Commemorating Mevlana Jalaladeen Rumi
~~*~~
First Leaf: \"Radiantly Dark\"
I have wandered the moon-smitten byways of earth and not seen a divinity as radiantly dark as your eyes, and knowing this I am lost, not caring, for my mind is lost as well.
~*~
Dare to drain the goblet of desire, then fling it and listen to the piercing tinkle of breaking glass, an ominous sound, but more pleasant than that of a breaking heart.
~*~
Beyond their usual flavor, lemons are only as bitter as compared to the sweets preceding them; cleanse your taste buds and turn the favor on its head with sweets, again, caressing your tongue forgetting the bite so lately of lemons.
~*~
When come the rabbits from their burrows will come the song of day; dance its rhythms, for living is ceremony, a marriage of joy to joy and sorrow to sorrow.
~*~
You refuse to acknowledge that I love you until you have wounded me, then sit beside the river of my blood, waiting for what neither of us know.
~*~
Perhaps it is illusion, for which none can be blamed, in the hope that such rivers will come together for one heartbeat of forever, before disappearing – forever.
~*~
Your ocean reverberates in mine, the terror of darkness in its thunder, sunrise-surges in its motion, and resonating to all, part of me bows like the willow, while another rises toward the moon as powerfully,but straighter than poplars in the mountains.
~*~
Nothing is more sacred than to be an unpaid whore beloved by too many to count.
~*~
We all are girls and boys in the sandbox, and the ocean beyond is our dream.
~*~
We waited for centuries to share our toys, and now I hold you carefully before me while we are bareback on our horse carrying us toward the chamber of our Eternal Mother, modest yet resplendent in her robe of the Ageless One.
~*~
I honor you, prince of desert horses, the promise of treasured rainbows in your arching neck, the wind in your flowing mane, the cadences of your feet; dust rises around you like a veil; the yawning of god in awakening lies beyond.
~*~
The mind within mutely knows that much of love´s pain is not surrender, but self-infliction, yet willingly surrenders to a blindfold worn above a knife thrust into the heart.
~*~
In vain, we hope the wound will heal, though the wind will caress it during the magnificent and cleansing terror of free-fall.
~*~
Your feet would hallow the ground you walk upon were it not for the smell of your shoes; the reason I inhale your spirit through your inescapable eyes.
~*~
You´re as free as the air into which you release your beloved\'s spirit, for visible only to naked soul, divinity shades the same air with its wings.
~*~
Don´t despise them, dill pickles will help you pucker for kissing, if you only can find someone willing to ignore the pungency of dill.
~~*~~
Second Leaf: \"The Wee Book of Yiddish Meows\"
The rain is tiptoeing along the street like a cat worshiping god with her feet, and the song-prayer is a whisper of silence transcending the rain and all else.
(for Jean-Micael)
~*~
Oy vey! – the maddening cycle of catbirds tormenting cats… and the cats taking it out on each other, until realizing the catbird\'s to blame! – oy vey!
~*~
Water follows nature downhill, so often we struggle upstream against that which would take us where we\'ve never been, places angels and daemons are hesitant to leave.
~*~
Our Mother Orb is a whirling dervish and god chuckles in reverent glee as he watches her gyrations, end without beginning, beginning without end, and even the birds find his chuckles contagious; just listen to them whistle: that\'s divine madness!
~*~
Restless as you may be, rest not, diligently search for the storm-eye of your being and enter, leaving its door wide open for whirlwinds promising you a dance in the garden of a raindrop.
~*~
Third Leaf: \"Mavi\" (Turkish for \'blue\')
I am dying even while I am living, the death you handed me, music searching for us in forsaken alleys, fractured, empty bottles of wine reflecting the winking stars we hold in our hands.
~*~
I felt my heart thundering in the grip of your satin-steel gloves,
lightning rods thrust inward to a bone-searing, and still I am stunned... please let me sleep
until the dawn of more thunder.
~*~
When you leave, there is no silence but soundless cries of chaos, nothing when you return but heat raging between here and beyond, a furnace-anthem struggling toward fusion, my longing
for a molten center.
~*~
Snarling beneath the despairing numbness
shuddering trap of my teeth caressing your veins
trying to pull you back into my recesses, hissing silence, smoke and seething ice beneath the emptiness, only a trash can to catch the debris.
~*~
Love is blasphemy inherent, scripture.
~*~
Give me your cheek
and I\'ll slap your
blood to your roots,
stunning them, shouting them awake,
the dance thereof will never die
and resurrection never sleep.
~*~
Shards of laughter
strew some alleys,
shattered grace of bridges,
haunted sacrifice of cathedrals, hovels,
… strewn… stinging grace of laughter
aching to remove the shards.
