Dear Readers:
With sadness, we here at Critical Civitates announce the passing of Erskine Carter, AKA Eddie Robbert, a noble poet whose work remained hidden in the masses. His writing graced earlier editions of CC, and we will miss him. In memory, we offer you one of his many books, Songs of Love and Death. Our wish is that you will look at and maybe order a few of his other books and then share his work with people all over the world. (He would have chided us for such a wish.) Wishes aside, we especially recommend The Rock Pile. It's a good read.
Songs of Love and Death
By Erskine Carter (AKA Eddie Robbert)
For all who reside within
In the center of the circle
When I was young, younger than before
I thought love was what I wanted more
I never saw the flowers blooming
never heard the crickets sing
never touched the rainbow circus
the showers used to bring
But I was young then, younger than before
When I was older, older than before
I thought power was what I wanted
and more and more and more
I swallowed the fruit of poison
I saw dark blood run red
I lied and stole and cheated
But I was older then, older than before
When I was seasoned, more seasoned than before
A thief of hearts, I robbed and plundered souls
I caught you while you’re sleeping
And filled your dreams with dread
I found you when you’re waking
Spun cyclones in your head
For I was seasoned then, more seasoned than before
And now that I have lived these lives, lived them all before
I find I am alone now with truth and nothing more
Just once I saw the flowers blooming
Just once heard the crickets sing
Just once touched the rainbow circus
the showers would to me bring
But I was living life then, more living than before
As You Leave
I drove down from the clouds today
parked near the river, stood on the tracks
and waited for them to come
as they always do
when I drive down from the clouds
This cup of bitters I must drink
(though I could choose to take it from me)
I have turned from blood to wine
and back again to blood
The wine of you I will drink
Place your wafer on my tongue
I have no need of other sacrament
Without you is no sacrament at all
Holy you
are holy
Drink deep and eat, you tell me
opening your arms and showing the way inside
The river broods near by
The tracks groan and burn
but I stand and wait
Soldier of life against the blue cloud and broken egg of wonder
where I drove
from you
to wait for them
Soon, like night’s sweet bitter kiss,
they will come
as they always do
As I left the embrace
of your eyes
I found a lamb by the road
He opened himself to me
I read his red hot entrails
simmering thoughts without words
sacred substance without form
I augured them
saw you flying above me
a nightingale birthed in love’s last dream
thanked him as he closed himself to me
turned into a tyger
and left to look for you
As the tracks begin to melt
my arms rise at my sides
Lives of their own
Heavy weightful ponderous lives
My feet are molten
Legs of fire
Brain of dark heat
Grounded earthen spirit
Darkness drops from the heavens
and the whistle screams
They come
by train
as they always have
as they always do
as they always will
running through me like rapiers
running through hot naked fearsweating silk
Long after I leave you waving goodbye
you remain in my mirror
Fairest of them all
White fondling white
Love moaning on the wind
Signed by dove hands
Through the blood in my eyes
you remain
Witchwoman in lace
Precious gaptoothed beauty
Signs of love
Songs of love
Spells of love
fluttering like sparrows
In my mirror I see you still
waving goodbye
Fairest of them all
Angel Witchwoman who lives down the lovely lane
My arms, floating now,
I am vapor, soulstuff
the train as black and brooding as the watchful river
moving inexorably onward
the engineer wearing a mask of me
laughing hello
skeletal grin skeletal hands skeleton crew
clackety clack clackety clack
Step on a crack
break your mommy’s back
clickety click clickety click
Step on a brick
snap your daddy’s stick
They drive through me
and my fists fill with grass and river mud
Half of one, six dozen of another, you told me
Keep your head above water, I’ve heard
Poor safe advice:
Refuse the water and refuse life
I become you becoming me
Swimming with the whale and dragon
twenty thousand leagues
under the sea of dreams
Our breasts touch and we explode
inside the dream
inside the water dreams
inside the dreams of water
Half of six, one dozen of another
You wave goodbye on a wave waving goodbye
Or is it me in your mirror
waving goodbye on a wave waving goodbye?
Tthe train of my past rushes through me
coal burner fuming
mail car stuffed with dead letters
freight car filled with forgotten promises
passengers perched like stuffed birds
on cold wooden benches
but they don’t mind
sitting, staring, sighing like dead leaves rustling across the mask of autumn
You decide if it’s worth it, you said
Drowned in your ocean
Can I pull off my head
Raise it above your foamy seas?
Blood to wine to water
Your wisdom bleeds me
I sip and eat you
Water to wine to blood
The treasure lies within you
Under your red coral reef
Where I unlock it and find your question
Sleeping like a diamond on a bed of stars
Inside the train
I know their faces as well as mine
Names, too, though they come without words
There are no words on the train of my past
Fathers and sons
Mothers and wives
Lovers and friends
Faded photographs, a bent spoon, yellowed scribbled pages
A silver pipe, three broken spirits
A chest with a lock and a voice crying
Let me go, goddammit, let me go!
It piles through me
grinning, laughing, telling me to hop aboard
Join the ghosts of me
nodding
nodding
nodding
their skulls deadasleep against the cold dark windows
I melt into the track
Rise again as they leave me behind
Seeds of time lost on the shimmering wind
Forever riding the empty rails
And you
alive and crying
waving hello from the sky
my broken heart clutched in your moondrenched hands
pieces of my soul dancing in your rainbow eyes
Circe Penelope Artemis
Media Aphrodite Witchwoman
singing me up to you
spinning your wheel
weaving me into you
down to your magic ocean
where I drown over and over
world without end
The Guest
Come back again, have you?
I feel you this morning
wrapped round me like a cold wet sheet
dark, bloodless, impenetrable,
black sun shining in a black black sky
I know you’re here, come back again to go
until next time
You are my first memory
Grim bedside specter
Four years old, my brother clutching me in fear
Both of us buried under blankets, shrouds to hide
from Bogeyman you, talons threatening
Reaching for us asleepawake in our beds in the haunted palace
Two years later scarlet fever snared him and he almost came to you
Almost, you bastard, but we beat you that time
At sixteen on the ship of fools,
drunk was I, dancing on the stern rail
when you tried to push me into the northern sea
But fly would I not into the trash-strewn wake
Then I saw your work on the Spanish beach
Drowned dead sailor gorged on seaweed, eyes pecked by gulls
Sea urchins draped like fig leaves across his swollen groin
Caught for all time in your cold embrace
Black black sand drilled like nails into his rigid hands
His mouth opened once and poured out my name
in a dreadful tongue of love
I tricked you again that winter
smashed between the sidewalk and the weeping willow
emerging from a mangled metal cave like a Sunday morning messiah
laughing at you standing by the squad cars and accident-loving onlookers
your face obscured by your hood, cold blue eyes gleaming crimson
turning black black black as a dead traffic light
How may cars, trucks and cycles did you ride through the air with me?
into ditches, rivers, snowbanks, the unsuspecting others?
Ten, fifteen, twenty? I lost track...
I know you count, though,
because you finally broke my wing
and from the sky I crashed
into the hospital, doped and dying
Faithful you were
never leaving my bedside
Willing me into your arms,
dragging me down into the bowels of you
But I beat you then
And again and again and again
Even when I begged you to take me
I beat you
I saw your face in the needle’s glass barrel
every time I plunged
my lost hopes
into my empty veins
Smacked my soul
Stopped my heart
Sang out for you
to take me
again
again
and again
I sang
but you turned your hood and took my friends
Right when I really wanted you
you wouldn’t take me
Chris, Mark, Ratman, Egypt,
all the others
nameless, faceless
They left with you,
unwillingly and otherwise
but you cheated me every time
Dark dude, purple rainman, goat angel with horns and fangs
Not a drug in the world nor a million drinks could lure me into your eternal care
So I gave up and laughed at you from hospitals, jails, and penthouses
Thrown into the street with the trash
I awoke
shrugged you off
spun the barrel
cocked the hammer
and squeezed off another empty round to my head
Come again, have you?
I’m always ready for the game
Unlike my father, his brother, my uncles and cousins
All those blessed with the family curse
Splattered brains, mangled frames,
Refuse fodder, dumpster deaths
And all the others, born and unborn,
All the others I have brought and sacrificed
Poured their blood in wine dark streams
on the black cloth of your unholy altar
You took them all but you wouldn’t take me
You claimed them, ate them
grinned them into your bottomless hell belly
but you wouldn’t take me
Promise breaker
Life’s first and last mocking jest
Come again, here with me, are you?
I know you so well
When, again, will the dance begin?
