Poetry in Search of the Way

I’m a slow
talking man
talking monkey man
unable to keep the break-
neck pace we live
the stiff neck
pace we live,

I was
walking into door-
frames two or three
times a day and at night
I hurried to sleep
stuffing wrinkled dreams
into an overpacked portmanteau

Ate too fast
became full
twenty minutes after
too full
another ten
after that

Emasculated yes man
spectaculated guess man
inundated stupid man
emulated dirty man
foolish man
gruelish man
massive man
passive man
floating on a river man
ignorance without bliss man
raft of awareness sunk man
heavy metal junk man
heavy water of
war man
drinkin’ to the floor man
habituary afflictions man
monetary predictions man

caught in the malaise,
the leather fisted smash
and grab routines,
if I speak about anything
I have spoken
too quickly,
people
getting into a car or
entering a room,
right away
they speak,
storms without lightning,
water gathered in puddles,
sediment still aswirl,
pools of murk babbling from towers, trading
tirades and confessional monologues
away from every god,
away from quiet breathing,
only partial exhalations,
broken wheels, exasperations,
all of which
I am

a man of money
a man of clothing
a man of unseasonal
emoting,
a man of replicating movements
an instrument of echoes with no sourcing sound

cries for cash flows faster than I could make them, pleasures faster than anyone could enjoy, riddles faster than I could solve, wisdom faster than I could live, jobs done when they began

I am a one minute lover,
ladies, it grieves me,
I need a fast speaking woman
to teach me tantra
in a hurry, in the meantime
take heart, I am
a sleight of hand man,
fingers of mercury
full of fast wit
fast feet that carry
souls, and a tongue
blessed by Shiva
Lord of lingams
and dancers

With dancing speech
I will perform
a marvelous suspension, bridging
myself to myself
shore to far beyond
shore, far far beyond and back again, a
suspension which is No-ing
in which the No-er becomes
uninhibited by means of the radical
inhibition, a parade of No-ing,
No after No
until No itself is unknown
and the final yes reveals

A fast talking
waste lander, smoking
cigarette of lies
rented
out
my body, sold
my neurons and my eyes
with lips that blurred in motion
I said it,
saying it
all, saying . . .

I’m the man who
doesn’t need
a reason
I’m the man who pretends to submit
only to reason, I’m the man
who mass produces
reasons
like kitsch for common consumption,
I’m the man who works in monotony,
manufacturing and marketing
reasons that shine
glittering like diamonds
they cannot cut glass
but they can cut
flesh

I’m the man who forces
himself on women
I’m the man
who forces himself
on little girls and boys, I am
the man
of the cloth

I’m the man who suffocated
a man
using spikes and heavy wood
because he said
“It is right there
within you.”
I’m the man who hid
all evidence he said
“It is right there within
you.”

I’m the man who said there
is only sin
within you, I’m the man
who unleashed guilt,
I’m the man who says this isn’t
a prison,
I’m the man who keeps it
built

I’m the man who made war on the tranquil
prayers and songs of the whales,
persecuted them for fishing too much, for singing
and waving their tails,
I’m the man who mangles the dolphins
in nets to feed the man,
I’m the man who strangles turtles
and puts shark fins
in a can

The death and resurrection show
I used to play with flair,
now I just do half of it,
sawing women in half
children in half
nations in half as I go,
sawing cheetahs and trees
and manatees,
sawing rabbit eyes
and tiger eyes
and chimpanzees
and butterflies
in the sun that shines
through their wings
as the saw blade cuts and sings
an anguished hymn
teeth
ripping in
to what cannot be torn,
bringing death
to what cannot be born,
cutting in two
tearing in two
sawing in two as I go

to this I say No

I’m the man who stood up
spineless
for Indonesia,
I’m the man who made East Timor
a weeping hell,
I’m the man with pointless sports shoes
to market, I’m the man
with guns and fighter planes
to sell
to the death squads that kill
dirty hands that kill
blackened thoughts
that kill
as I go
soaking blood into earth,
newspapers and photographs buried
as proof
this is an illusion
that happened,
buildings and bodies falling
spirits rising
as proof
this need not happen