~*~
The raven spoke: \"Nevermore!\"
and I wandered into the soul of night
casting about for wings; I was smitten by the feathers of yours soaring through the musky dark,
and it rained!
\"nevermore!\"
our wings are locked together.
~*~
I see your face in satin spades
your heart in clover twined
around the penny-whistle of my tributes,
drums clubbing, whipping the wailing
river into frothy nostalgic nettles
while you ravish my unraveled ends in nearest parks,
and that before your parchment disappears in white of the moon, your etchings left behind, nothing erased.
~*~
Cities, those monoliths, are cancers,
love an acid-sweet erosion stripping bare our sinews, racked across the bosom of pavement, concrete, glass and steel, the blackened gems of our streets
fleeing ecstatic through our marrow
to the blazing noon-high sun.
gluttonously hungry to be warmed – and
quenched, endlessly fed.
~*~
Did we have a child?
no, but we whelped giggles as shy as a bridal veil,
as bold as robbers accomplishing the theft
of marriage nostril to nostril.
~~*~~
Fourth Leaf: \"Manna Mania Miscellania\"
What distillation is this?
its vapors writhing so delicately
above the thin-veined glass
of this vial trembling with such fragility,
must I drink it?
yes, I must under compulsion of your unflinching glance -
oh, now I am dizzy, silly, giddy with
wanting to tumble into your arms,
riding on the gentle storm of your snores,
and silly me,
though what is that?
but your hair tickling my nose...
... give me more of that liqueur, and
yes, tickle my nose again.
~*~
King Arthur had an enchanted sword,
do you, will it fell me?
come, let\'s ready ourselves/
the nearest mirror recasts the
glittering joy of swords in our eyes,
our eyes are the swords.
~*~
I smelled your breath
in the edgy delight of its
lemon flavor dancing on my teeth
and not waiting for the sun to leave
I sought a tavern at noon,
\'what will you have?\'
the shaman barkeep asked,
my finger traveled across the space,
and \'Give me a draft of that spirit,\' I answered,
he paused, smiled, I suddenly realized I wasn\'t drinking alone in the breeze through the door,
you and I commingling lip-red wine, plunging, bathing, not leaving until the sun again at high noon,
and still I smell your breath
while spinning foolish and lemon-anointed on the
edge of dancing teeth.
~~~*~~~
Other Poetry
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Requiem For An Exposed Neuron
...pipes /jugs /pipes /hallucinating te deum for blessed freaks and smoking
stale, dry cigarette tobacco (wrong thing) in a pipe to honor, certainly not
diss an unknown friend/jug and pipes/friend wearing the neighbor wife\'s
panties, having carnal knowledge of corroded gold bricks beside rain puddles
under the bridge/gold /bricks /panties /kyrie, kyrie eleison/communication
wrapped around his ears like yo-yo strings, and the sky isn\'t falling in, just
moving to the thirteenth floor/send a messenger with a quasi-neo-biblical
infomercial: God and the Devil are stuck in the same elevator on the fourteenth
floor /fifteen /sixteen /seventeen and a half from slavery of the mind/kyrie,
have mercy/and the jug is only half full, or is it half empty?/have mercy/day of
the dog, cat digging in the dumpster behind the outhouse /kyrie/where he took off her panties/have mercy/kyrie eleison, kyrie, kyrie, stuffed them in a pipe and began smoking dehydrated dreams that he found bubble-gummed to a three-dollar bill floating in from the ocean coughing it up on a beach of laundered clouds, and she asked for them back, full of holes/have mercy/eleison/and the messenger said, \"Look, God, your zipper\'s stuck,\" and God said, \"Where?\" /jugs /day of dogs/day of cats /seahorses /snails/day of coyote digging for the jawbone of an ass under a tombstone that says, \"Here lies a thought that is dead,\"/day of repeat after me/repeat after me/kyrie, eleison, and, man! - that pipe sounds good about now - just fill it with the right thing before Salem\'s Priests get their grubby hands on the sacred purse overflowing with condoms, and please, have respect for The Place Of Places where The Queen Of Closets And Hole-Riddled Panties will say, \"Have mercy! - give me that pipe! - the jug\'s at least half empty - or is it half full? - the elevator is running out of grease and maybe the Devil\'s stuck in God\'s zipper or perhaps Yahweh is spelunking in Jezebaalzebubba\'s pussy - who knows? - just give me that damn pipe!/day of weed and have mercy on that rag doll - because here lies a thought that is, well, quite dead, and I can\'t think anymore/anymore/anymore...
