thinking up ways
to circumvent the
inevitable downturn
of everyday chores
turning to work
____________
hands charred and calloused
turning to stone
ashen with dead skin
peeling away in bloody pieces
leaving pits of memory
____________
the end of the day
brings its own ends
to the things that will begin
anew when the sun rises on
its own fading horizon
into the darkness
the cave of desire
we found ourselves mired
in the things we feel
the cruelty and anger
the malice and hatred
we’ve tred these paths
time and again
and those paths have
led us here
sightless and soundless
blind and deaf
unable to speak
from the gnawing knot
lodged in our chest
clawing its way
through bone and gristle
wanting to burst forth
with condemnation
into the darkness
deeper still
the black cocoon
weaving tighter
until we sit
the knot grown larger
heaving at the seams
of its self-made cage
we close our eyes
and the darkness is perfect
but behind the thick black
of our chosen cocoon
a pinprick
a small star cuts through
from greater and darker depths
than we had imagined
small but strange
the star wrapped itself
around the clawing knot
we held in its cage
and as the star settled
into the folds of the knot
the cage burst open
and the scales that had covered
our eyes dissolved
our ears were opened
and our mouth unleashed
we heard and we saw
we cried and we laughed
we opened our mouth
and from that place
of illuminated darkness
we screamed
turning inward
until you
have been turned
inside out
the chaos inside
spilling out into
the outer world
boundaries redefined
melting and melding
one thing into another
molding shapes from
raw substance
the inward turning
the outward expansion
meeting in one moment of
pure creation
the intensity of her
wordplay was almost pornographic
when she opened her lips
and spoke with the red-streaked
passion of heartfelt desire
she notched every sentence
with a phantom breath
that exhaled into us the
same desire
the same longing she kindled
in the kingland of her
endless mind
bleeding sharp verse and
clipping her own wings
to remain on the ground
that we may be newly born
bred from the stock of her
cosmic dictation
and spread our own wings
still wet and new
He rode himself into the ground.
The dirt rose to meet the sky
and opened into an endless pit.
The last of the last who
got lost in himself and
opened his chest to the world.
He opened the boxes to box in
the world and held up torches
to touch the lips,
firekisses and deep longing lingering
in touches of blistering moisture
licked from the coals.
His spirit bound itself in flesh
and turned inward, rolling outward,
riding from the poisoned ground
into the blistered sky,
shattering the dome of rock
lying in the his mind.
He rode himself into the ground
and found his seraphim there,
six wings covering his broken body,
touching his lips with burning coals,
saying –Come and see. Taste
these honeyed words and rise–
he closed his eyes
in his forever contemplation
his beard pointed downward
where his feet were planted
he kept his hands
ready at his sides
but his mind was raised
far above and far away
the heights which we climb,
for our salvation, for our success–
the swaying of the path of righteousness,
the ascetic, the excess.
An experimental film/dreamscape of a saint.
Filmed at St. Dominic Catholic Church, Kingsport, TN.
Sound by Neolithic Adding Machine
I. IN WHICH WE LEARN OF CHAOS
II. IN WHICH WE ORDER CHAOS
III. IN WHICH ORDER DISSOLVES
IV. IN WHICH WE RECOVER
V. IN WHICH WE RECONCILE/SYNTHESIZE
Diving Deeper 