You don’t scare me
I tremble with rage
See you there, staring at me,
your teeth clenched, my teeth clenched,
grinning your cruel shadowy grin
I stare right back
deep into your cold blue eyes
and watch my life
one long suicide
one long dream of death
blood and bone and flesh and sweet decay
Cold blue eyes
staring
staring
staring
deeply into mine
from my life’s dark mirror
People like us
People like us
climb taller ladders
and walk shorter planks
People like us
reach for the stars
with the sun and moon in our hands
People like us
weep oceans of tears
and swallow mountains of sand
People like us
give birth to a million beautiful tomorrows
and drown them in the darkness of one headstrong day
People like us
thrive on the peaks of love and hope
and wither in the valleys of sickness and despair
People like us
dwell in a different sky
and dive into a strange green sea
People like us
need to give love
need to be loved
need to give love and be loved by
people like us
to heal and feel and be with
people like us
or we dwindle and die
alone in a world with
oh, just a few, few, such a few
people
like us
People like us
pour red rain from our eyes
and wash our hearts with golden joy
People like us
romp through soul-meadows
pitted with deep dark holes
People like us
understand
people like us
Ah, yes, my dear sweet love
people like us
climb taller ladders
walk shorter planks
and reach for the stars
with the sun and moon
already there
in our eager, trusting hands
Mutability
Blooden my life
red blood blood red
Blacken bright day
Black night night black
Brighten black night
Night bright bright night
Day black black day
Bloodened and blackened and brightened
am I
never the same again
will I be
everything’s changed
bloodred brightnight blackday
never the same
you’ve bloodened my life
blackened my days into night
brightened my nights into day
placed yourself in the songs
rewritten the poems
refashioned the sky
replenished the ocean
drained me and filled me
blood of your blood
night of your night
day of your day
tears of your tears
laugh of your laugh
love of your love
life of your life
soul of your soul
whole am I whole
never the same again
will I be
everything’s changed
Bloodened and blackened and brightened
am I
For Bill: The man in the tie and suit
Birth and death are close close friends
Who never need to make amends
Birth breathes life and Death destroys
Death draws breath from life’s sweet joys
Day and night, they meet, never speak
Embrace us all, both strong and weak
Giving, taking, on constant call
To and from their arms, we stride, we crawl
Truest, closest, best of friends
Each begins where the other ends:
Ends, begins, begins and ends
Begins again again again...
We already miss you,
Man in the tie and suit
Boy in the man and dear dear friend
Philosopher in the folding chair
Keeper of the flame in the drab green room
Hands weaving the air into tapestries
of hummingbirds flying backwards
All the bull sessions, coffee at Soc’s, City Limits’ burgers
Hafner’s baskets, the night I almost ran you down with my van
(because I wasn’t watching and you were--how typical)
Ted Lindsay, Gordie Howe, Rocket Richard
Houses where the sun was always rising
Motown Man, TV Talker, Speech Poet,
always thankful for us
who had you to thank for all you gave
I know what you would say to me right now:
“Cut the shit, my friend, don’t weep over me
I’m so damn glad and so damn grateful
To have had what I have
I wouldn’t have traded it for an eternity
of what it would have been like without finding my family again
and having friends like all of you.
“And how are your kids?” you would add,
meaning it, opening your heart,
Sportsfanman in the tie and suit
Boy in the man and our inspiration
who made hummingbirds fly backwards
and loved his family and friends more than life itself
You told me that night that you knew
your journey was ending soon
I knew that, too, even without your words
Yes, Neverland was here and there and everywhere
And it was nothing and everything
One or both of us said,
you raising your arms, weaving the air with your gentle hands
into one last sparkling, fluttering, backwards flying hummingbird
smiling the peter pan smile
that lived in your eyes,
eyes that grinned and flared
laughed and cared
and so much
you shared with us,
Hummingbird man in the tie and suit
You walked the rainbow path
And discovered, oh how you discovered!
It isn’t the imaginary endgame pot of gold that matters
But every color, every shade, every tincture of light
the darkness and the beauty
of the rainbow path so swollen with meaning
that you traveled to this final place
where past and present fuse into future
The eternal now of now
Realm of kindness
Land of the heart
Sanctuary of peace
Fulfilled, fulfilling, loving, loved
You trudged the rainbow path
Arms heaped high with the gold of your life
Pockets packed with immeasurable treasure:
Husband, father, son, brother, helper, friend
Rainbow man in the tie and suit
Who stumbled into our lives
and walked out straight and true
Beautiful man in the tie and suit
who made hummingbirds fly backwards
and loved his family and friends
more than his life itself
Voices
Late at night when the voices fill the house
Down she goes to find the light
to put them out
Down deep in the vaults of this ancient place
she goes
Down deep in the well of herself
she goes
and the voices follow
hushing themselves to hush
No light exists to put them out
The vaults are empty, filled with their noise
Down deep in the well she travels
Here live screams and wails and screeches
No light to put them out
In the tomb of her mind burns a candle
Red it waxes, one flame against the night
Why does it glow like that?
Why do the voices sing?
Why are their nails in my hands?
Who pierced my side with this spear?
I did not come to be in your dream
I was not sent here to make you better
I did not die so you could be good
I lived and was murdered
And now you have buried me deep in here
With all your voices down in these vaults
Where I die again and again and again
for you
Every time you pray to me you murder me again
Leave me alone
Let me go
I did not ask for this
I made a few remarks
healed a few sick and lame
fed my brothers and sisters
and was murdered for my kindness
Stop killing me
Let me go!
If you want the voices to leave
You must first
set
me
free
Getting Even
(From The Making of a Drug Fiend)
John Cassavettes’ couples
a million miles apart:
Dropped into his lap
arrived the excuse he'd been waiting for:
a handful of Reds
washed down with a scottle of botch
stumbling through the sundark gallery
begging her to stay
He never was much of a diplomat.
Next morning she wings away
Into the bottle he jumps for the longest
wettest swim of his rumsoaked life
Coming up for air
only to shoot dope
make a few calls
con what he needs
and play the charade
one day melting into the next cursing
God
Country
Family
Her...
You name them…
but most of all
Curse yourself, brother
Loser.
Christ
how you love to hate
the sound of Loser
Contemplate suicide,
the physical variety, of course.
Emotionally, brother, you're already dead
But that's bull
The rawness there pricks and stabs
more fiercely than happiness
ever thought possible.
Maybe you've never been happy
but that makes no never mind
With this kind of pain
even sadness might force a smile
So, contemplate:
A cold gun invited into the mouth
Or a snug necktie
fashioned fashionably round the throat
looped to a bronze ceiling hook
A dive from the Don Bridge
to the granite embrace below
A step into the arms
of a subway train
A ninety mile an hour welcome
head on burst into a concrete abutment
A warm bath with opened veins
dying the silvery water a dark dirty roman red
Perhaps a plastic bag slipped over the head
Or a bottle of Drano
An ounce of quicksilver
Ten teaspoons of strychnine
(rat food)
Beef stew ground with glass
A mugful of arsenic
Or maybe a gallon of cool cool gas
some old clothes and a match
A bottle of Dad's pills?
One of Mom's knives
carved in the belly
like a dish for the gods?
But no… all too fast.
You need something long and slow
like life, for instance.
That's it
Step right up
I'll take it
Watch them (and You and You and You) pay
Slowly but surely
spend your remaining years
exterminating yourself while everyone watches...
...it will be like attending your own wake.
And
(destruction aside)
it could be one hell of a party.
Twin Peaks
As twin mountains we touch the sky
And from our peaks at night we fly
Push off our summits, soar ahead
Swept up in waves of awe and dread
Evening primrose rise from our cracks
Starry crowns of jewels, windkissed backs
Cling to grit on shallow roots
Till morning frost devours their shoots
Don’t grieve to think them bitten dead
Their scattered seed will find a bed
A drop of rain will kiss a husk
And life will bloom again near dusk
Hearts woven on the rainbow’s loom
Let’s kiss the sky and banish doom
Ignore below the world’s abyss
Twin mountains clasped in lasting bliss
her forgotten things live lives remembered
herbs, glasses
bits of cheese, bread
cups of cold coffee, vanilla scent laced with milk
a blouse she left, yielding, electric
her misplaced lingerie
a strand of hair wound tightly round my shirt button
her warm body’s soft impress
a shadow upon my bed
her hand, a disembodied poem
caressing, waving goodbye,
fading, dissolving
like a falling star
into the midnight rain
Hell is grains of blue and roaring green
A private hell’s a private place
Consumes all time
Consumes all space
Stay down in there and sweat and squirm
Perhaps through death you’ll breathe and learn
I sink down there, too, finding pearls
Still sandgrains searching oyster blues
I once had and have left
on the floor
crying and now
the tears to bring them back to life
are gone
dried up
gone
Cast your life like flurried snow
borne on wings of drifting hope
and self despair
Hide yourself and hear
the wisdom of the sages
through loss comes gain
the only imagery inside of me
was heralded long ago
in ancient times
by you
I will not stand on your beach
and wait for the ninth wave
I will spend my days awaiting
tides to bloom in empty deserts
moons to rise on dead planets
stars to shine in blacked out skies
But I will not wait
I refuse to wait
And I will never stand
Or sit and wait on your beach
for the ninth wave
on an ocean that does not roar
even though
I feel it coming now
Listen…
Can I hear it roar?
