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The Measure Of Victory
What is in a name but empty, echoing, veneration?
Honor is no more than a withering garland.
On the widespread earth there is no lasting fortune to be found.
All roads lead to fate.
All things equate to moldering ashes,
And fools laughing and quarreling and straight-away weeping,
And mongrels dueling for a bone.
Choosing not to pass life away in a calm flow of bliss,
Not waiting in tranquility for extinction or removal to another state,
Roaming foreign legions in Olympic defiance,
A gladiator enters the arena alone,
And the coming and going put aside,
Seizes the opportunity to rule the day.
And how he stands his ground for a time,
This is the measure of victory.
Protagonist
A protagonist am I,
An actor upon a stage.
Each drama passes me by
As a script that I must wage.
I don’t yet know the story.
I can’t influence the end.
But I can choose my glory.
On my act the scenes depend.
To A Better Day
In his prison cell,
In his walls of flesh,
In his living hell,
In his earthly mesh,
He found inner might -
An eternal light
To brighten his way
To a better day.
Refusal
In the midnight hour,
I screamed, no, no, no!
With a raging glower,
I looked down below,
With a bloody cry,
I’ll take your hardest blow!
I refuse to die!
I won’t take this woe!
I intend to stay!
I will not go!
Give me one more day,
To see the world glow!
In the face of hell,
I let my anger flow.
With a rebel yell,
I cried, no, no, no!
A Few Steps More
Of dust I am. Yet in the sand,
I shall leave a well-defined trail,
So others, come to where I stand,
May proceed further, where I fail.
Firmly Rooted
Ardent vine of mine, wither as all things must!
But death shall dull his blade before thou art dust!
The Writ Of Creation’s Power
Time, stay thy stand a moment more!
Spare my soul a lasting thought,
A concluding prayer before
My supplication is naught!
O Allah, Buddha, Christ! O God!
O Demon of the dark deep!
Hold my trembling hand, while I nod
Away to the final sleep!
I go as a lamb to slaughter,
My spirit as pure as fire,
My heart flowing as clear water,
With hope as my only choir.
And whether to heaven or hell,
Or to some cold, dreamless, space,
What prophetic savior can tell?
Or if my tears will leave a trace!
Away childish consternation!
I go where forever goes!
Let faith be my consecration!
I meet eternal repose!
Let peace be at my side – my guide
At this long-awaited hour.
My destiny I will abide -
The writ of creation’s power.
Exhortation
Look heavenward, O earthly creation,
All souls since time’s foundation!
Crawl no more on this lowly floor!
Cast thy gaze upward for evermore!
Arm in arm, let’s to eternal expansion!
Aim for the stars – our celestial mansion!
Demon Night
O demon night,
God of twilight,
What do these visions tell,
These scenes you’ve sent of dismal death,
Of sorrowful sorrowful hell,
Blown to my soul on your sulfurous breath?
I have dreamed through your eyes,
Seen through your murky lies,
And set my sight on a tranquil end.
Do not mock me with your gruesome blight.
I wear the shrouds of eternal light.
In me you have no friend.
Awake
Awake, sleeping one!
Shake the gossamer dreams from your eyes.
Morning has begun.
Push the shadows aside, and arise.
So long you’ve been gone,
Slumbering for listless yearning’s sake,
Through night without dawn,
That you have forgotten how to wake.
Through infinity
You may sleep, but for now face the day,
The divinity.
Take it, and make of it what you may.
Alive Again
Alive again! Back from the dead!
I have arisen from my tomb!
I’ve cast aside all shrouds of gloom,
And face the rays of life instead!
I breathe once more! I walk on high!
I tread on shadows of the past!
Who cares how long this light shall last!
For a time, I can touch the sky!
Stand Your Ground
You can choose to win or loose.
You can roll with the blows,
Or fall to your knees.
You can laugh naked in blizzard snows,
Or blow in the breeze.
The fight is here!
Stand your ground!
Show no fear! Make your sound,
Unless to scream in silence, in utter defiance.
Rave, and rant, and scratch, and bite!
Don’t go down without a fight!
Oath Of Defiance
Gods, titans, bullies, I’m calling you out!
