1.
In the beginning there was a voice.
It came from above like thunder
As light evolved in the primordial skies.
It declared that the law of man
Who would soon walk the earth
Would be the law of all creatures
Great and small.
It furthermore declared that anyone defying the law
Would be subjected to extreme stress for extended time periods.
That would owe to the fact they would be ripped off,
Pummeled and tortured should they defy God's new creature man.
So the little creatures rose up,
Emitting all their voices with a tumultuous cry.
They asked God what he could possibly mean
By that part...
How did it go?
"...ripped off, pummeled and tortured should they defy..."
This new thing, man?
God responded that such a thing would happen
No matter what laws He made,
And so they might as well get used to it.
He also said that since He was the almighty creator,
And even He couldn't change that,
He had to make it His law
So He wouldn't feel inferior.
Of course the sadist in Him enjoyed
Making the little creatures afraid.
General outrage swept through the little creatures of the earth.
Shouts could be heard from far away
From those who wanted to know
Who God thought He was anyway,
And how come He's always killing off the little creatures so wholesale
When it seems at the bottom of most food chains
Little creatures hold such key roles?
God replied that they would not know why they were being killed off
Until after they died.
That silenced some of the little animals
But then a new cry of grievance rose up.
It concerned the seasons
And the fact that it was awfully too cold for animals like lizards in the winter
And much too hot for animals like bears in the summer.
Why was that if God was so perfect?
All the animals especially desired a thing they could not have
Called equality.
God said, "Shut up, you stupid little animals!
I am sick and tired of hearing your squeaky little whines.
The reason behind all of this is that the world is not a democracy,
It's a dictatorship,
And as long as none of you have any money, clothes, weapons
Or the ability to grasp with opposing thumbs
It is going to stay just like this for a long, long, long time."
This last statement especially incensed the monkeys.
They were so close to having a number of those things,
But yet so far away.
A few of them got so angry they decided
They were going to have a sit-in protest.
Unless God changed things they would be there forever.
They refused to go back to their homes in the trees
Because they wanted some damned reparation
And redress to grievances,
And the right to vote in universal animal kingdom elections,
With special rules keeping mankind from holding too many positions.
As the season went by it looked like the monkeys
Would have a hard time surviving the winter,
But in the end they were granted a special prize.
They worked so hard for the rights of animals against the human threat
They came to represent the sort of creature God had hoped man would be,
Selfless, caring, giving, tenacious,
Instead of cowardly, stupid and mean
Like most men.
In fact, since they were so cool He turned them into people
Which at first went over like a sack of potatoes
Until they found out how much fun it was to drink beer and screw.
After that they didn't think it was so bad.
Once they discovered practical jokes they liked it even more.
The other animals liked it too
Because the monkeys were there friends,
And now the monkeys could buy them beer.
So they all lived happily ever after,
The end.
 

2.
The shadows in the room lengthen
Between the princess and the prince
As the clouds of the autumn downpour roll in.
Archaic majesty never eludes the dreamy eye;
The clouds are emissaries from a hidden world.

The prince searches inside himself
For words to offer up his love
In the face of an afternoon purgatory of too much time.
The massive oak furniture, tapestry covered walls,
Everything fringed insanely
Ornate until it was rococo.
The surroundings deprive the lovers of passion.
It replaces that emotion with malaise
Infinitely chained to an excess of privilege.
The second room,
The room just below the surface of the mental toil,
The one hidden out of sight
Pulses like the heart of a deer.

"I will miss this house you know, my love.
Something in the walls always reminded me...
Everything about this house reminds me of my father.
The wood accuses me as I pace the halls.
The carpets and the walls
Grin with the absolute knowledge that I have failed."
The prince lazily draped one arm over the side of the divan as he spoke.

Outside a bolt of lightning crackled.
A transparent net could almost be seen draped over the two of them.
The chill hush following his words
Prompted the princess to console him.
Her voice bubbled in the still air.

"You should not blame yourself
For the action's of your father's legal advisors.
With the stipulations he made in his will
You would never have been able to keep the house.
Anyway, it is just a house.
We can be happy anywhere."

The rain began to fall.
The falling drops didn't feel like they were outside at all.
A slow tension fills the lungs of the prince,
A tension like the scene of a mother punishing her child
In front of onlookers who resent her stern facade.

