birds----they seemed of all created beings the nearest to pure spirit--those little creatures with a normal temperature of 125°

What that we could see our demons.

Feel their fetid breath on our cheeks or

the texture of their skin.

The grip of their fingers lifting our hands to sin.

Would they seem beautiful?

It'd be no great surprise if, to me, they did.

I who am blind.

I who even in seeing

fail to perceive, much less

comprehend. It's mercy that forbids it.

Mercy that disallows my senses

to be stirred by glorious phantoms

ringed in mist or flesh.

Still...

This tendered song breaks and splits, parsed

with hope of meaning or at least some meager image

of light or death

or the hint of a harmony.

Does meaning nest quietly

behind the veil?

Resting like the dead beneath the thin soil

and thinner air. Is it

grasped like smoke

or sentiment?

Can it be bound or

fettered, caught and trained

to stand and

expound?

Does it peck at the living,

searching for mites of

consciousness with

its beaks of flame? Or,

is it silent in its sleep,

casting dreams against

the seabed where they rest, stunned,

in wait

of the end of ends?

Sing freely and loud. Or stamp the soil into stone

and press the wind against the flat of your hand;

palm the breeze. Lick at the sky and its blinding

depths. Strike against the blue that hides, or the

darkness that goes and goes.

And maybe, just, you'll hear the sound of

singing. Angels' tongues licking too, Heaven's fists

striking the taught skins of worlds, stamping

as from molds the spirits of man and the tinkling gears

of ethereal animation. Palming meaning into chords

and thoughts that ring,

binding breath with dust or bones.

Being becoming being and

splitting, still.

Lovesong

But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.

-1 Corinthians 7:15

It isn't enough to wish you well.

Not to want for your goodness,

to feel or taste it

like Heaven's wine on the tip of the tongue.

If only to forget it.

Like a daughter who loves

but doesn't know love.

Or an old friend forgotten and dead.

The rulers of older empires bathe

in sunlight or in thought,

scrub as it wraps itself like the

tongues of serpents around their arms.

But what now and here

can we offer?

The warmest thanks to all

adulterers and their most feeble,

most honest,

honorable attempt.

Accept our failings, our piety,

our outright hate, please, with

patience.

Smack together in air,

and cry your praise. What else have

you to do? Grow your red hair long

and kiss and hit, knowing, perhaps,

that at least,

the dying moves slow.

Brandish your love like an axe against

the emptiness. Beat it against the burning

tree or door, till it's ash or opens to

something else.

Here dear,

have a drink.

Have another.

How can you be blamed? Love.

Are you not cutting off the hand

that sinned? Sacrificing

your flesh for the sake of something more,

if not only for the tendered want for more?

If not for then at least for now.

If the world is dead and truth dying,

cut out the eye that sees it and

stumble blindly on.