2/1/2011- Garron, you're turning nine. So glad to have somebody as enthusiastic about Star Wars & Blue Devil comics as I am to talk to. I wrote this for your Celebration of Life at WMS a few years ago. When you were a baby we called you our inside sun- you would rouse us to wake the moment there was light outside. It still pertains to you, for you are fiery & prone to flares of exhalation at any moment about any number of subjects. Happy birthday to a wonderfully challenging son! Daddy wouldn't trade a second of you!
* * *
He tells me so much more than expected-
utterances so unfettered they soar-
super-powered, mud-splattered action-rocket-stegosaurs!
Bam- Pyoo- Crash! Than stop. Daddy guess what?
Today- today we learned the sun is burning hot with gasses
and it has spots!
Miss Rogers says someday- actually- it will be a super-nova!
Miss Rogers says it- it is so amazing!
Suddenly, his story ends,
his arms embrace me,
tension strays from its orbit
ordained to dissolve, a runaway planet
reflective of the sun's keen rays-
snuggled- snoozing- super-nova son
Miss Rogers is right. He is so amazing.
By word of Our testimony
up will We rise
surge through canopies boundless,
wild chasing the dawn-born sun
We can't be stopped
We can't be slowed, captured or shunned
With trumpeting calls
Our flock breaks forth
through sickly-hued sky-
putrid puffs of brown vapor
Our victory cannot deny
Through singed tears of angels
feathers hurtle and slice,
Our vision of power is the visage of
sacrifice via the sword of our mouths.
We, a v-shaped cone of triumph
Rush, coursing through air
becoming energy itself-
Our chorus of voices serenades-
the daybreak sounds of principle-wealth-
Reason, Compassion, Truth-
winged horses of Our very own
and following is life;
freedom; evidenced in every tone
Resounding from all directions,
bold word of Our testimony.
Eyes open to snow-slathered earth
the time is come, the nourishment sent,
swollen in form for the raw preparations;
present's perspirations soaking my brow and
the blooms of the blackthorn blessing my womb,
filled future engagements with truths they endow
the season's soon end, a return of the hero-
past's promise now bellows to worthiness tide.
Retreat of the twilight glimpsed in isolation,
the gloaming, she gallops, for light's prophesied.
Now time for the tilling, so turn the soil truly
now hurry your last load of firewood gained-
so fickle the seasons, so prone late or early
new life's affirmation from old vows sustained.
From a CUUPS rite I wrote, "Walking with Eris & Coyote" & published in a pagan literary journal in 2003- that's why the fool is king & not the basketball player... This is meant to be a chant- has a cool rhythm if you hear it performed. Intro from the ritual:
"American archetype Mark Twain said “Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.“ When facing certain destruction, one may find it necessary to skip into the fray with a stupid grin pasted upon one’s lips, tooting a melody on the kazoo.
We live together in a world that scarcely makes the sense Twain desired, that is poised on the edge of oblivion from so many different angles . A world of smokestacks, starvation and soldiers being killed; a world of AIDS and cancer and SARS; a world where the ultra-rich increase their wealth and the poor are left to fend for themselves.
We live in a world where the fool has been crowned king; where chaos has taken the battle and reigns supreme. Like the kitten on the bedroom poster, its claws clamping desperately around the branch of a tree, we must remember to “hang in there, baby!”
To quote that great American sage once again, “When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries of life disappear and life stands explained.” From all chaos comes order and back and forth and again. The cycle will continue and something new shall rise from that which has fallen."
* * *
For every ending, there must be a beginning
For every beginning there must come an end
A completion of the cycle Than dance ‘round again!
We’ve got to dance with decay
Cut the tow ropes away
From desecration comes creation
Every dawn disarray.
Dance with decay
Says the crone, says the sage
Fallen walls can be foundation
Blow the wind! Fall the rain!
To see the light of the stars
The earth must bathe in midnight
Must have a shrouded earth
To see starlight in the sky,
Strike a balance in between
Of a cheer and a sigh.
We’ve got to dance with decay
We come to celebrate
An induction from destruction
Every birth comes with pain.
Dance with decay
From the womb till we’re gray
From commencement to completion
Our selves to ascertain.
For all feeling sorrow we’ll make mirth and laughter
In every burst of laughter we’ll mourn for a friend.
A completion of the cycle Than dance ‘round again!
A completion of the cycle
Than dance ‘round again! (We come to celebrate!)
A completion of the cycle
Than dance ‘round again! (We come to celebrate!)
