I don’t want to be so old
that I’m dead when I finally figure it out:
God was singing to me all along—
in waves crashing on my toes,
in the stray dog who came to say hello like a happy trumpet,
in the tiny ants and their endeavors on my skin,
in the magic of the seashells, how can they be?
in the breeze that turns the curtain into fabled cotton waves—
I don’t want to be so old
that I’m dead when I finally figure it out:
God was singing to me
all along.
Holiness is an empire
where I belong to no one
and everything is me.
Your God.
My God.
Hey God.
Ho God.
The house of the heart, it broke.
The heart inside—it never knew anyone,
or anything.
Only knew everyone.
And everything.
The silent dynasty of the heart—speaks.
The hearing aid for humans is devotion.
The heart of devotion is pure and simple listening.
The silent dynasty of the heart—
Swimming in the heavens of
my own seawater. The fish of
my own belly. God’s laughter like
sun drops. Warm raindrops like
love. Being—and being within—
stretching out in the house of
Love, kissing the ground, mouth
on the ground, kiss,
kiss,
kiss.
Thank you God for you.
Thank you God for me.
Thank you God for all you have given,
and for all you have taken.
My body is a house of music.
I am the theatre of stars.
Show me the way.
Show me the way.
Show me the way.
Dazzling, brilliant godliness,
I bow, I stumble,
I sparkle, I pray.
What if we dance with our shadows like a drunk Peter Pan,
inebriated by the beauty of it all,
by how epic the sunset is,
by the explosive coexistence of all that is,
by the massive promise of light,
by the incurable cuteness of Tink.
Breath,
the mighty purifier,
is like water.
When you breath deeply and
know this breath to be God,
you are cleansed.
Simple as that.
When you breathe asleep,
inhaling and exhaling the maya of the world,
and the water isn't recognized as the
healing elixir it is,
then it cannot give its gift.
Then it remains murky.
Then we continue on the caravan of despair.
Let it be known: Our participation is needed
if the flowers are to wake,
if the trees are to teach us once again,
if we are to take into our being–
with every breath–
the might and majesty of God.
We must not be lying rocks.
I woke up today with a hunger on the tongue that made it
impossible to taste anything but God.
Everything I'd ever known
to be good
sprang forth from the light and
illuminated the clouds like a neon frame.
Then, and only then,
I began.
Now you turn a
turvy orange
red
(and smirk as I notice)
as if I'm not
paying attention,
as if I'd dare
close my eyes and
miss a minute
of your madness,
your theatre.
You change like a flirt
and play like a child
like a god
and at the end of it
I swear I wouldn't
have missed a minute–
I wouldn't have missed
a thing.
Bathed in the dark yellow
light of now,
not quite washed–
rather, your glow shows
me where I've been
slow.
Not that good kind of slow
but slow, slow.
But if I can hear it and
if I can see your love in all these
different shades
and shadows of light,
then I know
I am welcome
home, again,
again.
I am welcome
home, again.
You are so close, like muppets
and waterbeds filled with gems,
like singing cupcakes and bliss on repeat,
or any number of things I can dream up.
You are so close, like when the wind
bristles the small hairs on my face and for
a moment I am like that game where you
press your hand into the small metal pins–
amused, impressed upon,
without shape and shaped again.
You are so close, like when night flowers
are kissed by moonlight,
stirred to divinity in their sleep,
and light careens through their pistils and souls.
Something is remembered, whether from the
moonlight or their own imagination, they do not know.
It does not matter. Light is light any way you look at
it and you
are so close.
Like dawn breaking over death, like the rubbish
getting picked up on Mondays, like dirty fingernails
filled with life and chocolate, like the refrain of
one soft and supple body.
Like vivid life stampeding across my heart until
it is sullied and gone,
sexed to God, consumed and remembered,
you are so close.
I am
chocolate.
You are
electric puddles.
I am
holy water springshine.
You are
the trinity of the moon.
I am
a rush of white lilac.
You are
the sun that warms our cup.
I am
the force that spills it over.
We are
swimming in a prismed overflow.
You are
the magic of the ages.
I am
the pearled tears of God.
And when I nestle my face into
that dynamite space between your
chin and your neck,
you must know I am
turning into stars.
