"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise."
—William Blake
Mind like a Hurricane, Soul like a Sieve
Grab a line you want to use
Never know what passes thru
Like a sheet of metal a shard of glass
It has strength of form in conception
That holds till the last
Not even a break in the continuum
Can shatter, snap, expose. It is resistant.
When the lines of connection, the dire exertion
Of speech, caught by force, momentarily,
Necessarily, tires in the expression.
It remains complete, unharmed, undiminished,
Like the void.
Moment’s Hesitation
There are those who rely on firm decision
Mixed with honest, thorough revision.
Long this has been the way, the means, to
Weave patterns of one’s perceptions.
Only now clearer it becomes to all, known, true,
That there is a cost in such a process, though rigorous.
What you cover, discard, distort is lost
In a moment’s winking hesitation.
Underneath, the true natural flow continues, unimpeded.
Trust the senses that fill such impulses. Ready, go.
Borderline
My assumptions blind me like a beggar.
I am in the street, irate, wishing death
On all those who don’t gratify my position.
Such are the actions of those sally fools,
Those loser outcasts, drop-outs, wanders,
Listless and dispossessed,
Casting their shadows from the oil drum flames,
Heartbroken, wounded, their lusts soured,
Scorched, left to rot in bleak winter sun.
Down here in the bowels of the soul,
Furnace fumes and urine alleys,
The meek wait in vain.
In this land of decay, where the
Watcher stands on guard eternal,
Where men of flesh and time
Seek reason in the irrational, here,
Brought together thru dispersal,
Like the fragments of the mind, they
Wait in the rain-soaked weary night to
Die like fair Buddha with knowledge
Of earth’s crimes.
Asking for no repentance nor
Acceptance, there fate is our fate.
Their plight is one known to the ages.
Now how could you dare to doubt
The tempered wisdom of the
All-knowing sages?
The Crimson Hour
A reckoning echoes thru every common phrase.
Boredom of the day matched only by the
Restlessness of night. A shock of realization
Jolts the body awake. To rise and grip the day.
Gaze upon the barrenness of the land that
Stretches across the horizon like a hundred traffic jams.
Don’t deny. Don’t delay.
Hours passed in withering haze.
Tired, shrill laughter booms
Like the saxophone wail.
It is hollow, inert.
Artless, and what’s more,
Therein the words spoken (between
Croaked chuckles) drop like dirt.
An element lacking fusion,
A heartbeat lacking blood,
If in time the division lessens
Than the spoils can be found in another lifetime.
But not this one.
Happiness
I’ve noticed in recent times my instincts weaken,
Deplete with each passing season.
I hardly make efforts to fortify myself against
Such an obvious (to me) fact of daily existence.
This brings its own kind of watered-down
Contentment. My mood seldom changes.
Cycles
Over the hills the new dawn gives rise
The safety, comfort in those clear blue skies
The children laugh and play and scream without reason
In the garden the flowers bloom fresh, ripe, in season
Over the hills the day divides
The imagined from the actualized
The chemist’s growing fear in daily rumination
The conductor gasps at his symphonic creation
The office-worker darts off in cloud of exhaust
While construction worker continues to smile, at a loss
The leaves turn, the flowers wilt, the sun
Dips low, jagged, like a slanted crown
Over the hills the night begins
Time to crack another bottle of gin
Parents add up their losses hoping to remain in the red
Soon to tuck freshly-washed children into bed
All along the window-pane the frost begins to set
Outside the flowers dead, and naked trees bend to the west.
Eulogy for the Intellectual
Sensitive, you always were the best at dismantling
The abstract. Acute with strong sense of the
Absolutes. The fiercest of intellects
Marked by the precision of each decision.
Rational, refined, arguments held together against rebuttal.
Nuanced and biting, without shameless posturing; remaining subtle.
That you always had a quick retort,
Nothing different could be said of the sort.
Your lofty ambitions
Set against a strongly analytical mission.
Where did you go, run?
Where the turn come?
Did finally they lock you up?
Was it the madhouse destined?
Or worse—sealed, trapped in your own over-cooked mind,
In some cheap Cracker Jack room, sitting cross-legged,
Day and night, like on repeat, fretting and spitting,
Drinking and rhyming out your worries in incoherent verse.
How drab. Undefiant.
These days and nights now mindless, quiet.
And over and above it, the echo of crickets, like
Late-night television static, grows to a terrifying roar.
You will not be missed.
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