How you once scared me soul-through -
Made me run, tail-tucked, for a sanctuary of doubt!
But now I see clear through you.
I have grown older -
Much bolder!
Here, I make my stand!
I have drawn a line in the sand.
I dare you to cross, to knock the chip from my shoulder!
I won’t back down – no surrender, no retreat!
I vow defiance, till victory or defeat!
Hail Caesar
There is no way out
Of this colosseum -
This, our mausoleum.
Let there be no doubt.
We must stand and fight,
Though we die in the ring.
Our form is everything -
A show of soul might.
O god of the arena, this day see,
We who are about to die salute thee.
Oh, West-Charging Charioteer
Oh, west-charging charioteer,
Driving with your lightening spear,
Sower and destroyer,
Stone-hearted lawyer,
I will not go,
Not as the falling leaves must blow,
Though you command it so,
Not without a show!
I will have my say,
While I have my day.
I will make you pay,
Put your colossal ego at bay!
Against your omnipotent hand,
I shall make a stand.
I shall not run with the driven herd.
While I have tongue, I have word!
Though you wrap me in your dark embrace,
Cast me out in deepest space,
Snuff me out without a trace,
With my last breath, I spit in your face!
Fabric Of Existence
Here is my thread, Clotho.
Weave me as you please.
Intertwine my destiny
As you see wisdom.
Star Burned Out
Star burned out,
You were divine!
There lingers no doubt
Of your shine -
Enduring space
Where blazed a brilliant light,
An eternal shadow trace
On the epitaph of night.
Sun lit and extinguished in a day,
Passionate energy spent
Not to languor dim and wax cold away,
But for a radiant moment meant,
To glory you did aspire,
To searing fame,
You, born of fire,
Consumed by flame.
Weep O Stars!
Who better knows the worth of bliss
Than one who has lost it outright?
How the sullen skies truly miss
Daybreak, at the coming of night!
Weep O stars! Bewail our fate!
Alas! The light is done!
The time is too late!
Consolation we have none.
O lost friend of mine!
O passing soul fire!
Your radiance was divine,
Shall forever inspire!
What measure of grief can I impart?
This much let me avow:
For the warmth you left upon my heart,
I leave a lingering kiss upon your brow.
For The Going
What is worth my words? I ask!
What worthy thought or notion or task?
Should I sing of loss or love,
Of life and light, or darkness and hate?
Should I simply wait
For inspiration from above?
Should I pray to gods to grant me power
To reveal the secrets from on high?
Should I set my faith in a flower,
And lose it when wilt comes by?
My simple words I will share
With you, my sister, my brother!
One soul links arms with another,
And makes the going easier to bear.
Make Joy My Monument
Make joy my monument.
No pyramid I seek.
When I die,
I will go.
Give me no coffin, no tomb,
No crypt’s dreadful gloom!
Burn me on a rainbow.
Throw my ashes to the sky.
Shout from the highest peak,
To eternity I was sent!
A Man Went Forth
A man went forth to change the world,
Constraining his will not to wander from the course,
Armed only with his senses and his aspirations,
Undaunted by his perceivable human weaknesses,
Undaunted by the prospect of failing abysmally,
Undaunted by the emptiness surrounding his habitation,
Beseeching the muses to alleviate his desires,
Discovering all he’d ever thought already written in philosophy,
Gazing at the age-long track trod barren before him,
Seeking to cultivate something more than he could see,
Sensing an elusive word he wished to taste -
An acacia fragrance, ambrosial in its essence,
Alliaceous on his tongue, bitter and intimidating.
Yet he drank the bitter cup he was compelled to drink,
And swallowed his pride for his passion’s sake.
And if he perceived shame, he could not accept it,
Though his appendages were naked in the daylight
For the world to mutely witness his ambulating,
And taunt his mistakes should he stumble.
The Final Fence
The ancient fish crawled out of the sea,
And whispered in my ear to me.
"What difference in an eagle or flea,
What significance in how we came to be,
Why I became you, and you became me?
Evolution is eventuality.
In a year or a day,
Who’s to say I shall not fly away?
To whom shall I pray?
Fact is, I shan’t stay.
I have legs to grow,
Wings to show.
