Abrupt

I close my eyes against the flood
but have no eyes to close.
I swing my fist –
my armless fist –
at Satan’s faceless nose.

In fish-stink markets
drunk again
unready for attack
I vomit down the wishing well;
dull animal stares back.

These forms arising from within:
illusion without end.
These animals were always mine
to butcher, or befriend.

I do not mind:
This hole, this heart,
the knots were loosely tied.
The desert’s lip is at my boot,
machete by my side.

Ignore the dreams,
they are confusion:
the devils’ chorus,
urging change.

Stray but from
the path, dear boy,
and all will fall,
will fall, will fall.

Limbs of a thousand
trees groan down,
thunder on your shoulders.
Feet sunk deep in sucking mud.

You pawn,
you errand-boy. You serve a lazy master
whose will is an anvil on your spine,
whose face is made of paper.

microscopic multiplying,
great shapes nudging towards becoming.
something down there.
pond scum rippling,
green waves lap my feet.

then at once the pond explodes,
in fountains spiral up,
an agony of peptides.
geyser spinning, spinning,
folding in upon itself.
and the sound washes over me.

fifty thousand cycles:
sunning Hell days dusty rocks,
albumen sucked from shattered eggs,
flapping panicked wings…
a smear of blood on the savannah.

biology, the manic squawking
over wave-assaulted rocks
compounded, trilobyte, exertion,
rainfall stirs the smell of ferns.
and organism slithers onto throne.

from shore I see it rolling on
towards completion of a sort,
which I will never know —
except as cells
know the mysteries of music,
the sadness beneath the laughter.

oh, when we first met
you told me that the desert would reclaim us
and i laughed, because i didn’t believe you.
there was wind on the water then.
there were stars in the sky.

then, deep in your velvet box
you showed me the seeds
of what i would become.
and i cursed you for it.
i did not want to be chosen like that.

now the threads are weaving together
and i fear,
will it be a burial shroud
or a wedding dress?

there is work to be done, my lover
and many bodies need tending.
so i will follow you
as long as this dream
still trembles on your horizon.

i threw roots down on your rocks
blown where no seed could go
into the cracks of your craggy spaces

i rise up
i rise up
wind around my shoulders
foam about my knees
i rise up
in the transformation
seeds of learning
storms of doubt

your pillar
rising from the ocean
my new body
spat glistening
from the jungle
onto your slopes

untie the knots that bind you
upend the changers’ scales
you are not this aching circle
you are not this heart which fails

Adam’s dust in on your temples
David’s thirst is in your loins
you have crossed the sands to see Me
don’t forsake me for some coins!

for the charm of life is fleeting
often squandered, often bruised
and the one sin I can speak of
is the sin of life unused

awake on the street
my fellow dust
the lines of Eden sag from overuse
we condense from history
thirsting ignition; at best
condemned to charity
and to rust

How many ways this march can end
trooping dissonant into the buzz
of a lost mathematic
or wrinkling gentle curves
into thistles
in the corners

Let me be Human.
Give me the vision to proceed
and the strength to step forward
I am weak
uninspired
and the grasses of the Imagination
blow in a welcoming breeze.
Dry my brow of its sweat
let me stand erect
and know what it is that is asked.

The road stretches open
across gray, gray soil
and the weight of heaven
is a chorus
chanting gentle and relentless
in my ear
To be free
of what causes fear:
things forgotten
and rued, in darkness
nausea and itching regret.
Let me be.