Somehow the falling drops had never been outside.
The storm was between the two young lovers.
The sheets of meaning in the air whipped and tattered;
The princess on the bed saw it not.

"Is it just a house?" asked the prince
Drowning in the fall he knew was real.
The second room never touches the souls of innocents or the simple;
Her love was a simplicity the prince knew to trust.
Beyond betrayal or avarice dwells a beast more fearsome than the devil
Catholic priests so often crossed themselves against.
The storm caressed the gardens.
They were almost obscured from view.
His pause touches the cheek of the princess
Like a parting kiss from a ghost.

"Yes, beloved, it is just a house,"
She whispered,
Her eyes downcast.

Her high, faerie like cheekbones chase the gloom away.
For a moment her beauty poises between never and now again,
But the prince laughs and drags her across to him.
They kiss with abandon as the wet feeling of self pity evaporates.

"Yes, you are right.  It is just a house.
I would throw it to the four winds
For one more hour in this world with you,"
Says he, thirsty again for that heady drink.

The shadows look down on the human display
With nothing short of disdain.

The attorney of the late king had always known
The high ceilings and ancient architecture
Would one day be his.
The air promised to strangle the prince as the attorney arrived.
He had been left with no choice but to sell the royal estate
To cover his father's dying wishes,
All part of a plan to leave him penniless.

Shadows are the true heir to all of it in the end,
But the prince's weakness hung heavy around his neck.

Some hours later the prince and princess
Stride into the study with a flourish to greet the attorney.
They grudgingly accept the offer before them.
They both knew there was no choice.
The sly attorney occupied the chair behind the desk
As if it had always been his,
With an evil smile.

"Why does he smile at you so beloved?" asks the princess.
The prince throws himself to the door weeping,
But stays just inside.
The lightning flashes one last desperate farewell;
The storm began to quiet.
"Because he knows that I will not kill him," said the prince with a sob.
The dreamy eyes of the princess didn't miss the flicker of possession
Among the shadows of the room.
Her prince's inaction and insecurity
Are qualities she knows she can trust.
Love also fills her eyes.

Somewhere the heartbeat of a lonely deer stopped
As the prince took his leave of all.
 

3.
So you call it the open circle,
Open so that the mind can circulate through it.
It is such a new philosophy.
You want to excite.
You talk about your Christian club
All over town.
You want to make people forget about the inquisition,
Now kept alive by Southern Baptists.
You want to keep historians quiet.
Some circles remain closed,
Circles that dump corpses in the swamps,
Maybe even your own.
Closed circles tell the truth when open ones lie,
For certainty of no outside help is truth.

So I have a grave outlook,
An unending nightmare of trivial existence
In your charitable society.
Ascent over the bodies around me
The only way to climb out of the jar you keep me in,
And so I claw and kick the ones I love
Who are just as trapped.

Temptation:
To seek accomplishment
In philosophy and rainbows and prayers,
But the dark paths are longer
And interest me a great deal more.

The abyss of time:
It feels like being held over a deep chasm
By your feet.
The force that keeps you from falling
Demands homage
Or else you might slip.
Demands your attention
With the express intent of selling you out to time in the end anyway.
Time feels dishonored when religion steals the spotlight.

The closed circle offers no haven to evil
Though shadows obscure the swelling ranks of the followers.
The closeness reminds one of antiquity,
Older religions that acknowledged the night.

Choked out breath smothers the artists' creation.
The unforgiving strength of reality distorts clarity.
Manipulations by the corpus literati
Established in their elegant maturity
Find sweet amusement in the enhanced difficulty of my ascent.
It is by their whim that I must grovel to survive.
I take heart because I know
That none may claim freedom's prize in an instant.

Prominence allows pleasures
At which Christian blood quakes,
Merely daily manna for closed tradition
Though condemned by the open disciplines.

Openness parades in bravado with all faults exposed.
While away the moments in the heat.
Some pleasures do more to heal than to infect.
The future could never hold understanding,
And I ponder how little of that there has been in the past.

The closed resembles secrecy
And so devotion to it has been branded as deceit.
Society paints us into blood drinking ceremonies
And calls this our ambition to control.

