Ode to the brother or sister of the beautiful five year old dog I saw killed this morning, who just seconds before had danced circling with his sibling like black butterflies down a low grassy slope out into the street, the sun bright and warm for December, the moment pure and endless like all perfect things, the driver a fool for not seeing such a thing, his owner twice the fool for not being there, rejoicing in them, as I did.

Take some comfort in your confusion, my friend; I will mourn for you.

ruin ruin ruin ruin

I want to mute the world. I want to fade to black all coarseness, tastefully dissolve the ugliness into sweet and gentle beauty. I'll edit out the rough edges of humanity completely, leave the wreckage of machine and emotion alike on the cutting room floor, there to await someone else's vision, perhaps a montage of woe. What a soundtrack I'll design, something of such weight and velocity as to bring tears to any stoic. And then, lastly, I'll color correct her eyes into something more fine, something pure, something she's wanted all along, some elusive filter with which to view her world in turn. Perhaps a deep and shocking blue.

And then I'll compress it all, and post it on the web. We will all do this one day, exchange our dreams digitally, through e-mail, to amuse and distract in the space of a moment what took us our whole lives to feel, to show, to voice.

I have no voice.

I want to mute the world.

Where is your fire, my old friend? Have you forgotten its warmth, its radiance, its pure hypnotic eye? Or does it merely sleep?

Where did you lose your way? What darkness clouded your vision, what shadow covered your path? Were you disappointed or embittered, did you forget your two full cups? (They are there, behind you, only look and see. They await you patiently, as do I.)

Do the years burden you? Do they come thick as thieves, relentless and hard, are they the ones who stole your flame? Did thirty come and go like some clockwork assassin? Are you haunted, or afflicted with slow cancerous regret for a thousand dreams, a hundred mistakes, and a few missed destinies?

I came here to give you some peace...and hope. You and I, all of us: part time gods with salaried jobs, must wake from sleep. Wake now and remember yourself. Rise now and look up, past distraction, reflection, and despair, and see the sun again. Feel it take and give, feel it burn and heal. Open your eyes and blind us with your brilliant soul one last time, and again, and once more! before you sleep. Sleep, and sleep.

Wake now and realize the wondrous dream. Wake now, and inspire, and ignite us in turn.

Wake now.

I do not tread the darkened stair
that shaded land of whispered night
I will not see what lingers there

nor breathe its foetid, clammy air
I will not stray far from the light
I do not tread the darkened stair

for what I fear I'll find down there
I'll shut my eyes with all my might
I will not see what lingers there

in that domain of cold despair
that pit of hell and sweet delight
I do not tread the darkened stair

I'll not descend into that lair
where formless hungers mouth and bite
I will not see what lingers there

I close my palms to useless prayer
And dream of things not meant for sight
I do not tread the darkened stair
I will not see what lingers there.

silence is a burning thing

The beautiful whore, with the patience of a buddha: a heartbreaking siren who believes in you despite yourself.

The artisan of dreams and mighty wonders, brilliant and lonely, imprisoned in twisting labyrinths of his own design.

The ageless bard who cannot sing, full of longing and despair, squandering his talents on vice and unrequition.

The plated poet, wrongly born into this world, fully armored against its stings, yet dearly burdened.

The epicurean angel, whose footsteps ring in every heart, tragedied young and eternally bitter.

We are Hatori Hanzo's army. First we defeat our secret demons.

Then we come for you.

Anyone remember that movie Brainstorm, the idealogical precurser to Strange Days? Both films posited the idea of advanced technology perfectly monitoring, recording, and reproducing a person's brain activity, which essentially meant that a person could record any experience (dreaming, eating, sex, a heart attack or psychotic break), and that experience could be "replayed" by anyone, at any time.

Imagine the possibilities, etc. etc.

For instance, the next time you had sex with your partner, you both could "jack in" and he could send the feed directly to you, so that you would experience both your pleasure and his, simultaneously.

In other words, you could go fuck yourself.

I think she was too bright.

I think she knew her own self-worth from the beginning. I think she remembered every time she looked in the mirror. I think she paused each time for a moment, remembering, reflecting, and turning this way or that. I think she wanted more. I think that's what she thought she deserved. But I think she took every hurt and every shame and every wrong done to her and hid them carefully away, so that she did not see, in the reflection. And there they lay, buried in the dark and the still, and waited. And waited. And turned this way and that.

Such bitterness indeed, and for so little. Yes, she knew her own self-worth. Quite. Through hoary eyes she saw the last sad glimmers of youth and possibility dim and fade, and refused to mourn. Perhaps she slept. Or slept around. Or perhaps she lashed out, full of errant vengeance. Or perhaps she did nothing, and merely aged.

