Echolalia

SMALL MEN

You pressed us into lives and we obeyed,
married women not of our choosing,
obeyed the duties infringed on us,
listened to everything which you had made
and never once complained,
because we could only complain to you
and you never listened to what we had to say.
Hitler was a man like one of us; Stalin knew what
we were forced to know. The world is opened wide
for the mad king’s show, the world obeys the cruel,
and cruelly learns. But I am not a rebel and I am no martyr.
 I’ll take my duty up and curse it, but still I’ll take it up. Aug 11/04.

ACE DANE

What moron called her Ace I wonder? We all knew
her story; she had been raised by people better left in cages,
or fit only to be put amongst the pigs,
(though I know the pigs would have been
offended by such company,)
forced to cower in her closet as they yelled at her,
screaming how life was better with her gone, while the smell
of urine soaked her tiny cell
uncontrollably in the dark.

And now thrust upon another path half made in mockery
she begins desperately to think there was some education
to her life, some purpose in their cruelty,
and where Barbara Dane would have run
Ace Dane stands ready, pulls her gun
and fires upon the man she knows has done
some wrong, uncertain of what and yet she knows
he’s done wrong, because she knows he’s done
some wrong which only she can understand. Aug 11/04.

THE SUN HAS SHONE (A first poem finally added.)

The sun has shone and now
grows cold; treasure’s luster
faded, yet gold;
youthful joy is shaded
by the old. Aug 6/04.

POTLATCH

I give, but first I think
on what I have, decide when this book,
that stone, this buffalo dime
has served its purpose to me,
and then I retire it to other hands
who need it more than I.
That is the potlatch I observe,
to free myself from drowning
when cluttered by the world. Aug 12/04.

MASNAVI

I would die if I were sure that death
is not a destination but a road.

The worms are bloodied in the clay,
soldiers lie above them sleeplessly.

When the devil is less idle throughout the
world man is rendered slave to man.

The worm crushed neath the woman’s
body is no less ruined than the woman herself.

Oak is pierced by an arrow of oak; in giving heedlessly
sometimes we wound ourselves the most. Aug 16/04.

LUCIFER

Lucifer upon his father’s throne
defiled it, hunted the souls of men
but found no soul within,
only to hold a harvest of the wind,
only to hold destruction in his grasp;
why even the worms are better
off than him, who count it wisdom
to lay within the earth, nor long for
heaven’s touch which can never save,
or they against its touch dare win. Aug 23/04.

TIME AND MAN (The first line was told to me by a teacher during junior high.)

Time is Nature’s way of making sure everything doesn’t
happen all at once. Man is Nature’s way of explaining
why some species deserve to be extinct. Sept 7/04.

LET LOOSE THE CROW SIN UPON THE WORLD (The only line from a reproduction of
King’s “Carrie,” and the only line I liked in a movie I thoroughly hated.)

Let loose the crow sin upon the world,
unburden yourself there and unbind those
tight betrayals that I have taught,
give up God and angels and angles,
surrender a little to your lust.

And maybe you’ll be damned my
daughter, and maybe damned we
are already, but no matter for
tomorrow lives and today has died,
tomorrow gleans our future ways
upon the grass where Eden was,
hoping I’ll be Adam and you my Eve,
waiting patiently like the wind with arms
wide open to take us in, as I enter in
and take what I deserve.

You’ll be my Eve in either case,
I your Adam and your father just
as the first Adam was to his darling Eve.
It only hurts a little, I swear. If I can do it
its only because God lets me get away with this.
Prove me wrong preacher, or if you’d prefer
as I know you would, join right in. She won’t mind,
or she’ll say she won’t. It don’t matter much to me. Aug 24/04.

MEN AND WAR

If we knew each heart in times of war
would we leave our arms in dust, our guns
to ruin and the lust for blood unsustained?

Or would, after seeing the truths of other men,
their hypocrisies, ambitions and their thoughts
of us as lesser men who dare war against
them for a lesser cause like the will to live,

while they of course deserve that grace alone,
would this not lead to wars perverse and perverser
than we know? What will be the fate of men and war
when hearts are exposed and autopsied en masse?
Aug 23-24/04.

