Gold  And  Silver

Wrapped in cloaks 
Of gold and silver
She floats to me
From out of the darkest nights
Her arms extended
To embrace
My tired 
Hurt body
She will hold me up
And comfort my discomforts
Which I encounter within my journeys
Discomforts found in my mind
My soul 
And in my body
She mends them all
With thread spun from love
She sews up my life
And then disappears
Inot the lingering mist
She's gone for now
But will return
When my discomforts pop the seams
She will return wearing
Cloaks of gold and silver

Beauty  Of Life

I wish the bright morning sun
To dance upon my bare chest
As I sing and dance
In open feilds of fresh spring flowers
The sun beats down
And warms up my body
So I may never feel a chill
And never grow old
My body may change
And my mind might go
But my heart and soul
Will forever wish to dance
In bright morning sun
Upon fresh virgin flowers
Whch appear to bloom for our pleasure
They mimic the life
Which we all wish we lead
To be born in the sun
To be honored my many
Despised by few
Regarded as beautiful
Even in death
A pure work of art
All flaws worshipped 
As being matural and wonderful
The sun as a friend
The rain as a saviour
I wish to dance within
The beauty of life
The sun as my friend
The rain as my savior

Just Beneath

Look beneath the layers
To see the real and true me
She hides very well
And sometimes can't be found
Just take your time
And look very deep
She may hide and disappear
But she longs to be found
She can't help her own lonliness
And wishes for your company
Once you reach 
Her layer of allusion
Take her by the hand
And slowly lead her out
The sun may blind her
So cover her eyes at first
The noises may scare her
So cover her ears
Everything is so old and forgotten
It will seem new
So take your time
And give your patience
Once she is out
All you have to do is love her
And she will never wish to return

Climax Descent

Bury me deep within you,
into your thirsting embrace.
You shoulders are leaves crips with dew,
a cold, whtie stone is your face.
The wind in the night sings your song,
blowing through weeds of your hair.
Draping arms six feet long
hug the dark soiled dress you wear.
A blanket of blades is your veil,
but your sweet dark burrow is free.
I quickly descend and impale
so all that within you is me.
On your face, my name's inscribed,
and right beneath, the day I died.

Blue 88

felt the warm and sudden spray
of the sargeant's French Silk Stockings,
as he lay half sprawled on the beautiful, oh so beautiful, oh so beautiful
freshly-fallen snow.

opened up, yes lord, really opened up my store-bought British cigars
and gave the Krauts holy bloody hell,
while little grateful girly girlies dance dance danced on our open bellies.

oh! the nights we had together my sweet, sweet Marie,
nestled in the entrails of some guy who smoked luckies,
(and could not run to save his life magazines)
I felt safe in your civilian arms,
and ate my chocolate.

how I wish Ike could be with me now, now in my finest hour of soldierly need-
he'd take me up in those paternal arms and just hold me just hold me
and tell me how necessary all this was,
and we would cry together like men who smoked luckies,
and and and i'd show him
my postcards.

I take a GI shit on all of you now, you gutless Axis cowards,
I hate your fucked-up little hats,
And your full-bird bellies full of German piss wine-

salute this, you ungrateful picture-takers 
you want a piece of me? You want a piece of this?
This is my rifle, my great pussy equalizer!
Any you cocksuckers want a piece of me now?

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE NOW!  I AM YOURS NOW AND YOU ARE MINE!

(medicine administered 3 Nov 1944)

and I saw a new-fangled heaven, and a ranch-style earth,
For the German artillery had reduced the old ones
                to rubble and stories for the grandchildren...

Brother Judd

The fish could hardly be expected to remember us-
Two sleep-dusted Ohio boys, working a pole with Brother Blake,
Methodically plinking the glass of Heritage Lake.

He was a most agreeable fisherman, long since passed on,
But he understood the principle of the thing itself 
This sport of tricking one life into becoming a trophy or dinner
For those other lives with nothing better to do.

I loved Brother Blake, I really did.
He of the Pentecostal faith (one God one Name one Baptism)
Who spoke kindly to my mother, as he rushed her sons
To rattle the baitman's door 

We need us some frantic cold red worms 
We need us some possessed nightcrawlers 
Do we got any of them salmon eggs anywhere?
Fish don't bite on 'em anyway.
(They know their own.)

Once, I caught a beauty.
A rainbow trout, with all the hidden colors of the Lord,
He said,
And my friend, who had no grasp on the subtleties of angling,
Bent the fish clean in two,
just to show it could be done,
And Brother Blake, patience at its end,
Said "Son, don't be foolish with those fish."
And we put it back in the creel,
Feeling much like the fish must have felt
When he felt that first tug.

I don't fish much now at all.
But occasionally I catch myself thinking
About that elder of my childhood church,
And start feeling a little foolish
About all the beautiful Fish
I've bent in two since then...