Such a futile thing, a mirror. It only reveals the vanity we crave...brilliance perhaps, our own glory, and in that light there are no shadows. And you cannot have truth without shadows.

Every desperation has a familiarity, because every desperation has a home.

The face follows me from room to room. It floats in the air over the chair next to mine, watching me carefully as I eat a midnight bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats. It doesn't blink.

Later as I watch television (Sci-Fi's Dune on dvd, looking very crisp) it is suddenly there on the screen, moving around, smiling and nodding, as if I wouldn't notice, as if I might mistake it for one of the actors. Ha-haaa! I say, leaning forward and pointing (not really), I am not fooled! and the face floats off the screen and back into my head.

The last time this face appeared it had an accent, one I couldn't place. Which was doubly strange, as the face never speaks. I think if it did it would tell lies, soothing truths masquerading as comfort. It's not like I have a thin skin, but I don't particularly care for smoke and mirrors; either speak plainly, or shut the hell up. But wait...you don't speak. (The face nods, and floats off into the dark to fuck with the cat.)

I wonder if it watches over me while I sleep. I wonder if it watches me sleep. I wonder if it sleeps. I wonder if it would ever sleep with me, or merely find its way onto the face of my next lover, a jarring surprise, when I open my eyes. Oh! Oh! Oh...it's you.

Pretty face, round face, lovely eyes. Great skin (if you don't look too close).

I wish I knew whose it was.

The fury is dead, its corpse left to wither and fade in the evening sky. The floodlands are treacherous and deep, but become something altogether evil at night, fathomless and black, full of things that bite and sting. You swim and choke in the dirty calm, your desperate splashes lost in the numb silence of the aftermath. The world is broken. There is nothing beautiful now, no great spiraling majesty, only injury. Fitting, that your salvation might be only yards away, when you finally drown.

I am dangling participle, hear me roar

Her mirror voice is gone from me, her dusky skin and thoughtless hands, once filled with simple lusts, I have no fear to feel again. My nights are overfilled not with her ghosts, but with strange memory, floodwaters, portents of a future past, and this awful thing of seeming promise, empty, and weightless, now haunts me little. Was I asleep from the beginning? Enchanted, drunk on flesh and blood? Or merely lost in holy reverie? How amusing, that my days now are merely days, and I do not miss such coiled and elegant distraction.

A smooth and polished stone would be envious of me.

Yeah right. As if this would ever happen:

She was looking at me with eyes that didn't see, or saw someone else. Not me. I was convenient. Proximate. Tractable. The right place at the right time.

"Fucking hurt me," she said.

I tried. I'd heard of this scene but it wasn't really my thing. I took her from behind and held her arms behind her back, at the wrists where they crossed, so that my other hand was free. She was shoved into the bed this way, her hair pinned beneath her shoulders, obscuring her face a little. I'm sure she was looking back at me, unseeing. Past me. Through me. I tried to squeeze her wrists, I grabbed her hair a little, maybe to see if she would yell. But she only made the same noises, whatever I did: pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. It was like her ecstasy was pre-recorded. This was just another evening. I was just another number. I thought briefly of her other lovers: rugged men, tattooed men, with long dark hair and bedroom eyes; bad boys. Sex gods. I thought of all the men who had come before, and I could see them fucking every girl I ever loved. The girls who would never fuck me.

"Hurt me, oh yes, like that," I think she was saying. Her eyes were closed now. Hurt you? Fine.

I yanked her wrists up so that her arms strained upwards, forcing her further into the bed. With my other hand I slapped and twisted her flesh, her hips, her thighs. I threw myself into her. I was rough, reckless. She gasped, and I thought I heard real emotion for a moment. I put my full weight on her then, releasing her arms so I could grip her hair in two fists. She started to get really vocal then. "Yes, yes, oh my god," stuff like that.

"Shut the fuck up," I barked. "I'll tell you when to like it."

The Moron Terror

At his inauguration, Bush was introduced to teenage soprano Charlotte Church, who had sung in the ceremony. Bush asked “where does this lovely lil’ lady hail from?” She answered, “I’m from Wales.” He asked, “What state is that in?” She replied, “It’s in Great Britain.” Bush paused and a crease of perplexity appeared on his presidential brow. He said, “Oh really? I’ll have my people look into that.” Church said she found him “kind of stupid.”

Actually....

I watch their beauty disappear, as if loveliness were a stain, scrubbed away year by year, revealing the true rough glory beneath, the tired, the jaded, the not in the mood for bullshit and fuckery. What is youth? she said, and washed her face.