THE COLD PLAGUE

I’m freezing inside, burning like lyme,
walking on streets melted to glass
as the sun hangs
heavily like a leering
long crimson eye
and I would touch it if I could,
blaze briefly in the bright burnt flesh
of flame and cease to be in pain,
or cease to be. Aug 26/04.

ALTARIXUS

There is a special place of punishment along
the lake Cocytus where sits the heart of hell,
where ministers, imams, rabbis and priests are
arrayed as though a chain of fire were they now.

This is the domain of Altarixus, hell’s own son,
Lucifer’s creation, who torments his brethren
as they come, bleeding their sermons to flame
and casting every ember on their heads,

for Altarixus too is a prince of lies, and those who
speak the native tongue of hell and deceive the world,
or cast God as narrowly as they themselves, why
what fate would they expect but this?

No one sits at God’s right hand who speaks
so well the devil’s tongue, to gain glories they
have never won, or seek deny the world a true
chance to seek amends. Aug 24/04.

MOTH-FIRE

Delicate is the moth-fire, subtle the river
of heat which runs from you to me and bathes
in the flame’s passion our lives,
then fades but never fades. Sept 9/04.

TANKA, Tilize

On the plains of Tilize
where the grass has no king
warriors are solemnly lain
neath the clay. Sept 14/04.

TANTALUS

We are all as Tantalus,
groping only for
that we cannot take,
content only in what
we want, desiring only
what is denied us
for it is denied us.
Worse fates I know than this,
and have known. Aug 27/04.

THE BALLAD OF ISYLAN

My father bid me hide and hunted me,
for my cowardice in war.
Commanded by another he came for me,
going to the
places he had gone,
the wasteland which he said would cover
all my sins both madeand done,
and I was yet to make.
I drew my bow and fired,
and I think he knew the shot
would come. I’ll ride and I will flee.
His spirit I am sure will go with me. Aug 28/04.

MADNESS, TO LOSE YOUR MIND

Its strange to lose your mind,
to lose your soul, to know you’ve
lost controls you never had,
that bright cruelty, that black pain
that has no center and no edge.
My mind is lost, my soul is shed,
but crippled I will walk, I will dance,
crippled though I am, though I am. Aug 28/04.

WHO SEEKS TO DIE?

Why do the living seek to live? Because they live.
Who then seeks to die? Only the living, but death is not their choice.
Why then do they seek to die? Lives misspent in pain and terror are thrust on them.
But some desire an end. No one seeks to die. Life is simply regarded
a worse penalty to them. Aug 24/04.

DALJIA

What is a monster, Daljia? I love you
and you reject me. Does that make you
monstrous to me? If I was truly
passionately in love should I not pursue you
til either you wear down and take me,
or I make you take me, my love?

Go home. I’d rather be a monster who forgives than one
who can’t forget the maker of his wounds. Aug 28/04.

INCANTATION

I know the irrationality of it,
the slow recall, the bitter burning
to remember, seek to remember
what I have done,
though I know what I have
done, what words I’ve said I say it
all again, uncertain of what
I’ve written even as I’m sure
of what I’ve done, and what I’m
doing to myself as the day caves in,
following the darkness where
my mind has gone. Aug 28/04.

CONSIDER THE BRILLIANCE OF IT

Consider the brilliance of design
that not only created the spider’s web,
but the spider also.
What simple things
these patterns are, these woven lines
I reel along,
my own meager brilliance
here suspended in this design I make,
but whose design am I? Sept 2-5/04.

Rowing toward our lives
we suffer shipwreck at unknown times. Sept 14/04.

DRAGON’S BLOOD

There is a legend seldom told that dragons
who have shed their blood give unending life,
that in crimson youth can be, forever be.
The only price for such a prize is the absence
of all sight, the giving of one sense for the sense
of unceasing centuries, given to now
unceasing lives.