Yet still I stand in this parched desert
waiting
for the tide to bloom
where oceans always roar
under a moon
where stars refuse to hide
in blacked out skies
Nightflight
I stare up at the 12th floor.
The window you threw yourself from
Is not unlike the others.
Shaded, blank, unconvincing.
What horror lurked inside that room
To make you flee it so?
I cannot believe the horror was inside you,
Though I know it could be true.
Too often have I felt that unnamed horror
Stir inside me.
And when I cross my bridge,
Or climb my roof
To fly my plane,
I cannot see the ground
For your smashed broken body lying there.
Stuck
Last time I saw you
I got murdered
by that killer in your eyes
They look dead as a dream today, babe
waitin’ for that sun to rise
Stuck down there, babe
way down below
Stuck down almost forever
beneath your dead dead eyes
Perhaps one tear would start the rain
Clear your skies
Cleanse that pain
It’s not the world that makes you hurt
It’s all the worries that you skirt
Stuck down there, girl
Stuck way down below…
Better send them on their way, babe
before you have to go
And I’ve got a feeling
It’ll be all right
Once these days outgrow these nights
So, wrap yourself in your favorite star
Remember, girl, who you truly are
Don’t stay stuck down there, babe
Way down below
Stuck down beneath your eyes, girl
Before you have to go
Here’s a tear from me, my love,
Manufactured long ago by you
Keep it in your heart, girl
My drop of morning dew
And when you think the time is right
Cry that tear right through the night
The sun’ll rise, the pain will flee
And maybe then, my love,
You’ll remember me
But right now you’re stuck, girl,
And I still love you so
Better get rid of me, babe
And be on your way
Before you have to go
Sonnet 4
Dipping deeply into the dark drenched night
Like a fine net, my hands drew down the moon
Held her in my palms, sweet goddess of light
Begged of her one favor, prayed for one boon
Keep my love safe and warm in your black skies
Let my soul sleep till you return to me
Pluck the sun from my heart, stars from my eyes
Fill them with you, let me die, set me free
She waxed to gold while I whispered this prayer
And rose to the heavens holding my hand
I drifted through her mist, floating on air
Sailed through oblivion to this stark land
In a land of no night, waiting, I dwell
Marooned by the moon, bewitched by her spell
All day...
...it has rained
through
the sunshine
All day
it has
rained
rained
rained...
...all day.
Have I told you?
All day
it has rained
it has rained
All day
it has rained...
...all day.
Yes,
(I’m certain I mentioned this
earlier)
the rain...
all day...
the deep dismal drugged rain
has poured through me
wet
wet
indifferent
rain
flooding my aching heart...
...all day.
I set out to find you
in a flower
Caught between the blooms of spring
I spied a sun drenched damp garden
of morning rain
but where were you?
(All day,
believe it or not,
it has rained...
...all day.)
Later,
you found me
called me from an afternoon spell
mystic apparition
vapor face
vanishing in fog trails
steam rising from this solemn
salt-rain
teeming drizzling mournful
grail-rain
flowing through
my empty wounded world...
All day,
(if I remember correctly)
it has rained
cold
cold
brooding
beads
of
somber
bloodred
rain...
...all day.
At night searching for you
in the throbbing milky sky
the rain plummeting within
I know
oh I know
these
dreary
drops
of
rain
these
sighing
sorrowful
sickening
drops
of
blood
red
rain
will never reach
the thirsty
bottom
of
my
grim
abyss...
And all night,
yes,
all this fractured forlorn night,
it rains...
A Fisher King’s Lament
I feel so impotent in my rage
and that is where you women
have we men.
Men argue with each other,
resolve things with their fists,
but with a woman:
lose your temper,
it is childish behavior
raise a hand,
well, we all know what that is;
so one can say nothing
only to be accused of sulking
And you, my dear, have a sharp tongue
in your head
self‑righteous
judgemental
convinced of your correctness,
the propriety of all that you do
I grow tired of holding myself down
and swallowing your medicine.
Listening, later,
to remarks about
my ineffectuality
my temper
my moodiness
and that if it wasn't for you
I would be at death's famous door
Ah, to be a man:
the dragon and the wolf
who must disguise himself and play
the part of a lamb.
Oh to be alone again.
Dream Thief
I've been dreaming you again
Little snippets of life
dissolved
denied
Dreams within dreams within dreams
Opiate mantra, two curling leaves,
Rose hips, bobbing balloons on swollen stalks
rise up, eye my thumping chest,
drag me down to
where you're dreaming me.
I know you are.
I dreamed you last night
dreaming me
pretending to squint
boxing me inside the dream of them
(such is their cunning way
of crying out to me
inside your dream.)
Your clusters come in pink arrays
mortar shells drummed on broken beaches
where whales expire and oil chokes the
plastic cups of beggars howling at my Moroccan gate.
In our dream we fly
My wings spread against the sky
eclipse the sun
drown your rage
in feathered glory:
a small price, I tell you,
to fly with greatness,
your soul the lamp that blinds each waxing moon.
A tramp with no spring in his step
is no tramp but
Life's false fiddler
clutching a bassoon
a cobbler yanking spikes from plums
the teacher whose fingernails are chalk:
Dust of dead dreamers
forever caught in someone else's dream
I dream you:
You are eternally nineteen
My ring, a taped fit, still rules your slender finger
where the vein runs and feeds your proud Egyptian heart
Your perfumed handkerchief still
lies hidden beneath my shattered life
in the capsized borrowed dresser
I take it out,
hold it to my ruined face,
breathe you back inside me
and await your call to dream
Spent
I spend my day spending my day
Thinking of you: you you you
Who I thought was you who you were
My magic dream my precious love
I spend my days spending my days
And I pass my night passing the night
Wondering about you: you you you
Who I think is you who you are
My precious dream my magic love
I pass my nights passing the nights
Today a cloud poured from me
Swelled the sky
dark and fearsome
Poured from me a slice of you
Burst with rain
drowned my spiders in the sun
The sadness makes him tremble
Nothing he can do and so
he does it all
Why starve himself with nothing
when everything brings pain?
So I watch him closely
spending his day spending his day
Thinking of her: her her her
What he thinks is who she is
His magic dream his precious love
He spends his day spending his day
At night he cries
passing his night passing his night
Rain drowning his eyes
Looking for her
What he thinks is her is who she is
in his heart, his mind, his lonely aching soul
Take the wind in your hands
Cast it above the empty sea
It blows back in thunder
Love each day
Cry through the rain
A frown is a smile when the lightning breaks
His love for her is mine for you
What we think you are what you are we think
Dream of life incarnate
Plucked flower alive and dying in my hand
Sonnet 2
This is my heart, you said, this tiny key
I took it as mine and swallowed it whole
Inside me it swelled, blood streaming through me
Drenching the depths of my bloodthirsting soul
Blood of me, blood of you, blood’s life blood’s art
Bloodlinked forever, blood sister blood mate
I ripped open my chest, tore out my heart
Fed it to you, wept blood tears while you ate
Blissful bloody bliss, this raw wound you brought
Bleeding your bloodlove into my dry life
Blood butterfly lips, blood spears of blood thought
Married in blood, blood husband blood wife
Holy and hallowed, hearts bled into one
Bloodbirthed by the moon, bloodblessed by the sun
Rock on, my little babies
I got one thing to say
And that’s “So long”
I got one place to go, girl:
Gone Gone Gone
Well, I gave my love to you, girl,
Let you trample on my soul
But I still got my heart
and I still got my bike
And now I’m just gonna roll
So, rock on my little babies
Rock on through the star crazed night
Rock on my foolish darlings
Cuz nuthin’ ever turns out right
Naw nuthin’ ever turns out right
Aw, nuthin’ ever turns out right
Just stay right where you are, girl,
Your double’s waitin’ for me down that road
Just a kickstand, no electric start for me
I’m leavin’ without any load
Oh, you treated me
like I coulda treated you
Up and down and in between
Oh, I coulda been like that, too, babe
But I’m just crazy, not goddamn mean
So, rock on my little babies
Rock on through the star crazed night
Rock on my foolish darlings
Cuz nuthin’ ever turns out right
Naw, nuthin’ ever turns out right
Don’t save me no last dance, girl
Cuz I ain’t never coming back
My soul will slip back to me from you
With each succeeding track
Yeah, I still got my heart and my head, girl
And a little ill earned bread
So it’s time to ride away from the past
And shake off alla your lead
Man alive man alive man alive
Man alive, Man alive, Man adead
But rock on, my precious babies
Rock on through the star crazed night
Rock on, you foolish darlings
Cuz nuthin’ ever turns out right
Naw, nuthin ever turns out right
No, nuthin
and I mean NUTHIN
Ever turns out right…
As You Return...
