The Daily Devotions Of Balmini by Chris Peterson

Now

The past isn’t gone
And our dead are still with us
In more than simple memory
Their words, their works
Even their names
Run rippling thru the generations
We see them in our children
With eyes they gave us

Untitled 1

We live in a land
Much visited by God
We die in an area
Forgotten by the same
Reborn as unwelcome guests
Left on top
Of little white piles
Of bones
Outside of the village

Small wonder
That we believe
In Kings and such

Untitled 2

From Zama
To Adrianople
We marched the tread
Of empire
After Kartage it was
All so easy
Still - I have stood this post
Too long
Watching as all of Marius’ mules
Have gone gray
Half an age to watch
And half an age to sleep
Will get you lost
Without relief

Untitled 3

“The speed of light” is not a mile per hour thing, not really.
It can be written that way, and is pretty useful.
‘C’ expresses the steepness of the curvature of local space.
The higher the distortion, the steeper the curve-the slower ‘C’ becomes.
If time collapses for a particle at ‘C’ what about space- Gravity,
strong force, weak force?

Untitled 4

I AM THAT WHICH SPEAKS ALOUD
IN THE SILENCE OF THE SOUL
WHISPERING SECRETS LONG FORGOT
“AS ABOVE, SO BELOW”

Untitled 5

In birth
Are joy and agony
Inter-mixed
Untitled

Neither knowledge or wisdom
Will come looking for you
Unlike love
Which falls even on monsters
And fools
Pursuing love
Like wishing for knowledge
Is a poor way to waste
Your time
Valuable time

Untitled 6

Have you ever stole
Across a field
Where only hours before
Armies danced?
And seen the bodies
Bloating in the sun
Hanging from the trees
Smoldering in the pits?
And knowing they had gone there
At your command?

Have you ever seen
The scatter of little white bones
Outside of every village
Where all the starving new born
Are given back to God
And the foxes
So that the peasants
Could pay their taxes
While you were planning
To launch another navy?

Untitled 7

Old souls to mend
Old souls to mend
Without all the lives
I ever could spend
I never could cry
Old souls to mend
Old souls to mend

Crocuses

Along every ridge
Under every snow shadow
The step is dotted
With tiny purple flowers
Great ropes of geese
Fill the sky
Already the Southern cities
Work their forges
All day and all night
While along the Taiga
The tribes are mustering
More horses then even they
Can ride
The first winds of spring
Carry the sweet breath
Of a fresh war

Li Po

The Alders are awake
Crocuses too
The forges
Smell of fire and iron
On the southern wind
The Taiga is a volcano
Of horses
Sweet spring
Carries fresh war

Chain Gang

Pythagoras drew the line
Saint Paul crossed it out
Plotinus wept at this disgrace
Augustine embraced it

Smith forged our chains
Locke turned the key
Hobbes sold us
To secular Gods
The harnesses were free

Bacon was over-done
Descartes went un-turning
Marx is the writing
On the wall
The rest shall all be burned

Pop

This is a sound
I have heard before;
“I need a bag”
The sound of a marriage
Going “POP”
Like the silence
Of a still-borne babe
“I need a bag”
“I need…”
“A bag”

Bird Blind

I sat outside of Alamant
For six months in silence
Starring into the heart of Hassan
When I got up to go
His life left with me
Still
It seems that some ragged
Old thing of mine
Was left behind in exchange

Hearts Desire

Do you want
To be rich?
Harden your heart
Do you want
To go to heaven?
Send your cash to me
Do you want
To be happy?
Don’t read this poem
Do you want
To know THE TRUTH?
You are a fool
Do you want
To see God?
Open your I
Do you want
To live forever?
You will get very bored
Do you want
To know true love?
You are truly damned
Do you want
To see the Devil?
Look into any mirror
Do you want

More?

Maria

Dark as inside an old stone
Lively as tropic jungle
Mysterious as ancient ruins
Seen by moonlight

Earth Soul and Mother
Of the children of God
Lover of monsters
And bright moonlight

Shiva’s Dance

I am the dancer with flashing Steele
The armored hoof beat
On open plains
The iron fist of kings

Princes fear me
Yet they court me
For they prop their thrones
With my sword

They shall all go down
To the dust
As carrion together
And their heirs shall serve me

Like Ya Know?

