smoke up from hell’s door
skimming lines of rail ways rhyme
with precision and perfect time
and my mind binds no choice of side
unravelling motion that pays no mind
what’s black what’s white
what’s colour blind
political but in his prime
political he did decide
political so power strive
for power to control whose side?
and all those words were washing tides
every potion was the sand glass sign
with pearls of wisdom
strung by rhyme
The Danish Book
This is madness upon the sea,
unreal days and nights
can’t tell one from the other
and I must swallow love in silence.
1.
Waking, quaking
times we live in
foundations shook and old alliances dissapeare
with all the ground trembling, it is hard to think.
In cities fear stalks the streets and all around
a macabre dance in the name of peace
2.
Dawn full of diamonds strewn across the parking lot,
a placard advertising enemies
3.
If you’re going to drive recklessly
do it with a mad grin
charles the IIIrd was a bear
who conquered France to startle the love of his life
4.
Exile from the ante
see that there was surrender and hope
all the green angels came rushing in through the back door
and the lady lit up like smoke peering through her sun spun silk
white dress
5.
You want me to make a sanctimonious vision of the city with its bohemian nooks
to be delivered to innocents who believe in reality
but the city is subtle
in all its little evils
and piling ons of side acts and freak shows
it’s a fury unfathomable
and twice the terror of truth
let me hang around washington
during the last days of the empire
let me sail down to cuba with my brother in arms
all these things
are not the city
6.
My friend Harry is a brave man,
maybe he is my only true friend.
Cus he beats me over the head and takes me in to a two man army
where everything is life or death
and drags me in to the storm in my underwear
and makes me sail and threatens my life
and forces me to survive.
7.
love is a treacherous commitment
in which you can’t be afraid of getting hurt
devestated and thrown about
as if through a storm
after seven weeks of sun
8.
How you live is what you risk to live and dare to do
inspite of all opposition
9.
With love that loses itself like a sugar cube in water
rain on my days
I was dreaming
in the choir where we all wake up
10.
If you had scanned through my instagram
you would know who I really am
11.
To be wild, free, corageous
that which she wishes to tame above the radio droning
in all the little cinders
12.
Exactly where you are and who you’re with
I can’t care to seek an answer
you broke a camel’s back with a mouth full of marbles
and you strung a temptor’s tale around my sympathy
no more love can come
I just have to run
time to change
all for adam and the apple that he ate
it’s a cub in a cage
shock fielding find
delicately mashed light
13.
In a swimmer’s vision placards and pleasing the pope were an option
redact reality to the fine tooth comb of a milk white bone
with her gums bleeding cherry red
and gold shadows on the marble wall
14.
Just went to the white house for the second time
t’was much less exciting than the first
I recognised it as a totem pole
where power was vested by those who believed in it
the atmosphere was no different from a very fine restaurant
albeit where terrifying decisions are made
They decided to drop the atom bomb
as a lump of broiled duck slipped off a
silver spoon in to a thin watery vegetable broth
& why they were allowed to be made I had no idea.
The way the chips fall shows who’s chosen
one to lead-one is frozen
15.
love is blind
but marriage is two people
who put up with each other
when together but can’t live without each other
when apart
16.
It’s true that my soul is on fire
since I haven’t seen you
it’s burning down like the roman empire
all the gods perish and the horizon sings
A town crier rattles the bells
cinnomen scents sift though the air
and every listless summer breeze
reminds me of you and your waving locks of borrowed hair
and that we are not immortal
and that love is not a game
17.
Beggars ever wonder why the precious ones
leave for spies
you can’t rest a troubled mind
on the bending, breaking, shaking bones
she gives me the dust bone chills
18.
don’t you see that all my temper comes from jealousy?
don’t you see that all my anger comes from pain?
don’t you see that all my madness comes from missing you?
and that other men could only ever love in vain?
19.
The train whistles in the distance as you travel through my mind
nothing’s moving now, not even time
20.
Strange, pain jumps like a fox
fire jumps like a newt
a dragonfly hovers over a pool of lillies
sign posts spin in the wind
He sets forth
that’s a world weary traveller
and in the centre of a stone
a man is made. A woman brings him to his knees
Inspite of all his power
he is a quivering rake
without her, and banished from love
he returns to work, to books, to leather jackets and motorbikes
and to hell on earth.
Poems from Greece
All the dead heat is against the law
we made a wager with the waves
we, who tried to set fire to the village
so we could free the town’s people from fear
the yellow elevator to the top
has rusty copper beams
and all the wireless children
spit words in to thin air
*
after lunch
when the sun settles between
the wavering leaves
when passers by sniff their nose to find a corner of beauty
dimitrious and pantelis are deeply in love
and I have nothing to do but lick the salt from my skin
bow to the sun
and sit still
while an earth quake does its business in my soul
*
This is maniacal,
as the ships come in and out of the harbour
and the shadows of birds from a hundred feet up skate across the cobble stone ground
the shop vendors fleece you for a ticket to heaven
and it all comes too easy for the alley cats: pretty, poisoned and flee bitten
flanked fish lined up in red and silver
hatchet for a flash fry
and the rocks like devil teeth gnawing the sky
all roads lead to the top of the mountaine
where 3 monks sit fig faced and glowing from the day
under a giant oak whose very trunk
is laughing with the wind
anticipating the coming storm
----------
If you love a flower do you own it?
do you only water it so you can cut its head off?
