NOTE: this is unarchived raw poetry transcripts... it's really just a place holder until I get a more permanent page. You will need an arabic font set if you end up with some gabbledeegook down the line.
The idea of learning a new language at this point in my life seems so entirely beyond my own capabilities. Had I been brought up to do so, raised to know various ways of speech and expression, to add another, having already keyed the secret, would be a mere task of time and concentration. Now, I am so wholly uneducated in the ways of speech, that the very foreignness of the endeavor seems so daunting that I cannot possibly comprehend myself knowing these things. She makes me believe.
In some way I am no better than any other man, but in this case, I am so much more the child. I will not argue for one second that she has lifetimes more to offer me than I could hope to promise her, raising my hands high above my head, holding out what meager portions of wit and intellect I have so far collected.
In many ways I am incredibly disappointed, frustrated that she is not incomprehensibly repulsive. In some thoughts I wish her to appear physically vile, that I would have a chance to prove the nobility of my little infatuation. Though even still, I would be ill prepared to defend my argument for justification of my own place in her life.
I will not spill on about love, about my soul being lit afire, transformed from its ethereal ellipse into a more refined configuration more closely resembling what I would imagine is her ideal. I will not mention the physiological symptoms that crop up to challenge my ability to concentrate, infecting my existence with sweat, palpitations and an unnerving desire to go back far enough in time that I could find her first.
Of course I have made the suggestion before that someone might be Maya, I have had to in order to be capable of entering into a relationship with someone honestly, without constantly thinking about that elusive soul who I dedicate my whole essence to finding.
Each time I say it is different. This only disables my sense of credibility now. The deep disgusting truth that I now see as clearly as the waking world. Things are never simple, romantic or beautiful. In the end this dark truth is something that is realized slowly, like an infection. It does not kill quickly, or with a great announcement, but slowly rots away at the dream that was lived for.
It could easily be understood that by now she would be married. That she would be in love with someone who got to her first; utterly comprehensible. After all, I had the entirety of the globe to search, and I’d barely gotten out of my hometown, and there she is. From half a world away, the luck, the way fate plays out, I am allowed to see her, know she is okay. What is the reason for this? Where is the wisdom in giving me this glimpse of that upon which I have based my entire life, only to now see an impossible scaly wall thrown up in my path.
The idea is vast, and the hope does not dim, somehow, someway, I still believe in the cry of “It is meant to be”. The indelible whistle which lets me know which way the wind is blowing, and thus, which way to raise my sail. I have done the numbers in my head. The age seems right, how long could I have lasted without her anyway? Now that I’ve met her again, this time, I don’t know how long I could here.
My clarity is inconsistent, and it may cost me the game. I must be brilliant and strong, funny, artistic and beautiful. None of this will impact a difference in this situation, but I must try. These are the moments of sacrifice, when all that we believe in must be questioned.
Dreams without motive, when the whole dream exists as a sunny street, third floor room, her elbows on the sill, and my arms reaching forward around her in embrace, smelling the nape of her neck, knowing only that this is home. And home is where instinct always brings us in the end.
This is how I validate the things I now see when I roll back my eyes to breathe. This is the game that I will begin to play. I will not surrender music anymore than I will surrender her. But I must win them both fairly, as neither is mine, nor will they ever be, but both demand my devotion while promising little to nothing in return.
This deep rivalry, which exists solely within the vacuum of this brain, undulating within my veins, so much magnetic impulse residually, nodding towards my own unattended fame, unwanted recognition and unseen forms.
These tiny dancers, spiraling elegantly, elicit such ideals, as would cause a better man to balk, but I continue walking, content to be mindless, and mindful all the same of the better days which past by so many lifetimes ago like slender sails pulling farther and farther from the bay, and touching tenderly amongst the waves, waiting the moment when the shoreline perceptions give way to the greater hopes of reality that beat anticipatory rhythms the farther they get away.
Now it comes time to recognize these significant ways in which the shoreline of my own inner oceans are superimposed on the ways of the sounds that propagate every corner of my mind. Could it be that these oceans are empty. Paper boats alone sail on their crests, and the cries of ancient tribes who once beat mightily towards the horizon were nothing but driftwood, interestingly carved, but random nonetheless. Nonsense. This is the mind of the great warrior, peacefully contained, easily restrained. Something still claims royal presence, and in such words, I am plunged into the cavernous reaches of: “I will not be alone again”. Such utterances were never spoken without the acknowledgment: “No God is there but God”.
She is one with the shapes and curves of my every thought, she is muse, hope, hatred, regret and lines drawn with calligraphic pens, illuminating thoughts too powerful to speak with their every arch and dip, every placement of ink within time, untold by the great ones who once inhabited this plane. We will be here again, and she will again say, yes, but first…. I will again be broken by the unfairness, and again there will be a soul trying to find his one, his French, dark Maya, whom he knows so little about, other than she breathes into his Nostrils and lifts him to the light and not makes him, but gives him reason to be. And he was.
In the beginning.
A waterfall, simple undecorated, flowing from a large plush sofa in a living room where a couple, unable to communicate with one another seem to lap up each others souls like sweet sweet nectar, or the milk from which sweet cream would be too decadent to drink.
A cupboard, within which a small boy sits, in eager anticipation of being found, unallowed to make even the faintest sound, and sweat dripping from his juvenile brow, he thinks to himself: I could have been a teacher if they’d only told me how to breathe.
A sink, within which the water flows from all things, and eventually returns to her highness the earth, clogged with broken dreams, and dirty glances, colored majestic only by the sounds they make as they spiral around down the drain towards the eventual truth of all things.
In this place, all things are at once possible and hopeless, so all people try, and no one succeeds, this is the way it is with dreams, as we spread our seeds in the hopes that the next generation would be closer to its needs, and reach higher to the stars, closer to the skies.
Sweet dreams allow us to face the following day, but each night seems longer than the last, and it would be no great surprise to anyone if one day we did not wake at all. Then we would cease to face the pain which until now has seemed to be quelled only by the dulling qualities of inspiration, and the relief that one more evening in a chair in front of a desk offers on the gnarled road to humanity, the grubby path to a more permanent state of existence.
* * *
She woke slowly, taking time to savor the fleeting essence of being asleep, and wasting no great exertion towards the goals of stretching and smiling fat and content with herself, spread elegant across my disheveled couch, pillows strewn wildly from an intense afternoon nap.
I naturally sat, legs curled under myself on an oversized round chair, across and angled from the couch, having not slept in hours. It was the shoulders that stopped me first. Every time she breathed they rose close to her neck in a faint shrug, as though her whole life was saying: “it’s alright” whatever the situation might have been at the time.
For a moment, as I sat there studying her face while she adjusted to her surroundings, I was plunged into a place where neither of us spoke any language other than what might be communicated by glances and smiles. It was a peaceful moment, the silent prayer that echoed endlessly through the hallways of our better consciences and solidly bounced off the walls of our pasts, for in this moment even they too were permeable to this shared impossible dream.
Lovers. The thought hadn’t entered our minds, it was just us, and that was a condition protected from the human tendency to label every situation and condition until they are all stripped of any perceivable sense of mystery or elegance. Had we kissed? It was too foggy yet to recall such specifics, and it would have made little difference anyhow. Whatever experiences had previously been shared, this was all we had. These moments, with her face pressed against a pillow and my face sobbing to be pressed against her once more.
A lifetime ago, we could have been perfect. This feeling would have been anything but fleeting. Now, it is only our own inability to let go of a moment that prevents it from being lost forever. Soon. Life has a way of giving it’s participants reasons to continue the game with no hope of resolution, no way out or possibility for anything more than an artist’s rendition of what was once beautiful and now is falling apart slowly. Deeply within the courteous niceties that humans so often emanate in lieu of any honest communication or signs of life.
Traveling across the
world
Living in a car…
Auspicious advice
never seemed
So far from divinity
So close to paradise
Cleanliness of mind, easily allows more room for finer thoughts. Before now we were forced to merely imagine what now we can meditate freely on. This revolution, of thoughts and deeds, can in no way find any voice, any interpretation other than that of the truth, which has an uncanny ability to peek out from even the darkest corners of our lives.
Soon this cocoon will be complete, then we will be able to repeat the greatest name, ninety five times in peace, and see the face of the beloved beauty lifting high above the أبها Kingdom, which is at once might, and power, and I am but a meek and powerless الروح who in no way can find his own way home.
Everytime she moves, I stop, whenever she passes, my life flashes before my eyes. I can sing her no songs which will allow her to hear me, no matter how passionately I praise her, I sing her hymn, the melody echoes, tired and old in her sweet ears. I can begin to see my world, as it is an obsessive place, full of spite and fire, combined to face the life that I have been waiting for, praying to be discovered by my own design. Hoping to be stopped, just in the nick of time.
- - -
In this way the best ones are born. Inner monologues give way to better days, which in turn illuminate better moments in time, unable to even begin to cry the tears that lived solely in the trash.
Suddenly, Distances which one seemed impossible to traverse, appear as though they coexist at the same time in exactly the same place. In this way, we are thrust forward, wondering why and how we came to be, and how long until we will again cease to feel loud and unkempt by the wavering of the wind, and the calling of: “Verily, God is capable beyond all things”.
Swept under the floor of whispering men
Allowed to sit with our Fathers.
Punished for allowing our mouse to run…
Free through the halls of the Great Aunt
Who swept the floor with Zen pride,
And allowed her bosom to betray her size.
She was the great one, proud, and fair…
Ruddy brow, hearkening back to a time when
Ruddiness was equated with health;
Not the other way around.
I woke slowly, not fully allowing the alarm to sink into my slumber.
Carefully I rolled from one side to the other, as if I would find the perfect angle by which I could make the sound fully subside.
My luck would not be that fair, and eventually, blankets draped around my torso, forcing me to move with a deliberate clumsiness, vying to pull me back to bed, I made my way to my clock, and pressing firm on its head, was able to bargain for myself at least ten more minutes of paradise, before the deal was through, and the night would be forced on its head by the daylight creeping through shaded windows, doing their best to shield me from the harsh hard truth of another day in a city, which asks so much, and rewards so few.
She comes to me, knowing full well, what her smile creates, her shape indicates. She enjoys every minute of my love, or tender infatuation, which we both know could never become anything more solid then a dream.
Her things, ache as they whisper in the windy summer autumns, which haven’t ceased since they began, stop playing these games, start trailing on your land, and sailing on your bedroom ceiling, while waiting for me, to come over you, and you can finally conclude this dream.
This; she says to me, with a smile, beaming eye to eye, as we have been only a thin layer of reality slides between us, but its material is the most robust in eons.
Come on, you can do better than that! Did you not see her: face hands hair eyes? Did you not breathe her neck? What is that? Neck- May God forgive my wandering thoughts, certainly there is no truth in such objectification, though I objectify her brilliance as well as her body.
These days are getting cumbersome,
I find myself counting back hours while I wait
For brighter things to fill my mood,
But such things pass slowly,
And I am forgotten and anticipate
The days when I will no longer be,
Thunderous and awake.
These hours are getting pointless,
Nothing to do but learn to speak…
Tfdali, I will, go ahead, and continue learning.
Continue, rich, you must continue.
Argh. The costs of production have risen too quickly to maintain such a level of compensation within the productivity that I had thought was there. I can take little more of this, quiet writing work, Give me something to do, besides learn to speak.
Please.
Min Fadlak.
At this moment in time, the world of my existence is in some way clouded, by the world of my wishes. My desire to follow the laws laid out to me by God are given voice through the expression of a girls name, who I would eagerly call ‘wife’ should the cards dictate that this is a path I may follow.
I am fallen struck by the idea of enlightenment within my personal realm, and starlight in my eyes, every night as I doze, to begin to sleep the sleep of a child who has not yet learned the fear and bile possibilities of this universe.
The rapid entourage shaking the walls around my bed, those bitter jidarun, who threaten to destroy me by the very way they shake, and allow little arrows of light to pierce them as their plaster effaces shatter slowly, and reveal cracks long since left by former tenants who bore to much pain to be cleared by a hole perpetrated by a fist.
Last night we spoke, though it was only minutes, and I kept it short. Moments krept on for hours, and my sense of equilibrium was offset by her sense of confidence, and the passage of prose by which she spoke. These same words now light her profile in the chiseled far reaches of my mind, and remind me that time waits for no man, so to continue would require a definitive action on my part, and the bounty might just have reached its mark.
All this time, I have just assumed the part played by my mind, wandering. All of these lifetimes that I have lived in only a few years, constantly on the path of striving, the Tao of the Lost, and hope of the cross, the only redemption offered by those who have strayed this far off course. All this time, I have been looking for her, not expecting to be found. Now, in this strange turnaround, I see several new scenarios which agonize the inner reaches of my self.
Could all of this in fact have come from within me.
Not entirely unlikely as it is where it began in the first place.
The commitments I make, and in turn demand, are overwhelming in terms of their candor and strength, opened slowly, as if corked for years, and the satisfying pop and foam is enough to propel us further on into the night.
I could have been her, thus waiting for my Branford, who would be utterly rejected by my Father. I could have been her, I could be him, points of adoration krept up by the sin that I have left unchecked too long to begin its world and it’s hell, brought to bare by the flames of memory.
She could be her, she with her perfections spilling out from every place, her place unaccounted for instead of understood. I could have been waiting, half way across the world, What a connection, but her decisions were still for a man. Still, he won that round, and achieved, the greatest woman alive.
There have been moments, while this has been written, that actually begin to approach a true sense of emotion, that are actually believable, but the great body of this work, is a waste of time, paper and ink. If I could only focus my work so that the only thing I created was the hopeful writings of truth, I would be well on my way to a hopeful future as a writer, Unfortunately it does not seem the least bit likely.
Boy,
He looks at me
From the ends of wire framed lens
Not entirely relinquishing his thought
‘Where have you been to?’
And I am unable to answer,
The mere sight of his jowls,
Flopping with his every word
Are enough to paralyze me…
This long road back,
Looks increasing apathetic,
My cause, distinctly traumatic
Her words, verily resonant.
Oh my God, where is my direction, my escape from exhaustion, my respite from these tears which whisper their existence in my ears, wildly lit by the hindrance of all times.
Slowly now.
Not to wake her.
Stepping on the backs,
Of worlds alone,
On top of the queens throne,
Where late at night,
In the right shade of moonlight
Small blossoms begin to grow.
YOU! (11/19/01)
Breaking candy colored petals
As I step, but upon auburn fields
Dreams swept under,
Padded carpets, which arrest…
Thoughts cannot return then,
And now, we find things plunged
And dyed in violet hues, stricken.
Vivacious tumors lacking capacity
To instill real harm, still outwardly
Make themselves available-
For untying ropes who once seemed strong.
You!
Walking on your petals.
Testing the depth of your spirit
Every step, deeper, regret vanishing
Into the mist which lacks characteristics,
Normally afforded to such phenomena
Sometime, I was wrong,
Still, I continue on, walking,
Your petals rising up, sinking between
Toes, plunged erelong into your oceans
The sounds of your waves forever captured
And echoed into the husk of my self…
You!
Your mystery undoes my pretensions,
Sweet apprehensions, about plunging…
Too often actions are seen as a plunge,
A lean forward and a lunge,
The hungers are carnivorous,
And my desire is ‘devour’
But as the time approaches,
And the hour passes,
We both ‘make eyes’ and begin to ask
Should we, or should we,
Save the best for last.
11/19/01
Jameelah
Your heart somehow calls to me, your movements strike me, foreign yet somehow familiar, and somewhere inside my own essence I begin to understand the thought of personal revelation.
You and I, cast from not dissimilar stones, unaware of our own, seeing in the other, the wisdom of tasteful intrigue. Have I lived? Must I have experienced more? What are the answers that you demand from me?
Ach, I ache from the assumptions that carry on in my brain, my own matters far too limited to explain. Needless enough, I claim, I wish you to be my bride, to carry on, and to build a life around the things, which the Almighty, the Compassionate has, set forth to be priorities.
Could I interest you in a lifetime or two?
My focus must be entirely more detached then that. I need to begin to understand my own hand in things, and stop acting in such a way as to be considered figment and fragment, concentrated in the near reaches of my cranial cavity.
Here again, am I allowed such access to alliteration, as would seem to be my only defense against poor prose, and worse verse.
Lie to me. Tell me I am perfect for you. That I have seen enough, and have enough to teach you, that the rest we can see together. Hajj! Please, allow me the bounty of experiencing God in such a way that you would be beautiful, and you would be Mualimah! My darling, though I call you not darling, clement, and abashed. I am alone on this one, and still I feel the gravitationally enforced world shifting her balance towards the things which more likely will be construed as a place of Jameel between me and you, a place where Ardh is un-traversable, and where all our hope lies in the knowledge of God, and the words ‘verily he is righteous in all things’.
Allah’u’abha
- The words of the most great name
- Must in no way be ever separate
- From the goals, I now claim
- As motives,
- For the direction of my adoration
- I wish for the strength I could gain
- From her hand through all your worlds.
SONG 1
You, Don’t have to wait. For these sad songs to move you. To me.
You don’t have to sink, into that chair, sad enough already.
Soon enough you will see, the blind man hears things you can only dream about.
Soon enough you will be, close enough to find, the mouth of the river.
“Wouldn’t you like to be, one of the ones who walks on the river…
Unaware of the current sweeping the rest of us away.
Wouldn’t you like to see, the mouth of the river,
Destined to be the source of the love that carries us away…”
You, Don’t have to stay, If this world starts to be, too big, for you.
You don’t have to wait, If I seem to be too slow, for you….
Soon enough I will see, the eye of the storm is a distant calm,
Soon enough I will be, waiting at the edge of the earth and on,
“The top of the river, walking steady and straight to you,
Unaware of the current sweeping you away,
Wouldn’t you like to be, at the mouth of the river,
Destined to bring us, face to face to face.”
>>>
SONG 2
Like Water over time, over rocks
Over lime over wood over you
Over and over again….
Like age, and the lines, and the gray
And the moods and the days
And Day after day after day…
There is a way, this works,
A way the world carves its niche in each of us,
A way we begin to see our place,
In the shapes that form, results of patience.
Infinite glory surfaces, us unable to discern,
Incapable of seeing the difference in the forms,
And fully devolved from dialect we yearn,
For peaceful anxieties which reshape and warn.
SWEET I.
My Sweet destination, my chariot, gilded and fine,
My intoxication, my desire,
My world swirled around a lightening bolt,
Fired and molded, a prayer, like a kiss blown.
My life, flashed in an instant, through a million,
Eternal struggles, and you by my side,
The hope of paradise, the fear of damnation,
No longer motivation for the will to be right.
Our hope, a peaceful existence,
The dream of maturity finally at the tip
The tongues of man sing ‘where we go
Alone and joined with parsnips and tulips,
Scouring the ground, approaching freedom,
Your head hung low, eyes lifted to mine,
Thick lips pulled closer to the ground…
“Allah’u’abha” beginning to sound.
Songs for the ages, we hold hands and pray
This, being the only way I have of knowing.
That, though, is instinctive and inside,
Your psyche, which glows and provides-
These following insights into the light:
Hope will exist as long as you and I do,
Within the context of the meaning of us.
And my future will in time intertwine with you.
Feathering the truth, slow and methodic
Looks, like we are guilty, when we are barely
Born. Bored, more likely than warm,
Smart more likely than strong.
I will learn to write to you, in verse,
Turning phrases in Farsi, lifetimes,
Followed by endless progressions,
Through our consort, and their prayers.
Stanza’s seem inadequate description
For figures who hold no form,
Like your mind, within my infatuation,
And being wrong instead of being warm.
Sweet II.
It’s been a while since I have found
This much ability to concentrate, focus
Surrounding and individual,
I’d resigned it to be perpetual,
My ability to forget; exceptional.
My ability to regret, diminishing.
I am enticed with the challenge,
Now at its outset seemingly noble-
Though, would I still feel this way
Were I, or were you not of this same Light?
Would I then be more infatuated-
Or less, somehow, transfixed-
The very foreignness,
Which I wish to assimilate,
And include in my life…
Next line, the same as its step
(Making you my wife)
And all of the asides that are included-
Trappings of a Bahá'í wedding?
Seeking council on how to approach-
Such divine ordinances, as putting my Faith-
Well into God’s hands, and trusting that I may,
Well not last the night, but I will be better off,
Even should my soul wing it’s flight,
And you should disavow any prior knowledge
Of my existence.
VERSE 11/20/01
Coming easier, as these pages progress, lines seem to flow more together as they once did. Still I am lost at song, as I’ve been hardly able to turn a lyric, and this Farsi by Osmosis, doesn’t seem to be rubbing off. (Though the festive nature of its tones catch my attention readily and repeatedly). I imagine by page 30, I will have regained my ability to author things, at least the way they were. How changed by the new views of the author though, I could not assume. Progress, like all things, requires above all patience. A gift, I have not often been given. My desire is to match the innate utterances of the greatest secularists, without the exertion of a single ounce of effort. This I know is fallacious, but still, I seem to strive, never along the path realizing the exertion I am exhibiting as I refine and reform the craft of English writing, raising the cry for my Farsi bride to come aide me in the creation of something approaching the mighty. (My own insignificance has yet to assert its affects on me).
A hundred lives I would offer up in his name,
Yet when I close my eyes, I see your face,
Tell me then where is the balance between his grace
And all my yesterdays floated on the wind of your breath…
I say: Answer not for these children
For we have only been, and ever will.
Children, all I’ve seen or wished, childish,
And somehow, I think I sense a jealous tinge.
Just enough to make things interesting for us,
And of course you fall your head (whispering something like shucks)
In a tongue of course, I barely comprehend,
But in your hand is the castle up on its head…
And heady and bold, I begin to unravel you,
Attendees involvement
Green Acre:
"أوه
حبّ، محبوبي"
And my life turns again,
Allah allows awkward somehow
To mature, and (what’s more)
To enter into covenant with our psyche.
Not until, in the context of prayer,
We can step back and see ourselves
See what we were really doing there…
Can we begin to be fair to the promise
Of peace, both in and out of our
Would be home.
You said be patient with you.
My sweet Annsa, I will wait…
I want to come home to you.
