From "Goodbye To The Ruling Classic Visionary"
These are some poems from my recent book. I hope that you like them. Love Cat
***All of the writing on these pages is copyrighted by the author/authors and may not be duplicated without permission. Thank you for your cooperation.***
An Introduction
The healthy gather at the common table to feast on the bones of the dead.
The meal has been sanctioned and thus blessed by the blindfolded leaders of the pack.
The sentry paces before the doorway to the great hall.
The young are ushered in and seated in silence. This is where we are taught to obey.
From Chapter One "Revisioning The Arc"
WE ARE THE WORD
We are the word and the honor
As standing before you
Restive guide bearers
Hope is the kingdom of the flock
Bear up
The sleepful slaughter ground
Is no place to abide
Stand before the fire of abundance
Never the breeding ground of all good things
Absolute power is the beckoning
Which makes visitation on the proper home of the Seeker
The rich blood of the Wise
Spills reluctant meaning on the heads of the holy
Dim students
Who here questions pressing
Attend as good children
When eyes close in absolution away from the night
DREAMERS
We are all dreamers though most of would disclaim it
Bathed as we are in our pagan rites born of ancestral design
We now walk the distant shores of indifference
While denial, the forthright warrior
Leads the lone soldier into battle
Leaning heavy towards the status quo
As if comfort lay in numbers
The dreamer gathers the seeds of her discontent
And scatters them
Bearing no fruit
On the windless plain
She opens her arms and stands naked
Face to face with the endless night
It's black velvet familiarity is a blanket for the lone soldier
A drunkard leans his weight against a crumbling wall in the gray dawn
A soft mist covers his coat
And tiny drops of moisture form upon his lips
A book of poems falls open to a worn and yellowed page at his feet
It has been perused many times before his rheumy eyes are drawn there
With vague interest he reaches out a trembling hand
A junkie sits in a corner of a room in a strange motel
With shaking hands she drives the spike home
Seeking refuge in the Mother's arms
Softness washes over her forgiving all things
Before she falls out she notices a tattered book at her side
Her delicate fingers reach out
The book wasn't written for you or me
By chance or directive their eyes are cast upon the written word
And it speaks like a voice across the boundaries of time
And and imprint as sure as the soldiers's boot stamped in the mud
Leaves its' mark on the wanderer
Maybe a momentous occasion that could turn a life
These things happen to the most stalwart defenders of the current reign
As insight strips away a facade to reveal something of substance
That the mask of denial cannot hide
THE WRECKING YARD
Selections
From the wrecking yard
Treasures gleaned and garnered
Kept still
From days
While sifting miles of silent skeletons
Twisted metal and broken glass
We in our work boots
Solemn trudging the mud for hours
Blending like good soldiers
With the brown gray wasteland
In our common fatigues
Never mindful of the slow rain dusting our coats
Our live perched on the edge of not quite outcasts
We were our own celebration
Hopping fences to the beat of midnight dreams
Any dance ending in the lush delights
Of untethered desire
The promise that made it all worthwhile
Make a pillow for me again
Your arm the safest cradle
Anywhere
Even in the wrecking yard
In years where distance provides
Some greater vision
A parallel is drawn
Then far too obvious
For our self consumed reason
To see it like it was
Broken angels found some fine selections
Without pretence
In the wrecking yard
HEY MISTER
Hey Mister
Hand me one of those empty boxes where I can put my stuff
Hey Mister
A dollar or a quarter is OK by me
My hand is open and exposed
Hand me a dollar
Hey Mister
I roam these distant streets in hot summer sweat
Unforgiving author of destiny supposed
Shackle the innocent
Tents razed
Sidewalks burning
Thirsty for a drink to oblivion
Hey Mister
Escort me
Hey Mister is this the hospital ward?
Give me a pill to ease your conscience
Guide me towards the palace of obeyance
Yes Sir I will understand your power
I will take the hand of respect when duress is my given bed
Maybe a ploy to disolve your pill logic?
Hey Mister
Can I have a blanket?
My compound has been destroyed under foot when I wasn't looking
Is you courage in question?