If you feed a dog and show it affection
only to instill faith in it so you can send it to the wolves
then I say you are no lover
If you love a living thing so much
you would strangle it till out of breath
so you say you love me
then you are no lover
would love for once be a genuine compassion for another life's growth
for we will surely die
yet if we truly love life
then it must be more than our own
and so love
is not in what we own
but what we can let go of
so to pass it on
towards
life
eternally
not just our own
CHARITY
You bastards!
let me sooth you,
a spiritual lullaby
come now,
don't be afraid
I have your attention
Like the master who uses a whip
to catch the eye
I, in turn,
curse
to silence the sky
Absence of rain fall this season
dried out bubble of cliffs
the rain rides through the ridges
and summons the suicide drips
over the edge
brave as the weather
see man trembling
on a falcon's feather
We have ambitions in grid lined streets
as with birds pecking worms
between autumn leaves
under the banner of the rich
a hut in the mud
thud on the door
taxing the poor
now emperors are gone
state's ideal shone
stood tall
for you all
a marble statue and a wall
the goad tied to the goat
rich or fry trying
impunity, impeachment, they've seen it all too soon
these young born in a burst balloon
-----------
India
a family living through another monsoon
why us? they ask
why not them? they ask
and nature carries on
we follow her task
and unto her we do
that is what is done to us
life is a feeding ground
a forest
a blood bath
the sap of amber wrapped around a bug
the guillotine falls on a revolutionary thug
over there on the map
wrapped around this frame
they curse the weather
and send it far from here
and before I could reach them
they saw through words too
This was the world
and what could they do?
The Titans
There the titans rise
who throw no sacred seed
to the wind
who waste no breath
on trivialities
who do not talk about unnecessary things
there go the titans
who have not wasted time
who in doing
undo
who are not philanders
and falsifiers
there go the titans
who do not lie
or steal
who walk with the apes
and eat with baboons
who sleep amongst tigers
and hunt with the wolves
who scream with the rivers
and release with the rain
there they are
they do not even know you
and they can not be named
*
In all offices high and remote
no sex is being done
no love makers
no charmers
why not the jungle?
because-
civilization.
Street Kids
strain as vendors close shop
but the game of backgammon won't stop
they have taken off from the walls all the clocks
and playing on the back of a water collection truck
'you're built like a matchstick
and will snap like a matchstick
the big fish survive eating the
small fish'
these are the big wigs at the factory
they've seen them come and go
the rag picker in kalkuta slums
mumbai back street entrepreneurs
livelihood of torn asunder ships
sprinkled apart scrap metal sellers
butchered by hammer with a head dress and helmet
sweating in the sweet summer sun
and the smoke claws out from the glass sand ground
the juice of sweat pours from them
they watch as the turbine spins round
she's seen many seas
and this is a butcher's shop
only for the poet to peel back in laziness
a one way dream to a lifetime in haziness
hard work unfettered and no time to waste
pragmatists, vendors, out on the chase
the only way going now is straight
and the currency flowing determines each fate
for without money begging
the work is your prayer
and your skill is your acting in total despair
and then in to gutters
you crawl to find gold
and rise at 3 in the morning
by the river to be sold
----------
problems! problems!
you can't live without them
-----------
Big Poppa's Recitation before a real live audience
*Everyone comes in*
"When he round wound to finally do it-
commit himself to the act..
he looked inside for words
which were letters hung on the hind hairs of memories
ciphers, floating in untraceable lands
these are conspicuous characters
writers
and you have reason to be suspicious
A reality
ever changing
they are jailers of moments
abstract craft's men
in the realm of mathematics
reeds and harmonies
not much different from a harmonica player
unaware of the combination of forces
carrying the chord
through the wind
do you believe what they say?
I wouldn't
I would listen
and in forming these frescoes
they form themselves too
an identity to hinge on them selves
but what is true?
well..well now
let's go back
memory? or motion?
time? or the stars?"
*laughter & applause*
*the children fall asleep*
"I know, looking up at night
that all the light traveling to greet me
is more often than not
an image long gone
trailed off and slipped in to the jaws of the night that is all pervasive
and greets every moon
in every far off galaxy
how do we not know about the mind of matter looking at us
and every dark side and every light source
what spark set the motion for suns?
how does a ball of fire make itself?
what were the laws of shadow acting on every rock and every lost continent?
every planet has gusts and gales
and all by proportion of such balance and harmony
we live on a floating world
by way of an inharmony that grates simplicity of mind
and laws can not help the world falling off of itself
we, commanded by gravity and weather
and not by pens and walls
and the further we seek
stranger is the universe
stretching outwards to settle here
I can see the shapes
and hear the sounds
and I am no different
I can dive in to their depths
We all eat the ashes of our ancestors
and run on the fuel of an age
Tribal lines have tricked us
and the change in a distant land
their empires are for spices
not unlike our own
like the tulip craze
but the plants have horns
and the trees have heads
but play games on city streets
wrenched out of stillness observed
why not enough?
as small as dust and as great as the blackness of blindness
playing for money
playing for keeps
Writers
the swallowing ocean
or the waters
or the furies
or fire
the whip lash of winds
rides over the mountains
sculpting them
that looking up in to mid space
a wash board of worlds, whizzing over passes and trains
In New York, with actors, walking up and down streets
crossed by numbers
muttering and dancing, playing themselves an identity, convincing others.