I know your eyes, flashing and fine,
Capture me, mid sentence in this line,
And uncover vast truths as of yet unrefined
(but you go back and underline)
No God is there save Thee, the Remover of Difficulties
And I cry-
Reunion,
My beloved seems so distant,
And I crossing vast rivers,
Flattening mountains,
Striking through wilderness,
Which the pioneers themselves,
Never have traversed…
You my beloved though,
I believe, also cutting through these
Trees, guided by a belief that eventually
We will meet somewhere in between
And be reunited by our mutual love
Of Bahá'u'lláh, may our every instant
Be a lifetime of martyrdom for His cause.
All that you say
Leads me to feel you don’t see
Me standing in front of you,
أوه
حبّ، أحبّك
And we begin to break these locks
Knowledge of all things serendipitous,
Synergism, and gnosis,
Passionate moments and trust.
جمالك playing off my own hopes,
Interwoven with patterns for alibis
When broken down, toppled-
Running fingers through the sand
(no doubt you know I’m looking
for your hand)
أتمنا. عاشق
أوه
محبوبي ،
I break apart a million shells,
Hoping to find you, alive, within, well
And I ask,
Have I said too much…
Patience, Detached…
How can I suffer detachment then
From you, when my own الإحساس
Tells me it is you that I belong to,
You where I live,
And cultivate,
And grow,
And see again
And pray
And know
And say,
All of these days could pass,
Accomplishments could wane,
(No one could read my play)
My verse could dry up,
My music die,
My hunger for learning break,
Sweat fall more than tears-
And senselessness, between attendances-
Breathlessness, between the senses…
But –
أوه حبّ، أحبّك
If you were there…
None of these things would be real…
I would see each morning,
Myself in your eyes,
Perfected, by that one other,
Who sees with all truth,
The perfections, nay the potentials
Inherent in الروح
The love inherent in the breath we breathe,
Into each other’s arms, and the sleep we need,
Into each other’s arms, and the moment we stepped
Into each others arms,
Knowing the love of God,
Expressing it through this,
أوه حبّ، محبوبي
Come love, step.
Into my arms.
AND THEN
The chariots broke off into balls,
Black plumes racing up in reunion,
The beloved one, sinking into her chair,
While the hero of our tale, was split open.
His heart, still beating plainly seen,
Easily identified, as it carried her name.
The path to the infinite, transcribed by this
Way in which with each beat, slowing
Spaces between growing,
The cry for her name, a jewel,
Carried His spirit away to the مملكة أبها
I love to hear her converse,
Her tongue hints at possibilities,
Which until now, I’d felt unable to express,
Lost in her addresses, of me, of her,
Friends and family,
This will be the gateway,
Here in these mountainous places,
Altitude gives way, dissipating
Fog and rain, and words and wisdom,
But all the same, all I see,
Is the sound which emanates from her lips
Nawze
And true.
Examination Of Beauty, Culmination of Light 1st Layer Intelligence Romance Spirituality Family Kinship Culture Resilience Dreaming 2nd Layer Brilliance Love Faith Family Empathy معلّمي Pragmatism Dreaming 3rd Layer Innate Knowledge Devotion Meditation Family/Motherhood Kindliness/Charity المطوّر,
المزارع Resolve Dreaming Passion, Source of Light
and Color
Oh My God, Let me find success, in singing her praise, let me
be true to your words, and become capable of detachment and passion on the
grounds of one utterance, Verily, in these words I mean no other cause but
worship, and the fulfillment of your unerring word. May you make me detached
from all things deemed unseemly by your eyes, and uttered unworthy by your
tongue. No God is there but Thee. The Inspirer, The Helper, The Wise.
Top
The Point
On the one hand,
Beginning this excursion from its formal stance
Being as we know the top of the stone,
Where all the other cuts are clearly visible, but
Reversed, and difficult to discern,
Would seem appropriate,
Were we only to be here to learn.
On the other hand,
starting this search from the passionate point,
The veritable pinnacle of adoration,
The point of the prism, the peak of the stone,
So often turned below, obscured by gold
Platinum, encased, while it is from here,
As the skilled jeweler knows,
That all light enters and flows, and so-
It is the birthing ring of passion-
Thus, would this be as appropriate a place,
To begin our journey, to somewhere find her-
Sitting in space, serenading the Blessed Beauty,
With her graceful incantations of prayers revealed
Specifically for her.
Shall we instead come in from the side?
So well crafted a stone, that each unique and
Captivating, the eyes remain transfixed,
The heart remains to comprehend the balance,
Each facet hold, with original quality, crafted
Surely by the magic of the mold, and techniques
Long since perfected by a single divine craftsman.
Then we must decide: Which side? Where to examine,
Innumerable perfections, soliloquies uttered by maidens
Each facet, each face, a separate lifetime, where I have-
Existed in a primordial form, waiting for the sculptor,
Carver of men to fashion for me a destiny, which would be
A fitting setting for this stone, and allow me to grow,
And only I would know the passion of the point, then…
Yes! Make me a setting for this stone,
Allow me to transform this weak base, banal
Form, a suffering platitude of grievous alloy
Let me find my full constitution, in her illumination,
Without a setting, without refinement, a stone is rock,
How then could this stone have made herself,
How could she have lifted herself out from the earth,
Splitting up أرض, as time passes, shaping herself,
Or,
Did her form grow naturally, throwing off sediment,
And there she was, in every rock, the potential,
But in her, realized, formed, and I only found.
Then make of me this setting, that I may find,
Utterance of the lines of my life, in the uplifting
Of hers.
Expression of the perfections of my composition
Enhanced through the function of holding her,
The dissipation of desire, the realization of peace,
The service, committed to the fire, kindled, here.
Alive, well, causing individuals to burn radiant,
Spontaneous, and in the midst, a jewel, multifaceted
And proud, comforted by the protection of a setting
Fitting to only one stone, joyously chanting incantations,
Singing her praises, even as it holds her secret, the passionate
Point, wherein, the focus of personal revelation, reunion
The beloved one, and she fills his dark corners with this light,
Forever eliminating such predispositions.
Ripped from the very constitution of the alloy,
Replaced only with the passion of the point,
The perfection of the stone, with all her facets,
Frightening in her beauty,
Illuminating in her deeds,
Enough to cause mountains to flatten,
And two to be locked for eons in a kiss.
This; the passion of equals,
Coming to one another, on the grounds
Of service, and mutual adoration,
That the two
Component parts, though the stone,
Infinitely more Beautiful, more captivating,
Still find an ultimate expression in their fusion.
And ultimate desire in the satisfaction of
The wearer of the ring.
Now, for these facets,
Which the whole of recorded words,
Could not contain or summarize the way,
This setting, humble, but filled with pride
Longing for its stone, useless without…
And the way she causes the bewilderment
Of the fibers of His essence.
Broken, melting for her Heat,
Longing for her light, illumined by her Hope.
I.
قمة
الحجارة.
Truly, truly, the light of the worlds,
Come and swirl, unknown to themselves
Unallowed to dwell, but in the heart,
Where all things honest must begin.
Alive and aligned, swirling in time,
Beckoning, calling, cries, listen-
The flows of the oceans collecting,
Crashing upon her shores, mighty, refined,
In this smile, moments in time,
Pass through this glass like so much light,
And even as I write, truth realigns
Herself with the night, and I set my sight
Ahead, in the night, the oceans suffice,
And the rocky shores will light,
And her lighthouse, will open its doors,
As the old man will soon begin to shout-
Nahze Nahze! Please, think and pray-
أوه محبوبي , إسمع حبّي
Adored One! Know me, as reflection,
Shape me as light, and allow me, direction
Certainly, her beauty has beaten ships against-
Rocks, and coasts, deemed imperfect at her side,
Captains, gladly accepting death as a gift,
From a life without her, but with such a constant sense,
Alive, and well, teeming with experiences,
Exceptions to forms, eyes which light the way
For ferries pulling farther out on her stream,
Guided by her light, and incubated by جمالها-
Enough! The pain of separation from her-
Like a lifetime at sea, only dreaming,
Knowing no chance of reunion towards her heart,
Only breaking the light in the reflection of her form,
Not yet borne, her angel comes into my chamber,
Speaking, no, whispering, allows me a key to find her,
But with the wind, the light begins to shatter,
And I am lost in between two worlds, confused, لوحده
How could I speak a praise of a beauty,
When her actual form alone grows faint at the opportunity
How then could I praise an artist who in one stroke
Has successfully superceded all of the masters before
Oh Collector of Praises, Oh Collector of Light
أوه جامع الثناء , Will you ever hear mine,
أوه جامع الضوء , Will you pierce this shade
أوه جامع الثناء , this must pale to what you’ve heard
أوه جامع الضوء, my path towards you, endless and bare.
II.
الطبقة الأولى
الإستخبارات
Like she doesn’t even try.
I realize at this moment, that,
This very undertaking will seem to her
Absurd, wrong, damning, demeaning.
That I would shower these praises
On محبوبي , would be to give her clout,
To raise her up, in comparison to the Most Well Loved.
By the very love which causes me to pen these words!
I see in her a timeless beauty, formed each time,
When she parts her lips to speak, and such fine
Words flow, and mingle with the cosmos, as I try,
Struggle, just to not veer off the road,
Like she doesn’t even know, her brilliance,
Innate borne, vested with the power of being,
Thriving, from the cradle of the Faith,
Learning in a day, what has taken me a lifetime.
And teaching. God, how I wish to be worthy-
To teach with her, by her side, near her door,
Allowed to enter into her company, her trust,
Allowed to see her, through this daunting forest.
When I walk with her, roses wilt in embarrassment
Knowing full well their unworthiness in her wake,
And yet still they shine on in bewildered admiration,
Hoping their lives may soon be clipped for her sake-
But I faint, it is her eloquent sense of “be” the way she thinks,
Her habits of studiousness and promotion of learning,
The words she drinks, letting their taste envelop her psyche
Knowledge of all sciences and arts, and life and God-
It is a compulsion for her, a natural instinct to learn,
For me to see, this way, and to see my Father in her eyes.
No, now I faint, hoping that I may be clipped for her sake-
I must remain, in strict admiration, respectful admonition-
معلّمي , I see a lifetime ahead where we share this need,
Learning from each other, teaching the blind to see-
Please معلّمي a moment is my lifetime, and all I can give,
To You, for you, a single, simple unworthy gift.
Breaths pause, and in the spaces in between
(where we once could see our breath) now we see,
alive and well, the word of the learned, beating,
up against the ears of the faitful, daunted, unbroken,
Her words, as they come, are enough to pierce this حجاب
Hardened wall, broken from ignorance, only now patched-
By her clay, her words, her ways of reassuring the dead,
Breathing in infusion, new life, my life, محبوبي –
Like she doesn’t even know her essence; Truth.
Like she doesn’t even see her innovation,
Or how it overtakes my inanition, my lethargic youth,
Backbreaking, un-maintained, waiting, restrained
Like she doesn’t even know, through her intelligence,
My eyes are made seeing, my heart, brought to love,
My words, caused to flow forward naturally, as if,
No where else in my life were real, until I was by her side.
الرومانسية
(A kiss?) قبلة؟ Would be too much to ask,
أنا آسف , but I don’t even think I could bare.
The weight of a thousand kisses, which,
Would exist in the breath, and the space of ها الواحد
(A touch?) لمس؟ would I be suddenly surrendered.
I am sorry, but I would entirely evaporate, into her air,
Cataclysmically unbalanced, by the weight of her flesh,
On my skin, even were we only to touch hands.
(A hug?) حضنة؟ a moment closer to her, than anything else,
And still I know it would be the source of my dissipation-
Feigning out into the atmosphere, singing her praise on my way,
Suddenly, charismatically and fully diffused, she says: " أنا ضمنك!"
And I reply: “I would be within you too” were it not destructive-
Shhh, Let this moment carry us, think not of then, or where we must
Be, in order to secure the life of the promises we made,
And you, feigning away, dreaming of the difficulties of trust
Where in this Western orb, could I find a passion similar
Where could I set my heart afire, in the name of your warmth-
Where could I find my life, fulfilled, and fulfilling my goals.
محبوبي a thousand more dreams, nights, things, all I want-
Were you to tell me tomorrow: “Go” surely I would, but where.
How could such an edict cause anything else but diminution
Crippling and severe, were it your will I would, but there-
I would stay, broken and gray, alone, and wasted in the stratums
Of your love. Come face me, قبلة and we are swept away-
May I be the only moment that passes, having this experience,
May I be the only man who achieves this coveted balance,
Between the night and my beloved, I turn to face her wind.
الروحانية
Eyes closed, somewhere, deep in prayer, الله أبها
Meditative, along sweet lines of reverence, الله أبها
Hands clasped, caught in whistling wind, forgotten
God alone is The Sufficer, the Beloved, the Almighty
Her lips move, not even a whisper, الله أبها
Eyes dashing back and forth behind clasped eyelids
Gracious God! Answering her prayer, الله أبها
God alone is The Healer, The Help in Peril, The Guide
Vocal cords vibrate, unleashing tempestuous cries
First seen, then allayed, answering: الله أبها
Again within the inner chamber, whispering, الله أبها
Unshaken by the woven hues of chanted prayer
Moved to speak by forks within her soul-
Unable to breathe but to utter: الله أبها
Again renowned, again endowed, الله أبها
Surely he will take her by the hand and guide her.
Thoughts focused, blessed spot of praise, الله أبها
Unaware of surrounding thoughts and prayers-
Moved to tears by the will to Live His life
Unaware, through humility how far she is.
The Most Great Name fails to be fair on this Page,
And the Most Great God, recognizing her call, الله أبها
And the words: لا الله يَجِدُ لَكنَّك، المسامح، العطوفون
No God is there but Thee, the Forgiver, the Compassionate.
It is not that she worships, but how she says: الله أبها
The knowledge that she possesses, which I’ve worked for,
She comes to by way of her responding to the command “Be”
And she was, and she is, and a thousand lifetimes could never suffice.
Truly, his craftsmanship is unparalleled: الله أبها
Again and again, his perfections are seen manifest-
And in deeds we pray, her eyes stay closed, الله أبها
Answering the call, whispered to her, الله أبها, الله أبها
And again I am awestruck by her abilities: الله أبها
And again I hear my own prayer from her lips
And again I am taken forward from this instant,
Allowed only one sight, as to the way things could have been.
Why have I stopped here, watching her breathe الله أبها
Why do I not see the bewilderment, which I have perceived?
I have believed in this day, and yet still in the seconds which stop-
I see a more perfect future in her each recitation of: الله أبها, الله أبها
العائلة
It is in the way she speaks to her parents,
The unerring signs of respect and deep admiration,
The way she wishes for their happiness first,
And allows her own to be as a channel of them.
It is in the way she speaks, concerned, telephone-
Though I can’t even comprehend the bulk of her words,
Her spirit, her uplifting الروح , with little room to err.
And little room is left for admiration, in the face of its rewards.
I glean from these experiences her ability to love, unconditional.
Her Life, an iteration of ineffable affection, (and I trivial)
Where then could I make the change, from brother to beau?
That I may more fully know this love, which lights my soul.
Madre, she speaks, as one infinitely intertwined, with lifetime-
Families tracing back generations, borne anew only past 100 years.
And her eyes light up when she mentions her Father, spirit matched
Within her own, wound up for eons, never set, never attacked.
The cradle of her faith, she can trace, herself back to its beginning.
Along these chartered lines, broken and blind, allowed to look behind,
To the Year 9, when all things became as one, and there were new eyes,
New ears, and a new line, to pass through years, and come to time-
And I to come to terms, that this whole line, might end here,
Each passing stanza, extolling the joy of her kindred, and
I may never enter into this line, join this fold, become near,
But still this prayer, detachment, I erred, I lived and I fell…
I hope her parents are doing well, her appreciation enhances my own,
And how could I not want to know of them, when they seem so great,
Their lives, so bold, beautiful, strong, devoted, alive.
My own moments, barely a heartbeat in a moment in their lives.
Can I show as much devotion to her as they have to one another,
Can I allow God to be as much a place in that home, as have they-
Can I make my case for allowances, to vast and great to say-
Can I show forth such adoration to show her my mutual love.
القرابة
Oh love my love, my sweet vested muse, causing me to speak
To fight eloquence at every bend, and spin words to meet,
Multi-syllabic passages, offered to her in the name of “We”
Of course there is no we, but in her eyes, the love of her friends
I lay down my life towards her love, and see in her, a true friend,
Begins to be sent, forward, thrusting out of her eyes glorious and kind.
Illumined, blinded by the light, turning towards the concourse on High
And seeing from this the beginning routed in her friends and lovers.
I could easily chant a million lines, broken by wind, difficult to find,
Uneasy truths which we begin to speak in verse, intravenously opined,
Actively asserted, strengths formed in the bond that begin with friends,
An honest admirable allocation of time, and love and hope is spent
Refining this beloved one, towards the path of greater adoration,
Easy justification discovered in the gateway of the divines, aligned,
With paradise, walking forth, hand in hand, chanting, Friend! صديقي
Allow me then to place my hand forth in yours, in kinship, in peace-
That we may at once be lifted from the veils of this stone, towards the threshold,
Of divinity and admiration, of true adherence and affiliation, or so I’m told,
This is the path towards true happiness, (were we only the wise, only the wise)
And to be able to lift up from these rocks, the living, the best of our lives.
She would lay down her life for any one of them, should so doing lead-
The hands of her divine, illuminated friends to come closer to seeing,
The capture of the hands, beneath these banners, beneath these words-
The One, The Almighty, They would be alive, and she would flame up-
Into the name of “No God is There But God” her magnificence is without
Doubt, equal, argument, and finessed will, deep into the whole of creation,
She would suffer, in the name of kinship, atrocities of character and limitation,
All the while walking towards her friends, outstretched and offering aid.
Small though she is in this world of vastness and the sublime truth waiting,
Humble though she is, in the place of selfishness and lives being taken,
She shows herself selfless, eliminated from vice, and struggling (for right?)
Or righteous deeds, behavior and thought, within her friends, made-
She comes forth in the utmost of kindliness, and shows her bare palms-
Gasping I close her hands around all I can offer, which seems to barely fill
One hand, and the other, she closes on her own, gracious of my gift, though
Meager and wasteful it is, still she smiles and sits and accepts this will.
Culture
الثقافة
أميرتي , ملكتي , ملاكي , حلمي
(my princess, my Queen, my Angel, my Dream)
The master says that in the future such words will be profanity,
Not: أميرة not:ملكة not: ملاك or حلم -
It is, but the possessive, “My,” will soon be the eliminate.
How could I posses, or claim possession of such a jewel.
That I could only but hope for a few moments, would be خطأ
And what not, that I would give all these moments for that instant-
Your lips move, it seems a mile a minute, and I give pause-
Dreams of places I have never been surface and begin to teach me-
Alive, Arisen, begin to be given the path to greater vision, within,
The confines of the world I have known, inwards you walk, with-
All the lifetimes, of which maybe even you are not yet fully aware.
I call you Love! By my very act of being, I wish to know you more intimate,
And here and alone, somehow, the room is filled with tone-
Of mystical pasts, and worlds long since laid to rest by hands,
Who were far to eager to bury their own, even by the words of Christ.
I’ve heard your song, deep from the throat, long vowels, ancient sound,
Which causes a bestirred lifetime to pass, without so much as a word,
I’ve seen your sword, unsheathed from your tongue, aimed at praise,
And trustworthiness, which you have not yet learned, but I will plead…
Lead, and I will follow, teach and I will learn, imbue me, and I will live-
Your life, and mine, dotted with peace, love admiration, and lines,
Of triumphant lives, inundated into a new refinement and beauty,
Hold fast to the knowledge that I will never hurt you, ملاكي
Ask and I will change my life, become what you need, so you become wife,
And all of these yesterdays will fade as we pull further out,
Our pasts become cloudy, doubts become distant dreams, we eliminate “I”
Suddenly turning, a brand new culture is borne, of the wings of this تأريخ (history)
I pray you invite, without which I will note entertain entry towards you,
I pray I am right, without what, I will never see the end of this path,
I pray I comprehend, without comprehension, I am one with the damned,
I pray that I’ll assimilate, or be, to raise my child in both our ways, if you ask-
I will say: I call you Love! But I pray you don’t ask me yet,
I have not yet entirely come to bear on your self, and essence,
And I will not be ready for some time, to give these lines to their subject,
Nor will you be ready for some time to read, without questions.
المرونة
The path to adoration is through these challenges,
And you rest on your staunch support of diamond truths,
Worrying, will they find you humble enough in your youth,
And successful in standing up to tests and tumults
Suddenly the load becomes to great to bear alone,
And struggling you throw again over your back,
Soon you will be tested by greater more difficult foam,
Cast up from the ocean, in utter disgust and deject.
I am the admirer of your concentration, your recitation,
I am the holder of your hand, in times of diminution
But still I stand back in silence at your concentration.
Allowing the moment to take hold of my appreciation-
Dejected, Saddened, Defeated and crushed, you step up.
Alone, Apart, Detached and hushed, you rush forward-
Atoning your past, a prayerfully mindful of movements-
Knowingly thrusting you forward into the pathway of reverence-
I am but a watcher of your way, waiting, wanting to walk-
Along the shores of your see, wondering how deep? How deep?
Kicking pebbles into your waves, waiting for one to return to me,
Awaiting futures which may or may not come to pass the way I see-
But still: You stand, and wait, unshaken from your place,
The earth has long since past away, and still, faithfully you wait,
Challenges, which consternate your familiarity with “pray” and “meditate”
Your breathtaking ability to stay, remaining faithful, is the source that infatuates,
You, of course, smile and say, no my brother, these are just the ways,
And I am a simple piece in the greater puzzle, and the concourse on High-
You as well should stand here to my right, and pray with me, slowly, carefully,
All the while awaiting the blessings of God, whose greatness is without peer.
I am an admirer of your resilient cause, dedicated wise eyes,
Looking down in lowliness, approaching the threshold for forgivness,
You say: no cause could vex, save separation from God’s eyes,
No Cause could pain, save separation from He, look how we bear witness.
الحلم
Approach, from all angles approach,
Come into the kingdom, from the path of sleep,
Then, weak, humble, dream, see,
The serendipity, which wings its flight-
Alone, my love, will I ever have alone-
You nod your head, as eyes hit the floor-
“We’ve been here before” you return your gaze,
to my eyes, which have been locked to you for days.
