Edited by Tom Miller
All these many poems are my children
conceived in the heat of platonic passion
They nurtured in my notebooks
And then as file names on my computer
Were small writhing worms stored in ram
Brown leaf
matted mass
Musty, moist
a worm haven for
Lizards swallowing insect lives
Scant sunlight
beamed in rays
On mushroom fungal growth
Cycle upon cycle
of decay and rebirth
A fractalfruit
of form and frustration
Bound by border of civil intrusion
A narrowing nature
Replaced by civilized hate
The rapt stillness of air
beneath treetops
And the fresh post-rain clarity
Obscured by mist in the distance
NEVER ENOUGH
No matter how many spikes
I pierce through my heart
It's never enough
No matter how many letters I send
professing my love for you
It's never enough
No matter how many tears I shed
soaking pillow in sleep
It's never enough
NORSE GODS
I dream of Norse Gods
Odin Thor Loci
Perching on the precipice
Over stony crags
emerging from glaciers
The ice sets stark white
To contrast with
the brown-black rocks
The cold armor resting on peaks
Isolation nested among the crags
NUDE
Lying nude on the carpet
warm red
flowing from my head
The thoughts come pulsing out
in arterial effusion
The formless ghost
pushes layers of visions
Outward
into a menstrual reincarnation
The sticky mess
penetrates deep into pilings
Hugging the planet on which it was formed
Clinging to the fabric
To seize a small bit of rest
From its chaotic wanderings
Searching for your touch
An old bird died
Fell from its perch
o the forest floor
It made no sound
No one to hear
OLD HOUSE
Bark peeling from branches
the old birch stands hunched
Beside it, the gate
overgrown with briar
Weeds in bunches
protrude from cracks
Covering stone blocks
laid ages ago on the walk
This stately old house
long abandoned
Its shutters droop
the door hangs crooked
Beams sag to singing
Autumn storms
As leaves pile in slopes
that align with the gusts
In the kitchen
the hearth is cold
Its dull black embers
long since silenced
The furniture sleeps
under a blanket of dust
A solitary fork
still sits on the dining table
No lips to savor
the tension
Of this solitude
All is silent
and sits
In stead contemplation
of the last poet
His pager ringing through the bloody mess
He took his own life
Loved her so dear to his heart
It was not her infidelity that plagued him
But his perpetual failure
His soul-eating desire for her
Ate a path to his death
PANSY
A drop of dew in morning sunlight
Basks in expectant day
The radiant glow of unopened buds
Await the insect touch
Pistil-sticky nurturing captures
Airborne pollen on legs of bees
To draw together complementary
Whipping chains of DNA
Snapping proteins to become
Face, hands and hips of the pansy
With that secret sexually fulfilled smile
Lower lips protruding in seduction
Transmit to buzzing copters of bees
SLEEPING IN A DREAM
While sleeping in a dream
tangled in her embrace
I saw my lover
leaping
into a world of desire
Dancing with the Planets
spinning in elliptical orbits
around their sun
Basking in summer rays
with lizards
soaking warmth through silver scales
Warbling with ruby-throated frogs
copulating
in cool green ponds
Bouncing
on billowing waves
of waterfalls
Streaking with lightning speed
in jagged paths
from sky to ground
searing patches of black
on flowered meadows
Flying with wings of eagles
Swooping
Scooping the furry meal to her beak
To wrench the writhing pain
from my heart
THIS PATH
This path to love and fulfillment
Is filled with obstacles beyond number
I wade through quicksand
My feelings sink when I see you with another
I struggle to climb sheer rock face
To overcome the barriers
of knowledge
of age
You are the ocean
I drown in sensual waves
