Tarawa

Rat-tat-tat-tat,
A children's game,
Behind the ash cans and over stoop -
Zoom!........ On bicycle Fokker D's
They swoop on the peak-a-boo enemies.
A ten year old is Johnny now
And as I rove in my silent haunt,
I see him hide from paper-mache guns
And revel in the glory of the fight-
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
I sit on the ledge and watch their war.
Their squealing nose-bleats and bubbling lip-twangs
And I shake my head at Johnny's hope
And a lump in my ghostly throat gives up
A quiver for my son.

It's be ten years
Since the world came to the brink,
The holy war I fought,
And yet it seems just yesterday
When I upon the mortar's play
Fell beneath the banyan tree
And cried for three long days.

"Mary Lou help!
Where, in the field of golden autumn elms
Was the balm which soothed my childhood days
Into the rays of manhood's sun,
Those autumn elms could tell."

They never found my bones,
So, my headstone's but a memory,
A banyan tree, a twisted monster
Who craves my soul and tears my heart.
Each vein untwines
And laughs the whole long while.

"Mary Lou why?
Why do I sit here now,
While you're away to work
And our little son's a foot-loose scamp
Playing the game my childhood knew,
But my manhood killed
And the elms could tell,
The tarnished gold of autumn piles -
Mary Lou, why?"

And it weeps,
The Banyan that has been me
And laughs at times awaiting the more-of-me
To finish the game
And don the stripes and find my bones -
Rat-tat-tat-tat!!

Norn's Measure

One day there is to live a single day,
A measure given to us at first ray
And taken from the hearth at hiding time
As we are sure sun ne'er forgets her way.

The dance is raged in quadrilles of blue light,
The chanticleer has scratched the eyes of night
So, we may tread the stairs without our cares;
For, orb will always usher sleep to flight.

Never thankful for the breath we take,
Only for the ore we stow and make,
Never giving back the gifts we steal,
Always leaching world `til bubbles break.

One day they'll be wall at cavern's end,
Where sunlight's crown can never comprehend;
Where we too late praise cycle's charted course;
When we pay back the earth; the ground we mend.

Wrap Me up in Forest Greens

Wrap me up in forest greens,
The earthen shades, the sunlit gold,
And shun the powdery blues that have
Forever stalked my life.
Naked in the woodlands,
In the fire's dim light,
Breezes catch my candle and it rises at the dusk.

Sitting by the stream,
I dance until my soul mate,
Splashes me with love songs,
And showers me with his violets;
Here in midnight's sunshine,
I feel the minnows heartbeat,
Between my legs and waistline
And I am heaven's toy.

Forest green's my bedding,
As fleshy wraps as blanket
Covering my spirit,
With the never ending pulse.
In this undulation,
I hear and sense at nothing,
But like the satyr's starling
I soon secumb to warmth.

The night is long and longer,
The power is in my doing,
And arms are laced like patterns
Cut from the same silk bolt.
The stream becomes my dresser,
Washing the candle drippings,
Only to serve my bedside
With another fire dipped passion.
But now, another morning,
And the forest is my awning;
The earth my pillow, the flesh my soul
And he dresses me in green.
But miles from the woodland throbbing,
Enclosed in my steel encasement,
I am embraced forever
With thoughts of forest green.

The Spinners

Children spin;
They open arms as birds in flight
And keel about in fast delight
Hawking joyous to the sky.
Around they twist,
Tops of flesh and youth -
Robust in play,
Whirling world away to indistinction;
Then, cease!
Gyrations stop!
Unsteady feet, trustless eyes
Give a different garden of odes,
A wonderland without the glass,
Where Red-Queens run forward still,
And mock turtles possess their will.
Matchless tilt, this sphere of clowns!
Shame that age shall tear them down.

Masse Politicus

Election time, op' up the flue -
Kyrie eleison.
Graft the histories personal
Onto contexts never meant
To hold more sin than common.

A faction in the twelve;
Some contracts signed by Pharisees,
Those briars of judicial say,
In anterooms of stealth.

Dona nobis pacem.
Follies fly against the tide;
Kingfishers swoop to catch their prey;
Lords of tree and shore alike,
Patroons of the water locks,
Gates precluding truth.

They matrix for a brace of years,
The feathers nesting all their kin,
Until the clouds bring forth the rain
And it's election time again;
Then the villains don array
And tell us they are agnus dei.

I Reached up for the Power

I reached up for the power
And as I failed, I felt the power
Sting my soul as any dirt farmer can tell;
So, I cursed the power
And set my hands upon my chair
And sat until the numbness came.