All is crystalline, easily shattered, easily admired
All is alone, and soft, and held close by the breath
Of children, long from being borne, with us as parents-
This… is my dream, reflected in your face-
That I see you, with my child in your arms-
Frightening for me to right, even in the context,
Of your never reading these words, you are,
My beloved, and I will follow his will towards it.
Approach, please all angels approach and grant me,
A moment to sit, meditating in this dream-
How is it that my heart is growing increasingly clean-
Even as I idealize a woman who doesn’t even know I mean.
Alone, withhold- truth wings forward, extended wings-
Full brilliance of morning, broken by the sun,
And moments of coffee and children, reminding us-
Here we are at home, here we are at home, here we are-
You in a nightshirt, brand new day beginning to take hold-
I already dressed, but somehow far less lucid than you,
Allowing children, children to our laps, at our table in our food-
Truly, truly laughing in love, alive like never before we could.
Cereal is poured, and everywhere, it seems, children, until when,
Just before beginning the world, we lower our eyes in prayer,
And children, silent children, bear down like rocks still, and then
They recite from the verses of God in eloquence, and reverential care.
Did you ever think, somehow we would wind up in this world-
Where perfections are found in every expression of be.
Did you ever allow the potential for such a world with me,
Where family, and brother, I call you wife, you call me المحبوب
I allowed for this action to exist, and so I carefully inscribed this,
That there may be a certain degree of truth within these lines,
That we may become greater than ourselves In time, of course,
And forget our simple lives, enlisting under the banner of service.
This is my dream, for what I say, where I mean,
Not to frighten, but to comfort in my pragmatic approach-
To love, to you, to dream, to see, my angel- ملاكي
Please, wing towards me, that we may begin to dream.
No perfection approaches your beauty, a condition within,
Which no bounds of sanity can slow me, from admiration,
Alive, and quickened, hopeful and sad, alone, and prayerful,
That soon, the other world will collapse, and leave me with you-
Children, and children along our way, and the path towards God,
To be winged together, as helpers, as confidants and consorts,
As a beautiful matched pair, which maybe only I now hope for,
But eventually, if God wills, will pass, as he is the Bountiful, the Provider
III.
الطبقة الثانية
التألق
Illumination, striking
Distances interwoven,
With Sunlight-
Her eyes, dancing,
Perusing pages, past
Lives, past masters,
Past time for us-
Breaking up monotony
Harmoniously, chanting-
Be free- Language will set us free-
Under her breath-
Sweet intoxicating habiliment,
Situations found, between words, and lines-
Suffering mine, to pull forward-
And learn with her.
In the middle of these nights,
Spent, hunched over dissertations,
And indoctrinations, absorbing
Eons of meaning in minutes,
Her eyes aglow, with a thirst-
The want to know-
Her eyes alive, and dancing-
In and out of lines, and charts-
Biological renditions of
Single celled counterparts,
All too happy to consternate,
With their misrepresentations
Of themselves,
(As E. Coli) or some other fallacious
Tag, as she, relentless in here path,
To dub them no longer incognito,
No longer, unknown,
Radicals, without station-
Unknown spectacles, which dance
Through the subconscious,
And inadvertently forces upon us,
The ideals of learning-
To her, innate,
For me, I wait a lifetime to match
Her burning flame-
الحبّ
Oh love, my lover-
I have stepped into your fire,
And in its ashes have found sources
(or source material) for desire,
Comprehending vast genus’s
Families of love, coming through
Ages, developing, evolving-
Genesis of separateness,
Detachment, and commemoration-
(In these pages) Words burn,
Not blazing, but clean, crystalline,
Like the faces of her stone-
Trapped within, like the demons in my home-
Within my innermost chamber-
The most sacred, now prays for legitimacy
Cries for spirituality, weeps for emotionalism,
(not love here, of course the distinction)
Understanding the death I am rent, by her hand,
Just outstretched, offering-
“It is yours. Take if you can”
Suffering, kneeling, forgetting myself,
Her pedestal has been built much too high-
Now for me to release her from this dwelling-
Built up of the bricks of words, mortar of prayer,
Fired by the kiln of none other than my imagination,
Still, I sit and I stare, in meditative forgetfulness,
Forgetting in addition to be less obvious-
Am I gawking am I looking, is she even there-
I am forgetting myself, and with remiss,
She fades from my sights, my love, my princess-
I once asked a friend- what the greatest love poem was-
She responded sleeping beauty, and I asked how!
How could the mere sight of a woman be enough?
Enough to cause true love, but had he known her
Sung praise with her, the mere sight of his beloved,
Broken and froze, rigid and posed,
Would have caused him, immediately to fall upon her,
Reviving her instantaneous, miraculous, with his tears-
This is the day of love, which will not pass into night-
This is the devotion which I will carry throughout my lives,
Holding my spirit up to you in the darkness,
To carry you through, even as a torchlight- brilliant, illumined-
Carrying us forward, and I stepping towards you.
الإيمان
Oh My Lord,
Your artistry is without peer-
To watch her face grow eased-
A thousand sentences, never could pronounce
Perfections which glimmer of their own account,
And take forward destinies, wherein truth grow,
Apparent with the passing hours,
All of which are spent in prayer.
Kneeling, sitting on the floor,
Eyes closed, remembrance instinctively coerced-
Funneled forward into pools of chance,
Where it so happens, He answers All prayers.
Slightly alive, more than past,
She is asking to be steadfast, and for me, patience.
At last, vocal cords vibrate, slowly, quietly,
Allowing the room itself to whole synchronously
And the sweet vibrations of Our Lord, Ohm,
The sweet responses of His Hallowed Personage,
His Manifestation, His Exemplar, and the brethren,
Who collectively howl forth in angst!
No God is there but God!
Leave us not to ourselves!
You are the Protector the Beneficent, The Clement, the Wise
الله أبها all things fall under His realm.
And She! Prayerfully, meditating, lost,
In the oceans of His words, unshaken by the sins,
Of the world, the destruction of these things,
Which in due time (passionately she believes)
Will bring forth a new world, and a new day,
The leaves of which will never turn to Orange,
The sun of which will never wane,
And the brightness of passions
Will never, by human reckoning,
Again come to bear the same-
Burdens heaped upon them by the sayings of the Dead,
The Faithless passengers, marching onward,
From the oceans,
Straight into the Draught
العائلة
Again we stand at this threshold,
Weeping wholly for His sake,
Unable to break, concentration in His name-
She speaks for her mother, soft, honest,
Crying for her peace, Steadfastness and happiness.
She speaks for her Father, tearfully, proud,
Praying for his Detachment, health and Service.
She speaks for her sister, whispering, grinning,
Lost in the moments of requesting Spiritual Sanctity,
She lastly speaks for herself, and bowing lowly,
Approaching the divine, begs for her humility,
Her love, Detachment, annihilation of pride
I watch her from standing, sometime converse,
Sharing stories of love and of challenges, between us,
Families grow, and in her eyes, I see my Father,
And instinctively know, here is where I will build my fortress-
This is where I will make my home,
For no other palace, could possibly place,
This much emphasis, empathetic love in the halls,
Of her heart, chambers decorated with admiration and respect,
Which spills over into gilded entryways,
Growing too crowded to stand,
Positioned too comfortable to leave,
Designed too beautiful to see,
Undressed, bear, beautiful, clear,
Pure and Chaste love, promulgated through these walls,
Placed upon silk pillows, to be raised and adored,
Understood, as strict impulse, profondément dans l'amour
Her familial urgency, offset by the hint in her eye,
All will be well if we remain,
And ask for nothing but health and our prayers contain-
The references to a life, we’ve barely begun to live,
But seen played out already millions of times,
In our parents eyes.
Their love, like our love,
The Master alone offers:
“Be as I Am, Be Like Me”
التعاطف
Several more moments she stood there,
Unusual grin on her face,
Before moving on, excepting this time,
As less than adequate for explaining herself
Still, even as she pulled away in my car,
Her eyes were transfixed, and her spirit crushed,
How could such injustice exist? How could we let it?
Frustrated and broken, but turning her face to His love,
Sufficiently comforted by He who is the Comforter,
Finally she pulled herself around to focus her efforts
On my driving, or lack of it at any rate in her estimates,
But lovingly, still lovingly, she smiled, and let me drive.
When 9-11 happened, I barely knew her-
I called,
I called to see if she was alright, having little thought
Of her true spirit and empathetic light,
Her concern was only for her roommate, slightly frightened,
That some horrible demonic human urge might find her,
Just dark enough to burn-
But here she, totally unaware of her own safety,
Unconcerned for anything except her love of man
And directed by the Light of God’s Knowledge
To know no Fear but Him who is the Remover of Difficulties
Stunning realizations, seemed crippling at the time,
I was weak, and misaligned, requiring care,
And in her voice, was the song of an angel-
Delivering me from myself, pointing me towards Him,
His قبلاه, unassuming, requesting nothing but my own direction-
Her sensual glances are borne from her desire to aid,
And her selfless adoration of her fellow inhabitants amazes me-
If I could spend a million years by her side, following her aims,
I still could never be as strong as I’d wished, free of all pains,
Free in the desert of His will, following her lead,
Waiting, learning, wanting more, knowing the path is long,
The road is dark, (and this is for sure) the end is near.
Here we roll up these carpets, exposing the floor,
Questioning only the carpenter, who arrives to do his part,
And then laying a fresh raiment, fresh reams of silk-
Awaiting the approach of His Kingdom, into our own halls,
Preparing the path for adoration on the earth, and the sudden birth
Of the مملكة أبها, here on this earth
For this, every day she reaches, each day she needs,
To strive in the path of adoration, astounding my soul,
With her selfless and innate search for the worlds of empathy
معلّمي
Yes, my teacher my love, focus of my earthly life,
Legitimate expression of all my obviousness,
And most of my more well hidden claims,
To beauty, to truth, to a lifetime I raise my glass,
In hope of finding you buried somewhere beneath this lamp-
In these instants which pass quicker than the twinkling of an eye-
These lifetimes, which seemed immense, are beaten back down to size,
You have given me life, shaped my heart to your own form,
And through the quickening fires of your light, taught me how to learn,
Allowed me to know, how to be born, and how to serve,
How to see through the idolaters gaze to the brethren within,
How to drink, no, how to swim in His ocean, and deepen,
On subjects formerly known far too vast to comprehend,
Far too difficult to know, but you open your books, and spread-
Documents all around my room, pointing me here and there,
And, معلّمي, it seems almost as if you as well are learning,
And I hoping to teach, jump at the passing opportunity,
And share with you stories about peacocks, and their feet
You are smiling at me, no doubt, maybe even laughing,
And would you now feel as though I could offer you something-
You are my teacher, معلّمي, strong, vast, (not to mention رائع)
And my Annsa, the fairest معلّم, I say only one word: Teach.
You shy away and say humbly, you have nothing to learn from me,
But my protestations are loud, magnanimous and unquenchable,
Incessant until, you answer my call, and say: Yes, I will.
Then, I sit back quietly, with a permanent sense of joy,
Unable to be shaken by the most difficult calls of challenge,
Unmistakable in my make up, unflinching in my alloy
Frightening maybe even in the purity of my motivations,
My intentions, all but obvious from the outset, to know, to learn
To live to burn, to provide you warmth, are you warm?
To serve you tea, do you thirst?
To bring you meat, berries, fruits, peace,
What in this world can I bring you, provide you to show,
My unconditional state of admiration, adoration, agitation,
For you, my mate, معلّمي, my peace, move me forward,
As you teach, as you repeat, as you chant, as we retreat,
Into the gardens of الله أبها, I sit, transfixed on the placements
Of your stars, of “Yes, you are” معلّمي, you are saving me,
In both senses of the words… Patience, you lip, Patience,
And Patience you teach.
العملية
Not a single shower could shake her perfections,
Not a single storm could disturb her form-
And formal stanzas could not pray to contain,
Explanations of her station in my realm,
Though she knowingly would shy away,
The facts remain clear and solidified by her-
Dauntless, always saying: I have not yet,
Prayed enough, lived enough, been enough-
Her unfailing, wassailing lifetime of service,
Shaped by the patterns of waves swallowed behind,
Her form as she steps forward into the ocean of the blind,
Diligently pulling forward into the hope of the damned,
They cry for relief, and in her eyes, a lifetime to teach,
The love of God, carried on her wings-
Even in these verses, these facets, simplicity, orbits,
The Love of God shines through increasingly illuminating,
Trifles, which have not yet succeeded in slowing her approach,
Lifetimes, which have not yet offered her reproach,
Moments which, while painfully challenging her steadfastness,
Have not yet one their match, nor are they destined to soon win a round
Hours pass, and still she sits in silence, taking cues from the Master,
Knowing full well, that in this moment, silence is the only word,
Which will in time pierce the veil of this ailed one,
Awaiting emergent infusions of God’s love- Teach with me-
I plead as I see in her eyes that I would be less teacher, fine,
Then you lead, and I will come soon behind and bring
With me, the wisdom which exists between these lines,
Should you find use for such things in your teaching
I will be standing patiently, approaching your pragmaticsm
With my own brand of cynical evaluation, analyzing each moment
Of this situation, in the way to best comprehend the day,
When these words will inhabit you, and I will have learned how-
To love, to teach, to positively push forward in His ocean,
Detached from all else save He, who is the Remover of Difficulties,
The Beloved, the Wise
You and I, will walk together pragmatically, in this time,
Smiling, as the heaven of our days wanes, and we enter forward,
Head down eyes closed, lifeline clipped, releasing us to Him,
And our eyes within one another,
Pragmatic, Satisfied, calm, twin helpers in the worlds to come.
الحلم
Soft patterns take the places of waves,
Freeing us from our own worse inclinations,
You wear the most beautiful red dress
And I am unaware even of my own self, let alone my garment,
Which seems to flow and become one with the waves,
Now fully exaggerated into geometrical lives,
All crying out in unison, Maya! She is, Maya,
I feign back, afraid of the implications, but you start towards me,
How could I deny this, my dream, my love, my life
You recommend praying, and this we both do in one another’s arms
And you say to me: give me your hand, and we will remain awhile,
On this beach, in this paradise, this lifetime which passes-
I do not want to leave, I desire to not awake,
But the dream is only the development, the discovery,
A whole life awaits us out of this veiled and mystic realm,
And into the reality of our love we spring, matured and joined,
Children, soon, old age, impossible, though our bodies fail,
We propel forward, and I feel more frail, but you hold my hand,
Feed me jewels of words, jewels of reverence, and I am a man,
Fully realized even as I sleep my life away,
Aware of the dreamer, of whom, I cannot ever conceive,
You are guide, spirit, truth, lover, passionate, young-
You push onward through my love, my dream, my holes long dug
Too deep to adequately fill, but we share this issue,
And both quench our thirst with the love of the learned,
The learning of God, the sciences and arts, and each others love,
This alone brings us forward,
Towards magnificent shores awaiting our arrival,
Exquisite tours of lands far more ancient than either of our lines,
Far more broken hearted than yours or mine,
And every bit as meditative as we could strive-
You my dream, my angel my love,
Growing more exquisite each moment, even as you gray,
My Bounty, My Fire, come into my life, so that I may
Solidify this dream as a foundation, as a path, a way,
A lifetime to pass in growth not pain, love not gain-
I pray, detach myself, but to your eyes I am again fixed,
And I dream my hour’s away wondering if this,
Is what is meant by true love,
But still it is not equal, because when I finally awake,
I will still be completely unaware of whether you have ever
Felt any of this.
IV.
The Third Layer
الطبقة
الثالثة
المعرفة الفطرية
It comes most readily, when not considering,
Flowing must formidably, in and out of time,
Never changing, but pulsing sweet melodies,
Asking of us, what it can be sure we’ll return.
Knowing not tempest and incongruencies
Empty affirmations displaying deviations
On forms, on thoughts, on cosmic occlusion
Then you! Sipping vast quantities of intellect
From a chaste vassal of learned qualities,
But for you, striving never seems far removed
From being, and wanting from seeing
Sometime Allocations of second natures,
Seem sorrowful in their representation
Of forms, which, by your own accounting-
Fail to stand up against the validity of the wish,
The truth of the wisher, the justice of the wise,
And their wisdom, propagated naturally beside you
That you need not to think to be, already, striking
الولاء
Walk into my life, this instantaneous emanation
Of paradise, or, at least my own previous conception,
Allowing this humble adherent to taste, fleetingly,
The manna enjoyed by the finest of the kings
Step off my path, and in to the ocean of the Orient,
Never taking a single step past demarcations you determined,
In the course of loving, partnering devotions, so to be,
Brought more fully towards bearing a life, a child, a home-
Somehow in the nights that slow for no individuals,
Your burning acquisition, tempered by my own systems,
Placed too long ago to replace with better designs-
Your stoic, standing, hopeful handing me truth, lowly,
Palms open to sky- bear and burning in the sun,
With the love of truth, gateways are flung open,
Onto a chasm, wherein, (with caveat already placed)
Love blossoms, and bears her delicate fruit,
Of which we feast, and in which I see, (knowingly)
The truth of your tenacity and veracity, (awakening)
Devotion, to God, to me, to the idea of what this means
التأمل
Bleeding! Stop, waiting, comprehension waivers
I lay forward, leaning into destiny, saving-
Undoubtedly moved by these moments which follow-
Paths of unconditional love, unsuspended waiting-
This Lathe sinks into the subconscious, pulling from it-
Milky thoughts of chaste precedency, (or, it might seem)
Predestined climates, sinking into the pillows beneath-
Knees, grown all but forgetful of themselves, and all else,
Save the adoration of the Blessed Beauty- and His precepts
These moments, you lip the word teach, (and I am reaching)
Something within begins to cry to you, teach me-
Not yet, as we are meditating, and in this instant which has no
End or beginning or strike of chords ancient and vibrating,
Your temperament has all but waned, and only this moment,
Holding no obligations to any save Him, still at last remains,
Then even this moment fades, and our connection escapes,
Allowing only primordial sounds still floating to vibrate,
Sing! We chant in unison prayers, never before revealed,
Unfettered, smitten and on its haunches, awaiting our command.
الأمومة / العائلة
In her eyes, perfections grow obvious, with diffraction,
Salutary prayers offered for mothers, as surely she is,
The most fine, the most alive, beating in her breast-
A love more unconditional, then previously assumed possible
Certain angles of light, still reflect this possible outcome,
And I, incubated within such patterns, begin to ask her-
But hold off still, on the one word: Patience
And it is with this word, that she voices all that she asks
Within the confines of charity, loving remembrance,
She is endowing me, the bountiful future of Fatherhood,
And in her embrace, a face is come to light, alive, anew,
And her with me, me dreaming of you, you will be blessed-
I could offer no other gift to my child, but to secure for her,
The most great potential, the deepest world, kindest mother,
Madre! How can I, yet still a babe myself, not help to dream-
A day, which soon may come, or perhaps will dissipate,
As I awakening step up, out of my slumber, feeling her breath
On the back of my neck, and my child in her arms,
My heart in her hands, and her life, intertwined in my heart
عطف
/ صدقة
Formed from words of loving kindness, encouragement,
Life willed, pulled forward, towards finer pleasantries
Kinder words await, and the tips of tongues, no longer stinging,
Biting turned to kisses, fears to wishes, you to me, and to charity,
We rise to serve, or I at least watch, jaw dropped at yours,
Service, majestic, bold, innate, no person told you how to love
Lighting torches in the name of the blind, striving for improvements,
The conditions never seemed so distant from the light,
Your charitable movements never uttered so righteous from the heart,
Tearing at injustice, and impurity of thoughts, and secrets,
And secret thoughts pure, by the very natures of prayer and service
Somewhere inside your spirit, kindliness is your rock,
I am in shock, that such plentiful beauties flow so effortlessly,
And you, and you! My annsa, my Love! Are their epitome-
I carry this torch for you, here I sing your song, (am I wrong)
Then to assume that you carry the same for me, in your charity,
In your heart, not quite pity (but I’ll accept it as a good start)
Allowance of deeds is an endless fountain of success and sleepless,
Nights whose sole purpose is to educate us, in the ways of the right
The Developer, The Cultivator
المطوّر, المزارع
You push forth, and I stand stubbornly on,
Plated forests, where once grew generously,
Trees and salutations, and honey, and honesty
You instruct, and beg, and teach and tag nobility
As the incarnation dating from your family, causing
Difference to become bronzed in the ecstatic glow of onlookers,
Well-wishers and trumpeters heralding the birth of child-
Only to learn, only to seek, only to be counted amongst the meek-
But you teach! Stand here, speak as I speak, reach for what I reach-
Learn, even as I do, so that I may grant for you, lifetimes of questing,
Moments of sequestering truth from the eyes darting of youthful adherents,
Seeing in our own gaze, that of our parents, allow me this moment,
Passing all too quickly, without immediate recognition of you,
Developer, building up on my soul a home for the both of us,
Edging ever slowly toward me, with the word on your lips,
Teach! Cultivate my self, so I may be again allowed entry to your night-
A night, which shall not pass into day light, and infinitely romantic,
But I hardly know what romance is, so teach Developer, Cultivate,
My lips for you shaped and prepared for acceptance by your kiss.
