the devil is in the details

 The devil is in the details...

poor innocent E and A

they knew the rules and they did it anyway
they stole the thing that would have 
set them free
"we were misled!"
willfully self-directed
"we didn't know"
you were told with adamantium tongue and
impossibly clear crystalline words
the way of things

millions of consequences
billions of hurtling lives 
down the garbage shoot of a
trillion cities

these are the consequences liars!

I promised

I promised in the last life  

I'd find her in the next 

An age went by 

And cities fell 

While worlds were turned to ash 

Before she came and grew 

And I was born and knew 

The person standing there

was you 

Every death creates a veil 

Obscuring reborn sight 

Until the sacred moment 

(often late into the night) 

The inner eye is opened 

And you see things as they are 

How bright you've shone 

To reach this eye, 

How far…

mirror

you are mirrored 

neuroses 

of each other, 

and it's love 

the bliss of love, 

the intensity of it a

cosmic rip in 

spacetime 

when will destiny be

fulfilled 

and the sighing days

cease to 

exist 

if i waited

this whole life i've waited

for the jewel of my soul, 

and she is it and doesn't know, 

and another thinks she is, 

and another grows very curious,

another lends her ear, 

and another married a cruel, stupid man, 

still another wants to run away

my life and reason with a smile that 

could break the blazing sky,

where in the world do you 

keep your quiet home? 

will i be a gray and tired man

before the day? 

I saw her

i lay no claim to her

and life itself cannot own

her passing

for she lives a deeper magic

untouched by any common 

hour 

but... i'd like to think

i've seen her with my

patient eyes 

sharpened by the northern wind, 

Middle Eastern suns, 

and jungles of infinite green, 

there beneath the 

lightbulb in my kitchen 

i saw her. 

how was it possible? 

i was ready...

Haiku 2

 

stranger than fiction

"Reality is stranger than fiction," she said. 

I turned it over for a second. 

"What if reality IS fiction?" I muttered. 

"Like we're living in a simulation or something?"

"Well there's that too." I sipped my tea carefully before continuing. "Chuang-tze once had a dream he was a butterfly, and upon waking he was no longer sure whether he was Chuang-tze dreaming of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming of being Chuang-tze." I paused again for more tea, but before I could continue she cut me off. 

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" 

"What do you think it means?" 

"No no I'm not falling for that." She crossed her arms. "You tell me. You brought it up." 

"It means you think you're listening to me speak but maybe you're just having a dream about listening to me speak.  And if you're having a dream, then it's not even me speaking, but you, since it's your dream and your brain is creating the whole thing."

"That is totally not what that story meant."

"What do I know I'm just a voice in your head," I shrugged. 

"Why do I even bother talking to you?" She sounded exasperated. 

"Who else are you going to talk to?" 

"If this is all in my head I could literally talk to anyone I wanted." 

"Now you've got it," I said. 

Goodnight. 

touched

I have been touched by the gods

or the universe 

whatever that profound space is 

both inside and outside my head

and am somewhat mad

at least i think so 

but i ask myself, am i truly

going mad? 

or is everyone else who plods along 

like nothing remarkable is 

taking place, 

are they the ones who are mad? 

so these either are the writings of a madman 

or the diary of one of the few 

sane people on earth, 

even time itself won't tell 

Midnight in the back of my car

Midnight. In the back of my car we made love until we were dripping like the foggy windows. Then the thing all back seat lovers fear: the knock at the window.

It was her mother. How she found us down that dead-end road in the middle of the night is still a mystery to me, but she did, with that supernatural radar mothers have. The knock. The knock that threw us into motion like thieves caught in the act. What were we stealing? 

She got dressed faster than me and stormed out of the car to confront her mother. As I pulled my clothes on I heard them yelling at each other. I was impressed by her ferocity. I'd be sheepish. I was caught fair and square. What right would I have to put up a fight?

She came back and told me she had to go. She told me everything was ok and she'd call me soon. They drove away and I turned my defrost on full so I could see. I was that guy, wasn't I?  The ones parents fear.

There was a difference, I told myself. I actually loved her. I didn't know what the hell I was doing but I loved her. The drive was 30 minutes through the hills and trees and I turned the whole thing over in my mind. When I got home I slipped in through the bedroom window so I wouldn't wake my family. 

As sleep came to me I thought about the water running down the inside of my car window and her hand pressed against it while we made love, in the same spot her mother put her hand when she knocked... 

promise me

promise me

you'll find the beauty 

in our world

when my eyes

no longer see 

promise me 

you'll have vision 

for the two of us 

i, looking 

through you

in this moment of

pure existence 

double-visioned 

graced moment of 

divine sight 

let light fill 

our body

in the presence of 

this passionate 

cohabitation 

i am always with you 

if you have eyes 

to see 

oh my earth

in my final moments
let me be light
let me soar the starry sky
my earth, oh my earth
i leave you by
returning
will i ever see again?
no, oh no
as long as the 
end of time

firefly

When I was little I'd catch fireflies in a jar. Only one or two at a time. To my young mind these small creatures were living miracles.

They would always appear in the same spot in our backyard, near a small hill around the base of an old telephone pole. Catching them was easier than you might think. One simply had to wait for the little insect to signal with its glowing abdomen and scoop it up. Where I live now in suburbia I rarely see them in great enough numbers to do this, but when I was a child, the night air was full of them. 

I'd take my jar inside and inspect the bug under some light. What a strange creature lived there on the other side of my fingers and a few millimeters of glass.

Then I'd sit the jar next to my bed and go to sleep, but with one eye open to watch my little prisoner. Sometimes I'd see it glowing there, but never so brilliantly as outside.

In the morning I'd find the firefly lifeless on the bottom of the jar. I don't think one ever made it through the night.  There's probably a metaphor in that, if one cared to think a little more about it.

being here

"repetition

variation

intersect in

Mother Gaia,

existence is our

salvation from the

Void" -Jerus Maximus

We unfold like paper umbrellas

little bloomings

snowflakes on the crinkled nose

of a child

glorious revelations

brilliant in our being

soon forgetful

all enveloped cultural

pigs in blankets

fit only for 

consumption

reawakened by small

sparks

glimmers of light on

lips of strangers

reminders of our 

effervesence

or as Hegel once said the:

"foaming ferment of finitude"

you're full of secrets

you're full of secrets
and unfathomable spaces
so terrible in their
invincible aspect
i'm broken to pieces
when did you become the
Unconquerable Sun of 
our earthy domain?
what alien womb 
gave you birth?
what's to stop me 
worshipping you 
at an altar i hastily 
construct with these
still strong hands
oh indifferent god of 
Being?