I wanted to be a skyscraper once;

a tiger among men.

I wanted to be a lone dark tree

in a white forest.

I wanted to be a statue once,

a marble statue,

cold and poised and pretty.

I wanted to be a page unturned,

a symphony of half-notes.

I wanted to be a poem

composed of semicolons and hyphens.

I wanted to drink

like a whale eats fish

and eat like a Venus flytrap.

I wanted my dinner left on a tray

by the door.

I wanted to be a bright red pill,

the queen of the jackals, 

the sound of castanets.

I wanted to be a faceless coin;

I want to know if that has a name.

 

I have visions of her sitting on a throne,

and her eyes are old, so old.

She simpers, but her eyes are cruel as stone,

and her smile is cold, so cold.

 

Bound, gagged, unable to speak,

the court looks down in judgment.

"I just want to exist," I want to say, but I'm too weak,

and the Crown culls its claimant.

 

She is void, she is nameless,

a name even the Devil couldn't find.

Her name has faded, but she is ageless,

of sublime form, and of greater mind.

 

The universe was once ordered and beautiful,

as was her throne.

She sits, ever watchful,

as the world crumbles to ruin.

do you believe in god?
what do the enormous ancient serpents of the sea
the beasts of the land and the birds of the air
call out to you, booming, in your dreams?
what do the plants whisper on the wind
what do the insects measure
at night?

UNDERSTAND

one man fishes with a line, and another a net
the first stops when he catches a fish smaller than his biggest
but the second plumbs the depths for ever stranger horrors---
ideas are not straight, they are webbed

in a dry room among piles of books and machines
the boy runs his hand over the computer's keyboard
what did grampa do in here?

death is not the end, says the unlit screen
of the threads woven through our lives
and the light which is the heart of life
for we are like books that are songs
at once fixed and malleable, solid and vaporous
full like fractals because lines ricochet through a crystal
each mind haunted by hundreds of ghosts
and years of collecting odds and ends
throw open those doors!

the paintings and statues are mere by-products
do not mistake them for the Art
the angel that is shining between us
the shapes we have no words for

two people sit thinking---
can you distinguish them?

INTEGRATE

stay alive for me, he sings
brothers and sisters, we tear each other apart
with machines of silence, even as we sing
for the unity which comes through singing
the simple honest work of crying and being held
we are all shining and we cover ourselves
with blankets of words

i will map the state space of emotion
and bake a mushroom pi
i am here to accelerate ideas to .999c
and frame the curling traces on the wall
to see with eyes unclouded
by aversion or longing or categories
and become the kitchen knife---
a blade which cuts to nourish
here where there is no male or female
only you and me and the vegetables for supper

it is no longer a question of belief.

COMMUNICATE

there is no estate sale
only throwing paint out the windows onto canvas
talking to your neighbor
or giving away a cup of rice

i did it, she cries against the roar of the crowd
i did it. i'm here
good. this is only the beginning
we have so much work to do

they are singing
out there, over the mountain
i can hear the vowels on the wind
i can see their faces in my mind
let's go and listen

someday i hope to write something so pure
that it only reflects what you bring to it
maybe such a thing is not possible
but hope has little to do with possibility

so we walk the narrow path of words
our packs loaded with spices
jingling

Name"less, a.

1.

Without a name; not having been given a name; as, a nameless star.

Waller.

2.

Undistinguished; not noted or famous.

A nameless dwelling and an unknown name. Harte.

3.

Not known or mentioned by name; anonymous; as, a nameless writer.

"Nameless pens."

Atterbury.

4.

Unnamable; indescribable; inexpressible.

But what it is, that is not yet known; what I can not name; t is nameless woe,I wot. Shak.

I have a nameless horror of the man. Hawthorne.

 

© Webster 1913.

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