Icarus

My father had no feet
so he gave me wings
and I
who never learned to walk
flew,
flying so high
I fell
and died
and dying
rose
to fly again.

My father had no feet
so forged a myth:
to reach for dreams
without comprehending what’s real,
to surrender to pleasure
without enduring pain,
to live with shadows
without engaging the living
things of substance
from which they are cast.

And there in the darkness of the shadow
that was the labyrinth he built,
there he forged the myth of me,
fabled child
heir to the throne of delusion,
a boy who could fly
but could not walk
even as my wax wings melted and the molted feathers frayed,
there
struggling to escape the dark myth
as I approached the fatal light.

As Minos hid the Minotaur
and Daedalus his pride,
so my footless father bred a boy
who could neither reason nor roam
but hid in fantasy
to bury inadequacy and disguise the shame.

How many more innocent souls must we sacrifice
to expiate our fathers’ follies?

Mine had no feet so he gave me wings
and yet it is on these wings that I fly
finding the soul beneath the myth,
plumbing the strength that is mine beyond the darkness,
not reaching for the light but one with it by birth,
for it is on these wings that I fly,
though I fall,
I rise,
I soar,
I flourish,
I live.

I Saw My Love

I saw my love today
who was my love
when I was young.

I saw her where I lived with love
when I was older
and love was then a man.

I spent the day with her
and thought of him
and spoke with he who was my love last week
when I was older still
but love was still and always young.

Why live in longing
aching
crying in dark, empty rooms and breaking,
calling out for lovers who are gone
and memories that keep making lies of love
that was so often there for taking.

Who am I to cry and pine for it
when love has almost never not been mine?

What loneliness within consumes the light?
What gaping, hollow hole displaces joy?
What fear hope?
What neediness my tomorrow?

Life is love,
love life,
what else the longings
passage
pain.

But O
be thankful and rejoice,
tomorrow is today
today is yesterday
all love
all lovers
all loss
is lost in time.

It only lingers in the heart.

King's Cabinet

I live in splendor
penniless
without an asset to my name
in a home that looks like a palace
in rooms that look like a king’s

the furnishings
art
accomplishments

I wear them all like badges
medals
testaments of things.

I hide behind the beauty
it looks good
I look well
how could anyone know what I feel.

I have lived a life of privilege and success
working hard for both without believing either

losing friends as easily as children lose toys
losing love
careers
lives
as though it didn’t matter
as though they were toys.

How many times can you walk out on yourself
and watch
and then see
and bare the remorse
and suffer the humiliation
and swear never to do it again
and believe your oath
and know you have learned
and think you have changed
and watch yourself do it again.

How do you watch your self disappear?

Try to believe
they say
even though there is no evidence

stay on the cross
they say

the surest sign of maturity is the ability to postpone gratification.

I hid behind others
their status and prestige
pretending what was theirs was mine

I thought it would rub off

I thought
if I live this life they live
it must be my own

but when they walked away
as they always did
I was still pretending
living in homes that look like palaces
in rooms that look like a king’s.

Male

We walk beside the sea
shadows emerging from darkness
rolling in on mist

our smell is everywhere and it is rank
it is the scent of sex
and all our senses are subsumed by lust

we are men.

Strangers
we are
boys
bonding in play
dogs
we are
boys and we are dogs

we smell
each other coming
seek
each other out
tease flesh
toy with anonymity
seize the moment

we are men
we play.

Pose
loiter
steal kisses after sex
some times before
some times passion
laugh
confide
quick quiet conversations
in which I come to know you
and you me
in ways few others do.

The night allows us intimacy without fear
it fosters it

fleeting moments
that will do for now

though they never do for life
they do for now

we are men
we move on.

Rain erupts from the mist
wind from the sea

we scatter.

I sit alone
watching the rain roll over
the waves rolling in
whispering

sheltered but wet
rained on

I whisper back

nothing in childhood prepared me for the burden.

