How do I unlearn? Refuse the granted Burdens of succession Avalanching ancestries Furrowed brows of pine trees Hurtling toward progression Confused, yet heavy handed How do I return? To spring, riding upon the silver mantle of Levant Toward spring

You yearn for the rose Tender being of the Earth Find me in comfort Pristine azalea Paragon of purity Shining like stained glass Rhododendron tree Firecrackers in your arms Please hold me as well Glimpse what lies within Your subterranean soul Twisted as roots are Violet, peach, and solemn blue So lost above the feverfew Evolving snow banks merge and mend In effervescent art again Then lavender and darling black Your lullaby which brings us back Into the twinkling time of youth Of soft white lies and the loose tooth Sometimes it seems it is arranged By angel’s whims and long-lost age That condition which constricts and binds Thoughts embraced by fervent life No pause, no end, the skies migrate No pause, no end, the seasons change In Summer’s burden, Winter’s bright In Autumn’s croon, and Spring’s delight Seeking pictures in vapor In flowers, and in ink on paper Insanity, in earnest Illegibly, we learn this For how could we want for more than this? Call it paradise, Orpheus sings Recall utopia is not an Earthly place But something born of hopeful waste The way that snow will ripe to sludge And wipe away with no witness The world that speaks to us in tongues Cannot impart to me what I do not know A branch, a nerve, muscles, and dirt A pistol, hatchet, quiet hurt And when your ears are underground A trillion voices will resound The Earth is dirt on which we pray Until we lay down in our grave The Earth is heavy, cold, careless Be careful what you choose to cherish You suffering saint Starve instead of foraging For aimless pleasures Indifferent lover Caress me in alpenglow Honey-saliva Flower-strewn meadow No herald of lullaby Hear the threnody

Shepherd, sage, pastor, priest Aster, clover, peony Be my mentor, sweet milkweed Drape the nightshade over me Hunter, gather all you need Not kneel to man, nor touch concrete Think of poor Enkidu As he rots to dust Dreaming to be free of Smog and syphilis Smoke and grease, engine noise Preacher, prophet, altar boys. Faith is fleeting, wear a wreathe: Not crowned in thorns, but laurel leaves. Hunter, gather all you need Learn from the ruins of royalty Like a tortured turtle, Gibbous belly up Turning dormant as myrtle In the buoyant sun Old Plato, Diogenes Aristotle, Socrates Two thousand years have gone and passed A thousand more just like the last Mastercraft philosophies Will be forgotten, then repeat Aesop’s fables, ancient trees Mother nature’s remedies Hike this strange anatomy Spread the word as honey bees Hunter, lover, take your leave On roads like veins and arteries Wicker basket weaver Wasting all your time Stay a non-believer Wish the whole world blind

Little mockingbird, you sound the horn Trumpets blaring at the dawn Flirting hummingbird you bound and weave Frantic, in tranquility Always moving, branch to branch Where will you decide to rest your heart? Sometimes I get lost and I go green Waiting for the changing leaves Hornets guard their nests while partridges preen Where is it I should look to see? Mindlessly moving day and dark Where do you reside, my meadowlark? Satyr and grayling Last remnants of your kind Flutter on Gently to the night Chainsaws and rifles Bark and bite like dogs Listen close, listen true What is it that you are telling me? Sharing wisdom of the free You know that I feel so incomplete Unaware of my folly At times I’m a bother At times I struggle We’ve got these problems And each other So don’t worry, don’t feel out of your mind Don’t worry, there’s no wasting time Do you hear them? It’s the final sound I’m surrounded “Coo coo coo!”

Canopy, embracing me As ivy on the willow tree Strangling, dangling, Mangled moss, you tickled thing Working land, working man Doing everything he can So he can feed his family Something more than rice and beans Pray at mass, and pray to fleas Finding joy in blackberries Sweet strawberry, shiny cherry Gingham dressed confectioneries Hopeless land, hopeful man, Who seeks freedom from Persephone? Crying in cacophony! The grinding stone encroaches on Hermit crab, inside a skull, See the frogs on lilypads, Leave the labyrinth of your head And sunbathe in the light instead So take off your shoes, take off and fly, You’ll die before you hit the ground Searching again, perching on dunes Enjoying the struggle again Withered land, withered man Doing everything he can So he can keep on travelling Down the endless gravel beach Accustomed to his fineries, Dithers there and hither pleads Soles a-fraying, ankles bleed Painful test- an entrance fee Barren land, barren man, Staring blank and listlessly Wearing rags, but feeling free Barefoot on a gravel beach Freedom wants, and freedom claims Antietam’s bloodstains still remain Manacles and odysseys Cannonballs and Robert Lee You can have all that you want But wanting more will bring you grief Wealthy or in poverty Or somewhere in between So take off your shoes, take off and fly, You’ll die before you hit the ground Searching again, perching on dunes, Enjoying the struggle again We can have all that we want But what I want has brought me grief So I will want for nothing more Than to have you here with me