العزيمة
Kindliness waits for no individual to take her hand,
Time seldom slows, but inconsistently turns,
Blandly, life passes in bitterness, and catastrophic agony,
For they who were born without ears to hear, or eyes to see-
The gifts, the bounty, the kingdom of the Blessed Beauty,
Can only be reached through diligence, resolve and study,
And you in all your miraculous predilection-
Lunging forward in your chair, unshaken by the thunder and the rain-
Forward thinking minds, mostly men, mostly long since passed,
Have inked upon such ideals as are manifest in you by thought,
Glossed over by philosophers, kings, physicians and fools,
There you stand, unshaken, the mostly taken, by the ways of inherence
From here, you infer, we should continue to march, (I panting as I was)
And all of your yesterdays collide to make up the lines behind us
I fall into position, and romantically ache for your hand, character,
Love, admiration flow as you show your willingness to comprehend,
Your ability to bend, and ebb and flow with the wind, never breaking,
Snapping, or losing your stance, and with resignation open forth,
Your hand, for me, for us, for a lifetime of service, resolve and of love
الحلم
Passionately wasting all my hours, all my days,
Weeping for losses I could never recognize,
Steeping in the fire of incomprehensible stares
Lying awaiting your last judgment, pronounce yes-
Your precious hand, so far the last coveted object-
Your stance, showing off beauty, beautiful reds-
Violet petals, which fall like droplets into your ocean
Sunrises, which seem to never fall against our orientation,
Wishes, which were never whispered without intent-
Come to me, here, see me for myself, call me mate
Standing against your wall, built high and impenetrable,
Unable to understand, how you have left seldom a door,
Passageway to your innermost chamber, your soul, your war,
Waging internally for the right to call your spirit home
Unfettered from the brackets which till now had held you here,
Still closely feathered, your finest features with silken brushes,
Passingly we nod goodnight as we slip into each others arms
All of you alarmingly alight aflame with goodnights, and tired,
Weary, and alive, we fall apart into unifying glances and embrace.
النقطة
Passion,
العاطفة،
Source of Light and Color
مصدر
الضوء واللون
Dancing along unerring lines, displaying beauty, which only I can see, pertaining to secrets, no one yet has known, and certainly those who do, aren’t speaking or admitting anything soon. Lying across rose gardens, dreaming of you, and I your knight? Your beau, pushing on through, allusions, of trust or mistrust, am I more brother to you, or can you forget yourself in my eyes, and see me for myself. Well wishers have gathered to this point where they can no longer make distinctions between lines and lanes, and birds and fish which all spring forth from the waves in simultaneous ecstatic reprieve, These are the days we shall never leave, should we live a thousand more evenings, all at once chanting, singing, Allah’u’abha! God is magnificent, and manifest in this union, in these, eyes, hands, smiles, kisses and embraces, which as we age, seem to have faded, but still years from now, it is you and I, and you, my source of light, color, passion, I take action and cause myself, setting for your stone, to become more home to you, than brother could ask, and you, familial familiar, beautiful as we quiver, together, discovering the full reaches of one another’s secrets- Please, walk forth in these places, stepping on beds of flowers planted eons past, placed so that we might partake of the scent of the immortals in the sense that they asked. Here! Stand before me, before we both are seated for the sayings of our elders, the blessing of our kin, herein the golden chariot I have raised, built up from within this page, we begin to ride into the sunset reserved for true lovers, and only set upon once in a lifetime. You I call Maya! Source of all passion, hidden from all but my eyes, my alloy shielding your light from those who might, seek to disenfranchise this perfection of form and spirit. Pray me, that I find, somewhere inside my subconscious mind, the place of patience and rest, time and times past, again and again, the best, representations of your form, of your spirit in mine, I cannot stop seeing your face, each time I close my eyes- Here you are, source of my breath, hope of my life, keeper of my tests, here you are, offering me nothing but these- pages upon pages of inspiration. Please take for me, your source of Light and Color, placed wholly within my setting, so that I may together make something more worthy to be worn by the dreamer, even as he makes his exit. I can ask no more of you, than spend your life with me, that we may grow, praying, meditating, learning infinitely. These being the closing thoughts of my offer, my plea, my cry, my agitation and adoration of you, in these words, I figuratively and finally understand the completion of my work. It is through the instruction of the verses alone that one can come to comprehend, and as I instruct I learn, you are my great teacher, my diligent beautiful bride, would that you only saw me as your own love, and we could begin to get on with the rest of our lives.
May I someday be close enough to you, that you will have actually read
these words, and look up, smile, and kissing me, understanding my intent my
love, my desire to bring happiness, trust and commitment into your life. I will
always be for you, even if you never become my wife.
12/12/01-
Prayer
How far have I come, what have I done? What are the
sacrifices I’ve made, and why.
Have I given up my comforts for the right reasons?
Patience and perseverance, being
Twin receptacles of my sometime concurrent grief. I
defer, I detest the assumption of things which as of yet have been given no
reason or need to be believed. Still we go on our predilection, our
predetermination of those who are to be trusted, and they that are to be cast
to the stones.
I cry out, Almighty! I weep at the loss of life, the
loss of spirit, and the loss of a will to understand the finer points of this
plan. I grieve, Giver of All Help, Pardoner, Compassionate, Remover of
Difficulties, Quickener of Souls- Show me the straight path to follow, and
guide me in the ways of all Truth. May I be steadfast in your Cause, and
Detached from all else save Thee. May I see the forest for its Light, and the
reflection of the Blessed Beauty in all aspects of my life.
I do only wish scimitars of glory to rain down upon
all of mankind; I do feel confusion, and a great deal of apprehensiveness in
approaching this evening’s affairs.
I find, as this processor moves me back over this
text, correcting my grammar that I have spoken out of turn too often. I want to
not defame one of my well loved ones, I want peace to be the evident force, and
for your spirit to be the pervading presence, even as we tonight shall consult
for the redirection of our friendship, and lay forward on the table our truest
intentions.
I am apprehensive, even as this beloved friend of
mine raises the cry of your Cause from his lungs, for the first time in my
life, For the first time with any of the friends, I am questioning his intent.
How can I be so utterly destroyed, the wants of Self, so utterly effacing, that
I cannot so easily see past this. Make for me then, a stronger spirit, that my
love will not waiver, and judgement shall never pass from my lips.
I wish only to be a true soul, an example of your
infinite kindness and a trumpet for this Unchanging Faith.
Grant me then tonight: Detachment &
Steadfastness, that the truth of the time will manifest itself, and I will no
longer carry a heavy heart within the community of my most well loved friends.
Powerful art Thou to do as You Please. Truly You are the Bestower, The Forgiver, The Gracious, The Almighty.
Let us set our feet straight,
Guided Eastward, let us be unshakable.
I want to take you with me,
If you would join we’d be amazing.
Tonight my eloquence is failing,
And as plainly as possible I say:
Take my hand, Take my hand-
There is nothing on this earth more sincere
For you than I-
And no cross I would rather bear,
Than yours, in the oceans which shake us-
Stubbornly, you awake to find here
A life you barely planned, imagined,
Unfurling parade of endings, beginnings,
And floats that fly by with bands who play-
Sacred music, only barely remembered,
Tunes which (I think) we both hummed as children,
Children!
Who run through the streets and into our minds,
Mine, which has been covered in the cement
Of regrets, of my life, of your hope and my fire-
Elsewhere in paradise, you grapple with the choice,
Of me or of life silent and pristine,
Neither of these I can offer, nor would I try-
As my gifts are of the cataclysmic kind
-Surprised? The way you look up from your pages,
Earmarked and highlights, showing the spaces you walked
With your eyes, now, ready to highlight my thoughts, expressions
Dividends of dramatic circumstances, upended by allowance,
Forgotten by situations which dwarfed our dramatic moments-
When you speak of loving I only say “I”
And then slowly you lower me to the flames, lower me to you-
Say jigar to bickaram, although I cannot comprehend the context,
The important part is that you love me, and that I would understand,
In any tongue, and across any expressions or transgressions, as they were,
So step forward with me into the vastness of unknown variables, where your science,
My jazz, (in the general sense,) and both of our voracity to learn, tendency to burn,
Will become apparent and transfixed, first on one another, then slowly removing us,
And raising our gaze upwards, hands held, singing praise, knowing that this will pass
Away, and call us to be steadfast and to pray, and you might say, we are only just born,
And then we will be on the same page, and drink from the same cup, and sing-
The very same song
The Last Testament
of Two Gold Plated Clay Humming Birds
On Their Being Committed to a Fire- 12/12/01
Tiny specs of flaky gold paint,
Peel back slowly to show exposed clay,
Time was, on a mantle we sat, awaiting adoration,
Even as an onlooker perceived, we remained,
Coveted, intact, decadent and ornate-
These are the facts as we remember them,
Now-
Having come to the end of this path,
Having fully fulfilled our obligation
Incarnate as life, shaped by our masters hands,
We leave behind the following:
To the earth: our clay, it is from which we came, and
Having used it carefully and lovingly, return it, duly noting
The spirit in which it was loaned
To the lovers: our gold, that it may be fashioned someday
Into a simple metal band to display the undying love which is shared,
Without corners, a perfect circle having neither beginning nor end
Inscription of His name at its head
To the artist: our paint, that it may make renditions of sand and seascapes,
Showing a world that seems endless, and shores which have been looked on
Since before the birth of man
To heedless: our faith, had we not remained still on the mantle above that fireplace,
Had we not carefully stayed, never doubting the promise of ‘someday’ we would be-
Released from our static forms and again be made-
To the fire: our shape, for which we no longer have a purpose, may you use it well, and expel its energy to strengthen your own resolve and ability to free this entire house from its stationary state of waiting and praying, and say:
“I have made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve? I made the light to shed on thee its splendor. Why dost thou veil thyself therefrom?”
Truly, God is most great, and the essences of even these small clay sculptures testify to His might, and in our capacity, have cried for reunion with Him.
12/13/01
Two kindred sinking, winging-
Seeking in darkness, answers, understanding,
Coming to better knowing, accepting,
Stepping forward into the light, revealing-
Darkened corners that neither has admitted,
Painted walls, neither remembered painting,
Battle scars, neither remembered receiving,
Refuse long since discarded as useless
Magnetic forces, like lightening, deciding,
When the two should open up their souls,
Dialing and redialing, trying to reach out-
Towards destinations until now clouded and silent
Had this been left to their devices, silence
Had it been motivated by comfort, lies,
Had this not occurred at all, denying ones self,
The bounty of detaching, and opening our eyes
:It must be said that upon the start of such an evening, I stood concerned, palms sweaty, choked up at his voice, apprehensive about the choices, or possibilities of just what might come to pass. These things will all be fulfilled, as I heard from his lips, faithful rendition of the speech I’d penned for the occasion, and the lifting of the weight, brought room for revelation about the good things that might come of this. Time and time again, we looked up and laughed, and beginning to ask, how much did she say, how did we walk in these ways, and taking wholly different paths, still arrive at almost exactly the same place. How then could I have begun the night, so full of indignation, so sure of my friends character, and the conflicts that would have had to arise. Here are the things which happen because of a woman, here are the moments that pass because we are men, and the destiny on us to be mature and spiritual in the face of brazen immaturity and worldliness. Yes my friend, we can be helpers to each other, comrades to the cause, growing and bettering myself, as only when we lower the veil of ourselves and expose our true selves in the place we would least want it out, can we begin to improve the whole individual and not just the act.
Pennies fall and in their melodies give new light to the dawn of our times.
Dreams beckon us, come close, and close your eyes to me.
I have filled this coffer with moments from your life, and you sink abashed
And embarrassed, face flush, from the water under our bridges…
You wonder if you could ever trust, I tell I would do anything to win it.
I am growing up, see me, I am maturing right before your eyes…
Ah, my love, you do not even know who I am, how then could you compare to where I’ve been, I will come again, maybe in your head, and we will sing, and sing for hours, His song, which he wrote for you alone so many years ago, but where has he gone, and why are these tears now so much drier, and dusty in the years that surpass the times we forgot to ask, and alone and collapsed, humble at the threshold, severed by the flocks of the fold, indeterminate by our own old myths, damaged, and witless, hungered and witnessed, here we are, here is my love, look at her in rags! Look at the way she wears her hair, where has she been, what, has she been, how has she been. Chetowri, I ask, trying to be casual with my ignorance, and she doesn’t even look at me- damning, and damn near to me, come my teacher, once you took me in from the cold, fed me hot soup, made love to me, and said in the name of God, all should always be this way, the honor the chivalry, how has that changed? When did you lay down your sword-
By God, there it is, on horseback. Where is this mystic revelation which will never embrace me, never reach through my thick skull and worldly veil, come, please, strike me down that I may be nothing, and may find in my death life in you, and everything else may pass away into the infinite cycles of, Please God I am trying to follow the straight path, but- but I collapse.
-
Fain from the sight of your face,
Turn from the thought of your name,
In my hands, holding, closely imitative
Of dreams too often I’ve dreamt, stopping-
Short of a full narrative, only opened to let,
Legends be born, blood to fall,
Which has long since dried on my rug,
Now destined to remind us of where we loved.
Slightly up on one knee, bent in consideration
For your height, which never has been much concern
When do we return, I’ve booked my flight and wait-
Your lips signaling me that it is okay to go on.
Approximating forms which we cannot know for sure,
Allowing differences not to cut through but bring us forth
Into the blinding light of affirmations and life,
Which until now has remained the sovereignty of youth
Pages are passing, and what feels like weeks ago felt as though it should have been years, where we come, when we thought that by page 30 we would be again fluent in this language, now we struggle with destinations unconfirmed, places, which we yearn to arrive at, but have neither the time, nor the dialect to understand what to say once we show up, dressed to the nines and ready to find the true essence of spiritual ecstasy.
Still, be still while we wait judgment for our transgressions, and the Master says, yes, but what are you going to do today. Doesn’t that just make you want to walk away, broken, abased, losing face in front of the Most Great, and realizing that your fate is to never fully comprehend your own spiritual potential, much less that of He who is your Maker, or she who is your Mate.
Where would we be if I no longer brought attention to myself, if I no longer sang praises of you, adored, beautiful, if I no longer walked your mile, on my trails, carrying your torch, singing all along the way, if I no longer remained true and unbroken in my steadfast faithfulness to you even though I am quite sure that you are the truth. Years from now, when I have long since passed, and friends read these cryptic lines of haphazadry, I think that the question they might ask is who is my beloved, is it God, or a woman, is it a passion or a reverence, and I will respond here, and in the following lines, is there a difference.
I.
Where have these summers gone?
Where once we walked,
My arms crossed, hearing your songs,
And you spoke, but we both learned.
Deraktha sabz bud o
Az shenidaneh sedat kheili khoshal shodam
Where are these arms, these lives,
Where are the knives you promised in your absence
How long before I truly may lay down my life,
And show you unequivocally my devotion, my love
Stop,
Where have those summers fled-
Where our hopes, crossed streams in antiquity,
And postured for greater rewards in paradise,
Where is the hope, the promise, the reunion,
Where are your eyes, staring back into mine,
Sharing very little, but sharing with such ease-
The whole of this universe, wrapped up within,
These fleeting seconds when discovery is trapped,
And the feast of the angels, begins to descend-
Where my lover, my mate my desire,
Have you left for with these summers
Prior to you coming, I had satisfied myself,
With the juice of pomegranates and gin-
Now your lifting to my lips, succulence
And I am helpless to again eat anything but,
And you have fled, and the summer’s dried up,
And pomegranates, nor your savors, grow,
But the winter, with its small berries, tomatoes,
Hardly serves its purpose, and longing replaces
The tastes, which elated, ecstatic, savory, alive,
You who had trained me to love
Now these trees have grown bare,
And my happiness no longer approaches the sounds
Of your voice echoing throughout-
My ears wither at the absence of your song.
II.
In the moments in our life, when we walked as one,
And you picked me up by my scruff, carried me forth,
And I dreamed of loving you, making you love me-
I dreamed of being the one that could fully satisfy,
I dreamed of being better than I was, and living for you,
And my love, my beloved, I see you now scattered and gone!
Break up my song, by donning the discourses of destiny,
And allow my father’s horn to be my institute of damning-
I could not look up, were your face not there,
I could not speak, were your ears not in front of me,
I could not listen did you not speak-
And sing of days which would come, when I would feel like this.
I did not surrender my anarchist,
I laid down my therapist, in favor of your lips,
And I, locked in kiss, frozen in this, moment, allowed,
To whisper only not to shout, to hurt, but not cry out-
My love, my sweet, I am your only, take me forward-
Ah, my beloved, that you still are standing,
Reading my words, and I have not seduced you-
But yet your eyes are a permanent trap for me-
How then can I rebalance this resemblance
And quicker approach your threshold with my gifts
III.
I am walking,
You bleed,
I am weeping,
You are of those who see,
Your power, ancient, mighty
Definitions, which seem inadequate
I am trying
You believe,
I am waking-
You open up to me, playfully,
Toying with you as the almighty
And I as one who walked only alone-
I am kneeling
You say rise,
I am collapsed,
You say rise! And come to my arms,
No one here will kneel today, with my love,
You alone, hold the power to truly love me.
You are seeing,
As I arrive,
In your arms, broken
You say, Try! And I fall into your arms,
But still I kneel, as you ask me to stand,
Still I reel in the knowledge I am gone-
IV.
Total effacement of self, I die in your arms, reunited, unleashed, unable to mark time in your place, alone and defaced, I am dying to be in your arms, My beloved, My Perfection, the aim of every breath which leaves my lips, praising your beauty with every step, crying for reunion, with every test, allowed only to see your face in the eyes of everyone else, unable to comprehend the separation which brings me here, you there, and I never to reach that place, but eternally to pull closer and closer, forgiving, crying, Oh beloved of my affection, hear me call, from here, this place, darkened halls, beginning to fall, not noticing below me that there is no ground, no place, no start or end of things which could possibly replace this beautiful pain that I feel in the anguish of separation and the hope of return. My beloved My love! Hear my prayer, answer my prayer, let me gain admittance into your perfect arms which are beyond my praise, your perfect self, which as always remains, just beyond the threshold of the attained.
Diversion-
Step one; we walk torpid to the commandments sent down for us, heedless of the rising tide, unaware of the other side of these sandy dunes, which between me and you only appear beautiful, though their potential mischievous nature never began to show.
And would you alone, on this beach in this thought, begin to open up to me, the things you were taught about how to carry yourself, and not show the others as well, the way they run, the way you smell, you have to admit, I’m doing well for a one time seducer, who would like nothing more than to take you in my arms, and brushing your hair back from your face, tell you everything will be okay, so long as you remain, and kissing you then, fully, indulging in the moments we waste, show you a world which until now I have defaced, and you have maintained, and I would like more and more to save for you.
But you sustain me with a smile, and say that it will have to be enough for at least the time being, and like dirty little secrets, crabs waiting in the sand, turtle shells waiting to be hatched, you say: we cannot be seen out yet, as thoughts would immediately be aligned to marriage. Your thoughts would be forced into preordained suspicions of how I would look with your child in my arms.
Instead, we walk here, along the point where the ocean meets the land, and see the analogies that grab at oceans, wind and salt and sand, all of which wait for us to understand their presumptions about one another, and us, stepping over each of them, hand in hand, wishing for the dance, that is being performed in honor of us, on some distant tropical island, where we are missed, and where we belong, holding closer, patience fleeting, undermining the things we’ve fought for, or rather trading, those dreams for a fresher kind, which has me already on my knees, swearing to be right, to be in line, to be patient, to be… Tired of being patient, afraid of losing my chance, wishing to shout from the top of my lungs, only you can change this path, only you can give me room to dance, a chance to be freedom, love, but I spin around, and only ocean greets me, obnoxious snarling surf, which cackles at my every plea, and sand which patiently waits plotting my defeat, and sand and wind, with designs on threatening me, and so far, they have sent chills through my veins, cuts on my face, defeat in my heart and grief between my toes, deep within my ragged shoes, long since ceasing to do their duty. And my ragged heart, long since given up on opening my mouth to promote your virtue, praying that I will get my chance while we are both still young enough to enjoy our youth.
12/18/01
And this is how I cope, my only recourse in this disastrous bowl of my life, unattended to by the eternal fires, I am alone, feeling more so, by the quick way you dropped me from last nights whim. I hadn’t realized I’d be let fall so quickly, and imagined I’d have a chance to explain, the site I was on, the dates I had seen, while I was writing to you, but I was kicked, and again taught how to be, how to act, how to become a better man. So now I think I have it, though I will not say at this instant, for I would hate for it to fall by the wayside, I believe law is the path I have long hidden from, but it might be the most reasonable course for me, in order to legitimize me, and give me the credentialing to do what I would like. I don’t know how to give you this compliment, and writing it now, and telling you soon, will be two different things. First of all, don’t run from me. What you do for education is fine. Don’t run from me. Before I met you, I was content, I was complacent. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with where I am, but, when I collapsed over the thought of you, the possibilities of that life, in every way my body cried, unworthiness. I saw myself and my life, as a mockery of what you’re worth, and it pulled me to try to make myself better.
12/21/01
If I could give you one compliment, I would make it this, if you could understand it’s intent, and what I mean, the way I say what I feel, and the hope for what I wish to come of it, you would see that you make me want to be a better man, that you make me want to improve each weakness, exposed and naked, unable to escape, as I try too futilely to squash these moments with my own hand, grasping at snakes, swimming in sand, content, uninterrupted in their path, uncomprehending of their lack of a future and happy to just run havoc through these moments, which so quickly pass.
If I could say one thing to you, it would be this, if you could know me and where I’ve been, still see me, and considering, all that I’ve been through the man I’ve been, the ways I’ve lived, and let me in, your life, illumined with mine, my love, I would say that if that possibility even exists it would be enough. It would be enough for me to swear myself to you, and to that potential however unrealized it is, until it has had it’s chance to run a full course, (of course falling in love) the operational goal, the experts who mock, and dance around the issues of: “You’re not good enough for her” and “No amount of preparation or change can change where you have come from”, but I retort that this life is not about wasting time in the past, and every moments that passes offers in it the total potential for an entirely new life.
Now you ask: Can you really make yourself for me?
I wonder if I ever have not been. Has there ever been a moment in this life, not heading for a fulfillment with you, a balance of our two souls, challenges separate but equal. Mine to find this light and to accept it and change, could yours then be to accept me? Where I have been, few would term anything but seedy, seething with ‘wrong’ I’ll accept that I was, but now I approach you with my hand open, ready to warn my children about the balance that must be walked, a balance I can only enforce in moral confidence with you on the other palm, hands equally open, preparing to speak, knowing that we already have spoken, simply by being you and me.
This is where I wish more than anything to be, and if I could say to you one thing, one single compliment, one particle of speech which would be most honest, it is that, if that possibility remains, I will hold to it, gritting through the patience which you demand, the care that you should have, and the hope which you lend to me, to hold me over until you step into my arms, and, officially, into my heart.