Hearts, like hands
Grow calluses
When you work with them
A lot
Souls, like feet
Ache
After a long trek
And dreams, like eyes
Must be closed
From time to time

MEME

A wisp of cloud
Hangs on a mountain
A sigh
For past eruptions

FRAC

Up
In space
Is all directions
So is
Down
Even
Chaos has order
Random isn’t
Odd

Te Deum

Our God
Is war
Our religion
The State
Our Mother
Is necessity
Our Father
Power
These Dread Lords
We dress in names like;
“National Interest”
“Duty”, “Honor”, “Country”
And we give them
Our children
Just as we
Were given
And
It
Will
Never end

The Trojan

Some raddled old whore
Stretched out her arm
To me…”Bar-A blas,”
Quoth she
“Come sullen child,
Spend yer wealth
With me!
Have I not known ye?
Born and bred ye?
What hap the ages
In between?”

Hellen was never half so bold
As those withered loins
Nor smile so cold
As caught my eye
So we strolled
She and I
Down long memories lane

“Do you remember…
This and that?”

The Mage

TO KNOW
TO ACT
TO KEEP SILENT

Two Toes

As I wind my weary way
Through this world
I worry at my wound
Like a coyote with two toes
Caught in a t rap
Clever
But not fast enough
Not by half
Yet I shall be free of you
Though it cost me
Flesh and blood

How’s Tricks?

The name of “Two Legger” will stink
In the camps of coyote tonight
For I have stolen his pups
And mounted his mate

He will hunt me now
Which gladdens my soul
For no one gives chase
Like his majesty

Flesh Wound

When the voice of my soul speaks
Into the hollow of the ages
No other responds
Only echoes return to me
Yet
I have known you of old
The scent of your name
And the flavor of your voice
Linger just behind
My earliest memories
But
No where in this life do I find you
With whom then
May I share
The secrets of my heart?
Thus
I have become a jackal
Haunting the borders
Of the worlds of men
Here in the empty wilderness
I hear your answer

Wind among stones

Look, Ma

I am the fool
In the courts of Our Lady
Her little trick dog
In ribbons and motley
For her love
I will chase my tail
Into oblivion
Summersault backwards
While barking and yapping Why - I will even prance about
On my two hind legs
Look! Look!
For all the world
Just like a real little person
Woof!

Heavens Mirror

The descent into MATTER
Means the death of MIND
While the birthing of MIND
Is the destruction of MATTER
Which is why they lust so
After each other
For, like us
Their hearts are crooked

Goose Chase
06/28/94

When the eye of the beholder beholds you
In that soft and dangerous dawn
Then you shall know what Ulysses meant
How the islands called; Naxos, Kios
Delos
And beyond
Fly down to Egypt on the wings of the wind
The phoenix has been seen there…
But who knows when?
So that’s where we go
Chasing the bird

For it knows It’s own rebirth
And goes sailing on silent wings
Seeking a nesting in some unsuspecting heart
To simple shepherds
On witless maids
An apparition, a vision, the logos
Of all that lives
The love of God

Zip

The soul less alone
When solitary
Is hardly human
While the soul that does not know
It is alone
Is said to be
Not at all
From such petty, fogging details
God-head is spun
We are satisfied
With so little
As to disappear

Oh Hell

Every body spends some time
In hell
Most of us manage to make
Several seasons
Some make every effort
To get here
As often as they can
My friends and I
Are fortunate enough
To live here
Where else can you burn
So much karma?

The Wind

With their long necks
And far-a-way eyes stretching North
Great ropes of geese
Are wooing the winter sun back
To the Tundra and Muskeg
‘Heaven!’, ‘Heaven!’, ‘Heaven!’
Ringing off the glaciers
Bellying the blue, blue sky
They return to the water world
Like a groom to a bride
“Missed you”, “Missed you”, “Missed you”
A few handfuls of days
To lay, hatch, and fledge the young
And they will climb the wind
Again
To follow the sun
Into the South Land

Check Please

The first animal
To be domesticated
Had, not four feet
But two
Likewise, the first bits
Bridles and blinkers
Were fashioned in the minds
Of those cattle
Our cousins
By us
Whom they worshiped
And we loved them
In that helpless, terrible way
We had with them
For we were their creation
Their children
And their fate
Just as you
Are to us

Bag It

Shall I speak of my journeys?
And of the silence
Between lives?
Death holds no mysteries
There are no secrets hidden
The other side of life
Just as there are no certainties
Over here
Yet, one word
Will I whisper
Into your hushed and eager ear
“The only real mystery
is that anything exists at all.”

