The Morgue at the Buddhist Temple

The morgue at the Buddhist temple

included news crews' oglers
after six Jesuit priests tried to revive
Russian television in a city bus.

People walked onto the highway
consuming the first fetuses.

An overpowering stench
began handing out
six-month sentences
for a water-only fast.

At the gates where people cross, thousands
gather to mourn exposed potential.

The Chinese news media died
in a chic blazer of sagging standards.

Largely censored
and threatening delay,
a divided Parliament
trivialized critics
with a non-binding,
but embarrassing, gaffe –
censure for old timers making bail –
pleading from the stage door.

A warning may not be enough.

For the most part,
life goes on.
It always has.


The following is a commentary which I wrote to accompany this poem:

Individuals encounter restriction and repression. The most basic and natural social desires among all individualized living creatures is for freedom of movement and choice - in other words, self-determinism.

As greater forces of repression, restriction and homogeneity of character and socialization are exerted within any nation, religion, society or culture, the more tension and pressure builds up within the individuals comprising the unit of socialization until an explosion threshold is ultimately reached.

The history of humanity can be categorized as progressive in that it has been marked by a constant movement towards empowering self-determinism and spreading freedom of personal expression and individualism.

Senses perceive motion. Minds perceive motion through space and time. As the motion of a body through space increases, its corresponding motion through time decreases. In the same way, as governments and cultures increase their restrictions on individuals and the pressure to conform is commensurately heightened, the urge to assert greater individual autonomy also grows. However, the desire for self-determination and individualism always remains a hidden undercurrent because it wells up from within individuals and remains mostly unspoken until a dynamic leader appears (capable of expressing what the individuals feel inwardly, but which they, often, either have no conscious awareness regarding the feeling or are unable to articulate it to either themselves or others) who excites and energizes masses of people beyond the explosion threshold.

With the perpetual transition from moment to moment and season to season, the vine of liberty blossoms with more and more flowers, yielding the fruit of self-determinism. The vines of liberty line the pathway toward the liberation of those collectives of people.

Liberation is a currency. Self-determination is the product that currency buys. Wealth, in such a socioeconomic system, can only be defined as transcendental harmony - which reflects the wisdom of individuals to respect all other living creatures and the understanding by social collectives that individuals' personal liberty must always have primacy over any and all collective interests.

She Sang in the Morning

This is a photo of me with my mother when I was about 9 months old. The poem follows.


She sang in the morning
as she softly reassured daybreak
from under the warm covers of her embrace

She sang in the morning
as she settled like dew on thick tufts
before all the stars could evaporate

She sang in the morning
as she serenaded robins and sparrows
who flitted about in serene commotion

She sang in the morning
as she wove a crown of baby's breath
and white doves flocked to her side

She sang in the morning
as she gently caressed my brow
etching her needlepoint onto my DNA

an isolated night

a raging wind swirls
at the fabric fix
edging reality corners
when suddenly the center
of a tortured emotional
hurrIcane arises from sacred
howling dogs salivating
salvation in witness of quail
blood spilled on the asphalt
bandaid suffocating fertility
while famished tears
deafen drowning ghosts
under a shadow-filled core
ticking the midnight moment
nourished by a preservative
laden canned fruit charade
where an ancient canyon's
hermit crab crawled under
profit's calculated violence
wondered up by the sewer stench
flowing through the veins
of an isolated night
tattered by expectation's
breathless decay

Shattered glass
A magnet without poles
The little boy crying into his pillow,
A silenced yelp
A carousel with no brass ring
The little boy's finger in a light socket,
An empty sky dwelling
A heartbeat pumping no blood
The motherless litter of one,
Dusk without a sunset
A bee sting
The boy's knuckles smacked by a nun's ruler,
Perpetual delay
A barn without hay
The child drowning in the deep end,
A dry riverbed
A locked door
The boy's menacing father lies,
A walking caricature
A searing desert
The word echoing from birth to eternity, no.

Cassiopeia

A shooting star streaked,
cracking momentary brilliance
upon the new moon's canvas,
tattooing the black void
with its sole illumination.
The glowing, aphrodisiac aura
embraced emptiness, draping
vanilla and honeysuckle scents
on Cassiopeia's shivering
shoulders of silky alabaster.
Her bright eyes sparkled.
Cosmic winds seeded discovery,
eliciting an amused pleasure
acknowledged by her alluring
Mona Lisa mystery.
Only Adonis and Aphrodite witnessed
my brief, parking lot caress.
She planted an eternal garden
in the placid waters shimmering
from the forest of my heart.

Purple Plums

Imagine a single,
shriveled pitted-prune
in a bushel of freshly-picked,
sweet, firm, purple plums.
Tiny beads of perspiration
trickle across goosebumps
eliciting witness to arousal.
Unblinking eyes gasp
at taut, silky flesh
when moonless midnights'
anticipation shudders.
The juice of the meaty delicacy
dribbles taboo down lust's chin
in a dream just before awakening.
An insistent shimmer-shiver
rapidly tattoos desperation
with every pounding heartbeat
of untarted forbidden flavor.

Up I Conjure Learning Inner Whole

Up I conjure gift rapt down
Full of sour sweetened void.
In not lying you walk out
On me, giving getting off.
Now sew future summer past,
Here a humble stumble gone:
Live-in maid made furnace die
Black the grey, doom-bloom, bleached white.
Hush the instant droning sound!
Start to measure leisure's end.
Back when battles had no front
Sky cried coddled, cobbled ground.

Learning inner whole,
Creating game's transitional
Room doorway, talking.
Riding French questions,
Twilight columned writing
(Cross-nailed language):
Endless experience vehicle.