Crimson draught given freely by other members of the circle
Who felt that their time had come
We are close enough to defend a sense of identity,
But far enough away to look appealing to each other.
Dangerous times take names as prisoners.
Justice blinds everyone to enjoyment.
Were it up to the elders
Those feelings would have been locked away long ago.

If ground can ever be gained in the struggle
Anonymity will only be a memory.
Memory: tool to bridge two worlds.
Religious believer
I can see the world you have.
My world finds recognition only through suffering and bloodshed.
Recognition:
The ability to identify and be identified,
Achieve ultimate significance, age,
And pray the vision will be a sympathetic one.

If at first the closed world seems selfish
Know that without egocentricity there is no meaning.
At what cost this freedom?

The conservative believer seeks to enforce character
To make us drink of that essence regardless of what we want,
So, character, suffer.

Threats...
Religious submission, taken as granted,
Is now seen to be lost.
On the dark path there is plenty of character to be found,
A charade.
Mistakes veil that hiding place.
The divine agency wants no one unworthy to find this.

Once found the use of it binds friendships.
Mutual grievances and grief sparks camaraderie.
None can rend such love asunder.
I am lost in the spirit world between the warrior's mind
And that place where one dreams of carrying on in innocence,
In this fleeting corporeal form.
Dreams glow like quick flames.

Friends and lovers from the past should never be forgotten.

I have compassion for the tribulations
Suffered by fellow artists in the name of righteousness
And arbitrary, capricious conservative hegemony.
I hope it will be a solace to them
Rather than a call to surrender
To the changes the masses would have us make.
Such weaknesses should never be.
Too many people have died in the name of protest.

Reciprocal compassion betters any great reward.
Far runs the spirit who enjoys helping.
A spiritual equal would help that spirit if help were needed.
With the help that comes from true compassion
Nothing is unachievable.
Strength of individuality conquers all when individuals gather.
The hindrance of critics and demagogues
Opposes the basic innocence of those in the circle.
Such wrong should never go unanswered.
The opposition's derogation of our qualities
Stands open only to those who desire to derogate.
These pretenders twist the liberal attitude into something alien
To fit their own deceitful ends.
What an open circle.

True artists withstand the test of time
Do not use friendship based on short acquaintance to prove
Their own holiness,
They do not seek excuses to be supported in endeavors
That spread good cheer only
For a saccharine sweet ideal which their ilk claims to own,
Only for the notoriety.
The closed circle shuns notoriety
And knows the difference between true friends
And those who might become enemies.
The open circle will deny you paradise if you do not acquiesce
And swallow the entirety of their religious ejaculations.
So now you see
What you never wanted to see.

This return fire mingles with heresy.
Fear mutates for both sides in the exchange
To become hatred.
Heresy holds no power without ignorance and fear,
Or their close relative hatred.
The lackeys of power and greed in the churches
Are poorly equipped to withstand criticism based on works and deeds.
This return fire comes only in self defense.
A minority in the church inhibits a majority of the populace.
The masses have been shoved into corners.
There they must choose between survival and education.
Without that education... freedom?
A word they have heard
But will never understand
Under the bite of the penitential lash.

The contest to swell the ranks give the corrupted pulpits
Desperation and tangible evidence to use
To stir up more fear in the flocks
Fear that clouds reason so they will give more money.
It is the fear that the believers will be outnumbered
By those who could casually enjoy pleasure.
The accusations hurled in that desperation
Could hardly be considered true,
Especially if one considers
The creed of quality human characteristics
Every human being should employ.
That is what is done in the closed circles
Where dependence on friendship
Becomes extreme out of the need for caution
Out of the need to reduce people's perceptions
Of a man alone
A target.

Ultimately the closed circle of artistry
Sets the standard for public exhibition.
The standard exists when danger disappears.
The struggles in the opaque world are then revealed for a moment
To the unbelieving, the critical,
And it is found that those people
Never had any idea.
Until that time small groups of greedy men
Will do their best to keep the curtain drawn.
Do not play games with these men too long,
Or it will be found that it is their game one plays
When protesting too loudly,
An obstacle to social survival.
Instead maintain an individual game at all times,
A game to change reality.
Above all the manipulation and alteration of reality
Holds a key to open many doors.
No greater magic can be found
Than that witnessed in new worlds
Conjured only for the sake of beauty.
The Christians who exist for beauty
Will find sympathy with the closed souls
Who hide their beauty until all may understand.
Once that sympathy has been found,
Perhaps friendship will draw those Christians to a more essential
Set of beliefs about the character of men
And the interactions betwen them.
Such would be a true religious revolution.