Telling me they're selling me their future
You could trade yourself for just about anyone
Who sculpts our head and our hand?
time? fate? the earth, the land?
well I'm a lucky guy ma'
Got to see it all
Well now these writers,
they might not be the wind but they may catch it
they might not be the crowd but they express it
and you can be a writer of sounds
writer of pictures
and a writer of words
all the same
Don't show me your junk yard
show me your laughter
and be no witness of what you don't want to consume you
dwell in the worlds of your making or your taking
all children are free
and will pass by the world as so
if they choose to"
*the children wake up
the audience claps and leaves*
---------
Book of Open Thoughts
would i travel to foreign lands
there's a winged goat that lies
there I fly too
and landing where I want
I make delightful diamonds
out of pig styes
*
Not in monasteries will I find god
Nor in a book
in comfortable contemplation
I will find god
while tilling the fields in old age
knee deep in mud
wringing my hands through worms
and thorns
and vegetables
I will find god
cooking a fish with a lemon in its mouth
at the age of 76
with ripe wreathing skin
and a tangled secret beard
I will find god
setting wood on fire
on the sand at night
cooking something I caught with my own hands
and spitting in the air
I will find god
dancing with my daughter
kicking a ball
I will find god
in the ocean
*
Three fourths of cold water
a spoon of madness
then you have work worth doing
*
What strange turns
buds that sprang a year back
are now in full bloom
soon the seasons will turn again
and these thoughts too will shed their coats
I will be naked again
and this too shall pass
for I will be clothed
though this too shall pass
life shall pass
then death shall come
this too will pass
every day the deepest mysteries of the universe
reveal themselves to him who is awake
to the one
who has no intention
of seeing anything
quite too specific
*
I am afraid some will assassinate the figures
rather than the figures within themselves
with the figures gone
to whom will people look
who were grounded in identity
with a figure head
then they will pour over each other
in war and destruction
seeking in each other what they could not find in themselves
they will find it
though not in this world
*
Zenith
I follow the path
in your light
though at the zenith
I turn to your dark
and follow my light
*
The landscape was different then
man's mark was not upon it
all over it
he had not scarred the earth with infinite roads
this nature
was one that could also be seen
as inside him
*
It was the heathen
hanging on to the helm
under a hood
hoping for the happiest
hand
to handle hell
he will come through
you will listen
when the dust settles
you will hear
he has spoken
*
There is a time
when a strong demon appeared before my eyes
see its best qualities
then we have a point of getting along
and so I fed him wine
and we got drunk together
he was full of energy
waiting for love
*
I am imperfect
did you not see the squirrel dig a hole in to the great oak?
like heroes
---------
//i
I am an animal
With nostrils
blood running through me
there's no need to make it any clearer
for I am hungry
and eat what I need
There is a parade winding around every corner
they're covering up themselves
lurking around in a disguise
As if they weren't
Then they never will
the dead spirits will wander
for those who did not feast in life
will try to seize those
who are mad eyed and full of lust
-----------
The Moon Book
Experiments in Imagination
-The experiments lie in giving room for the rising of pictorial or automatic writing, visual or auditory hallucinations, willed up without any external help.
The experiment is to culminate material for the unconscious to assimilate in to reality.
The first function can be by means of dialogue.
Discussions with ones genius to be recorded
Questions: the unconscious of the individual reflecting the general unconscious of the state or the environment, or the world
-------
The Desert
One day
I will wonder
in to a purple sky
draped over the black hills
the spit of white stars above
not mixed yet
There in a cave
by my own fire
I will see the dance
There in the dance as I get tired
I will see a face
There in the face I will see a flame
is it the flame
or is it I
the face?
Then I will look back to the stars
and that will be my cave
------------
Gold in the Shadow
Born out of silk loin cloth
licked in lapis blue boy
drenched in dharma of dusk dust
the way is always there
when windows wide open
the world wakes its way forward
Shot out of a curdled eye light
crusaders
waking up and slapping the turgid fantasy of an island life
strung out with a fast striped strike with a bowie knife
like a thief in the night
Drawn from vanity's side lamp
the dance of eternal romance
to keep the bobby lights lit mapped
No blue boy, brown boy, night boy crossed over rail tracks
and spat in the red rooster claw tracks
this man hung the law like no other can
and put it right back in to true circulation:
and made it his waiting station
to live like no other can
to dance through life
No angels were there that night
In a striped night party
Celebration of silk and slick life
Struck out street man
Dancing naked rumba, elevated lust
glorious midnight dreamer-wrenched his tusks
and did you know elephants were afraid of mice?
denied by petty wives
and pretentious oligarchs
just sitting there waiting for their pretty feathers to be plucked
by the right hand of a revolutionary
single handedly
the party
the meeting
the sex
the birth
the boy
the fantastic automobile childhood and avid imagination, like a magicians girl child
the strip split in two between what they want of you and what you want to do
split between heart and mind
they battle it out, they almost kill each other
advice, wild advice from the gold in the shadow burlesque show and circular playground of life
when finally the mind concedes and agrees to be mastered by the heart. Oh sure
We seek to liberate people from the tyranny of music imposed from ABOVE! let there be an expression of music from BELOW
The Bottom seems to be falling out
I was once on the top
purveying the angles of the clouds
to see which way the wind wanted to walk
can't stand it anyhow
The sequester has hung his bills
on the dull end of a semester
a hundred holy cows
sludge through the mud with a rusted plough
They prayed in rain, they slept through fire
and now they're stepping down
The ministers have made their magic in to money
and done away with the prophets, the priestesses and the doorways
In the school boy hall
soldiers are being trained
Who is the experiment in the science lab?
