That Country

I am a soldier for love.
Love, the all engulfing continent spread north to south and east to west, floating just above subconscious. That country whom all call home. That country whose flags wave day in, day out, in tact or battered, striped, checkered, sometimes surrendered. Pride and shame and patriotic idiotic chagrin blame their claim to fame namelessly on this coast to coast motherland fatherland brother sister Loverland.

The army the armed forces going up against all those who hate who cannot love. Most volunteer, most scribble their drunken mark dotted across contracts, drunk from such pheromones and hormones or love and lust. They don such feeble tin hats and helmets and guns loaded with kindness not bullets that make ribbons of flesh and shreds of hope; these do not protect them as confidently they- the army- those soldiers for love- make their haggard way through rejections and unforeseen breakups and worse of all worse than death loves unrequited. Though unprotected and as naked to the world as their birth they- the army- vulnerable as ever forge through swamps and quagmires to graveyards whose cup hath runneth over of broken souls and tents pitched by shards of bones. Dismal and dismaying as it can be those sunny-side-up soldiers for love trudge through to promise lands known and unknown painted for them by Optimism.

I was not as willing in my headlong foray into Love and her foreign bosom. Never detached nor ignorant of her pacifist presence only justifiably cautious when wading in such deep waters off her shallow shores. Though being born human with no permission requested I too at that exact moment was born in Love, always within her borders no matter how far around or from Earth I traveled, always a citizen a denizen a reluctant representative of Love. Some volunteer, some are drafted. I never had the luxury of drunken logic at my side to sign my mark for me with no cowardice no regret only false confidence.

Then one day saw her and in one instant my existence was explained to me in everything but words and as a grace note at the footnote of that instant she was gone forever invisible in the fuzzy static of this horrible nation. No I was drafted or dragged rather to be sized and measured for my own personal journey to the Promise Land that Elysium that paper mache meadow full of construction paper poppies. I fit a tin helmet and was wished well as Love at first sight pulled me sank me hand in lead-heavy hand to the depths of complete abyss filled to the brim of nothingness. Near me comrades of complicated destinies and dismantled concupiscence wait unbelieving tethered to the bottom of an empty ocean for the utterly unlikely. They too- those soldiers of love- clutching their kindness loaded guns all too trigger happy wait for their one instant to replay itself a glitch in a blip on a radar. Some old some very young and some like me neither old nor very young but evenly displaced in this time line.

I waited what could have been years or days for that ghostly figure to saunter down like star dust scraped from a meteor in a night sky, starkly contrasting. I was drafted to fight for Love- to soldier on though on leads no where or everywhere. I waded, I sloshed through morass after morass before I waited those cold years or days for my instant to come rushing back to me. Just when I thought it was over I was overwhelmed that my weightless waiting was fulfilled to fruition. As she sauntered from heaven or hell I clutched the hem of her sundress and all was illuminated as I was pulled north to Salvation to the Promise Land promised so long ago. As I looked below my dangling feet the sallow faces I neighbored grew dimmer as they looked not at me but past me to the heavens or to hell for their star dust star-crossed lover to settle on them. Promised land is barren without vehement passion and love so intense the grass grows itself. On closer inspection the paper mache hills flowed in the breeze covered in soft bristles of hair-like grass greener than green. The flowers wept sweet nectar scents and attracted the eye with arrogant efficiency.

Destiny has no home in the swirling chaos created by such a clever universe to confuse and capture logics and realities and most misunderstood of all- truths. Truths defined by other truths smaller or larger truths brick by brick backing the enormity of consciousness impenetrable. Truth is destined to be homeless if destiny were true blue. Eye there is the rub when I locked blue eye to green eye I knew my destiny and backed it up with those bricks of truths. My destiny was this singularity in the anomaly of truth the enigma of our chaotic cosmos swinging like an out of synch pendulum waiting to finally match everyone's ticks and tocks. This green eyed sun dressed nebula floating into my life unannounced and leaving it ripping every bone and muscle with her. Such swift segues enter stage right exit stage left must be written somewhere, they are truths can they too be destinies or are they mutually exclusive mutually elusive phenomena never to be explained? No- that truth spelled the destiny like two magnets ready to mate north to south and that destiny clarified the truth. My soul my promise lands promised so vaguely at the beginning the ends to my means awaits me across those barren battle fields splintered with lost causes and givings up. Hand in air-light hand we skipped from one day to the next like stepping stones to the doors of endless time infinity never registering through the filter of burning adoration immortal.