I’m the man who turned farming
into irreverent machine work,
I’m the man
who mass produces meat,
I’m the man who slicked the planet
with teflon,
I’m the investor
who will not retreat

I’m the man who stormed the Carribean,
I’m the man who worships
not-yet

I’m the man who laughed
when the man said,
“Sign here
and you’ll sell me your land . . .”
The notion was so simple minded, I covered my mouth
with my hand, wondering
Who can own this landscape of being?
Mountain body, river blood, lungs of peace
passing benedictions from curling leaves to vocal chords,
a torch of endless release

I’m the man who stopped all his laughing
as the buffalo and trees fell in tears,
smoke and steel
scratching the sky’s bright face,
a tin heart corroded with fear

I’m the man who didn’t laugh
when the man said,
“Look here
and you’ll sell me your mind . . .”
It seemed like such a giant fish tale,
I got swallowed up whole from behind
Who can own this landscape of being?
Artifacts decoding songs of the earth
and heaven, a torch that was stolen
for awakening, the unborn’s unbirth

Then freedom became merely a vapor,
democracy
worn down into dust,
wisdom, a withered vine
in the garden
of mythologies
that all have dried up
The prayers drown in the ebb and flow
of jingles,
logos replaced icons
overnight,
automobiles and sneakers of salvation filled our veins
while familiar voices eulogized the light
“These neurons when we touch them
conjure Nike
(how ironic)
and these are tuned to echo
Chevrolet”
the images that synchronize with sing-song
erode the hills and valleys night and day

burning symbols
that kill
acid signals
that kill
branding swindles that kill
as I go

I’m the man who’s holding her body
arms numb
from foreboding and flight
-Do you assume she’s human?-

bullet holes let everything out
since I stopped
they will get me
too

still one
not two

I’m the man who preaches
wily sermons
but cannot tie his shoes
I’m the man who tallies the ledger
while the piano plays jazz
and blues

I’m the man holding his own cracked skull
in hands of disbelief

in childhood they made gestures
of prayer
and play

the riffle butt swung down
with inconceivable wrath

this too is the Path

I’m the man of ruins
I’m the man of ruining
the man of runes and blood
that kills
bones that kill
thoughts that kill as I go

I’m the man who sees
me coming,
wearing my money-lined coat
and says,
“You da man.”
I’m the man who thinks
he’s the man

I’m the man who takes down Sequoias,
I’m the man
who soils their flesh,
flushing them along with dragonflies
and owls and all the trash

I’m the man who carried
the plague here, I’m
the man who authored the pill
I’m the man who reviled
sweet Lilith
I’m them man who threw Jezebel

I’m the man of the underworld nation
just like it is down there
craggy and rocky
pointy and steaming
freezing and screaming
thinking and pained

I’m the man who said there
is only One
and He belongs
to me

I’m the man who won’t
build a well there
I’m the man who will not heal
the sick, I’m the man
with gratuitous footsteps
I’m the man who carries a
stick
that kills
stones that kill
slogans that kill as I go

I’m the man putting eyeballs
in slingshots, casting them hard away
from Somalia, Tibet, and Haiti,
tax breaks, oil, and gravy

I’m the man who will have the last wild tiger put down
so its penis can be ground
for my gout
I’m the man who won’t
shout

I’m the man who offered you kingdoms
I’m the man who offered you stones
I’m the man who dared you to jump
I’m the man who said you’re alone

I’m the man who invented the money
I’m the man who made the first sword
I’m the man who wears out your interest
I’m the man who simply gets bored
putting bullets into beings like a love song
taking meaning away from your words
hiding the light of the Logos
making margins and sending you there,
putting puppets together with fishing line
casting shadows, hiding treasure,
carving laws
with blood
that kills, thought
that kills, hands
that kill as I go

I’m the man who knows where the wound is
I’m the man who won’t let you near
I’m the man who knows there are whispers
I’m the man who won’t let you hear

Noise I spread like an incense
foul smelling it carries foul prayers:
I vow that it’s all for a savior
I vow that I love you enough
I vow that my blood runs with wisdom
I vow that my virtue is tough