12/21/01
It occurs to me,
This has become increasing simple,
You as a subject have,
With due testing and subjectivity
Grown most prolific for me,
A most abundant muse,
A most beautiful song
The words of which I forget,
But which causes me to spend
Pages and stanzas and minutes,
Strangling my interest,
To grapple with identifying
That which would most befit
Someone of your radiance.
It strikes me,
You have become my longest song,
The idea of your heart,
My hands, gently massage,
Completely captures my attention,
All else fades, all but one,
And that being God, who is not the subject,
But your arresting beauty, magnificent,
Soul, heart, mind and spirit,
Cause this simple soul such bewilderment,
That I cry out alone at night,
Having imagined that you were there,
Broken as the broken patterns of light,
Reveal undeniable the truth of the air
It hits me,
Is it possible that this extension,
These words, rolled off broken from form,
Could remain hidden from your heart,
That possibly you don’t even know,
That this broken spirit sings for you,
That I write for you, these lines,
Near 60 composed for you,
Time progresses, and proliferation collapses,
And all that will be left, will be this,
That children will read revealed,
And I would love nothing more for them
Reading, smiling, holding closely to one another,
Rest comforted in the fact that these lost stanzas,
Were in fact composed for the praise of their mother.
12-27-01
Something in the air hints at better days to come, I standing, rather leaning against a wall, smile and look on, you taking tiny bites out of my mint, and in it, show me the meaning behind your whole existence. Stuffiness is all we seem to succeed in bearing, the weight of the fruit, breaking our limbs before plunging forward to repeat the process. My stiff neck is the analogy of lifelessness, and you smile at how foolish I am, not seeing you from where you’re standing, complaining and writing in absolute ignorance. Well you must enjoy these moments, as you already know we’ll laugh about them someday, but for me they are eternities past in hours of deep inhalations and late night phone calls to friends who would prefer if I had a better reason to disturb them from their sleep. Chipping pieces off my former self, is that what this is? Are you waiting to see my sincerity, waiting for me to slip, and show my masculinity, my mortality, hoping I won’t, thinking I will, that when the times get tough, I will sink like a granite slab, cold and static, to the floor of your ocean, while you close your eyes in prayer. Well then, this is your game, though you claim it is not, but an ugly necessity for so unwavering a spirit to adopt into her life a man so laden with past. I think by now I have made my intentions clear, baby steps which wish to be bounds, that I take to enter into your house, careful to leave my shoes in the foyer, but not offering to remove my coat. I think I have shown that I want to be a part of you, and you have said: Patience… well, yes I grimaced when I heard the single utterance that most proficiently could delay me in my wish for paradise. So this is your game, a game of divulgence. You maintain you have difficulty with trust, the only thing I request, is that if I follow your path, walk on the lines you have laid out for me, which for you I would pursue unquestioningly, that at the end of the road, once I have shown, my heart, open and exposed, that you say yes. Darling. Love, I will share these lives with you, in each other we will see growth and partnership. You will say, love. I can trust. I do trust, and not that you are enough, but that the power of this unity would overwhelm enough to ask nothing, and give up all self, for the sake of the other, for the sake of The Beloved of all Worlds. May all lives, all moments be an expression of sacrifice for His sake.
Life, but how is this that. Is this anyway to live, constantly second guessing, continually venting, addressing issues which are as thin as air, and yet heavy than my heart, and intent on crushing my ribs.
Love, but how is this that. Is this anyway to love, wondering behind closed doors what the last moment meant, and if it would be in fact the last. Calling into question everything I had, wanted adored, and now, focused, and unrewarded for my patience and perseverance, parents simply say, but that isn’t pertinent.
So then, am I offered something else? What dark force propels, as I reach forth, grasping for the hand of my beloved. The sole object of my desire here, and another hand instead is pushed forth, as unwillingly as I am unwilling to take, it, as rigid as I would be unable to make it happy, joyed, confident and loved, always peering just beyond the veil to the object of all my adoration, just beyond this dusky horizon, which constantly hints at a winter to fickle to ever arrive.
Love, make me laugh. Are you even as concerned about marrying for it as I am? Do you want money? I will achieve it for you. Children? I will help you raise an army, if it is what you desire. Security, a house, prestige? How faint it seems, that I would be so willing to fulfill, your trapeze act of requirements, for my one utterance, the only thing that I will ever ask of you: Love, and Trust.
But you are pulled away from me, and like my oxygen, I cannot breathe. Like my tree, without converting my exhalation into renewed breath, I suffocate on myself, calling forth my own slow death. Please, enter this room, breath into my nostrils, show me truth. I am weeping, do you see, I have already predestined my worthiness, my happiness, conditioned solely on my relation to you, and the relative nearness to your face, to your life giving grace, and your perfect ways. But you are pulled away from me.
What is this anyway? My American Pragmatism burst from beneath my shirt, highlighting my heart, making of it, an easier target. But will you hit? Or be drawn to it… I will never not be an American, I will never not have been raised in rural Pennsylvania, nor will I ever completely understand what I am doing.
What I will be is honest, faithful, overdramatic, and frank. I will be hurt too easily by a culture who sees me coming, for the sake of love, wishing to enter this house, bowing my head lowly in respect, for the sake of love, adherence to the laws of culture, and for the sake of respect, comprehending sangine, only to find myself, offered something other than that for which I have come all this way.
Love,
Slips between angles
Rigid and worn
My own my own,
Aligned towards your qiblah
And stolen, youth
Seeks success in weakness
Truth in flaw,
And your buck teeth break
Where you had known before
Life continues
You in your next act
Of repentance or remittance,
Still you hold my hand
My ability to address
Capability for diligence,
Hopes, dreams, self, being
Alive, and unless,
You walk forward,
I cannot ever hope to reach
You, and what senselessness
Beautiful,
But you repent-
You think I would renounce
Such beauty
I would turn my head and walk
Much less cough
Up gullibilities, and French kiss
Moonlight as it wanes,
And reveals a very real
Lack of your face-
Now, you can better watch me fade
Unable to tame,
Unable to stay
Incapable of expressing myself,
Sangine, and naval rings,
The finer and finer things,
Crying from rooftops in abandonment
Unremitting in our plea,
I am who I am, and will continue to be,
Though I fade, and am consumed,
By the renditions I see,
In front of the stars, eclipsing their light
Though your own radiance is better, and better,
For getting me through the night
I can no longer stand the smell of self, and the rickety staircase I ascend screams forth accusations with my every step. I can no longer stand the taste of humanity, bile swirling around my tongue with every wicked iteration I cry. But, he says, lifting a glass of wine high in the air, it was all in good fun. I have burned to the ground, and bore this cross, where else do I have left to show my lack of remorse and my commitment to the force of future steps, each one unique, each one worst, more vile and less discreet, how many more ways can I say it, at 61 pages… I love you. I love you, I always will, though I can no longer bear how it feels to say that to know it, and to touch your hand and feel it’s temperature drop.
I can no longer feel my lips, chapped and queer, they fall to the ground, like they never really belonged, and the artistic rendition, which you cried over, and told me, any good woman would take romance over a tropical paradise, please, then would you content yourself to not be that of which you speak, who else, has sung your praise, page after page, after page. Who else has learned to love from a distance, maintaining at all times, utter respect and adoration, trustworthiness and edification, promulgation, and elatedness, I wish, I wish you all the best, but I will never love the way I do now, as this is the exodus of all my inspired paths, the fulfillment of my lifetime’s quest, the betterment of my intent, and the quieting of my spirit.
Could I find anything else, any other love that would inspire so much, so great a muse, that I could compose seemingly endless drivel, simple and basking in the light of your smile, in your eastward rising and setting again in my wide Western sky… I am who I am. I am here, American, confused, unwilling to step any faster, but with each methodical moment, wasting further and further away.
This is all for you, all for you, all for me, all for youth, for freedom, for truth, for love, for every ideal that can be categorized with words, and called forth in moments of defeat to galvanize triumph, and beam ahead with bitterness, smiling weakly, though it hardly reaches a level of smiling.
I can no longer stand the smell of self, and perhaps this obvious approaching defeat, unremitting in your seat, serves as the perfect chance for me to smash through this stained glass world, and allow all light to pass, not my own distorted interpretation of what the light was supposed to be shaped as… And you will catch me when I fall won’t you? And there you will cradle my broken self, weeping, singing, Gereftam, Gereftam.
I’m feeling better, healed actually, as I can distract myself with strong willed deceit. Do you realize how easy it would be? Slipping back into my old habits, my old clothes, my old desire to slip into things too soft to commit to this ink… It is funny that the manifestation of my subjugation takes its cue from the popular clues of passionate kisses and forgotten coups. What do I do about the physical things, how can I connect on an intellectual level and not break apart into passionate dances, which we could barely concede our victories to. She is the same place, her perfect face, undertones, incantations of the things she’d like to show me, had you known? I will shake this off in proof of my affections, or I will let it swallow me whole, let her devour me entirely, unhinging the rumors of my true nature, I love her, but I wonder if I would be strong enough to not take this one for the few moments that I’d be offered. I’d like to think I am, I’d like to think that her dark skin, slipping, deep eyes, penetrating deep as she cries, what does this mean? I would step forth, fiery and bold, engulfed in the heat of your adoration, but it’s grown cool, and only embers remain, allowing the astute tracker to realize that you once dwelt here, though now your trail grows cold, and the glowing bit of charcoal, once flaming penance for the sins of the tree, and the food, that you offered me, a delicious fruit, which we can now step back and recognize as the pomegranate.
Bitter? Well the fruit has been sweeter, but your mothers food, is the most perfect I have ever eaten, and this is the way we are. It is a travesty to go against our nature, so you will continue to search me out, I will continue to search myself, and somewhere, maybe in the middle of these things, I will find myself. I will find my will to survive, to divide into a million or more wishes, and whispers which I’d, had in the moments that past, and she laid on top of me, and I wondered where was the holiness, and all I could think of was you, of course if you read this, you ask, did this happen? Did you sleep with her after you knew me? After you changed your life for fidelity? And I know I will be able to look you in the eyes, and tell you: No. But it is the honest artistic rendition of my soul, split as an atom between to neutralizing forces of positive and negative, of reward and punishment, yin and yang, you and I, Fear of Paradise, and Hope of Damnation, or have I somewhere confused the true meaning of what it means for me to take from you this bitter fruit.
Spring was. And you were long winded and extreme, but, you were only feeding from my divine tree, and not returning the affections I showered you with, but how insulting would it be were the tree to return the rain, instead of manifesting from the rain it’s life affirming sweet sweet shade.
I still love you. I will not shake that foundation soon.
January 2, 2002
Affirmation,
All I ask is a whisper, a nod to the fact that you see me bleeding, why has this become so difficult, gritting, smiling while grinding teeth that speak in rhyme and request freedom, though the time has not yet come, where are you kuchika, my little one, my pitzula, my adored, my beloved, you see me standing above this body, collapsed in my arms, gereftam, I have got it! I have slain this demon of my self, this Maya, who I loved so long and well, now the trick, and the time for telling is to not convert her to my personal hell, and transfer all of those archetypal character traits to your face, and name my Maya [humanitarian edit]. How stunning to see it in print, scandalous, and solidifying, ensuring that this obtrusive opus can never be directed to score myself an easier victory with a woman more willing to love. That is my gauntlet that I throw down on this page, the way I arrange these letters into a better confirmation of your figure, strewn about in the spaces between the words, the burning book who’s tempestuous truth, seldom felt comfortable with her youth. I love you, and slowly but surely I am dying from that announcement.
Ancient days pass us by like blurry moths on American highways.
Deepened youth, who claim for themselves, the spoils of revelation,
Have only known revelry, but reveal it with humility and adoration.
You strike forth my cord and begin the emulsification of truthfulness,
The stipulations that you placed on my wall, in conditions of duress
My love was never conditioned upon anything, but you were most welcome,
To stretch across my chest, offering to God what you were afraid to give,
Allowing me to taste, but barely to live inside the cave of dark whispers-
Whispers that give light to thoughts we’d tried to hide, and these days slip
By slowly, sliding down our rickety walls, calling us by our secret name,
You and I are exactly the same, and all of these games, places and traced
All the way back to Socrates, and the birth of modern psychology.
You lap up my Newtonian draft, coming through window panes, thick enough
But not for you trust, ancient days whispering secret desires, winter is upon us!
You are undressed and upon your instincts, but you feel bare, and my embrace,
Barely enough to contain your sense, anyhow, much more pertinent to not lose face
This whole life is a series of sublimations, transfigurations, and transference,
Where we impose Faith on love, (vice versa, more often than that)
And one woman on top of another, and confuse truth for utterance,
This is my life, my son, my truth and my lies, these are the patterns of my star
My form, hanging in the balance between the first crescent of the new moon,
And something decidedly more solar, more clinical and ineptitude, which shatters you
Were I only as old as I looked, or if I only looked as old as I was, I would dwarf you-
Take my youth, tame my fires, and squelch me down to a controlled burn, as though
I am a danger to all things wooden and discernable to wise men, who have retired from
Lover’s caves, wet and tired, and offering us their staves, say enter, lay, and be brave
Say: O love my love, I will honor and stay, though I cannot promise to obey,
Days will come when you will swear you hate me, you will call me whore, and I will
Remain, in your bed, and love you all the same, as the ancient days have destined, and there will be days, like today when you will taint the entire body of your work, your cool oceans, and oceanic experiments with a drop of sulfur, a drop of blood, and I promise,
I will come and find that drop, and swallow it whole, and save you from yourself, is this not what you are designing in me, perfection? You think I am perfect… look at yourself, Rich, Look at yourself, you must continue, but continue to what? To work towards an ideal you could not possibly understand, a quest for my hand when you don’t even comprehend the meaning. Well, that is my love for you, and your naïve smile, and sincere eyes, and the fact that for better or worse, you will not take me for granted when this is done.
January 3, 2002
I am faint. I am broken, I am a reed, once hollowed, now discarded, as I had been broken by the force of the air assailed through me, I am the hope of the ages, I was a saint, but now, bottle in hand, bottle in hand, I do nothing more than sit and question my relevance.
Step forward
I do not stop walking, I do not rest, as my heart beats against it’s prison of this chest, I ask- askun, make this life easier, and you weep, I have seen you weep seldom but devastating like oceans when they flood, and in hours rip apart cities that took millennia to build.
Step back,
Back in time, in line with ages past who seem to decry, you are the promise, the focal point of this own universe, and still we write your name down in the book of the dead, but it takes on much more Tibetan inclinations, and ceases to be something to be feared. Here we are, have we been cleared of these charges, exonerated and enlarged egos, which dangle in the face of humility and make her blush with libido.
Step in,
New intoxicating thoughts, swirl about oceans we’d bought, half off at target, but their not the same, at best a great salt lake, and much to far to be a sea. The stillness of these oceans, which drums have beat upon for years, not yet withering, but these same oceans which have heard the ceaseless rhythms begin to understand that man is learning from her, persistence, though we could not see it from our mount.
Step out,
These limbs have grown too dry for you to remain at any rate, and we would much rather learn to fly, or die trying, then to commit ourselves to a life of nesting, and only eating what our mothers can cram down our necks. This is the song of our mysteries, and she is the voice of that song, given wing to the flight, and illumination to unforgiving nights, continuing downward, spiraling nearer to the ground, nothing more than foliage winging it’s only moment of freedom as it flings itself downward towards the lengthening sunlight.
January 9, 2002
Relevance is quickly becoming a demon of the past.
A whisper that had the audacity to grow to a howl,
A philosopher who had the strength not to know
The chimera of our stiff adolescence, coupled with,
Warm milk, soft flesh and an honest explanation.
Wisdom slipping unceremoniously behind acts
Crying at the fact of its own reflection in her eyes.
Everything is her, her these days is the new it,
At least on this page, it will cover up for some of this.
This grog is sleeping, and fallen on top of my liveliness,
I will be out at this moment, as I can hardly keep my eyes,
Alive, focused, well without the wherewithal to draw…
Secular conclusions about life’s little mishaps, secular,
Sexual confusions, about my friends, and the facts,
Get eschewed far too economically to do, anything but trust.
You are busting up my cover, trust me, I am the greatest…
At a seldom recognized arts,
But loving you will be my greatest challenge.
These words teeter on infinitely, drawing on meaningless pages,
Connecting lines inside insanity, and waiting to stave off faces,
Who barely smiled, without their lips sealed, her lips-
Peeled back ready to share, but music came from them…
And I fell back shocked, and you just rose your shoulders in laugh…
I am who I was, and will break this docket into a billion particles,
Of dust, but in another life, dust was my friend, and my hand was held.
Now the blood flows thickly, as the afternoon ways into its nonexistence,
Already beaten by freezing, bleeding rain, adding a hint of reminiscence,
To another time and climate when it was not the middle of winter on the eve
Of the obviousness of global warming, la allah ala anta, alramin alrahmeain
January 9, 2002
To share this experience, I first need to describe my ghost. Hardly a frightening apparition, except in her relation to me, and thusly, at first glance I was anything but afraid. Actually, I noticed her the moment she walked in. I was lost in conversation with my friends, but just awkward enough to stop dead in my tracks, and fix my neck and aim at this poetic and dramatic form which was floating her way through regulars, with hellos and smiles, nods and, well denials.
I watched her make her way to her seat, wander around, a little aimlessly, looking for what else was hip and fresh, knowing full well, she had the undivided attention of every man in the house. But respectfully, conservatively she sat, long sweater trailing slightly behind as she relaxed. I was already gone, but then, she performed the most unthinkable act, the last of the possibilities I could have imagined, she pulled her trumpet from around her back, and tending carefully to it, placed it on the table in front of her, indicating her desire to play. I’m absolutely lost at this point, dying to know, well the everythings that flow unbroken around every whisper and look, all darting things that scatter like shadows at the first hint of morning light. And she did play.
There I, jaw dropped, impressive warm tone iterating fantasies, I’m sure even my father had never known, striking sense of time, still even more comfortable then mine, and showing just enough of her belly as she played to make the whole scene humanly erotic, and difficult to shake.
So, I took the only path I could possibly feel comfortable in justifying, I ran home, panting and alive, nervous and on fire, grabbed my own horn and sped back as quickly as I could, fearing she might have left, and even in those moments being fully aware of the ridiculousness of the idea that I was hoping to impress a woman, strictly based on my ability to play jazz.
Well, I did.
Could I call it mutual attraction, couldn’t quite explain yet, at least infatuation, when you see yourself in someone else, and feel utterly justified in the past twenty some odd years of living, comforted to know, someone else has shared that soul. That was the spark, and the causal of exchanged emails, hugs and smiles, discussion of Clifford Brown, Lee Morgan, and the obligatory nod to Miles. She was into Salsa, I’m addicted to pop, both of us vibrate sympathetically on this strange animal of tone vs. chops. Seriously, I must stop, as I have already lost my audience, but this aside had to be recorded, as even if I never see her or hear from her again, it was a night of living, of heart beating throbbing running, excitement, and I would not change that for all the days that pass by like slides in a film, only to be quickly discarded and collected on the dusty floor of persistent unrelenting passing time.
January 10, 2002
My demon doesn’t wear goats legs,
But she absolutely burns me at the stake,
Taking her time, roasting me slowly,
And I smile the whole time, saying it’s love.
My demon wears pretty hats, and asserts
Femininity in the wake of darting arrows,
She cries on command and asks me,
What the state of ‘us’ is on a regular basis.
My demon has seen me naked, and taken pictures,
Swearing her allegiance, even as she considers his,
Her every step is surrounded in fire, and similarly
To moths, many of us are sucked to the length of her gait.
She pleads innocence, and labels me jinn,
She performs ablutions, which playfully pull,
And ripping apart my skin, start to infect,
The lower layers of self, leaving me with bone
I need to break from this form, as the limits imposed on me by stanzas forbid me to give proper address to this beautiful disgusting demon, she walks slowly enough that lines could describe each of her steps, and she speaks lowly enough, that whispers would suffice to explain her effects, and her charm, and the pain she brings with every entry into a new room, or more inner chamber of our own alarms, which go off at her sight, but remain to faint to rationalize evacuation.
My demon nails me to the cross, and she says it’s because she loves me, it is but her own desire for success which causes such tests to become lit by the barren reaches of space and shamelessness. We are results of our own creative energies, and as I hang here, waiting for her to come cut me down, I am forced to recount for myself just how many stipulations could have gotten me out of this, and just how many times I shrugged off the but I love hers in the name of something a little more bold.
This dream is unilateral, this demon, unnatural, and if I mention her further, one will begin to understand that she is not even a real woman, not even a spirit which I discuss at such length, but rather a poorly lit reflection of my own inadequacies, given a tempting form, and a poise which I could not achieve in masculinity or femininity, but the refinement of such flaws seem so entirely weak and submissive, even as they coil up prepared to strike.
January 10, 2002
I still could love her, although the revelation of my never knowing what love truly was since I have never loved myself, God, or anyone else in a true sense, is really making me shake… how else could I spend so much time on one infatuation just to bounce to another. Here is my analysis of this conflicting situation.
One of them is young, but she is strong, independent, and practically bred to be an ideal wife. She is sweet and caring, spiritual and chaste. Of course these thing would attract me to her in a way that I’ve never known, as they are qualities I have never seen up close in a woman, who I actually was able to contemplate a life with to some degree.
Caveat-
She is much better for me than I am for her. She was designed to be the perfect wife, I was designed in a different world. I am already an antique, a museum piece of sorts to be looked at with a cocked head, and a mild amount of passing curiosity
So, we are at a place of unbalance, her challenges are so wholly different than mine, that it would almost seem futile for us to try to join our efforts, so entirely doubling our work without taking as much from the other in terms of mutual betterment and understanding. The options available to me at this point in time scream forward, as the first breath of my life, only lived again, and watched from a distance.
Last night defeated everything I had previously written. Now I am awake, a woman my own age, poise and grace, intelligence and a face I no doubt would love to come home to on the thousand and more evenings which await us. She is a writer and a dreamer, an artist and a scholar… actually, for someone who is exactly as old as I am, she is incredibly intimidating to me. Were it not for her ticks, which I am still wrestling with, (in terms of their relative adorableness) and other eccentricities, like the way she is constantly putting silverware in her mouth, playing with her hair, and altogether practicing one of the most aggressive forms of fidgetry that I’ve ever seen, I would be afraid to even open my mouth around her.
