Foreword

A Taste Of Paradise is a poetry manuscript modified from a poetry chapbook I wrote under the guidance of Dr. Ricardo Sanchez.

- Stephen W. Cote, July, 1995

A Taste Of Paradise

A collection of poetry by Stephen W. Cote

The Singles

Rib Of The Chapel

From the first celestial vision
Through the corridors and causeways of time
Beyond the common corner crucifixion
Of someone drowning their dreams in wine
The very staples of our prayers are fulfilled
Everytime the hunger of need is quelled
In the broken down church where our golden dreams are beautiful
Behind these panelled walls aches the rib of the chapel

Hands linked and mend into a circle
Old foes relinquish hate to the wind
Everyone vows to work until
Their kind can compose a worthy message to send
Life-blood pulses within the walls
In a place where the inanimate bares knowledge of the apple
And now when the prayers are not answered with a saintly call
They break down and crack the rib of the chapel

Eternal Shadows

Eternity
- the prayers unanswered
Indemnity
- the sin unforgiven

And I pray
- each night, under the moon
And I say
- God, will you answer me soon

Heaven
- the prayer is answered
And then Hell
- the reality that no one listened

The Bee Keeper

The rocking chair at dusk
- in a field of flaxen fulfillments
Where the honeybee befriends -
An orange and yellow cloud
- wanes with the light of the sun
And then I reach cognition
And realize I am - human

The Bee Keeper (revised)

A world can be most beautiful
Where no spectrum dares limit the colors of the sky
- the air so sweet with pollen and a life so bountiful
Caressing an autumn auburn field of an acorn's amber cry

The rocking chair meadow just outside of everything right
As the wicker filters falling sun and crescent moon
- the meadow dusk a golden sunset between day and night
I felt myself at liberty to stand outside and watch from memory's room

Bouncing, buoyant and babyish, the honeybee flies to and fro
Carrying the sweet nectar of this land
- and I, the beekeeper, watching the honeybee of the rocking chair meadow
Realize in reality and memory, I am still only human

The Seduction Of Words

Seduce me my Queen
Seductress, my wine
Embrace me in the arms
Of the words on a love letter's lines

Children's Anthem

Sign post on the causeway
Another bird's song is gone
Seashell on a sandy beach day
Loved in a six ring plastic line
I toast god with a chalice of gold
Drunken in the street, my mind broken and sold

My children will dream in this anthem sweet
Embraced and fixed to die in this time so discreet
And little can I do to mold them a paradise
Blinded on the highway by the oncoming headlights

Gray clouds in the canvas of black
Of the painted stars above
Seeping life through a sidewalk crack
Snubbed under foot - the sin of it
The crucifix I prayed by once, now is obscured
By a gun insures my life, swinging on my shoulder

Lost hopes on a river boat
A one way ticket on the Styx
My generation lost for want of a cause
One new, one we could accept
The stars are lost in a hollow black
I exchanged my cross for a gun

     - and now I can never get it back

Dreaming .. In Technicolor

There is a part of the mind
Touched by God's grace
- painted in colors of a heavenly kind
That I call simply -
               - the rainbow place

Knowing no race, color or creed
The rainbow place is a home
To those of a mortal need
- alone in the material zone

And standing all alone
I can sense someone else knows
For his absence of color is shone
- his creed shatters peace like a morning crow

And I do not know
Which grieves me most
- that my rainbow place is -
               - a transparent light show
Or that Lucifer tried to hide in its shadow

Romancing Applesauce

I married an apple from the tree
With my insightful words of humanity
Lo, the serpent encircling my mind
Venom in my heart and foreshadow on my mind

Expediently, I clothed my nakedness
In a warm cloak of temptations bliss
Away I fled from paradise's embrace
The serpent and my spine still interlaced

Miles down the trailed of the damned
So gentle and kind was a man
Who spoke unto me words soft and sweet
I knelt before him, the apple at his feet

"Stranger," quote I to his grace
Though he broke my quote with a gnarled face
"Death, decay, corruption," he softly versed
And I stood and left him speaking things worse

The serpent tightened around my spine
And with the apple outstretched I raced for time
Down a path so black and dreary
And a woman I met, her smile surely was weary

Courtly, I bowed with majesty
And placed the apple at her feet so quaintly
She crept a smile across her face
Optimistic vengeance giving her words a bitter taste

"Happy love-joys and nosegays
And thank the Lord for each sunny day."
And yes the sun did shine, and
Her words seemed lost in this forested land

By the grace of God she saw the apple
And how it gleamed in a color so supple
Alas she only let it go to waste
As she thought of how delicious a smashed apple would taste

And of all those people, one happy one glad
The other lonely and mad
I thought of them as I fled to the garden in loss
With a new idea of humanity
     - and a pulpy applesauce