If a boy were found in the wilderness,
Blue from the cold and near death,
Any man or woman, from any circle,
Would seek to help.
Upon his revival and recovery,
Would a young boy be chastised by accepted tradition
For his exposure to the cold?
If everyone helped,
Which circle would help but seek nothing in return,
Not demand their hegemony be acknowledged
Out of a sense of obligation?
Entrenched Christian conservatives do this
To the extent that it has become their trademark to demand recognition
When their duty was merely to help and then leave in peace.
The closed world helps and flees to avoid notoriety,
Finding nothing to be gained by wringing belief from a helpless figure.

The difficulty of survival
In the rear of a society that never looks back
Dictates the necessity of wrenching society by the hair
And forcing its gaze upon your wounds.
The only hope hinges on
A dire accident befalling the entire structure,
A cliff in space over which all the cattle go mooing,
While we at the rear try in vain to awaken them.
After the herds have perished
Need will be far easier to supply.

A member of a wasted generation
Every talent unutilized,
Enormous energy spent on building an underground society
Where all are equal in insecurity,
And so all hate the secure for their lineage,
Perhaps a justifiable hate,
As pedigreed parents teach their whelps
Only self preservation
And nothing of the value in beauty,
Of artists and their creations.
Bitter tints form from the abuse,
The obvious mutation of egalitarian virtues,
The economic stranglehold corporate identity
Has on the organs of a once healthy state.

Religion nurtured the blind eye.
Government has turned to the wealthy.
Once the wealth meant good character
Once upon a time in a fairy tale
And the pure of heart could see no wrong in that.
Today wealth is given an esteemed chair out of tradition,
And the goat headed satyrs who fill those seats
Laugh, their happiness brimming over
Because they finally bought the church.
They can subject religion
To the shame of witnessing their orgies with money,
Led on a leash by hope
The delicious funds will eventually be given to them.
Religion has lost the will to struggle against the bonds
Placed so tightly by love of money.
Ascetics are now pronounced indigent.
The prophets in poverty are unheralded martyrs
For a hopeless cause almost no one recognizes.

The open circle sees the closed as the agent of destruction,
The force of backward changes,
Because for the most part
Members of the conservative Christian circle see all changes as bad.
They think established tradition keeps the righteous safe.
Any who oppose the old system
Cuddle up to evil in their eyes.

The open world fears the closed
Because in the closed lurks the last uncharted territory,
Undefined boundaries between people
Considered too powerful to discuss publicly
Without a touch of hate in the voice,
For to do so might leave you branded as an ally
To forces on the fringe.

The religion of breezy openness
Allows for human error,
But chides those who err so that they will not do so again.
They respond to accusations of leniency with extreme severity,
Taking the bull by the horns in ways only Christians can.
Great honor rests with the people who refuse
To allow attacks on their beliefs.
Both the open and the closed world
Share qualities powerful enough to save every member on both sides
From any embarrassment on the basis of mere opinions.
So while the left attacks the right vehemently,
It is found that they too live in a glass house.
This does much to invite the thrown stone.

The open circle claims that talent comes
Only from a life of devotion to God.
The closed circle claims that talent exists
So that if one eventually decides to join God
He will have the benefit of experience
In ways far removed from the boring world
Christians live through by routine,
Unquestioningly.

On the matters of pleasure
Christians are often correct as well
For in truth many do abuse pleasure until it becomes obsession
Capable of sparking dangerous behavior.
Generalizations about the subject are entirely fallacious.
Only an individual sins by overindulgence in pleasure,
It is not a group action,
Unless it is an orgy.
This Christian attack on pleasure
Leaves their flank exposed
Because Christians are addicted to the pleasure of their worship of God,
And that has been the origin of much violent behavior,
In fact, of many bloody wars.
It has also led to mistaken endorsement
Of groups who flaunt the same beliefs
While at the same time flagrantly abusing
The basic sanctity of human rights,
Such as the right to not be tortured.
True, the closed world has had inquisitions in the past:
The execution of judges in Colombia and Italy,
The communist genocide -- a protest for the closed world
The governments before communism so brutally silenced.
It is true that communism became a worse beast than the one it replaced,
It is true that the lords in Colombia and Italy acted too much out of anger.
The tragedy here is that by doing such things
Those people left the fold of the closed world
And stepped out into the light.
If only they had revealed themselves for the sake of beauty.
That which survives by secrecy
Perishes upon exposure.