The riptide steals my sanity
The battering barrage
of pounding surf
Clapping loudly against the rocks
In a pattern that defies all music
your distance
Unreachable for me
We might as well be universes apart
With no interaction in time and space
My waves of passion
Generate a gravitational well
But your mind with speed of light thought
Escapes this tender trap
For me, the platonic nature
Of our encounters is more than the meaningless physical thrusting in the absence of passionate
fulfillment
So pursue your episodes of physical gratification
Lap the cunt
Fuck the hole
But, myself
Not having pursued these base pleasures
Float on a sea of platonic infatuation
The details plague my ideal for none can be as beautiful as her but there is a bias
My feelings are human and therefore subject to the great decider of souls who mend love
Mine fried on a hot slab until all the organic life it contained expired in the heat of my passion
POLITICS
In nervous reckless abandon
I punched the TV tube
The offensive icons
Of staid political poop
Had made my ass pucker
Clinton with his whitewash Watergate
His tangy sweetness of pineapple
canned in heavy syrup
That makes Dole flinch
with his might-makes-right
Survival of the fittest
let's-oppress-the-masses message
Or Perot, ornery oppressed runt
Hoping to buy votes with millions
of Jacksons, Grants and Franklins
Leave me with no conscience
Leave me with loss
Abandoned on the oasis of desire
That I now can pursue with lustful abandon
Being free of your touch
Of your soul clenching jealous lust
I now glide with proud eagles
Able with eager precise jaws
To fulfill my hunger for flesh
For the blood running essence of life
Pouring from my prey
Sink teeth into neck
Enslaving
PROBLEM
Through striving and sacrifice
Many see it as a difficult problem
Some may see it as mental illness
Giving total effort to an imagined goal
Neither too lofty, nor too simple
But with total concentrated effort
The result was complete failure
Where to now?
How to grasp the remaining elements
of a wasted life
Back up
Back up
How did this all start?
Irrelevant
Let's start from here
Pick another problem
Set another goal
More restrained than the last
But still fraught with failure
How now to generate
motivation
enthusiasm
How now to temper prospect of failure
Never mind
Follow blind path
Take a shotgun approach
Vary solutions randomly
In the morass of chaotic detail
Find some small measure of success
Or, more correctly
Focus analysis
Focus effort
On that elusive
Narrowly defined goal
Pursue success along a linear track
Of chaotic chance
Focus on beauty, art, fulfillment
Thought it may never be actualized
Take sustenance
In the process of pursuance
Leave no stone unturned
Challenge life
Challenge happiness
And in the process
take sustenance
No problem is ever completely solved
No goal is ever fully achieved
Ponder beauty
Ponder art
Live life in chaotic perfusion
Eat the apple of Eve's eye
And never look back to failure
To the decimation of a perceived goal
The fulfillment of the process
Is in the process
The fulfillment is ultimately in the process
A path to silence
To the nullification of the ego and its goals
its prospects
its fulfillment
And so I remained in transit
I lay my body down to sleep
to dream
Night or day
To fulfill in dreams
That which I cannot fulfill in life
And continue
And continue
to continue
With every passing idea
From one minute to the next
To realize the rhythm
of our rabid love
A fascination of flesh
Two aged souls
One in body
The other in mind
Grasping
for that narrow margin of understanding
Apart from the uncomprehending mainstream masses
This is the new age
forms of art deco
30s radio
blaring from tubes
How do I recognize love?
