reverence

The machines of man are moving mountains.
The sacred sky is shifting sands
into the crystal castle monuments
the city scape you're sitting in
built by crushed stone and glass.

We are the light bringer
the tiny stars fusing fast,
the earth's dark surface glowing,
birthing cells inside volcanoes,
stark and empty tundras,
twisting hurricanes and blue
so much precious blue.

predators, prey and precious compassion
are in the warm winter dens
of mice and men and machines
and I am overcome with loving you
the undulating folds of sky
that are under your skin and mine
touched and electric
tracing the neck bones, the soft lips, the thigh

what mad and beautiful god
could unfurl a creature such as this
from some light and crushed hygrogren?

Rage Gently

In your big dodge truck, pumping the gas and singing,
hymns a lost lover taught me kept me from clinging
to that Thomas poem, but the words furled in I felt alone,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as the grey sky pooled and moaned.

Mom and me in the ward, we were shocked and weaving,
hymns about mercy made me cry as tubes were leaving
from your mouth, but no poem about death could leave it out,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as your skin cooled I had doubt.

Dad and me on the deck, gazing at stars and dreaming,
the boat he showed me love with the wet sun screaming
splashes to the moon, but no dream could swoon the memory to last,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as the fog rolled through the past.

In your mom's big church, saying words and reading,
gospel sighs I showed them love with my voice leading
out to all the stars, but death cared nothing for us you fell hard,
saying light should rage and rage and rage
even as they shovelled ground to shards.

Even though our rage was ancient sky
I knew our shards of light could never die.

Not Poetry

If there was a land of peace where empathy gave each mouth a hearty piece of dreams, would we hate still? Jews and Arabs are the same damn people. A hundred generations ago your grandmother was the same. Several thousand gens and we are all related, all sharing family descended from the same grandmother and on and on until the eon we evolved empathy because it gave us an edge over life without it, because feeling for one another increases the chance of our own survival, and yet now we fly our machines and click our buttons and drop bombs and think ourselves rational creatures, but nature is more logical than any petty justification or creed, and it demands we feel each other's pain. Who are we to deny a billion years of history, because a few thousand of conflict taught us to pretend we're the monsters we hid from in burrows while learning to love our children? The monsters are dead now. And so too will humans who pretend to be them.

Earthquake

And when you tore out the roots of pain
I read them and a mountain had moved,
rocks tearing scars into crevice.

But then you took the roots,
calmly passed them out to all attending,
tortured umbilical cords to the past.

Did you just do that?
Did you just lie with your belly up
bark bursting to stars
hoping no one would hurt you,
while the molten swash under our feet
threatened to swallow
every god damn ounce of innocence left in us?

Life is so vulnerable here on the crust.
The least we can do is share our roots.

Athen

In the space between our sighs the night had opened
and you were needing the empty air.
I had given it to you before.
The stinging comfort,
The safety of ages past when we were wild grass.
But now the wind had turned us out.
And over ambient gusts,
starving for photosynthesis,
We still had light to give

Cut

Gentle I said:
She strangled bruises with her mouth.
I remember my tree cabin
and how the peeled bark died,
so smooth when it first came off.
I traced it for hours, like your skin.
But it pains to watch you.
I want to give you your bark back,
but somebody already scaled it away,
slice by slice.
Now you sit alone and do it for them.
And when I see you tremble
all I know to say is gentle.