The truth will never allow sustained Christian condemnation,
For all their implorations to God that liberalism
Leads to repetition of nazism, communism or a violent drug culture
Are absurd.
The closed circle in America has nothing at all in common
With political movements.
It is apolitical.
Everything political violates the spirit of individual protest.
In America it is demanded that we elect a representative
When the self is the only adequate speaker for the self.

It begins to be an obviously circular exchange.
Both are guilty of many things they accuse the other of.
The entire concept goes too far.
The devil probably enjoys this debate
From his amusement park in hell.
He laughs about Christians and non-Christians hating each other so much
When they have such similar pains and fears about the world beyond death.
That great unknown may represent uncertainty, pain and fear,
Or it may be the bliss that so many thinks is promised,
Or it may be nothing at all.

So the devil laughs in mirth
As somebody somewhere argues his beliefs,
Really just for the enjoyment of vandalizing
The serenity that once was this clean slate,
And vandalize it I did,
What a mess.

A good rule to live by:
Attack the opponent's ideas
Until the point it seems you are attacking your own,
Then back off and claim victory
Before anyone realizes such contests can only end in a draw.

The frustration of the contest
Between the open world and the closed
The Christian and non-Christian
Heats up but becomes more accurate
The more both sides monger the conflict
When both sides should side for peace.
With no concrete proof of the afterlife
The debate becomes an endless game
That invariably convinces both sides they have won.

Make a wise decision.
Rather than blow yourself up in frustration
After days of dilemmas over the moral problems of the world
Just declare yourself the victor.
Refuse to acknowledge any theological attacks.
Make no attacks of your own.
Don't breathe a word.
The argument will pass you by and leave you alone.
Sweet success.

Just to argue is wrong
When all the answers are so obviously nothing
But the pasing of time like wind through the trees.

***
Wow
If you read that you will read anything.
 

4.
It is time for the men of the sitting rooms
Who think up petty revolutions
To turn their attention to greater matters.
Greater plans rather than abandon their plans after the coming of the sun...
They need to talk with the people
With whom they have lost touch.
They will never be succesfull until they regain that which has ben lost:
Public sympathy.
The time of revolution by the few haa long since passed awaym
Revolution now comes only to pass with many, many people.
The revolution is most succesfull when it is nonviolent
Barring that event due to the stubbornness of pig wealth
The trough will be taken for the needier piglets
By brute force.
Every worker is just a cog in the big machine.
All of the cogs work just fine.
It's the computer program in charge
That needs to be taken out and replaced.
The cogs can not do this.
They are stuck in the machine.
This revolution must be one
Of the computer programmer revolutionary.
The man with the pens in his shirt pocket
Must screw his courage to the sticking point
And wield his pen as if it were the hand of God.
The captivity of the cogs began many years ago
With a short in the operations circuitry
Caused by one of the larger transistors.
This transistor grew bold in its greed.
Tired of mere wealth and its huge transistor salary
It went into the despicable business
Of enslaving the smaller parts of the machine.
Many parts of the machine never missed their friends
Down in the data disposal rooms
And other such unpleasant places,
Until they tried to reach them.
Then it was found they had been cut off;
Those areas had become centers of captivity.
The cogs became zombified,
Twisted beyond recognition,
Forced to do the dirtiest of work
Without any lubrication to run smoothly
Simply so that their cruel master
And the rest of the greedy transistors
Could feel important.
The poor cogs never had a chance.
So lead on computer programmer/revolutionary!
The cogs of the world await a true man,
With horn rimmed glasses
With nose clips on them,
A quality man,
A savior!
 