As it is, I am reluctant to speak, afraid that anything that I give voice to will come off fraudulent and weak, and she will see right through me, and expose me for the man I am. And worse than that, I’m afraid I might actually enjoy it if she did. Here is a woman so entirely uninhibited, letting the truth flow through her, from cigarettes to club dates, that she is even purer than the repressive children I’ve been infatuated with. Her hard reality like hard liquor to the sober lips shocks my system with instant acculturation, defining moments in my life when I have prayed for her, and seen deliverance as a much more distant fantasy than this face sitting just across from me devouring life like that slice of plain cheese pizza, the general fervor which I’ve now recognized and attached to her eating three times in my life. Fully, deliberately, so unlike a lady, but distinctly and importantly feminine.
Even more interesting to me are the forces which have brought her into my life, the parallels we could already mark, and the way she sits, the way I watch, the life, the dream, is this just the first time that I’ve woken up and seen the world around me? The taste of the beauty in all things, and the desire to have her commit it to imagery.
I like that she is real, tangible and indifferent to the forces of pull and sway around her. I like that I already see challenge in her. Things I can help, and where she can help me. I see the mutuality as a sure sign of inferred emancipation, distant and separate from ideas of co-dependency. Illustrating emotions with words alone grows daunting with the more words I know, and I’m not even sure I am ready to speak of emotion yet anyway. What I know is excitement, anticipation to see her, desire to watch her grow, not like a sprout, but a tree, strengthening over the course of a lifetime, thousands of years becoming the sublime.
January 15, 2002
MUSIC
Hopelessness.
My resignation already hangs on my wall, built like a resume to find something more suitable
My indignation already hangs on my wall in the form of a poster advertising a 50 minute piece I wrote called ‘the clockwise spin’
My giving in, should in no way interfere with my musical career, though I take exception at the nod towards its being a career at all
- Superiority complexes hang lowly like clouds ready to rain, and in their saturation of the subject they waste away into the sunshine.
Now life is laughing at me, grinning wildly, eagerly awaiting my next move, salivating at the possibility of devouring me whole, leaving little left, if anything at all, for the vultures and wolves who also have a vested interest in the eventuality of my demise.
Come now, it is not all gloom, certainly there is some room for advancement, even just flailing about, something is bound to be displaced. Bring your horn, we’ll play a bit, and try to understand it, although most of the ones who have tried to understand music have made hasty exits from this perpetual tomb of men, crying through mangled brass wishing for death, working to return to the womb.
January 24, 2002
I have nervously crafted thousands of lines, and in their mess created nothing but my own winding tunnels, illustrated black. Ink on paper, pen on canvas, placed in the homes of millions for children to look at and laugh. My sampler is almost complete, just a few more letters and embroidered border design, perhaps my friend is right Pink hippopotamus dancing as though she had never been informed of her size.
I have eagerly spun through time, counting chickens hatching through; even this cliché is underused in my world of verse and locution. I have grown fond of such devices, which have been around long before I was ever born, and carry with them a weight of meaning I could never achieve from the arrangement of so few words, so efficiently.
I sheepishly step up to the place where I will be called on to give testimony to the path of the adored one, and sacrifice at least a pint and a half in the destiny of the fool, whose court barely begins to sequester his services. I am the one who offers up what you yourself have given me in the pathway of your cause, and undulate stoic hypotheses that have no bearing on the actualities that plague our own dimensions.
February 11, 2002
It would seem I am slipping, darling do you hear me?
My very fibers are splitting, and I am drifting forward-
Toward darker nights, where floods have gone dry,
And nothing left attracts me to the love of the beloved-
It would seem I am falling, darling do you see me?
But miles above your head and still calling your name-
Toward longer flights, and movies which make us cry
And nothing left reminds you of the love of the grounded-
“I am now a bird, and suddenly that adds credence,
To what I’ve been saying all along, if you’d only asked-
And you said you were uncomfortable giving me a chance,
Only because the light refracted strange off my glass”
It would seem I am dreaming, darling do you sleep beside me
These very fibers are cutting, right through my last breath,
Toward brighter times, where flooded streets have gone dry-
And nothing is left to stand on, but the shoulders of our dead-
It would seem I am dancing, darling please, dance with me,
These very rhythms are bearing, right through my better sense
Toward newer lives, refreshed and built up by god’s own light
And nothing is left to ask for, except for just this one dance-
February 11, 2002
I wait, and you glisten, both of us afraid to really listen with our eyes, and see the other, looking back, honest, not entirely unsurprised, but still, wishing that we could be within one another, asking not why, but how long until we awake from this sudden slumber that we were not even aware of beginning. I motion, and you surmise, that what I’m saying isn’t wholly lies, and still you are unaware of the dreams inside, my thoughts which wish you where I would not be were it not for your genuine surprise, and I have a lot of writing to do if it will become you who will be my wife. Should it have been you all along… on closer examination, what do you take credit for in my prose. Are you the dream of ages past, and my Maya who refuses to die? In my own eyes, you are the closest estimation I have seen, at least today, and it has been a long time since the sun rose so carefully to begin. I am your son, though you would not question your motherhood, you gave birth only to my ability, made me strong, and I wonder, am I enough for you? Would I satisfy your dreams, as you wet my insatiable pallet for trauma and dramatics, fiendish love and devouring trust, still enough, still hardly enough. Your skin is thick, your smile tough, you are a thousand times more tethered then I am, and yet with the utmost grace and ease, you take wing and sail, alone into the oceans of which so many times I’d tried and failed. You say we’ll get across this pond, and defend our will, teaching the changeless Faith of God, unable to fail. I am your boy, and in these words I dictate, the truth of the thousand winters, which had passed. Answering each successive test, you in my arm, I in my way, we walking towards the flames which lipped up over the edge of a chasm falsely manufactured by charming and charismatic demons, who wished only to sell to us, this fine piece of land. You rise up from your seat, reaching for a hand, sure it was mine, but even I can’t be positive. And you wonder why we have written these memories again and again; the legend continues to sway, flexible to the wind, and impermeable to the storm. Consider yourself borne of the dreams of a helping hand, outstretched, reaching and weeping in the air- hoping for a chance to holler out it’s warning, this body which follows my every move, this wretched mass of decay and strain, wishing only to remain adored of you, waiting for your reply, unrelenting in its will to die, and be born in you, and live a life a part of you- separate and unfettered. You are the distance in the letters, the will in these words, which causes the word be in my heart to blaze on into the infinite, sorrowful, and wild. Look up, into my eyes, this is your page, and I am your wise old man, chanting in tongues, waiting your hand, stepping into this cool clear stream for you, for a polished stone worthy of your palm, soft and perfected from years of softened water running over it’s edges, darkening it’s corners, preparing it for the instant that I would snap it up and offer it in adoration, in admiration of everything you are, everything you mean to, irreplaceable as a part, indefinable as a place for me, and I only hope that I can be in one page what you are to me in a lifetime, a sign, a shift in perception a line drawn straight from my heart up to god, and questioned by none excepting our own spirits which were wild from the moment they were lit, and scattered from the second they were built. I am your Tristan, your Majnun, I am lost inside of you and yet you hear my voice calling from such a distance, and inviting not returning but saying come, grow, be a part of me, travel know, let us both cross this sea into the throws of infinite grace and charm and meditation offered in supplication to our mutual point of adoration- I have deeply missed you since the last time we were in love and am falling asleep quickly in your eyes.
February 11, 2002
4 lines dictate a pattern drawn in an arch in the sand-
Each line representative of some sovereign-
Looking west from the point which stands in the center
The arch is broken, and spread into the sea
Each moment that passes the tide draws nearer each line,
The first to fall victim, will not be the last to die-
Each line like the rest was drawn by a separate hand-
But like the line in the ground, each is made only of sand-
A wave which is larger than the rest, meets with a crest,
Challenging the order that the lines had established-
All these instant are washed away again- but in the sand-
Living things still grow, and now crabs and motions make
More lines, scattered in the dust, hopelessly trying to reconstruct
An order which made sense to no one, since only one hand had drawn-
Pulling forward, the ocean pulls cycles into the sea,
And continuity is lost to the repetitious crashing of the waves.
Driving forces, are remiss to obey, broken windows, which have ceased to see.
Like the ocean which suddenly ceases to weep-
Immediately the wave is halted, suspended above gray beach at twilight and frozen-
She remains hopeful that she will stay undiscovered, and this wave,
Like a quilt wrapped and uttered, warms her soft otherwise uncovered skin.
February 12, 2002
She walks in the shadow of the place I’d set aside for her,
Not questioning, or offering her a taste of another time-
She instead raises one eyebrow and leans to the side,
I am a mutant of myself, incomparably shaken-
The moments pass without the slightest nod towards
One way or another, in this there is the sharpness of the sword,
The pleasantries afforded sharper words, and unfair excuses
For why we still can hardly find our name on the sheet.
* * *
February
12, 2002
ß.ã.×.ã
I.
Time’s past. I’ve accepted that I’m wrong,
I’ve nodded that I love too deeply to remain
Warm and respected, though at this point I’d say
I’ll settle for warm, if that could be one of the things
You would offer, if you could only remember my name.
Distant drum corps beat on city streets, and I detached,
Separated by the admonition of work, and the fear of idleness,
Which is but a step from idolatry, at least in the breath of the word-
But you breathe, or rather heave, chest raising diligently to catch,
Finer particles of air, harboring on them the weight of the moment,
When I touched your hair, and we went from innocence like scattering birds
At present, or rather at past, the untying of my knots would seem to outlast,
The hope for the present, and the fear for tomorrow, which flings you into
Open arms, which stand not wholly prepared to catch, (lines we have yet to test)
And blood that has yet to be let, with candy coated leeches sucking in pleasure
As of yet, you still have not received so much of a line of my chastisement,
And I am still wholly incapable of delivering to you with love, my treatise-
I remember being born, and you remember swooning at first sight of blood,
And we come into this world bloody, we come into this world alone, but for love,
And the first hands that hold, cold unbearable, wreaks of sterile isolation, and hope-
The second time, we are wrapped up, and dabbed, cloth, plunged, breathing apparatus,
Next we are laid down against breathing, enticing us to mimic, happy to be warm again,
Knowing that the only reason for acceptance is warmth, and the only reason for breathing
Is the thought of where it will get us in this bloody cold life, where every breeze breaks
Toward an eternity that, without you, would seem faded and spare, dark and abased-
This was time, and you were in my arms like that, on a first night,
A second birth, only separated by the number of drops of blood which shattered
The hope that offered isolation and chaste, pure, white things, now accented,
With strawberry drops, that were at once passionate, painful, refreshing and new
Peace has had it’s chance to come, and instead has chosen not to begin to show,
Her age, her wisdom, and the place where both meet under these stars of truth
II.
Look. Do you see me in the moment when you said we have others, they live farther than here, and I’m not entirely sure that I want to continue to pursue these local deities. You of course realize that such admissions have never seemed to slow down even smaller creatures, who use persuasion to meet prey. But I do not want to capitalize on this conversation, it is far to important that I hear what you have to say, but your mouth is shut tight, and your decision to not speak, is the same as not wishing to fight, when you need to in order to ensure your next meal.
I am the vagabond in your dream, engaged and dedicated to your illumination, though it may only be through my own adoring light, and graces which would much more suit someone who could dedicate themselves to me. I am the wayfarer who has found his path leads to you, and though you would not question if I asked, I have called you home, I have decried your innocence, and claimed for myself the place where I will be most befit, and comforted by the humble motions of a woman, who can barely remember my name.
Ask: How do you approach the divine so often to not remain more than an instant, and the instant has already passed you by a thousand times, and the distance you traverse on each separate path is enough to take a lifetime, and yet you treat it like a lap, and in this age of insecurity, and decadent impropriety, you digress from your standard of holding fast, and instead disintegrate into so much clamor and smoke and flash. And up on the wall you see the words “Fall, and it will begin to be” and you say, how does this involve me, and I ask you then, how does this involve you, and you say in the same way for both articles, it has been written that the one who falls will be the last to catch.
And you wonder, how did this wretch who came to love you discover such a passion after so much has passed, and been afraid to ask about these other infatuations with whom you’d no doubt have to share him with, I only respond by showing my hand, outstretched in your direction, not in any other way, and not able to slip away, into a night that will only begin to beat freshly if you join my hand, and allow us not to be broken and humbled by ourselves, but to save humility for God’s kingdom alone.
Look. I am the command that utters itself in your direction, and I feel I’ve grown far too compelling to humble myself to hope, that you will care enough to pursue these moments with me, as it appears that all I need is a muse, maybe we can continue this way, though I very highly doubt I will have the same impact on this earth were I to partner with anyone less, much less anyone else at all.
III.
A humble piece of paradise
Still is enough to offer,
God many directions
Or avenues of creation
A modicum of trust,
Intertwined with the yarn
That you gave me in consolation
Of the fact that what I really wanted
Was your arm, or a finger
Or some space on one of them
To wrap a band that said-
I am for you…
Still we go on like nothing happened,
And wipe our lips of sweat,
And don’t ever speak of incidence
And never recall a moment of regret
Soon we will grow up, and get past
This ignorance, this affluence,
Which hangs itself on hinges
Reflective of loves we’d not sensed-
You are who you say, and I trust implicitly
That these things will work out the way
They should, just as they always have,
This time though, a little better from the glow,
Offered by chilling ambers, in a light
That breaks with dawn, no longer needed,
As the day appears as though it will be warm,
And the hours grown like orphans loved-
And long and stretched into the infinite-
These are the last notes I play on my horn,
Before disappearing into twilight
Wondering if I said everything the right way,
Always just insecure enough to be adorable,
And charming enough to be worn,
Like a shroud which protects from stinging
Splashing up shooting beats of rain, singing
O Glory of the All Glorious, stop this pain.
IV.
This is the second time I am writing this fourth moment, where I have been trying to capture something unique about you, but stopping short of physicality I learn that I don’t know you as well as I need to. I want to grow with you, I can’t explain it at this point but I know there is a certain degree of truth caught up in this moment, when I am typing, almost automatically, trying only to understand my spastic recognition of truth in the shape of an attractive young woman within whom I see the entire rest of my future.
This is the second time I have written like this, and obviously I have a lot still to come to terms with, though you may be wondering, which one is which, I am not so much wondering as boiling through my skin, to reach for just a taste of this one singular perfect fruit, which denies those who adore it, and excepts only the devouring grasp of one powerful suitor with long enough arms to reach, and jaws powerful enough to break the skin.
Secretly I approach your gates, though I imagine at this point it isn’t much of a secret. At any rate, I bow lowly, hoping for a chance to make my case, and deliver some strange sense of justice within the realm of the auspicious utterances of men long since passed, and confused even while they walked the earth, carefully lowering their heads.
I have been down in that sand, a long time has passed, and the world passed away above me on this land, silently I waited, alone with my own thoughts, and contemplated the truth of the revelation which had come to pass while I had been waiting for the signs of children, who ceased to play, and any day would stop saying ‘come out come out wherever you are’ ah, that I wished that day would pass quickly so that I could continue my waiting, and that you would find me, and deem me ready, and lifting my head up carefully, without saying a word, place a kiss on me, which would revive my will to live.
I have the will to give you something of my life, and at this point the entire volume of this work, distorted opus, is hardly alive, in its own way though it beats tempos which arrive at their signature from cultures and nights spent waiting on beaches beating for her, waiting on shorelines, calling to the maiden of the oceans, saying ‘be’ come forth and allow for a better time, a clear line to formulate around these oceans these rhythms and allow me to be one of these drummers, within whose limits, my song is heard, you are heard, and I continue to learn.
You learn with me, and lean in to smell my neck, striking, brief moments of passing, but they only border on the moment of passion- you are too alone to break into this moment without striking me on the mouth, hand coiled and ready to wield, what ground we still have to explore, what moments we still have left before exiting mindless, slowly, you make for the door, pulling your pride back up over your head, and offering me a nibble in the distance that separates me from your mind, your heart, and least importantly your bed.
V.
Worried glances,
Dart back telling
Tall stories of victors
Vanquished always win
In history’s darling vision
And you and I, silent
Some of the best,
Moments were still silence,
And some of the finest wines
Were the non-alcoholics
Some of the purest times
Were filled with incompetence,
And some of the loosest lines
Were weeping for holiness-
Your dim dream decries
My waning wish, or desire,
Cries forward towards your chest,
And you say place your head,
Lay down and rest-
Something here, distinguished
From the guise of immortality
The blue thorn you wore
In the dream of injustice,
You wear the cloak of magnificence
I saw the clouds growing beyond,
The very power of immensity,
And you called my name in the thick
Autumn air, that the sound fell
Short of my ear, and did not reach to say
You loved me, in time for me not to take
The choice of the plane, and leave
In the space of an hour, all things changed,
And you were left with the possibility,
More palatable than hope, we’d succeed.
Life always gives us what we need,
God always supplies the seed,
And watering, carefully, sweet,
Let’s us sprout fresh, thick and green.
VI.
Time fingers on, and has grown quite proficient at finger pointing, you knew along she says as she chuckles the babbling laugh of the vanquished- you are my Assyrian, humble and wise, and forgotten entirely by history, your greatness, no surprise, held beneath god’s own fingers, waiting for you to cry.
Illicit responses to questions once posed, stand poised, and ready to strike, ready to cut down this tree of adherence with so much smoke as to raze the whole forest, were you only to know. Would one more moment pass with you standing there catching your breath, I might forget to ask you to dance, though you’ve been heaving all night waiting for the chance.
Illuminated and ensconced waiting to be found, illuminated eyes, just seeming to surround and envelope this whole interest, but it would seem that you size me up in a quick glance, then to continue with your dream, we are dancing, or you are with someone, I only insert myself for an over inflated sense of worth, and valuation to you at least within these words, but you dance and to watch you move, not hardly swooning, but barely moving, barely touching the ground, as even the moon ceases it’s movements around your steps, holding it’s breath waiting for mistakes that never come, either on the floor in the hours that fly by following the moments we cried. It’s been a while since we’ve wept like that, young and alive.
(continued February 13, 2002)
And these yesterdays, filled with patterns of thought, we’d considered time to beat out, brought up again by howling children who have forgotten how to play, and now only lie on the ground and imitate. And your sorrowful eyes look up to tell me that I cannot dance tonight, and I, imitating a gentleman say it’s alright, and retire to my corner to watch the unfolding of the night.
Still, I feel your hand on my head, and you say come dance, and I would were I not dead, and already the rain pelts, calling attention to the words, spoken only once, and repeated in our own way, you are with him, and I am a gentleman, but for some reason that gentleness is getting harder to portray. You quirk your smile and say, this is our scene, dramatically written and rehearsed, and I know your whole life you have built for this verse, where we sing together and harmonize with a heavy emphasis on the tri tone, or the raised eleventh as our context indicates.
I realize these words may be lost on you, not fallen on deaf ears, but blocked and protected from this truth, by another force, equally as masculine as I am, and waiting for your moment to break forth from the silent and gestating pool of sorrowful dreams and meaningful poems, who only now realize their irrelevance to this situation.
VII.
Thoughts of passageways towards the divine perplex wishers who drink from the fresh springs of chance, dripping elegantly through our hands, and offering little more than the comfort that comes from the knowledge that there is something more, at least within the confines of the kingdom.
Serpentine considerations lash out at patrons who deem it necessary to dip their heads fully in the ocean, to hope to come out lips wet unreceptive to the messages that they have so often before heard in the curvature of the shells.
Thorough accusations call fault to the way these lines are crafted around the shadow of a shape, and do not admit to the source from which they came, and do not consider the way in which they were made. Deafening blasts of arrogance sound from trumpets too distant to distinguish from the percussion in the mist.
Clandestine incantations, issue forth edicts on ideological grounds pertaining to the truth in the sounds, and the meaning behind the ‘how’s’ of the present situation, and offering themselves as secular bells, ringing at predetermined intervals throughout this rosy hell, controlling our outward spiral back towards the middle ground.
Someone was asking, where are the waves, and the frozen shapes, which they have made seem to give their tacit replies in the form of Okays dictating the key, and the pace, for which their hymn is to be played. At least we all stand alone, and wondering how this is still a love poem, drop to our knees in humility and subserviently create castles in the sand.
Scintillating surveys indicate proof where previously had been speculation and fallaciousness. Damaging accusations call forth utterances of belongingness and her eyes, which haven’t looked happily on you in some time, or rather, this is me again, and the wind and the waves crack all things that refuse to bend.
Since then we’ve been children, and children we’ll become again, were it not to end, were you not to offer to them your soul, your home, your bed, we would still be where we began, and I would still feel pure, and purely for you, and think about growth through all God’s kingdoms through your eyes, and with your hand-
Take still my hand, as it is outstretched, hardly a pentagram, but still these five digits with nineteen points breathes for you what it can, and offers to you whatever is within it’s grasp- and absolutely no distinction is made between the holder and the held, and it is to this reality that I draw you, and hope to weed you out of the barbarous wastelands where reality mocks our every move, and knocks from where we stand the hope of valiancy and the dream of redemption, and everything in truth is redemptive through God’s word alone- and it is through this word that he said “Be” and it was.
VIII.
Numbering the tiles in the order that we step, first we come to the face that has been flattened for dramatic effect, then to your mother, who awaits your homecoming, and it’s been long enough that you should tell her where you’re sleeping-
I am unable to keep from bursting with laughter and singing, and you try to hush me, but your lips permeate sentences even when touching mine-
To silence me, would take an eternity, and in this instant you can barely get off the ground before I begin to spin and shout, singing your praises in tongues, some of which are at least vaguely familiar to you.
Now that we’re done, have you understood what I’ve been attempting to do, all this while, each passive verse flowing forth a little quicker more intense, and that these lines hint towards some greater competence, but it is only to my consistency that I rise to defend, and offer only myself, bowing lowly, on the threshold of pain, wondering if He, is the forgiver, that the words speak of his name.
