Within the Book of Life

We awoke to the sound of plunder and mystery within the language
Born of fire and desire—wicked as wraiths fading into darkness—

The taste of flesh fueled the need to hunt
Life living within fences and war…

…the mist pours into our souls and angelic scripts etch hope into our hearts
and parables into our minds…we decode the body of magic…

junk bonds and increasing divorce rates…
all we love is born from hate…

In the meridian a jungle teems with jaguars…
Mystic and simple—corporeal and carnivorous—
Muses wait inside thick vegetation…feeding a nation…

The horror of jeering Roman soldiers…
Christs’ cry and a darkening sky…

Diminishing Integrity

the slow leaden gloom of a dark sun in a quiet after-
noon…the zenith of existence fades and ghostly spect-
rums intoxicate leaving remnants of revelation within
the sentient darkness of night…

wandering in a desert
a soul morphs
into an eagle and a snake…

the human stage is infinite
voices ablaze marking hours
and days disintegrating…

a startled eye beams like a sun
in an uncharted galaxy…concentrating
its atomic energy…the codes uncoil…

on a park bench
a bearded bum
screams at crows
flocking and dispersing…

In Amber Hued Dreams He Confessed

laughing like a father at a feast
of Easter (His eyes strangled replies)
His is a symphony of flies swarming rot

a wake in the cool bleeding of dusk
the rigid face of the deceased blushed
cheeks of his cold facade look alive
as tears of ghosts irrigate fields of time

strange in its garbled wound spoke
mental anemones bringing forth foam
to appease a hued medley of a mesa

hewn from sands of swirling sensation
hooking into the worn skin of a lone man
screaming obscenities toward memories

no orator can opine on this creature
eating the meat of his sentence sent
to all infections mating in the trance

A Bleeding Eye Portends Disease

after her tariff a hand shakes maracas
mascara trails smoky streaks of black
heart failure concrete echo winter’s snarl
imbued with slathered ice sheets of sadness
marketed smiles blanched ivory all
Beings monitored by Arachne threading
the web searched by blind engines
eyeing our eyes with consensual lies…

trembling gossamer narratives
screaming beyond windows
and walls barricading us
from obsidian skies
of dead stars burning…

As its Bevy Bursts

(in a hallmark of the powdered king) within marshes
We march to ward our tarnished talismans
And spit on the bones we toss into Fate

Clicks and scratching thoughts
Crack our minds flaking lead
To mercurial rivers laughing
Rage brewing intoxicated law

With this ring of mystery guilt blinds
The smiles and trysts of bled wrists
Spurting crimson cursives in Time’s
Hollow language soiree internment
Beside the corridors of calculus

And beyond the gate of physics
Shadows recite sensual sigils
To pull us like marionettes

Near the bloody, darkened, velvet curtain
Closed across eyes in unending rest

We Can’t Behold

grave ghosts of an afternoon
unheard withered
in the consciousness bereft
of a rudder within

night waits behind
the mask of light inseminating
hearts with murmuring shadows
of tranquil caution

the rattlesnake meditates
on flesh and venom in the sutra
of territorial Nagas of slit pupils

burning the prayer of mother mary’s melodious hair
wavering in the lullaby of the early summer breeze

by now we know trees retain time signatures
and keys of dissonant free will deeds
surrounding the DNA of existence breaking
into shards of montages burning war bonds familial
knots slipped and tightened by the heart fighting rigor mortis…

the Egyptian eye discards brains
hieroglyphs of unutterable names
ritually ejaculating beasts on the nod…

awash in Aiwass
the most wicked strophe in the epic of life
blood-let specters throughout parchment mental trips
toward the valley of the skull kings wrapped in legends
open jaws inhaling faces into the cold spirit wishing past
present futures linking hierarchical portraits
with the golden grace of salvation
measure treasure as you see the body
degrade in crumbling mausoleums…

After the Antichrist’s Introduction

the pied piper plays sinful tones widely wavering
across open prairies manifesting destiny reaping
nightmares starring skulls hovering above fires
reflecting dances drunk on earth’s exotic blood…

flooding the dreams of a young man Indians stare
far into the burning horizon being consumed by blue…

a young woman’s hips sway as the ground grumbles
a volcano vomits vicious streams of red carnage…

Romans nail a bleeding carpenter to a wooden cross
the sky darkens … gathering tears … hearing his cry…

a father laughs as his son is beaten and robbed
fighting for freedom straining to be acknowledged…

in a cracking room, centuries of visions amalgamate
shaping the river incapable of forgetting reflections
climbing sunrays approaching the unutterable language
awaiting the fluent heart capable of reciting its tongue…

In the Illuminated Distance

I

the eyes of an abandoned child darken the winter daylight
a chill drifts across the sealed chambers of an old mansion
at the end of a vast hall new shadows pace stretching sky-
ward as echoing memories leak from the walls deteriorating

hateful words color a poet’s mind dark as blood flooding cries
leaking supernatural torments sharp as fear choking daydreams
slowly sinking toward the ancient realms of night anticipating
the howl of primitive spirits intoxicating sleep arousing snakes

II

the anteroom and the bridegroom
leavened deeds surround stretching
breeding the yeast feeding the beast…

underneath buzzing fluorescent eyes
doctors with convex expressions eye
the icy body seeking earth’s womb…

As Each Year Dies

quaking ghosts depreciate further mysteries dawning in the celebratory eye of the feast bone meat ash as strangers reflect glances … emotions pile upon each other until the black-hole beams multicolored dreams commencing eternity beginning lost as blindfolded prisoners of war…

the fading modern city the rising yeast of an empire pyres in the imagination billow throughout lands parched as mummified screams…

the prophet and the idiot collide in the mind of a poet as Arabian gusts of calligraphy calibrate vessels engaging interlocking screens and the sun belts splashing amnesia fermenting blackness and birth…

channeling the portent is a struggle without bestial trepidation cries the hidden hunger within hands of citizens and legions of unseen monsters…the trembling nightmare…

releases numb ghosts of an aging species seeking shelter inside the pupils of greed bleeding earth oceans flooding prophecies manifesting corpses…the ground recedes…

the bright chaos swirls airy bodies of indigenous rage
as the candlelit cathedral collapses within darkness
whispering as it disintegrates underneath the sun…

white space bleaches the mind
within a corporate haven laughing
voices of power-brokers break
the living silence of servitude…

the protests of generations smash mirrors and stare into reflections of polluted oceans
twisting their faces into sculptures of monstrous disgust running through crowded forests…

chilled skin reveals the breath of death growing colder
montages of deeds demonstrating demonic possession
seize sleepless midnights murmuring melting syllables
forming keys turning the locks of karma opening doors…

Behind Death Masks

Jaundiced words of misunderstood saints ossify…

Into the belly of Abaddon, we swim mindlessly,
Dissolving in acrimonious acids like old films

…the hiss within
…our minds like fecund prisons
…we await the nether-key

…sheik figureheads and shrieking infants
…inflicting and receiving terrible wounds
…suffering like lambs bathing in saliva

In mourning, morning resembles graying flesh
Afternoon casts shadows like the final disease
The animals cry never knowing they will die…

Bitter herbs choke throats of decaying poets
Drowning in corridors of their looping dreams
Etching masks enacting the play of active verbs…

Dionysus stares at Narcissus while pleasuring his third eye
Chem-trails form puffy grids across azure and sunny skies
Children grow within virtual worlds of endless excitement

Bees and birds die as bats and cats cry
For flies and flesh…piled high as lies…