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In The Beginning
In the beginning, there was darkness.
And then there was light.
Intelligence thought – therefore it was.
And intelligence sought wisdom,
And found wisdom for evermore.
Ever changing, never constant, always arranging,
Intelligence decreed
That its wisdom would not be finite, but eternal.
Intelligence yearned for experience.
It made atoms, and suns, creatures,
Cells, heavens, and hells, to abide in,
To confide a portion of the spirit in.
Intelligence dwelt in water and fire,
Rose higher and higher in quest of light,
Of more creation, more evaluation.
And the sum of the whole was the one.
And all was fair.
All shared in a portion of the spirit,
Only seeing and perceiving differently.
But the spirit saw that it was good,
Saw through many eyes, perceiving all
That creation was achieving.
And knowing that all things flow back into the one,
Intelligence was pleased with what it had done.
And God called this the first day.
And the first day was eternity.
The Initial Thought
That an intelligence could so rise,
Set supernovas brightly burning,
Comes as no great surprise,
Given countless measures of learning
At the end of an evolutionary trail.
There is awe at such power.
But all imaginations fail
In wonder of the initial thought.
The light of that first hour,
How indeed was it wrought?
Thy Will Be Done
Thou shalt not kill, roared the lion to the bear
As it pounced upon a wolf that was chasing down a hare.
How dare you kill for a thrill!
It’s alright when you need to eat
To take a life to use as meat,
Or when you think you’re in the right
To kill an opponent in a fight.
But to kill without proper cause
Is against all of the greatest laws.
And a monkey in a tree
Listened to him intently,
Picked a louse off his head
And squished the bastard dead,
And waited for more.
And…what those who are right really deplore
Is someone who always does wrong!
Won’t you join me in a song?
Praise all that is good!
Let’s do what we should!
One nation should love another nation
As a cat should befriend a rat.
Then he swatted a daisy flat
To punctuate his very clear declaration.
And the monkey jumped down, and shouted, I believe!
And the bear left, seeing there was nothing to achieve.
Ugly Monkey
There’s a fear that sits on my shoulders like an ugly monkey.
He loves a slow parade, and a sleeping masquerade,
And the shade beneath the ground,
Entertaining frequently, for his own amusement.
His drama goes quickly, a surprise jump, and gasp at his antics,
Or comes on slow as years, long, and then strong,
With a twist of horror at the end, and a heavy song.
This way or that, it’s always the same lame act.
He always aims at bringing sorrow – quite droll in fact,
A show that grows cold, a dull nuisance pulling a boner.
I’ve seen enough of the plot to know his lot.
He’s always howling a reminder in my ear that I’m getting older.
All attempts to tame him just make him bolder.
I’ve tried to tame him.
I’ve tried to rename him.
I’ve tried to blame him.
I’ve tried to shame him.
But this ugly monkey is out of control,
Gone stark raving wild,
And bound to take his toll.
Before I Slip Into That Faraway
Before I ease into that final sleep,
Ease away into the close of day,
Slip inexorably into the endless deep,
Before I slumber, I have something to say.
Can you tell me why I am here?
Can you tell me where to go?
Can you make it very clear?
God, I’d really like to know.
And so in fervent fear, I pray.
I fall to lamenting fears.
I lay my soul on deaf ears,
Before I slip into that faraway.
Beneath Your Eye Of Gold
Beneath your eye of gold,
The centuries unfold,
The seasons pass on by.
Beneath your eye of gold,
All reasoning grows old,
All praises to the sky.
Beneath your eye of gold,
For summer days untold,
You’ve watched your children cry.
Beneath your eye of gold,
You let our hearts grow cold.
You’ve never told us why.
Candles In The Wind
A crocus bloomed in early spring,
Like a church steeple, confused by reality,
Rising up to meet heaven’s humility,
Thinking it might hear loving bells ring.
But it burned its candles in the wind.
It learned that it was lost,
That it had sinned
By giving a mad god its trust.
It was caught by the frost,
Went from ashes to dust,
Perhaps to hell’s fiery pit,
Until a redeeming day in May,
When the sun comes to resurrect it,
And reason comes to stay.
Animal Crackers
How entertaining it must be
To sit at the top of eternity,
Watching the circus just for fun,
Judging performers one by one -
Marionettes doing funny loops,
Midgets jumping through the hoops,
Lions and tigers merrily
Playing with monkeys in a tree.
Such fun it must be to watch the show,
To laugh at the silly mummer troupe,
To applaud the amusement down below -
The animal crackers in your soup.
Tree Of Life
With woe my heart is swollen,
From thy licentious truth.
My blind faith has been stolen.
A withered bud of youth
Cultivation has induced -
A cultivar so crude.
All my seeds of hope produced
A tree utterly lewd,
A vine hopelessly tangled,
That reason cannot wrest
From trust that it has mangled -
This thorn thrust in my breast.
The Way And The Light
I would choose to follow the right,
If it were unreflected, unrefracted,
Clearly shining to progression.
If there were perfection,
I would seek, undigressing.
Eye To Eye
I could not bow my head
To a god. (In terror)
And any god should be dead
To demand such an error.
Warlord
Hear the roll of distant drums!