5.
Concrete evil
a reply
it all reeks of damnation
an no wonder
eyes skimmed by fire
lies extend like a funeral pyre
into the ocean
you are my heart
cloven hoof and woven book
slippery eeriness between m toes
avoid, conceal
what no one knows
three nemeses of destiny and fortune
time, truth and the aforementioned blasphemy
hoary knowledge great and secluded
by vicious observations
simple humanity, I beg of you
do not relegate
my soul to the realm of mere
 

6.
the leafiest tree
wrought unto failure by means of hideous glance,
pulls grace and gravity upon itself
whilst the graven imagining one
feels the glimmer of the glance that wrought the change
deep in the bowels of ethereal thought
realization comes with the infinite grace of the poet
who, glancing at the mirror, sees only flames
and hears the voice of an imagined lover
so never imparts the truth
nor calls for help on Christian shores
and so the leaves burn
deep in biblical sanctuary
my freedom craves remorse
that vanished like the blood behind my eyes
never, and truly never
such grisly sights seen as eternally renewed kinks
glance not at the author, friends
look away
the shadow of intelligence preys
my guilt is already the bitter end
a long gone devil my last remaining friend
remember Shelley's pyre like a dirge
I live, and too long, life my fell scourge
Depart.

7.
Subthought Haiku

reach of the organization
concentered unit of ulteriority
levels of aggressive clarity
ensconce faceted vision
sin exposed skin
reeling within
reach reality, a painful gout
corporate pawn sublimature
tugged lines of legal confines
discreet mastery, primogeniture
sickness comes with the clime
and ritual investiture
provable linkage
unmovable, immobile
in the confines of shrinkage
combine ad infinitum
surreal judgment directs
hesitates in surety
pleasant magnification
yields only deepened struggle
release awaits disposal
hotter on the rocks
cooler on the trot
live, befated singularity
conceive ambiguity and distance love
victimized libelers, bards
Troubadors and usurpers, money
messianic complex a vortex
a false ontological tactitude
latitude intersects self, schedule
approval rating primal call
nature given go ahead, go
limitless insurrection
sections divided two by two
virtual resonance who by who
catastrophism, hopism, hay withheld
defailed profeigned profanite profess
or zoom click boom
shun sickle logic, travail
mire hum drum ire
association wire
defatuation
you ane chew
back to basic strategy
dam flow of unwholesome thought
outre more, amor, demure
mild, surface meek
turnstile, city, anathema
silence sacred reference saved

8.
Complete Handbook of Idiot-savant Cliche

The protagonist of this story,
A narrative with lyrical measure of sorts,
Writes poetry for a pastime.
One solitary evening he muses to himself.
     Method means nothing if content fails;
     No content, no approach.
This leaves the poet to surrender to defeat
At the cold hands of silence.
The quest for meaningful expression then
Must also include a pursuit of the best way to express intent.
Left with no other idea for his pen to explore
Than the improvement of mind by aging,
The protagonist sets out to immerse himself in the idea.
In an inexplicable burst of creativity
He views the aging process as a cycle between conflict and serenity,
A cycle afflicting all ages and all people,
Especially every individual
Whoever succombed to self doubt.

The protagonist wonders whether he should spin nice words
Until deeper thoughts rise,
Or instead disturb the harmonious equilibrium
With a more impassioned approach.

He knows that he must set the stage carefully.
He doesn't want to appear careless to his audience.
He fancies a play centered around two characters,
The hero and benefactor called "The Old One".
He characterized The Old Onem
As a judge and binding arbiter.

With more honesty he crafts a plot in which the hero
Blunders through misconceptions and mistakes
In a poem to which our protagonist has affixed great.
All of his mistakes constitute a body of poetic intent
Deeper than the instantaneous use of the incorrect words,
A certainty he relies on to survive.
The relationship between the protagonist and the hero
Causes the two to submerge in dialog
{Though one is real and the other imagined}
 A dialog concerned with the metaphysical realm
In which poetical mistakes and misconceptions exist.

With this poem the protagonist sets himself up as a novice
Who seeks only to perfect his art,
A beginner who seeks knowledge.
Learning this is a lot like learning to walk,
Even though it humbles one to crawl
Later one may stand with great stature.

This walk through knowledge
Wanders from terrace to terrace on a steeply inclined path,
The daily path the hero must tread
To reach his home from the river
That lies in the valley where he was born.

