Father Pavlovitch Karamazov

No head upon the Father of Lies,

Who, taking offense, plays the part of the martyred,

Sadly shedding dignity before his sons.

With vagrancy behind grotesque eyes

He teaches them how to pull a trigger,

End a lie, start a fire.

Nothing withheld from him but his own head,

Our Father is, by self-arrangement,

Passionately disturbed.

A kiss, then, is so unharmonious as to seal his fate,

Placed upon each boy’s neck,

Causing brothers to turn upon their own flesh,

Like ascetic bliss.

Wolf Calls

The night air stirs.

Unexposed, I meet my universe.

The trees greet me in the moonlight.

They peer and whisper with the wind.

In its madness, the wind paints everything.

In the darkness of my imagination,

What courses, what causes moments

To gleam and never die,

There's a shaded sky,

The shifting of leaves,

And a mare on the rise.

I blush and know I exist,

Aging with these colors of green and gray.

I am of discussion, alive

In the phantom romance of the woods,

But the wolf calls for me.

In this siren, death approaches and I freeze.

This world of green, without path or marking,

Is drawn by instinct, pointing everywhere.

The wolf's eyes, ever-wide

Without sun or star to guide,

Yet I am found.

Vows

Say a word for all my children
That will never be.
Explain the use of rings and fingers
If I’m not bound to thee.

Your hands are portals, North and South,
And glacial to the touch.
I’m torn to poles, my body in half,
Unable to hold as much.

Now, apart, my mind, it shivers,
Feeling twice the freeze.
Every direction points to you
And covers all degrees.

I wilt over your bed, my love,
Pray that you might see
Within my eye reflections of
How still you are in me.

Seven Ways to Love from Several Distances

Hundreds of hungry acts to

Lead me to you, my darling

Flavor of sweet desire,

Grooming my mind as I sit,

Floating me off as I stand,

Leaving me without an out –

Letters dying to meet you.

Drifting to and from comfort,

My home or stabilized thoughts,

Pressure by flight, track or waves

In caves, clouds or thunder’s roar,

Your voice, like the wind, follows,

Flows and soothes my raging tone,

Packing my life into you.

Prayerfully dwelling on

My hand dripping with blue ink,

Bleeding out past poisons and

Promising pages for you

To soak up fears in your heart,

Take this to your quiet place

And knock with faith upon faith.

Winter standing over me

In the sightless state of doubt,

I lie helplessly, face down;

Carefully and with kindness

You tweeze out of me the thorn –

Radiance in your smile

Warming my extremities.

Aging, thinning of my pride,

Leaves with every fresh shower –

A shaving of youth, to rot

By bad blood or troubled tooth;

Your touch no less hesitant

Or longing eyes less potent

With patience, abounding love.

I fall apart knowing you

Are the catcher of my eye,

The progression of my song,

The fragrance of my day dream,

The stranger in the orchard,

The rest upon my pillow,

The subject of my poem.

Dryness and darkness linger

As mist blinding the mountains,

Laying, praying, pondering

Life, afterlife and the tomb;

Night comes soon, I barely see

How you tuck me in and sigh,

Tear in your eye shed for me.

Draw Deeply from the Wound

A stranger passing with slide of hand

Lingers upon my eyes stealing my heart

Yet somehow I miss nothing

But the touch of my plunderer’s palm

I reminisce in the twilight of the terrace

The memory of my confidence

Slips below these thoughts of romance

Like a tragedy leaving numbness and fatigue

Sleep knocks and is turned away

The mind so unkind works through the night

To breathe and think

And think to sleep

Become her world

Stars upon my pillow

I float off

Whisper to myself of love

Dream of her touch

And with a motion of her eyes

I am tossed to the sea

Pleasantly

When We Touched the Mountain, There Was No Betrayal, No Soil, No Funeral

You were struck by lightning
And we saw through you.
You said you heard bells
And saw fire tying you to heaven.

Tears and ash smeared across
Your perplexed expression--
Light grey eyes looking back
Somewhere to escape.

The cypress creeked in the wind
As we climbed down the lime green cloud
With our hands lifted to the sky,
Hazel smoke on a sea of green.

The cactus and stones stretch,
Infinitely unthreatened,
And I cannot outlive their might.