A shadow crosses my periphery
a man sits at the other end of a solitary bench
looking without looking
glancing
smoking

I reach out
he responds
we expose ourselves
explore
open our mouths

we kiss.

Nothing facilitates romance like desperation.

We are men.

Seraglio

I cry out if you break my heart
I cry out if I give it to you to break
and I do

I cry

feeding the seraglio of my hunger
I dress my heart in coronation robes
but leave the crown to you

and I cry

thinking I can sweep you off your feet if I clothe my need in splendor
I cry out
when the wave that was to carry us to paradise crashes to the shore
and the sea recedes
and I am left flailing in my sodden robes

the only person on the beach.

The seraglio is peopled with phantoms
impostors who masquerade as lovers
who masquerade as men
who masquerade as people of substance.

Why whisper sweet nothings
when there is nothing in your heart?

I succumb to the seduction even as I see it for what it is
and welcome the love that visits when it does

it is my inconstant light

constant in its inconstancy
it shines through shadow
though it leaves before we reach the shore
it lights the way

love
that is that coddling bright and welcome warmth

love
however fleeting
found
or felt

an hour or a night
a month
a marriage

love
that makes the darkness light.

Alien

We walk the night
day
morning
the desperate hours before the dawn,
cruising dark corridors of obsession
seeking forbidden escape,
brothels, baths, beaches
bushes, toilets, streets
numb before computer screens
in chat rooms where no one speaks,
tempted by temptation itself
seduced by seduction itself
addicted to anything that deadens,
dulls, drowns, displaces
what we feel.

I meet you but do not,
encounter you but do not engage,
see
feel
touch you but do not experience,
give orders but do not converse,
follow instructions but do not participate,
say nothing,
open my mouth
but dare not my lips.

Revel
thrill
hunt
cross the threshold and step outside time,
lift the veil of acceptability
penetrate the flesh
the mystery
that which can be attained but never possessed.

The rush that is the risk,
the high that is the humiliation,
bodies abused by objectification
where they long for care,
intimacy turned inside out,
communion traded for collusion with lust.

Lust that killed love
and me
we
I who killed lust.
Where do we go from here?
Alien at birth,
alien in life,
what earth do we walk,
what planet bestride?
What language do we speak to be heard
and in which tongue?

How do I look to you now,
how get our eyes to meet
and what do they see,
do they mirror our souls
or vanish in a void of projection?

Let me introduce myself:
I am the shadow of your truth,
the flesh of your fantasy,
I am neediness turned loose.

Embrace me,
I am your secret self.

Attention Deficit Disorder

Look at me
touch me
idolize
adore me

care for me

take care of me
fondle, feed and soothe me
protect me
shield me

curry my favor
and cradle me.

Pay attention.

Meet me half way
I said
you couldn’t even read my lips.

Why do I hunger for your gaze
your praise
your touch
you who is anyone willing to give it,
you who is anyone,
you
who are so wounded yourselves
so willing
promising salvation
pointing to the promised land
you
who are not Moses but the empty basket,
yea
though you float
you walk in step
drifting
feet off the ground
you
the walking wounded.

Each of us an empty basket
adrift
an infant
within
a vessel
afloat without rudder or sail,
a basket
case,
a soul launched on its journey without compass or self.

Why do I crave your attention
as though I don’t exist without it,
as though I am only present when you acknowledge me
see me
fixate on and need
me
for whom no needing is enough.

O screaming child
forsaken on that indifferent river,
will you never be found?

No way enough to like or know
enjoy me,
I require you to be obsessed.

Adore me
I am yours.
Idolize me
I am fulfilled.

Screaming child, be still.

I do the same
fawn at your feet
worship
burn white hot that I may burn out.
Either way
neither of us touches anything but our fantasy of the other.

Do the same?
I am the same.
I wouldn’t know the difference between us
if you didn’t keep me at bay.

Boundaries?

O Moses,
march me out of here.