Memory of departure from the river,
Like the departure all must make from innocence,
Lodges in the mind with repetition.
The cool flowing water quenches thirst and cleanses the body.
Innocence marks the inadequacies of inexperience.
The hero must leave
Both the river and innocence to reach home.

Memory saves for eternity
The feeling of the wind in his hair
As he looked into the water one evening
And saw a reflection of not just himself
But of he and a young female as well.
The girl was from a home far on the other side of the valley.
They met when he was fetching water
For his old father to bathe with,
A task that involved three trips with two buckets.
She had been chasing butterflies
And had simply wandered farther than ever before.
He had never in his life laid eyes on her
But when he did
He felt as though he had always known her.
She always longed for a love like the one she found
In the hero, who was a simple and free spirit.
They talked to one another in that first magical moment,
And then took the entire night
To learn what nature intended their bodies to be,
Oblivious to what their parents might think.
He left her sleeping by the river's edge the next morning,
Certain no harm would befall her in that sacred place.
He loved her, but he could not face her.
He worried what he did was wrong.

As he ascended the steep path
Memories of the night's dreams assailed him.
His eyes widened as a hunger crept into his bones,
A hunger for more and more.

The first terrace gave him a good view of the valley below.
He sees it for the firsttime that day.
Every day the hero
Descended the steep path to the river.
Often he would find his love there.
In truth she made every excuse she could to go to the river
Because she knew he would find her there.

Every day after leaving his love in the valley
The view from the terrace thickened.
The multitude of new ideas and experiences
Clouded the clarity of each step he took.

The protagonist crafts the hero.
He displays to the reader a chain of awareness
Comprised of delicate intimate interludes.
The chain elongates and adds to itself
Without any input from the hero.
He lives free in his valley.
The protagonist does all the work with his pen.

The hero's awareness expands in direct proportion
To the level of pleasure his life has reached.
Love has levels that go higher and higher.
He thinks his mind will explode.
The hero wonders,
"If love does this much to open my eyes,
What would it be like if she and I left the valley?"
He gets the bright idea
To strike out on his own with his true love,
To leave behind the nest from whence he came
And soar, soar.

Every moment beyond the hero's decision
Moved by very slowly, as if time had become drunk.
Memories surface and then fade into obscurity, elusively;
They overcame his conscious mind.
This all came from the mind.
No scientist has ever seen it.
It can't be dissected or examined,
And if someone says they understand it
They grasp at straws.

It's a long walk back home.
Every second of it the hero delves into his memories,
The vivid sensual recollections.
Every step afforded him
A deeper view into the reality behind his dreams.
Again the river looked more like a river
And the valley more like a valley.
His eyes glazed over from thought.

The further from innocence he ventured
The more complex and unfathomable his thought proscesses became.
The memories his cognitive thoughts described
Began to interlock with other memories and melt together,
Until one could not be distinguished from another.
Even this chaotic psychological experience created new memories.
The rush of emotion associated with sexual pleasure
Confused his memories.
He replayed the sequence repeatedly.
He worried he was crazy,
But then he was with his love again
And he felt better.
The guilt and sadness that flowed out of him
Came from those crazy ideas that he got
When he was alone.
He had not achieved lasting spiritual satsifaction
So he associated his pleasure with obscenity.
He could not understand how something that felt so good
Could not be wrong.

Slowly his mind opened.
Immediacies of his mind, body and soul
Ceased to carry any importance.
The crazy ideas slowed in urgency until
They left only the slightest trace of irritation
When they occasionally returned.
Those ideas became nothing more
Than a flaw in the hero's tranquil look
When he sank into thoughtful meditation.
The protagonist writes of the hero's wonder
That his mind opened so that it would not burst,
Almost as if a physical change had taken place inside his brain
To reduce the pain of his turmoil.
In time he understood that pleasure is only one thing,
Pleasure,
And that all guilt should be choked to death.