The nexus of nothing then I,
As neither power nor the butter
Churned for long around my chair -
So, I closed both eyes
So the dizzy flow about me seat
Would disappear at my command.

The power reached and took me
And gave my soul a brief revenge
To sting back without courage
From my sullen chair -
But as I learned to strike,
A sudden thought embarked.

"Power waxes well for some,
Wanes for others more than none,
But before its final evacuate
It means to meanly fluctuate,
And like a sand castle's walls too steep
Even unused, it cannot keep."

So I, the power, share
And save none for myself
But thereby draw upon true power,
The sanctity of soul.
And we embrace, this hideous weed,
Which I intend to grow from seed.

Have you Ever Had a Friend

Have you ever had a friend?
Now, think now.
I speak not of the grass,
Nor the common chinks we peddle our gossip to -
Nor do I sing of the gaveling hacks
We see all day in our nightly day caves -
So, think now!

I speak of the snow at thaw -
And the rain on your window,
Who you trust with your heart beat -
And the sunshine in your wine;
The foam in your beer;
And the special healing touch of an ouchless strip.

I speak of the silent ones
Who know your heart
And speak with eyes
And if the roof should crack about
Will catch your knave's-ass when it spins.
That is to say,
The snow at thaw -
The rain, the sunshine in my wine -
So, think now and count;
And if, as I can, you can count but one
Come sip my wine and taste the sun.

Line After Line

I am an unfinished book,
Unread, unbound nor tarnished.
Pages clean with invisible print -
And I weep to think so!
So, with fiery ink,
Borrowed from the embered sun,
I scrawl without reason
Line after line, filling volumes;
And the comet sweeps my vestments,
And the leaves invert telling of the coming rain,
As without structure, the contents fall.
So, in short, I am a novel,
Unbalanced, unending nor varnished;
Cryptic writing on some bathroom wall -
And I laugh to think so.

Pieces

Life is nothing more than broken dreams,
Promises which are like mist,
Dust from vases shattered.
We grow a little, than wait a while;
And hope.
And while we hope, we build masterworks in our hearts,
Shades of Granada and the Estoril.

We paddle our canoes in rocky waters,
Over falls which we never can see until we breach,
Then, we plummet to the depths
Thinking we can never recover -
But, we do.
Misery is usually of our own making;
Others only contribute to the pantomime.

Yet, if these broken dreams are but dreams,
And pieces are but part of the whole scheme,
I take the happy and sad remains and hold them deep,
For if pieces of broken dreams are all we have
I'll use them to mend my soul,
And again my dream is whole.

O Secret Heart

O secret heart,
I tell you the tale no other knows,
Because you alone understand,
That the conflict of spirit has been long in the trial,
And you alone understand,
And I have sought your soul for a million years,
In all the wrong clouds,
In all the wrong tears.
O secret heart,
I know not my own heart,
Yet, you know,
And you know I do not know;
And I hear your cautions and heed,
Because I need to follow and learn,
Or else my heart will yearn again for another million years,
In error's mists,
And error's tears.
O secret heart,
Lead me to a pillow rest,
Your knowledge I must know,
For I must grow into your soul as you have grown to mine,
And not be petty puppy love,
Or sifting sands of passion's haste
But that of a heart tethered on for the balance of our years,
For drying mists
And drying tears.
O secret heart,
I pledge my faith to you,
A golden guarantee, that right or wrong
I'll stand by thee,
And if it serves you better than me,
I will endorse it all throughout our years,
For sharing mists, for sharing tears.
O secret heart.

Over the Counter Encounter

for Richard and Mike

He was an over-the-counter encounter.
His smile won my heart;
His wink my soul
And little did I know then
What I know now.
A coffee break, a dinner or two,
Then, to the blossom of my virgin sheets;
This little guy, this blue-eyed soul
Would be the one for me,
In his arms and his heart so deep
This is the vigil that I kept and keep.

We were engaged;
And shared some trips,
Some clothing and a chair, a lounge;
Then, somehow after seven years,
A house, the cooking, the cleaning chores,
The wonder of how we ever survived
The money, the bout, the touch and feel,
The reconciliation after ordeal.
Never apart yet, always float,
Some days are fresh
While others are rote
Yet, balance it all under the sun
And happiness is the heart I won.

Into the woods in the damp and rain
We fled for a week and managed colds
Then, home for a month my cold subsides;
But, my little guy's chest all cure defied.
Then, suddenly, into my sunshine world,
I held his hand as he seemed to sink
As I learned the plague was here.
An angry soul, who knows not why,
We shared the world, but not this one -
And I want to die and suffer too
Into this horrible harvest reaped.
And that is the vigil I kept and keep.