“This is absurd!” you are thinking
And that is the nature of reality
But worse is to come
This magical imaginative world
That we call “Life”
Is spun from the same stuff
As the Emperors new clothes
All of our politics, religion
And economics is improvised
On the fly
We live in a maelstrom
Of make believe

“Male and Female”, “Light and darkness”
“Good and evil”, “Me and You”
Exist only under the hand of man
These words will not answer
In other realms
You ask the wrong questions;
“Where do we go when we die?”
Where does a candle flame go
When you pinch it?
We go to the same place
The belief that we return
Is absurd

Short Cut

Some poor damned soul
Once said;
“One busted love
Deserves another”
And directly made it so

Piñatas

From all eternity
Christ is hanging
Broken and bleeding
Even while the women
Are yet weeping
Over the wounds of Osiris
While Orpheus
Knowing his fate
Forever flies down the endless
Forest ways
For our hunger never sleeps
And Gods flesh
Is our favorite game

Long

When we have been long in love
And wear the years between us
Like an old sweater
Then I shall say things to you
That I dare not say now
And you will smile and nod
I will watch your face by the fire
In long silence
You won’t ask me why
You shall arise from our bed
With the dawn
To walk the hills alone
Hanging your prayers on the wind
And we shall be like two old trees
A Cyprus an d a Cedar
On a hill
When we have been long and long
In love

Transit

There are depths over which
Neither faith nor reason
Can carry you
There are heights to which
No wings
Will bring you
There is a sacrament of suffering
Just as there is
A baptism of joy
There is an agony of the soul
That brings the spirit to birth
There is a washing of memory
And a flowering of mind
There is a voice, and a word
That strikes the heart
Like a sword
There are not only temples
But cities, whole worlds
Made without hands
It is there
You must go

Once

Once down a well
Someone whispered my name
I waited in silence
But no answer came

Once in a cavern
I supped with a ghost
He was embarrassed
I was just lost

Once in a tunnel
You shrieked out my name
I spoke into silence
“It’s always the same!”

Once in a grave
I ended this game
No more memory
And no more name

Fair Warning

I have seen a dragon
Hide behind a weasel
And that weasel
Lurking in a bag
I have seen a ghost
Wear a wire
And that wire
Plug into a pig
I have seen sheep
Who thought they were wolves
And two-legged nightmares
Who were all of that
And worse
You, who read these words
In time to come
Be afraid of us
And have a care for your soul
See that you do not
Come into this place

No

No, you go
To your grave
And I’ll go to mine
There is no justice
No recompense
No balance of payments
No!
You go to your cold
Lonely grave
And I’ll go
To mine

Reflects

No love is lost
Between mirrors
It is kept whole
In reflection
Neither does life
Love death
But they are one
None the less

So…
What passes
Between two mirrors
Face to face?
And what of life
Is left in death?
Everything

Short

This is the winter
Of our contentment
When we rest our souls
From the servitude
Of ages…
There is a sense of a debt
Long owed
Now nearly paid
The knowledge that a calling
Long ago accepted
And mastered
Is rapidly closing on completion

Gotta be a booby trap
In it some where

Sappho

I awoke with the dawn
To find our bed cold
With your leaving
Your high, wild heart
Never counts the cost
Of your love
And my heart
Is hostage to yours

Knock, Knock

The ol d man used to teach us
That you couldn’t piss
In the same puddle twice
But you can
You know
As many different times
As there are witnesses
He also used to say
That you couldn’t get here
From there

But we did

Like, Ya Know

Hearts, like hands
Grow calluses
When you work with them
A lot
Souls, like feet
Ache
After a long trek
And dreams, like eyes
Must be closed
From time to time

Romance

Mountain lions love
Baby lambs
Rats love
Grain silos
And you love me
I am pleased
To have it so
Because, you see
I also love you

