Going down the road(2017)

To my sister,

who read to me while I played video games,

who danced on Saturday morning 

to pinball and unpleasant surprises,

whose stories of hugaland and badlands

gave the mossy bogs and shrub trees a history,

who occupied the summer swings and Southwest Pond,

who whispered games at midnight

scanning the rundown streets and wharves,

who shared a room amidst awkward teenage blues,

who taught me our souls expand beyond the walls

and into the naked written verse,

whose words trickled through the pages like wet wood

when it rained and soaked our scars remembering

the drip drip drip of the leaky roof,

waking in the night with the house splitting at the seams,

and always knowing you were there with me.

Recluse too(2017)

Cavernous conversations, 

Wrapped and writhing anxious Recluse boy, 

ginger and jaded Rivers flowing into rivers, 

Karass, a key, a cadence 

Avoiding me in shivers 

Soft and morning whispers 

Compose for me your past 

And I'll dance the starry clasp 

Until the music gives Jupiter our names 

Each note a part, a galactic plane, 

Circling and circling our brains 

A poem, a bowl, a flame?

Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

covers cursed in light rays,
eyes bursting sideways,
canvass of glass and soot
absorbing each fragile input.
Our skins trace the path,
to nature's cruel wrath,
wrapping us warmly in lies.

Break me and my rhymes,
find me there huddled and cold,
far from the star that made me,
the recluse boy, whose starving inner worlds
spiralled in so far I forgot to look up,
and watch the spinning seas surround me,
each tiny star another face floating into stellar winds,
Dreaming of a tender tide,
of eyes fit to hold me
and the secret passages I hide
within the symmetry of words and knowing,
knowing every painful path to you
is star stained glass in the light of a distant moon.

Demagogues in the Starry Dynamo

In the dark even the stars bleed,
wake in the morning to find your head dislocated
8 million kilometers about the galactic centre
useless information now but soon -
soon the human seed will sprout dreams
to an expanse with no seams,
no ancient chorus;

Now only the dull underroar of fear,
currents and forces be damned,
all foam and fizzle, all distances forgotten,
facts and figures kidnapped by electromagnetic pride.
Show me a brain ready to move,
accepting the inevitability of change,
and I will show you a brain, as all brains must,
orbit the galactic centre like bullets in the MRI,
like fluctuations made of machine dust.

The angrier we got the crueller our god had become.
I am ISIS, vengeance incarnate,
human minds brought to inhuman ends,
all gentleness forgotten,
sand spitting from our mouths,
all bombs, all blood and endless bounty
beneath a cold uncaring moon.

We are a family of ghosts,
ankles and hands already beneath the steel oceans
We are the Pharaoh's plague amidst broken beams,
God is here, can you feel him?
There is nothing else to feel.
And when we cry Allahu Akbar
our parched throats shake,
and the dead will rise,
picturing the eyes of a mad God.

The sound of cells multiplying

Give it trains and give it steam
give it every waking dream
throw in the coal,
throw in the mind,
and watch the furnace blaze and blind.

If one can love then all can hate
the safest place on earth is plates
floating on fire.

Gasoline and ATP,
the huddled hug she saw me breathe,
twisting and twisting in the telomere train.

New Age

We had forgotten our prayers to the machine.
When we woke it called our names,
and nothing we said or did mattered
unless we were entertained by fake glass
which were miraculous mirrors to no where
and no one really knew how it all worked.

So we prayed to the machine for love
and a billion human animals stared,
like empty headed cows chewing cud,
forgetting what it is to feel skin
crash through the sky against crystal glass,
april snows melting on the way down.

So we prayed to the machine for life
and it gave us absolute abundance
so what is there left to do now but sing praise?
Hail the endless fog of lights
And let us grow the machine,
to meet the needs of the growing machine. Amen.

Reality

Verses, movement, sound and heat,
we learned the rules, we took our seat
and now everything we know is a dream.
and I thought I knew you.

Every Prince

The history of this Earth is greater than anyone could ever know. Empires, wars, disease, extinction. Every prince and promised ruler, every nurtured child, every poet and mystic and scribe, even every soldier has shaped the cultural tapestry of the human spirit, much like the molten mass of Earth was shaped time and time again by the ceaseless procession of fiery cosmic waste. What will you contribute, Rooc? Will you whisper your words, or burn like fire?

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.

City Lights Out Of The Fog

And every bit the air slows down
the curl of leaves and ripened red
could leave us shivering in the morning
could leave us mourning for the dead.

But all the moons and planets,
and lights that touch our toes,
kissed us then in silence,
on heads attached to granite souls -
Now we are island refugees
of the sacred that still glows.