At long last I behold the solstice as Stonehenge foretold Manic horseflies soar rampant as horse and man alike languish Panic, as the farmhands Tremble below Earth These catastrophes survived By hornets, bees, and butterflies Sirocco stokes its furnace-lungs Unshackled, Summer has begun Bow below the sun

Red lily, give me a reason to keep breathing like a canary Ovation, coronation, for a pilgrim, mortal affliction Behind our stride, tansies bloom Lyre on fire, a little boot You linger by the danger and the stinger for the unwary Carnation, alleviation, for a victim, of self-infliction By flesh flies, condors loom Eye of newt and phoenix plume Play along this grim charade Cast your coins into the lake Grey embalmed hands reach to grip What flows to Sanzu, drains to Styx Crop that's bred to bear no fruit Falling prey to futile truths Obsolete will eat your head Praying mantis, playing dead You're all I need You're all I see Always by me Always fighting me The way a sword is forged in flame And forged again in blood and pain Engorged with life, we eat and eat The meat of meaning and release While cities burn and morgues are filled A baby's born and fields are tilled The ferryman is paid his due Waiting patiently for you You're ideal and you're inviting Cannot leave Do all ways lead to grief? Fearsome lightning Fiercer thunder Flaming maelstrom Torn asunder

Shown by the faint, quaking, hesitant shudder Was it that you were scared or ashamed of me? Traitor, ablazing, irradiates all Intentions decried, and you were belied by your face Hiding and biding inside while you’re crying, Maybe I’ve taken too long A glory, attention, a heavenly sign For the sightless Lost in the faceless, hateful, space around me Hovering, that smothered us until we caught aflame Midnight, there walks a spirit, conspiring Movements soothing, footfalls alone are the trace Don’t worry love, I will pass away silently As I came, then your gaze went astray to the outside Hiding and biding inside while you’re crying Tell me I’ve taken too long Lay down your head, lose the screaming attire And waste away Lost in the faceless, painful, fey, disabling Coming down, in a cloud of toxic air Lost in the faceless, hateful, space around you Hovering, that smothered you until we caught aflame.

Healer, you take the form of a demon Between us is a secret But I’m suffering from amnesia Broken femur, you appear to be beaten You look obscene when you’re feasting Awaiting trial from Demeter Injury injury, to the tyranny tyranny Of material things Emergency, everything an enemy, can you ever rest in peace? Possibly caught the dread disease of empathy Serum, holy water or a poison Your destiny to destroy them Is it enough or is it weakened? Hopeful believer, you adhere to the noises Atrocities and annoyance Evading fire for our leaders Chickadee chickadee, sing a hymnody, hymnody For efficiency’s needs Emergency, everything an enemy, can you ever rest in peace? Possibly caught the dread disease of efficiency

How I’d love to shoot a dove How I’d love to shoot you How I'd love to kill enough To make the forest silent How I wish to gut a fish Love, I want to gut you How I wish to kill enough To make the waters silent And the hound returns His rabid belly full Morbid as the salted beach Where schools of young wash up Run you rat, into the sea The piper has arrived Warmly dressed in his knit vest With a viper tie For he is a marksman raised in arid badlands Taught from youth forgotten truths And reins he grasps in hand. Diurnal or vespertine Hibernate for all of time Fly you fowl, fall in death’s kiss Shooting true, you won’t be missed Dead replaced by several more Genocide of pests- endured Go to sleep I’d adore to hunt a boar You know how much I adore you? I’d adore to hunt enough To make the whole world silent Ouroboros dies The great game warden cries It’s time, retire, return to rest As lord of nothing more

Will you speak or will you scream? There will be fire beneath the green leaves Coal and ash will coalesce Plunge into the hurricane Cower not before the hunt Spur Ponente, ride forth, ride forth! Chaos comes, prepare the plow As algae blooms, the life’s snuffed out Ostro beckon, roar and groan Gregale lay down the cooling sound Fall into the graceful bow Resplendent rest, to Autumn now

