Unrest
san diego, you insatiable whore
San Diego, you insatiable whore!
Thus far, must you beg me to crawl towards an infinite taunt,
your horizons, sunsets cast like nets above inflated balloons of housing and parking tickets,
San Diego, you insatiable lover of my dehydrated dreams and empty pockets?
Bleached (h)air and stained teeth, swim hard,
swoon into your pickled arms and rotting flesh,
You, opioid of the gold rush.
San Diego, you sadistic mother-in-law!
Sing the family, elite, to adorn your status.
How long shall I chew through the fattened calf of poorly cooked legislation silver-lined in big business,
the grizzled compliments caressing your falsified ego of sociable good-will?
Stacked are the “Affordable Housing” projects,
Scabies and bed bugs,
Cockroaches and rats, white jackets jacking off to federal grants and the option of the option of the options of
300 sq. ft. for swanky cocaine and BMWs,
the favorite of your sons.
I wish only to spit,
lest I be hosed down by a maid in hazmat.
San Diego, you gaslit pimp, rose & cranberried madam!
How might I speak but for your irony?
To praise flag-woven voodoo boys hardened with iron and gun-powder parades?
Or hope simply not to be my sisters in the firework parade
–their funeral march up and down the boulevard?
Feed the hungry.
Cheap sentence laced in euphoric subterfuge, vomit spilling from my lips MidWay
between troops and
hookers, alike,
A real Hegelian fever dream,
could you be any less hardened and dysfunctional?
San Diego, you disappointing tour-guide.
I should rather search the sky-at-night for alien life
than believe in the toy UFO floating agape
amidst a black hole, hoisted upon the wings of demons in your harbor;
than believe in the swollen cop and K-9: “Stay in your lane–you do your job, I’ll do mine;”
than believe in–
Mesh bags and handcuffs
Pull up tents
Voice of angels, devil under your fingernail
Hose down the sidewalk
Jail the needy
“Stay in your lane,”
The K-9 means we don’t shoot,
A lesser of two evils, snarl,
we will shoot.
How easily ambiguity slips into your vocabulary,
How easily we are praised for the wrongs we have committed,
How easily you prey on the weak–
San Diego, you insatiable whore,
Like a worm in corporate conscious,
Fuckboys and panic buttons,
Opioid of the goldrush,
Keep me safe
You’re like a noise complaint after 10pm.
on trinity sunday & “all lives matter”
You have such a way with timing
You whisper to heaven that your interests are damaged
Filthy wisdom, lick up
From the tinkering noises, the Ephesians rejoicing
Without me, please leave me be
Where d’you keep your mother’s lessons?
Framed in a toolshed with a noose and a ghost’s head
All three grandpas, pinned up
Bloody and saccharine, count your cards, wear a sheep’s skin
I see you, we see right through
on genesis 28, isaiah 2, & otay mesa detention center
And who is my family, O House of Jacob?
Who are your descendants, your offspring?
Who are your children of the west and the east, the north and the south?
Where are they, that this should be a city set on a hill?
Where is this gate of heaven, the land you will give?
Is it not in the land of Canaan?
And did you not journey to Egypt in the time of drought?
Were you not with Rahab in Jericho, the promised land?
Were you not in Palestine, as well?
And is it so, that your offspring then journeyed to Bethlehem?
In the fields, once laiden with flowers, are they not yours–
the soldiers laid to rest with burning led?
In the garden and in our beds, behind the TV and in our praying–
are they inhabiting these spaces also yours?
In the manic erosion of power your preachers expose and
the ignorant denial of our mothers and fathers,
are these the innocent too?
And who are you that climbs the ladder between heaven and earth,
descendant of Jacob?
You who seeks sanctuary in foreign lands and roams the deserts,
You who lives without shelter and feeds the hungry,
You,
felon killed at the hands of the state,
You,
who will split the curtain of the temple,
Is it you for whom the dead stones cry
and the mountains fall to heart of the sea?
O House of Jacob,
were you not in
Afghanistan?
Were you not in
Libya,
Iraq,
Iran,
Somalia,
Yeman,
Syria, and
Sudan?
Are you not in
Honduras and
El Salvador,
Haiti and
Guatemala?
Are you not in
Mexico?
O House of Jacob,
are you not as well in
San Diego and
throughout all the earth?