Porcelain Savior
     (or Visions In My Toilet Bowl)

I remember beauty
     - and the gun in her eyes
     - and the hate in her hands

Bravely I spoke to her
     - words of friendship and desire
     - through the waves in my toilet bowl

With smurfy intentions
     - a rainbow bright chastity
     - my little pony, lovely, cellophane dream of mine

Without a sound I pray
     - speaking through my toilet bowl
     - another vision in my toilet bowl

Despair, despair, hating apathy and despair
     - I felt so clumsy as a whale looks on water
     - her tongue lipped shinning lips, all in my toilet bowl

A cartoon, surreal perfection
     - a modernist's neo-cubist vision
     - a drunken pleasure in my dreams

I drank of my dreams
     - intoxicated by desire
     - hungover when reality hit me

Am I too scared
     - is she just another blind bitch
     - or is my porcelain savior just deaf to my prayers?

A Personal Note

You can say something
Ten thousand bloody times
And it will still mean the same thing
You just know they won't understand it
Until they receive it with open arms

Perhaps on that note
We wouldn't have all this pain
If we weren't
A Siskel and f***ing Ebert
Who cares if you don't like it
You do it better
At least I tried

Gothic

Once bitten ...
Every woman, every man
Every face on the street,
Each blessed chalice
And fallen cross at my feet
Are like song birds to my eyes

Lo, Gargoyle please
Protect wounded hearts
Pride our lives with safe passage

Clinging to a nightwall
Under a stained window, love of a rose
The suckling upon my loved ones and all
Has left me without a parceled care
Sweet nicotine and alcohol can't appease this thirst

Decaying after a thousand years
Lo, the gargoyle stands - watching
Locking my heart up tight

Deafening, the scream of the eagle
Her head a plume of white in the sky
Let me live, just one more night, just one
A black cat crossed me on my side of the border
My flying buttress is my saving grace

Lo, Gargoyle of my dreams
Gargoyles, please
I've been bitten
Put this soul at ease

Whatever It Is, Pay Attention To It

I shed no tear for the parting
     - somehow, it was not appropriate
I never assumed she would lose
     - the tiger I saw in her eyes
Perhaps it was only a reflection
     - of the beast in myself

Egyptian Reflection

Golden eagle land
Voices of the sand

The Cyprus lady's hand
Is lame to the band

Dusty echoes whistle 
Through sage and thistle

Though the sphinx lies
The air breathes and tries

Terminal Walk

A succession of a pool
Milling mindlessly, silently
And helplessly

I listen - soundlessly
Deafened by the echo

I saw the fat lady dance,
And yet, she cannot sing,
In the silence,

Only milling and searching
For the gate
And the next ride.

Why I Don't Like Texas

Deep in the city
A jungle of steel,
Where vines of angled concrete
And ant farms of feet
Are all wandering -
And I wander, and wonder
About the Alamo - and the glory
For inside it holds history
Imprisoned by Texas' principality
Of the Queens
Of fashion
And industry
That they exploit the dead
To be the biggest something or other.

Quality Photographs

Quality photographs
Like memories left behind
Each moment saved
- a wish to go back
And live it again

Quality photographs
Of red hair and
Sweet dreams alive
- sweetness of lips and soul
I slipped a rung and fell

I kept a quality photograph
Though no longer
Does it seem worthwhile
- for it is only a memory
In the sadness of absence

Once I felt lifeless
And with apathy
Then depressed without sensation
- now only a quality photograph
That I may look upon

To take away the story
So that I can no longer
Sing the song
- I am without humanity
And without memory, I am without love

I wish I could go back
And kiss you for the first time, again
But I can't go back, I know
- I wish I could prove I love you
But I can't say that, I know

Quality photographs
And incandescent feelings
Mythologically wonderful memories
- of how we used to be
And how I wish we could be again

Runaways Come Home

The night is cold
The weather wet
And with nowhere to run
While you start feeling old
You wish for a home
Anywhere you can be loved
And never be left alone

The shepherds wept
And the sheep bled
You had no one to talk to
Hunger gnawed and the scraps you kept
Just weren't enough
To carry you over that night
To bring you home

Runaway, go home.

