I Am Yours

I am yours Kelly Myers
with your heroin heart that exploded.
I am yours Sammy Gomes
with your LSD mind split like a wedge.
I am yours Tony Vogels
with the frontal lobe hemorrhage.
I am especially yours Brock Real,
because I could have saved you
from the crack in your soul.
But I belong to you Mark Zietzma
because you rose from the dead,
like me you rose from the dead.

Fish Heads

Was it Napoleon who mixed
his urgent dilemmas,
who drew his designs
on the series of shores
inhabited infrequently with
the blooms of nations
that sprouted and flowered
and died.

Was he any different
than the fish headed men
who breathe through gills
and glaze their eyes
because they left the water
and now thrive
in their unnatural environs.

For Netta

Oh my life, how I love you,

Unmanageable, relentlessly questing.

No frame could contain the

ambition of daring God himself

to fashion you into his image.

Jesus Christ man, you should

have known it would mean

the end of all you ever thought

or believed, that you would find

yourself, on some eternal shore,

bewildered of all, but Him.

Hidden

Hidden

There is a smoke the angels make,
you can observe on a moonless night,
when the stars are eternally burning,
against the blackness of oblivion.

Follow the trail of the scentless rise
of vapors ascent against the sky.
Trace the line back to find it's source,
and see the face the angels make.

This of course is not their true form
but a visage created for you,
to humble the essence for the eyes of some
who would die at the full revelation.

For an angel is terrible to the mortal frame,
for the same reason you are warned
Not to utter the holy name.
You are human after all,
and to approach the holy, you must be hidden
from the glory of the same.

For there is a smoke the angels make,
you can observe on a moonless night,
when the stars are eternally burning,
against the blackness of oblivion.

Footings

The dream is of a basement
With wide grey concrete footings
forming a ledge around the perimeter.
This is my basement from my childhood.
And water seeping in, clean clear water,
Filtered by the earth and lying level against the uneven surfaces.
Pumps and hoses are attempting to get it out
But more comes in at equal rate.
And an old grey ghost, short and straight
says, I will help you later, but for now I will rest.

Tom Waits

The scent of life is faint
The stink of hell is rank
No money in the bank
Locked up inside the tank

Then I woke up
Then I woke up

Sinking in the sand
Losing sight of land
Reaching for your hand
To hear you say goddamn

Then I woke up
Then I woke up

Forty thousand me's
All with the disease
Losing by degrees
You're taking what you please

Then I woke up
Then I woke up

I wish that you would care
Share in my despair
All I did declare
Was I was not there

Then I woke up
Then I woke up

It is a Gift

What is the opposite of saving?
Is it sacrificing
or is it allowing
everything and everyone
to be
what they are:
pain mixed with joy,
sorrow blended with the most
exquisite perceptions
of beauty.
It is a gift, the ability
to see everything once-
to notice it all-
just for the moment-
even if it is your last
breath.