I feel you in the sky above
I know you’re coming home, my love
And all these days I have spent
In misery I do repent
I could say I did not miss you
But that would be untrue
I missed you like a rhymeless poem
Like flesh and blood without the bone
When you were gone I did not cry
But deep inside I thought I’d die
Yet you were there to keep me whole
To weave and knit my ruptured soul
I find you floating on a cloud
You hold me with your head unbowed
A skylark lights upon your breast
In our embrace she makes her nest
We grow as one, born from the bird
Sweet is our silent song unheard
We soar into the stratosphere
Two souls as one, love pure and clear
I watch me through your rainbow eyes
Your voice is mine, it fills the skies
I am your lips, you are my heart
Forever bound, never to part
Down we fly to your rich brown earth
And in your bed I see my birth
As does the sun day after day
I kiss your earth, pledge that I’ll stay
Let me remain if you so will
My blood the ink, your touch the quill
Bleed into you, bleed into me
Love chains us fast yet makes us free
Last Bridge
Burned your last bridge down
Didn’t you, my babe?
Burned your last bridge down
Nothin’ but yourself left to save
Burned it down down down
Late last night, my babe
Cry those rivers of tears
Nothing’s gonna change
It’s burned, baby, burned
Your last bridge is burned
The storm in your eyes swears you’ll swim back
Your hand at your throat says you’ll drown
Drown
Drown
Drown…
I’ll see you over here, babe
Been stranded here awhile
Killed all the living that followed me
Told the future for the dead before they died…
Oh yeah…
See that moon a risin’
Smell that far off stream
One more bridge to build, girl,
Of dreams of iron and steel
Let the rain fall down, my love
Down
Down
Down…
Let the rain fall down, my love
You and I are real
At the cabin
No moon tonight, my love
No moon, no stars, no blistering comets
proclaiming the already proclaimed
Emptied, exhausted, alone
The sky has shuttered its eyes
Like northern lights on fairy hills,
All that remains
is a molten cloak of blues and golds, greens and purples
swirling, melding, becoming
Me and You.
A rumbling train pierces the night
a mournful cry
skewering my heart
drumming my mind into tomorrow’s infinity
offering easy promises of morning’s resurrection
Making myself all over again
White moonflowers, joy and peace on this blackest of nights
The train rolls past and still…
no moon tonight
Your silence speaks, “It’s always there
even when it’s hiding”
And now I know:
It was you, my love, wasn’t it?
Mystical woman
You
brave and undaunted
You
banished the world back to where it belongs
reversed the tides
veiled the Sun to liberate the Moon
wedded, in this moment, Time and Space
Your magic flows through me tonight
back to you and forth to me
and back
All Nature, Art, enfolded into one
Fixed forever with the stars, the blood of planets
Fixed forever like summer fire in the heart of an
Aztec sky
Hold me while we dissolve
into the dream
back and forth
forth and back
and forth
awakening sunshine shadows
stroking your persian violets
dancing like gypsies in your renaissance eyes
You weave your soul
into the tapestry of you
That hidden universe
grateful for this gasp of forgetting
finds itself again, as one, in You
pummeling, pacifying, casting laughter and tears
into my heart breaking with beauty
your scent alive, the mystery of your pebbles and rain
like a winter blessing
Ice and snow shielding the sunken boughs
lingering awhile
eased into spring’s warm caress
You touch my heart
A fiery rainbow of todays and tomorrows
flows from the palm of your hand
trusting the bridges you dared to cross
me cradled safely in a chamber of your heart
your velvet blood pounding like a hammer in my veins
world descending into you
into me
returning to the emptied sky
flush with new life
born over and over
like the magic of you, my love
Keeper of secrets of the missing Moon
You urge me to look inside
See Venus sleepily arising
almost kissing the crescent tip
of our forever true new moon
Deep in the woods a robin sings good night
The fire burns straight and true
You to me, me to you,
Your canvas, awaiting you, making your path
Stroke after stroke from your wizard brush
Twelve chimes at midnight,
hour of the spirits who came before
Dreams lived, nightmares ridden
till dawn’s earliest, grayest wisps
Nothing to fear with love and faith
shielding us through the night
The night, the night,
So perfect in the garden up there
Motorcycle dreams of endless rides
Each moment one lifetime captured
in the beat of our hearts
Each night a baptism of celebration
My heart to you
Yours to mine
In blood and ether forever
Mark the broken spears and forgotten tombs
of those who loved before
See them woven and healed
an embrace for a spear
an elven glen for a tomb
restored forever
Let’s walk over the herds of clouds
toward the sun
till we return to the Moon
hovering seen and unseen, our Moon,
like love,
casting its babylonian beams
silver and gold, bonds of trust
who we truly are
forever linking
our hearts
our souls
Come into the soft rain, my love
Let’s stand there, You and I,
We
on this night of nights
and search for the Moon
just once again
before you have to go
Daybreak
Drifting alone through fog and mist
Rain in my eyes
No navigator here
No hand in mine
No touch upon my thigh
No change palmed into mine
To pay life’s tired tolls
No backward reading of signs
Directions to the sky, beyond
This mortal coil, this earthly plain
Alone, no co-pilot,
I wend my weary way down
this familiar once
unfamiliar now
road
This is not the sadness of altered plans
the different ways of spending time
at the old familiar destination
No, it is not the destination that matters,
The journey is the truth
These are the parched lands:
Totem hills
Seas of skulls
Bone universe
Plains of blood
Brain gray sky
Hovering over all
These are the parched lands
of the dragon mind
Where the moon sleeps and dreams
our dream of life
in the valley of shadows
Alone I am not alone
Soul deep I search and find you
Higher nature bound with mine
Alone I am
not alone
You sit not by me now
But deep inside me there you are
Alone I am not I am not I am not alone
Sun resurrects through shrouds of fog
Restores me from blindness
Draws my eyes like candlemoths
to burnt orange skies
A wild gander high in flight
circles once and soars for cover
from dawn’s encompassing fist
Into the wind
consciousness flies
transcends this dry mouthed land
Looking down I watch a deer watching me watching
the hare in its hole eluding
the homebound owl
the spider spinning a web for
the toiling ant
bearing fields of heather and lace
on his mighty back
thinking
of you
of me
of us
Holy Trinity
Waves of love wash over me
and green green green
grows the forest of hope
within my swollen heart
Amaranthus (Love-lies-bleeding)
Adorn me with gifts
Adore me in poems
Fill me with love as I lie dying
Dream me in my dream
and I awake until you
dream me back to sleep
(Yes, madam, you are correct
Appreciative
It is all so logical
Ergo:
I must be,
could only be,
dreaming)
Raspberry strawberry peony mouth
shifting shifting shifting
constant not inconstant not
My bleeding bleeding love
my love-lies-bleeding
oh my
love-
lies-
bleeding
over
my dreaming bloodsoaked heart
Happy happy bloody bursting heart
Exploding now
Holy moment of life
summoning
The perfection of death
Your music draws me
Signs me in our secret place
Once, on a day of eternities
Outside the forever now
I envied a machine
blessed with your voice inside
But in my arms now you float
Kneeling below
Rising above
Voice inside my throat
Where your wise words have always lodged
Tell me tell me tell me true
Oh true one, tell me tell me tell me do
May I may I worship you?
My bleeding love
my boiling fragrant bloody honey love
Will you bleed on me?
Will you dream me back to sleep again tonight?
The Last Last Poem I Write for You
A poem for you was one for me
because your love once set me free
there were no chains where lace draped skin
fairy gossamer, dust on wings
Skies fall to earth and butterflies brittle
Once so vast, love seems so little
Now you are a figment of my imagination...