Yesterday you were all
today I can’t remember your name.

Sex sates me
it
restores my perspective.

Now I see you for who you are.

Yesterday I thought we were one
thought I was you
you me
us
it
I lose myself in the mix.

See me for who I am?

Best you look beyond the beauty that is only skin.

Moses may lead us out of the Land of Idolaters
or Jesus out of Temptation
but they can neither of them lead us to ourselves.

There’s a sore in my soul that needs healing.
Like a hole in the ozone
it incinerates being
if I do not attend to it.

Yea
though I walk through the valley
it is neither desert nor death.

Yesterday I died to be born again today.

O Child
O Reed Baby
tossed on the vicissitudes of chance,
are you still waiting to be rescued?

Don’t you know that we are one.

Talk to me
look at me
read my lips.

It is not your attention I seek but my own.

Take me with you
Moses
take me home.

The Center Of The World

I was the center of the world.

My mother said it didn’t revolve around me
so I set out to prove it did.

It cost me my life.

Cross me
I crossed you out

turn your attention away
I shut the door
thought I was shutting you out
when all the time it was me
judging you by blaming you for judging me.

To thine own self be true
was my Ten Commandments
and love alone transcended law
love
that comes & goes
when
where I don’t
you
me
one who is stuck with one’s self after love goes
after dreams go
after life.

I was the center of the world
they said
a genius
hero
a god

true to mine own self
I vowed
and was impaled for it on loss.

Genius consumes
gods
abandon
heroes
fall.

I was the center of the world
they said

there was only ever room for one.

Anniversary Day

I once loved a man who couldn’t love
he said it was me and I believed him.

I loved the man he was with all my heart
but all he loved were shadows
the ones I cast
the ones he projected
the perfect union he imagined.

I once loved a man who couldn’t feel my love
for all he loved were shadows
and shadows vanish in the light.

And still
and yet
he made me feel
and put his arms
and promised everything would be alright
and I believed him.

I didn’t know him
any better than he knew me
and everywhere we went
the world would disappear behind us.

I was afraid to let go so held on to what I knew

painful
though it was
comfortable

being with someone
who wanted me to be someone else

familiar

obliging
thinking this was love
I played the role
and lied
where reality didn’t fit.

Familiarity may breed contempt
but contempt is solace when it’s all you know,
I have only ever played this role
dancing for my supper
and singing for your kiss.

He was an entertainer too.

We each loved a man who couldn’t love
or feel the love the other felt,
each told the other it was him
and each believed what he was told,

tragic

the human comedy of love requited
but unattainable nonetheless.

Today could have been ours
in celebration
in love
in stead it’s just another day

any old day
any old love receding from the heart
any old opportunity lost
except that this one was for life.

The wound cuts deep
it bleeds
I keep wanting it to heal
but it keeps crying out

the absence
gaping hole our absence leaves
the aching
gutted heart

don’t leave
it cries
don’t take our love apart.

Shadows danced
need sang
feed me
sate me
fill me up

the love we shared was real when it was right
it was
the chance of a lifetime
and we both took it.

Opportunity knocked
we answered
right time
right place
wrong intention

it turned and left.

We each loved a man who couldn’t love
each of us on empty
seeking to give the other worth
dancing on broken legs
taking on the other’s pain

we sang
we kissed
promised each other forever
the world
heaven on earth.

Our love was real
it was the promises that were in vain.

Telling Stories

I tell myself a lot of stories
but each one ends the same
disappointment
disillusion
pain.

I see things for what they are
but reinvent them as I want them to be

imagining
this one’s the answer
that one’s the prize
conjuring
inventing
projecting
different words
but all the same lies.

My gut says stop
I say push on
I don’t listen
I con.

I know the answer
is not outside myself
but know it’s not within me either

there’s nothing left there but regret.

The myth of love
the fable of sex
they do all the driving
I do all the rest

you are never coming
and I can’t save myself alone.

