Poems of Hope and Despair

After all let's not pretend the father...is innocent of evil
for it was not born in the garden
not that kind...of hatred.
And even demons have their plan
in protecting martyrs
from your un-scarred body.

So do not tell me of blasphemy
not when the pure of heart have known...
mutilation and despair...
and a deity so unmoved
by prayer...it is frightening.

Now, let the ashes of my corpse terrorize you...
in spite of him...in spite of her...
in spite of the crimes of a forsaken messiah...
I have chosen sides and swear...
I remain forever at war...with your God!

I remember as a child...
the woods...
and even...
farther away
where the rainbow...
promised to touch the Earth...
and the side of a hill
and the birds who lived there.
We picked blueberries then
and swept a path through the green jungle
vowing to never reveal
the secrets...
we've now forgotten.

______________________________

It's easier to talk in the third person
to tell you what I know about him.
He was upset...with you
...with the empty bed
...and with himself.
That is why he left
the phone off the hook
to warn you
...of his anger
...and his wounded vanity
...and his phobia of phones.

And that is the most important thing I can tell you.
He is not proud
...he can not abandon his hatred
...even for the wrong reasons.
If you knew him better
you'd understand
why
at 11:00 p.m.
he wanted to call...
to torment you...
with the love...
of his tormented heart.
But the man is no fool.
He was wise enough to know
he did not want to know
...it was already too late.

_____________________________

_____________________________

I never saw you in Tina min Square
or St. Peters-burg
or in the other prisons
in Washington D.C.
I never saw you inhaling
tear gas in Paris
or in flames in Saigon
and in a hundred thousand
other cities and times
I never caught you...stealing
because you were hungry
or naked
or hunted
or wanted to share
a lost mind.
So do not tell me of love or freedom
and how to wage war
and especially do not tell me
how to protect children.
Halfway between the Pentagon and the clinic
my suicide note began
far earlier
on the road to Dachau
or was it Syracuse
or Front St.
that reminds me...I have no family.
I am only here to warn you
the last of the hippies

...is still alive

_______________________________

Lucifer, I could have loved you...
more once...when you wore the tiara...at the Cyber Cafe.
But now you have the coveted crown...of loneliness to wear
so wear it...wear it well...it becomes you.
Because hell is empty and Satan is gone...leaving you only...
a thousand dollar phone bill and a wardrobe of chastity belts...
each one colder than the last.

And where is Satan? Satan is lost...and in a lonelier place still.
Satan is in the nakedness of Limbo...and in the terror of wondering...with hopelessness...
if he is the Antichrist...or the messiah...
or only in the agony of knowing...he is loosing his mind forever...again.

And you want to go there with him...but you can't
because you can't hear his heart scream:
When can I come home...from the war against hate?
And can I ever come home...from the war against love?

So how did you think I would cum...and my kisses taste
when you took the phone from the hook and changed your address in a night?
Did you expect me to rest...in peace...on the laurels...
of yesterdays...dead poems?
And where were you...when Nature's arms opened up
and a forsaken man cried out:
I have no scars. I can't walk on water. I can't change water into wine.
I can't be him.

And I wonder...are you jealous of her now...when she whispered then:
That's the way it's suppose to be.
Because you have long legs and beauty and your breasts and thighs...
are willing to be touched.
But is Venus still in heaven? Because Cupid is gone too...
leaving her only...the dream of New York and holding hands...
in Harlem.

And sometimes I too forget...what ever happened...
to the beauty of phone sex...
and the beauty...I never knew in Spokane
who no doubt is already in the arms
of another...trading in golden locks
for a more virginal phone number

than the one she lured me in with.


After all...wasn't the music of my poetry...as good and angry
as Patchable and Marilyn Manson
or didn't you like the conversations...
and being welcomed to Limbo, my love...
and the war against war...
where I am still not sure...you were ever as nude...
"...as the young and the hopeless."

____________________________________

Like Magdalene before her and the angels after her
she was aging...and on the other side...of expensive.
We collided, during a sick age...in a sick place;
I, with my delusions of grandeur...and she, with stories of torture.
There were wives there then...who argued in favor of damnation
for the whores of the day...and
the whores of the night.
My whore was silent... so I argued...in favor of lovers.

It was useless...so to spite them...we shared cigarettes...and coffee
and holding hands...and an embrace...but a price was never agreed upon
...for love...or dinner...or a picnic in the sun...and then she was gone.

Afterwards...by way of the streets...I found the address she gave me
and was invited...into her asylum.
So we talked again and embraced...and then in only moments...
I too was gone.
I heard that day by means of the sick age and the sick place...
she found my flowers and candy and music...unimpressive...
so they ceased.

Later on...I came back to our meeting place...as I often do...
for days or weeks or months or even longer
only to discover...she was already there waiting for me.
She discovered...I hadn't changed...but I had by way of money...
more stories now..of torture and pain.
She had the
unfortunate type of misery...
that did not like...that much company.

I remember...by morning this time
we were no longer holding hands
and by coffee...we were no longer talking
and even my coins had stopped impressing her.
What I do not remember...was why...
she did not argue...when I said good-by
and made the cruel suggestion...that she have a good life.

It was a long time later...at a new meeting place
where my long lost whore discovered...
I was still waiting for her this time and when I heard her say,
"You've changed." I realized...she hadn't.
She was still beautiful.
As for whether she was diseased...
there are cures for some kinds of crimes
but there is no cure...
for not knowing...if I was only...a one night stand.

THE ABORTIONS

There was a child...and then a season later...another
Who died at a very early age...victims of child abuse.
Even my love for you was not enough to save them.
And because of this...
the rainbow never again held a promise
...the sunset lost all it's beauty...
and the magic of the full moon...was destroyed.
You must understand--for me there is no consolation
...no penance--with enough pain
...no atheism--with enough emptiness
...no cathedral--with a God strong enough
to burn from my heart the memory of their innocence.

__________________________________

I confess...I am the son of Joan of Arc

And for proof...you who have only faith
are lost...while I have as a legacy...

the honor to wear her armor
and to be heir to her courage
to hear a choir of angels
singing...the end of hope.

But because I am her child
I have seen
in the maiden's eyes
the end of despair
born by the tears and incense
...of burning flesh.

So in the emptiness of this arena we share
let it now be revealed to you...why
I have the privilege...to carry
a shield of voices...sighing in the summer breeze.
It is because I have for a weapon...a woman's sacred longing
to see her tempered sword...sheathed on the field of battle
in the enemies war...against the olive branch.

And that is the reason...I can not be bribed
by the argument of forgiveness
in the hallucinations of your court
that strives to inflict upon reality...
a voice in time...for tyranny.

So do not tell me about the sins of humility
it is pride that keeps me from being
tempted
...with the politics of salvation
and the dreams of the heretics Church
still drunk on sacrificial wine...and blessing the starving child
with damnation...for the theft of bread
consecrated to feed the poor.

For these and all my other crimes
I have chosen the rainbow...to blame
...for allowing me to remember...
the deluge and the thunder...
that is only an echo of the screams
of the excommunicated mother
who has beckoned me to warn you:

It is her favorite son who is incurably ill
with an insatiable desire...
for revenge...for each day
an army of physicians...deepens the wound
left by the surgeon's scalpel.

This is not an omen...this is not even a vow,
this is only a prayer that was answered...in the beginning
when I was embraced...by a woman clothed in flames.
And she knows the truth of this punishment.
There is nothing wrong with her children.
They are alive and well
...in a
world





...that is raving mad!