Leave Me

leave me

my tequila & cigars

let me blow rings
around the moon
& sing her
old man songs.

u

u

were
chimes
creating
beautiful music
in
violent wind

i

i
am
caught
between
earth & moon
carpenter & burning bush
at my age
it's
a predicament
to find
self
in
the
surf & tide

Seven Words

Seven words

a woman should never say
to her man --

They attack
like arthritis
gnarl hands and feet.

A housewife removes her husband’s shoes and says,
“I love you husband.”

He says, “Better these four words than the seven words
you should never say to your man.”

When She Surrendered Her Body To The Flame

At night,

when mother lay with father,

when the Earth moved away,

I could hear the crinkle of sacred leaves

as she prayed.

Her whispered words flashed

to an infinite point.

Her supplication was long into the night,

and the fading hush blended

with the thick honey drip of His presence --

texturing my mother’s sighs.

The woven hands of two lovers 

caught every drip,

drop,

drip.

A while,

a while --

she began again.

Always twice. A vow to the Spirit.

(When she was eight, in Brundage, Texas,

by the Rio Nueces, the moon in her pocket,

in the basin of the Big Dipper,

she faced Barbas de Oro.

her soul fluttered, but she was resolute,

and she waited. 

And it came.

A stream beyond the Milky Way --

a gentle

flow,

gentle.

She drank deeply, tasted the space of her being,

and understood her journey’s end.)

And so, she spoke in many tongues,

and flames danced above her head,

and lit our house for the world to see.

My father, always there,

warmed

his hands,

warmed.

She was a grand warrior in the Kingdom of the Ghost.

When she surrendered her body to the flame,

the incense of her love remained in the fumes

of her family’s lives.

There was no resounding gong,

no clanging cymbal,

no moving mountain,

only the remains of faith, hope, and love --

but the greatest of these

was her love.

And so, when the Earth moves away,

when the feathery bliss of tomorrow

fluffs my dreams,

I catch my breath,

trying to discern the angel tongue.

My supplication is long in the night --

a while,

a while,

I begin again.

hymn #13

Lovely,
sanguine,
grand warrior
in the Holy Kingdom

-- O --

then the T-Bird honked,
ripped curtains,
shook pillars --

the Spirit fled.

Jezee’s luscious ass rippled
as she flew from Raven’s Nest and,
from the heart,
busted out gangster rap.

O

she was gorgeous in freedom.

The couple muttered,
“Sorry, it’s just that your sticker said ...”

Jezee,
in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot,
angel
less,
without comfort,
removed the cornerstone

-- the temple crumbled.

Waited 3 days for it to rise,
but it didn’t.
Lost dogs swallowed her.
Left nothing --
nor bone, nor skin.

(This started the to and fro of Dali’s clock.
The swing to an empty tomb.)

I suppose

the garage was as good a place as any.
Bob Dylan singing in the background,
garden at the doorstep.

(Man,
she loved lilac.
Though she always complained,
“It reminds me of death.”)

So
there she swung
in the smell of it.

Bishop
back from mission's work
-- agape love.
Bob Dylan wailing
-- agape love.
Garden in bloom
-- agape love.
Jezee in full swing
-- agape love
Death arching
-- agape love.

(All that's left is tearing out your hair,
ripping off your clothes,
gnashing your teeth,
and weeping.)

O

but the Son,

the Son cradles the world
while chronic shadows bloom.
From head to toe they bloom.
And Jezee rocks,
to and fro
she rocks.

And

Bishop,

the only absolutes
are shadows multiplying 7 x 7
and Jezee rocking an empty tomb

-- O --

yeah

and the sweet scent
from a lilac bush.

She Lived in The Hush Of life

She lived in the hush of life, 

free from the discord of the world.

She moved in a different kind of light,

in a path where angels whispered their comings and goings,

where truths were absolute and breathed in stone,

where teardrops evaporated into an eternal aurora.

In the chambers of her heart, a promise flowered

and pollinated and enriched her being.

In the evening, as she moved about the kitchen,

her fingers linear and alive created an aroma

that simmered in the space of her family's life.

Her symphony was the clink of a glass, the clank of a pot,

the chink of a spoon, laced by the song of her soul.

It would pour onto the earth, a call for the family to gather,

and we would come, appearing in the evening blue:

fireflies circling a pilgrim's candlelight.

Around the kitchen table, in an unbroken circle,

the youngest son would string notes together.

A progression that dispersed light in an even glow.

Congas resonated in gentle waves, tambourines released

the spirit, and light whirled and pulsated.

Her daughters would layer the song into second and third

then weave it in a harmony of delights.

We were saturated in vibrant warmth.

And so it went, late into the evening: the earth arced away,

the stars curved away, the moon dissolved into white,

and her sons played, and her daughters sang.

And by and by,

and by and by

through a corridor of fluttering light,

her husband passed through the wall of her life

and entered the unbroken circle, his tenor a breath in her lungs.

And by and by,

and by and by,

her father and mother passed into her life

and entered the unbroken circle, their song inhaled into her lungs.

And in the midnight of her hour, her brothers and sisters also gathered

and wove their song into her breath.

And so we circled

her candlelight

in a path where angels whispered

their comings and goings,

where truths were absolute

and breathed in stone,

where teardrops evaporated

into an eternal aurora.

In the hush

of her life

we released her.

In honor

and love

we released her.