However you find yourself in the army- the armed forces for Love- you are soldiers defending That Undeserving Country; utterly without reproach. Yet millions of immigrants and emigrants and pilgrims on one-way sojourns find themselves drying on her shores.

A Parable of Proof

Man went to prove God one day.
That day, three changes occurred:
changes spiritual
changes mental and
changes physical.
He gathered his gadgets and instruments of science and
headed into natures bosom.
She welcomed him warmly at first; she didn't ind being poked and scanned.
She even waited patiently as he scraped samples for traces of God.
Knowing God wouldn't be too easy to find—he went deeper into her cradle,
the further he got, the colder her welcome.
Soon, as they say, he went native, his tools of science stopped working so
he had to rely on his bare mind. His senses became intense, on fire.
The world around him was illuminated, they became one.
More animal than man, he continued his search for his God, every day
growing closer. He started using more than his mind to search for proof,
he used his soul. Man's spiritual metamorphosis.
As he slept peacefully under the stars, above the insects, among the flora,
his dream invited him to a cliffs edge overlooking the vast ocean.
Another man, old as the cliff, beckoned him to join the view.
They two sat and admired the incredible vista before them, the old man
introduced himself as the architect of their current panorama.
I'm in the company of God, questioned Man.
You're in the company of everything, he said.
But you're he who created creation, Man interrogated.
So they say, I was merely there early enough to witness it, he said, most call me God.
Prove it, Man requested.
I can not prove faith, he muttered.
You're God you can do anything, Man demanded.
Very well, draw a map of the air, for me, and I will prove faith.
That's impossible, it's forever changing and incredibly difficult to see, said Man.
And faith is different, asked the old man.
I suppose you're right, however, I am sitting here speaking to you, Man mused.
Is that not proof enough, asked the old man.
Merely evidence, I am an atheist and a man of science, unless I have tangible proof, I will remain atheist.
It took me a while to believe in Man, honestly—For the longest time I truly didn't think he existed. Said the old man.
You created us, of course you knew-
I witnessed, remember, and so many things happened that day you got lost in the milieu.
Do you believe in Man now, asked Man.
I have evidence, the old man winked and was gone.
Man lay in his slumber till morning, he rose with the sun and marched back to civilization.
He was pleased to have found the proof he needed, he would be nominated for awards and be published world wide! Glory will forever fall on his name.
Upon leaving the woods, he found his tools of science and tried to get them working again.
As he was toying with a probe, he slipped on a rock, knocked his head hard, and forgot everything
that happened.

Zodiac

If I were the water
I’d go far away away
I’d go deep and deep
I’d go high high in the sky

But because I’m water
I come back back
In all forms to you

I will wash your shores
And bathe your hills and peaks
I will pour through your valleys
And seep deep into your surface

No matter how far far
I go deep deep
You know I will always return
And cycle once again.

Nightmare On Elm Street

While they tell us to look up
at the sixth floor's breezy open window
they frame our perception
of that much larger painting before us

No—we shout no!
Who framed whom that winter day
We will excuse our naivety
forever lost in perjury
Check the knoll and check the frame
for who framed whom that winter day

We framed ourselves!
Please, I beg you people, look up!
Forget what you think
you heard you saw you know, look up!

No—we shout no!
You have only the sixth floor window story.
The witness's eyes twenty twenty
and certainly the eyes were plenty
And the viewers at home, we're sorry,
you have only the sixth floor window story.

Name after name with links and ties
to government departments relying on lies
FBI and CIA of course have nothing to say
when real questions are asked about that day.

Ask not what your country will do to you
Cause even if you asked you'd get no truth.
But what you can do for your country?
Accept the bread we're fed while watching the circus.

No—we shout no!
You heard three shots and echoes
He hit the road Jack
He wont come back.
Stop your crying and choke your woes
You heard three shots and echoes.

