squalid, in a stream

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pining for the universal doorway
we sit recalcitrant staring at our own casket
the symbol of giddy children or muscle men, circus bound
with no other option than to be what others say they should become.
without from the to gets too much attention and bubbles form
facing a new nest recorded in stagnant waters already reached by dark rays of yellow birds, curious of their brethren possessions, chaos in the treetops
spite on the ground
"i can't ascribe to the same eddies as your upbringing"
still, he tries to be patient and rectitude
soaking up another culture's beat
twanging and swaying
free

the tongues slip out of frowns awaiting turtles in biohazard cores
it's creepy time for sure
a little man with large eyes in a tiny head
feeding on whatever floats by
wearing stepladders and french people
it was almost over
the clover had come for crowds to graze
for the glaze of normalcy flowing into rivers
with no other personality than point A, point B
swoops! cooing. this pixie dies in small part upon hearing organ choruses
and mother keeps up her back breaking routine
squalid, in a stream

Four crazy people sat facing the four cardinal directions.
They protected your movements, your morning cofffee from spilling,
your daily bread,
with thte force of their incantations, breathed into the enchanted wind.
One was a black man, torn from his family at 5, now guardian of the east,
who broke that dawn when he was kicked out on the street by the last landlord,,
who felt the spring snap inside him when he couldn't understand the way out of the maze.
The second smiled into the graceful south,
where the wheels of his chair lay directed ready to carry him to the ends of the earth,
oh those soft eyes of pity, those leaning coos of "hey Buddy, need a hand there?"
all this and the frustration of never being able to run again,
led him around the dark corner,
into the alley by the roller rink, where his mind lies trapped.
To him falls the need to bear the weight of the world as it falls southward eternally. An Atlas with an ever expanding smile.
The soldier of the West is a veiled lady of Arabia,
the supreme subject of a million stereotypes, reigning over the gardens of her imagination,
where she can sing, and meet her friends, and speak her mind,
And paint the wild naked corners of the Serengeti without fear,
And these she tracks with her one good eye,
and her crushed soul.

And the stalwart of the North, an albino of uncertain heritage,
a woman with no past or future,
a blank slate that creation colours with the whims of each moment,
She was born without the any purpose for her tongue,
and knowing all languages uses none.
She alone has it within her to stand up to our winters for us.
She sees thin strams of gold and deep blue, and smells things before they occur.
She does not cringe at the sight of the guts of a pig, nor does she feel joy when the sun warms her feet.
But she is seen to smile, when the tide comes in. When Mars enters summer,
when the migration of the whales reaches its end.

I am

...in love and more,
and the satisfaction of one moment
does not communicate with the next.
Lessons that bear reminding in every fresh, newborn instant.
So be it.
The collections of things that define life need not be thematic.

Past that memory

Sweet Seraphine,
in the quiet darkness of tonight,
floating so peacefully away,
away and away.
And do I notice that slight bitterness that so lightly pulls
you from this dream, so silently
draws your eyes back in time?
Why yes, but I pray you, dwell not forever in that place,
tarry not in the quarries of sorrows,
for there is an echoing silence that bids you to rest.

And let not that sadness be driven harshly,
but kept well,
like a piece of glimmering nostalgia,
a keepsake, well-rounded by time,
and slightly threadbare,
dusty in the attic, visited in reveries
and moments of necessary reflection.

Sweet child, your destiny will wax and wane,
and the universe will force you randomly through its testing-sieve:
through pores of passion, tunnels of anguish,
passages of glory, open fields of equanimity,
and you shall carry those scars, wear those medals upon your breast,
and each shall bear witness to your life.
This whole and nothing less will define you.

Along the dark street,
with waning Christmas lights in January,
the exorcist returned home.
He took off his damp overcoat,
sat in his worn armchair,
and held the tips of his fingers in each hand alternately.
The cold had got into them.

"And so will death release us?
Into judgment?"
The trade he had plied all these years,
and eroded the sharp edges of faith
and the water had receded to reveal veins of inexplicability.
Every so often, it was the same story:
a young boy sent to fetch him, the devil was hard at work,
he arrived in the ramshackle house,
a distraught parent, spouse,
and the diseased, the unclean,
would sit staring, or frothing at the mouth.
He would say his piece, his bored litany,
and ask everyone to leave the room.
In the quiet, he would hold his head in hands,
and stare at the wretch that lay in pain.
"I cannot help you," he would whisper,
the lucky amongst you will wake up the next day or week or month,
and praise the name of God and His messenger,
the less fortunate, would pass into the shadow of the valley
the contest having slipped out of mankind's hands.
And mine.

"A salve to the wounds of the remaining
the anima, the soul, the blasphemous Brahman,
what does it mean beyond the reach of our time and mortality?
We build castles in the air and cathedrals in the twilight of our lives."