This is the story I tell
and telling
realize

that when surrounded by love
I couldn’t feel it
and when I felt it
ran
each story another episode in a self-fulfilling plan

my rescue fantasy
that you will come along
and prove that love is everything
when all that’s ever asked of me
is to be the man I am.

This is the story I tell myself
and anyone who’ll listen
of how I wish for love and always lose
this con
this prophecy
that makes the lie of wishing.

Absolution

You come cold over time,
you
the truth that dawns with distance,
dark over light,
heavy over the grace of memories made right
by what we choose to remember
and how

harsh
bitter pill of perspective
piercing the cozy reverie
of a past never lived
but chosen to be believed.

Selective memory,
that incandescent invention of remorse,
disintegrates in your presence.

It was so much kinder than this
that comes so cold with age,
this penetrating clarity
that weighs in with maturity
and, oh, the revelations
that come so heavy and so dark.

You whose love I abused,
whose attention I took for granted,
whose gifts I measured and gave back,
the trouble you took that I discarded and disavowed as thoughtless
when no one could have been more thoughtful
nor anyone have loved me more.

I lived to feel the love I craved
loved love for love itself,
loved loving,
loved you loving me,
loved without knowing you or love at all.
I myself was never there.
How could I have known who you were?

Oh you come cold with the years
but welcome at last,
Truth,
who I may now call Friend,
let me acknowledge what I did for what it was
and be absolved of it.

And oh you
Spirits of the Beloved Dead and Love of the Still Living,
forgive me.
Let us cherish what love we knew
while we are still able to remember it.

Ask Me To dance

You ask me to dinner
I say I have plans I don’t,
invite me to a gathering
I say I won’t know anyone and decline,
ask me to dance
I say I’m already dancing
with myself.

This is my cave
this smothering darkness fear’s poisonous spider spins,
this web I weave
rejecting you who loved me
for judging
and you who tried to know me
for knowing.

Seeing this for the abnegation it is,
I watch you watch me
distancing you
before you can me,
turning my back on intimacy before it can be withdrawn,
disowning the companionship that is the fabric of my life.

Knock at my door
I pretend I don’t hear you.
Where would I be if you penetrated
the aching comfort of my asphyxiating malignancy?

But stay,
bear witness:
I am the spider and the fly
the web
the cave.

Self-perpetuating insect-instrument of destruction,
Nefarious Isolation taught me to choose
those who chose the same predatory stalking of the heart,
inhabited the same darkness,
spun the same toxic thread,
each of us enrobed in it
and waiting to be devoured by the other.

Static and stuck,
paralyzed by the venom,
I have lived so closely with death it feels like life,
but living still
have outlived the suffocating isolation
I courted for so long.

The cave is crowded with corpses of exhausted lives
enervated phantoms who can not break free
but weave a chrysalis for rebirth.

Though I struggle to find my way through the putrefying past
it is time to step into the present.

Knock again,
I am ready.

Ask me to dance.

Sanctuary

I planted my garden in the spring,
foxglove and lupin
that blossomed lavender and mauve,
daisies, dahlias and mums
that flowered yellow, purple and puce.

Marigolds grew golden pompoms
and ancient roses climbed the walls,
blood red, sunset orange and lipstick pink,
iridescent nicotiana mixed a heady fragrance
with petunias and the magnolia's intoxicating musk.

Abundant fruit ripened on the old pear tree,
leaves fluttering
gold, yellow gold, green, brown, green gold
in the sun.

Busy Lizzie blushed crimson in the borders
Mind Your Own Business spreading lime green at their edge,
hydrangea swallowed the lawn
and spider webs glistened,
reeds
burnt bronze in early evening light
waving beneath the trees,
as though this cultivated sanctuary grew wild,
a country vale outside my kitchen door.

It was not nature though that flourished here
but picnics on the lawn and dinners at the garden table,
kisses in the moonlight and romance,
long lazy afternoons with lovers who came and went,
laughter and conversation with friends who did the same.