I am the cat with eyes unlike yours
Seeing what you cannot see with willful knowing
I am the seeker with free from submission
Laughing away leaves you guarding your lies
Hey Mister
Can I have a quarter
A dollar whatever
Whatever I can get from you I will take
I won't be your mistress in humble submission
You are the last one for whom I would retract
Any recitals
You never will know
So blow me a kiss on the winds of good riddance
To someday not meeting
I tell you goodbye
From Chapter Two "Current Cresents"
WINTER
Winter is just a state of mind that blows in on the winds of an unforgiving hand
Autumn shakes the bed of the careless idler
From his deep hot slumber under August skies
This is the season to tend your garden
While the young seedling struggles to meet the surface of the light
Bold and innocent
Face upturned
Inconsistent sunrise leaves the seeking undaunted
Walking out into to the common meeting ground is the coming of age
Teachings fall away
The garment of the heart is the coat we bear
Into fractions that make up a life
Scored and devoured
Innocent aging
Returning the light to the home of the child
PRIESTESS
We walk in our animal likeness on brief terrain
While posturing will at the feet of the Priestess
She is the revealing
I am the true friend who alludes to the heart of the commonality
Comforting wise and sageless meanings
Without the sword
Time casts elements of sleeping into the constraints on the present hour
The swell of breath recieved and exhaled
In remembrance of the forefather legacy
In the kiss is fresh deliverance
Sweet with forgiving and fragrant with dawn
Morning sees the Cat
Come silent paws through the garden
Recieved of the Priestess
He is the teaching
ALMOST (for One)
Nine times out of ten I looked over my shoulder
And thought you standing there
The boy on the bike must have said "She's crazy!"
I stared for so long
Seeing you
Me, white as your ghost must be
It was just those dreadlocks and a face like yours
And the red mountain bike
Until I got up close
Ring around the rosies
Pocket full of dreams
You talked of One
I hope you're there
It seems it has to be
Hardly a day passes freely now
You know what I mean
(For Riff and Leslie, you are missed in this world.)
WINTER BURNS
Winter burns
The columns cracking
Rusty pipes exposed and bleeding
This transition forms another
Wanton reaper
Failing on the dusk of light
Here we are
In corpulent masses
Hesitant to move
Wanting those that could have were
To plagiarize myself again
I take a drink and feel the stinging
Lessen tremors while we sit in darkness
Waiting on the muse
It is slow this learning
For the impatient hearts' relief
Slovenly eagerness to jump the next train
Attends us in between
Winter burns
In brittle fragments
Split away from form
Wall are crumbling all around us
Fly open the gates
It couldn't be too soon
From Chapter Three "A New Look"
HOME TURF
Intrepid
Absent minded
Willow trees dripping their fine green tendrils across the silk of your
Body dreams
When the hot dry winds of autumn
Race through the thickets of your city scape
This is the heralding of well remembered things to come
When howling through your tents
They leave you thirsting
In desperate need of a simple drink
It tasks your soul
Unrelenting damned repeating winds
Tear with sick familiarity through the wishbone dreamings of the aging child
Never laying eyes on the gentle hills of green
Where the secret studies
Perused in solemn searchings
A place unlike your own
Were hopes
How winning seemed the seasons
Green Gold Silver into dawning Spring
To the serious seekings of the child where dreams are meanings
True and real
We are contemplating these things
In silence
As the desert winds tear the pages from our hands
We will not submit at last to your flagrant howlings
Unforgiving ravager of all good things
You may rip apart the seams of our city
Set our camps on fire
We will perhaps stand before you
Tired of your ways
Lastly governing the land of the tides
Wherein weary complacency you thought we might stay
Stronger are those childhood references
When ideals set and focussed
Are never forgetters on the home turf
LOVE POEM
We will finalize this season
With the parting of our lips
The unspoken visage
Not hushed
Nor whispered
Unnecessary to reiterate
On the obvious glamour
That resides in a pleasured sigh
How could words imitate
The wild beauty
That hangs in the air
Between your eyes and mine?
One more kiss
To reference melting
Before we say goodnight
RIVER WORDS
Wringing river words from a towel at my side
They are the compliment to my day
Wash day finds me on my knees again
At the banks of that now familiar place
Homilies exchanged with the village women
Home unlike my own
Now embraced
Because I am your woman of the road
I will go with you
From extinct cities to the land of our hopes
Your desires entwined with mine
I take that fired offer
Extended on the palm of your hand
Call me from my duties
When the midday sun suggests shade
Our bed the obvious beckoning
I won't resist
Yours is my only lust
In this
The surprise land
Because I am your woman of the road
GOODBYE TO THE RULING CLASSIC VISIONARY
After chasing mountains of glory
In great glass palaces
Where paper promises factor in endless succession
With the Ruling Classic Visionary
I decided to take a long walk beneath the shadow of the giant
Only this time I took off my shoes
I walked in the grass and ate bread from the common table
I threw away my checkbook
This is the place where our roots are deep
We worked this land
And fished these seas
Before time remembered by the Ruling Classic Visionary
So said the words of my father
Hardly anybody thinks of those things now
It's kind of like an unspoken war in the city
The freedom fighters of the simple streets
Eyed with disdain by the followers of the glass palace regime
I think it is just a lack of understanding
It is a good thing to walk in the ways of the world
And not get too much religion
Icons of the flesh are just that
Temporary
It's hard any way you look at it
Struggling for substance survival
Or suffering in the halls of moneyed manors
There is always a question
Remind me if you think of what it is...