The frogs have been finding heaven and not done things
that were necessarily evil
and not cutting up another thing just to get used to it anyhow
the models have been made to beg
to be hung on an old clothes peg
the piano has been thinking
it's time to stop drinking
The Dancers
Th only question in the dance
Is who is the best dancer?
Many dancers are very technical
they know the rudiments
They are clear, concise and concentrated
Yet they don't move us, they have no grace
They are divisive
Without love
And will look like fractured bells
All but
totally cracked down the middle
Yes,
and you have dancers
Who burst with feeling
with love
Are so charged with the river of emotion
You know not
From where it wheeled up
They rush and gasp and breathe and leap and linger and fail and fluster
Without containment
They will expend themselves
and fall
What happens when the curtain closes though?
There,
you will find the best dancer
For she is the one who is still dancing
and not cutting up another thing just to get used to it anyhow
Once I stood looking
Looking around me
and many people were standing there looking back
It was certain something was happening of importance
They were looking for someone to look at
and at that
they were fixed for sure that he was fixed
and he was surely fixed himself
or as such, saw himself as so
And we all stood there looking at the image and it was steadily fixed
and the image saw itself as frozen
and stuck there too, to its position quite clearly with no breaks slipping on either side
Though eventually something broke
something came through
behind the image was an ocean
a funny ocean
one with many fish
many colors
and qualities to it
it was an ocean great and small
it pretended to be nothing at all
it was thin and tall
but just like a wall, minuscule and crawling
ah! that ocean
where love rides its boat in full circles
See we do not die by never becoming
Finally the tension of nothingness in this fixed image became too strong
then the ocean battled through the image and washed all of us clean
some started laughing
some started crying
it was very hard being one thing
or being another
more over
a terribly serious communicator
A savior
a self sacrificer
well isn't that an image then?
isn't that a poser?
some were just so damn sure there was something to look at
to fix at
to focus on
but no,
no, there was nothing
It was very simple
there was nothing
They were hanging to flags
We were hanging against flags
They were hanging on thoughts
We were hanging against them
They were wearing riot gear
We were charging against them
What fools! what divine fools!
Yes set up a gate and you invite the thief
Make a lock and then you will have your lock picker
It's a prickly situation becoming and becoming
But here,
here's my secret:
I am the shape shifter
The banshees of old
There's nothing to be afraid of
Especially now,
you know.
*
Them moving by not moving
Them becoming by not becoming
Them caring by not caring
Them being born by not being born
Them shape shifting by not changing
Them hanging on by letting go
Them living by dying
I! am I one to know?
Them singing by sitting silent
Them sweet by bitter taste
Them political by not preaching
Them saintly by sinning
Them lovers by hating
Them hungry by starving
Them night by day
I! am I one to know?
Them desperate by easy going
Them tall by perspective
Them sunshine by raincloud
Them serious by no serious
Them saying by not saying
Didn't I already say that?
Them fearful by being fearless
Whatever it all means
It means all but meaning
Ay! Ay!
Ay! Ay!
Isn't it easy to see?
Ay! Ay!
Ay! Ay!
Isn't it easy to see through it?
Ay! Ay!
Ay! Ay!
I'm going far away
each and every day
to a simple place
where love is free to play
There is no hindrance
Here
I hope for the song
Sung,
sweet love
There is all in all
And none for one
for zero
yes
zero
is the only number
we're here in this fire breathing hexagon
the rhythm of ceaseless striving
are we a part of it or are we IT?
how will a singular mind see the whole when he is part of it spectacular?
he must eat every day
may he eat dirt?
may he do what is hardest or what is easiest?
when a hundred heads turn in to one
he will ask
who deserves the water more?
who has more hunger?
and who's hunger is worth more?
who's child is more child like?
under who's curtains most diving
when a beggar is shakes on a street corner
and a shopper's cart under plastic dream bags
for every mother and daughter
there's a child seeking a home
or a hundred or so
from just one, there are a hundred more
a simple tradition kept on
kept afloat
working hard, for the path they chose
it's not too late
was it the prostitutes that kept him from rising
the geishas or the maids?
was it a simple life served up?
in which way did it pay?
was he enchanted by the dancers on the dimly lit stage?
in agony moaning, like a dying flame?
a half cocked head spinning but only for one day
-
have you seen the airplane graveyards?
they flew high once
carried hundreds of people back and forth
there's a million miles to go they say
and then here they are
lying in the sun
what a day
-
have you seen the oil wells burning?
the dance of blackened flames?
rivers of smoke reach up to the skies
while the glass sea mirrors the way
a war raged round the peripheries
while the mars red miners craved
and shovelled sacks of sandy soot
in to a furnace for their pay
with holes for eyes
and buttered bread
a criminal's disgrace
in the same such fate
ditched diamond lives
scratching at the gates
I will not try to poeticise the cries of a baby in this place
I will not try to poeticise the photographer who framed their every face
I will not try to poeticise the lies, whether they be this or that other race
I will not try to poeticise the mind of the murderer in our wake
and who to these hell hole starters?