What blind immortals wander thru the world
I wonder, what men of nine lives, what women
who have robbed the dragon’s nest
still live on Britain St. or have spent a thousand
years at the Ginger Cat Café, reliving the same
cup of coffee, the same glass of wine,

till taste, till touch, till memory obliterate itself
and fade, and only the taste of blood remains,
only crimson stays with them and lays itself
upon them in their waking sleep. Sept 5/04.

GOD’S OWN

Perhaps I am God’s own, not his son
but his progeny, rendered no less a son than
he who hung suspended mid the worlds.
The devil too is God’s own, or was.
I pity him I think, who strove for more and was
given less, and he will always strive for more,
relentless to no end, for he was God’s own
and couldn’t accept he was God’s own. Sept 5/04.

SHIPS OF THE CLOUDS

Ships of the clouds, the windless waste
their sea, ships of no shore
unburdened by no legacy.
They carry no future nor into the past
they tread.
We wander with them who wander,
we live and die beside them. Sept 5/04.

THE ANGELS OF THE OVERLORD

A midst of angels I thought I saw, though now
I am not sure. All arrayed with wings of white,
in robes of white they wore, marching row on row,
a silent army from the Lord, from some unseen
Over-Lord, pressing their wings, their silver hands
on us, all of us no matter where we lay or stood,
crumpling our fears to dust, but was it divine
to leave not even our fears behind? Perhaps
whatever Lord they serve I serve, or not. Perhaps
the God they serve is more compassionate than mine. Sept 6/04.

KRONEN

A single name is lying on a piece of paper
lying on my desk amongst obituaries,
news reports, critical essays of the latest
literary fad, like the sonnet or Eliot’s Waste Land,
when I pick it up, this name, Kronen,
and study it, notice the flow of syllables,
its innate harshness, like an unpolished diamond.
Poetry isn’t so complicated I think to myself,
and make up a life from the name,
a past, a future, most likely a bleak one,
and get to work in the making of my latest son
whose fallen short of grace. Sept 6/04.

NIOBE

Niobe, there is a river that runs
between us,
a slowly perfect wall
that draws us both together.
I’m so hungry for you, for the
delicate caress of your
milk-soft hand
along my shoulder, my face’s rough
expanse explored thru every movement
of pale fingers along my skin. The river
runs, the wall draws closer,
you touch me and I touch you. The river
ends at the mouth of the ocean, the wall
at the foot of the mountain. Sept 11/04.

THE AUTOPSY (Based on the
short story by Georg Heym.)

Tended to too late by men with pinz nez dueling scars,
lying on a sheet of metal, a pristine mirror reclined upon
by whatever remnant of you remains in this too brief,
too fragile world as they reach with shallow fingers
thru the snakes
of your intestines wrapped about their hands,
peel back your bladder’s skin,
there is your urine as a yellow wine, another mirror
to the subtle bloating of your skin as ten times a trillion
mouths lay hold and make their silent feast,
not in mourning or in praise or in narrow judgements
against their final prey, as the doctors begin to crack open
the skull and there beneath is a splinter of your love for the life you had. Sept 7/04.

BALAREIL

Hero of the Three Worlds, master of his
own brief fate, born of myth and history,
for who can remember the edges of truth
which cut upon the lie,
Balareil upon his father’s throne
took up the blade Uthiesque,
hunted the great Drakyem, winged
dragon of night primordial, and slew
the Devourer of Suns with a sure
stoke of the silver blade.
But what has he done lately? Sept 6/04.

CONSUMED

That which consumes my thoughts
is enemy, a stumbling cancer crawling
through my mind’s inner places.
I endure though, because I must endure.
As I live this cancer lives in me.
Were it to rule it would be a short reign
I think. Madness cripples sanity,
then madness cripples madness. Sept 10/04.

The heart less idle in love
is ripe for a thousand wars. Sept 14/04.

JADIRON

Jadiron, last son of men, last to die in the form
of men, in the land of Sumynd in an age unwritten,
what will he see with the door to the future long closed?
What kind of man will he be, what ideals will he show,
if any; whose son will he be?