Mud in my eyes Light falls on the tall pines Bleeding and blind Freezing, stuck in my confusion Worn out disguise You can’t hide that you’re red inside To leave behind The dull knife, that cuts away the illusion Don’t waste your time You can’t outrun black skies Vain, hack the tendrils Your bones break before the bough I try to listen, to hear the ancient rhythm But all I feel is tumult, and all I hear is static Where do I look to see? Where do I go to be? Endless days of content Sing and play before they end Breathe in the mist And find a place to be self-aware And dare to act Upon the abyss at which we stare Silent serenity, unseen, but felt Souls to be frozen, never to melt Those set in stone will stay But those who remain will fade away

In the time before the sunset as the bats begin to wake Falling leaves create a moment and the wind begins to shake And the candles come alight to fight the night’s endless expanse In time before the harvest as the earth begins to quake Slightly nervous, I go dormant as the breeze begins to take All the windrows to the ocean and typhoons begin their dance Grasping and holding, grasping and holding Grasping and holding anything they can Grasp me and hold me, grab me and hold me Hold me, hold me with anything you can Cascading down into the heart of autumn Now we fall from grace Waterfall of stars, into the endless night A candle in the dark Little cygnet in the storm drain, abducted down in twirling rain Sinking deeper in the whirlpool, spinning currents entertain As the chlorophyll decays away, volcanoes manifest Natural force that gives no warning, arc to moment, pulse to trace Engine torque and cruel inertia, lost in gravity’s embrace Pull me closer to the molten core of red hot life and death

When will you decide to rest your stones upon the dirt? Where will you reside and plant your trees and fence your turf? When will you admit you’ve settled for less than what you dreamed? And then returned to sleep in hopes of a new dream? Bring me a quilt before I am laid bare Moonlike in moonlight and otherworldly bright Listen to the symphony, of howls and bitter wails Like oil, you slip and stick To me, it burns, and boils I must wrap myself in fabrics, else your jaws sink in You can’t control that which you love; though roaming causes pain So I roam for blizzards, and the snow squalls, and apocalypses Smiling with the frostbite, and the seizures, and eclipses Oh, I know you long to travel and explore Do you search for beauty or for someone to adore? Do you have a goal, or is your goal to get away? Beware, if you’re running from yourself, you’ll run forevermore How can you be as still as falling leaves? And as aware as a sleeping beast? So passionate, as mosquitoes breed The raven’s keen to your conspiracy So settle down quietly Let go of this awful anxiety So that you can finally Settle down And die silently

I must speak now, else I forever forfeit this peace So now I will speak, for now I must speak Before the cold tears me away to join the ranks of silence While my bones still resist the hurricane Though they may be as cygnets captured in a swirling drain While the bindings tighten around this pallid flesh And doom hangs above high with a guillotine end Dulling the gold, and spreading the plague that sounds as sweet as sirens While my bones still resist the hurricane Though they may be as cygnets captured in a swirling drain Ever twirling, turbulent havoc around Soundless forevermore, ever unfound So full of love, with nowhere for it to go Though things may change, ebb and flow Hold my hand through the undertow Change all you want Change all you can Or nothing at all I love you forever All you are All you want I want to know Will things get better? Change all you are Change all you can Or nothing at all I love you forever All you are All you want I want to know Will things get better?

Autumn's end, mistral arrives Winter comes again I feel small once again But to feel at all Is to have lived at all To have lived a lifetime Reaching any point in time Has taken all your life Do you live for what you leave? Or live, simply to be? Bear the whip Bear the scorn Bear the weight of being born Come to me, winter storm Huddled close we will be warm Enough to weather this Whether this means anything to you Though you may be withering Know your rings will not fade May we lay and gaze at stars Forever, or just for a night Love does live in memories Be they forever, or just for a life

A trail of tears approaching on the horizon From where you call home, it calls my name The ice on your shoulder (Aching all your life) Mysterious stone face, like before Where did you come from? Where are you going? Where did you come from? Where are you going? Tail of your soft glow From where would you estimate The star lights your pathway (And your ageless face) Or are you just aimless? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Leave me here, kiss the atmosphere Leave me here, kiss me in spite of our fear Where did this come from? Where is it going? Where did we come from? Why are you going? Now I’m leaving you behind And I am sorry I lied to your face. And I am barren, cold as empty space Yet at least, I deserve this Carry me home

