Corpus Mundi

Three crows sitting on a winter-ransacked tree
is not just a repeating motif in fables
but in my recent life too.
Corvus eats the Corpus
of the recently passed-on
picked down to the raw bone
so that white doves and civilized Greeks may partake
of polite society.
The cleansing to wipe the slate
and start with a clear conscience
the process of ignoring death.
All over again.
The wisdom of the birds
that once bore the responsibility
of advising Lugh of the Celts
one on each shoulder
the majestic dark-downed ones
users of tools,
and ingenuity,
have no home amongst the innocent.
The omens that they bear unto us,
are merely reflections of our potentialities.

Steely Dawn

I woke up that morning,
Into the steely sunlight
That forged its way through the pale clouds,
And gave off that faint metallic smell
That rings around new experiences and new worlds.
I had stumbled that fresh day into a fresh universe
Dusty streets with cement compound walls
Cars driving themselves,
No faces anywhere.
Like lat night was Ragnarok
And the worlds sins were washed away
The innocence of new beginnings
The crisp letter of new rules,
New banners in a foreign country,
That is my home from before.

In the birth there is no one else to share my incredulity,
At least none that I have found yet.
This is the singular effect that the sun falling at the right angle
Through a certain prism
On a certain cloudy day
Can have.
Beware the beauty of the changeling universe.

pow-wow on the yang-tze

now that i think of it, after returning home on the 11 i won't want to continue.
i just know me. after touching home i'll need to stay.
it's not about you. it's about me, peter. i'm the one that has to make this decision.
i know the way i would feel and it just isn't wise to leave.
i've had revolts of me, inside me, the very pinnacle of knowing one's self.
of being. of toiling with...this. it's all a tangled mess in the end.
but we press on, of course. the beat repeats. we write a new line of code.
we click moments into the past only to recall a bit.

at least releasing, your feet carry you out // the mind reacting without asking.

so..
the iron's been put to the fire.
question now is
what now?

Pacem

The desert this night is full of lizards:
sleek, lean, fat, scaly, horned,
skittering across the floor in the vivid blue light of the moon,
crossing paths, scaling the heights of each other
endlessly turning and churning the sand and rocks,
never letting them rest.
They dig network patterns into the dunes
and hurry forth with no destination, no final resting place in the sun.
Movement is its own purpose.

With a thin whisper
I can send them to rest,
back to their coves of memory,
their niches of passion,
their nests of solitude.
And I find the desert my welcome home and hearth,
once again.
I am sovereign.

Grooming my self-image
in the mirror-pond
laughing self-consciously all the time
until the day that I shed my body.
And step into those deeper waters,
without the need for air.

Yesterday was when a simple charge of moisture-laden air,
a wafting chill carried me over
to where my foremothers/fathers (as much as yours)
sat in the translucent days of innocence
before the skin was colored
when the lonely gulp and slosh of paddle in water
or the snap and tug of sail and rigging
were their only companions.
The journeys of discovery
sagas lost to history, retained as simple facts
without the flesh and hue of breath in the midsummer air,
and the Pacific calm
and all the details that connect us to the forever past and the forever future
without these, we move in shared blindness.

the safe race

weaping walker (without tennis balls)
amid languid season OR a breach of humanity
maybe no less humane, but certainly draining
like bricks from the street. like ignorance.
i told myself i'd stop judging violence
but i don't see it that way. a tunnel's a tunnel
where i can't see by the light of a cocktail
casting stone, spitting lung. god damned darkness.

a soft hand thrust down to knock sense into irrational
but that's just not me. i'm too safe for understanding.
still in swirling a fantasy family underquoted yet so pressed
amid friends swept arrested, i charge with abandon. what rage!
what courage! where's the badge? and who said we couldn't?!?

i can't remember the combination to a simple lock.
so to satiate my helpless cleats, i walk...and then i walk further.
i rant to the trees, the thatch, whatever has my attention.
i bind it, conform it, mash it like grease into my intricate parts.
new motions now setting, emotions in skin, a thin ring of wisdom.

hand to foot to knee to toe to chin to eye to heading.
i call this crawling. our baby race barely beginning.

Out of the dead expanses of a scorched earth,
Do we see a virgin birth
Conceived in neither sound, smell, or the taste of freedom;
How do we choose to unshackle ourselves?
Millons of lives sold as the Live-Stock of another from the womb
Right to the trembling muscled days of hard labour in an unforgiving sun,
Did we accept even ourselves tacitly as the property of another?
No, for people swore to themselves that there was something better,
In those brief interludes that the captors did not see
As sowing the seeds of liberty,
In those fleeting glimpses of the glory of this world, grow the potentialities of the human spirit,
And bid the feet to run, through that free grass, through that racing stream, through the cloud-jeweled blue days of grace, into the arms of our own futures,
And our own rules.
To break our backs on our own terms.
And to savour the sweet corn that spills from our own horns of plenty.
I do not understand the horrors of slavery,
I am on the other side, where I feel the warmth of what life can be,
Of what infinite joys the universe can offer, if only we open our arms wide
To contain its embrace.

But is history in the past, or are we still finding ways of accepting our bonds?
Is the yearning for anarchy reduced to a movement of college kids with red tags smeared on forgotten walls?
Or is there a desire for more: have we compromised for the promises of society
To the point of being willing slaves?
Everyday we’re driven by the gales of prejudices, gossamer-subtle, a mere whisper in the corner of your room, a quiet little flap of its scaly wings in the darkness of our hours,
I found this insect of misfortune in my own home,
And had to shovel centuries of filth off my own perceptions of the world.
The task is far from over, but I am trying to free myself.
Slowly, with measured, sometimes tortured steps,
To extricate myself from the expectations of a non-sentient yet often aggressive world of opinions and ideas.

...and all they could be measured by...

get up! get along. the friar didn't go bald for your pension.
unwaxed jackets now stay strewn low and slovenly like kelp, just waiting for wave orders
the next passerby eliciting momentary control, then silence
what is happening?
spices strapped inside barrels bound for the shore
sunstroke sweeps and windswept fascia pose like victimless paddles
let's hope the seals were worth the tender price we paid

servitude, at least
i can not work. something about john henry and a fuzzy stuffed lab
repeating in my brain. good enough to get it now. to look good. to give the good. now a need.
star gazing for angels in time on top offered objective and sallow
padforn, he lost it. magpies remember. with wishing these combine
already dousing sluggish energy, true mean - soon or teeth
brew ha! we laughed. we're down, bobbing.