I watch the shadows gather, I watch the disdain grow. I can smell the desperation and the impatience, I could dance to the tempo of anxious hopes...and fears. What was I doing? I looked away for just a moment, I swear, and this! I feel like a ghost who appears in their doorways, staring and silent, never noticed or heeded or even feared. Glass emotions, crystal feelings, dead leaves rustling in the attic. This, while they slept, or slept around, or merely lived.

But you. I only watched you become more radiant, more full of promise and raw life than anyone. We can amuse ourselves by running away from fate, but she'll catch us in the end, out of breath and surely vexed, then warm and tolerant.

Well...I can dream, can't I?

She crept through my window again...at least, I thought it was her. Her comforting weight woke me from oppressive dreams, and I turned to embrace her, but found her cold; her skin was smooth and hard and stole my warmth, like metal.

She was watching me, saw that I was about to speak, and bit my lips once. I think she drew blood, because she appeared to savor the taste. I saw her eyes clearly then, they were dark and alien and frightened me. Angel's eyes, I thought. Or a doll's. I waited, but she didn't speak, so I tried again.

"Who are you?"

who do you want

This, not surprisingly, gave me pause. Distracted or bored, she explored the sheets and blankets, and crawled within. It was like embracing a lithe and supple statue. I realized two things: one, that she was naked; two...she had a long, slender tail.

Her eyes glowed from beneath the covers, blacker than black, devouring all light. I felt her tongue on me, and my blood froze. I felt now that I had become like her, like living ice. I felt her pale thin hair on my stomach and thighs like a whisper, or a dying breath. The tip of her tail explored my feet.

"Who are you," I tried again. Stupid. "What do you want?" Even stupider. What was I in, a movie? A dream? Her tongue never left me, her mouth and lips were doing all manner of impossibilities, but she spoke clearly.

what do you want

She crept up the length of me, her arms and hands might have been iron, or lead. Everything she did was deliberate and reserved, as if she were taking great care with me, a pet. A trinket. A lover. Now she hovered over me, rocking slowly, her eyes pinning me as if I were some prized moth, and then I felt her coldness embrace me. The sensation was immediate and made me gasp...not pleasure, more like the cessation of a sharp and lingering pain. Is this what death is like? Was heaven merely the knowledge--and absence--of earthly flesh, of torture? And then her voice again, a seductive thing, a question? A benediction:

what do you want

And this she asked me, again and again, as she moved and writhed. Time left me and became a fiction, so that I thought I was in hell, and she my saviour and gaoler, coaxing me, threatening me, soothing me, so that I would confess, or denounce, or just scream and scream. My hands moved over her, searching, wanting her to be soft and yielding, until they were numb. And then she began to bite my face.

what do you want

"Release," I said. "Release me."

She stopped moving then, and merely watched me. I waited in the cold, and held my breath.

never, she said, and I felt her tail around my neck.

It was a dark and stormy night. Lord Byron and I stood in the doorway, watching the waves. Ten feet high, they crashed endlessly upon the great rocks, swallowing the shore and each other whole. He pointed, and beyond the breaking waves I could see even larger shapes, orcas rising from the depths, throwing themselves into the air and diving again, dozens it seemed; smooth and sleek monsters, flying, dancing, in dark Dionysian joy. The wind had reached a fury where the sea and its children made no sound: all was silent but a long low howl. Byron looked sad. He made as if to say, we will never see this again, his hand passing over the horizon like God moving over the waters. We forgot about books, and drink, and lingered awhile, waiting for the world to drown.

That first breeze on your face when you open the windows, that's me. I know you closed your eyes and listened to the night, because I was there: on your cheek, your eyelids, your mouth. I whispered to you then, and gave you peace.

I'm the hot morning water on your shoulders, the steam that embraces your reflection in the mirror. I'm the scent of you that lingers when you're all made up pretty, and gone. I waited til you left, and danced with your ghost in the silence.

When the storm shook your windows and stole your light, I was the sharp taste of the match, the harsh glare of the candle in the dark. I made you drink that extra wine, and I was the dream that made you cry out. And all the low strange noises that night, in the walls and the floor and the ceiling and beyond, aye, that was me. Everywhere. All around.

Looking for you.

I remember the hazy promise of your mouth, your lips, the taste of your skin: threatening, like an overcast sky, to drown and deafen. And through the storm a holy light that burns for miles, true and unwavering, from your eyes; it could call me home, if only you had wanted me home.

