Moloch!

Planet without a sun

2007-06-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

I was floating in a straight line through the space I occupy,
I couldn't find a force to bend me back in time.
To a time before I was so bent, in time to arrest
this drift, to a time before all I could find was that

it goes on and on and on like a planet without a sun,
and now there is no gravity to pull you back to me.
The tides turn and turn again and say, "where have you been?
Its been too long since something moved inside of me."

the universe is void and formless for an orb without an orbit.
Its hard for a planet forced to create its own heat.
It gets vague and goes confusing, emptiness seems all-
consuming once aimlessness starts to look like being free.

It goes on and on and on like a planet without a sun,
and now there is no gravity to pull you back to me.

The Weight of Empty Space

2007-06-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

I felt hollowness surround my heart as I stared into the night

There’s more nothing there than something, I swear that froze me where I stood.

I felt the weight of empty space between those points of light.

I paced the length of certain streets without ever quite

finding a token to invoke a holy word with which to warm my blood,

I felt hollowness surround my heart as I stared into the night.

I parsed my thoughts to find a part of myself that might

be equal to the void. Before I could,

I felt the weight of empty space. Between those points of light

and me lie endless empty years and days through which particles and waves weave their flight.

In proportion to those waves and years my portion is to strain and hear, or so I understood.

I felt hollowness surround my heart as I stared into the night

and listening heard no single syllable distinguished from the vast white

noise of the nothing between that keeps the words and particles apart. As well I should,

I felt the weight of empty space between those points of light.

Perhaps the hollowness is holy. Silence simply a hallowed pause that might

Precede a word that draws something from nothing. Well, it could,

I felt. Hollowness, surround my heart! As I stared into the night

I felt the weight of empty space between those points of light.

Untitled

2006-09-15T02:48:00.000-07:00

I daydream, these days, mostly in the night.
If, while you sleep, you should happen to dream
I hope it is a dream of me awake
daydreaming about going back in time
to get some sleep which I had not taken.
So that, when you wake if you find these lines
on your bedside table they will not seem
presumptuous. I rather hope you might

read them with pleasure. Else, I hope you might
find them later that day and think of the night,
and in your half remembered thoughts that seem
to have collided with me as you dreamed
and sent us careening in parallel lines
towards someone or thing we dare not wake.
For we don’t possess the force it would take
to sing it back to sleep, nor time

enough, for the lullaby is simply time
itself, and the fading melody might
lull us into believing we could take
a minute to close our eyes in the night.
Eyes open again we think ourselves awake
when we find we are not alone. We seem
to be waiting in a ponderous line
stretching toward the being from our dream.

I have come to think of it as our dream
though I can’t be sure it was you this time
not merely your image waiting in line
with me as we approach the thing that might
be less sinister than first glance seemed
to indicate. Yet I fear it would take
more strength than I possess if, when I wake,
I find what I encountered in the night

was but a image of you. Then the night
seems a waste. But if as I walked in dreams
toward that which I know I dare not wake,
you were there beside me we would pass the time
deciding whether or not we could take
the beast by the tail and swing it. The line
disappears and we, alone seemingly,
confront that sleeping mass, though it might

result in a fall into dreams from which our might
could not win us release. Bound then, to night
forever, we would wander till it seems
we would not want to leave our tandem dreams.
Or maybe the beast would spin us a line
of bull so fine as to make us dance at a wake
with nearly religious fervor, forgetting time.
And so the result is the same. The beast takes

what we would not give away willingly, takes
our self knowledge, that which, had we kept it might
protect us from the melody that time
still sings, singing itself through the long nights
not perceiving length so long as when we wake
we know not our weakness nor why it still seems
that unless something happens that weakens the line
between reality and the abstract, we dream.

But your image and my image do dream
together, and though we feel it may take
much more self deception to tow that line
than we care to gather, we feel it might
be less dangerous than to break the spell that seems
to have woven itself through our minds over time
and renders us half alive, that is, half awake;
the other half’s held by that thing we woke that night.