There is nothing new under the sun My words are echoes of echoes of echoes... Black bird, away! You’re not to be here Ain’t you smart enough to know when you aren’t wanted? Bedridden man, chestnut in your brain Seldom are you heeded, and selcouth is your plight Struggle of the ant, relentless in its ways Crawl among the relics far too large to understand Feeble romance, gift of severed stems Limerence will guide you sailing through the vale of tears Change all that you want Eager believer, you pray away fever Red cotoneaster like fish eggs The dogwood is growling, the reaper is howling And all the blades of the field grow past my legs Tenderest wren, playing your blood sport Catching dragonflies and cruelly gouging out their eyes Searching for water, I find a mirrored lake And see my own reflection, as the mirror starts to break Schizophrenic age, stimulus and sound Glitz and glamour flashing while they guide you underground No more tomorrows, try to understand Wallow in your sorrow or believe in something grand Change all that you can Wandering traveler, stowaway passenger Sweetly invasive and gentle A harvest, a massacre, lay down in lavender As flowers crowd and stroke my head Vengeful appendage, a phantom limb mended Driving our way through ghost towns Cotard and Capgras, when your mind is lost Feel the warmth leave as the sun goes down

Do you know more, or do you know better? When you’re no more, will you know better? In the frost of peaceful December I hope you will recall For all of our sins remembered And violence and hatred engendered Should not cloud the virtues encountered Though none of it matters at all You’re still waiting for the day to come When something new will come your way But you know There is nothing new under the sun My words are echoes of echoes of echoes long gone

Blink underneath the blanket, where oysters lie yawning A cavernous bed where the dawn never shows Submerged in morass, a soft back impresses a cast Cadaverous head, like in snow, far below In the threshing, abrasive, rough-fine simile Stirring up clouds in unyielding brine Palming the bubbles, as moray eels fawn While motes are dragged in gravity's impasse Scarlet descends, revealing the ampoule of glass Fleshless hands are sweeping away Star-seeking men, who do not know your place In endless blood-sand of heartless timekeepers Dead-green peat stains on the bones repeat their conquest heading home Pure, polluted, passing, urgent Cure to dirge, cannot outrun A limb to lose, or eye to gouge To choose or gauge the things we do As oceans turn desert, and deserts turn sea Gibraltar wanes evermore, evermore bleeds Bleeding to sand, water leeches the land Sturdy and stoic as where Nelson would stand Diluted twisting paths point towards the ends of unrepentant entities of malice and wars forces impossibly massive, shifting gradually and passive as large landmasses Split open the trench of this insidious abyss As obstinate Earth-blood spits forth its hiss From the mattress of stone in his observational dome the scarlet dust will blanket his bones As oceans turn desert, and deserts turn sea Gibraltar wanes evermore, evermore bleeds Bleeding to sand, water leeches the land Sturdy and stoic as where Nelson would stand To those wounds that sank below the sea See the future, synchronously Drawn on a plane, an artificial position Shot out of place toward an unseen direction Struck like a chord, four dimensions coincide While my consciousness bounds off into a space-time divide My feet stand on rock, and floor by the hearth Then on moons, and in air, then back on Earth Tell me true, is this a dream? Sea birds cry, starts my eyes, shuffle on board Flying flags and grand masts on blue do soar Brave vessels sail alar to their fate Far through the closing strait, we gave our chase Gunpowder rending roars in oceans of stars Grim waters glistening with meteors and steam Then with my half-blind eye, I turn to face Fiery armadas on shorelines accelerate At Trafalgar's Cape, alien silhouettes reside Just as professed by the lonely Tralfamadorian Not the hand of God nor the hand of chance Will chance us through this collision. For this sacred mission I give you my body as sacrifice In your care, in my homeland, I ask this of my task: If destiny decrees that I die, will my reward be paradise? Rifles crack, like a whip They constrict my neck, each muscles slackened Squirming hands that used to grasp Only clench as fists and then relax I heard you confess: "Men follow men who follow themselves" Does a man following faith stand any chance in Hell? In a dream, I was dying, though not unforeseen Knowing the "is," the "was," the "going to be" So it goes, so it was, so always will be Events had conspired towards one man's advance Uncertain, unknown, but to them, they were planned No conspiracy theory nor complete random chance Could ever reconstruct the happenings at hand Call out to us, angler with your cosmic soul-bulb Alighting the midnight lying at the bottom of the world Bare your needle teeth, pierce their scouts Scaled Icarus of the deep Enthralled by that so glorious Should never be seen And you can blink An endless blink Blink And it’s gone