If only you had a tattoo, one for every regret; we would coil by candlelight, me thrusting behind you, my hands on your back, your hips, and my tattoos would fall and twist down my arms, ink black devils, to coil with yours, thrusting in turn. Would they beget scars? And who would wear them? My fucking is another tattoo, I give you ink madly, incoherently, with the blistering, naive joy of release; countless men have marked you thus.

I would call you a magician, if there were no such things as spells, and I would call you sweetest angel, if there was no such thing as Hell.

My night is a river, swollen with rain; what a mighty thing a moment is.

This is what I see: twin caryatids stepping down from their altars with surreal grace, smooth unblinking orbs guiding slow heavy heads as they find their way down the steps of the Chicago museum and out into the street. They move with a low, slow grinding, their footsteps like iron on the cement, ringing out and breaking apart into desolate echoes between a dozen buildings. Their bone white skin reflects the glow of the city lights and glows in turn, and they command an army of relentless, loyal shadows. Cars swerve and smash and grind into one another, a panicked herd sensing blood and death from these serene, apocalyptic angels; some are trampled anyway.

Now they have reached the Tower, and their hands dig into the steel as if it were clay; now they begin to climb. Bits of glass and steel rain down, drowning out the grinding. Their Grecian dress dances, impossibly, in the night wind. Taut alabaster curves stretch and flex; delicate feet lift and beautiful shoulders reach up again. They darken now, and become dim pale figures writhing slowly, slowly upwards. Now I cannot see.

I know they have reached the top; I can hear them singing. The ground trembles in sympathy, and I cannot stand. Far above, the nighttime sky begins to tear, and at last I am too afraid, and close my eyes.

There's color to my wings, but you don't have the eyes to see them. Mostly it's a spray of boiling light on the walls behind me, carving uneasy shadows on the floor and ceiling. You have to have the right kind of looking, to watch me fly.

I came here to tell you about the dark; I know all about it. It's a terror that drove me mad, into the light and flame and death. Have you never caught a moth in your palms? How fiercely the wings beat, nothing more than powder and desire, instruments of longing hurling us into the void: she's out there; let me out. Dreamings are nothing, murdered by first light...curiousity and fear are the only gods. They become flesh and walk among you, in the night. I am a glimpse of them, something in the corner of your eye. I am the sound of their footsteps, the beating of wings against a pane. I am the faint scent of immortality, and I want to go home. I never asked to be an avatar.

I never chose the light.

"It has to be done, and it has to be done NOW!"

-- Overheard this weekend while waiting for fireworks in a large field behind a big firehouse. One six year old girl was busy shoving dried grass clippings down the back of another's shirt. Both were laughing hysterically.

She was a soft, lithe tattoo for his mind; her golden hued skin seeping into his dreams, sharply, unhurried, so that by day he could wear her proudly, for no one: ethereal ink and scar. At times he could feel her gaze upon him, a subtle and undeserved comfort, like the touch of a seraphim wing. And this, too, meant nothing, and nothing; what hell, possessed by a requiem he could not write.

Echoes are just miniature hauntings, he thought, and gave up on sleep.

For the girl who hates poetry:

the mowed grass clinging
desperately to my shoes
like shipwrecked sailors.

They asked me what I thought, and what I think is this: your lack of pretense is cunning, subtle, effortless. Oh, you're a sensual, sexual creature; the tucked in chin, the averted eyes, now staring, slowly narrowed in lust. Like a novel, like clockwork, the mouth parts, lips heavy and moist with the need for breath, flesh, proof. Soon the air is alive with your hot pulse, even through clothes, now discarded and empty, their purpose well served. One could forestall the Dionysian frenzy to follow, one could coil with you, loving, in patient seduction for hours, but soon, how true: the real you, biting and scratching, loudly, softly, gripping your lover in fervor, fever, and delicious sweat. Your fucking is wondrous, and shames the gods.

One could talk for hours, one could travel the whole world with you, and never know. But I was asked, and so I think.

Subliminally lunging at everything I consider perfection, knowingly mad; it is like digging for gold on a crowded beach, telling passersby how much I love digging. Everything. Everything. Everything.

He pounded on the glass until the bones fractured, and every blow was a small nova of pain.

The way she was looking at me, it was like a bad Adrian Lyne movie...bad, and intolerably sexy. I remembered a clear space, a path through my room where I probably wouldn't trip, so I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder. When she complained that it hadn't rained in weeks, not really, all she wanted was a good storm, I bit into her hip, the soft white flesh where shirt and skirt retreated. She tasted of lilac. "Thunder," she said. "Heat lightning."