I’ll be a man someday,
And in a million mornings hence,
Perhaps a god, when I leap the final fence."
A Plan
Chance chemical rendezvous, you say,
Or mud molded into ribs,
Maybe just madness spinning
Wildly on its axis -
No beginning or end.
But I see design -
Here a shape,
There a color scheme,
A dream for some,
Nightmare for others,
Still a plan,
A solution plotted,
Evolution from what to what,
From a cell to a god,
Or just oblivion.
Heaven or Hell,
Still a plan!
The Fifth Element
Life is bright with this dreamy light -
Heart of fire, water, wind, and earth -
A faint sheen of prismatic white
That suffuses muscadine mirth
Into inert bodies of mud.
What might animates flesh and blood!
Perchance an element abides,
A fifth part of the greater whole,
That forms the substance of the soul -
A power that over all presides.
Trace of Passing
Transient rustle of wind in dry leaves,
Heave up sand in mountains!
Let arid blasts of passion howl,
Raging against the granite!
Make a trace of passing.
What It Comes Down To
Sucking marrow is too passive for me.
I’ll grasp life by the throat,
And squeeze ’till there’s utterance.
Making Peace
Which path to take from here on out,
What things a broken soul must do,
All questions of a mortal’s doubt,
Who can better perceive than you?
All rites of worldly angst forsake!
Heed well your inner beckoning!
All souls must a pilgrimage take,
And with peace make a reckoning.
Rose For A Nightingale
Nightingale, thou art not forlorn,
Thy sacrifice not made in vain -
That hung thy life upon a thorn,
And tempered true love with its stain.
Purity, thou art not slighted
By the spurn of a thankless sway.
Thy charity stands unblighted,
Though the whole world withers away.
Nightingale, thy sweet notes impart
The tenets of a godly role.
I hold thy bloom against my heart,
And sing thy song within my soul.
Gardens Of My Dreams
In my dream, I dreamed we dream
That what we see is what we deem
To be real – we esteem as truth.
I had visions of endless youth,
Of daisies in a sunbeam,
Of sun beaming from my eyes,
Of perfume-scented skies,
Of blossoms blooming in a kiss
On my cheek in eternal bliss.
What difference night or day?
What wise intelligence can say
That what I see, or seek, or seem,
Is less real than flowers are,
Or the light of an afternoon star
Warming the gardens of my dreams?
Cathedral
The meadow was wide and flowing
To the end of mortal domain,
Then woods directed the going,
Led me down a meandrous lane.
The track had been trod much before,
Through carpet of clover and grass,
A trail worn through the forest floor
By lost pilgrims off to find mass.
The birches formed a corridor
Of branches bowed into an arch,
Leading to a cathedral door
At the end of a morning’s march.
There, in a cathedral white, light
Consecrating pious flowers
Who congregated in plain sight
Of truth’s most holy of bowers,
I advanced like a solemn nun
To the center of reverence,
And stood at an altar of sun,
To pray for a while in silence.
Visions Of Eternity
Whispers waving grains of this mystery.
Dry rasping in golden canes of reeds it sings.
On heather it breathes such gentle breaths,
And sways green conifers at solstice
With powdered wisps of white.
In whispers that no years suffice measure,
Flow these currents beyond the oceans of days,
Articulate what words might not utter,
Speak of powers turning planets and forming stars.
Sings this theme
From all twinkling shards of infinity.
Sings this of power and intelligence.
Sings this of design laid down in laws,
Gives form purpose, and purpose to form,
Weaves the course of planets into one fabric,
Beginning at the end and rolling again into itself.
Sublimely this veil is draped,
Yet parting at a soft breath.
An omnipresent curtain is this,
And a web in the corner of a barn window.
Measure the strands of glistening silk
With your intuition and your senses.
Observe the momentary form of this wonder.
Weigh it with hourglass precision.
Science, set your instruments to the task.
See if it fails expectation, or exceeds it.
Put your best minds to the task.
Put nations to the task, and worlds to the task.
Dissect the manifestations of your curiosity,
If it pleases you, if it need be.
Tear the heart out straightaway.
Take it from the man, and hold it to your eye.