is there an answer one could claim?
is there any way to question the mind that does nothing but obeys
As goodas robots, not worth a minute
and go to hell if I'm not raised
better be hell raiser
than do what others say
-
A silent soldier
onlooker
passing by
the smog filled day
the grey abandon
block steal mansions
criminals in caves
politicians
writing laws
on paper they get payed
in life though
breathless
ceaseless
restless
til
once
look
a lonesome
grave
-
A statue's a stolen moment
a mind altered for the day
under three hundred foot wheels of ground
an army made of clay
head band, tied up, trusted to change
and their horses looking brave
the craft work, see here each face
different
yet the same
I was a ghost in the ancient towns,
until they all decayed
I stalked the coliseums over
and over again
through dust blown aeons
wiped away
and only bones remained
for all my friends had surely gone
I could no longer stay
-
In the shadow of the true triangle
some forms are carved
between the shadows of night and day
a dog headed pharaoh
a bhoddhisatva
with cracking lips, and a vine piercing through his all seeing eyes
rotting vegetation turning in the sun
like a dancer's waking dream
Had I been in the temple
I would be wondering, away from the city's chase
I would sleep by the fire
and breathe life through the nose of noses
that is my nose
kissing the dirt
In the temple
I am eternity
but outside too
as all stretches out
am I?
I am?
away from the darkness
now the true light
the fool had left the cave
-
Trees sprouting out of the house of god
leaves growing on the house of god
the sun spilling through the house of god
darkness covering the house of god
memories of the house of god
I forget
I can not hide
in the house of god
-
She washes her hands with the water of the rivers
offering her exchange up to the sun, she smiles looking down in to her hand filled redemption
for in this act she forgets she is one
-
I was once wandering down the rivers of Varanasi
flowers drifting down with candle light sinking
funeral pyres, spurting embers, fire flies darting out of a suspended life
memories now
that was another day
watching ancient women put in their false teeth
while aged husbands washed their sins away
a small boy led me to a carpet maker's home
In getting lost I remembered to play
What is it that drives us to think of ourselves better?
than what? the animals?
the grass? the rain?
I am nothing without the sun
nothing without sleep
nothing without day
this I learned as I kicked over the golden water filled basin
I couldn't have learned this with a thousand careers
a thousand erections point me which way?
a thousand lusty women could only force me in to a narrower frame
Contemplation on all that passes before me
continuously open to spontaneous change
the details of a man's face
are the rifts in a flower's blades
and the juice of a strangled goat
what is a vegetable's blood?
a fruit's sour liver?
where is a palm tree's mind?
where is the mind of change?
show me the hand of sorrow
show me the eyes of fate
show me the lips of forgiveness
show me the ears of hate
We live in a world full of furies and gods
Inside of each of us
and each of us the same
Then learn to look
learn to listen
no one is as different
or as similar as you might claim
nor root, nor vine, nor flesh nor spine, nor single chick
nor cow nor mind, nor face, nor cloth, nor bug, nor moth
nor number nor moment
what is it?
I can't say
-
This fire
has burned for thousands of years
sit by the river
can you hear it?
-
when does sound start?
when does sound stop?
the dragon is dressed up!
I am found, I am lost
-
success is utterly meaningless
as much as the self in the mirror
once you are on the lips of people
you are banished from the pleasure of being
awash as a cipher in the one of all eternal
by that I mean the charred face of a funeral pyre
by that I mean the clouds swallowing each other in a quick sand fire
by that I mean the humble monk bowing to the bell
the breeze of leaves
washing themselves
by that I mean the thick rope, its croaks, its strangeness, its clicks
by that the life on the mountain
the early rise
and the poet's fountain
-
In the mean time have you gone to the tribes?
the sun bathed tsan warriors?
with eclipsed eyes?
have you gone beyond your own locked door?
what you once were
you are no more
have you yourself been lost
or do you guard your image of god from loss
do you hold on to that false carved cross
when there's crucifixions daily in our false thoughts?
but I give it to those in robes
who love the secret
that no one knows
-
I might as well say it straight
with all our spills
all our postulation and insistence on exerting ourselves
in our claims of who we are and why we do
I think back to far away,
the world knows I'm in every face
the world knows I need no change
Yet I hunger for the eternal place
in the restless mirror of ceaseless change
-
for me the whole thing is TOO spectacular
all of the world's wonders spill over in to each other
the faiths of the world will meet as one
holiness in to holiness
flame in to flame
let there be no repetition
no easing of the wonder
no easing of the balance for which is needed pain
-
No I didn't come out here to win
for a mantlepiece of glory
I didn't come out here to write home
any victory stories
I didn't even come out here
to behead the bulls, the zebras, the lions, the lone wandering dears
I didn't come out here to hunt for my prize, by torturing others, raised by their demise
I didn't come out here to fight the good fight, and smile like the devil behind a saint's disguise
I came out here to sing
a song of surrender
I came out here
to write poems for leapers
ha!