It is the exclusion of all those others
Who would act as an intrusion
On our bliss
The incessant sharply focused attention
To pleasing the loved one
Of wrestling with their demons
In their place
Though we might ourselves perish
It is the eternal forgiveness
Of major and minor annoyance
and imperfection
An ever present dedication
supplication
and relation
To reach a mutual destination
It is the ever present vigilance
To the other's pleasure
While maintaining a distance
To avoid suffocation of either side
The planning and labor
That bring success
to this structure
Enduring over time
For lives
Over generations
This reverie of encounter within ideal
Generates a heat of passion
Consumes converstaion
in meaningless phrases
To plot a true essence to the goal
Didn't you look passably
(illegible)
with true success at the intent
I scream
At the top of my lungs
Until my voice fails
Sucking in
The excrement
of bad luck
born to my bones
I'm better off
Dead
SHIT POURS
This is the shit that pours from my brain
Jealousy
hatred of friends
Selfish preoccupation
with fulfillment of my lust
Intellectual arrogance
Presumed insight and solutions
To others' problems and suffering
Which I know nothing about
Silence of pre-possessing wisdom
cloaking ignorance
Obsessive fascination with beautiful women
Depressive wallowing and self-pity
When my needs are not met
SIT AND THINK
They sit and think about his life
About his decision
Waiting for his suicide
Their fatal flaw
They rode as vultures with desire
Grasping at every available pleasure
While he, with his antique baggage
of love and marriage
Writhed on a bed of hot sand
to the ever-quickening pulse
Of desire for this woman in flesh
Who was desired by all
SKELETON
Animated by thoughts and feelings
My thin knobby skeleton
Walks down the street
A sculpture of calcium
The bones stop in space
Before your ocular orbits
Meet ocular orbits
Maxilla grind dentate
Excited by the high cheekbones
It bends low
Bringing its pelvis to yours
Bones banging in the night
Superior phalanges grip ribs
Love has become a gear turning
Camshaft driven thrusting
Two ceramic forms intertwined
Their think skin long ago stripped
By loss of love
I stand silent
Astounded by
your beauty
These beasts of time
Tear large fragments
From my soul
Eating the soft flesh
of my heart
With your tiger teeth
Of youthful sensuality
I am not chopped liver
No, nor grilled steak
Nor is my brain scrambled
Nor fried in hot oil
Like so many other lost souls
I ache for your love
for your every smile
In desperation I shrink
from my fulminating desire
To touch, to taste the sweet
essence of you to my lips
This love, if fulfilled
can only bring you grief
What would you have me do?
Were I to shave 30 years off my age
With you a year older
Perhaps I could capture the essence
in a vial, treasure it forever
But realistically, my love for you
Is condemned by convenience of desire
You see in me a wretched, grotesque old man
Not the heart of your desire
You see the desperation of one who
Lost to love forever
I could easily fool lusting bitches
Or pay those in cash
To suck my sweet ass
From the long smoldering ash
There arose a single sprig
It grew and spread over plain
Until all was again lush
Her blossoming meadows covering
The cremation of my despair
SOLACE
So we, in order to awaken
Must face the chaos head on
to realize that those we love most
Will cheat on us
We can't own them
To understand
that no matter how
fulfilled and procreative
We will all wallow
in the final predicted end of the universe
Where but in spirituality do we find solace
SPEND
We spend our lives
Chasing the elusive wings
Of exotic butterflies
While meditating on pads of lily
Rubbing the dew
from pods of swollen lotus
Cascading with the stream
In rapids over rock and cliff
We lift kimonos
To search
for treasured jewels beneath
STATELY OAKS
My spirit floats over hill and field
Past stately oaks
Through an ancient graveyard
Emanating feelings
That merge with mine
STREWN
So what is the truth?
I am not like anyone else
I long for the essence of touch
The sensual fulfillment of my desire
To bask in the perfect love
I long to leave children
My longing is a denial of action
I could never touch my ideal
For it would quickly fade
Strewn to the winds
STRUGGLING
I finally realized that the struggling
writhing reality of my life
Was but to get laid
To savor those pleasures
in their life and ego-fulfilling nature
that would ensure survival of my offspring
But I missed the sushi boat of tasteful
Convalescence
I took my life with brute reality
Finding the most self-effacing brutal beast
Of tides that would instantly realize
My death coming over hill and vale
SUFFERS
Although I would
that it were so much more
Not a carefully contrived plot
But the soulful yearn
of love-starved heart
My illusion of her perfection
Suffers not from the imperfection
of my words
That would cause her endless anguish
Diverting her from her own life
SURGERY
Blood from arteries and veins
Drips gold onto platinum knives
The numbers were accurate
The risk was met
Consent was signed
With raw intent
The blade fell
to sever skin from spine
In essence
not so sublime
As the errant sponge sewn up
Festering wealth to relations
It rots the cavity
Providing just cause for the complaint
SWIMMING
When I was ten I had this fear of drowning. My father used to take me for swimming lessons and I would cling to the wall of the pool for dear life. Seeing others swimming and bobbing up and down in the water was no consolation to me. they possessed some magical power, knowledge and muscles that I didn't have. He kept urging me to take a chance and if I went under, I would be quickly pulled up.