The summer garden dies
and spring feels such a long way off,
like the flowers that blossomed in the season’s passing warmth,
friends and lovers wither and have fallen from their stalks.

But now the autumn harvest and all that I have learned,
how neediness breeds loss
and illusion despair,
how self esteem ignored yields a loathing in the soul,
how I sabotage what I sow.

Starlings devour the autumnal pears
and I am left empty handed.
Nature’s way or mine
to loose the fruit of this year’s growth?

No but neither,
for I am stronger now,
though lonely still
less lonely than I was before I loved my summer loves,
for losing them I find myself
and plant my winter garden here.

The kitchen door stays open,
sanctuary has taken root within.

The Triumph Of Narcissism

Caring men can not live in this world

I do

the things I do
to stave off the pain
the butchery
the vanity
the holocaust
that is humanity

you back off
I rush in to fill the void

clamoring to feel
what you don’t
what you won’t
what you evidently can’t.

No,
you condemn instead.

You
who call feelings weak,
truth conjecture,
foresight fabrication,
you condemn

you who kill for God

exterminate species
rape the planet
pillage the soul

you for whom there is no reality but self
condemn those who care and call caring false.

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great
and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart,
And the Lord said I will destroy man
whom I have created from the face of the earth,
But Noah found grace.

And a great flood came and warned us,
not of the sins of our flesh
But of the arrogance of our complacency,
And we ignored it.

And Narcissus sat transfixed by his own image
in a Pool left by the Receding Waters
And the Pool was called Civilization.

And the generations of man were not many
But were plentiful and they were proud
And Pride begat Hubris
And Hubris begat Calamity

And a carpenter’s son came out of Nazareth
to point the way to Sanity
But was Butchered for his effort.

And the Butchered Son bequeathed the cross to a fisherman
And anointed him Defender of the Faith
But the faithful transformed him to Pan
while their brethren in the East Found Faith in a Prophet
who found no faith in man.

And Pan begged mortals to follow the melody he sang
But the power of the cross was heavy
And the way of the crescent one-dimensional
And nature was undone again.

The imams and the priests turned their backs
while the Vicar and the Satyr merged in death
And were born again as Peter Pan.

Believe in magic
the Born Again said
believe and you can fly,

Clap
he cried as the light began to fade
clap if you believe.

And we did
And still do
But the fairy tale is done.

The warnings sound
And water starts to rise,
we study our reflection in its surface
But never see
it’s nothing but ourselves.

Narcissus Pan is the only man left
And he is not a man.

Here we sit clapping in the dark
failing to adapt
excluding and making ourselves extinct:
evolution is but experiment
And we are only one of many.

Noah weeps,
And Jesus and Peter and Mohammed and the Gods,
And turn away to avoid seeing the end of everything they sought to create

And their great hearts that founded fertile nations
And could once save man from certain suicide
tremble and grow faint in the face of the cataclysmic storm.

And the storm comes.

And it is done.

Genesis

I would want you
to say I can’t live without you,
can I come back?

And I would say yes,
come.

I would want us to do this
but know you can’t
and that we won’t.

I can still dream
and pretend you feel the passion you don’t
though it’s nothing worth wanting without you feeling it yourself
without you thinking
yes
here is everything I want.

But it isn’t
is it?

I would want you to say
I’ve never shared so much with any one person
but though that’s true for me
it’s not for you.

Is it for me?

Would that I could say the time we shared was enough
and though it was
it wasn’t
and I can’t.

I am so tired of longing for you
with whom I touch and glimpse
penetrate
commune

yearning for us
you
who fears my fervour
and I
who fear your judgment

longing with all my intensity and hunger
knowing you were afraid and had already hurt me
because you were
and that I didn’t trust you
because you had.

In the beginning there was light
and the light was paradise
and it was good

and paradise was love

unencumbered
elixir of life
the freedom to be vulnerable
trust
risk
change.