I quit my job to be with him
As better and worse and better and grim
Intruded on every waking hour
As I cared for my little blue-eyed flower.
I helped him walk and rubbed his feet
So he might find a few moments to sleep
And that is the vigil I kept and keep.

The day it snowed I carried him
To a place where he could see.
The snow he loved, and was meant for him
Because God knew from me.
But he could not see because the plague
Had torn away his eyes
And so I sat beside my love
And told him of the scene.
Then, his family came
And they saw me and knew;
Each touched my love
And wept anew.
"It's snowing Mike - and just for you."
And they went away
Because they knew.
And my little over-the-counter encounter
Snuffled me close and went to sleep
And I am always alone with him.
That is the vigil I kept and keep.

Ties and Rings

for my fallen

Here you are
Sewn into this quilt,
My love, my own, my world...
A part of this huge monument,
This memorial of shame
Stretched out beneath another memorial to shame.
I spelled your name with your old ties.

See there, the purple one -
That ugly, hideous purple tie.
When you would wear it I would laugh
And you would punch me.
And there, is the crimson one;
The rich, creamy crimson one I bought you
And loved to see you wear.
I tied the knot myself and slipped it to your chin and kissed your cheek
The day you went on that job interview.
You got the job,
And that evening we went to dinner and got drunk;
Came back and made love all night long...

So, I go to my knees before this quilt
And from my pocket retrieve a needle, two rings and more thread
And complete this work,
Sewing the symbols of our holy love and life together
On to that ugly, purple tie
So the world will know I am forever tied to you.
Yet, I feel shame.
Was I too quiet in our plight?
Did I speak less than I might?
For with life there are no sequels,
And we all know what Silence equals.

Washington, Oct. 1992

Washington March

We have all walked the same road,
The road that leads us here.
The one we paved with doubt and fear,
The one lined with guilt and rules,
The rules we have abided.

Along the route, they call us fags,
Unnatural, sick and blights to all _
But we know better now.
We really know better now.
The rules are not for us unless we write them all ourselves.
And if we feel we need appeal,
We look towards each other.
We have heard the taunts, the hate, the beatings, and the disregard,
And where has it lead us to, where? Tell us where!
The road we walk together.

A million upon a million strong
Pink in strength with lavender spears,
An army of queers
Arm in arm, sisters all
And we are not the storm yet _
We are just the squall!

Colorado and other Bosnias

It is sad when a state of the union,
Departs from the union of states _
So bound to brooks of boiling hate,
Their fears they need to legislate.
In their mountain ghetto,
The Christian right burn hope.
They spill their narrow margins
Down the snowy slope.
Ecclesiatic funnels, this tornadic wind,
But how we all do pity them
These sozialisten kind.
So we dump their products in the sea
Because we want to tell
The nation that we piss upon
This Colorado hell.

Von Steuben

Von Steuben was a sissy
Who went with Frederick the Great,
Beneath the sheets
He beat the meats
In a loving crotch-to-tete.
Yet, some how dear Von Steuben,
This German queen and fairy
Had time to found the U.S.A's
Scarry military.

His aide-de-camps inspired him,
The tall one was a blister _
Up ended he found heaven,
While the other was his sister.
But while Von S was drilling him
And other sorts of fun,
He still found time to write the book
For General Washington.

Von Stew was studdly as can be
Just ask his serving boys,
Who served him well when in a swell
Above the battle noise.
Still, General S the army blessed
And Yorktown did anoint,
While never missing, and general pissing
When founding old West Point.

So now they drum us from the corps,
For being oh, so queer.
They say we are not fit for hay
And turn us gingerly away _
Just because I loved a soldier by the name of Reuben,
Yet, they forget who built the place,
One each queer Von Steuben!

The Guys of La Cage

The guys of La Cage,
They dance to night oil,
They twist on the bar with sultry appeal -
Then slowly they peal their jeans away,
And pop their impressions to all comers.

For a buck in the sock,
They will squat near your face
So you pull at their pole
In the grease of your palm.
And they say for two more you can take them all home
And find them to dance a private pavane.

They're blonde ones, and dark hair,
Fat hanging and long,
And they writhe when you touch them
And moan to the song.
They will even french kiss you and whisper to say
How nice to have you down Washington way.

In the alley behind it,
The boys of La Cage,
Swap momentums of the evening
Like gossamer beads.
For they love one another
Like few corporations
And lend to their spirit
Strong pecs and hard deeds.
Dancing hot rhythms,
The smell of pure gesture,
They come for an hour to rouse entourage,
And lingering in
The palm of suggestion
Is the honey like lubricant, eau du La Cage.