Empty-Handed Charity

all you gathered under
working for an answer
holding what is out of hand

meekly struggling to awaken
bravely failing what's at stake and
drowning in a glass of stars

my heart is in the place of mourning
weeping blood upon your tombs
growing chill and wafting
sighs of love's perfume

pray, do see my verse is gentle
dear friendship is the banner hung
and heed with force this sober rhyme
before your lives are said and sung

for there is lighting in the cloud
and more than ready to be blunt
some thing most woeful will not hold
some thing more ancient will affront

behold The Devil now complacent
all his fiercest demons placed
insisting with their patient roots
upon the neutral soil

angels on their bellies
sparrows sunk in mud
here lies the wild we fathered
in purest impossible love

grinding our teeth to the beast
bones we all suckled by nature
like cannibal offspring nursing
when milk has ceased to run

is this the dawn of action
is this the fight or flight
has free-will made a motion
which faith cannot abide

for it would seem all things are blessed
and nothing simple could be wanting
that greed alone demands a test
and complicates exalting

people get lost just finding their place
words want to leave when unspoken
mind weaves a web to watch its own thoughts
silently creeps up and eats them

this is the fire we said we would tend
back when our souls were dark ovens
back in the night of interior life
when daylight was but an illusion

there we discovered a secret height
faint and yet present in blackest sight
tender to the breath's own breath
like the candle of a ghost

how it held us in suspension
saw us through the emptiness
left no doubt, no door, no question
blessed us with a full abyss

'till the cock disturbed our dream
by signaling the sunlight forth
and all was lost that was not seen
all subtleties quite blotted out

grunt forth self-dismembering angel

this is the lime

glowing out, become

the life spread for a time

splayed legs and minds

dissected, dismembered

unforgotten but clinging 

like a slime

like roots spreading unencumbered

freely reaching to become

ghosts transfixed

floating over notes

slinging a thousand songs 

shouldered like the throngs

of disbelieving chorus

where we have spun

struggled embittered

like the sun not betraying

endless feelings

but singing, singing,

bleeding like full women

cunts remembering what it was

to love like this

and south of here

strange emblems declare

something you would own

if you could own

all the myriad rhythms

that coarse like gifted madness

through the tomb of you

words crash like bubbles 

into airy discovery

we won't let them fall 

not now, not when 

we could ride them

like fast cocks

into nothingness

because that's the place

where dreams break

like tired waves

and curse us

who love them

chamber maids discover us

naked babbling memories

we would do our best

to feign enchantment

if all would leave 

us alone

blankly tumbling

over forests embedded 

in planet earth

souls stumbling 'round stumps

and forcing our way through

into black triumphant wonder

where we don't know

what we won't

understand

anyway

angelic hosts

choke on however many

angry fast motes

garbled in light

struggling to emerge

into signs, into words

wanting to stand

for more than beauty

and how many of you here

wander staggering star-struck

awe-struck in sympathy

with this transfixed crowd

of constellations?

will you ever draw back

into the moment without remembering

another time like this one

or girls squirming

like this rare woman

who has been a girl

and has shed girlhood

in so many tears

will you draw back

into her chest

while she holds you

and you remember

a similar fierce warmth

because of her

in spite of her

will you fall headlong

into remembering

while she stands strong

anxious to withstand

the heartbreaks

you're preparing

your soul ghost

ambivalent, passionate

not at all forthcoming

but blazing some truth

all around, but not inside

buried deep like water

locked in ice

will you transcend

the tears that jump

and gather, crumbling

in seas that suspend your ghost

how can you hope to

fire rises like any element

burning what sustains it

burning you and your treasured

anxious imaginings

all that you're worth

burning, burning

because isn't this how you want it

how you imagined heartfelt grace

rendering itself somehow

immaculate in sin

ghosts running

gallant flesh trying

wanting what it already is

wanting what it can never

be more than

its own wanting

oh my ones

slurp the hoar

you frosted goats

unemplore the missing

wonder forth

impress the host

with undisclosed

forgiving

range a million

isles of sundered

smoke-lit thunder

cliffs

give forth

endless

ageless

naive

hope

oh my sundered

surrendered ones

my poor angels

digruntled

wondering

what goes

you unbelievable ones

you powerful ones

disbelieving ones

how can I speak to you?

all my wonders 

gasp

before you

dependent

on your strange attention

Strange

a bottle of wine
a sonorous rhyme
an hour of what it can be

Sunchild, mild, soft-trodden girlfriend, wild angel, my animal. You come ready into me, and I withstand all I can. Your power transcends my spectacle. How can I impress your most imaginative heart? All my ageless dreaming ends in emerald shallows before you. How can I implore your passion, I who would sustain you? I am milk under the mountain.

Gentle, I would lay all my ignorance down. Be rid of all embarrassment at once. Fires humiliate me, my skin shrinks. I am post, declaring laundry.

Worm wriggling under this enchantment, smile delivered from unknowing, ghost testing passage, -- you are all my strange inspirers. Lights that shock and show no reason, -- you are my provocation. The question that I feel is the reason for my loving.

But I am struck with grave misgivings.

Some gross consideration thus disturbs my liberal attitude.

Can everyone enjoy this moment, as subtle and as odd? I want to know.

And is it snobbery, if I alone, or of a few, delight in this?

Is it, perhaps, some deliberate pretentiousness?

Or are we of a kind, however misaligned,
do we find a separate joy in equal oddities?

Are we fools to one another,
while masters in our minds?

Do we translate the same dream
into vague, disparate signs?

Within

Before we can discover His name,

He is present deep within us.

As long as we live, the Lord has not ceased to offer

a light into mystery and a hand out of trouble.

It is not God who limits Himself, but we who limit God;

for His will is not to impose, but to wait upon our invitation.

His teachings are as inexhaustible as our patience in attending them.

His generosity supplies no more nor less than we desire to hold.

The more closely we listen, the more compellingly He speaks;

the more deeply we examine, the more astonishing are His signs.

It is not a matter of deciding which signs are worthy to be called divine;

but of allowing the divine to enter, by custom or by stealth, into every sign.

When we are full of God, then every sign, no matter how obscure,

will discover itself effortlessly related back to Him.

Even in a foreign realm, every new spectacle more clearly recalls,

whether by similarity or difference, the spirit of our homeland.

Thus the boundaries of God's kingdom extend as far as our steps,

and as we proceed, so does His sovereignty increase.

For He is in us, as we are in Him.

The Merit of Frail and Fruitless Labors

in times of dryness
just keep going

show up
and play your part
as if courage was enough

even if you're not on fire
like Christ and his holy martyrs

even if it doesn't come
like lightning
from a ready cloud

and your mind is doubting
and your heart is underneath the dirt

keep looking
keep trying

because that's what faith is
anyway

that's where ressurection comes from
after all

though all the world
in awe of graces
will never know

the merit of frail
and fruitless labors

Distracted By Daylight

distracted by daylight
i have wandered in the green
forgetting my beloved
until now...

the golden tablet dissolves
submerged in a bath of trees
and spreads like fine powder
magenta in the sky

silvered night rises
a trembling steeple within me
to pierce with hopeful longing
the flesh of my poor heart

and all the world is flesh
cooling underneath the sky
quiet and deep and full
of more than human feeling

but you my love are spirit
never gathered nor dispersed
everpresent, undiscovered
and observant