Surely, the LORD is in
this place!
And as I watch the ladder ascending to the heavens above,
I also turn and fall to the depths of hell below
along its same steps.
For, as the son of man died and rose again,
so you and I will too,
and we will be like the dust of the earth.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the LORD.
on american iconography (donald trump outside of St. John’s)
I watch this book used as a gavel, a sword, an oath, a threat,
brown families separated and caged,
black neighbors choked to death,
watch us raise our hands
watch us raise our hands
I watch dogs released on the mentally ill,
the gavel fall, the sword fall,
watch us dip in waters
watch us dip in waters
I watch fire bombs fall on Syria-
-scream for your mother through bars-
watch the gavel fall, the sword fall
watch the gavel fall, the sword fall
I watch a Bible fall,
an oath sworn, a threat tweeted,
I watch us dip the bread in wine
I watch us dip our bread in wine
my god-
-my American Church,
silence your noisy and meaningless prayers.
Put down your bloody hands
raised to a false idol of American normalcy.
Close the Gospel you have so flagrantly weaponized.
Pull your families into the streets and lift up those trodden on
by the insidious and monstrous power that we have put in place.
Lay down your weapons and give your wealth without reproach,
advocate for those who suffer.
You who hang crosses in your homes, take them down.
Frame instead-
-electric chairs,
tear gas,
riot gear.
Paint your doors red-
-lest the God of the night should take your children
as you have allowed Theirs’ to be taken and caged.
Weep and tear at your clothing,
where there were once plowshares there are now swords.
You who have eaten the Eucharist and partaken of Communion,
spit it out, you fools,
lest you should gag on your own hypocrisy
and suffer the damnation of our ignorance.
You baptized in our faith,
shake off the icy waters poisoned by your
nooses,
whips,
rubber bullets,
disdained apathy.
I have no pacificity left in my words,
it has boiled with my blood into my hands-
-to give strength in lifting up my neighbor.
My lips are parched,
as my complacent allegiance,
my god
We who hold responsibility,
let us lie awake in our beds and weep.
Our God is one of Just Love,
they are one of Radical Peace,
they are one of Righteous Rage,
and I pray for you
that God will have pause.
Love
Kiddo
Yet, Sophia! How mysterious is your wisdom that should make murky the same waters giving life above and concealing the Wild Man beneath; deep below the ripples disturbing Narcissus lies the nebulous mess to be untangled. Yet Sophia! How wise you must be.
Standing cross-legged in the Garden and perched as a flamingo, the Holy-Woman who sees both ways looks to me and looks away, calling for peace and still fighting for life–there is a ring pointing downward from her septum. A sign of death? Does Eve, hidden in fig leaves, present alike as Lilith to harvest the souls of youth, and does she call forth anthems of finitude and momentary plenty? “No!” sounds the Hummingbird! Here is the God-Woman of the Garden calling to come away, for the hope that winter has passed and spring is there enclosed.
And so proceeds, the Divine Feminine transcendent yet in enigmatic form: black skinny jeans, size 6 sneakers, and a winter vest; what for art thou but the Woman With Golden Hair? Are you also She Who Loves Gold? You who is not afraid of light, you who kills two birds with one stone–who stones two men with one glance–where is it that I might find you? Where have you gone, My Lona? If I had only but followed the path shown before me, I might have found you sooner. But What now gives ear, to hear these songs lifted in gentle fire?
The Morning Dove who welcomes the Dawn, and the Night Owl who awakens with the Dark; Madonna with Child, and Mary Magdalene before the Cross; the Wife of the Lord of the Castle, and the Girl at the Rock Show: you are as a flower blooming in spring, the ranunculus cloaked in the ripening sunshine and frilled in lovely petals to unveil the nectar of a soul beneath–I should not pluck you too soon, but as a bee carry our precious cargo to sea cliffs on Davenport, where foxtails dance in the wind and the Sacred Ceremony of Pollination is carried out and blessed for new-life to begin.
And I am stronger because of this; the ground, stable beneath our feet. For, at that time the Great Marriage of Life and Creator should commence, and the Lord of the House enters, I shall be safely within your arms, you within mine, wounded and scarred as we may be, ready to offer up our gold.
Now, with all that could be said, I have this one word to give: As the Track of the Moon on the Water, be steady. For, even if we had known all of this should come to pass, the Celtic song could never have named you better, Kiddo.
