Beyond Reach

My work is done. Now I must die.

It's the tragedy and it's the drama

That makes beauty melt like candle wax

Over a heart where it's vulnerable to heat.

It is lovely.

I want my life to be beautiful, but

I don't want my life to be a sad song,

Or conundrum, and end in unfurling defeat.

There are no thoughts to keep

My falsehood fresh.

There are no words to fill the crack

Between reality and wish.

I am speechless before my own sorrow

And weary of my eyes staring at me

From the mirror.

And I'm leery of leaving a comfort painted blue

And cold and hot at the same time.

And if there were a universe of perfection

Built with bricks fired in the heart of a sextillion

Beginning suns

It would be wrapped in a magenta smog

Stitched throughout with golden lightspeed

And breaths of green smoke like dragons;

The smog of irreality and life energy

Sets it apart.

The Last Afternoon on Earth

Anonymous dreams curled through our minds like smoke,

But we knew them like old friends before the brittle vision broke.

Run out of the house with a paddle from her wooden spoon,

We drifted and soared while lying motionless on the dune.

On our backs and staring at the technicolor sun through closed eyelids,

"We are made of wings; we are just minds, and we're flying," you said,

And then I put my hand to my forehead and opened my eyes a squint

And what I saw and what I was were lost forever in that blue firmament.

A Far-Off Smile

Re-defined, unlocked, remembered,

Two decades ago is returning tonight.

Havoc, amok, revenge unhindered.

Patience, in the final round, won the fight.

Tracing paths through mercury hours...

Dark violet furrows in blue-veined white.

Through wax and wane it never sours;

We flew to the sun on a yellow kite.

A distant smile lingers, then lowers

Down from the corners of dizzying height,

The teeth, unbiting, fleetingly show us

A memory's brilliance the eyes could requite.

It drops to the floor like a knife from a hand.

Sculptures of eyes have no sense of sight,

And sculptures of tears fall hard on the sand

And flaunt a sad imitation, eerie, of light.

l'orange âme

Anything goes and nothing clashes.

Behind the closed eyelashes

When all that's left are glances.

Orange, yellow, blue-green splashes

The color orange dances.

Flaring sparklers, flashing shields!

Blithe stars dance in orange fields,

Far and wide without a night,
They praise the trees for orange yields,

Quirking swirls around the site.

Birds like jewels. Stormy weather.
Light, lightning and rainbows together.
Fire roars orange. Tiger's eyes.
Orange wing of orange feather.
Tiger leaps and tiger flies.

Vivacity and brighter faces

Of humans quickening their paces;

Laughing as they travel up

Spiral DNA staircases.

Drink the beaches, pass the cup.

Hurry now before it's over

Like busy bees on rose and clover

Before reverting to what they are

Homebody, comfortable, not a rover.

Take up the pencil, put down that star.

Something stirs and flares awake.
Out of all the risks we take,
Unveiled retina crashes,
And out of all the dreams we make
Behind the closed eyelashes.

Renewal

Does our world, our solar system,

Speak to God in its own way?

Do stones cry out, as once was said,

Or does it whisper every day?

Birds rise up, a pointing finger,

Lazy, languid, in the violet cold

Beneath the rubber eraser pink

Beneath dawn's crown of gold.

Spiky pine and feathery oak

Loom like waiting lion twins.

The branches are their gilded manes,

Tugged and tossed by tweaking winds.

Breath of water, halo of heaven--

Morning is the planet's prayer.

Footsteps fall bare and silently.

Sacred pervades the very air.

Withdrawal Into a Prison of Thought

The heartbeat beats, beats, beats.

It's all that I can hear.

It beats out a path, it beats, beats,

I don't even have to steer.

And on the path of mysteries

My footsteps beat alone.

Steps in ones and two and threes;

These stumbles are all I've known.

The path is black, polished black,

A polished deep black stone.

I watch the ground, my face stares back

And shows me what I've shown.

I wonder, wonder, wonder if...

If I could stop and turn

What lies behind, beyond the cliff,

The cliff my shoulders form.

For I am the edge, the very edge

Of my existence here

On the path, the path I pledge

To walk, however sheer

However sheer my terror, my fear...

However fast hearts beat,

There is no turning back, I fear,

Till now and future meet.

And when the heartbeat meets its beats,

When all things―all things―end,

What possessions, or what feats

Compare to one good friend?

What can I do or think or say,

Say or want or make,

That won’t be bloodied rags someday,

That won’t start seeming fake?

But now I hesitate and wonder,

Doubt my own assumption;

Wonder wonder, did I blunder?

Did I pay attention?

The heartbeat beats, beats, beats,

My footsteps beat a path,

But on that path beside me fleets

A footstep kin to wrath;

Akin to wrath, to strength, to hope,

Again, to light and awe,

A friend, a brother, king and pope,

A God without a flaw.

I follow the path alone, indeed;

It’s true: my heart, it beats

Single and unaccompanied,

In a row of empty seats.

But solitude can go so far

Before it’s too extreme.

Even day has its own star,

And coma patients dream.

Flowers on a Grave

Fireworks are flowers

Quickly blooming, quick to die,

Far above our tallest towers

In the independent sky.

Fire flowers. To remember.

They flash as fast as we forget.

History in July or in September...

The clash of victory and regret.

Later

This is that Later, so often mentioned,

Never believed in, but joked about.

This is the Later, the well-intentioned

Promised futures. It’s happening now.

The one last backward, longing look

Before the finality of the first step

(Before the fluttering page of the book

Turns lazily on a specter’s breath)

Takes back the strength of the recent past

And gathers it into the basket of now.

And a life comes down to this at last,

Reduced to the death-cry of a final rage.

Consideration of whether to waver

Died stillborn at the end of an age;

For time’s road ends at the eternity paver,

Where all yesterdays are fused into one.

Walking this road is like driving a car

With the windshield painted black

Your only guidance: the mirrors are.

And you’re stuck in drive, on top of that.

Resolved not to wonder, as is tradition,

Inflexible till comes the spectacular fall.

No one knows that trust is submission

And no one knows how to trust any more.

This is that Later, the one in your eyes

When you closed them and had a colorful dream

About surrender, and compromise,

About the loss of your kingdom and home.

Alone on a Rock

I am sitting hunched and chilled

On a plastic chair in a room.

The room is only halfway filled

With people; the other half

With predatory air from the cold-vents.

I am alone on a sun-warmed rock.

Stretched out, spread-eagled,

My arms are string and my heart's a lock.

There are no legs to kick me back;

This space is mine, and mine for all intents.

I am at a table too full of food.

My ears are buzzing and red

Like bees in a raspberry mood

Or thoughts consumed by drugs.

The candles are insipid like plastic incense.

I am surrounded by wooden men.

They have dice instead of feet,

And they're more faded than they had been...

But the squares just must be jumped,

So they round the board and pay their rents.

I am alone on a rock in a desert.

I am at school, at home and at work,

Talking, driving, dancing-- and comfort,

And comfort is mine as long as I stay

Exposed on the rock and you in your tents.