Lyrics on the Summit

God -- He really did it this time!
If I was a stuck-up prick before now,
Jesus, what will this make me?

Standing on the top of a huge fucking mountain,
Naked, dying of laughter,
That all I once took for truth was proven wrong.

Today, my new philosophy is
Setting my watch for the universal time it will
Be overturned -- like a statue -- can I be trusted?

I have always been -- different. Not stronger, no --
I thought I was better than them! What a joke!
More ready to bend with the wind -- resilient!

I was worse! But I have been reformed, I swear it,
Like that guy in A Clockwork Orange --
Hah! What choice do I have?

They were once morally inferior because they were happier than I,
And now they are morally inferior because they are sadder than I.
In the new light, I have seen how life changes men!

For I have really led myself to believe
That all pain comes from inside -- but why?
Is it not an illusion -- or a sign?

I don't care anymore. These are the wrong questions.
Let me dance for the moment like a naked baboon;
Red-faced, whipped by the wind!

From every mountainside,
Let me yodel my fool-love-song!
And I will bring down the avalanche, the downhill slide.

Today the snow

--For Mom

Today the snow fell
in a thick matte over these hills
that never see it;

Because chill wind fears the valley
but some winter days the afternoon sun
wards no gray clouds

So they
crinkle the leaves in frosting
and the sun sinks; defeated

Gray light begins to
falter in the distance,
the ashen red has moved in.

A perfect picture of still
unfolds before human eyes
open at 2 a.m --

They climb the creaking branches,
crawl the valley's curves, take wing
and wonder, "What is beauty?

How could we have learned for years
and not known this?"
Then decide: better that beauty be ineffable.

---

I used to wish I could share
moments like these;

I no longer wish I could
share this moment;

Now it is mine only; only now it is yours;

Like all those moments we shared, and
at the end of day wished we had written,
not to read again, for never is it the same,
but to exist for ever as it was, somehow;

I believe -- because you believe
each fallen snowflake deserves a tale.

Language 101: Try it Today!

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The Apple Trees

The end-of-summer, for us young folk, presages change - the return of school, the loss of a job, changing of friends, movement from place to place. We dread change because we can think of nothing but clinging on to the precious summer days we have made for ourselves, whether we have spent them lounging at the beach, pursuing our hobbies, or taking our first tentative steps into the "real world." Yet we know that the dread of change is always worse than the change itself, and many of us look forward to the resumption of study.

Late July's Weather is a fickle mistress - a natural reflection of the oscillating tides of our minds. Her sweltering days sap our souls, forcing us inside and making us pine for autumn, while her steamy nights warm our hearts. Through the night-steam, life resumes: Lying astride hilltops, moving a friend's furniture, strolling through empty baseball stadiums, or packing the floors of crowded night-clubs, we laugh and accept that change is what we live for, only to toss and turn alone in our soggy beds, cry, and reject the tyranny of change once more. The night air, already crowded with humidity, accepts our sweat and tears as an offering, and should we visit the window, the cloud-laced moon will be there to smile her approval. When the morning comes and we re-visit the window, we see helicopters and airplanes above, cars and people below, and we think to ourselves: No, July Life is not cruel - but it has never seemed so life-like.

Change has rammed our past and future selves together, creating a sudden, spectacular storm.


"The Apple Trees"

For the first time this summer
I cooked your famous
spaghetti sauce

the smell of my lonely apartment
reminded me
of apple trees

and brought back a memory
of you teaching me
how to balance

after Sunday school
under the shade
of apple trees

Last summer, while tasting
roasted marshmallows
my skin shivered

like embers of fire
diving into eyes and
apple trees

I remembered wrestling in the rain
with you, when
the quills of porcupine balls

quickened my heart
and made me cry
under apple trees

Years later,
I twist a stalk of broccoli
on a fork

a few inches in front of my face.
It looks like the original
Apple tree -

and finally, I think of you,
the you that could have been,
and my heart shatters -

But life is a cycle, not a rupture -

I see future summers
blooming among
the apple trees.

How They Look at Evil

Evil is, to them, at first,
a curiosity,
no more than a tadpole
in a pond, to be stirred,
a girl's dress to raise,
or a pear to be lifted
from a neighbor's yard -
a bit of childish mischief;
an end in itself.