I came out here to be a jew amongst jews
a muslim amongst muslims
in world beyond rules
I came out here
to bow very low
not to a master
but to the river
the road
I came out naked
and that's how I'll go
I came out as I am
beyond body and bones
The dream of a thousand dandelions
dallying over a drifting field
This one short lover girl
who oscillated between fat and thin
beautiful and ugly
short and small
took me away from the girl who I lye with
she took me to a green hotel
that had floors that would get greater or smaller
she was sometimes inviting and sometimes not
but I did not sleep with such a maiden
A man from a very famous band
was peddling me and pushing me to put out my album
he was saying 'it's on fire' light of lights and sun of suns
you have been all over the place
A man wondering in from the secret ruins of stone henge
I recognize him and say
this is a druid!
a druid of the white goddess!
He has a long whit beard
yet I am suspicious of his hocus pocus druidry
for he has not experienced the white goddess
and only worships her image instead of living it
all the same I want to tell him of my powerful dream
yet it all seems like it's too much for him to bear
he turns away from me
so I know…
this man can not be quite the real thing
no
the experience is the real thing
Spiritual Exercises
These are spiritual exercises
my dear boy
what are you afraid of?
Why don't you join in?
if you see something that looks fun
that other people are doing
and it makes no sense
like dancing
dancing doesn't make sense
or singing
for no reason
join in
they know the wind dances
and the earth sings
so they do it too
there is nothing strange about that
whatever it is
'I have something I must explain to you!'
…then I say…run a mile
Never now
when the sun goes down
the change in the weather sweeps through the town
the mother fails to find the father
the father's a clown
one looking for integrity
one looking for the crown
World folk performer/poetry and taking all music from all over and love and music all over from all over and music every year quiet songs, loud songs, beauty songs, and silent just quiet and then louder and then all the music and all the world in one and sing one, though from the river and point back to the river and take that far far far
and then point back
and then pictures
and then world culture, all essential cultures and essential gods come together and then songs blend together though the source is clear the source is bright
the candlesticks are glowing, the singers see the sun rising and I mean really see the sun rising this time like they always did or should or would or could singing world songs from the world
and then the drawings come over me
and the pictures come over me
yes the world turns
turns inside of me
Book of Open Thoughts
would i travel to foreign lands
there's a winged goat that lies
there I fly too
and landing where I want
I make delightful diamonds
out of pig styes
*
Not in monasteries will I find god
Nor in a book
in comfortable contemplation
I will find god
while tilling the fields in old age
knee deep in mud
wringing my hands through worms
and thorns
and vegetables
I will find god
cooking a fish with a lemon in its mouth
at the age of 76
with ripe wreathing skin
and a tangled secret beard
I will find god
setting wood on fire
on the sand at night
cooking something I caught with my own hands
and spitting in the air
I will find god
dancing with my daughter
kicking a ball
I will find god
in the ocean
*
Three fourths of cold water
a spoon of madness
then you have work worth doing
*
What strange turns
buds that sprang a year back
are now in full bloom
soon the seasons will turn again
and these thoughts too will shed their coats
I will be naked again
and this too shall pass
for I will be clothed
though this too shall pass
life shall pass
then death shall come
this too will pass
every day the deepest mysteries of the universe
reveal themselves to him who is awake
to the one
who has no intention
of seeing anything
quite too specific
*
I am afraid some will assassinate the figures
rather than the figures within themselves
with the figures gone
to whom will people look
who were grounded in identity
with a figure head
then they will pour over each other
in war and destruction
seeking in each other what they could not find in themselves
they will find it
though not in this world
*
Zenith
I follow the path
in your light
though at the zenith
I turn to your dark
and follow my light
*
The landscape was different then
man's mark was not upon it
all over it
he had not scarred the earth with infinite roads
this nature
was one that could also be seen
as inside him
*
It was the heathen
hanging on to the helm
under a hood
hoping for the happiest
hand
to handle hell
he will come through
you will listen
when the dust settles
you will hear
he has spoken
*
There is a time
when a strong demon appeared before my eyes
see its best qualities
then we have a point of getting along
and so I fed him wine
and we got drunk together
he was full of energy
waiting for love
*
I am imperfect
did you not see the squirrel dig a hole in to the great oak?
like heroes
-------
If you love a flower do you own it?
do you only water it so you can cut its head off?
If you feed a dog and show it affection
only to instill faith in it so you can send it to the wolves
then I say you are no lover
If you love a living thing so much
you would strangle it till out of breath
so you say you love me
then you are no lover
would love for once be a genuine compassion for another life's growth
for we will surely die
yet if we truly love life
then it must be more than our own
and so love
is not in what we own
but what we can let go of
so to pass it on
towards
life
eternally
not just our own
----------
It is the dawn of an interesting era,
Strange winds blow through the city
the sirens are singing as they pass through the streets
but they almost sound like a memory now
we can talk
we can talk
you and I
as a wash of waterrips through the strangleholds
we will come even closer
and we'll have to talk
what things we can do together
you and I
---------
America
He was a maker and breaker of both inner and outer worlds
dancing on death
There defying the day
Down in to nothing
what once was glorious
now black clouds
there no imagination
The word has been written before
it will be written once again
It will be broken
then it will be born again
*
He was an explorer of both inner and outer worlds
To realize his visions he had to go forth
for staying still
Cold winds blow through the buildings built up
bright windows on every floor
Many efforts are made in each and every way
morbid energies mix in an emerald sky,
hazziming in to grey
Laughter only in the night
Black booths take flight
sparkling in to a varnish
Immediately
We want to feel like what we're getting in to is dangerous
like it is twisted
everything that is exposed on the outside reveals our deepest desires
and then they turn in to themselves burning right up
Only the man who has become a saint can laugh while sinning
Our myths then,
are not performed through light or through arrows of the hose of television turning in the night
the moon eyes simply and silently
quietly
moving
people clicking
clicking
picking and wishing
the running halls and museum walls all lined up with old faces, misplaced in a strange string of cases
courts and court masters paled in comparison to their black backdrop
grown like a cancer
about to be cut off from the soil
in men, here, I see nothing but dark eyes.