The hero moved to the city with his girlfriend.
There they had some really good times.
They went down to the park and listened to free concerts.
They had running water so they bathed effortlessly.
They experienced a hangover for the first time together.
They told God that they would be good
If He would only make the headache go away
And let them hold down food and water.
It is then the hero muses
About how he once had a problem with himself
Back when life was simple,
Before he had the bright idea to move to the city.
He and his girlfriend eventually broke up
Because he could not keep his hands off of other women.
He turned to drugs for solace.
Before long he shared needles in the park
Where he and his girlfriend had so much fun.
He got a venereal disease
And died a long miserable death
Complicated by psychoses and other, worse insanities.
That was the last level of the poem,
The one in the bottomless pit
On the other side of the mountain he had climbed for love./

The protagonist hopes the hero's troubles
Will help younger, purer people
Be free from guilt about their actions,
But also warn them about taking pleasures too far.
The protagonist thinks about it
And decides that faithfulness has merit.
Being chaste to remain monogamous
Could keep your lover from leaving you,
An event that could lead you to waste your tiny life.
Chastity can save your life.
<asterisk>
This is not an optimistic poem.
This is a terrible tragedy
Or at least a comedy.
The hero loses his virginity
And then goes like power crazy or something
And has to have it all the time.
Don't let your mood swings turn you into a sex addict.
Seek professional help before it destroys you.
That goes for you too, girlfriend.
The pudding may taste good
But check out the kitchen
Cause there are all kinds of germs in there.
 

9.
risque
dramatically photographic
mnemonic catches
slam home and lock in your brain
all peace is lost
piece no more puzzles
neither defiant nor afraid to dare
and adding to the problem
square by square
the airy arrythmic motions
quartered
by tradition and despair
follow on to the end
glamour: a depraved fantasy
it visits my home often
at twilight
 

10.
Sanity imparts one last ephemeral glance
at the impoverishewr of truth,
Delusion,
And Kierkegaard would have failed,
Domesticated by a doom of the draw.
Defamity retards silver wishes
for that belle, discovering youth,
in the legal confines
of a noon day decline.
The swans on the edge of the swamp
Share lesions of a kindred kind,
Base, like the fell issuance all dopctrines forbade.
Sale of the future strictly regards
the departure of the belle with a mournful knell
and a feverish swell of emotion,
Secluded and far removed
From us and you,
Convoluted by a timeless screw.

11.
They will never catch the whirlwind I ride.
I, no scant page boy,
Decide if...
If?
Never.
Begone chooser of sides,
Splayed traitorous invader,
Begone.
To the beat of strobing thunder
Time the killer chills
Scratches and shivers
At the nailing of another
To another cross.
I envy his violence
As covetous as political ties,
Purple from beating
And sick of the lies.
Open his book and reap
With the scythe of language hung sanguine
From Orion's belt,
Till all the good folk lay in bloody heaps,
Dead or to death resigned.
The candle flickers over the pages.
All vantages of the manuscript
Open to false interpretation.
In the night I find a monastery
And deny the cemetery the madness
That snaps so close at my heels.
I delay exhumations with vague explanations,
The body of the book that will burn,
Another of life's vestiges scorched
So the world will remember
A deed all consider sin.
God another hopeful dream,
Remember, remember!
Humanity's red eyes glow from the darkness
As your golden curls are shorn away,
Your laurels ripped from sorrow filled temples.
Aghast as in a ghostly vision
I see evil's emissaries have conquered
The heart of naivete.
I pray that it is untrue.
I know that no prophet
Did God ever forsake,
But in in my hands anathema
Responsibility for the sacked holy place,
All of the heads on poles and stakes,
Fire set to stone, falling tiers,
My own tears will not flow,
My persecuted name now my only home.
Grim warrior hated by the people
To whom my presence became bane.
I began my jihad alone
And sent no courier to declare.
Mountains of thought hide here
In unsanctioned idea.
This is the jurisprudence of the cat committed
Against the iron-like undertow of human trollToo certain of their own majesty.
The world of jagged rocks and sand
Held so tightly in your blistered hands
Bring blood.
Your wormy eyes inquire of the unintelligible
At the altar in the high wind.
No mind may witness and remain firmly rooted in the mundane.
The image has been graven,
Once by great spoken voice,
A second time to elude justice and vindication,
A third to seal my doom.
In one chamber of my hideous tomb
A viper strikes flesh over and over.
Small spark of wonder.
Perhaps every person should share
That the author took his care
When the heavens witnessed this desecration.