The instructor also reassured me that they were there ready to grab me if I should sink. So, slowly over five-minutes I worked up the courage. They loosened my grip on the wall, unclenching my fingers one by one. I clung to their grasp as they led me out into the water. The unsteadiness was unnerving. They weren't as solidly planted as the wall. Then, quite unexpectedly, they let go. I sank like a rock. They reached for me, but as I had panicked and was struggling desperately, they couldn't quite get a grip. You see, they had never dealt with anyone whose fear was as great as mine. By the time they did pull me out, I had swallowed quite a bit of water, I never did learn how to swim.
MACROSCOPIC VIEWS OF SYNCHRONOUS ENTRAINMENT
Simultaneity of human rhythms
Entrained to psychologically conditioned stimuli
Sex on prime time
The viewers fuck early in the evening
So they can get to work on time
the next morning
On a Boeing 747
They all head to the restrooms
forty minutes after the meal
The gossip of lust
Among girls cohabitation
Aligns the ovulation
And later
The bloody effusion through time
TEARS
We never knew this would end
In a love with no letters to send
Only hearts to rend
And tears to spend
THAT FACE
Best to be born with those limbs
With this body
and that face
Than to have beauty of mind
Limbs and face move reality
After which mind can only savor
Fresh drops in the breeze
THIGHS
Thighs thundering through thick brush
Heavy heaving breath
Running with high fright
To get away
From the demon
of thought
Or, hyperventilating
Perfused with a narcotic
oxygen high Unable to control
The ever-quickening heartbeat
That pounds through rib and chest
Was this the memory?
The image of abuse?
His violation of my most private hopes?
TOO SHY
Too shy to say what I want
I wander past willows
The sharp leaves cut my face
Into blades
You undid your bra
Dropped your panties
I was caught in branches
Twisting from trunk
Into skin sensual tugs
Stroking chin and thigh
Alabaster ashes
Strewn over corpses
Images of your absence
Through thick molasses
Of time eating my liver and heart
Your sign signals the time
For lovers split by the ax
of penetrating self-importance
It seems both tragic and stupid
That a man my age
should covet so young a girl
But imagine this for yourself
When I was young
I was miserable most of the time
No matter what I did
Sex and love eluded me
It caused me the greatest anguish
Now consider that this has gone on
for thirty years
In the meantime I clawed my way
Up to get advanced degrees
But in the shadows
I never lost the misery
My life to me always seemed futile
I was suicidal
Because I wanted to end the pain
Then I met her
She was kind to me
She said I was more than
a piece of dung
clinging to the ass of a mangy dog
And in the midst of my desperate longing and pain
I once again imagined the gates of heaven
Opening and myself entering the golden paradise
But she didn't want me
While she had respect for my accomplishments
It didn't matter to her how I felt
So I no longer care to live
As I am surrounded by all these friends
Who fuck freely just for the pleasure
Without any genuine feelings
The way I understand them to be
TREES
The sluggish crunch
of undulating masses
Saws searing trunks
of ancient statued trees
Severing the fitness
in its prime
Millenia of growth
ground to dust
The new force
of intellectual fixation
On real wood furniture
Appreciate the grain
Dead flesh of a forest
Split the bark
Once skin
of eternally erect pillars of pine
Those that are truly alive
See the red
yellow
and blue
Flowers in the garden
Pull petals from stem
To taste the fragrant nectar
Smell the jasmine
orchid
rose
Walk softly through soil
between furrows
of carrots
beets
and celery
Yank the stalk
Taste the root
Reach hands to heaven
To beckon the stars
To pour out secrets
Held deep in alien civilizations
TRUTH
Faced with a boredom of facts
I became rapt with richness of theory
Scalping every moment to construct the truth
Only to find it floating on a vast languid sea
In so many tangled quilts of seaweed
Bobbing in the waves
Unweaving
Local strands
Tangled those more distant
The more I struggled
The more I was enmeshed
Knotted in confusion
My breath strangled by the strands
I then resolved to tie knots of my own
In the space around me
Twisting my limbs and thoughts
To conform to the tangle
Hoping for the ever-tightening stricture
To collapse my spirit into a singular void
*