Left with nothing left but him will he welcome death’s
door, or close it and willingly remain exiled in the living
world, kept from his kin, his brethren? Sept 13/04.

THE BOKUIR, A SONNET (AS I WOULD WRITE IT.)

Upon the watery ways of a world unknown,
across twelve million isles of jungle and of stone
great spiders black of amour, black of bone
dwell on every spot of land from pole to pole.
They sail their ships of glass like silk they’ve
woven, they glide through skies upon the ships
of glass like silk. Theirs is a world of predators
unspoken, each soul can kill another, there is
no place of rest among them.

I give my words in homage to them, my token.
Their world is as our world in ways enough to know.
Upon the seas of Meiris or the native seas of Earth
death is no stranger, betrayal is not unknown. Sept 12/04.

THE KHOSHARI, A SONNET (AS I WOULD WRITE IT.)

At the mouths of life, the inland seas, mere lakes
in this world of ours, the Khoshari war constantly to slake
not their thirst alone, but violence for violence sake.
Dalijan, the god they serve, creator of all things they say,
has placed this fire upon them all, this burden to be slain or slay.
In the land of Akhalibre they dwell where the
sun never ceases to depart the sky, or night to lay
its brief dominion and make for itself a land of night.

They war and keep on warring, for god or desire
or the need to take a life, and I don’t know why. Sept 13/04.

IZHAR

I cull no laurels Izhar, I praise no man
I’ve known.
No one
heeds my words
Izhar, no one seeks assurances
I’ve shown. I’ll stay silent all my
life, give no voice my
words to speak.
Say what you will my friend, to you
my words are bronze, to me but weak. Sept 9/04.

PRISONS

Prisons need not always bars,
what lay beneath the skin can bind us.
A thought can chain a life to darkness,
a word can cripple as a blade.
I’d rather be given chains of iron
than chains of thought or madness,
or better still no chains at all
to bind us. Sept 10/04.

WHEN I WRITE MY WORDS

When I write I think on what I’ve written,
make sure each word is right, make sure each
line’s corrected. My blood is in these words
and I can’t rest. A flaw would rob my
verses and lesser make the worlds I pen. Sept 10/04.

THE GHOSTS OF THE PROPHETS

On crimson sands, on seas of crimson sands,
in cities of bone, the giant bones of beasts who as gods
strode forth the world
and carved the world anew,
on streets lined with women
veiled in crimson thread there sits the ghosts
of prophets who prophesy anew.

They light what is to come and has already been,
they who whisper ‘this way leads to safety,
that to ruin,’ who guide all those already
led as far as today and no farther, til the prophets speak again. Sept 12/04.

AT THE WALLS OF UIAX

A legion of men from Rellul did walk, from a cityof grey by
an ocean of shale the legion did march,and the war they
would come to would come soonenough, at the walls of Uiax
where heroes had died.A thousand brave men all armed with
their weaponshad come to Uiax, to avenge, to avenge. A

thousandbrave men to Uiax had come, to avenge, to avenge
a thousand brave men.
A legion of men to war did they come, dying for battle,
weapons in hand, at the walls of Uiax where heroes
had died, where heroes were soon to be slain.

At Rellul, the grey city by an ocean of shale, a legion
of women look for new fathers their children to raise,
new lovers, new friends, new blood in the veins of
their children to come; at the walls of Uiax lie
heroes unburied and slain beside heroes long slain. Sept 12/04.

DON’T MISTAKE ME FOR SOMEONE
I COULD HAVE BEEN

Don’t mistake me for someone
I could have been. We live, we grieve,
we give ourselves over joyfully,
we need to find
purposes in tragedies. I am that I am,
so even God has said, so I have said,
and say. Don’t mistake
my life for the life I should have had. Sept 13/03.

AN ACCOUNTING

I wanted only a simple accounting of my days,
to see the sun, to work upon only that worth working
on, love freely and gain love freely, hate freely,
so free that hate unburdens itself of me
and as an evening shadow crawls to self fulfilment
and self oblivion. Such is not to be, of course, but our
hopes find what we desire and give some semblance
of a better life simply by the lives our hopes have led. Sept 13/04.