I’m the man who will give you a Pulitzer
if you tell them
what I say
is true
I’m the man who harvested a mushroom
cloud in not one . . .
not one city . . .
but two

with my blood that kills
brain that kills
aim that kills as I go

To this
I say
No

I’m the
man who went through
trauma, I’m the man
who got wrongly attached
I’m the man whose parts
are in pieces
I’m the man who got
mismatched,
the associations happened
instantaneously,
there were cracks in the mortar
of time,
I could barely let out a whimper
I could barely render a whine

I’m the man who saw something
tragic,
it held me in fists made of sand
or dust shed by gods disappearing
or the ground up spirits of man

It held me in arms blue with sickness,
it held me in fists made of light,
or the body of the gods
beneath their togas
or the oil slicked ocean of night

I’m the man who can’t
take a ribbing
I’m the man gone asleep and
unribbed
I’m the man who can’t take
a fibbing
I’m the man of cowardly
fibs,
and the unfibbing fibs
of the sequence,
Fibonaccian chaos and
doubt,
I line up the world
in equations,
they guess
nothing
until they play out
like tragedies bending
and curving
like snowflakes
created in a fall
I’m the man who put his tongue out
to melt them
I’m the man who got it stuck
to the wall

made of stones that kill
by hands that kill
from thoughts that kill as I go

To this I say No.

I’m the man who ceaselessly whispers
“Something’s wrong with you!
I have the fix!”
I’m the man who can’t see the storm clouds
I’m the man in a house
made of sticks.

I’m the man who squeezes
the nations between
his fingers and his thumb
I’m the man who invented the devil
and put a demon in the bottle of rum

I’m the man who pulled the trigger
of a gene gun aimed at cotton
so it could soak up all my poisons,
seep out viruses and toxin

I’m the man who keeps the oil flares burning
so Nigerians will never know the night,
I hang or shoot their people,
litter beaches
with my blight

I’m the man building high-tech bunkers
fifty yards from their stone age
shacks,
the profits from plunder
are juicy,
I’ll take another bite
from their back

I’m the man with shoved down dreams
of song
still singing still
unsung
through lips that sting
words that wring
thoughts that cling
and stay clung,
this clinging that kills
thinging that kills
thinking that kills
as I go

To this I say
No.

Sunrise in the boundaryless garden,
rainstorm for
a new kind of seed,
moonlight through the dome of the sanctuary,
prayers of an old kind of need

I’m the man who flies jets that make track marks
and scars in the arms of the sky
I’m the man who will not be inconvenienced
by the mewling
of beings
as they
die

My step here on pavement breaks
a bird’s egg
a polar bear drowns
when I drive
the rebirth of Living may come
soon
for now
we’re just staying alive

The ice became my sadness
the seals became my rage
I club them
the redness spatters
steaming
the redness within me
must disengage

The nets contain my anguish,
I throw my spleen
in the darkening sea,
it sinks there along with my psyche
into depths
where I should be

Yes, I receive it
with gratitude, Yes,
I will have it even so
Yes, I will stand with legs of iron
with the lightness
of right letting go

The hands of a goddess will hold you
from behind she touches your back
when you drop yourself living through tension
and stop yourself living through slack

I am the dream
I am the cream
rising to the top
when
with serpent
body and temple
body the cosmic ocean
churns
by hands divine
the golden butter
of Life
I apply it to the burns
on the bodies of the Earth
soothing
giving nourishment
golden
the world of forms glistens
inner light and outer light
touching hands
gathering gently
everything in the empty net
a universe resting
in a hammock

There always is the man
I am
this
is
his groundless floor
I never was
the man
I am
I need be never more

I’m
a hallelujah chorus
I’m the golden eye
of Horus I’m the opening
that blooms before us
I’m the silence
in the forest
with a mind of space
an unborn face
steps without a trace
as I go

Let it be so




Epilogue:

Five hundred lines of sound
and light,
black crows that fly
and sing,
the sky is vast
the clouds don’t last
I haven’t said
a thing.