Hold it in your hand and in your mind,
And with your deepest consideration,
Tell why it fails to pump eternal life -
All this and then some to find only simplicity,
That it comes back to one drop of dew on a morning grass,
And life come anew in spring,
And new seasons to push the old aside, away,
The night to move aside day,
And on to an adjacent second and minute and hour,
And onward forever, to eternity,
Everlasting.
Everlasting are the days.
Everlasting flow the tides of time.
Everlasting flow the springs on the hillside,
To the streams,
To the rivers,
To the seas,
To the sky,
To the rains,
To the springs on the hillside.
Will an hour change the rising and falling of the tide?
Will a timepiece measure the day?
Can a standing oak alter the sky more than the flutter of laced wings in a storm?
Nay speaks the speechless rustling of cottonwood.
Nay speaks the churning water beneath the mill wheel.
Nay speaks the drone of cicada at noon.
Heed or be not.
There is no spring in timeless realms!
No death in eternity’s fire!
See the street dog wag a heavy tail.
Weighed down is this fiend by blackened bowels.
Despise the sight if you must,
Deplore the foulness dragged along behind,
Or love it, and encourage the autumn leaves to linger.
But take the day as it comes, and lay down with peace in the evening.
Embrace the temporal end as a sweet, bosom, friend.
Sing the disease, heed the myriad legions feeding.
Divine are the organisms breeding in your blood.
Teeming are they and consuming.
Number them all and weigh them up.
Make a toll of the besieging elements.
Measure and record the deterioration of youth.
Drink deep depths of profundity until you are giddy.
Roll in the truth, you street dog,
Savor the elixir of reality.
Wag your heavy tail in fury.
Eviscerate your festering carcinoma with a single slash of a
saber.
Cut to the bare bone with a blade keenly honed.
Tear these moth-eaten shrouds away from you.
Break asunder the bonds of ignorance with a single nod of your
head.
Silence the specters of superstition with a smile and a sigh.
Take the threads of truth as they unravel.
Take the whole and hold it to your breast.
Is it not what you are, or not what you wish?
Wish for no more than the whole of reality.
Does a sparrow not have as much truth as a star or a tree?
Call a tree yours if you must.
Or make no claim at all.
It shall still be when you have become dust.
By the law that gave you sight, esteem it free.
Take a saw to your core, and expose the rings within.
Sharpen your senses on the gritty edge of reality.
Cut to the bone.
Cut to the soul.
Sing as sweetly as you can.
Sing all the tunes you know.
With all your ephemeral breath, sing sweetly.
Sweet is the life springing from death,
Sweeter still the day before death.
Spit on sorrow.
Damn the remorse with a tempest rage.
Curse the end, and curse the beginning if you must,
But live for the day,
And sing as sweetly as you can.
Listen not for the bells that ring on the morrow.
Make your music while you may.
Write joy as an epitaph, while life burns bright.
Night will not terminate the yearning of mind and soul.
This light will burn in the fires of infinity.
The color of the morning is painted on darkness.
(Suns will blacken and give way to other suns)
Constant is change,
Ever breaking the shackles of attachment.
Ever turn the cycles of change.
There is death only in the stagnant cesspool of constancy.
Life lies in creation.
Ever brings creation new change!
Ever blossoms spring through winter!
Where is wisdom if all has been said?
Where is learning if all things are known?
Glory ever to the moments passed!
Glory then to the moment!
Glory then to the moments not yet arrived!
Epic heroes rise to this occasion, to this moment!
Occasion this moment and write it for the morning to come.
Seize the sands before they slip away.
Glory to the man who carved an antelope on a rock in the desert!
Glory to the antelope, and glory to the rock!
Glory to the desert, succulent cradle!
Refreshing stage in the eternal scheme!
Glory be to the cacti! Glory to the sandy waste!
Glory in the darkest holes beneath!
Glory be to the scorpion, and to its sting!
Sting away life! Sting to death! Sting for life!
Sting clarity into the nature of all things!
Rise in the morning and see frost on the willows.
Witness the fog lifting from emerald waters of a northern lake.
See your reflection in the wing of a dragonfly.