Winter Solstice
Tonight is Winter Solstice! Aho! Aho!
But not for those pagans, my LORD,
For the religious, and the lovers of poetry,
For the Sun and the Moon, and the angels in tune
For the Earth and its body, its limbs, and many lovers
For the Christians and Communists, East and West,
For ground upheaved in glorious apocalypticism
And the newly born Child, come to bring us light
Come and see, O Earth! Aho! Aho!
Perhaps you are yet younger than you suppose
And perhaps us pagans have something to rejoice about too
But not for those Christians, O Earth,
For, I saw a Light
Perhaps you did too
And this is a problem
LORD!
What a ridiculous paradox this gift is!
Unto us pagans, Greek and Jew alike,
A Child is born, unto us, a Son is given
And the Sun and Moon rejoice
The thinning ozone and hairs atop my head
Stand on end, rejoice!
For the Earth groans in labor pains, and weeps too
When Winter Solstice comes to pass
When a new day is dawned,
When peace befalls from wings of dove and pigeon, alike
For the pagans, LORD, stranger as you are to us
We were once, now we are not, stranger to you
Then, were we like those who dream
Come and sing, O Earth, of the Virgin’s birth!
Come and see, O polity, of the tables turned!
And we will All eat on the ground. Aho! Aho!
3 & 1
Jesus falls three times on the road to Golgotha,
and God is three in one.
The cross is heavy and Jesus is weak.
Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus shoulder this weight after the 1st fall.
There is dissonance, here:
The way to Calvary is lonely, however a friend is introduced.
It is not Simon’s cross, it is for Jesus; Simon carries it, too.
Jesus is both God and human; he is flesh and blood,
sticks and stones,
ash to ash,
dust to dust.
Heaven is drawn down and the veil is torn,
between materiality and all that we believe.
How much dissonance is there?
Within this melting of a magnificent, hidden ice berg
into a vast ocean of consequence which we should never know,
how much dissonance?
And, am I yet so afraid to shoulder the weight of this absurdity:
the friendship of Simon?
Are you?
That I should carry Jesus’ cross when I share in your burdens;
That I should shoulder the weight of being with the material God,
Three in One
Three Falls
How heavy.
I am terribly afraid,
And so angry,
So very joyful,
And to my core, a sadness
with weight and size that
I cannot bear.
Jesus bears it; as does Simon; you do, too.
And we all fall down, under the weight of the cross,
To rise the 3rd time.
Moths Will Catch You In the Light
I vow to write honestly.
I vow to write honestly to you and for myself.
I vow to place you delicately upon my
fingertips and hold you close
as a mother hen until the time that harvest
should unfold and I, like you,
vow to unbuckle my belt and fly weightless
to carry properly the yolk of your burden to bear.
I vow to leave cynicism behind,
vindicated beneath an alter of nothingness
in the houses of the scornful.
I vow to let you know when you have bestowed that beauty
which is finitely apart from
and intimately transcendent throughout you.
I vow to say when it is that you are ugly.
I vow to dress you in flowers, wrapped around your shoulders
a garment of silver.
I vow to clothe you red when the sweat of the night calls
lo, the wild hairs of our loins.
I vow to crown you purple when majesty
delivers its blessing upon you.
I vow to offer you gold when the trees and wild
men of the forest scrape and bruise
my hands, mining deep the waters of the soul.
I vow to illuminate you white when
the Queen of the Night stretches out
from her fists the wings to catch me, little busy
moth, catch you,
if only for one night of the season summer’s midnight.
I vow to speak and say well in due time,
And vow to be silent in times
the wells run dry and the embarrassing heat of
the day cast shadows behind me.
Myron’s Song
*come now, let us
settle your soul
though your sins are scarlet they will be as white as snow
they are red like crimson, they will become like wool
come away
lo’ connection
if you knew it would be like that you would not have gone
if we knew it would be like that why are we not gone*
draw me, together
my heart has left (in fear)
gather it together though it pounds beyond my chest
gather up the pieces (of) my soul can find no rest
come my heart
rest your weary head (on me )
spirit fill the spaces in between and make us whole
spirit pull away the poignant lies that bind and hold (me back)
hold me from you
*words* inspired by Myron DePuy
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