Where the eyes are turned inwards
there shall you strike
upon every age, history burns
but it is only that fire before the night
and come again, we live our lives, impossibly without meaning, but then we grow
and we learn to know
sweet music
takes over
it is not a farce or make pretend
the truth is in the seasons
What does the day mean?
What does the night mean?
running forward in blind abandon!
Your molecular pills are dropping all over the floor
Your gold snake is erupting with eggs through the mouth
Ecstatic joy coming for a million years or more
the universe is but one prolific unending orgasm
It is only that we have become possessive of sexuality that it kills us, it is the becoming of a part of the greater sexual organ of all life that life becomes ecstatic, for to please her, we are great people, we are great poets, orators, singers, the singing man is the singing of nature herself, we are of her, our little burned lips, we are the sputtering and mutterings of her, crying outwards, those who do it worst are those who do it anyways, yet try to conceal it, while those who do it best are the joyous and the open hearted, deaf to man's miseries and open to chaos, and nature's unpredictabilities that move through him. High up! High up! Rise! Rise! out of your nation and in to oblivion. there is love there.
*
You judge me not for functioning outside of the state, you would not accuse a beggar or a homeless, if you judge me, you judge me for how I provoke you, how I twist you, and should my language mix through the cement. You would be fooled, and your period in time is then already over.
There is nothing to do.
But go out and give all your money to beggars
you will soon become one too.
Though, for more than just pennies
That's the change
and there's no going back
*
Man
I sat twanging that guitar chord
it ran through me like a shiver up my spine
it was a spider leg that I plucked
and I picked up where I left off
that gold wrote itself off
no more
now down the drains
the gutters
the sewer
out in to the ocean
back to where it belongs
tomorrow it will be raining again
riddling and rhyming
that's where I'll be
In the snowstorm
every year
In the sun
every year
I'll be inside all things every year
ever more
forever
I always was
That you were too
*
At times it were called upon him
to step out of the ring
The artist makes it his business to depict all man's games
yet who is the one not playing?
then not in history
then not in time
then one
but nature
who can touch that person?
it is no one
I remember a few old things from the land that I lived in
Strange how artistshad become some kind of religion
culture was religion in the land I came from, it was where people got their nourishment from, their understanding of life
The land I'm in has culture crucified and surpressed, in this land it is money that is religion, time that is religion, schedules and politics, that is religion, fame is religion, culture, culture is found in the cracks, maybe.
The police and the military were in place to implement the idiot ideas of those in power
Those in power were there because of the naive ideals of those on the bottom
and so the world turns
Stand outside of this circle
none can touch you
have no government
no boarders
no attachments
no ideals
everything under your tongue
tasting delicious
the world is one
and it is yours
so you are the king
and always have been
but blind
wake up
Non reality
needs reality
to be non real
whatever is inside us
needs to be manifested
to validate that which is inside us
The point is,
never retire from doing the magical work
The world dips in and out of awareness
though why should you?
beautiful as you are
there is no need to change
Ah!
Work it will come in handy
people need so much more than ever to see what they don't see in themselves
*
The question is always
when can spirit simply be spirit?
without condition, without seeking reward
without hope for gain or loss
without looking to be heroic?
when can spirit simply endlessly express itself? without limit, without pretense
without image or antecedent
just as it is
Well it is
you
----------
Good god almighty
what have I done?
where am I going
and why am I stuck?
is it that I have not loved enough?
is it you are in me or I'm in you?
is it that as it is
I can't conform
Give me the world's stage
and then I'll perform
I'll court the tempest
and weather the storm
I'll rouse from the depths
so new life can be born
Though I fear to step in to
all things time worn
It is but that which is magical
in which I wish to be born
a sense of the impossible
shall become the norm
that which is too great
will be careless yawn
That in the night
that makes all men fear
will be whipped in to daylight
the truth will be clear
for I pray
yes I pray
and this a prayer
a private one held in my mind's secret lair
this is not meant for the eyes nor the ears
only for nature's power that always hears
--------
Love had
is the most painful love
love possessed is love tangled
love unattainable. trampled.
Terse tongues tucked in to one another clucking
tracking each other down
taking over
in tandem
tracing
tricks
turned inside out
Terrible
-----------
not another turn
burning up in the ivory tower
sun sinking
what do you see for me?
I hid in the realms of children's games
not nothing here is real
Just the sheathe of make believe
the face hiding behind the veil
You want the poet to speak with a voice
of vengeance
true and free
a voice beyond the drab methodical
sinews of reality
as I said: from aplace not real
A voice defying nature's clasp
Chaos follows me wherever I go
A voice as finely carved as glass
unbreakable, I'm told.