And now if you wake you’ll remember how it seemed
we walked together in dreams and how we just might
have woken that night something that may yet in time
take back the self-sense for which we waited in line.

The Eucharist

2006-08-10T18:32:00.000-07:00

We pour addiction like a libation.
The ground, thirstier than we, sucks it dry.
While we have out drunk sand on occasion,
Our thirst is greater than we, which is why
Addiction is the gift we offer.
Our used rag righteousness ain’t enough,
so we give you our emptiness instead,
figuring you hold the bottle. You said,
“I’ll neither leave, nor forsake nor rebuff
The penitent thief or drunkard or whore”
So we lift our glasses in a toast
To the twice struck rock from which water flows.
Drink to the health of one whose blood is wine
That chokes as it quenches, burns going down

Of Two Minds

2006-08-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

I.
I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking too much
I’ve been thinking so fast that my brain can’t keep up.
Like a child who has stared at the sun for too long
My right brain sees nothing of what my left brain has done
and the crease down the middle is increasing in size
and now I am jumping but I don’t know what side

from which I’m leaping
or where I might land
or what voices are speaking
or what you hold in your hand

Because of course, of course, of course you were there
between the lobes below the skull and the hair
and we dance to the songs of Solomon Burke
who’s there performing with Nina Simone
and their rough-edged voices carry the hurt
and say the things that I can’t or won’t.

Or maybe I said them
and you didn’t hear.
You open your hands
but I can’t see them clearly

Now I follow you farther and further and farther into
the crevasse that neatly splits my brain in half,
carved by the river that on the bottom flows through
brain chemistry that, like the rod and the staff,
brings us great comfort as we kneel on the shore
baptized in still waters. Still, I find myself torn, for

it’s here that you leave me,
and as you raise your hands
I see that they’re empty
and I understand

But still I know, still I know, still I know that
I’ll love you till I find a way to make my brain flat

Or till I find a love that cuts deeper

II.
Still I know, still I know, still I know that
Though I find myself to be of two minds
I’ll love you till I find a way to make my brain flat

Do I hope your memory weakens with time?
That I can somehow unfold the creases of gray?
Still I find myself to be of two minds.

One wants to forget more than I can say,
to fill in the canyons that run through my brain
or somehow unfold the creases of gray

Oh, but my other mind has claimed
to have found a far better course
than filling the canyons that run through my brain:

Allow this river to find a new source;
a new love’s erosion that deepens and finds
it’s winding way down the far better course.

Yet I still find myself to be of two minds.
For I know, I know without finding that
new love’s erosion, all that I’ll find
is I’ll love you till I can make my brain flat

But of course I find that there are others there
Between the lobes, below the scalp and the hair

III
A bearded street preacher with Bible in hand
who’s shouting, “It’s Jesus who knocks on the door”
so loudly that all those who near him stand
can’t hear Jesus voice.
And what is more
he missed it himself, that voice telling him to
do the unthinkable: To marry a whore!
or maybe he heard it, and that is why
he shouts so loudly.
Or perhaps he too
finds himself divided in mind:
one half afraid of what the other might find

Does healing come from fusing the two lobes?
And forgetting the sins and the shouts and regrets?
Or by trekking into the valley below
following one who’s able to forget?

Solomon Burke and Nina Simone finish their set
and Tom Waits and The Blind Boys of Alabama
take the stage to play a set of Prince covers.
Seems at first like everyone’s dancing except me.
I sit in the back of the room nodding my head.
I glance over and see that the whore who
sees visions isn’t dancing either.

IV.
The visions she sees when the johns come
to call are her stock in trade whether or
not they prove true. its her reputation
as a seer that draws them to her as
the other tools of the trade equally
ephemeral though rooted in flesh, fade.

She's foreseen his proposal. "Yet suppose
he does?" she thinks. Can she remain faithful
once offers of remuneration for
services rendered are renewed. When the johns
want the double fantasy again:
The momentary brush against the flesh
of another and the hope she'll predict
anything but a return to her bed.