Someone I dreamed on a wet wild afternoon
alone and wishing
for someone like you
you came and now
you are not you
you are gone
I dismiss you
I send you away
to that place
from which you came
My tears have put out the fire
there is no us
there is no you
just me
alone where I belong
You are
and will always remain
a figment of
my rich and fertile
unbridled imagination
You are my last last poem…
With sadness, we here at Critical Civitates announce the passing of Erskine Carter, AKA Eddie Robbert, a noble poet whose work remained hidden in the masses. His writing graced earlier editions of CC, and we will miss him. In memory, we offer you one of his many books, Songs of Love and Death. Our wish is that you will look at and maybe order a few of his other books and then share his work with people all over the world. (He would have chided us for such a wish.) Wishes aside, we especially recommend The Rock Pile. It's a good read.
Songs of Love and Death
By Erskine Carter (AKA Eddie Robbert)
For all who reside within
In the center of the circle
When I was young, younger than before
I thought love was what I wanted more
I never saw the flowers blooming
never heard the crickets sing
never touched the rainbow circus
the showers used to bring
But I was young then, younger than before
When I was older, older than before
I thought power was what I wanted
and more and more and more
I swallowed the fruit of poison
I saw dark blood run red
I lied and stole and cheated
But I was older then, older than before
When I was seasoned, more seasoned than before
A thief of hearts, I robbed and plundered souls
I caught you while you’re sleeping
And filled your dreams with dread
I found you when you’re waking
Spun cyclones in your head
For I was seasoned then, more seasoned than before
And now that I have lived these lives, lived them all before
I find I am alone now with truth and nothing more
Just once I saw the flowers blooming
Just once heard the crickets sing
Just once touched the rainbow circus
the showers would to me bring
But I was living life then, more living than before
As You Leave
I drove down from the clouds today
parked near the river, stood on the tracks
and waited for them to come
as they always do
when I drive down from the clouds
This cup of bitters I must drink
(though I could choose to take it from me)
I have turned from blood to wine
and back again to blood
The wine of you I will drink
Place your wafer on my tongue
I have no need of other sacrament
Without you is no sacrament at all
Holy you
are holy
Drink deep and eat, you tell me
opening your arms and showing the way inside
The river broods near by
The tracks groan and burn
but I stand and wait
Soldier of life against the blue cloud and broken egg of wonder
where I drove
from you
to wait for them
Soon, like night’s sweet bitter kiss,
they will come
as they always do
As I left the embrace
of your eyes
I found a lamb by the road
He opened himself to me
I read his red hot entrails
simmering thoughts without words
sacred substance without form
I augured them
saw you flying above me
a nightingale birthed in love’s last dream
thanked him as he closed himself to me
turned into a tyger
and left to look for you
As the tracks begin to melt
my arms rise at my sides
Lives of their own
Heavy weightful ponderous lives
My feet are molten
Legs of fire
Brain of dark heat
Grounded earthen spirit
Darkness drops from the heavens
and the whistle screams
They come
by train
as they always have
as they always do
as they always will
running through me like rapiers
running through hot naked fearsweating silk
Long after I leave you waving goodbye
you remain in my mirror
Fairest of them all
White fondling white
Love moaning on the wind
Signed by dove hands
Through the blood in my eyes
you remain
Witchwoman in lace
Precious gaptoothed beauty
Signs of love
Songs of love
Spells of love
fluttering like sparrows
In my mirror I see you still
waving goodbye
Fairest of them all
Angel Witchwoman who lives down the lovely lane
My arms, floating now,
I am vapor, soulstuff
the train as black and brooding as the watchful river
moving inexorably onward
the engineer wearing a mask of me
laughing hello
skeletal grin skeletal hands skeleton crew
clackety clack clackety clack
Step on a crack
break your mommy’s back
clickety click clickety click
Step on a brick
snap your daddy’s stick
They drive through me
and my fists fill with grass and river mud
Half of one, six dozen of another, you told me
Keep your head above water, I’ve heard
Poor safe advice:
Refuse the water and refuse life
I become you becoming me
Swimming with the whale and dragon
twenty thousand leagues
under the sea of dreams
Our breasts touch and we explode
inside the dream
inside the water dreams
inside the dreams of water
Half of six, one dozen of another
You wave goodbye on a wave waving goodbye
Or is it me in your mirror
waving goodbye on a wave waving goodbye?
Tthe train of my past rushes through me
coal burner fuming
mail car stuffed with dead letters
freight car filled with forgotten promises
passengers perched like stuffed birds
on cold wooden benches
but they don’t mind
sitting, staring, sighing like dead leaves rustling across the mask of autumn
You decide if it’s worth it, you said
Drowned in your ocean
Can I pull off my head
Raise it above your foamy seas?
Blood to wine to water
Your wisdom bleeds me
I sip and eat you
Water to wine to blood
The treasure lies within you
Under your red coral reef
Where I unlock it and find your question
Sleeping like a diamond on a bed of stars
Inside the train
I know their faces as well as mine
Names, too, though they come without words
There are no words on the train of my past
Fathers and sons
Mothers and wives
Lovers and friends
Faded photographs, a bent spoon, yellowed scribbled pages
A silver pipe, three broken spirits
A chest with a lock and a voice crying
Let me go, goddammit, let me go!
It piles through me
grinning, laughing, telling me to hop aboard
Join the ghosts of me
nodding
nodding
nodding
their skulls deadasleep against the cold dark windows
I melt into the track
Rise again as they leave me behind
Seeds of time lost on the shimmering wind
Forever riding the empty rails
And you
alive and crying
waving hello from the sky
my broken heart clutched in your moondrenched hands
pieces of my soul dancing in your rainbow eyes
Circe Penelope Artemis
Media Aphrodite Witchwoman
singing me up to you
spinning your wheel
weaving me into you
down to your magic ocean
where I drown over and over
world without end
The Guest
Come back again, have you?
I feel you this morning
wrapped round me like a cold wet sheet
dark, bloodless, impenetrable,
black sun shining in a black black sky
I know you’re here, come back again to go
until next time
You are my first memory
Grim bedside specter
Four years old, my brother clutching me in fear
Both of us buried under blankets, shrouds to hide
from Bogeyman you, talons threatening
Reaching for us asleepawake in our beds in the haunted palace
Two years later scarlet fever snared him and he almost came to you
Almost, you bastard, but we beat you that time
At sixteen on the ship of fools,
drunk was I, dancing on the stern rail
when you tried to push me into the northern sea
But fly would I not into the trash-strewn wake
Then I saw your work on the Spanish beach
Drowned dead sailor gorged on seaweed, eyes pecked by gulls
Sea urchins draped like fig leaves across his swollen groin
Caught for all time in your cold embrace
Black black sand drilled like nails into his rigid hands
His mouth opened once and poured out my name
in a dreadful tongue of love
I tricked you again that winter
smashed between the sidewalk and the weeping willow
emerging from a mangled metal cave like a Sunday morning messiah
laughing at you standing by the squad cars and accident-loving onlookers
your face obscured by your hood, cold blue eyes gleaming crimson
turning black black black as a dead traffic light
How may cars, trucks and cycles did you ride through the air with me?
into ditches, rivers, snowbanks, the unsuspecting others?
Ten, fifteen, twenty? I lost track...
I know you count, though,
because you finally broke my wing
and from the sky I crashed
into the hospital, doped and dying
Faithful you were
never leaving my bedside
Willing me into your arms,
dragging me down into the bowels of you
But I beat you then
And again and again and again
Even when I begged you to take me
I beat you
I saw your face in the needle’s glass barrel
every time I plunged
my lost hopes
into my empty veins
Smacked my soul
Stopped my heart
Sang out for you
to take me
again
again
and again
I sang
but you turned your hood and took my friends
Right when I really wanted you
you wouldn’t take me
Chris, Mark, Ratman, Egypt,
all the others
nameless, faceless
They left with you,
unwillingly and otherwise
but you cheated me every time
Dark dude, purple rainman, goat angel with horns and fangs
Not a drug in the world nor a million drinks could lure me into your eternal care
So I gave up and laughed at you from hospitals, jails, and penthouses
Thrown into the street with the trash
I awoke
shrugged you off
spun the barrel
cocked the hammer
and squeezed off another empty round to my head
Come again, have you?
I’m always ready for the game
Unlike my father, his brother, my uncles and cousins
All those blessed with the family curse
Splattered brains, mangled frames,
Refuse fodder, dumpster deaths
And all the others, born and unborn,
All the others I have brought and sacrificed
Poured their blood in wine dark streams
on the black cloth of your unholy altar
You took them all but you wouldn’t take me
You claimed them, ate them
grinned them into your bottomless hell belly
but you wouldn’t take me
Promise breaker
Life’s first and last mocking jest
Come again, here with me, are you?
I know you so well
When, again, will the dance begin?
