the constant mystique of well-organised chaos

11

in this human moment
i am not so nebulous.
naked as the moon
and just as blue

November, 2001

26

how gracefully
still
you turn away
too full of love
to reject

we turn to our places
too
suspended in
this energy

I am the universe
tonight
submerged in a solid
groove - this persistence -
does it ever end?

listen:
i've let it take me

May, 2003

epic

We: carbon-based
life forms dressed in
curiosity
crawling from ash
sans prejudice
and pretense
wandering prideless
through jungles of
steel and exhaust
clinging to a hope of
pureness, a last bastion
of something simple
something good

tainted
along the way
through experience
through regret
through unfulfilled
longing and
childlike naiveté
sought passion in
our own footing
found vast loud scapes
and canyons of calm silence
delivering second skin
to ward off the hurt
and defend us from
wordly weapons
that sting still, though
less than before -
poison tipped shafts
not penetrating scaled
armor, no -
but prefer to touch
upon the gentler memory-
infused sounds of
whispered I-love-you
to safely hide away in
the heart's chambers
of life's true necessity

the armor melts away
revealing a visceral sinew
that longs for shelter,
acknowledgement
kinship
somewhere in the soul
of man where hate
is not an option
and forgiveness comes
to those who truly
seek it

and the time will come
again, where I alone
will barefootedly trip through
my own duende
molt and shed this skin
to leave behind its
hubris
bathed in humility
and soft moonlight
and call once more
upon a translucent,
sentient will,
stand naked as eve
and walk into a world
without end

8 November, 2004

aftermath (senryu)

is dodging bullets
as simple as pushing doors
that needed pulling?

open mic

under single spotlight
on stage, he picks up
his book
clears his throat
prepares his vocal
emphases

former supposed
punk-ethic
still showing in
shiny-elbowed jackets
and unkempt thinning hair

but still-

the yearning
to re-live and
re-introduce these
events into the present
gnaws at the pit of
his belly
forcing rhyme from
reason
writing to just write
and throw words to
the wind
see what falls and is
accepted
understood (falsely)

finding affinity and attraction
from the sudden young
girls-
there to slum it
sipping $5.00 cappuccinos
unaware of their
own sore-thumbness
unaware of their
own voices

from the typically ugly
urban poet
fat, unshaven, runny-stockinged
home haircolor women
who have a thing for
the tortured

from the man in the
fedora who sits at the back
silently smoking
and nodding along
locked in a prescription
habit
this used to be his scene

the meager crowd raises
an applause erupts
from those who aren't
quite sure
what just hit them

26 September, 2004

at the ready-line (senryu)

sweet late evening
these last summer cicadas
calling out from trees

August, 2005

sequencer (senryu)

an alarm sounds and
smashes the wall of night: she
sweats dreams and terror

October, 2004

cultivate

let's not talk of
love, the poesy patch
of saccharine sentiments
gushing forth with
the strength of
a fireman's hose

or the future
displaced so long within
a three-year foreplay
always wanting the
diamond bezel to
forget its function
and pause-
capturing certain
still-lifes

or the evasive advent
of digital, electric
sensations, parried across
how many time zones?

it was something like 6.

or how we calculated
land mass, miles,
cubic centimetres of
water,
a latitude
a longitude
to only quantify
or justify at times
what may never be
ours

the perennial overgrown
mass of flora chokes
a single stem into
submission:

i am a garden on
the verge of starvation.

constantly asking the G-ds
of meteorology
when spring will arrive

obsessing the sundial
retreating to an earthen cave
freezing in a sleep of
passages
digging for new roots

leave it to a beautiful moment

is it a twist of fate
or the turn of a key
that opens the world
of a woman's heart-

a complex vista-
a map to be explored
set the shaft of a flag into
and claim as your own?

perhaps it's the everchanging
climate, a place to find
yourself
or refuge
or calm-
knowing that your return
will find you in her
space, in the home
of her body

or the mystery of her
unfolding when she
chooses you to see

the skin's weakness
misinterpreted as
thinly unraveling strength-
little do you know-

that tears
selfless combinations
of hydrogen, oxygen
spring life into
the most desolate
of deserts

she is a cause for blooming.

when she finds the grace
to let you go-
an awesome moment occurs:
she frees herself

though carving your
name in the tree of
her life, preserved
enduring
captivated.

her own good

my stomach thuds the decision
at each communication-
cold comfort enclosed
in longing and
the demise of options

and who's to say that
a pretty girl doesn't suffer?
a filthy lie embedded
somewhere in mother's
lore, an advisement to
always look happy
to catch your man
and hold him with
pincurls, silk stockings,
a defined eyebrow

make lists of disdain:
governments
policies
protocols
time, distance,
madness
the cognitive v. the abstract
allowances
refusals
abject proposals
beauty
loss

yes, write them down-
ink them into permanent
pages and burn them,
bury them-

the coffee at your side
will bitter and stale

the cigarette between your fingers
will perfume the air

the sounds outside
supplicate
and sing till winter's end