Spilling the marble matchsticks on the felt tip floor
the ruby purple door
open it
on to balanced sea shores
the dial of the dreaming
dramatic
I know there's no specialization
that can save man
his eccentricities
and knowledge are at time essential
at times tied to other times
at times they are timeless
---------
role up your handle
Here is the cast away milk shoe
I see the leaves turning inside out
the old turning new
The runaway juggernauts
and the holy few
trying to make love
as old friends do
------
The Soul chooses the planet
The soul chooses the parents, because the soul likes those people
the soul chooses the profession, because it loves to do what it does
the soul wants to travel
the soul chooses the country
do not get confused
there is no need to war
we're just passing through
life's open door
----------
Great artists do not
I believe
That not to turn from what you know
Not to run where you can walk
Not to take timid steps up the the stairs
Not to lick the banisters clear of all the remnants of dirt
Not to instigate crimes blindfolded
Not to take your foot out of a basin of untrained lobsters
not to bow lower when another is kissing the ground in your honour
The creative man has visions blind folded
and forgets himself
and let's the spirit guide
that's why he is not an egotistical man,
he is not a man undone
unborn
he's persistently brewing
Stirring the pot
for others to chew on
spewing and sticking at corners
with faltering teeth at times
great grimaces
of ogres and obese geese
and what wondrous egos people have
for laymen, work men, lawyers, commerce men, boat traders, fishermen, advertisers, pirates! rock and rollers, hip hoppers and be poppers, prostitutes and pagans, priests and firemen, musicians and gentiles, dark rimmed stressed out office boy, with coffee rings round your eyes, dukes and nobles, before you launch yourselves in to your professions
and see wonder with waste and spits on intellectual brothers
who stifle and sniffle their own townhouse, and look again in the books of others
and in turn make new mothers of themselves
and disturb no one
'good literature disturbs as bad literature is disturbed'
History will not be friendly to the fading formats
though under stream always to come up again
How many kings have you seen
tug at the thugs
pull hair from bald heads
and gold drawers
driven untouched
rebuttal the blues
beg for fever
deliver
unstrained
docked the time down
Lingering on the insides
strike the gift wrapper!
Save me! Not another songwriter!
Not another kid on the corner,
Muttering to mother
and everyone around him lifts their eye lids in their own way, and pursue their thoughts and ideals
and give way to their games
not that it hasn't been said before
or spoke about or that the grief in gift giving hasn't been unwrapped
Great artists do not ignore the artists of the past but swallow them whole
I Start Fires to Set Flames Free
Fast blaze
in response to stravinsky
burning eyes-and catatonic concentration
should have seen him silver
Strike match fire book
breathed in one black totem
Ego envelopes
Rip the scrotum convert mosques to many magic hands
driven from disdain
and the dominating force in love is sometimes pain
Blue eye and black eye, across cities written
noticing repulsion in stream dancer
I and I
am no different from you
That which I can control I will too
no wanna see airs with their black eyes blue
So strap young man, you blister foot, bad, you tender foot, you claw hook foot
gone bleeding foot, gone blasted, casted, harassed hob nail boot
I and I
take care of me and I and there. Bandage-life for myself I'm wanting
catatonic concentration on liberation and the actions of relay stations.
Again, concentration
I and I
like hand hob nail-calm chain mail, and knights of long life in the egosphere
I black eye tend black I
You black eye I and I
Right or wrong, go fight a fight
no difference
makes us fall apart
I tend for you
I tend for me
I fires start to set flames free
Christmas in Baghdad, Celebrations in New York
I have notes on this life
about how to try to be right
I have cards that do tricks
to hide away from things
But I can just about shred em
for anytime I try
I can't say why
Because plans are the first way to tell a lie
I walked out my room through
the drapes and sawdust floors
I took a ghost by his scruff and kicked him out the door
I ordered a new butler since the old one passed away
He seemed to have found out in time that nothing comes to stay
Same with me, I figured fine
I'll wander in to town
it'll be a long long time
til you see me around
There'd been a coarse discussion
in the coach on the way there
I'd been tied up with a greek duchess with italian hair
I tried to unlace her dress, though her husband weren't impressed
She said don't worry about my man, he works too hard he's stressed
I looked out on to the fields of harvest men and sheep
saw the sharp sun cut the tree to shadows oozing in the street
I smiled for a second looking up at windows in the sky
I thought if that's illumination, there's no need to even try
We arrived at the gatling gates
on a blue door was a sign:
only jews and arabs please
the christians have no time
Well that's ok I stood to say:
'we're all religious folk, we've got a
pagan, a naked quaker and our horsemen all have cults'
He shoved us in and cursed our sins
said 'salvations round the bend'
here's a road map kids I'm sorry that I botched your plans
He led us through the empty streets
no people to be seen
'good god' thought kid he seemed to say they've found a way to live!
there's a building being raised and a rally in the maze
there's meaning in the chalk board and words in what they say
I walked down in to Time's square
to hear the fire brigade
singing songs about the dead
and to god they spoke their praise
I saw their eyes
and hands in hand
hats held from open minds
it's a wonderful thing to do
to celebrate the dying
well your senators have tears of joy
across the ocean tear gas toys
are given to the children for a future in remission
It's a mission fishing for the hook
to hang the thieves and cardboard crooks
fire cracker christmas shook
the trees and all the presents