The street preacher seems unaccustomed to dancing
but he approaches the whore anyway and asks her to
dance as Waits and the Blind Boys
break into 1999. They dance awkwardly for
a couple of songs before leaving together with a
justice of the peace who I had not previously noticed

V
There’s a touch of the whore in every preacher
and few whores escape conscience’s touch.
And he’s hoping there are some things to teach her
like those who are forgiven much, love much

But the prostitutes in better position to admit
the position that she’s in, and the parson’s prone
to perjury when it comes down to it.

And each often thinks the other too far-gone
in judgment or towards Sodom.
And sometimes while the whore weeps
the preacher has forgotten
from whence he’s come or or where mercy's kept.

Both could kneel and make confessions
or keep banging away at their professions.

I smile to myself and imagine him quoting her
passages from the Song of Songs (King James Version of
course, it sounds sexier) and then I leave the dance hall
as the band finishes it’s set and begins to pack equipment.
I walk to a diner overlooking the canyon in my mind, and
See three men and waitress engaged in conversation…

VI.
Hosea talks to old Walker about
how freedom feels to the other party.
Just how free will feels to those unchosen
Talks until he reels from the part where she
left with an old lover, and he found out
that predestination's just what's chosen
by another's will. And now that he knows
that, he wants to know if there's some chart he
can follow to guide him on his search to
find something to swallow that might cause him
to forget her, or barring that, a priest
who will exorcise the Holy Ghost who
chose him to marry the one whose freedom
made free will a burden without release.

Esau, having listened in, says freedom's
curse lies in the small concessions made
that divide the heart and mind and have led
to a seemingly irrevocable trade

Oh, that terrible, terrible trade
Old hairy red Esau has made

VII
Somewhere lies the memory of a rock
inside the deepest wrinkle on my brain,
lost forever among the folds of gray.
Now a faint echo of lost memory,
though a trace of what was lost still lingers,
a scent from the land of milk and honey

She leaned in toward me and said, “Honey,
I ought to hit you in the head with a rock.
It might leave an impression that lingers
longer than anything else in your brain.
For you, happiness is a memory.”
I barely heard her, sitting in my gray

booth. For a moment it felt like a gray
cat crossed the path of the world. The honeyed
words of smiling men mask the memory
of a happier world, one not yet rocked
by omens or chemicals in the brain
or spiritual malaise lingering

like the echo of missing hope lingers,
bouncing off the walls of the canyon gray.
Shout into the deep wrinkle on my brain.
Remind me that I traded the honey
for shit. Then summon the memory
of the low thundering voice of the rock

which even now rumbles in the bedrock
of the canyon in my mind. It lingers,
something more powerful than memory
(a faulty camera that renders colors gray
and replaces the sweetness of honey
with bitterness). “As wrinkled as my brain

may seem…” She laughed aloud and said, “Your brain
is as impenetrable as a rock.
Now, you know you forgot something, honey,
and the taste of lentil stew still lingers.
Yet you won’t search within that mass of gray
for that most portentous memory.”

Her statement lingers, folds into my brain.
The gray canyon rings with the memory,
“I’d have given you honey from the rock.”

Walker, purses his lips, and with a glance at the waitress
Addresses the other two men…

VIII
“I’ll tell you what’s the matter with your spirit.
It’s your own personal Cartesian Split.
Now, though, the images are blurring and the plates are shifting.
Now, before the lands assume their final form
Now, while you can see the way the continents in your head once
connected before you walked away from yourself into some new world
replete with new despair.
Now, while new rivers can yet erode new beds and some spirit
can draw fresh pictures with a chemical pen.
Now, while all you’ve traded away dances with all you once loved.
Now, while there are infinite directions in which to wander.
Now, before this panorama clicks into place and you can only look past it, or through it, but certainly not at it.
Now, before the day lulls you into your customary stupor.
Now, before the peddlers of medicine offer you a way of mute mediocrity.
Now, now listen for the voice of the rock,
which still rumbles through the bedrock of the canyon in your mind.

Now.
Now a search is possible.

