Ode to a Cathedral
for Kit, Tori and the PNW
I stand on your tippy-top steps,
Goth(deco)esque patina arches above and above,
an Ommmmmman.
(an ant)
Deaf, dumb and blind man Steinman whispers
ancient Wizard of OZ hoodoooooo YOOOOUDOOOOOOOO
house of the rising Son House
Lord Vishnu Solomon Tlaloc Amun-Ra
all-seeing knowledge, free.
And I vow to do my part.
To be a smirking rhyming chanting chiming Ronin steward
(chiming-in from time to time)
as the quaking tidal wave
of Slithxren slithering sleazy slimy voodoo condos
attempts to suckle on Sheesha’s tails,
spreading her legs,
and tonguing the waters of the Columbia and Willamette.
Thrive or die.
I will go down with you,
for you, and
everything you hold sacred.
Even when the true quake ((((Big One)))) and tidal Tandava
rambles around the bend
a reckoning.
Acoustic cosmic satellite dish that respects right
and left hand/brain.
Tesla-lation tessellation elation.
‘So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a house.
It could’ve been the house I lived in.
Then put a roof on it.
At the end of the roof, I drew spires.
Crazy.’*
*Raymond Carver
Lady Seine
Men may breach Medusa’s many veils,
serpentine curls a spellbind,
skinned into wanton hide,
Yakshinis and back door summon.
Bonds run down deep rabbit holes,
embraces known to be true,
but the King of Hearts can never be
to the black pawn of our rapture.
The bluesmen always howlin’,
trying to hustle the moon,
but Khonsu’s old witchy ways
moves blood tides to her rhythms.
Some attention, a song
and a Defeat card or two.
Methodology
Institution birthing/canal wither
longing for second handed dogma
where fairy tales
growl glow grow grow glow growl go
to oppress
already stagnant broken waters.
A monk chants.
A sadhu’s arm to Orion.
A priest listens.
A shaman tongues longitude.
Speculation is then, that, than,
though, thus
those thumb uppity ’empty-headed Athenians’
mere meek mirror mind meld
to oppress
already archaic algae alligators.
Starry pathway infinite,
tuned to winds
Skip and Charley theorize,
Johann dips quill.
Belief irrelevant shebang
Asparmara's ToE
My ignorance is serpentine
with seizures
massaging the monoliths of knowledge.
I sacrifice my immortality,
so boons may be bestowed
off my cracking, chaffing hunchback
with the complexion of a newborn baby.
My lips are twisted with herpes.
My eyes are contorted.
My cheek bones like the elephant man.
But I know stuff too.
There is a ballet to this continuity.
For all knowledge is a distant relative
to my karmic suffering.
And under my left-handed toes
another Tandava exists
where the gods are bored,
impotent,
and the Bodhisattva's epilepsy is revered.
(my friends, strangers)
A crowded room. Imponderable thoughts,
emotions.
And though they may be tempered by the abstract offhand,
they are strained by dint of mitigation.
But there is no blame other than the gods.
Candor is tenebrous at best:
The cuckold consonant consequence of constant conscious consciences
tangled, snarled in collective consciousness.
We ache and long for knowing,
impossible feelings.
That perhaps your gnash of dysfunction and accumulation
will one day be recognized as mine too.
"There are known knowns.
These are the things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns. That is to say,
there are things that we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns.
There are things we don't know we don't know."*
Humankind is fabricated out of knowing.
*Donald Rumsfeld
Higgs-Boson
A wall (observation/dimensions).
A theory.
Panama.
The particle flotsam and jetsam
gets prodded and probed
while the milky cosmic waves
churn Lord Shiva
to undress his simpering riddles.
A nesting doll ablaze.
A frenetic inception.
The Crow's Nest
The rain collects
while the gutter tides inch closer
and closer and closer.
You are never quite aware
until the damage done
because the soggy technicolor raincoat is
tailored in only two sizes.
But as the clouds break,
sleepless seafarers of the sublime siren
finally close their eyes.
They rest on shipwrecked shores
to ignite new bonfires
with the driftwood
of falling explorers and fish tales.
Crisis averted.
Turquoise sextant in hand.
Dioskouri gazing down.
A Fool's Prayer
To stand alone naked
to entice others
to dismantle their layers of accretion.
And the rain will laugh.
The cinderblocks will crumble.
The sun will remind.
A manic cosmic dance.
Prophetic Absurd
True inner freedom
only exists in the psyche
*ethos
of collective being.
No stone can numb it.
No club can tame it.
No sword can sever it.
No bullet can make it submit.
Even splitting an atom --
Nothing more than cardboard
and tempera paint.
The Kali Yuga of Reaganomics
will continue to build
pyramids
and the willing willing wiliness
to shackle ourselves.
Our kingdom is not of this world
*is of this world
*is everything
*is nothing
*is desire and awe.
Obsessions of self-doubt
may darken the skies.
But as carbon spews,
the stars have memories,
and Crick unlocks the mystery
of the double helix.
A Sonnet For the Manic-Depressive Woman
When I see that Lithium roll off the crown of your tongue,
I wonder what the malevolent force may brew,
And as that lipstick rolls off the butt to your lung,
All personality must succumb to a humankind in lieu,
You lock yourself in the bathroom as if time had no hour,
Yet a toilet could never hold your mercurial reckon,
But you later reintroduce yourself shaved but still sour,
Though when you need pink wigs I obey without beckon,
Most times you do not want to be touched while in fetus,
So I shift to the couch waiting for the beloved circus.
Third Eye
As drones fly over Berlin,
I meditate on the quiet beyond the St. Johns trestles --
My mind fixates on Nazi Germany
and the twists and turns of the Willie Wonka dollar
selling golden tickets
only for more Willie Wonka dollars
and more golden tickets
and more Willie Wonka dollars.
Shiva winks with both eyes wide open.
The ironic delight in his smile
becomes my own.
Sighing sadly but laughing too.
And when the Tandava finally subsides,
the wreckage
of the new age will sprout
more ironic than the previous.
This I am sure of.
Untitled, 6.14.15, 6:36 pm
Set down the Menlo Park apparatus
of sticky doodad doodad doohickey doodickey hoohickey
(direct current),
if only for awhile.
And 'let it snow, let it snow, let it snow'
waves of ultra high frequency
noise
in lactating oceans
of electric rainbow projection
beyond the fool's kingdom of neigh nays.
Visionary
Adolescent hallucinations will keel,
but wishful savants will remain,
marveling at absurdity,
refusing to squander anguish,
timeless/oblivious.
By possession only,
the ancient antenna entombs itself,
in pineal glands and gospel sermons,
rarely ever heard,
vivid odd passaging.
Alien wavelengths,
masquerading as awkward Earthlings,
quietly scurrying about,
forming homesick doohickeys,
in and out of reality.
And when the bell tolls catastrophe,
I will be skipping hopscotch
with Belmondo
and other fellows
who have turned into insects,
self-loathing a morning.