A completion of the cycle
Than dance ‘round again! (We come to celebrate!)
Hard to write, harder to edit, hardest to watch. Circa 2006. To Edna & Martha, who I watched into decline.
* * *
Self-baked lipstick- cake-dried flesh
marred and brown, polluted,
thin-skinned and bound in mystery-
a witness strong, to steel you firm-
raw hands that reach, desperate,
convinced of some nobility-
I view you lying, covers tossed-
waning moon, sin-scarred voice
in whispered rasp, a victory-
a mark of stark lucidity -
a purpose found- each exhaust
contrasts your lithe fragility-
each smile the last that I might see-
thoughts confound, stealing grace,
profound depths of docility-
sliver of light from closing door
dances past cross pebbled drive-
catch breath at night's agility-
a salty taste- flow starts slowly,
glancing back, a mother's face-
the theft of rude debility.
The instrument swung,
the storm-spell starts:
stormfront juggernaut
impending from the West
potential promise is spent
I’m staring at a stillborn miracle
trying to shift from emotional
to a perspective more empirical
while gales of sorrow
whisk away that will
the thunderstorm, a cruel turmoil
pelting bullets upon an open lake
pygmy crowns of liquid they shape
ascend and reprimand my head
the complexities of these
vertices of wind extend
with cold claws coring
out my center, the thunderhead
hollers with lightning applause
churning cloud of torment,
contains screen doors, fence lines
and a barrage of odd objects
torn from their usual climes
irrevocable eradication from
the spumous mass advancing
without fail to my location
I am in its thrall, can only stand
with head held in defiance
awaiting certain devastation
with a fractious scowl,
doomed yet dogged
for I played the bull-roarer.
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, this poem was conceived & written on Blackberry while stuck in the Philadelphia airport, on Inauguration Day for W. Bush, which coincided with MLK, Jr. Day that year. I pondered the contrasts between the incoming President & Dr. King.
* * *
Stuck in Philadelphia airport-
flight delayed, card declined
another sickened citizen stands in line
waiting for a day equal to the
promise hidden and slid beneath
constructed, erected then bequeathed-
From those who drew freedom’s deep sustenance
to prodigal spoilers, the progeny of
those good ol' American giants and saints-
preying on us- passenger pigeons and doves
swallowed into stupor by our own excesses-
Now we bide time for all humanity,
A generation happy to harvest only for our ripe bellies,
the fruits of our fathers' ambitions-
free from expanse, loosened from the breakneck gait
of half-century tradition, believe we’re
set apart from the broke-down Camelot
decaying under desert sands-
We squander of the toll of bells
among skyscrapers and stone palaces
buttressing the birthplace of high ideals-
their ringing an echo of irony
thick in the sharp solid wind,
the snow only witness to their peals
in the still cold of a surreal January-
In the span of a week we celebrate
one man who dared to dream
and one who shares nary a trait
excepting a will of tempered steel
though bent backward in a cock-eyed cross-
This Inauguration Day-
Monumental steel scrapes raw
packed banks of white, shaves the dream bare
through streets where legends walked
churns haughtily through, the trail it leaves
outsources the coat of glittering hope
superseding pocked asphalt and lessons taught by rote-
Can any man’s mere dream compete
with the nightmare fortunes madmen seek?
The question hangs like the snowflakes
parachuting through cold Philly air
as we travelers sit festering in the terminal.
She let the rosebud casually drop onto the concrete below her stiletto heels. That was his last mistake- his final sashay through the contours of her soul- the cessation of his story. The splish-splash of shoes in stale puddles signaled her exit. She could not stay. She could not submit to suicide dressed-up in a coat-and-tie. She silenced her cell, hot tears singing the corners of her brown eyes.
* * *
He bought the last rose before Valentine's Day, in the city square. Grasping a concealed pocketknife, he sliced through its stem, severing the head of his hard-won flower. He graced his lapel with the bud, moisture beading from its seeping wound on the wool of his expensive suit. He failed to notice that he lost the corsage as he strolled from the lobby- it lay deceased on cold asphalt. His fingers pressed the digits of her line, she wasn't there. He left no message.
* * *
Parking-lot pebbles collected in the cracks rasped by the chill February wind. Trash and old wrapping paper, wadded cigarette butts, whispped toward the automatic doors, attempting invasion. As the squall began to subside, two rosebuds wilted beneath the thrum of countless soles, drowning in water-mixed-gasoline. Together they sat, spent.