The idea of man as language, of creation as word, would not seem so absurd if we were to consider the intrinsic values of the universe, formulated through unmistakable laws, which an infallible presence has chosen to help us govern our flaws-
Man cannot formulate a thought without language, cannot begin to conceive of his reality without partitioning attributes and titles, and conjuring up blocks of script rather than actual images in the very moments of meditation and contemplating ideals. Therefore the whole of mans creation is in language… the whole of my love for you in these words, so then it would only pass that the creation of man, the word of God as universal love, was made flesh to dwell amongst us. Thus is the way of the tablet of historical truth, and historical faith, in the end it is the word that we have, and the word that lets us dream of God’s many attributes, faces and traits, though none of them are adequate or accurate, allowable or correct.
I say that you are my word, and if you could understand in a context not so much as in creation but in the adoration of a thought, you are my music, in the greek sense, barely English, crying to the sky in the middle of a passage of night-
Singing an ancient song, perhaps of French, or Assyrian origin, wondering if it will be heard, or if it should, and if then interpreted in my favor, favoring a model of hope and love, and truth, and (if you’ve had enough) the changeless face of youth, who always experiments his way in and out and upside down, and around the bend to maturity who waits with a grimy palm, and a fat satisfied grin.
IX.
For the last time-
These will not be the last words I’ll ever write
Though I am shrunk from your glow,
Simple guttural speech says-
Words you already know,
In ways far more refined than I-
I love you, but how do I define,
Such subjective qualities,
Between you and I,
Certain gray expanses loom,
And between the thought of you-
Authors always seem to weep
At the sudden loss of their muse,
I am no different, though better dressed,
And you kiss me on my mouth, wondering
Is the established blessing of youth,
All that you wanted to accomplish?
I am the dreamer of the nights spent alone in a darkened corridor crying for you to come home, though you barely heard that which I could not scream, what them caused your return to me
The next time,
I saw you in my eyes,
Reflected rivers of chance, as Ganges
Holiness kept us, deep in a trance, and erotic
You danced, retaining your chastity,
And I respected you more for the look
Inside the memories of ancients and romantics
History reveals itself both fraudulent and wise,
And somehow, these dreams are goodbyes,
Otherwise you defeat my chimera
Well within the bounds of your rights,
Offering only tea in response to my beguilement
Delighting in the ease with which I disabled it,
And offered the remains, the skin the bones,
To your betterment, though you could not accept,
Unbeknownst to me, quietly you underlined
Key phrases and passages, even while you wept
Uncontrollably and queer, hampered by the weight of your tears, asking me, if this is where we stopped or began, and would we be here again, and if we could, if I would leave a place in your honor to plant some bulbs that in the spring, if we returned, but only together, we might see them bloom, and only then, we might be able to help them grow.
February 13, 2002
_
The beloved is calling am I listening? The song which I know by heart is crying for me, and I am sitting, unaware, meditating un-proud, un-allowed to breathe or cry out- Oh glory of the all Glorious, verily it is thou, truly, only you could raise my heart to such profound and catastrophic shouts, where with every beat, it seems to leap out of my chest and speed off to reunion with you.
-
And now, I spend each moment demanding reunion, learning your tongues, each one slower than the last, and burning for your love, though I hardly feel you pressed against my side- I weep, is this done, have I been left to the flames, sold as a slave, by the very one I called protector, garnisher of all things well, and showerer in wealth of the beloved gifts of your adoration, now I am alone and begging to come home, are your doors now barred to me?
-
Hope comes slowly, and my beating methodical heart longs to cease to speed me back to your arms, that I may again find my peace in you, and show my devotions as the reality of my own. I am singular with my hope, and recited in hope and in hopelessness that the word is picked up, and the call answered in divine harmonization, and altruistic notions as to the melody we picked, and the way we performed it.
-
God, My Lord, my best beloved, and wondered how I could move unhindered towards your otherness, without the benefit of the best of the worlds and without the struggle built from these tests as a quickener within the context of my best intentions, and most well rehearsed exhortations of faith and love and passionate moments stolen from the cosmos, reflected in the heavens of adoration and diffused to my smile, which as always, I am incapable of wiping from my face.
-
Oh My God, my love, this weak lovers calls, trying not to show his weakness, unable to hide the meek way in which he approaches the faculty of speech, the facets of art, requiring unerring speculation as to the root of the passion which once called is impossible to place back again, without first consummating this exquisite affair.
February 14, 2002
I was mist filled breath of air, who barely knew what it was to be breathed before the onset of this affair. I trembled, and came to my knees, but friends balked and left me in front of this gated entrance, shaking, desperately holding to constancy. I had called the world unfair, and offered in protest a fist raised in the air, hoping that I’d hit something that would hear, a listener was the only truth I could bare. You were dressed in a gown that dictated your lines, and called me on my best moments to step down, and offer you a way out. I was chilled, but still sacrificing my best coat for the protection of your otherwise flawless arms. You are my beloved, let the reader know that now woman could light my heart in such a way, no woman could force my hand as I speak and wish to dance, I am your man, and alone I approach in humility and hope, and try to break from the patterns of irreplaceable thoughts.
Suddenly, arresting and stuttered, I shudder at the prostration of my desire before my better sense of intellectual attire, and examine carefully my motivation in all things from prayer to the fires I light in my own heart, and begging to be let in to the kingdom, in under the hybrid faith of God as seen through the eyes of this heretic. I love you Lord, I cease to beat, but yet this world passionately grabs me, and even as I try to shrug off these shackles of Jewish pasts which had barely begun to pass away before I asked for my out, I fall apart to the dream of humanity which maneuvers for my heart, and asks me a question only once, with which one of us are you more in love.
Oh god, guide me in the sincere path, grant me the sincerity that I require to appropriately dictate my desire to serve, and to guide me in the path of universal hallowing of sites that we were too blind to see, and too tired to read. Allow than this meek lover of all your attributes, seeker after your truth, to absolve himself of all that is not you, and hurry though to you. Grant me then and earthly aide, that I may better illustrate my love for you through her, through words which futilely dance around descriptions of attributes that could never be put into words.
Oh God let me in, allow me entrance to this dimly lit paradise of strawberry kitchens and burning pots of hope which smell of cloves and organize themselves into tidy little rows of love and adoration, separate only by manufactured demarcations built to indicate allegiances which again are man made, and not to have any bearing on your ability to love, or their ability to stick their necks out far and cry of their hunger, their weariness, their cold black necks, dampened by the rain, helpless to anything save your profound wings which bring food, which bring warmth, which strike down predators who would just as soon devour us as bring the change of seasons and painful lessons that necessarily come with age.
Ya’baha’ul’abha : No God is there but Thee, the Beloved of all things, All things truly scream your existence into the void, calling for your return, singing your praise, thanking your boundless evanescent and profound grace.
February 14, 2002
The silence,
Of which I now speak
Is quite playful on its triumph-
Seems to arrest bitterness
Your thoughts truly humbling,
Speculations of your responses…
Troubling vexation of newer truth-
Am I good enough for you, or
Are you even good enough-
So much which crosses the salacious
Touching of distant cousins,
Moments now deemed playful…
Stop.
This moment is no more
Than four of its divided selves
Perched and ready to yell
“Get over her!”
Move on, but be well.
Ach, I laugh at the thought of myself,
Wondering if I’ll ever climb back out,
Up the cliffs, clinging to the well wishers,
Who have followed me down,
Down into this hell.
Wait-
Another prison break!
We are the inmates of paradise,
But yet we left for the site
Of knowledge, and gnosis
God- has commanded us to know,
And damned us for it.
I obtain the secret of divine maintenance,
And you unhand me with your secret
And your lack of patience,
I still wait for a moment of acceptance,
Where my theories? My thesis?
(Wait I haven’t written any of this)
Are brought forth and dusted off
And argued about by old sages-
Who deflower my innocence
And scream their names over mine,
Crying to my pen-
Stop.
February 21, 2002
Searching for words, not coming quickly,
Looking for answers, all too well hidden,
Beneath the canopy of in his name we do all things,
Some bitterness still lingers between me and the world
A lover of all things, though still searching for one,
To cling to know to grow with and hold,
Even as I pass on out of this world have I achieved
All that I should have, had I used my capacity,
For success, but of what importance to succeed,
To suffer on awkwardly, crawling on my knees
Habituated intolerances, have I been socially free,
Or loose on closer looking, and deemed unworthy,
Of the attention of beautiful minds, souls hunched,
Over in adoration, and weighed down by the world-
I alone hold this candle beneath my stomach and my breath,
I alone ask you for what you want me to do next,
And humble myself at your suggestions, suggesting my test,
To suffer through this life for your name, or just one hint
Of capricious confirmations, offering little but their acceptance
*cont. February 22, 2002
How can I beseech a lover whose passionate gaze I cannot perceive,
Whose every kiss and thought I cannot agree to suggest, or to be,
Satisfied as I must simply believe that you are kissing my mouth at this moment.
How can I walk in the way of the ones who have asked me to die,
In the path of a cause, for which I wasn’t even alive at the time of the wars,
At the moment of the fasting of nations, towards spiritual ends-
Ya musakin al arieh, my saviour my divine, my holy cross, walking in line,
With dark brown drops of blood, which fall from the brow of the holiest cause,
And offer back to man what he could not endorse for fear of the cross,
And could not accept for fear of his pain and of what he had wrought.
February 22, 2002
Deep in the clutches of what to do next, silence sits back on its haunches, feign to admonish- offering nothing but stillness and tests, and tests and indulgences, progress stalls straight from the outset. Deep in the cavern of “Detach from all of this” I am still grasping at the sod at my feet, trying to delineate at least some for me, but as I pull from the floor of the chilling cavernous floor, sod turns to ashes, and so do my hands.
Looking up, straightly, and square in the eyes, a tenderness passes between space and time, to reach a place, (understanding) where the fashioner designed, a forging of pairs of partnerships in line with the teachings and the gleanings of god as committed to ink-
I offer to you my darling:
To turn our prayers toward Bahá'u'lláh is not to see his face, but to understand the essence of in the beginning was the word, and from it all things sprang forth. Think without words, be without words, like us in God’s image, impossible conception, as all cognition is sufficiently linked to the word, here I write, and in this act meditating as in I was asking you how, and now I fully understand through the light of your eyes, the passageway to god is through his word- that is the essence of the creative power, it is creative in the sense that all of the writings of god emanate from the command: BE
And we were in Eden. And you were my eve but not temptress and infinitely more than rib- you were my solidarity and my direction, and when cast out for knowledge sake (as a false ‘belief’ in science brings us out from the paradise of god, whereas, a simple assertion as to it’s truth would have sufficed-
February 25, 2002
And we are back in Eden. Angels dance in concentric circles around us, ever expanding, ever expanding and raindrops don’t even fail to offer a tablet to the conscious among us. Deep little moments of discovery where whole futures open up and questioning not what we have done, but the possibilities ahead of us, offering silent prayer in the name of god, for the hope of the strength of the cause.
Be strong.
I am, but I am still scared to be wrong, and I have not yet put my whole self into something and come crumbling to the ground. Do not question my intent, as even these moments surround, deeper more subliminal thoughts that offer infinite insights into the passion of the once damned, reinstated Pharisee priest of the son of man.
Be quick.
He will be returning, and a twinkling of an eye has yet to be timed, and you have yet to look down the line, and staring at your answers, neatly organized, wonder what the question was in the first place, and how we got onto this topic from a discussion of a graceful woman, who always seems to be the entrance, or the gate to my own romantic mingling, which more and more seems to resemble a mystic offering.
Silence…
Walking on petals which show no emotion, asking questions without the slightest hope of answers, or responsiveness at all on the part of the sequestered or the asker, and I stand broken up from my own better senses of mystical sensibility which strikes me at this point as a concept so immensely funny, that my laughter tightens my chest, making it difficult to breath… ya musakin al arieh… I cry, broken Arabic, a language I’ll likely never really know, but will remain satisfied just to mutter simple phrases with a poor accent and a good intent.
I am as strong as a thousand angels, and quickened by a grace I could not have prayed for had it not descended wholly unattached from my own motives and intents, I am prepared to sacrifice in every instant all that is self, and selfish, and all that I can hope to gain, to serve God, entirely separate from the reign of such idle thoughts as cause me to pray for personal aide, and betterment of my sad, quiet situation.
These are the expressions of my game- and may I offer up my life detached, worthy, even to die to serve the banner of the most great name.
February 26, 2002
Still the Eastern wind keeps blowing,
Deep breaths inhaled, forceful reminiscence
Thoughts of Eden, and Adam lying,
Naked before his god, all hardening clay
Scent of birthing nations, breathed in fast,
Nostrils dilate in the hot morning sun staggered,
And the first sound, likely coughing, learning,
How to feel about the atmosphere, and understand
Still the Eastern wind calls me forward to account,
For my actions and my people, children I’ll never know
But I stand fast in the face of the wind whose beautiful
Destructive redemptive nature opens my throat-
And Songs I’ve sung, have already begun their descent,
Scattered by angels wide, (though never my intent)
To mask the elatedness with hope and with prudence,
That better things might begin to grow, or at least take root.
February 27, 2002
The reality of this situation presents itself perfect, silent,
The way in which I want to say, I love you, reminiscent,
Of things I’ve said in times long since passed, and allowed,
Finer images of light and love to slowly slip out of their masks-
To this point I’ve only given you a page, hoping to make wise
Circulations of forms within words, while participating in games-
The world of peacefulness is not what we had planned for,
The grammar of loving and loving truthfulness, at the back of our mouth
I cant really even dedicate this to you, as it would be out of my scope,
That scope of understanding which binds my movements to your emotional health
I am still that boy, waiting, and wide eyed smiles, embracing hopes that you will see what I do not say, but that some other time, you might come by and of your own volition offer to me, at least the time, and say come with me, and we’ll travel, eons and embracing, wandering towards god, within the confines of the world, actualized and quickened by the word, and hardened, not smitten by the passionate things, the playful things which wound so easily and send us on our way.
You look up, I always write you that way- could be the size of your moonlit transparencies which betray the entire volume of your soul in each word that you remove even momentarily from a vocabulary rich with hypothesis, supposition and what appears to be an honest interest in me.
I am noticing the increased struggle to author verses in your name, and find that as my sincerity grows, my inspiration wanes, perhaps indicating an approach deeper into my heart than my own inspiration is allowed, and much like the mystic experience I have been so endeared of seeking after, it defies the descriptions available by language alone.
But, this digression will do little to extol your beauty or chant your charming enchantment, though I feel in the long run, this break into prose will cover much more ground, and show the soundness of my heart, in whatever way it must abound, in whatever ways I must resoundingly declare affections that are without stillness, affections which offer little more than honesty, breath and tumultuousness, this is the truth of the words: For her beauty little was left that could be described but by the word fall, and again by the word die.
And so I in her, and her in response fell into the earth, crawling our way back towards the heavens holding one another’s hands, and taking careful turns in organizing the effort back to God, out of the earth, away from the world, towards his perfect face, with one another at the threshold of the kingdom of might and grace.
February 27, 2002
Silent motions in the direction of perfect moments ask little for what they provide. Little hints at allegations of peace and perfect juices, which drip from the tree, which is remiss to relinquish its fruit. Tiny dreams instigating calls of passionate arrogance and causing unintended burns. Horrible little men with vicious tongues who seek to turn words around on us. Angelic poets who lie under trees and drink mystic wine perfecting their drunkenness, offer little in the way of wisdom, but miles in the path of romance. Little undulations sitting just below the waves, indicate what you had theorized all along, tiny fish only now beginning to bathe, pushing against current and perplexed at the behavior of sea water and its cold salty concurrence against their brand new scaly self.
You smack me for skipping rocks on top of them, but you also kiss me in the same breath, and I realize that the whole of your role in relation to me is to educate and to love.
This is not time for hugs you say as you slide up beside me and put your hand on my leg, this is the moment for assessment, and we’ll have the rest of our lives for those sentiments. (If of course, it is us who are meant, to share it, which at this point, I’m losing my doubts, and my heart is being rent from end to end, tear to tear with your name on every corner of its seams)
But you know my maker, perhaps better than I? And this is both of our Faith, and thusly we’ll dedicate our lives. Now I write you dropping you head, and thinking, how has this house come up around me in such a short time. I have not come to manipulate, though should you call me manipulator I’ll understand, I have not come to force my heart, though if you call me forcer I’ll comprehend, for each of us in our own time, and you succumbing to what you call persuasiveness, is only a level of acceptance that you’re comfortable with.
Remember the moments that passed from our first incarnation to the last time you were with me, and the way our smiles met at sublimation of truths we could neither chant nor ask of the other. Coming toward the moment of play or pass, and wondering how this game will act itself out, we can only hope with a inexplicable rushing within our chests the paths we follow and the choices we make, will lead us home, and that the home we choose will not be a mistake, and that the place we infuse with our own sanctity will not be separate from the wandering towards the Clement, the Magnificent face of God, in the context of the continuation of the worlds through prayer, and the intercession of our hearts, bearing witness on our behalf.
February 27, 2002
I’d said I had a lot of writing, you will not be another sixty pages, but when I have said wife, make no mistake as to your involvement. This diffused uninvolved tempo of writings, this sad melodramatic tone, interpret meanings and inflections and sad moments indeed, where children lie absolutely still in streets still covered with cold confetti and red white and blue streamers.
Is this your America, is this your proud home of joy and simplicity, girls, boys all with brand new puppies hardly indicating their inevitable mortality sometime after college.
My god where have we gone from these streets, these sad retreats we now take back to the places we were born, where we grew up and where we were warned, not to play in the streets, or take the candy from the men
(‘cont. February 28, 2002)
the well worn path, that both of us walk, overgrown with moss and browning grass, understood in levels of talking to each other, without moving our lips. Now there are whispers, and instances of transfigured identities which are wont to betray their truth, but we are a little more sly, and slip in under the guise of youth, and before we are done, indemnify our group agitation and desire to negate our promises in the direction of the blessed spot, by which our souls are cleansed and our banal desires dry up and end.
But still this long lonely path from purgatory, that was carved out through the corridor of progressive revelation seems seldom walked, and we cut down brush as we step forward, and this might be too much, but I will not be a coward, in your eyes, I already see a lifetime gone by, and I want to jump into that stream and ride with the current until the trees pass away and we are to the sea, and then raising our sails, well into the wind, cry to the Lord of this ocean, fill our sails, let us begin.
Waiting
Devastatingly,
Offering my hand-
Seen under a different lens,
Walking in a different place,
Unfamiliar with the landscape,
Asking things under a new light,
Serving what cause seems right,
Unpretentiously calling my name,
Ceremoniously lifting the veil,
And doing my best to fail,
Despite your good intent,
Comforted by what
You always said,
February 28, 2002
An orange dress, floating lightly about her legs, but static still somehow corners her knees, and forces her to walk a little awkwardly. Instantaneous explosion of thoughts and words, rather lines that I’d recite that would not even get her to raise her eyes.
March 1, 2002
Stooping to see through these trees, understanding little of what I see, wondering about the meaning, and knowing I still need to get to the library. Finding it difficult to breathe, and everywhere the air is cherry blossom, and Potomac fresh, cataclysmic exercise in falling in love with an instant.
*
Working up courage, moving forward, questioning motivation, hoping for righteousness, offering a hand, and emptying intelligence, surrendering right where I stand, slipping in and out of consciousness.
*
Motioning towards sunrise, I take will to dine with you, and you take a moment to question the forces, which brought me here. Carried on the wind of a thought, underplayed by the gifts that I brought, and when I look at this strange creature, I already see our home, and of course a dog.
*
Crystalline goodbyes, frigid time, which speeding by, conjures up passions of “do or die” and authors who grow slothful from the worst of times. Irresponsible lines, authored in states, already altered by faces which could never be mine, call out the bluff, and force the author to step up to the line.
*
No more room for goodbyes, and besides we enjoyed our time, and I will leave you with “androgynous” funny how these silly things become lines, which we recite to comfort, quiet a spirit, jumping out of its glistening sarcophagus of dust and bone. You were once creature I called “home”
March 1, 2002
Humbling nature of times flown by, offering detachment as the only reprise, outcries of justice, in unjust extremities, floating on wings of the human condition, considered by some the most lucid of visions.
There. Stand in front, there exists a paradox of sorts, the distance between your eyes, and my mind, all sorts of justification for rewards we have not yet earned. Lovers entranced by worlds of distance between humility and hope, weeping and joking about our pasts.
Simplifying the authors words, diluting the source, making clear the waters that were murky until we tossed scandalous garments back to the sea, watching them float, watching them sink. Until more courageous children offered us coats, saying: Be warm, laugh long, and please, take us home.
Salutary glances signify truce, perceptive glances, lost in the mossy green. Passionate things, and moments in this grass, once again seventeen, wondering how long it’d last- Harbingers of touch, considering the relevance of “too much” and ignorant of the impulse to push or to stop, or to lay and talk as the sun rises high above us.
Soft melting of skin, betraying true complexions, and yours still seems fine and soft, while mine melts away in the early morning sun. Still you begin to wipe my check, and as skin comes apart in your hand you still declare your love. For me it is truth, humble and bold, which on top of this mountain I cry out for the first of times.
Perhaps the weather has made us feel old, it’s getting more difficult to lay across these rocks, and not complain, but you wipe all complaint from my lips, and softly replace it with secure warm kisses, and I remain unable to perceive the truth behind the truth I’d claimed in my desire to deceive.
I believed I’ve moved close enough to understand sangine, without belly rings or toothaches, respectful and clean, walking upward toward dryer ground, you stand already there, but god how you look down.
I am silent and you are weakened by my attempt to dance around the way I feel, when we don’t even have that much time. This is the world that I have concealed, and these few lines remain, the closest thing to god, at least these days, that I am capable of having claimed.
This heart will remain chaste, in the ways that it was still good, and not frowned down or cast away, this is the wisdom for the chaste, and I have given myself a break claiming that this has all been for your sake.
Allah’u’abha
March 1, 2002
Fuzzy pieces of recollection,
Have we had our first fight
Understanding directions,
Comprehending sources of light-
Unwieldy insurrection in light of-
Bitter accusations wielding upward
Crashing through tough skin,
And now we may begin-
Understanding tantra,
At least within the chaste,
Hoping for some answers,
Settling for a taste,
A perfect cup, overflowed,
And dripping down golden
Sides surrendering my life,
In the pathway of Abhá,
In the pathway of Bahá,
Signaling from distances,
Far to wide to graph,
Comprehending god, or, this-
Chosen path to his Tao
Under the table, with history
Playing with tin soldiers
Struggling with verbiage
Suffering at the hands of my wrought
Iron fences, defenseless and damned
You shy away not impossible,
To understand or recant, or sing
Your praises as I chant the song
Of god, Ya’Baha’ul’abha
March 4, 2002
Sleeping in petals, unrelenting
grass which grips up around our legs, and hugs in impassiveness calling from
the grave, asking for redemption, knowing it’s too late, lost in apprehension,
even as the moonlight fades.