My Friend

You are surrounded
By men who love you
So you give yourself
To the one who does not
Your faith, your trust
Your honor, even your words
Are less in the balance
Than your lightest pleasure
I encourage you in this
Because
You are not my friend

Hard Time

Even before the days when herds
Of camel and dawn horse
Shared this land with saber tooth
And dire wolf
These mountains have spoken to the sky
With their throats full of fire
And the sky has answered back
With darkness and deluge
So that all the earth was stirred
Into flaming, smoking mud
Now a sea of huge boulders
A vast crumpled carpet
Of dead volcanic clinkers
Fills the whole horizon
A dozen ages
Whole worlds
Lie snug and cold beneath this blanket
Of silent stone
For this is the land
Of no mercy
Ancient beyond telling
So that even our oldest dead
Hardly have a place here
On clear nights, under the full moon
As it stares up
Into the blind eyes of the sky
This land forgets all about us
Never knew we were here
Won’t know
When we’re gone

Deletor

If there is no rest
For the wicked
Does that mean
They live forever?
Or simply work too much?
God alone knows such things
And he is a notorious gossip
But
What difference dies it make?
To whom?
And why?

Because waking up is hard to do

Agnostalgia

Think of the men
Who, in these days
Stand in the place
Of Washington and Jefferson
Then pause and consider
The upbringing of Octavian

A certain sympathy
Begins to stir
Who will reap
The crop we planted
At Potsdam?

Refuge

Hypocrisy is our bread
And butter
The light we live by
Our snuggest harbor
In sorest storm
We are very like your cousins
In this
We however
Have not the luxury
Of lying to ourselves

Handy

Jacking off on a canyon rim
To scatter my seed
Upon the waters
Below, beneath
A crescent moon

Recall

How do you know
It’s real?

It hurts

I laughed
When they told me that

At first

Barren Samhedi

Of lords spiritual
There are any number
They, and their voracious kin
Crowd a hundred heavens
Their hands reach out
Ever clutching
Their mouths stretch wide
Ever swallowing
The fruits of our labor
Our freedom
Our children
Our very souls
In exchange they undertake
To make the sun rise
The rain fall
And the grain grow
Except of course
When they don’t
All praise onto them
In all this glorious crowd
Of great mothers, all fathers
Gods, heroes, and devils
There is not one
Who is worth a shit

Except for myself
And I am a liar

In Pella

Yesterday the men began returning
From the eastern wars
Their leather work dried and cracked
All their armor furred with green
When they left, they were a pride
Of eager young lions
Who smelled blood on the wind

Now they come back to us
A pack of old gray wolves
With eyes like ice
Eyes that have seen India
They tell us Alexander is dead
In Babylon
But we had guessed that
When the assassinations began

These men, who seized the world for him
Have now lost their best beloved prince
And they have come home
To a most uncivil war

It is one hundred and sixty nine
New moons
Thirteen harvests
And a world away
Since last they saw Pella

Banger

As you take your way
From the holy, hidden
City of Qom
Onto the imperial debauchery
Of Tabriz
There is a faded, ragged
Old prayer flag
Just twisting in the breeze
It hangs on a cairn
Half way up the shoulder
Of a rocky slope
It reads;
“God deliver me from puns!”
And it’s no joke

Ripe Time

The aged whore and Otto De Fey
Go strolling hand in hand
Down the center of my spine
To where the ancient serpent slumbers
Amidst the wells of the waters of life

Midnight moans and slippery grins
Hasten to come together
Upon the alter of sacrifice
A spilling of life for life
To open the gates of creation

The Hack

They don’t believe me?
That’s their problem
I am misunderstood?
HA!
Call me a liar, do they?
I have said so
Myself
A blasphemer am I?
How would they ever know?

Behind all their anger
Their accusations, outrage
And condemnations
Is a wounded heart
For they think
That I do not love them
Which is a thing
I have never said

Now

The past isn’t gone
And our dead are still with us
In more than simple memory
Their words, their works
Even their names
Run rippling thru the generations
We see them in our children
With eyes they gave us

Some Talkin’ Ta Do

What’s this? You blow a hand full
Of red rose petals
Into my face?
Did you truly do something to us?
Did you do it with knowledge?
This is a door that cannot be closed.