Walker has locked eyes with me and seems to have forgotten
those sitting at the table. I look back a moment longer than
comfort dictates and then throw a tip on the counter and leave
the diner. There’s a path leading into the canyon at the edge of
the parking lot, just beyond the railing. I follow it down
toward the river and the raft on which the street preacher
and the whore who saw visions await me.

My Hips are Liars

2006-07-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

"One thing thing's for certain, my hips are liars"
You said, "Really? My hips have yet to speak.
"Well, mine lie and lie without seeming to tire"

"Your hips really talk?" you inquire,
"Mine are as silent as dead mimes, yours speak?
What do you mean, your hips are liars?"

"To recite the lies of my hips would require
more hours and minutes than you'll find in a week.
They lie and they lie without seeming to tire.

Why do you think they say 'your pants are on fire?'
My trousers have been smoldering for weeks.
That's how I can tell that my hips are liars.

And that's why I'm switching to such strange attire
(fire-proof leggings so I don't have to streak).
My hips lie and they lie with out seeming to tire.

I've never thought of myself as a cryer,
But as the scars on my thighs burn I weep.
One things for certain, my hips are liars
they lie and they lie without seeming to tire."

With a Bang After All

2006-07-21T10:15:00.000-07:00

I heard muffled voices over bombs down the hall
say there'll be whimpering enough to go 'round,
but it seems the world ends with a bang after all

"And this despite all our best efforts to stall
The vengeance of God and men of reknown"
said muffled voices over bombs down the hall

Those hoping for respite resist the pall,
the dark that this days dusk's dragging down.
But it seems the world ends with a bang after all.

Professional distractors, forever on call,
stand ready to make enough noise to drown
Out muffled voices and bombs down the hall

Line the remainders against the wall.
The ones who’ve heard through the sound
and know the world ends with a bang after all

Turn up your collars, and tighten your shawls
And cling fast to whatever hope that you've found
Listen to voices over bombs down the hall
And know the world ends with a bang after all

his charm

2006-07-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

his charm is built on
an accumulation of
ephemeral things

A Brief Quote on the Power of Words

2006-07-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

“A man who deliberately inflicts violence on the language will almost certainly inflict violence on human beings if he acquires the power. Those who treasure the meaning of words will treasure truth. And those who bend words to their purposes are very likely in pursuit of anti-social ones. The correct and honorable use of words is the first and natural credential of civilized status.”

-Paul Johnson in Enemies of Society

If They Knew What You Know

2006-07-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

Forgive me, but some
Times when I think of you, I
Picture you naked

Praying loudly, your
Arms raised toward the sky
Passersby unfazed,

Not thinking you strange
reaching for a creator.
They would do likewise

A Sestina for my Grandmother

2006-07-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

I’m the apple of my grandma’s glass eye
Cadaverous cheek pressed against my face
She whispers I’ll miss you when I am dead.
Her sunken eye sockets and empty mouth.
Since his death she has been lying in bed
Shrunken body, echo of her lost joy

O, sing Juanita of that former joy
Good things you have seen with your one good eye
Peering through dark lens from your final bed
Toward the unknown that you fear to face
Trying to remove the coin from your mouth
Hoping for life in the land of the dead

Following him who is already dead
Who did look upon you with lust and joy
Sharing kisses between your toothless mouths.
That day in your youth when you caught his eye
He dropped the pig slop when he saw your face.
And within three months shared the wedding bed

It’s with a memory you share that bed
As you list for me now the many dead
Who have gone ahead of you and now face
What is to you a prospect. Now your joy
Is in detailing the terror your eye
Has seen and the taste of pain in your mouth

Your words of faith seem rote, sentiments mouthed
To stave off the victory of your bed
Over hope which once glinted in your eye.
Like the coal that once touched your lips, it’s dead.
Now, see the panic that replaced your joy
Insinuate itself onto your face.

Easy for me to say, “Stand up and face
The fear that waits in the dark open mouth
Of Sheol. On the other side is joy
If you would but rise from your dying bed
And join the immortal chorus of the dead
In Christ, who walk freely beneath His eye.”