~~*~~
Unquenchable
… jewels of the jungle,
trinkets strewn
across altars of the mind,
desire whimpering and simmering
like cats on a hot tin roof never
cooled by rain,
Night is an unquenchable flame,
the sun is the eye of a laughing storm
watching the pirate of your soul
plundering mine,
You kneel in the desert facing the East,
I tilt back my head and the moon is
a timeless sailor anchored in our hands,
Perhaps we are princes meant for the helm,
perhaps delighted paupers ready to feast
on immeasurable treasures of the lips,
our toes meant for sand,
our fingers for twining in sweat
Where sways the grass
while the ocean weeps our favorite song
and we walk its refrains?
Yes, the markets are busy,
though buy me an orange and I\'ll peel it for sucking
its liquid joy,
then we\'ll wipe our chins with the wind
before wandering among the warbling flutes,
Sunset beckons from the distance,
the cats are yowling and flirting
on sizzling tin,
tempting the never-dying flame of night while
the tarty ocean flings its salt,
and, yes, our pathway sweats with
gems reflecting us,
jewels of the jungle...
… our trinkets are left behind.
~~*~~
Whiskey Hymn
[Celebrating a musical event at Nejima Bar in Ankara, Turkey]
… hypnosis shattered by atomic jiggling, salivation of song on your brow, spastic sound, unbuttoned vibration, stuttering thunder and slap-happy bass thumping the roots of \"sweet home chicago\",
you and I chin to chin
the pomegranate purple of your breath, and
notes insanely bent in the blush of your voodoo blood
throbbing with \"go, johnny, go\",
johnny be bad in prickly heat needling a conflagration consuming my pores,
beat-howling preacher on knees of confession in harmonica valley,
drumsticks masturbating crazy rhythms ravishing
sin and redemption in our eyes testing the high-wire between us,
fanning the flame, tongue-flailing the invocation:
\"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, do you have your dancing shoes,
are you ready for some blues flames, some rock `n roll rantin\',
Do you like dogs?
You see, the boys in the band are going to let the dogs out,
all the dogs, all the way out and it\'s going to get scorching hot in here because
hallelujah, amen and great balls of fire!\"
here is your medicine-man
screaming joy through the microphone,
catwaulering yowl uprooting our chakras
strutting and rattling snake-eyes along \"route sixty-six” in
black, red, \"blue suede shoes\" and \"well, it\'s one for the money, two for the show\"
neural earthquake, volcanic sermon shakin\', blessin\' and cursin\'
\"mustang sally\"
\"uh-huh, uh-huh
guess you better slow your Mustang down \'cause you been runnin\' all over town\"
lawd, \"guess I have to put your flat feet on the groun\',\"
uh-huh, uh-huh
\"mustang sally\" docidoing with \"caledonia\" mocking yo\' mama, teasing yo\' daddy
and tell `em I\'m comin\' \'cause your name\'s caledonia\' dripping with \"sweet alabama\",
sulphuric scripture, reprobate weeping sugar, third eye of beer and limbo games under my scarf
you at one end, me at the other, laughing, shouting “I\'m the hoochie-coochie man!\",
and we gotta\' get our feet groovin\' the path of the *serpent probing our souls believin\' our believin\' eyes in askin\',
do you be \"secret agent man?\"
bein\' they\'ve taken your number and given me your name I raise in exultation of bone-bred pain screaming \"in the shadow of the city\" risen from grinning alleys
strewn with hope-seeds born of fertility.
and shriven of barrenness I throw back my head to yell,
\"you ain\'t nothin\' but a houn\' dawg\"
nothin\', nothin\' but a
houn\' dawg, houn\' dawg
runnin\' tongue-led along my trail joined
to your redolent thread, and us sweetly inflamed with \"bad, bad whiskey – and we\'ve lost our home\",
bad, bad, bad, bad whiskey, highway of liquid-burning sin and yelping salvation
from heaven and hell to the beyond of the subway station confessed with \"I love you\",
and the only answer I need is redemption of night
steeped in the beautiful, bad bad whiskey
of your eyes…
… and the whispering hymn of the wind.
(*In some ancient cultures, serpents represented wisdom, healing and renewal.)
~~*~~
Magnolia Song
The magnolias are far away - while I sing, begging
them for bridges to
brood with stanzas of butterflies
in the heat mocking the sea where once we walked the shore
beneath the cruel commas of hawks
showering curses,
pink roses upon storms
flung upward from spotted, inverted baskets, northern Iranian
mountains
aching
praying
wandering
the cavern between the olive-minuet of your eyes and
mine absconding their color from above and knitted by
anguished waves stumbling, floundering
into lunar mercury,
the slant of scouring rain
throwing blue into our faces
in cadences
dribbling from
lemons and leaves of tea, strong with riots
black peppers hurting our tongues
along the central street
of our knowing, speaking
silence
without riddles
wrapped about our shoulders
with brazen mysteries hovering above
the staring magnolias
which now have crowded in...
… though I still sing
and always will...
of you.