As they mature and
become responsible,
Evil then becomes, to them,
not an end in itself, but a means
to more serious,
consequential,
and good ends:

1. They spray Evil all over their bodies
like cologne
to seduce feeble-minded women
and men, the only kind there are.

2. With Evil in hand they bludgeon
colleagues, subordinates, and peons
to keep them on task long enough
till something is forged out of nothing.

3. The best of them
adopt Evil and raise it
into history or infamy -
erecting slaughter-houses
of the body and mind;
sublime pleasure-domes.

But they are not made evil by Evil.
like truly Great Men,
they dispatch Evil itself, like a weak underling,
when it has outlived its usefulness:

I. When their love-victims are smitten
and hopeless, they morph again,
from playboy into suitable husband,
from seductress into wife.

II. When their employees
are exhausted and
on the verge of mutiny,
they take them to lunch, offer a raise,
or merely stop barking out commands
long enough to listen.

III. The adopted self-righteousness
of dictators, celebrities, and preachers
leads them to greatness;
their exceptionalism
creates meaning in the average man's
sad life.

With evil swirling in their eyes
and bulging in their veins -
life is mastered, conquered, subdued,
won.

Drink the drought!
Join the ranks of
the world's true Wiccans,
the weavers of reality;

masters of nature and man.

my heart moves slowly

in rooms my heart moves slowly,
slower than life, faster than death;
it yearns for, and receives,
nothing but stale blood.

inside, the tyranny of an eye
marking time in blinks until
the cold hour of heartbreak
captures another soul
as yourself, ticking,
spinning;
looking? yes.
locking? no!

in forests, too, my heart has moved slowly,
like a mosquito
caught by the autumn breeze,
leg by leg losing its grip
on a precious arm-hair

is it absurd to delight in leaves
while trees are falling?
are we not focused on the slightest movements -
like squirrels!

that is why
with others, my heart remained slow;
faster than sitting, but slower than dance,
when, momentary, hands and eyes lock
and blood moves:

I stopped listening after I heard a rumor that
Poetry wants to marry Dance,
because flowers detest the light of store lamps;
and Music pounds the young Night, every night!

///

deaf man James hears,
gouges out his eyes, and dies -



what is this madness?

the future never comes to the rescue!
and the past is lost!>

I call on you, the undying whale, resurface!

a hook pierces my sluggish heart!
I am dragged through the vast ocean!>

it hurts more than hell
but blood proves
fresh life;



life is now like warm tea,
but memory dies never,
tea turns cold,
and the ocean widens itself!



I freeze
as now
and view
myself, the moon,
again, newness,
Loses another war!

Yet at the south pole,
one beacon of hope remains unlit:

On another July night I will return to the hemisphere I know best
and by my side
she will ask, have we ever budged an inch?

I say an answer will greet your warm hands.>

What is Death but the final movement of Life?

Through Eyes of Thursday Evening

Through Eyes of Thursday Evening

I.
walking out of a world of words
i let them go
and i let
the wisdom of nights warm air
wrap me

in wordless language
the cicadas are telling me
its a joy to live

and im starting to believe them
because
tonight is simply

beautiful

II.
two girls pass
on the sidewalk

i could have had friend too
i guess
but for now
i have myself
and it all

the stadium
in the sunset
shortly behind
the geometry of telephone poles

sublime shapes
more delicious to the eye
than breasts

remind me of christs sacrifice
and i take heart

III.
im a martian
i don't need a lover
to fall in love
but i wish she were here, so i could linger longer,

maybe mix language
with silence
to make an even more potent cocktail
of evening

IV.
across the street i make brief eye contact
with the streetlight
i stroke the white-washed wall

i pat my friend
the stop sign
on the back

just stopping by to say hi
now passing through

V.
could i fall asleep
right here,
in the middle of the empty road?

a car then passes,
saying no
of course not silly martian
find a room

VI.
before the elevator closed
"In the Shadow of Destruction"
entered my eye

i know not of what madness
they speak

i only pray to God i never see war

VII.
back in my room
a different kind of alone

i let the lines come one by one

and i let them go