I Hate the Color Gray

Those tears roll down
cheeks still hot from crying;
washing my face like
rain on leaves in a
dusty July.
Rediscovering green

Tears that tear nothing
from nothing. Like fringe
from notebook paper.
Just fodder for a stop
motion blizzard
That comes eye level.

Paper hearts leave
paper trails that no one
will sweep for you
so make sure yours
is not origami
'Cause paper cuts hurt.

Imagine hating the color
Gray and no one asking why.
when such a passive
I-never-did-nothing-to-nobody
color creeped to the shit list.

Only coming close
still wont do and wont
satisfy my lackluster lust
for God doesn't even know
what.

I found myself yelling
at clouds emptier than
anything yet full enough
to pour in all the wrong places
at all the wrong times.

That trick of light keeping
things in the mirror may be
closer than they appear
dancing across cathedrals
in rainbow incandescent
sprees exploding
imploding coral reefs
of schools of fish
just out of college
to be out of reach with
what this world
expects of you
and of me.
Expect nothing...

Before The Gull

They ask when you die
-what happens-
answers only cover so much.
Answers barely scratch the surface.
The questions let you know
we understand
whats going on around us.
Its cosmic jeopardy answering
in questions
(as long as you question your answers)
What is life?
Yet no answer for five-hundred, Alex
(only more questions)
Trebec as my witness we all
go into that good night.
Time's up
pencil's down.
What have we learned?
Listen carefully:
What fog coats the seas
so thick you can't even see the good Lord.
Only instinct and good-old-fashioned know-how
will guide you home. As in Life.
You will always hear the caw
before the gull parts the foamy gray air.
Your home can't be too far from his,
and remember, he made it as far out as you.

Beach House

Remember the old house
on the beach?
Waves crashing
moon glowing
you showing
off to me.

The window was busted
we crawled in
sand dusted
and encrusted
artifacts lost by
memories.

It twinkled like moon light
does on snow.
You glimmered
I shimmered
we danced in
the galaxy.

I played the piano,
with my mittens on.
I smiled
you cried while
I played you your
lullaby.

We stayed in that old house
all night long
I kissed you
you kissed too
we didn't
want to leave.

Never leave.

Quarters For Dollars

Such change made
for poor unheard souls.
That hope exchanged
for faith and promise.

Such promise made
for promise lands
and working class hands
that pave our way to
the top.

Such hope made
hopeless by unchecked
power under our glass roof.
Don't throw stones.

We raised that dark face
to the highest place
to watch over and guide
us to nothing.

Change is made like
quarters for dollars
and pennies for dimes.
So little, so cheap
the couch would starve.

Do what you said you would
and ask not of us to follow
for black sheep is still a sheep
with no shepherd.

You Are the Tree

As given the tree,
I give you roots with which to hold ground;
to know where you stand;
to reach further than sediment and nutrient
to reach beyond bedrock and grasp those before you
to better know yourself.

As given the tree,
I give you limbs that stretch from those roots;
to shelter young and all;
to conquer the space around you with majesty
to conquer gravity and brevity in one fall swoop
to branch out and explore your world.

As given the tree,
I give you leaves to better hear the breeze;
to fill those lungs of leaves with sweet air
to share with millions around you
to share what sacred petals so explode in color
to pass the time till winter strips, humbles you.

As given the tree,
I give you life and knowledge unending;
to be that microcosm fluttering and crawling with life
to learn the names and ways of Animalea around you
to learn the answer to the most puzzling and dazzling of queries
to discover: why.

Mom Universal

Your love is like
the organic magnetism
with which cucumbers
cling to the knife.
Gentle like fridge
magnets.

Your love is complex
like the Rorschach
of a sliced tomato.
Different in every
life.

Your love asks no
questions with no
conditions but keeps
giving and giving
never to take.

Your love is worth
more than any currency
and cliché of worth
any cliché of a poem
could come up with.

Your love took us
and we skipped like
pebbles across puddles
of lakes and ponds of
Oceans.

Your love defined the
stars in turn giving me
the ground to walk
on never alone
and never with
an empty hand.

Your love filled my
head with dreams and
pockets with denim wishes
you knew would come
true.