Small Secrets

I have been asked;
“What have you done
In this life?”
My answer is;
“Gone my way unnoticed
Thank you very much”
No small feat
For a soul
So brazen
And all the while
Telling all who would listen
Just who
And what I was
None of them believed it
How gorgeous! How
Delicious!
And I am the Madras
Of course

One thing I have done;
I have been the voice of God
In this world
Another sharp stick
I often hear
Is;
“Why didn’t you publish?”
Because of the cult
Of celebrity
Which, after war-only after life
Reigns supreme in this land
I will not have the fountain
Confused with the flow
No-
Thank you
All the more

Also;
I am under oath
Even worse-
A volunteer!
Come to help sing a new world
Into being
Once this world ends
Again, once again, yet again
As it has so many times already
So many times before
A dozen excellent rational excuses
Offer themselves
For service
But the awful, bloody truth is;
I don’t have a reason-
What pleases me, the thing that I desire
That is what I do
Yet another fine rationale
“He was just lazy
And stinking self indulgent!”
There, you see?

Above and Below

Have you ever seen
Some stupid, spoiled girl
Abusing her servant
In public?
Thus it is when the Gods
Send Law-Givers and Judges
Among men

A momentary annoyance
And tribunals are seated
Heavens are locked
Hell is ignited
Souls are damned

Have you ever watched
As savage, ignorant boys
Tied some poor dog
With tin cans?
Thus do the Gods
Send prophets and messiahs
Into the world

An idle day’s distraction
And armies appear
From the wilderness
Cities are burned
Provinces emptied
Nations enslaved

The cattle believe
That they benefit
From all these things
They may be right

We certainly do

Hot Shots

What we are
Is;
Accidents in motion
Traveling fatalities
Walking wounded
Staggering out
Of life’s low tavern
To serenade the night
With times dark laughter

Addle Glen

Addelay, sweet Addle Glen
Where we danced together
To the moon-spells tune
My webs in yours
Your gleam in mine

Come and we’ll dance
To the moon-spells tune
We’ll love
And we’ll laugh
An d we’ll bay the moon down

Addelay, sweet Addle Glen
The dancing place
The world knew when
We danced all alone
To the moon-spells tune

Oh No

Because I am no prophet
Shall soldiers scatter my path
With shell casings
Because I am no orphan
Shall maidens dance
And eagerly entice me
Because I am no savior
Shall sinners entreat me
And because I am not at all
Shall fools enshrine
And earnestly debate me
All this and more
Shall I endure
Onto the coming of that day
The great and terrible day
That shall never be

Alchemy

Those of us who march
We who fight
And die
Know
That the true sport of kings
Is no such paltry thing
As derby day
No
The great game of majesty
Is swapping sweat
And blood
For steel and gold

Astigmatic

I have seen the cross
From above and below
I have lined the hiways
From city to city
With their rotting trophies
Even cobbled a few
Myself
As the need arose
Front to back
End to end
I know it well
This it has taught me;
That death, like life
Is only another veil
Just one more
Of the many
Masks of God

Balls

Once I sold thirty
Of my lives
For one silver piece each
This loot I laid
In a sack
Before Our Lady
As the price
Of my release

I could have had gold
But silver is hers
Or poured out pearls
For they are her tears
But freedom, like fetters
Is only a mirage
And in truth
A slave may own nothing
Black Dog

The flower of war
Is our offering
Blood, guts
And burning shit
Our own flesh
And later
Yours

Breathe

The wind from the desert
Is always the most delicious
Vast, empty and haunting
It carries all the secrets
Of a million different lives
Sweeter than incense
More rare than white jade
It settles in the soul
Like silk on the skin
Once tasted
It is never forgotten

Buddha, Buddha

The world is full of people
Who will tell you
Endlessly and in great detail
How “Eternal Life” is a blessing
Beyond price
They hold this opinion
In a perfect vacuum
If ignorance and inexperience

Which is their right
But just between you, me
And the fence post here
The truth is;
None of us
Are getting out of this alive
Neither are any of us
Getting out dead

Quite a number of us
Have earned our release
Some have contrived
To make an escape
While a few
Of the really crazy ones
Have managed
To slip back in

Cadence

Yes it is ne edful to know how
To do evil
But can you do good
As well?
Any fool may curse
Who can bless
As easily?
It is true that you must take life
To have your own
But to keep it
You must give it
In your turn

