Dark Murmurs

Crack open the window;
offer dark murmurs
a silhouetted access to rush
over rocky terrain, through
secret rills and streams -
flowing, liquid-fantasy beds
enveloped by imaginative
forests - unrestrained
by deliberative sanity's
filtering screens. Careen
over and beyond the dams
of social convention
and cultural repression.
Eddy up into whirlpools,
those turbulent trials
of unbridaled experience
which inscribe memory
with an emotional
depth more savory
than the bland tranquility
conformity condescends to
confer. Only the roaring
crash of the waterfall,
illuminated by the light
of day, reveals the rainbow.

Rough Water Oceans

Three men on a street corner
strike adversarial poses as they
discuss some Presidential
whim, their voices rise with eyes
determined to be heard.

Another man walks past
the scene - he witnesses dogs
barking: demanding attention,
issuing a territorial warning,
pissing on the ground.

A young girl cries
out at futility -
having the last word
reminds her:
the dogs' bark jabs
worse than their bite.

Congress cannot hear
the dogs braying
at the moon, nor can
it smell the odor
of territorial claims
marked by individuals.

Policies are like the past,
unmalleable. Individual
actions jumping hopscotch
on the sidewalk of now
incite the future's
course more certainly
than the most detailed
scheme politicians plot
through the crashing swells
of rough water oceans.

The End of Eternity

Know yourself. - Ancient Greek aphorism inscribed in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.

Forboding gray surrounded the city,
hovering over the enclosing hills.
A full moon, tinted yellow,
dipped its face below the horizon
as sienna scorched the stratosphere.
Directly overhead, deepest violet-indigo
slowly faded into pearlescent-azure
while the icy air barely breathed. Two
young doves' wings whistled their high
pitched screetch past omniscent ears.

It is said the Phoenix rises
from its own ashes (the bird's
majestic body burns to a crisp
in a purifying fire) every year,
constantly re-evolving
into newly perfected arcs.

The end of eternity
constantly asserts itself
in the death of consciousness,
simultaneously remaining
unattainable to every
breathing thought
beating even beyond
horizon's liquid dreams.

Unpredictable Whims

"Here lies another
running-dog lackey
of the bourgeoisie."

I puke my guts'
contents at every notion
that epitaph might acidicly
etch its judgment
on my tombstone.

With hammer and chisel
I scrape away
social and cultural
conformative manipulations.

I piss into the stagnant
lake where repressed
emotions pool up
exiled by pointing fingers
into politically incorrect hiding.

I rip into shreads
every legal tender -
all forever incapable
of honest nourshment.

No matter where
my ashes might be spread,
they shall never rest
on land or sea:

My dreams weave
never before seen
patterns on air currents'
unpredictable whims.

To Greet a Warmer Dawn

Into a still, dry silence
Venus descends, unthreading
her honey-scented, tightrope
like a beam of light which knifes
through the darkest hour.

Cricket chorused chirps
crescendo as the moon hides
behind the garden maiden's
shawl - her cloaking embrace -
wards off frozen fingernails
scratching down my spine.

Dew-moistening Venus'
wet tongue kisses my cheek
breathlessly, anointing this fragile
human flesh in her ancient
yet eternal rite, wrapping me
with the sticky scent of oleander.

In the moment before
the first mist rises,
a purple-robed lady
sculpts out from deformed
clay a new, serene countenance
to greet a warmer dawn.

This poem was published by The Cartier Street Review in their February 2009 issue.

Starry, Cloudless Nights

An unsolicited commentary offered to Robert Bly

The old black dress
no longer fits. It's
too tight, outgrown.
Unsewn, intuition hints
through de-spooled,
rainbow threads
unwound on cold,
tiled flooring haphazardly,
unconcerned with any
mannequin's silent deception.
Pre-conception of objective
formulas severs creators'
minds from hearts.
Art's fathomed
in the breath,
in the spaces
between, where unconscious
intuition breathily whispers
on glimmering,
starry, cloudless nights.

This poem was published by The Cartier Street Review in their February 2009 issue.

Absynthe Skies

Absynthe skies
forever pour
over an event
horizon's edge.
History swirls just
beyond the vortex:
matter's uncondensed
energy - diffused
brilliance. Eternal
darkness beckons,
a fait accompli
infinitely compressed.
Sacred and profane
marry, co-mingling
their assets and debts
in the universal
trash compactor.