Behold, the mighty warlord comes!
Behold karma burning upon the bush!
Speak of sweet miracles and crush
The tongue of truth into the dust!
Vanquish forever simple trust!
Roll the holy wheels, and hear
Hyena prayers of doleful fear.
With inspiration call divine
Soulful vomit and putrid wine.
Behold the grace of cobra king,
With regal cannon prepared to sting
Reality into the infant face,
And call the end a glory place.
Grave this truth in words of rock:
To slaughter the shepherds lead the flock.
Pandora’s Box
Woe! Woe! The spell has been spoken,
And no finger to plug the leak -
The hatch open, the lock broken,
The repairman gone for the week!
Was it just curiosity
That opened up Pandora’s box,
Or perhaps animosity
That cultured mortality’s pox?
We know that we reap what we sow.
But who the hell sowed all of this?
Was it the work of friend or foe?
Who put the poison in the bliss?
He who boxed it once, can again.
But what hand has power to snatch
The sun from her fiery refrain,
Or even put flame in a match?
Death Of A Parakeet
Upon the final evening of the year,
My friend lay down her small head in my palm,
And found therein an everlasting calm
That I shall never share with her, I fear.
To me, no means can justify this end,
Nothing replace her warmth on my shoulder.
Without her sweet song it shall be colder
Than any cool remorse the gods might send.
Omnipotence cannot silence my cry.
This shameful deed be upon someone’s head.
I have searched for a divine reason why,
But found eternal quietude instead.
On this sad night, a parakeet is dead.
Has heaven marked the passing, as have I?
Ceaseless Yearning
Ache of ceaseless yearning,
My bosom’s raging fire,
What sets thy flame burning?
What maddening desire?
What power can pacify?
What celestial cloudburst
Might quell and satisfy?
Gods! Quench my mortal thirst!
Milk Of My Beginning
Milk of my beginning,
An overpowering taste,
In a vile churn is spinning
Into a curdled waste.
Milk of wretched misery,
Nectar of suffering’s flower,
Hold this morning’s delivery.
Something has gone quite sour.
Milk of my existence,
I’m weaned of your addiction.
I seek the wine of deliverance -
The redeemer of all affliction.
Rearing The Paradox
This wretched life I love,
I would free from my tight hold,
Were it not for the gold
I am digging up above.
Prophecy
On the unsheathed falchion of divine leave
Death coils his merciless fingers of ice,
With a broad sweep of his falciform sleeve,
Reaps a swath of souls unto his device.
The virtuous, along with the tainted,
To utter oblivion are fated.
And naught but time and darkness is sainted,
When spirits to ashes are translated.
The End Of Days
(December 1999)
I live in the last of numbers,
When time will soon run out,
When the dawn of mankind slumbers
On the eve of dark doubt.
I live on the calendar’s edge,
On the book’s final page.
The world is on the dismal ledge
Of the extinction age.
This is my last proclaiming breath,
Song of the final day,
Before all humanity’s death.
I thought that I should say,
Before there’s no lingering trace,
Something of poets and their ways,
Simply tell the cold silent space,
I saw the end of days.
New Year 2000
One second into the new year,
Outside in the street I hear
The celebrants’ raucous roar,
At the opening of the door.
Some souls must be truly relieved
To find they have been deceived,
Expecting catastrophe
And the end of humanity.
Many are utterly amazed,
Loud, and irreverently dazed,
Taking part in a fable
On a numerical table.
But I give no weight to numbers.
A millennium slumbers,
And a new age has begun,
While I still amount to just one.
The Year 2000
A millennium is turning.
Was there some misunderstanding
That another would follow?
Let us purse our lips to bid
The old away, and utter prayers
For instantaneous transfiguration.
Impelled by frailty are we
To accept mystical decrees,
To abide declarations of Valkyries,
And vainly-worded mythologies,
Drinking holy grail prophecies at tea time,
Keeping eyes to sea and stars,
Lingering, lingering in benediction,
Murmuring incantations, hum, hum, hum.
And in the moment of our beseeching,
It is done, come thief-in-the-night,
Razed by Hades’ fires, and consumed,
Frozen silver-white,
To sing valediction in my fortieth year.
Beneath All Things
Beneath all things great and small, I lie,
Among the hungry creatures feeding.
And having no path to take, I die,
My soul entrapped, my sore heart bleeding
Warm and salty streams upon my cheeks.
Earth’s stifling prisons have conquered me.
Heaven in mocking sibilance speaks
Of true happiness that cannot be.
I am forced to taste
Living out a mime,
While all goes to waste
In the tides of time.
Must Be Madness
A Lunatic is in my head.
He’s asking something more instead
Of fantasy, and fallacy, and tragedy, and death -
The youthful green of early spring,
And golden light that mornings bring.
He never sings of anything
But breath.
Bring Omnipresence To Me
People of my past lives!
Ring them all around.
Sing of hope that time deprives,
Run the mortal ship aground,
Unto a homeward shore,
Where past scenes as reality seem,
All memories lingering evermore,
Where all abide in a never-ending dream,
In paradisiacal harmony.
Braid the frayed edges into one tapestry.
Set imprisoned days, at long last, free.
Bring omnipresence to me.
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