For you who face confinement in your bed
Mustering praise from the mouth of the dead
I pray to see joy’s glint in both your eyes.

Honey from the Rock

2006-07-05T12:25:00.000-07:00

Somewhere lies the memory of a rock
inside the deepest wrinkle on my brain,
lost forever among the folds of gray.
Now a faint echo of lost memory,
though a trace of what was lost still lingers,
a scent from the land of milk and honey

She leaned in toward me and said, “Honey,
I ought to hit you in the head with a rock.
It might leave an impression that lingers
longer than anything else in your brain.
For you, happiness is a memory.”
I barely heard her, sitting in my gray

booth. For a moment it felt like a gray
cat crossed the path of the world. The honeyed
words of smiling men mask the memory
of a happier world, one not yet rocked
by omens or chemicals in the brain
or spiritual malaise lingering

like the echo of missing hope lingers,
bouncing off the walls of the canyon gray.
Shout into the deep wrinkle on my brain.
Remind me that I traded the honey
for shit. Then summon the memory
of the low thundering voice of the rock

which even now rumbles in the bedrock
of the canyon in my mind. It lingers,
something more powerful than memory
(a faulty camera that renders colors gray
and replaces the sweetness of honey
with bitterness). “As wrinkled as my brain

may seem…” She laughed aloud and said, “Your brain
is as impenetrable as a rock.
Now, you know you forgot something, honey,
and the taste of lentil stew still lingers.
Yet you won’t search within that mass of gray
for that most portentous memory.”

Her statement lingers, folds into my brain.
The gray canyon rings with the memory,
“I’d have given you honey from the rock.”

My Glass Eye

2006-07-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Oh someone has stolen my glass eye.
Taken from me while I was in bed
I hope to get it back before I die

It's not the first time it's been tried.
(I lost the real one to an angry redhead)
But someone has stolen my glass eye

You guessed correctly, it's quite hard to cry
without any tearducts left in my head.
So I hope to get it back before I die

"But you have another," you ask, "so why
don't you cry with that one instead?"
"I told you someone stole my glass eye.

The thing that I failed to mention is my
other eye's wooden and painted red.
So I hope to get it back before I die

The wooden one, no matter how I try
Will not produce tears, so far it's just bled.
Oh, someone has stolen my glass eye
I hope to get it back before I die."

Haiku for the 4th of July

2006-07-04T21:03:00.000-07:00

Damn, the sun is hot
When I am shoveling mulch
And raking it flat.

An Open Letter

2006-06-27T13:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Shakira,

My hips don't lie either, and they're telling me your song sucks.

Sincerely,
Dan

The Un-Shriven

2006-06-27T10:44:00.000-07:00

It is written, “A sign shall be given,
A virgin shall contract an STD.
And then they shall call her name the unlucky,
And the un-forgiven and the un-shriven.
Though loudly she protest her innocence
She shall be banished to the outer tents.”

As if Prometheus had broken free
To make a final visit to the gods,
To steal water, to again raise their ire
This time though, thieving to quench the fire
That had set the Earth and heavens at odds.

Eve says, I should have told that snake where and how
He could shove that fruit, but it is too late now
To put the apple back onto the tree.

Those you Manipulated

2006-06-09T22:52:00.000-07:00

Those you manipulated will miss you
now that you are dead (though your body seems
to be in much the same condition it had been).

Even though you are very clearly gone
your puppets, stringless now, flop gamely on
unable to grasp the freedom into

which they have been carelessly tossed. And now
you lie in the position you always
occupied, the puppeteer who has stayed
supine above the stage. We wonder how

one so opposed to motion seemed to force
the unwilling to dance so jerkily.
They never ascended the strings to see
if the tugs were more than a matter of course.

Ethics For The Modern Man

2006-06-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

Here's a snafu:
an extraneous extrapolation--

"We don't need the gumption,

just the action."

the first post

2006-06-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

Beginings are so awkward...

Ack!