Smell Memory

Because he pet the wolf
I reach out for the wild
And believe the breeze is never empty,
The maker, never tired.

A rush of nature against my flesh,
Whether dry or mistiness,
Wrinkles me a little more.
Seasons greet me, leave me for
Returning thoughts of lost rapport.

A light rain brings the sun to rest
And colors mix to blurriness.
Temperature shifts in the breeze,
Coating me with memories
Of muddy trails through silver trees.

The colors fade to black.
Weather breathes upon my back
Of past delights and missing parts,
Of lovely smells, in that I lack.

A day dream of my childhood
Moves me as a current would--
To distant places rotting fast--
Makes me wonder what will last.

Farewell

A pickle for your pocket
And the wine to whisk till turgid throfty.

The dismal spinning of your close night

Spent warm and drunken, alone by some fire.

A note, a light, a friend, a write,

Tonight!

I stir before the broken skylight.

By the road

I've followed my sorrow to its heart-blushed end.

Will He Nil He, He Goes

The tiger is drowned
As the trees bow down before
The hiss of the rain

A Swift Comparison with Little Explanation

Darkness covers the hand from the eye,
As lovers lie beside a world
Which lives in the voices that rise upon clouds
And hounds those who wander alone.
Sudden moon dazzles the blood, shining over
Shadowy trails, dividing, and the disquieted sole.

The Year of Confusion (46 B.C.)

Jupiter casts his spell

over life to blossom,

sweetly imbued with beams

and mist from mystical crevices.

This calms us down,

his contortion towards the heavens,

causing the casual sleeve

to fall and bare a dying force,

arms pale with fear,

spotted in the spire light.

Staged in spring,

the incense smells

no better than the blood on the walls

or the dead of winter.

Our jesters gesture

to confuse the farmers,

their eyes tire from fields and skies,

for fine fair-fanfares feel

as if time were alive and wild,

kicking out of control.

In this new year, chronologists grin

despite the choice

that our Kingdom rejoice

while the cold destroys us all.

Far-gone Night: Dreams by Candlelight

Evenings dealing light aloft
Beyond our sight to stars so soft.
Fitting feelings 'tween the suns
Upon those dreams where passion runs.

Purple captured among the leaves,
Little lungs to hold the breeze.
Hanging deathly silent face,
Lifeless meadow, black in space.

Supernova, mystic steam
Upon the mind of those who dream.
Dawning drowning sleep with light.
One can keep what not in sight.

Conviction While Departing the Parish

This precious counting of moments,

as bud to bloom to blossom,

grows sweeter with every breath.

I am caught in love out of the corner of my eye.

Stupefied by beauty, the unfolding of our Farther,

I wander prayerfully in the night.

What eyes! To ponder the planets and stars within,

What grace! To sway in the winded momentum of words,

What harmonious aroma! To heal my senseless heart

And by such precious sentiment alone

does happiness sustain past the moment.

Flesh will fade and locks will grey,

but the smile that shines on and binds one to another

will forever satisfy in this restless endeavor of breath.

My heart faces the moon

And from a field of silent surrender

I hunger for that shining harmony,

when I return to you.

Tripping on the Floor

Your scarf was on the floor,
waiting for your head.
Your ears were restless,
waiting for a sound to come again.

How dreary, thoughts of socks and paranoid eyes.
You thought of your face,
then mouthed the words to a song.
You thought you were alone.

Hunched over your knees with your head on the scarf,
you tried not to move.
Someone out there will love the way you howl in the cold.
Someone will study your eyes and noises
as you burn with a fever.
They will drape their hair over your skin and smile.

You held your breath in ecstasy, waiting,
as the phone came crashing to the floor,
ringing once with its last words.
Upon the window, the rain nodded off.
How graceful it is in its exhaustion.

A tired voice once read, pitter-patter on the pane.
So long, pitter-patter on the pane.
So long ago, you were afraid of death and painted faces.
You were blond and wore red socks in the rain.
You cried until dizzy with self-pity.

You were tingling all over, waiting in an accident,
grinning behind the ruin of your little world.
Now you were tripping on the floor.
Your socks were gray.

Your hands melted out of reverence for the buried few.
Hail Mary, hello, how are you?
Deeply, I breathe thine roses.
Deeply, I dove for the moon,
only to miss everything.