And into the light came fear
butcherous brother of man’s obese brain
and its capacity to premeditate murder
dissemble
live the living death
that is the fear of life
avoid change
risk nothing
trust no one

and paradise was lost.

Your eyes look up into mine.
Can I give myself to you?
they ask.

Yes
if you believe in love
mine say
yes.

The Kiss

Come to me
open your lips to mine
and close your eyes
breathe my breath
take my arms in your arms
my mouth in your mouth
my tongue

open the gates
there is heaven in this kiss.

Relinquish your body
and lose yourself in mine
taste me
drink

we have been alone too long.

Let us leave limitation behind and shed what we know
here
where consciousness disbands

let us
open our mouths and unlock the door
let us
let each other in.

Without loving
without knowing
even without having met before
our kisses guide.

Close your eyes to see
not to imagine where we could be
but to revel in where we are

inside
our hearts

phosphoresce

and we are made as one.

But
O
Open your eyes and we are lost

no longer in the kiss
but observing it
you are in what you see instead.

Saliva trembles between our parted lips
glistening
a tremulous connection beckoning us back.

Come to me
open your lips to mine
and close your eyes

breathe my breath

take my mouth in your mouth
my tongue
my taste
drink

open the gates
there is heaven in this kiss.

Old Fruit

I who walk the earth unscathed
who endures
who nothing malevolent thwarts

I who nothing touches
am touched now
by mortality and brought low by age

eyes that can not see
teeth that can not chew
feet that can not walk
a heart that can not beat without help.

Your turn,
The Reaper says.
But no,
I am the Fruit of that Forbidden Tree
Death can not cast me in its shadow.

I who stood against the storm these many years
its greatest strength and most destructive force
me
the vortex of destruction
I
who even now taunts fate
and dares to trespass reason.

Bite through the skin of Old Fruit,
the meat is sweeter
where it hasn’t yet decayed.

Pick me
eat
that thou mayest know
what is not yours to be known

this is how the story ends.

Expelled from The Garden That Is Love
the punishment is not not knowing
but knowing
and never being allowed to have

and if it is better to have known
than never to have loved at all
it is lonelier as well
and brutal
bitter
merciless

it was only ever ignorance that was bliss.

Exiled from Paradise
I walked the earth unscathed and unrepenting
lo these many years lost in the Desert of Forbidden Knowledge.

My flesh
that guided me
is what wakes me now
and my heart
that sought to mend itself with more flesh still
is tired of evasion.

I was afraid to be less than perfect
so settled for being less than human.

Old Fruit still tantalizes on the Outlawed Tree
but it rots inside

mortal
isolated
lonely beyond relief.

My arrogance was my sanity
I who nothing touched
my defense.

The Reaper stands before me
now
I am disarmed.

Blind Man's Bluff

November roses
late bloomers
like me
my month as well
Scorpio
the tail that bites
the head that feeds it

blood red on the mantle
blood red and blind
to the cold
the years
the encroaching winter.

The mantle watches over my bed
the roses over my sleep
life
death
God
is in the garden
The Devil’s in my head.

Old habits don’t die hard
they don’t die.

We do.

Lost And Found

I am many things
and one
of the things I am is this
a man who has sex with strangers
but walks in the footsteps of love.

One day love will turn around and face me
and I will be found.

That love will neither judge nor fear me
but delight in the child
and cherish the man
among the many things I am

the stranger and the footsteps
the boy
being
man.

Many judge me,
though none as I do,
who fear the shadows my many parts cast,
but they are all the one the many make.

Love was lost on strangers
where I followed in the footsteps of shame,
believing I was many
where I know now I am one.

The day has come that I must turn to face you,
all my judges and my selves,
for you and love and I were lost
but now we are found.

I Look Death In The Eye

I look Death in the eye
again
say I’m frightened
but ok.

No
He says
and leaves me to my plight.