Capital

The only currency
That counts
Is blood
How much
Are you willing to spend
And whose
How about your own
And you might
Want to save some
For later

You never know

Crisis

Identity is not perfect
It is
In fact
Illusory
Intellectual
If you will

Imaginary
I

Matins

People say;
“It’s a jungle
Out there”
But it’s not true
We
Are a jungle
In here
It has ever been so
With us
And ever shall be
World without end
Amen

Lies

The sun does not rise
Neither does it set
Because God loves us
We live by killing
Because He is wise
We also die
And never forget
The sun does not rise

Prime

And dying is so easy
Blessed are the living
For they shall eat
Drink, and copulate
And blessed are the dead
For they do not know
That they are

Vespers

It is a wise soul
And courageous
That can choose
The manner of its own death
But fortune plays a hand
In this as well
So remember
“Practice makes perfect”

False Dawn

Many and many a red skinned soul
Looks out of pale blue eyes
These days
More than a few black ones
As well
Most, only half knowingly
But here
And there
Scattered like stars
In this long, dark night of our souls
Are lights
Where someone
Is stirring

Echoes

I am Perigrinos, who knows
Only the wind
And constant change
I am Balmini, who is times
Dark laughter bubbling up
From the bottom of the brain
I am Lukas, heart given
To Great Mother
Who kept Her sacred grove
In Pella
Forty seven Summers
And a Fall
I am Licinius, who made war
For a dozen Caesars
Against the Jews
Then the Persians
Finally
Against the People and Senate
Of Rome
I am Andrew, a lost shattered soul
Who, cloistered in the green wood
Learned to love again
Many lives, many voices
Many strings
Upon my harp
But when did I first sing
For you?
It was beneath the moon
Of an ancient desert
Among the Bad Lands
That lay along a river
That was older still
I gave a voice
To your silent soul
While you
Clothed me in flesh
Into this life we now share
Some are given
Others, are rudely taken
Some are seeking
And occasionally
One is even called
But we all end up here
Some how
In service
To a song

Bon Motive

When we lie
To those we love
We turn our steps
Toward hell
When we lie
To ourselves
We are running
Down that road
When we begin
To believe those lies
We’ve hit the fast lane

If these be
“Good intentions”
Where lead
The bad?

Fun Yet?

We all die alone
And we all call for mama
When we do
I always did
So will you

You’ll do it a lot
It’ll get old
But you’ll always
Call for mama
When you go

Open Account

Have you ever noticed
How innocent a soldiers face is
As he sleeps in the field
After battle
Like the sweetest babe
In his mothers arms
Only moments before
It was all cold steel
Hot hatred
Blood slick hands
And shit running down your legs
Now
Exhaustion, innocence
Sleep
And the butchers bill
To pay

Gratis

Think of the honor fate has done us
In the caliber of the enemies
She has given us
What other nation has had the whole heart
Of such a one as Sitting Bull
Fixed so firmly upon it?
Give some thought to the weight of souls
Like onto Tecumseh, Quanah Parker
Crazy Horse, Seattle, or Sequoia
What other people have been worthy
Of such foes?
Even onto this day
They have not surrendered
They defy us still
For which we should be
Deeply grateful

Say Law

Two things
Every seed
And mouse know
Are;
Some get eaten
Some will grow

Two things
Every mouse
And hawk know
Are;
Hunger in the sky
Food on the earth

And we know it too
Interview

Are you bored with all
The endless quest
For meaning and truth?
Do you find ghosts and haunts
More nuisance than novelty?
You say you’re not impressed
By old souls and such trash?
Have you come back
To rob your own grave yet?
When did you first
Start playing with Karma?
Do you…

No, no…
You’re in the right place

Jade

Life is an un-necessary risk
While death is an acceptable loss
Virtue, like vice
Is an acquired taste
So that the difference
Between Heaven and Hell
Is hardly worth mentioning

Except
That we live here

Amuse Me

The wicked, sweet needle of my muse
Comes slipping into my soul
Insatiable lover
Jealous God
Nagging bitch
A twisting, tearing
Burning birthing
A honeyed e legance
Shivering caress
Never have I known such rapture
Or such blinding pleasure
Never have I known such anguish
Or such haunting fear
She may come again
Or worse…leave
Again
To embrace her love
Is to despise salvation
To laugh like the Masters
At my own damnation
“Bah, a small thing
After all
And a bargain at the price”