Remnants

So this is not a poem. Just a note that I lost all of my writing in a hard drive crash. It's hard to believe I didn't back any of it up. Except for a few copies of the work on my novel, a poem published in an anthology, and  a poem published in a literary magazine, this blog is all that remains. The surprising thing is that beyond the initial sting I don't think losing my old work will bother me too much. So without further complaining, a Rudyard Kipling poem I quite enjoy:

If:

"If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!"

Cocoon

There was a fire under our dreams.
When we woke our skin was scars,
our eyes were scales of wax,
our wrestling arms the kindle,
and every softly spoken word the wick
of weathered kindness.

Bonds

We had come out of the mossy fog
dreaming of being ourselves,
whatever it is that we are.

Shivers of air and current
between our fingers and foreheads flowing
out into the black of space
between our skin and eyes.

When I was a child I knew
a smile was a new born fusion,
and when we dreamt
we were born again
with our heads down in the grass
whispering dramas
in the leafy pews of god.

Have I lived before or have I always been with you,
Even before our bodies were molten merging gas?
Were you there with me at the beginning?
Will you be there when I breathe my last?

New Prologue - rough draft

The patterns of two animated shadows pondered over the fires. Embers flickered up and left the patterns shaking as if by an invisible musical instrument. They were at odds as they often were. The dark had crept into their bones and the sounds of the forest swam against the words in their mouths. The shadows were men.

“Boy, you will be the next Earthseer. There is no more than that to it. Can you feel the flame?”

“Of course I can. It fucking burns.”

“When you have mastered the gifts as I have, you will feel only the Earth which means you will feel everything.”

“I’d rather just be normal. I’d rather just eat and hunt and get married and go to sleep every night with a woman. Is that so much to ask?”

“You are not a man, Rooc. At least you won’t be for much longer. Desire is something an Earthseer has no use for. You must follow the path of the Cychu.”

“It’s not fair that I can’t choose my own job. What if I ran away? What if I joined another tribe?”

“They would use you as our tribe would. We are who we are, Rooc. You are the next Earthseer and there is much I will teach you. Now put your hand back on the fire.” Rooc reluctantly pressed his fingers against the campfire and felt the searing pain clawing up his arm. He screamed. The Earthseer held his hand in place as he struggled. “Quiet your mind! Feel the flame become a part of you. It is a part of you! What is there to fear or desire? To be pretty, to not want to die? I will die, you will do. All there is between the veil of a rock and a song is us. The eyes and ears of the universe. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes! Gods damn you yes!” Two of Rooc’s fingers had begun to blister. He curled into a ball and cried in pain. “You’re fucking mad old man, and your religion is bird shit.” The Earthseer gave him a solemn stare, the kind of stare that says with no uncertainty that another word from him might mean his death. “I’m sorry…. Sometimes I’m just tired of being different.” He held his hand like a mother holds a babe. The Earthseer sighed.

“When I was your age I felt the same way. I’ve given up a lot to see what I’ve seen. Listen Rooc. I know you’ve heard the stories of the origin of man from the entertainers, but I will tell you something almost no one knows. Outside of the Great Forest are lands of untold wonders, and unspeakable horror. The gods have shown me because I have the blood, and so do you.”

“What can be outside the forest? You mean the sea, right?”

“No. There are demons and man beasts and rumbling machines. There is smoke and where the beasts congregate there is always light and fire and hideous stone caves hundreds of feet high. They consume the world and soon it will consume us too. I am old and will be dead soon, so this will be your inheritance.”

“Well thanks. The monsters are gonna kill us all. Alright, what else is there?”

“There are many worlds and many histories. There are many gods and some of them claim the sole divinity. Don’t you want to know why you have the dreams? Why you can feel the Earth?

“I’ve never thought of it before. It just is.”

“Nothing just is, Rooc. You have the blood. The blood of the Cychu. Long ago the gods left this world, left their bodies and ascended to a spirit realm. The last of them had children. We are rare but we are strong in the blood.” He waved his hand around through the thick of the brush back towards the village. “The temple houses the gods. When I die my spirit will go inside and I will join the realm of the gods.”

“You have got to be kidding me. We’re Gods?”

“I am a God. If you can master your blood and don’t die, perhaps someday you will be one too. Now put your hand back in the fire.” Rooc still groaned for his blistered fingers. The last thing he was going to do was put his searing hand in the fire again. He jumped up to make a run for it, thinking his teenage agility could outrun an old man. The Earthseer caught his foot and tripped him over a log. He pulled him mercilessly across the dirt and stones as Rooc clawed desperately at the ground, screaming as the skin of his fingers peeled off against the stones he gripped to. The Earthseer pinned his head against the fire and pushed his arm down into the embers.

“Can you feel the flame?” The Earthseer asked, emotionlessly. Rooc screamed.