Ordo

When I fear silence
I am born in a convent

No father for one hundred mothers
Needed cold when I was gone

When I was gone
A patchwork intelligence

When I was a patchwork
The “I”s is unfolding

When I was him
Born to a thousand mothers

When I feared silence
I am silent

The guffaws of asphalt the faultline moans
I am this I am that

My mothers sing Ordo Virtutum
I am bound on the flagstone

Voicless among the angels
Heartless among the stones.

1.

There is a rock
that straddles order and schock--
that floats the film,
ever so ethereal,
between form and free.

I stretch my hands,
they are strong and good.

There is only art 'twitx me
and my soul.

2.

We meet as the shadows of the heart,

caught and froze on white sheaves with black ink.
We see through a novel darkly--
cary the scaffold of form before our eyes--
impose line on cycle.

We meet as shadows of the heart
and stay such, 'till the puppeteer deem fit.

3.

I am between things.

Stood as a stalk between wind and water--
a smothered dress between lovers.

I am between this and that,
will become either when I move--
when I step, or I fall, into the concrete storm,
motionless in fury--
furious in silence.

The ringing in my ears is no song.

Triad

I

We have built a blind god

I have no interest in my generation

the same sun burns me as built babylon.

We split the alter and cary it in our pockets

These kids have pulled their eyes out for sockets

As have I, the all seeing eye.

II

I dream of pixels of far reaches of the earth

As though I did not live here

And walk upon it to get groceries

Lest I die of sloth.

III

Time was a good old lady, punctual.

She died.

Her grandaughter is filling in.

She's often late.

Ballance

The cog and the flywheel kiss the sweat from each other's necks.

a mode of seamless execution--

a moan of perfect function--

Function dances with decay.

They are the same child, a different name.

The kids don't hear the bed posts break paint from the walls.

a mode of silent creation--

a muffled pronouncement of functional ecstasy--

Function dances with sin.

They are the same child, a different mother.

Every clock is a rusted clock.

Every child is a different child.

The cog and the flywheel watch the sun come up.

Work Poem

For those of you who do not know, I have the privilege of working at Jimmy John's. I make and deliver sandwiches. Today it was very slow. Slow enough that I wrote this poem to stay sane. It has nothing to do with work.

In my hour of alone,

I saw the fight for sins atoned

and cheered the beast whose highest throne

we saw and did not see.

I cheered him then as now I write,

concerned with essence over right,

enamored of the starkest light--

I aim only to be.

In gardens of pretend desire,

heathens tame and tickle fire,

bind and break the sacred pyre,

and still they are not free;

and still we are not free.

Strict

So we'll grapple the moon and demand of the stars

that they bow to their queen, render her what is ours,

'till she's drunk off the last pint of light for a toast,

and has left us, her suitor, to face him, our host,

and he'll bellow and rant 'till red faced he falls,

but we'll run, chasing laughter, 'till night covers all.

Then she'll come for her children, she'll come for her kin,

and blind us with mercy as dark as our sin.

Poetica

I once read every poem ever written.

Or some of them.

I let the others fall

like over-ripe fruit.

And I stood and I spoke

words of burning--

words of molten gold

which struck those around me

and turned them into ornaments:

without life,

but with purpose.