Midnight at the Border

You come to me in silver slippers
In the silent sigh of dawn
Over heavy purple carpets
With a sack of wine
You tell me that you’re bored
That you miss our love
And all that went before
That even Solitude
Has lost her savior

When first we loved
The world was engulfed
In raw, red war
Our city was besieged and taken
An arrow sped you away from me
Ours or theirs I never knew
Nor did I long outlive you

When next I hound you
You sat as Queen of Karkemish
Where you said that you knew me not
While your eyes laughed
That, of course you did
Twenty years we had together
To play our little game
Of ‘Who are you?’
Before the fire and iron
Took us again

I missed you then
Many long, empty, aching lives
When my need of you drove me
Like a rabid jackal
Into the wilderness
To skulk and grin
Howling and ranting
So that men thought me a prophet

Not until Alexander came
With his Macedonians
To enslave my people
Was I delivered
For they sold me into the West
Where you had gone on before
As savage as any beast
And chained with iron
They sent me to your master

Misegination

When you stick
Your nose
Into a big
Beautiful rose
You are as good
As giving it head
That delicate
Rich perfume
Is in truth
Vegetable cum

Vis

Self deception
Is the chief talent
And occupation
Of the human race
Faith, hope, and love
Have smeared blood
Guts and shame
All over our face
For as long as I can
Remember

But of course
That’s not my fault

Musings

One of us is valiant
Another is all beauty within
Still another is blind
While one hears- -
Too much
One and all
We speak the truth
Too helpless to run
Too broken to lie
Like the women who wait
For the long ships to return
What else can we do?

Mutter, Mutter

I can feel them
Gouging out my mountains
Plowing up my prairies
Crying the whole time
“Alas, we are all orphans
In this life.”
Dragging my oceans empty
Chopping down my trees
Lamenting all the while;
“Woe, we are all alone
In this world.”
Would that it were so

Oath

I shall not cease
From my blasphemies
Nor from my blessings
‘Till the cattle all come home
Until all the pigs
Have flown away
And the fires of hell
Are once again
Lit
In the hearts of men

Past Due

We live with the left-overs
Of our wars
Like a murderer chained
To the corpse
Of his victim
We take great pride
In the fear we inspire
But the corruption and stench
Of our constant companions
Never leave us

Paybacks

Gods fondest fool
A calf
A black calf
In the middle of the road
In the middle of the night
I was doing ninety five
I only saw his eyes
Mangled up and mashed
The two of us
We died
That fool dogged me
The next three lives
He was gonna git me
And he did
All three times
It got old
So I spun him
Back to beef again
Pity the poor bastard
Who clocks him next

Pence

In each birth
The universe is created anew
With every death
A universe ends
In the background
The endless hydrogen hiss
Fills the interstellar depths
And here we are
On a speck
In an outer drift
Of a whirlpool of stars
Half a million light years across
Being born
Again

Plea

The awful, aching loneliness
Grows out of the guilt
Of being left alive
Amidst this flood-tide
Of death
While watching
My own flesh and blood
Everything and everyone
I love
Swept into the abyss
Leaving me alive, alone
And guilty
Of not being able to die

Political Economy

Life is a circus
In a slaughter yard
The bright lights, the bright colors
And fantastic acts
Hide our eyes
From the stark reality
W e see on every side
Our fascination
Is the nose-gay we hold
Against the stench
And who can blame us?
For the crying of the cattle
Distresses us
And we must eat
Mustn’t we?

Reply

You cry for my blood?
I shall give you Judas
Wash you of guilt?
I spit on you
My beatitudes and blasphemes
Shall carry me far
Beyond your knowing
For your sins
Mean nothing to me

Written in darkness
Sung in the light

Regrets

Would that I spoke not the truth
Nor angels wept
Over this grave of mine
Nor iron ever stirred the ashes
Of the ages I have slept
Would that none of us had burned
To know that truth
Nor stakes received us
In the glaring day
When our smoke ascended onto him
Then we could have slipped away unseen
Dragging our weary bones
Down this filthy alley
Until the earth embraced us
In her peace