Naked, I lit some candles. By this light I could see her, serpentine, pale and shadowed, all the way to her eyes, staring. Her voice, disembodied in the still, asking for poetry. "Severed from heaven," I said, "consigned to the bruised and sensual: light from the water, music from the stars, her fell angelic grace blinds me, and undoes me quite." She stretched and sighed contentment, somewhere in the darkness.

Breathless, she told me not to think of her, to imagine some other lover. I covered her mouth with my hand, closed my eyes, and quickened my thrusting.

It didn't work. I could smell lilac.

Later we watched an old movie, and she fell asleep, her feet in my lap. I watched her for some time, admiring the curve of her neck as it disappeared into her hair, thinking about breakfast.

It was late, my mood was low. All I could think of was all the places in the world I'd be...alone. I was on the phone, the conversation was going something like, yes, I know it's hard...it is a rollercoaster, all those ups and downs, but that's natural. Yup...I've been through plenty of those. Things are looking good, you're actually having fun, you forget how miserable you are, but then suddenly you remember: oh, right...reality. And then it's down again, down down down. And all you want to do is get off the ride, but no...this ride goes on...and on...and--

CRASH! Hold on there!

Wha--? Christian Bale?! What are you doing here?

Saving you from yourself, of course! What's that you're listening to?

Uh...Enigma?

You're a fool! Stop it immediately! Enigma?! Here, have some fucking orange juice, and let's get you on your feet again!

Okay.

Things aren't so bad! Why don't you try being an evil genius for awhile? Here, have some Rammstein!

Boy, Christian Bale, you're the greatest.

I know!

intermezzo

Embracing. She's in his lap, he's in hers, and they've just started to sweat...bits of her hair cling to his face, and his hands now slide with ease over her skin: hips, back, strong arms, he whispers to her with fingertips. There is no world now but eyes, beautiful eyes, parted lips and the tropical storms of pleasured, heavy breathing. Now everything is water, from their mouths to their flesh to the rising, falling waves of their bodies, desperate for drowning. When he tenses, it's violent, and he bites her above the breast, near the shoulder; she twists into him, as loud as he is silent, a sweet cry, she's possessed, she's not herself. Thirty seconds: they growl and sob and sigh...and finally take stock of their watery death; she laughs, and he kisses the tears.

He won't let her move, he just looks at her, he makes her stay like this for some minutes.

silence is a burning thing
a creeping demon in the brain
the endless hour, the frozen rain
they cannot die like candleflame
but ever burn, and turn, and sting.

I found her one morning, but her eyes belied the night, of a dark and secret past, or perhaps just broken memories. We spoke, she smiled, and then she danced her sacred dance, perfectly, and I was seduced, slave now to her innocent impermanence...and unable to pursue.

We too easily consumed must fight and bleed, or asleep remain. Let these lockstep midnights come, then; I am ready for death, and not yet weary of battle.

I've dreams of an old melody, sweet and true, that I cannot play...and yet my fingers move, as if I knew some future knowing, or someone's else's dream. Do you think she dances there, softly bathed by radiant night? Then tell her to wait, I'll be there soon.

I dream, too, of storms, their fury, and the silence in their eyes...now drowned to distant lands, waking, real, absurd, so bright and full of promise....

What? Bright? The moon's in my eyes. My god, I've been asleep. What was I dreaming? What time is it?

What was I trying to say?

Tonight I measured the pain of your distance with only two pills
a glass of water and ink; a ritual of shadowed prayers.
Won't you listen to the story of a man who captured her smile
with the familiar lovemaking of pen and script
instead of lips?
Can anyone ever truly know her softness
her impossible warmth
otherwise?

The medicine bravely works its one miracle
in the dark, in perfect blackness, one perilous vein after another, a blind prophet
of sleep and dreams and a glimmer of hope, like a lover's embrace
relentlessly fading with the dawn.
It doesn't matter
my fondest memories of you endlessly endured
in waking nights;
why not tonight?

Somewhere between my thoughts, there's a place where I can sleep. It is holy ground, a sanctified place of no concern, no worry, no doubt or fear or regret. At four in the morning, coiled and twisting, mad with lucidity and on the edge of despair, I remember this place and secret myself within, slowly and with even breath, and find at last a peace: a silent wordless prayer, unasked, unanswered.

Should I start my own religion? The priestesses would wear cream colored robes, something between a cloak and a shawl, and they would be beautiful and happy, endlessly content within and without my temple. There would be music, and art, and no judgements, and the music and art and poetry and anything that elevates the soul would be wrought not for ego, but for everyone. All clerics would practice ennobling combat, and the careful study of discourse, and all manner of healing: physickers of mind and body and spirit. They would be free to love, but always wary of passion.

The tenets of this faith are unspoken. The tenets of this faith must come from within.

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