You don’t scare me
I tremble with rage
See you there, staring at me,
your teeth clenched, my teeth clenched,
grinning your cruel shadowy grin
I stare right back
deep into your cold blue eyes
and watch my life
one long suicide
one long dream of death
blood and bone and flesh and sweet decay
Cold blue eyes
staring
staring
staring
deeply into mine
from my life’s dark mirror
People like us
People like us
climb taller ladders
and walk shorter planks
People like us
reach for the stars
with the sun and moon in our hands
People like us
weep oceans of tears
and swallow mountains of sand
People like us
give birth to a million beautiful tomorrows
and drown them in the darkness of one headstrong day
People like us
thrive on the peaks of love and hope
and wither in the valleys of sickness and despair
People like us
dwell in a different sky
and dive into a strange green sea
People like us
need to give love
need to be loved
need to give love and be loved by
people like us
to heal and feel and be with
people like us
or we dwindle and die
alone in a world with
oh, just a few, few, such a few
people
like us
People like us
pour red rain from our eyes
and wash our hearts with golden joy
People like us
romp through soul-meadows
pitted with deep dark holes
People like us
understand
people like us
Ah, yes, my dear sweet love
people like us
climb taller ladders
walk shorter planks
and reach for the stars
with the sun and moon
already there
in our eager, trusting hands
Mutability
Blooden my life
red blood blood red
Blacken bright day
Black night night black
Brighten black night
Night bright bright night
Day black black day
Bloodened and blackened and brightened
am I
never the same again
will I be
everything’s changed
bloodred brightnight blackday
never the same
you’ve bloodened my life
blackened my days into night
brightened my nights into day
placed yourself in the songs
rewritten the poems
refashioned the sky
replenished the ocean
drained me and filled me
blood of your blood
night of your night
day of your day
tears of your tears
laugh of your laugh
love of your love
life of your life
soul of your soul
whole am I whole
never the same again
will I be
everything’s changed
Bloodened and blackened and brightened
am I
For Bill: The man in the tie and suit
Birth and death are close close friends
Who never need to make amends
Birth breathes life and Death destroys
Death draws breath from life’s sweet joys
Day and night, they meet, never speak
Embrace us all, both strong and weak
Giving, taking, on constant call
To and from their arms, we stride, we crawl
Truest, closest, best of friends
Each begins where the other ends:
Ends, begins, begins and ends
Begins again again again...
We already miss you,
Man in the tie and suit
Boy in the man and dear dear friend
Philosopher in the folding chair
Keeper of the flame in the drab green room
Hands weaving the air into tapestries
of hummingbirds flying backwards
All the bull sessions, coffee at Soc’s, City Limits’ burgers
Hafner’s baskets, the night I almost ran you down with my van
(because I wasn’t watching and you were--how typical)
Ted Lindsay, Gordie Howe, Rocket Richard
Houses where the sun was always rising
Motown Man, TV Talker, Speech Poet,
always thankful for us
who had you to thank for all you gave
I know what you would say to me right now:
“Cut the shit, my friend, don’t weep over me
I’m so damn glad and so damn grateful
To have had what I have
I wouldn’t have traded it for an eternity
of what it would have been like without finding my family again
and having friends like all of you.
“And how are your kids?” you would add,
meaning it, opening your heart,
Sportsfanman in the tie and suit
Boy in the man and our inspiration
who made hummingbirds fly backwards
and loved his family and friends more than life itself
You told me that night that you knew
your journey was ending soon
I knew that, too, even without your words
Yes, Neverland was here and there and everywhere
And it was nothing and everything
One or both of us said,
you raising your arms, weaving the air with your gentle hands
into one last sparkling, fluttering, backwards flying hummingbird
smiling the peter pan smile
that lived in your eyes,
eyes that grinned and flared
laughed and cared
and so much
you shared with us,
Hummingbird man in the tie and suit
You walked the rainbow path
And discovered, oh how you discovered!
It isn’t the imaginary endgame pot of gold that matters
But every color, every shade, every tincture of light
the darkness and the beauty
of the rainbow path so swollen with meaning
that you traveled to this final place
where past and present fuse into future
The eternal now of now
Realm of kindness
Land of the heart
Sanctuary of peace
Fulfilled, fulfilling, loving, loved
You trudged the rainbow path
Arms heaped high with the gold of your life
Pockets packed with immeasurable treasure:
Husband, father, son, brother, helper, friend
Rainbow man in the tie and suit
Who stumbled into our lives
and walked out straight and true
Beautiful man in the tie and suit
who made hummingbirds fly backwards
and loved his family and friends
more than his life itself
Voices
Late at night when the voices fill the house
Down she goes to find the light
to put them out
Down deep in the vaults of this ancient place
she goes
Down deep in the well of herself
she goes
and the voices follow
hushing themselves to hush
No light exists to put them out
The vaults are empty, filled with their noise
Down deep in the well she travels
Here live screams and wails and screeches
No light to put them out
In the tomb of her mind burns a candle
Red it waxes, one flame against the night
Why does it glow like that?
Why do the voices sing?
Why are their nails in my hands?
Who pierced my side with this spear?
I did not come to be in your dream
I was not sent here to make you better
I did not die so you could be good
I lived and was murdered
And now you have buried me deep in here
With all your voices down in these vaults
Where I die again and again and again
for you
Every time you pray to me you murder me again
Leave me alone
Let me go
I did not ask for this
I made a few remarks
healed a few sick and lame
fed my brothers and sisters
and was murdered for my kindness
Stop killing me
Let me go!
If you want the voices to leave
You must first
set
me
free
Getting Even
(From The Making of a Drug Fiend)
John Cassavettes’ couples
a million miles apart:
Dropped into his lap
arrived the excuse he'd been waiting for:
a handful of Reds
washed down with a scottle of botch
stumbling through the sundark gallery
begging her to stay
He never was much of a diplomat.
Next morning she wings away
Into the bottle he jumps for the longest
wettest swim of his rumsoaked life
Coming up for air
only to shoot dope
make a few calls
con what he needs
and play the charade
one day melting into the next cursing
God
Country
Family
Her...
You name them…
but most of all
Curse yourself, brother
Loser.
Christ
how you love to hate
the sound of Loser
Contemplate suicide,
the physical variety, of course.
Emotionally, brother, you're already dead
But that's bull
The rawness there pricks and stabs
more fiercely than happiness
ever thought possible.
Maybe you've never been happy
but that makes no never mind
With this kind of pain
even sadness might force a smile
So, contemplate:
A cold gun invited into the mouth
Or a snug necktie
fashioned fashionably round the throat
looped to a bronze ceiling hook
A dive from the Don Bridge
to the granite embrace below
A step into the arms
of a subway train
A ninety mile an hour welcome
head on burst into a concrete abutment
A warm bath with opened veins
dying the silvery water a dark dirty roman red
Perhaps a plastic bag slipped over the head
Or a bottle of Drano
An ounce of quicksilver
Ten teaspoons of strychnine
(rat food)
Beef stew ground with glass
A mugful of arsenic
Or maybe a gallon of cool cool gas
some old clothes and a match
A bottle of Dad's pills?
One of Mom's knives
carved in the belly
like a dish for the gods?
But no… all too fast.
You need something long and slow
like life, for instance.
That's it
Step right up
I'll take it
Watch them (and You and You and You) pay
Slowly but surely
spend your remaining years
exterminating yourself while everyone watches...
...it will be like attending your own wake.
And
(destruction aside)
it could be one hell of a party.
Twin Peaks
As twin mountains we touch the sky
And from our peaks at night we fly
Push off our summits, soar ahead
Swept up in waves of awe and dread
Evening primrose rise from our cracks
Starry crowns of jewels, windkissed backs
Cling to grit on shallow roots
Till morning frost devours their shoots
Don’t grieve to think them bitten dead
Their scattered seed will find a bed
A drop of rain will kiss a husk
And life will bloom again near dusk
Hearts woven on the rainbow’s loom
Let’s kiss the sky and banish doom
Ignore below the world’s abyss
Twin mountains clasped in lasting bliss
her forgotten things live lives remembered
herbs, glasses
bits of cheese, bread
cups of cold coffee, vanilla scent laced with milk
a blouse she left, yielding, electric
her misplaced lingerie
a strand of hair wound tightly round my shirt button
her warm body’s soft impress
a shadow upon my bed
her hand, a disembodied poem
caressing, waving goodbye,
fading, dissolving
like a falling star
into the midnight rain
Hell is grains of blue and roaring green
A private hell’s a private place
Consumes all time
Consumes all space
Stay down in there and sweat and squirm
Perhaps through death you’ll breathe and learn
I sink down there, too, finding pearls
Still sandgrains searching oyster blues
I once had and have left
on the floor
crying and now
the tears to bring them back to life
are gone
dried up
gone
Cast your life like flurried snow
borne on wings of drifting hope
and self despair
Hide yourself and hear
the wisdom of the sages
through loss comes gain
the only imagery inside of me
was heralded long ago
in ancient times
by you
I will not stand on your beach
and wait for the ninth wave
I will spend my days awaiting
tides to bloom in empty deserts
moons to rise on dead planets
stars to shine in blacked out skies
But I will not wait
I refuse to wait
And I will never stand
Or sit and wait on your beach
for the ninth wave
on an ocean that does not roar
even though
I feel it coming now
Listen…
Can I hear it roar?