Small Talk

W ritten words…or spoken
That chime within the brain
Are traces of elder memory
Like runes cut into stone
“Diana” to the Greeks
Is a God
While to patient, dusty Yogis
“Dayana” is to become
The God
And in Jerusalem
“Dayan Kohane”
Is a heavenly priest
And rightly so
Many tales in numbers, too
The lowly geometer of Samos
Becomes a pi-man in Thebes
Should he live to enter Rome
Hierophant and theophage
Upon this starry loom
The muses weave my song
That they might enter
The webs of flesh
And laugh among themselves

Snicker

Love is like time
Most of it’s wasted
So there’s never enough

Love is like air
Sometimes it stinks
But we need it to live

It gets to us all
In the end
You know

But what can you do?

Sticks ‘n Stones

My heart wears a velvet glove
And sings a sweetness so sharp
That it slides in and out of souls
Like a net in the water
It bells the heavens
Breaks the earth
Yet is so small, silent
Hidden
Naught but the echo
Of a half forgotten song

The Four Filthy Lies Of Balmini

1. All of life is filled to overflowing with JOY and JOY which is beyond JOY.

2. The JOY is the result of MINDS unquenchable desire to be clothed in MATTER and MATTERS insatiable lust to become MIND.

3. The human mind may be diverted from this exaltation of bliss and fiery love, thereby plunging it into futility and despair.

4. This diversion may be accomplished by striving to do Righteousness.

Chewing the Rag

You are a sinner, sir?
Say you so…says I;
You know nothing of the matter
You kinder-garden tea-totaler
Now I have laid me down
On a bed of a million damned souls
As I took my ease
Amongst angels deranged
And were all of us drunk
On the blood of virgins

While you, dear lady, are a saint?
Called to the mountain top
Of holiness?
Into the valley of loves labors?
My soul does dwell
In the very face of Gods glory
His eyes search me like knives
And the wind of his spirit
Rings my empty husk
Like a chime

The Snuff

Burn up your dross with fiery love
Your wood, hay, and stubble
Shall give you light
And warmth as well
For the journey is dark and cold
And you’re all alone

Arm your desires, harness your fear
Your passions shall drive you
Along like prods
Your terrors carry you like a King
For the goal is far distant
And you have gone missing

For the weight of your sins
Spill out your own bloods wealth
THAT shall carry you to the precipice
The very lip of abyss
Cast yourself out, the journey is done
And you, as one with it

Negrito

I swilled my ignorance down
It was bitter
I wept on the ash-heap of learning
And it was very bitter
Behold, my weakness and cowardice
Have become a cell and chain
Woe to such a one as I
These tombs are filled
With the stench of death

Rosea

I am that which speaks aloud
In the silence of the soul
Whispering secrets long forgotten
‘As above, so below’

I am that which makes you holy
The dancer in the blood
The hidden, inner one
The lightning in the mud

Know that I alone am you
And you are not alone
I adorn the worlds with harmony
I thrill in brain and bone

Albion

Sweet song beyond singing
Sweet sight beyond seeing
Sweet nothings, sweet NOTHING
Sweet day-spring on high

Young Lover

Behold,
The power and wisdom
Of life
The very bone and blood
Of Mother Earth
Timber of heaven
“Hammer and chisel”
“Stone and mortar”
Flesh of our souls
Ship of millions of years
Harp of the muse
The voice and hand
Of God
In the earth

Well, really
It’s just us

Detention

I will not tease the cattle
“Wack!”
I will not tease the cattle
“Wack!”
I will not…. Maybe a little
“Wack!”
“Wack!”
“Wack!”

Trust Me

I hate this poetry
I hate this “mission”
I hate who
And what I have become
A disgusted, deep rooted
Un-moveable
Fills me like pus
I am sick
Onto the death of my soul
With the unending
Hopelessness of it all
Yet, here I sit
Writing it out in verse
Sick, sick
Sick
Onto the death of my soul

Comments on this poem/writing:

Tarna (63.65.186.124) -- Tuesday, July 15 2003, 10:04 am

Read and absorbed
I have come to this page several times now. Each time I find something I missed before or that has new meaning in each read. Some very macabre stuff in there. A very nice collection of writings. Thank-you for sharing part of your father with us. Part of him will live on in all who read his words. Immortalized by his own pen... -Tarna

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