I see madmen come to slaughter me in my bed

feel my pulse throb
pound
my heart
the muscles in my throat close out my breath

too much medication
I think
adverse interaction
anaphylactic
overdose
the end.

But no
He says
not now not yet
and leaves me to my imagination.

I see old friends
long-loved and longer-missed
reach out to welcome me
and yearn for their embrace
accepting death at long last due
in exchange for love at long last revived.

But no
no
He says
you
have not finished.

I have
I say
done everything I can
I say.

No
He says
think again
and leaves me to my phantoms.

Dead friends beckon
their outstretched arms a knowing welcome
their luminous expressions the unconditional gaze of grace
old wounds
too insignificant now to matter
now
in the Face of Death
now
for me
in whose Life nothing is so vivid as their absence
me
The Standard Bearer of Isolation
and them
The Proof of Life.

They beckon me to cross the line.

But no
no
He says
it is not your time.

Deeper and deeper I sink
into illness
isolation
medication
no one calls
knocks at my door
remembers
no one but the dead
for whom there is now only Eternal Now
and nothing to remember.

But I remember them.

I remember love.

I remember that without them I would not have lived
nor have anyone to remember.

Death is right
I am still too caught in Life’s web
even if only in the brilliance of its form
I am still too dazzled by its cunning.

I look Death in the eye
again
see
my own eyes looking back at me in the reflection.

We smile.

I see His dark lips smiling
as I see myself smiling in his eyes.

We are radiant.

There is no line to cross.

Home

I have given the child a home.

No one ever did
or could
for he didn’t have a self
and he was alone

wanting for all the world to be held

and I am holding him.

There is no one else here
and no one else we need,
no mother, father, friend
no lover, partner, mate
no children
no one but the child himself

and me
the source
the man
who was the child

and I am holding him.

Nurturing and loving
accepting
free

I am him and he me
and I am holding him in the home that is us.

Take away the things I contrived to substitute for self

the exquisite passions
possessions

the body I built
the mask I wore for a face
the heart I hammered into lust.

I am here now
and we are home.

Put Down Your Bags And Stay

Love
that was always need
goes almost unnoticed
now that it is freely given.

What shall we call it?

You arrived at my door with bags
and I let you in,
laid my self bare
and you embraced what I revealed.

What is this that is unbound and unrestricted?

Freedom where we are accustomed to constraint,
generosity in place of judgment.

Hold up the mirror
we see ourselves for who we are,
speak
we hear the truth beneath the words
and reflect it for the other to see.

What is love if not this freedom?

Surely not that needy thing that stifles and restricts us,
that does not give when we give,
that restrains itself when we ache for passion that never comes
or stays so briefly as to be better if it had not come at all.

We are neither of us the other’s perfect fantasy
but what of those who are?
Where are they now?

What do they give us but longing for perfection
that is neither real nor can ever be possessed?

Put down your bags and stay.

The Gift

I have had the great good fortune to love again
though it is lost as it is found
I have tasted its sweet fruit and reveled in its joy
this time
I feared
would never come.

I know now too that it will come again
for I am the seed from which fruit grows
the source of passion’s joy
this man I am
who loves
embraces intimacy
dares to risk that without which love takes neither root nor flight.

The prize
I am
the gift
for I will love again
and be loved at last for everything I am.

I Put The Fan Away For Winter

I put the fan away for winter today.

An early autumn wind
is bending
the roses in the garden
rustling
the ivy on the old flint walls
tossing
the trees

a damp grey sky drizzles on the fading lawn

the dahlias and daisies
that have almost stopped flowering
the wilting nicotiana
that made the summer nights so fragrant
the foxgloves
that have lost their lavender cups.

The giant white blossoms on the magnolia tree are nearly spent
and the pears the starlings are eating off their boughs.

The dampness darkens
rain hits the trees
splashes
drips to the ground
splatters.

The sound seduces me.