Hear the words of your life
Sung on the scintillating tongue of lark and whippoorwill.
See them lift on a skyward monarch.
Touch this song, the snowflake wonder on your eye lashes.
See the widow black spin gossamer miracles in the eaves.
Sings the wind of this in the trees, in the leaves and branches.
Sings all creation.
Sing sweetly then.
Sing then of swamp and bayou, of all mountains and hills.
Sing of step and prairie, of plateau and frosted arctic.
A song for all is your breath.
Take the moon on a tail of fire.
Make higher still for Venus and Jupiter.
Aspire to them.
Tie them to you with your thoughts.
Feel them bound to you with molecular cords.
And still the earth will have you,
And the worms your flesh,
And the rocks your bones.
Take your place where it is.
Wear your skin without shame.
Eat your meat, and sing your day.
Hallowed be your breath and song.
Hallowed be the confounding day of your birth.
Hallowed be the stench of demise.
Hallowed be the lion springing on gazelle.
Hallowed be the waters flowing from the well of life.
Take life from it and return it again in the same measure.
Kiss the pale pallor of demise
With intimate lips,
With familiar lips.
But do not linger there while you wear life,
While you still sing sweetly.
The gleam is gone from the eye of a corpse,
The gall is rich, the youth spoiled, the meat sour,
An appalling meal for maggots, flower to a dung fly,
Why to a philosopher, an end and beginning, or only an end,
Or only a beginning,
But only transient.
Eternity waits eternally.
Enter this night with song on your lips.
Enter this splendid day with harmony on your lips.
Rest and be reborn.
On the morning of the deep night,
Awaken from this sleep as a soul.
Ever burns the spark of your consciousness.
Ever burns the spark of your spirit.
Ever shines the light of your mind.
Cast your burden down at the end of the road.
Harbor weakness no more than you must to gain strength.
Awaken the spirit from this marrow spent.
Mark the finish of this day with the sweetest song.
And in the fall of night, shed salt tears if you must,
If you cannot trust your instincts that the weary will find rest.
In a new morning hour
Throw off this disgrace,
These trappings of mortality,
And embrace a celestial dress.
When this burden is born sufficiently,
Time-tempered to imperfection,
Displace this millstone weight.
The fledgling has flown the nest,
And in years will be forgotten,
And in eternity be ever remembered.
But for this moment of eternity,
Walk upon the grass, the blood of your kin and kind,
Green in the veins, flowing effervescence of youth.
Sit upon it, spread out upon it, within it.
Voluptuous against your soul it feels, and one with it for a time,
Then passing on to another, growing other blades.
Would you have all at once?
Would you be forever young or forever old?
Would you be a flower forever in bold bloom,
Or the budding day of youth, tender and green,
Or sweet perfume scent as petals fall to soil again?
Are they not all the same?
Will you not witness your defecation?
Will you not void your bowels in proud glory?
Will you resist your intake,
Make a meal of shame,
Spurn the fruit and meat,
Retch at aroma of bread,
Make no cake for the day of your years,
Watch the morning only, and dispatch the eve away?
Take this day for its all -
For upon this day infinity is founded.
And on this day lies the spark eternal.
And this day is all that life is for this day.
Life is this day.
Live this day.
Hail the sun that shines on the earth this day.
Hail the rains that wash its soul and wake its children.
Hail your birth and your death with equal wonder.
Would you have it in a poem?
Could a book hold it or ten volumes more?
I should put it in a word for you,
If I might find letters to correspond -
This gift I would grant you,
For good or bad,
If only I were a god.
Redemption
Take a breathtaking step away from these shackles,
Crucified or uncrucified, unfettered and free from liability,
To revel in creation and being, abiding miraculously,
Untethered and at ease to extend limbs unencumbered.
With an unrestricted tongue speak freely
The recognition that no breath is without regret,
But no moment without consolation,
That these mingling sounds and meanings
Constitute all that needs consideration and reconciliation,
That the tragedy of demise, in season or prematurely occurring,
Is accounted well before the end of awareness,
All suffering and appreciation measured well before expiration,
The conclusion justified only in the action proceeding.
The sum of all parts proceeding is the whole.
In this reckoning alone lies redemption.
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