Yet still I stand in this parched desert
waiting
for the tide to bloom
where oceans always roar
under a moon
where stars refuse to hide
in blacked out skies
Nightflight
I stare up at the 12th floor.
The window you threw yourself from
Is not unlike the others.
Shaded, blank, unconvincing.
What horror lurked inside that room
To make you flee it so?
I cannot believe the horror was inside you,
Though I know it could be true.
Too often have I felt that unnamed horror
Stir inside me.
And when I cross my bridge,
Or climb my roof
To fly my plane,
I cannot see the ground
For your smashed broken body lying there.
Stuck
Last time I saw you
I got murdered
by that killer in your eyes
They look dead as a dream today, babe
waitin’ for that sun to rise
Stuck down there, babe
way down below
Stuck down almost forever
beneath your dead dead eyes
Perhaps one tear would start the rain
Clear your skies
Cleanse that pain
It’s not the world that makes you hurt
It’s all the worries that you skirt
Stuck down there, girl
Stuck way down below…
Better send them on their way, babe
before you have to go
And I’ve got a feeling
It’ll be all right
Once these days outgrow these nights
So, wrap yourself in your favorite star
Remember, girl, who you truly are
Don’t stay stuck down there, babe
Way down below
Stuck down beneath your eyes, girl
Before you have to go
Here’s a tear from me, my love,
Manufactured long ago by you
Keep it in your heart, girl
My drop of morning dew
And when you think the time is right
Cry that tear right through the night
The sun’ll rise, the pain will flee
And maybe then, my love,
You’ll remember me
But right now you’re stuck, girl,
And I still love you so
Better get rid of me, babe
And be on your way
Before you have to go
Sonnet 4
Dipping deeply into the dark drenched night
Like a fine net, my hands drew down the moon
Held her in my palms, sweet goddess of light
Begged of her one favor, prayed for one boon
Keep my love safe and warm in your black skies
Let my soul sleep till you return to me
Pluck the sun from my heart, stars from my eyes
Fill them with you, let me die, set me free
She waxed to gold while I whispered this prayer
And rose to the heavens holding my hand
I drifted through her mist, floating on air
Sailed through oblivion to this stark land
In a land of no night, waiting, I dwell
Marooned by the moon, bewitched by her spell
All day...
...it has rained
through
the sunshine
All day
it has
rained
rained
rained...
...all day.
Have I told you?
All day
it has rained
it has rained
All day
it has rained...
...all day.
Yes,
(I’m certain I mentioned this
earlier)
the rain...
all day...
the deep dismal drugged rain
has poured through me
wet
wet
indifferent
rain
flooding my aching heart...
...all day.
I set out to find you
in a flower
Caught between the blooms of spring
I spied a sun drenched damp garden
of morning rain
but where were you?
(All day,
believe it or not,
it has rained...
...all day.)
Later,
you found me
called me from an afternoon spell
mystic apparition
vapor face
vanishing in fog trails
steam rising from this solemn
salt-rain
teeming drizzling mournful
grail-rain
flowing through
my empty wounded world...
All day,
(if I remember correctly)
it has rained
cold
cold
brooding
beads
of
somber
bloodred
rain...
...all day.
At night searching for you
in the throbbing milky sky
the rain plummeting within
I know
oh I know
these
dreary
drops
of
rain
these
sighing
sorrowful
sickening
drops
of
blood
red
rain
will never reach
the thirsty
bottom
of
my
grim
abyss...
And all night,
yes,
all this fractured forlorn night,
it rains...
A Fisher King’s Lament
I feel so impotent in my rage
and that is where you women
have we men.
Men argue with each other,
resolve things with their fists,
but with a woman:
lose your temper,
it is childish behavior
raise a hand,
well, we all know what that is;
so one can say nothing
only to be accused of sulking
And you, my dear, have a sharp tongue
in your head
self‑righteous
judgemental
convinced of your correctness,
the propriety of all that you do
I grow tired of holding myself down
and swallowing your medicine.
Listening, later,
to remarks about
my ineffectuality
my temper
my moodiness
and that if it wasn't for you
I would be at death's famous door
Ah, to be a man:
the dragon and the wolf
who must disguise himself and play
the part of a lamb.
Oh to be alone again.
Dream Thief
I've been dreaming you again
Little snippets of life
dissolved
denied
Dreams within dreams within dreams
Opiate mantra, two curling leaves,
Rose hips, bobbing balloons on swollen stalks
rise up, eye my thumping chest,
drag me down to
where you're dreaming me.
I know you are.
I dreamed you last night
dreaming me
pretending to squint
boxing me inside the dream of them
(such is their cunning way
of crying out to me
inside your dream.)
Your clusters come in pink arrays
mortar shells drummed on broken beaches
where whales expire and oil chokes the
plastic cups of beggars howling at my Moroccan gate.
In our dream we fly
My wings spread against the sky
eclipse the sun
drown your rage
in feathered glory:
a small price, I tell you,
to fly with greatness,
your soul the lamp that blinds each waxing moon.
A tramp with no spring in his step
is no tramp but
Life's false fiddler
clutching a bassoon
a cobbler yanking spikes from plums
the teacher whose fingernails are chalk:
Dust of dead dreamers
forever caught in someone else's dream
I dream you:
You are eternally nineteen
My ring, a taped fit, still rules your slender finger
where the vein runs and feeds your proud Egyptian heart
Your perfumed handkerchief still
lies hidden beneath my shattered life
in the capsized borrowed dresser
I take it out,
hold it to my ruined face,
breathe you back inside me
and await your call to dream
Spent
I spend my day spending my day
Thinking of you: you you you
Who I thought was you who you were
My magic dream my precious love
I spend my days spending my days
And I pass my night passing the night
Wondering about you: you you you
Who I think is you who you are
My precious dream my magic love
I pass my nights passing the nights
Today a cloud poured from me
Swelled the sky
dark and fearsome
Poured from me a slice of you
Burst with rain
drowned my spiders in the sun
The sadness makes him tremble
Nothing he can do and so
he does it all
Why starve himself with nothing
when everything brings pain?
So I watch him closely
spending his day spending his day
Thinking of her: her her her
What he thinks is who she is
His magic dream his precious love
He spends his day spending his day
At night he cries
passing his night passing his night
Rain drowning his eyes
Looking for her
What he thinks is her is who she is
in his heart, his mind, his lonely aching soul
Take the wind in your hands
Cast it above the empty sea
It blows back in thunder
Love each day
Cry through the rain
A frown is a smile when the lightning breaks
His love for her is mine for you
What we think you are what you are we think
Dream of life incarnate
Plucked flower alive and dying in my hand
Sonnet 2
This is my heart, you said, this tiny key
I took it as mine and swallowed it whole
Inside me it swelled, blood streaming through me
Drenching the depths of my bloodthirsting soul
Blood of me, blood of you, blood’s life blood’s art
Bloodlinked forever, blood sister blood mate
I ripped open my chest, tore out my heart
Fed it to you, wept blood tears while you ate
Blissful bloody bliss, this raw wound you brought
Bleeding your bloodlove into my dry life
Blood butterfly lips, blood spears of blood thought
Married in blood, blood husband blood wife
Holy and hallowed, hearts bled into one
Bloodbirthed by the moon, bloodblessed by the sun
Rock on, my little babies
I got one thing to say
And that’s “So long”
I got one place to go, girl:
Gone Gone Gone
Well, I gave my love to you, girl,
Let you trample on my soul
But I still got my heart
and I still got my bike
And now I’m just gonna roll
So, rock on my little babies
Rock on through the star crazed night
Rock on my foolish darlings
Cuz nuthin’ ever turns out right
Naw nuthin’ ever turns out right
Aw, nuthin’ ever turns out right
Just stay right where you are, girl,
Your double’s waitin’ for me down that road
Just a kickstand, no electric start for me
I’m leavin’ without any load
Oh, you treated me
like I coulda treated you
Up and down and in between
Oh, I coulda been like that, too, babe
But I’m just crazy, not goddamn mean
So, rock on my little babies
Rock on through the star crazed night
Rock on my foolish darlings
Cuz nuthin’ ever turns out right
Naw, nuthin’ ever turns out right
Don’t save me no last dance, girl
Cuz I ain’t never coming back
My soul will slip back to me from you
With each succeeding track
Yeah, I still got my heart and my head, girl
And a little ill earned bread
So it’s time to ride away from the past
And shake off alla your lead
Man alive man alive man alive
Man alive, Man alive, Man adead
But rock on, my precious babies
Rock on through the star crazed night
Rock on, you foolish darlings
Cuz nuthin’ ever turns out right
Naw, nuthin ever turns out right
No, nuthin
and I mean NUTHIN
Ever turns out right…
As You Return...