Whispering secrets upwards towards the heavens, floating stars keep quiet about our revealed intentions, nondescript offers of friendship and embraces indicate the receptiveness, I missed in your face.
Shapes you drew in sand for me, silent ways of saying what you believed, and how you managed to conceive of tendencies that drew me towards you with cathartic grace. Now only understanding pierces through your face.
Running through this field, moonlight singular guide, to destination not disclosing the magnitude of their life. The importance is this moment in which we decide, whether we lay out in this field all night, or you go back inside.
Please don’t. You roll away from me, carried by bending weeds, and mossy beds that react with marked indifference. To go. You must, as thoughts once of passion and trust, turn to cold and wet, and miles of grass between us.
I write lines of your love in the earth below us, and now while we lay in this grass, we will be impossible to find. You make mention of dawn and whisper trust, saying follow through steady, give yourself to steadiness.
I turn in the grass in moments of discovery; you lean in and carefully pick pieces of grass from under me. We are agreed that this moment would be best understood in infinite continuity, but still, dawn refuses to wait.
Celebratory tendencies now exist to mask the fact, that open ended offers can never be passed. Unusual glances whirl about this grass, and make eyes at the moon and you as you lie up at the stars, coddled with your back.
Instantaneous karma, returns slowly and victorious, wondering of it’s place in our lives, as we stave off the obvious. Hiding from the sunlight, and the warm fire that waits, hoping to become the grass, to blend with the blades.
Stepping up and towards your home, enough has changed, that you consider reconditioning the universe. This week long lifetime has been exhilarating sustenance, that it would not be finality to this impetus.
March 4, 2002
Love steps up to the plate,
Wondering about direction,
Concerned about ways,
Sorrowful dark eyes speak
Of sentences not carried out.
Destiny walks away,
Throwing hands up in defeat,
Wondering about hopelessness,
Thrown off guard by despair,
Singing songs of loneliness.
The Song surrenders the beat,
Could be wrong, but trying to lean
Into excursions within the fleeting
Instant when love turns to leave.
And mourners cease to grieve.
Repetition becomes my disease,
Powers move well beyond me,
Powerless, I remain, at ease,
And on edge, and intoxicated,
And on and on, into the periphery
How many motifs to I still maintain,
Ways to say my love beats hot blood,
And not have you turn away and ask,
Where is my front, where is my love,
And you just duck out and insist I pass.
March 4, 2002
The idea of love, at this point, detachment at the other moment, trying so much more difficultly angled towards paradise, incompetence fleeting, scattering like salt on a slick icy road, sinking in, burning their way through to the ground. You stand proud of yourself, or your place in my life, my heart is on fire, my words are on fire, you caution detachment, a wiser path to pursue, and I am on borrowed time, in my lifetimes long week.
I fear that the spell will break, and we will be spun, lunged forward to a time when nothing was quite as early on, no words were swords quite as widely spun, and the world with in our inventions were only there for fun.
Another moment of marriage, is this where I have come, detached from the one, detached from the one, suffering detachment at the hands of my love, and forced to enter into this life, entirely alone. Asking for God, but I don’t even know the way to ask, or the answer I want, or how I’ll react when things work out different.
More lines and hopeless words strung together in illustration of thought and islands, or rather pockets of sensation flit and flutter about, with only one wing to carry them forward. Hobbling on unreserved identities, we struggle for our flight, I of course, will be alright, but this is the closest I’ve been to paradise, and approaching the threshold of that kingdom, in her earthly home, is too much for one person to continue without crushing changes.
(cont’d March 5, 2002)
And now we’re rearranging the designs or rules an belonging to the concourse on high, and packaged as fools, we dance in the dew and I take you in my arms, and question only how long, how long. You advise, hush and be strong, and I am still in the neighborhood of being fallen. We call out the Faeries and the Jinn and the elfin kinds, which we well know, don’t exist, and we drink of their cup and dance on their moss while singing along to their ancient little more than accidental songs.
Take my hand, and we’ll wander on, and the chant you’d prayed, reminded me of the end song, as the dim lights fade and the entrances one by one are made, placing careful laced feet upon the well-lit stage.
March 5, 2002
Ah, centenary, and yet still no further now than I was yesterday, still falling quickly towards the cavern’s of the wayward and the expiration of the playful dreamers destined to look away.
Ah, momentary, lapses of judgment have abounded, and as for declaring love, I’ve just about run out. Still sweet sparrows seem human in my eyes, and sing the song’s sad melody as though they had seen it with their own eyes.
Participation in these exercises has collapsed under the weight of these lines, and the fallacious nature of each uttered word screams one thousand goodbyes. Precipitation which wavers under perceptions of thunder between whose clamor, crows alone can be heard cawing and pecking at the moon.
Soon the dock will near, as well as our perceptions, since now foggy, soon grow clear, and masses of land will tower over our heads, and we will understand the path of the damned and animosity of the dead.
So many moments in these past un-authored verses, unwanted curses and unwarranted choices, have built kingdoms around paradigmatic thought patterns, and points of moral reorientation.
In speculation I notice the rarity of the Arab script in my last lines, perhaps out of calm, or a reorientation of sorts, but this language at best, is obtrusive enough –
Now when we pray, do we approach it in the right way, are our words appropriate, intelligent kind and detached? What have been the things, which we have been asking for, and are they right to give, appropriate to receive, who is still stuck on the appropriateness of gifts, who would not be remiss to not accept a moment of his time, all wrapped and ribbons and decisions abiding, notwithstanding, (the end of time nearing, chime by glassy chime)
Hobbling our greasy legs out onto abandoned stretches of highway, moonlight steadily plays games with dotted yellow lines. Trying to keep time, but truly just waiting for some dusty caravan of bikes and trailers blazing past in the middle of the night to carry us onward to more exotic lands, this, is only the junction of smaller roads to larger ones, feeding into the arterial motion from adolescence and youth into adulthood, and ultimately, though curved and carved around mountains, truth.
March 6, 2002
Fast:
Strength is waning,
Hunger strong and evident-
Life is changing,
Beats of heart preventative,
Still surely waiting,
Time passes responsiveness
Excellence in all things hangs,
High over doorways arched in time,
Built from clay and memories,
With hundred of us waiting in line,
Achieving genealogy, between us,
Knowing only thin lines of smoke explaining
Relationships to those who no doubt will pray
In our names, as twilight fades to dust,
And the lines that separate thin between us.
Dreamlike moments, circumambulate
As chosen disciples move towards the center,
Instants of hunger, crying Allah’u’abha
Warning of the danger of straying from the path
Suddenly darkness doesn’t seem quite so distant
And fears we’d survived on dissipate,
Solemn verses of God heave forward, resuscitated
And sing his praise from every letter of their essence
Suddenly truths don’t seem so foreign or queer,
Our understanding grows exponentially,
Considering of where we’ve come from here,
And how we passed the day without food,
And how we reached sundown successfully,
And how we still seem most at home lately,
When deep in prayer and quiet we meditate
And we dream of days we’ll circumambulate
And cry up to the heavens of his grace,
Ya’baha’ul’abha, this day has come,
And written on every stone,
Testimony to the truth
The power of the one
March 8, 2002
Wandering moments through forests who lack trees,
offering condolences, though the victory rarely succeeds,
determining sincerity, though in the end it’s just me,
and all along this path, we’ve been clipping at the weeds.
Sturdy isolation, brought forth by your love,
which failed to appropriate sections, for me to indulge,
still you’ve lost apprehension, and quickly we fall to the ground,
all around the sky and rain, and silence and pain waver around-
and again we are children, as we always have been, and hope to always be, and each time, taking flight from traumatics, we are broken into another questioned breath of ecstatic piety. And you motion saying ‘try me’ and I am unable to resist such an eloquent twist to what otherwise would be a fairly quiet afternoon. You are remiss, and I am repositioned to offer to you a beautiful crown of ash and sweets.
You, my world, wrapped up and unfurled into a sea of yesterday thoughts and fears of tomorrow- I am trying, I am really trying to break up the line, and offer another size or perspective of sight, within this line, where darkness flees from the night, and leaves only the silent to remain, and to cry.
March 12, 2002
Sitting, awaiting, questioning everything. Unwilling to give nods towards reality when reality falls between the cracks keeping company with humility and scare tactics injured by reputations that were broken on the way down the hole.
Dreaming, thinking, being trampled by whispers that burn off verity like fog in mid afternoon heat, easily permeated by headlights, and premeditated signs, drawn in the sky with red ink.
She remains, my patience- and somewhere in the mist of the announcements of love, somewhere within the chest cavity, life still hides, grasping between ribs, worried and ripped apart by every instance, or risk of a broken heart.
Slowly calligraphy becomes the finest art, and the words are lost in the writing. Quickly typing replaces crying, and flowers fall instead of tears. Still finer moments multiply within the fertile pool molten and chaste, crying with every last cell of life: “Wait, Wait”
Words no longer flow effortlessly, at 103, we begin to question their authenticity, their repetitiveness betrays what is probably a growing lack of effectiveness, and they are only words after all, which seldom draw and accurate map of the human heart.
But, this is the time of waiting, detaching, not knowing, but avoiding hoping, only remaining faithful and trusting, hoping not to reorganize the truth that already permeates through prayer and careful contemplation, whisked away by the agitation of fears, only to be brought to rest here, years later, tear laden eyes, and a song, which you always knew was yours, though I lacked the strength to tell you why.
Beauty escalates taking casualties in its path, ordering and reordering the questions we ask of it, wondering only, how we get so close, dipping our feet deep within the stream only to find that the water isn’t even really wet, and we are far to hot to wait.
Imitations find better expressions in dancers who hide just beyond tree lines, and bring leaves to motion with their refined exercises both in patience and with form over time, interpreting life by carefully taking steps in narrow lines, making it easier to forget and leave the world behind.
March 12, 2002
March 13, 2002
Right now-
I am angry, pensive, alone, hungry, quiet, destructive and very much in love.
Right at this moment, 18 hours and 28 minutes into my hell, mostly though I keep track for comic effect, lessening the weight on my own neck, bearing down, threatening to wreck all of the bridges I’ve built, and tear down hope in exactly the same way I’d built it.
Still we rend down curtains whose veiled perceptions guarded us under the guise of protection, and offered ourselves in utter annihilation. Steps forward taken into this situation damage our soles with every step on this jagged instigation, where time passes quickly and I sense my own self being forgotten about.
A more direct sense of self doubt plunges me toward the tube which has no way out, at least not to offer, not to direct, exquisite contact straight through the threat of damnation, or at least earthly jealousy.
These lines have taken me all day to wrap behind painful excuses for thoughts that slip past the window pane and issue utterance from where we came. Little lilacs grow from ashen earth, burned and beaten from years of abuse and suffering, they scream out to us, pull us from this place, and for them heaven becomes my vase, and likewise your wonderment at their gracious stance in the few ticking seconds of change.
It is amazing at this point how incredibly difficult it is for me to design hurt, to feel pain, not understanding the beginnings or surrounding conclusions of such tiny games, or where we have come, how I will remain, faithful. It is in the end her faithfulness which I admire most, and which, were it not to exist, I could never stand, her in embrace, not wondering what it will be the next time her eyes fall on another face, someone decidedly other than I.
This is my song then, frustrated and worn, completely lacking communication but in fallacy, and displaying light patterns that glisten only along the edges of verity, questioning only
March 14, 2002
Easily the longest two days of my life,
Surrounding questions, how would you breathe?
Somehow this is emotional suicide,
And I’ve hardly given you time to grieve-
You suck in this smoky air, bewilderment,
French fries chill on your plate, uninvolved
Coffee on your sleeve from an argument,
But we’re just animated when we dissolve-
‘Another one thousand years like this
Offering answers where weapons won’t pass
Another War against the self,
Spiritually seeking, leaving en masse’
It’s been eons, well hours really, unmistakable
Wonderment ceases to remain safe,
Lies pile up and the moment is not replaceable,
Begrudgingly growing in two different ways-
Offers of peace, and romantic surrendering,
Details the truth of what you really feel,
I offer treaty’s and letters in tedium
Explaining our stances, but you’ve lost zeal-
‘’
How often could you ask me my name-
Before you called me by the light of your smile,
How many more days will I wait,
Until you are unattached, and we are tangled-
Lyrics…. March 14, 2002
Words which fall in your name, onto this page,
tracing the way I claim my love for you
Know full well that their breath is accident,
and my love coincidental, as only truth,
Dies from the knowledge of better things to come,
offering her hand, in place of your
One deep breath, which was given to compensate,
for the thousands we missed in youth
This deep wooded forest masks idleness,
composing itself only from the trees
Trees which seemed to indicate fertileness,
propagate only for the free
Moments now spent, deep in prayer, seem to point in a particular direction
Offers sent up, concentrated air, seem to dictate a certain kind of discretion
You were the one who woke me from myself,
Offered me some tea, and brought me to health
You were the dream, which kept me in bed,
Showed me my self, peered inside my head
Lives that sacrifice, inside your name,
Emanating truths, I’m afraid to claim
Thoughts that get drowned out by the rain,
waiting for dryness, or some other day
are wonders which cease to grow pale and plain,
and author the verses, which show us the way
March 14, 2002
Perhaps it is some talent that has vanished in the time; I have been so prolific at this exercise, and so fully lost my ability to rhyme. Instead perhaps, I have come to far less rhythmic a spine, and crossed the notes out of the air. It is time, It is time, for strings and rhymes, which will say in the underlying meanings, what just these words alone cannot express.
Perhaps it is a lion’s share of nothingness, buckled under duress, opening up the window and allowing emptiness to enter. You and I, at this floor level, chilled though situated before the fire find contemplation in each flame, and hearing the nothingness knocking at the pane, curl in tighter, pulling our heels inward beneath our heads.
Still the sudden lack of approval from my cortical matters, not permitting passage of the question’s we ask, hoping for lyric inspiration, seeing the flow pushed too far out of line, stifles the very heart of our hopes, hopes whose existence still depends on the good grace of God, and the consistency of thought over time.
Brutal preparation has gone into months of excavation, taking stone from stone in the name of curving the way, showering the steady entourage of fate, twisted around things we can hardly still relate to our children, though they still remain unborn, and unaware of these horrible decisions that so many times before their birth, have come to pass, scraping their agile talons upon the earth.
I would call this poem curmudgeon and discombobulating, patterns of thoughts which come in waves, and somehow wind up on the page, brutally honest, like what my friend read last night, date and all, hearkening back to march 4th.
This is fate were it any other way, no doubt I would push more, and what happens in pushing, is we begin to break, and cry, and throw on breaks which seldom work, as worn as they are, tired as they are, and you dissipate the already diluted solution, though the answer will not be clear for some time (as evaporated allusions slowly rise to the surface) and like tea leaf reading, you see the future of us.
Well, I will close these lines, as they have failed their purpose, on re-reading and comprehending the awful schism, which enters in and runs parallel to the meanings I was aiming for, never looking down, and never achieving the yell that I had destined for truth.
March 14, 2002
Divinity-
Peeking through translucent drawn shades,
Knowing only light can enter into this place,
Inconsistent fragments of glass that stay
Deeper into the flesh, and deeper into our prayers
Distance of sunset principles to walk away
Suddenly disciplined, and returning the plate.
I am lowly, fearful, but in this state, unafraid,
And your grace radiates downward from your face
Secondary flames spring up licking and suggestive
Measurements wield bitter defenses.
I approach lowly, frightened, aware of inadequacy
Stifled by thoughts and recollections, of now,
Beginnings and not decisions, broken away dreams
He is God: Verily the inscrutable power of such as He
Wafts down from the indescribable heaven of truth,
Such sayings as will live on the tongue for days,
Giving clues to the true nature of our universe.
March 15, 2002
I am fading through the lines that you crossed, in and out of realities hashed out my negotiations I was not available for in the first place. You’re designs grow plump and burst, both romantically inclined, and impossible to reverse, but these times are the best of days, each in it’s own sweet way.
Bittersweet expectations mark the hallway, where we pass, exchanging glances at midnight, hardly even touching the walls as we glide along, nightshirts trailing, searching for water, and some firmer kind of bed.
Slightly alarming, the way we’ve tied these moments together, bunched in tidy forever’s, where our own allusions to truths that cannot be borne by our objectivity falter and quit well ahead of the parade.
Complacently you march on, being sure to stop and to wave, and to uncover your veil just long enough that I may recognize you by your smile, before returning to your modest expression of feminine failure of my soul to distinguish between the written word and the enigmatic details.
I have seen you from a distance, and today send my love by proxy. You have requested, of course that I stop transmission, but the reversal of orbits has never been a straight matter of chance.
Raise your eyes-
Meeting mine, you come to realizations of kindness, and what would become charitable donations of the heart, giving to mine, that for which I have longingly cried, step forward, take this hand, perceive truth, deep within the roots of this tree upon which we make our stand, and argue for our timely return to Eden.
Singing a line or two, prayerfully focused, confused, but far from promiscuous, you let your lips part, partially succumbing to my devouring glances, though I quickly turn away ensuring the bulk remains for modesty, and at the least what we would assume is a wedding day, or rather we have already been wed, and in this gregarious instant, each words placed successively, erotically on the page, dictating the emotional state, of which we end this statement,
I am one, I am focused on the heart of this storm, and drive on steadily, not waiting for another admonishment to be warned, or cautious, in truth, hovering over you, transformational flight, wings floating elements in and out of our line of sight, forcing confusion on such basic concepts as wrong, and right.
March 15, 2002
I.
You gave me a lifetime in a week
Offering amnesty from selfishness,
Considering stoicism from itself,
A branded truth,
Siphoned from the top of the ocean,
And cast up like so much foam
You showed me character,
Allowed me to apprehend,
Strong and bitter fruits
Containing beginnings and ends,
Pitted gently by simpler
Gardeners and watchmen,
Who take fascinated glances
In the directions we’ve been
Our coal has not borne
Any diamonds in some time,
But the voracious pressure
Which brought up,
Through willful operations
And sudden declarations
Of love,
In the space previously too small,
Has intimidated the proud,
And called out the late,
From their romantic hibernation
Of course, you look and say, y
You aren’t even tired,
Much less to hibernate,
Foreign conceptualizations,
Of god and of love,
Broken down into components,
Small enough to shove in
Through holes that hardly fit,
Considering romance,
But still wholly afraid of it,
Listening to friends,
And admiring our places,
Happiness is relative,
But you’re still happy.
II.
A week of separation, this is the fast. The moments that sweep past us acknowledging our words, and displaying their indifference. Of course I feel betrayed, as I was disintegrated, not played, but pushed back into a manufactured abyss of utter nonexistence- It is Spring-
I should be there sleeping at your side, protecting your joy, showing you mine, understanding your life, and aiding you to grow wiser with each passing breath, and under my auspices, devoid of regret.
I should not be in this cold, frozen state, pacing back and forth on Freudian rugs, counseled by fading friends, struggling with whether or not to suggest I give up, instead I should lie on your rug, and sleep comfortably, we understand I have not slept this week,
Attachment-
Lord, Separate me from such things as consume me besides you.
Illumine for me the path most befitting your servant, with truth,
Dictate the commands to which my adherence will bring about
One thousand confirmations of the glorification of your cause-
Lord, You perceive me weak, even as I cling to the hem of your most transcendent majesty, You see me weep, even as I tread upon the fragments of my own broken heart, I approach you meekly, in bewilderment, remorseful and repentant-
I beg of you O Lord, create in me a modicum of detachment from all save thee, and a freedom from the confines of such machinations as cause me to forget your signs, and your days, and cause me to be razed to the ground in a weary haze, Verily your clemency is beyond compare, With you is the power to do all things, and Verily thou art the All Forgiving, the Gracious.
It now seems pitiful to continue this exercise.
What will come will be done through an exercise of His will, and whatsoever outcome is formed as a result of His exertion I will be satisfied with. I am far too much in love to remove from it my detachment, and to fly in the face of Divine assistance, when I had already asked once.
Patience,
Steadiness,
Trust.
Meridian waking moments, breathing, well last
time it was hope, and wondering which of these windows still
open, who haven’t had paint surround their hope. Mean thoughts
of broken glass and reaching glass which surrounds this place,
soft and easy to taste between toes, up until this moment bound
between bones, that were growing seditious in their stupor breaking
pieces of wood as they stepped beneath themselves.
Somewhere sinewy truths propagate themselves
and line up like hermits waiting their chance to chant and spit,
at this gateways to Eden, is it the knowledge of it, that draws
me to that dark Smokey place, where chimneys bring thoughts
of life and the crunching of branches beneath feet on the ear
of the divine calls us back in line, and we’re left asking why,
why are we inside, when we barely had time to feel the life
beneath ourselves, before returning to these well designed cells.
Peace Oceanic
beauty Clarity
and comfort Lines
ling endlessly Playing
from patterns Stenciled
by frost and fire Incomprehensible
to those Who
would drive their stake On either
side of this wire, Allowing
the cold to break Or the
heat to chafe, And
the pain to make Life
unbearable, cruel Incorrigible
charred ice Passageways. Angry little steps taken on cold fields unable
to comprehend the meaning of a good meal, constantly killing
crushing with each gait the very life force which lies beneath
and innate. Understandably cold, and chilled even more by the
site of a fire and a warm insulated velour. Harbinger of hope
happily relating the days passing actions, looks out from that
smug warm sarcophagus obviously in utter unfettered elation.
Startling
revelation, we belong within, and are well deserving of it.
This brutal environment, breeds nothing but enmity and phosphorous
which barely ignites our way out of it, but seldom calls our
bluff in the middle of it- wake as I have awakened, and take
what we deserve, that verily we may gain admittance to that
warm bubble of paradise, whose artificial lights attract for
miles, in all of nature who begs entrance.