pentecost

it was the peak of summer

and they were all gathered in one place

the trees

and their leaves

by the stream

waiting for something

out of heaven

a star

perhaps

or a sign

waiting

as he who waits upon the Lord waits

green and immovable

when the sudden moon rose

and a chill fell

and with it 

a rushing wind from beyond

roaring

in a thousand distant tongues

the secrets of another sky

and the breadth of unknown spheres

and fire danced in the trees

ignited by the holiness

the otherness

of an unworldly speech

cold and empty

dry and bitter

unpolluted in its abstractedness

and nothing like a wheelbarrow

red or not

but the effect was still the same upon me

for the trees spun one thousand images

through every spoke of autumn color

and each was

indecipherable in its completeness

though none of them were drunk

as it was only noon.

epistemology

all that matters is

and what is

is beyond us

us

in our asphalt forests

surrounded and impossibly removed

from granite or ether

or either

for now that we are grown

to such great and terrible heights 

we stand worlds above 

our hallowed roots

and yet

still slip softly down

to empty air

on stillborn shorelines

down

through the thick and throbbing swell 

of blood-flecked waves

down down

below the foaming surface

ghostly in thought

down

ever softly down

to listless twilight grey

and shadows half-projected

by stars we’ve never seen.

i rise electric

a sunbeam introspect

fabricating bright vistas

to please the derelict 

inside

no, my walls aren't true blue

but snake green shame

can fill a room too

so I keep it this way

like a box for things hidden

silenced

unwanted

forbidden

suppressed lest what beguiles my eyes

be less than what's the very best

that's how I am

just like all the rest

i fear to conjure any test

to what gives life its zest

but I digress!

i rise electric

and shock the world to color

and the gray of truth subsides to me

the iridescent other

Yellow leaf, don't fall far.
For in your decline,
So swift and so soft,
We witness the death of a star.

A lifetime in a novel, the universe in a poem.

and so i lived

tumbling down a catacomb tunnel,
such as slips and slides
blindly, sandy and sinuous
without sacrificing
loud new york angles

no streetlights

sharp and extra
no grip
just an eternal truth
of falling wooden blocks

the moon in a man

the 

moon

they say

has a man

inside her but

we know better

each man actually

has the moon in him