Your love played
movies of memories
when the wind blew
too hard and rain fell
too fast.


Your love is and
always will be a
pillow and blanket
that cradles my aged
body no longer a babe's.

Your love is pure
unfaltering and the
strongest structure from
which one could build
his existence.

Your love is you
and me and everyone
that has happened to
pass too closely to
your inviting orbit
like a comet content
with its new path,
never to leave your
pull.

I Count!

I can count to ten in Japanese. I can count to one thousand in German. I can count to twenty in French… then it gets a little fuzzy. I think to thirty in Spanish. In English though… In English I can count until my voice evaporates under the cracks and yawns of the Universe coming to an end. I could count in English, number by number, past the end of the Universe, PLUS the 1,060 foreign numbers I know! With all this impressive counting I can do… I find it impossible to count how many times you make me laugh. I’ve tried counting how many smiles we’ve plastered on each other’s faces- on anybody’s face! It’s nauseating to consider the number it would take to describe all the things you do right. With all of this counting, I’m pretty pooped. Have you heard of those monks in the Himalayas that count to find God? I think I’ll let them count for me while I rest. They’ll probably count how many times I’ve thought of you since we met. In fact, I’m sure they’ll count how many times you’ve though of me! What else could they possibly count? Oh! They’ll be counting the times my heart says I Love You (and that’s a lot). They’ll count all the keys of the piano that I play for YOU. If they dare even try, they could count the ways you are beautiful, but I really don’t think they have enough time! As we both sleep, those nice bald monks will be counting for every star in the galaxy, for every galaxy in the Universe for every Universe in time. And unfortunately, once the last solar cluster is accounted for, the reasons why I want you will still need counting. So those poor guys up in the mountains will never see an end to their toils. Which is why during the day, I give them a break.

I don’t believe in infinity anymore, it’s just not a big enough number to capture you.

Hey Aunt Jemima

[To be sung to the tune of "Hey there Delilah"]

Hey Aunt Jemima
what's it like up in the pantry?
Don't you know it's Sunday morning
oh i miss the taste of Country
Crock and you.
Pancakes don't shimmer without you
You know it's true.

Hey Aunt Jemima
you know you're the greatest condiment
bringing smiles to people young and old
from continent to continent
you're wise.
The mammy face is your disguise,
those big brown eyes!

Oh- you make my mouth sticky
Oh- my lips are sticky
Oh- my lips, they stick to me
Oh- so sticky sticky

Hey Aunt Jemima
I know times used to be hard
what with slavery and civil rights,
fate dealt you a new card.
You knew it would
Compared to what mammies should...
You have it good!

Hey Aunt Jemima
you make it hard to leave for work
but we're not seven watching cartoons.
responsibilities i can't shirk.
but God, i would.
seriously, you're that good!
I wish i could.

Overcoming slaver!
Making things taste maple-y
Overcome obesity,
Just don't use more than you need.

Absentee

You can’t just show up,
Say you have grown up
And leave without saying
Goodbye

If that were acceptable
I’m sure I’d be capable
Of denying you a
third try.

So fuck all your miracles
It’s fucking hysterical
When everyone shuts up
And leaves you lonely staring at
The sky

We’re all voting now
Its so gosh darn funny how
The candidate’s gone
Absent, she

Promised the sun and moon—
Had better deliver both really soon
Lest should I vote
Absentee.

Oh, riots and revolutions
Complicated evolutions,
All in the name of you
Lying and cheating, deceiving to campaign
For me

Tied: A Parable

Remember when we clung
to the same reef together?
Before I was flung
out into the deep blue ether.
I was anchored fast
to the bright life of Reef,
and if it had last
would I find relief?

Gust after gust shook my hand loose
and away, far away helpless, aloof,
I swayed and I groaned while moon mothered tide
and whispers of courage from fish passed me by.
“You've done the right thing, you've let it all go!”
said one fish who added “Believe me, I'd know!
Though you feel lost in this endless parade
the current will keep you from all the charades
that reef life and shore life deliver with haste.
While floating among us, time never wastes.”