THABIT XEMOU

Thabit Xemou I first created many years ago, a bald man
with his brown bowler hat, his funeral brown suit, my first hero
fashioned from Hercule Poirot and Doctor Who,

traveling thru space, thru time, thru worlds of frozen fire
and boiling ice with Dr. Gamot beside him, Dr. Gamot
descended from the shores of Zanzibar, his olive skin

a drawing back to the days of Arab rule. With them
stands Mereal, a Xylemer, formed of man and formed
of woman, descended from the shores of another world,

born on golden sands which I have ever after echoed through
verses spanning all my years, trying to make sense of the wasteland
I have seen in dreams, in dreams when I’m awake.

Every creator I think must want his child to succeed,
and I have spent so many years in making this son of mine.
I have plotted worlds and civilizations, written on the stars

themselves, tread thru the gardens of Victorian manors
and a hundred minor murders committed always by someone
whose motives never seem as satisfying once explained

to make my son english through and through, and I have
often been called english too, though I’ve never cared much
for the land of tea and people so irregular of tooth

that I think, yes, even I would be an Adonis to their beauty-starved
eyes. I tried and failed to make stories of Thabit’s voyages thru time,
to sit at Arthur’s table, clutch the sword of Caliburn and break it,

wander through the streets with Baudelaire and find some prostitute
to paint or pen and then stain her all in white. My, I wonder how Mereal
would fare, crimson of hair in the land of Ch’in, considered a demon

in the age of T’ang, lover to a princess and her lover, father and
mother in one breath to the future of the ancient world. Or for
Dr. Gamot to meet Martin Luther King and stop the bullet

sent to him, catch a piece of hatred’s making, send a gift for the gift
now sent, and end in hate what began in hate. My children will sleep
within these words, haunt those who seek them, live

again in the minds of men, and never dare to leave them. Life has followed
where art has gone. Live for now, hope for tomorrow, keep rowing toward
the inevitable shore, keep going. Sept 13/04.

TANKA

1) The temple of Ascarith

The temple of Ascarith
where monks have beaten
even the dust to submission
with their feet, walking
to no destination. Sept 14/04.

2) Chalyn

Chalyn was taught
by the spider a patience,
a hunter’s persistence,
to wait. Sept 14/04.

3) The fortress of Unioc

Walls that climb to the
sky’s expanses, walls that
hang from the sky.
Built to protect but
who is protected? Sept 14/04.

4) H’ruujani

My father gave me
the name H’ruujani.
All else he gave has
crumbled.
In death my name
goes with me, stays
by my side. Sept 14/04.

5) The pillars of Muiddal

The pillars of Muiddal
crystal-carved, stone-decayed,
of the pillars
the gods once had made
dust remains. Sept 14/04.

6) R’luahde

Two sons in R’luahde
sought the gods
but found their reflections
on the skin of water,
and so they found what
they had sought. Sept 14/04.

THE CALEILAN

The Caleilan were warriors of old,
unsurpassed heroes daring of pride,
the hawk born, the falcon-footed
laid hold the valour the Caleilan possessed.
Night could not tame them,
the warriors of old, unsurpassed heroes
felled only by Time; pray only you die half as well. Sept 14/04.

A MANDATORY ADDICTION

We possess in each soul an addiction laid on us,
we live possessed. None are exempt from the craving
thrust on us,
none are unbound. We were made
not to fly from the cliffs to the sky, but to fall.

We are governed by the clock’s black-splintered eye,
we are set upon by hungers which blaze, die wounded
and then blaze
after we have fed, given in,
hoping that this time the wound is mortal,
the death a sure finality, but of course
we have again deceived ourselves.

Judge us as you will for we are judged.
Seek our flaws and you will find them. The mirror
has no conscience,
it shows what it sees; the witness
that condemns is ourselves.
It is a mandatory addiction to strive and to hunt,
slay all ambitions and make them our own. The cure
is uncertain for who wants the cure?

All who are ill have sickened themselves;
the circle can never be broken, but made. Sept 14/04.