Two wrought iron chairs sit empty white and waiting
facing each other over a table at the center of the lawn
waiting for life
for summer’s late light
lunches
laughter
soft sensuous dinners
in the spellbound magic of the garden’s perfumed nights

moody in the mist
now
wet for life.

What was there just yesterday is gone
the stillness
muted air and hushed heat
the intimacy the season fosters with the earth

that spirit that is the living presence of creation
inconsequential shoots that rise from the naked soil
to flourish in abundance and flower in riotous color
tiny toads traversing the forest of grass
blackbirds pulling worms from its roots
butterflies and bees
the radiant cycle
pollination
fertility
metamorphosis
change.

Everything that grows dies.

I put the fan away for winter today.

Prometheus

I came upon a man chained to a rock
I thought it was me but it was not

an eagle tore at his liver
and fire burned at his feet

this was no man
but the titan Prometheus.

The eagle gouged the beating organ from a ruptured pit
held it shuddering in its claws
and devoured it.

Prometheus reeled against his chains
flayed flesh twisting from his frame
blood spewing from his wounds.
His cries set thunder booming and lightning tore the sky.

My uncle was Cronus,
he cried,
who was the father of all gods
and my brother was Epimetheus
who was named for afterthought
as I was for forethought.

The predator beat its savage wings and took to the sky.

Cronus ate his children to alter destiny, Prometheus exclaimed,
but we sided with Zeus to free fate.

His wounds began to close,
the flesh of the gods healing itself
as the raptor returned to plunge its beak back in.

Epimetheus plundered fortune and failed,
the titan bellowed,
we were rewarded the creation of life on earth
but he forgot to give you strength.

I could taste his blood splattering across my lips
and fell to my knees,
the voice speaking through the flames penetrated so deeply
it felt as though it came from within.

He left you for last,
it said,
gave muscle and speed and cunning to beasts
and left man for last,
gave them agility and guile
and left you without protection.

The eagle tore into his abdomen
severing muscle as it gorged on entrails.

I gave you fire instead,
Prometheus roared,
and reason
and taught you to make tools.
But look what you have done with them.

I heard the liver rip from his eviscerated stomach
and saw the eagle swallow it for a second time.

This is my punishment,
he wept,
why have you forsaken me?

I knelt before him
traumatized by what I was witnessing:
here was a god suffering eternal torment
for rescuing man from destruction
weeping for the destruction man had wrought upon himself.

I felt his blood coagulating on my flesh
and in the mud it made around me.
He had sacrificed himself in vain.
What could I say?

You are our hero,
I whispered,
Epimetheus is our lot.

He slumped against the rock
and exhaled so heavily the earth trembled.

Your world is round,
I ventured,
but ours is flat
and we have fallen off the edge.

His eyes bore the burden of history and flooded with its pain
piercing the heartbreak of his regret to hold me in his gaze.

I can not speak for civilization, I said,
and still he held me in that gaze.

This is the moment a man breaks,
I thought,
when we see
that
the dream is lost
that
we are alone
that
this is it
there is no more

and yet

the moment of wonder
when we see
and go on nonetheless
when we face the void
and step off into it.

The carnivore circled above and cried for prey.

Let me take the burden from you,
I yelled over its bloodcurdling cries,
a battered race
we are
the abusers and the abused,
better battered though than beaten
and we are still here.

Let me take the fire from you,
I pleaded,
we misunderstood your purpose.

The titan stood to face his tormentor,
whole again
his wounds closed,
rising the full height of his magnificence
without ever removing me from his gaze.

Let go, Prometheus,
we will find our way.

A smile broke across his face
and he pushed the fire at his mighty feet in my direction
and I reached for it.

The eagle swooped and cried for blood
and I felt the fire burn as I gathered it to me,
saw my flesh blacken and blister and split,
smelled it scorching as I embraced it.

And I let go
and I became one with it
and I was freed.

Let go
a voice echoed even after I was gone,
why be punished because we care
and long to be cared for?

And he let go and man flourished.

And the eagle flew away.

And Prometheus was unbound.