His words found me well, before I made leave
of this wise caravan who delivered reprieve,
I called to the fish whose years he'd surpassed
“There's no one like me as far out as I'm cast,
only you fish who were built on the wave
can survive these conditions and never be stayed.
My arms and my legs are heavy as lead
as they do not respond to what's in my head.”
“You think we all woke in this school ready made?”
He said “I awoke with no cavalcade.
But swim did my fins and swim did my tail,
I trusted this scary invisible trail.
Then just as I thought all was lost, I awoke.
And what I saw then I figured a joke.
One after one a thousand times wide
I joined the slip-silver stream! Happy, I cried
'Here is my path, and why I was made
no longer am I a directionless cade'.
Here's where you find me along with my kind
it wont come so easy, your journey, you'll find,
will give you perspective on things big and small
just listen real hard and you'll make the right call.”

I thanked him and waved as I spun hither to
and trusted the waves and trusted the blue
I wiped my head clean of any bad thought
and flowed with the current to find what I'd sought.
What do you know that wise fish was right
A heavy limbed bobble head girl came in sight.

Cloud:burst

I

It starts with sweep

sweet cool air o'er

plains whispering

concrete crackling

trees creaking

all damp and bitter

scent sent senses

to childhood.

Gold valleys volley

distant dissonant din

o'er plains-concrete-trees.

Smell of pavement

puckers the nose, wet of

childhood flashbacks.

Skip rope

ride bike

climb tree.

Lightning flashbacks flash

back strobing in mauve

distance.

Why bright when sky

scrapes clouds raked

o'er plains-concrete-trees?

Inevitable, the

slues of torrents of rain

to come to wash today

from today.

Memories explode with strobe

and stroke of lucks pluck your mind

like legless limbless piano teeth loose and ready.

Dangling by dandelion stems from bubble gum stuck to your shoe.

FLASH

grumble

FLASH

rumble

Its starting without

permission. We need

no permission to

position our hearts

aligned with Pluto

or better yet Saturn

angelic by halo.

Those deep purple

hearts throbbing on the

horizon have gathered

in Indaba o'er plains-concrete-trees.

O'er houses like ours.

The supreme moment

awaits waiting because it can.

Knowing we wait for it

in Limbo

eyes piercing the swollen bellies

of cumulo

nimbo.

Churning sea mist

into amethyst bubbles for eyes

waiting, no cue, to cry

for nothing in particular;

but cry it must.

Open your soul like the umbrella

II

POP

Like a command from

The Controller (Cloud: burst)

the balloon

burst before us. Explosions

O'er plains-concrete-trees.

Snapping popping raindrops

plopping fizzing in the stream

making lakes

of yards and

rivers of

roads.

Returning our manufactured

way-of-things to primal

pretty natural landscapes.

Great thunderous applause

for no one in particular

send tears of joy

of self satisfaction

raining on our heads

soaking to the roots

Who is clapping for whom?

Who clears their throat so

heartily,

shaking the earth

scaring the cat.

Not for me.

Not to me.

Though on they clap miles above

hidden by gray bellied whales

floating sky high lumb'ring

to find the ocean they were

born from

Why do those

gray bellied whales beach themselves

so often?

Only to whet the

land, to feed the seed and eyes

dried from crying?

A sacrifice gone unsung-

-noticed- but unsung

This is our song to you

water-whales wail

O'er plains-concrete-trees.

III

Like all things Earthly bound

an end must become.

A whale can not forever be

it must return to mother sea.

Starving bellies now groan:

Earth mocking them

now sated and quenched.

On distance those quaking bellies

retreat,

shriveling

thinning

aging to wisps

of gray hair high high

in the sky.

Sunny Sundays

slip between strands of

silver-gray hair swaying

sky high streaking

stratospheres

tickled morning blue.

Horizon blushes

with discomfiture of being

caught peeking

so dawn early.

Air clears of bellowing balloons

lumb'ring whales

gray-bellied whales

now forgotten.

The cloud burst breaks

the day

washing shores

dusting off sleepy winter

leaves.

Eden glows under sky light

fresh baby-green

earth crinkles soaked

and unashamed

branches and leaves stretching

a good morning stretch

fold closed your

soul umbrella.

Take a deep breath

leap awake eyes agape

make no excuses nor reason

for rain claps for no one in particular.