Yes, the very same ones that we count.
The ones to whom we say
thank you.
As the kingdom grows,
as the cathedral erupts from
precious dynasties below,
as new bells blink into sight,
cleanse themselves to
seraphic glistening, to angelic
imprints of timeless hymns,
as the palace opens to show chests of
secret gems, bustling, aproned love maids
knitting scarves, laughing, quiet as the
moon, baking bread that tastes like clouds,
as the bells break into sound, as the
scriptures cascade and unfurl,
as its promises float upward with
the rising rising,
I look to you and see only the sun.
Death.
The blanket of an unknowable sky.
A sultry kiss makes it way down your body,
humid, foggy, ardent, solvent. Clouds that cried forever
whisk into the fragrance and the stringy, elusive steel
bars you always peered through so well own up to their
greatness, turn back into sanguine chords that only ever
wanted to be part of the caress.
You are going to die. Your body will lie deep in the
ground and the details of your life will not matter.
Everything else,
is a choice.
The syrup of this love comes to me like the soul of a small boy in a man’s body. It comes to me like flowers, the microphones to god, ripe at my mouth: damp petals that when simply considered, stick to my lips. It comes to me like washcloths forgotten in the dryer, lost socks and hairpins, the maudlin musings of every corner cello and the sex and slow motion of my unmade bed. It comes to me in dreams of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, painted over their image in cursive writing, telling me about a poignant something that, when I wake, I don’t recollect. It comes to me through butterflies caught in netting, never there for long, through the braids my heart makes of limbs: You know, the happy drunk. It’s the pleasant glass coffee table that holds our crochet of daily life, the languid siesta of every resting guitar. The tree in our garden plays the piano. I hear it, you hear it. The hammock records every inch in her quiet design. The soil gives thanks, confirms that yes, there is nothing here we can deny.
Wrapped in a day that tastes
like roasted cigarettes and molten rose,
excruciating rose,
dusty sunrise
where cowboys abandon their belts for kiss,
lay supine, helpless in the sand.
In a world where womb rhymes with tomb,
where dog spelled backwards is god and mom is
always mom, I watch as my wit forgives
the excruciating cosmogony,
bends towards the sun,
and the rest of me is rose, molten rose.
The well of which I am, in which I find myself in gorgeous apocalyptic swim is neither here nor there, is the conglomerate of ether this, ether that, of a cosmos of feelings, of questions, of the moment mystery is relinquished, this well is swirling madness. Savagely creative, deeply mirrored specks found through so many eyes and when love burgeons, as it always does, and Pluto starts to shake, vibrates and rattles like the rattle of the heart, when the reflection of this seraphic, savory chaos becomes impossible to see, and this unknowing does its Radio City tralalala dance from head to toe, ruffles its wings, kicks up its legs, the dance takes over. And blindness lifts its violin. The inability to see anything, to know anything play their supple chords, and the only place to rest is upon the great breast of mystery herself, the obliteration of starry midnight therein, within her endless protean givings and rich river milk, you are carried through her warm bath, and Pluto shakes, and you are no more. All that remains is you as the shifting symphonic of the stars and the milk, of the earth and this grand, rapid fire, exploding and unfolding one breath at a time. The gift of travel, it is the gift of being. And Pluto shakes. This rattle of the heart, its illusory handle, the moment you take grip, it turns to dust. And you are so cloaked in mystery, your very shroud is a constellation of stars. And your sweat. And your kiss. And Pluto shakes, and you are no more.
A wintry mix of soul purrs and
sacred snowflakes drenched in the
pattern of God shower from the touching
of a new depth, hush away the
imposition, the frozen tears,
and crystalline now in the soft chuckle
of the Sun, melted, glistening,
together again, falling from the sweet
kissing tongue of new day.
And so, what is it, anyway,
this dawn that beckons at our heart,
this carousel galaxy that plays in precious drawls,
ringing us around the courtesies of love,
this tiny thimble of world that enters our mind,
slowly exploding through the gel of
a timeless truth,
this stretched landscape of
sweet humming sound, gently blazing away
all hurried embellishments,
spanning itself through a relinquished chest,
blitzed in the song of silence,
bringing us back to peace.