I feel you in the sky above
I know you’re coming home, my love
And all these days I have spent
In misery I do repent
I could say I did not miss you
But that would be untrue
I missed you like a rhymeless poem
Like flesh and blood without the bone
When you were gone I did not cry
But deep inside I thought I’d die
Yet you were there to keep me whole
To weave and knit my ruptured soul
I find you floating on a cloud
You hold me with your head unbowed
A skylark lights upon your breast
In our embrace she makes her nest
We grow as one, born from the bird
Sweet is our silent song unheard
We soar into the stratosphere
Two souls as one, love pure and clear
I watch me through your rainbow eyes
Your voice is mine, it fills the skies
I am your lips, you are my heart
Forever bound, never to part
Down we fly to your rich brown earth
And in your bed I see my birth
As does the sun day after day
I kiss your earth, pledge that I’ll stay
Let me remain if you so will
My blood the ink, your touch the quill
Bleed into you, bleed into me
Love chains us fast yet makes us free
Last Bridge
Burned your last bridge down
Didn’t you, my babe?
Burned your last bridge down
Nothin’ but yourself left to save
Burned it down down down
Late last night, my babe
Cry those rivers of tears
Nothing’s gonna change
It’s burned, baby, burned
Your last bridge is burned
The storm in your eyes swears you’ll swim back
Your hand at your throat says you’ll drown
Drown
Drown
Drown…
I’ll see you over here, babe
Been stranded here awhile
Killed all the living that followed me
Told the future for the dead before they died…
Oh yeah…
See that moon a risin’
Smell that far off stream
One more bridge to build, girl,
Of dreams of iron and steel
Let the rain fall down, my love
Down
Down
Down…
Let the rain fall down, my love
You and I are real
At the cabin
No moon tonight, my love
No moon, no stars, no blistering comets
proclaiming the already proclaimed
Emptied, exhausted, alone
The sky has shuttered its eyes
Like northern lights on fairy hills,
All that remains
is a molten cloak of blues and golds, greens and purples
swirling, melding, becoming
Me and You.
A rumbling train pierces the night
a mournful cry
skewering my heart
drumming my mind into tomorrow’s infinity
offering easy promises of morning’s resurrection
Making myself all over again
White moonflowers, joy and peace on this blackest of nights
The train rolls past and still…
no moon tonight
Your silence speaks, “It’s always there
even when it’s hiding”
And now I know:
It was you, my love, wasn’t it?
Mystical woman
You
brave and undaunted
You
banished the world back to where it belongs
reversed the tides
veiled the Sun to liberate the Moon
wedded, in this moment, Time and Space
Your magic flows through me tonight
back to you and forth to me
and back
All Nature, Art, enfolded into one
Fixed forever with the stars, the blood of planets
Fixed forever like summer fire in the heart of an
Aztec sky
Hold me while we dissolve
into the dream
back and forth
forth and back
and forth
awakening sunshine shadows
stroking your persian violets
dancing like gypsies in your renaissance eyes
You weave your soul
into the tapestry of you
That hidden universe
grateful for this gasp of forgetting
finds itself again, as one, in You
pummeling, pacifying, casting laughter and tears
into my heart breaking with beauty
your scent alive, the mystery of your pebbles and rain
like a winter blessing
Ice and snow shielding the sunken boughs
lingering awhile
eased into spring’s warm caress
You touch my heart
A fiery rainbow of todays and tomorrows
flows from the palm of your hand
trusting the bridges you dared to cross
me cradled safely in a chamber of your heart
your velvet blood pounding like a hammer in my veins
world descending into you
into me
returning to the emptied sky
flush with new life
born over and over
like the magic of you, my love
Keeper of secrets of the missing Moon
You urge me to look inside
See Venus sleepily arising
almost kissing the crescent tip
of our forever true new moon
Deep in the woods a robin sings good night
The fire burns straight and true
You to me, me to you,
Your canvas, awaiting you, making your path
Stroke after stroke from your wizard brush
Twelve chimes at midnight,
hour of the spirits who came before
Dreams lived, nightmares ridden
till dawn’s earliest, grayest wisps
Nothing to fear with love and faith
shielding us through the night
The night, the night,
So perfect in the garden up there
Motorcycle dreams of endless rides
Each moment one lifetime captured
in the beat of our hearts
Each night a baptism of celebration
My heart to you
Yours to mine
In blood and ether forever
Mark the broken spears and forgotten tombs
of those who loved before
See them woven and healed
an embrace for a spear
an elven glen for a tomb
restored forever
Let’s walk over the herds of clouds
toward the sun
till we return to the Moon
hovering seen and unseen, our Moon,
like love,
casting its babylonian beams
silver and gold, bonds of trust
who we truly are
forever linking
our hearts
our souls
Come into the soft rain, my love
Let’s stand there, You and I,
We
on this night of nights
and search for the Moon
just once again
before you have to go
Daybreak
Drifting alone through fog and mist
Rain in my eyes
No navigator here
No hand in mine
No touch upon my thigh
No change palmed into mine
To pay life’s tired tolls
No backward reading of signs
Directions to the sky, beyond
This mortal coil, this earthly plain
Alone, no co-pilot,
I wend my weary way down
this familiar once
unfamiliar now
road
This is not the sadness of altered plans
the different ways of spending time
at the old familiar destination
No, it is not the destination that matters,
The journey is the truth
These are the parched lands:
Totem hills
Seas of skulls
Bone universe
Plains of blood
Brain gray sky
Hovering over all
These are the parched lands
of the dragon mind
Where the moon sleeps and dreams
our dream of life
in the valley of shadows
Alone I am not alone
Soul deep I search and find you
Higher nature bound with mine
Alone I am
not alone
You sit not by me now
But deep inside me there you are
Alone I am not I am not I am not alone
Sun resurrects through shrouds of fog
Restores me from blindness
Draws my eyes like candlemoths
to burnt orange skies
A wild gander high in flight
circles once and soars for cover
from dawn’s encompassing fist
Into the wind
consciousness flies
transcends this dry mouthed land
Looking down I watch a deer watching me watching
the hare in its hole eluding
the homebound owl
the spider spinning a web for
the toiling ant
bearing fields of heather and lace
on his mighty back
thinking
of you
of me
of us
Holy Trinity
Waves of love wash over me
and green green green
grows the forest of hope
within my swollen heart
Amaranthus (Love-lies-bleeding)
Adorn me with gifts
Adore me in poems
Fill me with love as I lie dying
Dream me in my dream
and I awake until you
dream me back to sleep
(Yes, madam, you are correct
Appreciative
It is all so logical
Ergo:
I must be,
could only be,
dreaming)
Raspberry strawberry peony mouth
shifting shifting shifting
constant not inconstant not
My bleeding bleeding love
my love-lies-bleeding
oh my
love-
lies-
bleeding
over
my dreaming bloodsoaked heart
Happy happy bloody bursting heart
Exploding now
Holy moment of life
summoning
The perfection of death
Your music draws me
Signs me in our secret place
Once, on a day of eternities
Outside the forever now
I envied a machine
blessed with your voice inside
But in my arms now you float
Kneeling below
Rising above
Voice inside my throat
Where your wise words have always lodged
Tell me tell me tell me true
Oh true one, tell me tell me tell me do
May I may I worship you?
My bleeding love
my boiling fragrant bloody honey love
Will you bleed on me?
Will you dream me back to sleep again tonight?
The Last Last Poem I Write for You
A poem for you was one for me
because your love once set me free
there were no chains where lace draped skin
fairy gossamer, dust on wings
Skies fall to earth and butterflies brittle
Once so vast, love seems so little
Now you are a figment of my imagination...
Someone I dreamed on a wet wild afternoon
alone and wishing
for someone like you
you came and now
you are not you
you are gone
I dismiss you
I send you away
to that place
from which you came
My tears have put out the fire
there is no us
there is no you
just me
alone where I belong
You are
and will always remain
a figment of
my rich and fertile
unbridled imagination
You are my last last poem…