Passionate Vision

The vision transcended
All of time and space
Cosmic in its array
And theatric in its grace

"Caution," warned the wise man
Whose rouge lips were stained
And whose ears listened only to the sound
Of the words of love he never spoke
Unto the one that really mattered to him

The time lock to the vault broke
And the wisps of mist settled
Revealing the final treasure for all of us
A trophy of gold - for the fools

"Aching," cried the wise man
Whose temples flared in pain
And whose chest glistened with water
Of the fluid of red life he bled
Unto the floor of the history of love he once made

The lesser gods blessed
The child with the vision
Of electronic friends
Absent of memory and feeling

The Rest Of The World

Invalid steps on the stone
When she is walking home

Calliope - her dreams
Her breath a misty sheen

Invalid steps on the stone

I recorded a vision that never sold
No one read it, even when I died alone and old
Fantasy fairies and warrens of animal machines
Estranging human nature, but no one knows what I mean

Once, one single time, my prayers were answered
And the invalid read the word and understood
Am I to simple to be worth a song
Or to complex for the rest of the world to sing along

Invalid stepped on the stone
As she walked on her way home

With nothing to excuse
But a mere memory and a single moment in her life

Independence's Cameo Appearance

On a dry and graveled road
She is burdened with bags
- of seeds to be sown
Calling, crying for a drink
Of water from the sky

Only from the heavens
Will the water sweetly kiss her
Like her lover laying in her dreams
Only in the form of this rain
Will it not casually dismiss her
Like the man who lied to her heart

Independence declared
Throwing away everyday friends
Preserving her glory hour
Of just her braving the rain

In an amber acorn field
Running away to the lovely embrace
Everytime there could be something to feel
Crying out for the rain
For the soothing, cool rain

When the thorn pricks like the sword
And her shield is only a thimble high
She has no rose tint to fantasize her heart unarmored
Her heart is amored
Thirsting still for the cool rain

Standing Aside From Yesterday's Hero
     (A contemplation of Ken and his guitar)

Mellow bridges
Melting madly
Flowing under fingertips
Sound resounding
Words rebounding
Echoing from our lips

Mellow bridges
Falling red
Kissing sounds of wind

Fiber

It encroaches us
It surrounds us
We feed from it, or
It feeds of us

We aspire from around us
Or we aspire from within

An effervescing life form, we begin
Stapled by our creative friends
Until we are inspired from within

The Moral Fiber (adapted from Fiber)

I alone lie
All of you embracing me 
From inside
My hands weeping angel's milk 
Because their hands are screaming
Crucified cries



Rapture (adapted from Fiber)

We, a one based 
Creature enraptured
And defecated upon our
Own self identity
Reach out, reach out
And touch the sky - far from
This apparition, we cling to our
Belief
And no longer see
What we truly are
Inside

Janet Of A Thousand Storms

Janet of a thousand storms
Embrace me in your windy arms
Don't forget for me your night's love
Just shine for me from your star above

Janet of a thousand dreams
There's only one I'll be keeping
My heart bleeds in me, a love bitten man
Let me sing a song no other can

Janet of a thousand miracles
An angel that's seen foresaw an oracle
A shadow of love that always lingers
Yielding to the time that slips through our fingers

Alone In The Dark

Fingertips tapping softly, overworking active thoughts
And formulating words and worlds for others to enjoy.
Thick digits, massed and prodding through pudgy hands,
Coldly key consonant and vowel into an electronic order

Dark amber, a honeycomb of stingers and sweets
Mirrors her swollen face, her mind clouded in anoretic dream
Her chair sagging, dilapidated as she rises,
Silently creeks and squeaks with the whistle of her wheezing.

The amber screen sighs a soft blessing as she turns away,
Rewriting the story, taking away the sweetness that disgusts her so.
Drear blades of thankless light radiate from the night lamp,
Pouring and wasting over the book she reads.

Never once would that light touch her face,
Under the force of her weight, the bed creaked and groaned,
Dying          -    springs popping .....
          .....
               ..... light fading.

At first in terror, then tears of melancholy and grief,
She clutched skeletal fingers to her chalky face,
Nothing more than a reed overwhelmed by her plush robe.
Somewhere in her the truth was left back with her primal obesity.

Christi Hayes Has A Birthday 

Dazing dandelions
Spreading fertile and far
Ingratiate the land
In a blanket of misty white
And in memory.
Memories mesmerizing
Dear and true
Of amber days and Acorn hues
Infatuate our sight
With impossibilities come true.
Yonder yearns the willow
Weeping of nature's ecstasy
With the day done, sun going down
And friends rest to your dreams
May you cherish the littlest graces.
Happy Birthday

Empty Faces

An empty face peers
Back at mine from the
Shallow abyss of a mirror

A face encumbered
By lines of time and unease
Counts through days numbered

A dawn mist grows
Over an endless river
Into the ocean's flow

An imaginary face is painted
Next to the empty one
Another empty face that has waited

Both faces wait forever
Although the chance is never
That they will be real together

The Ascension

The ignorant gazed to stars, awash with hope and religious fervor.
To the seas were cast sacrifice, yonder the mountains, so chaste in purple
Beckoned and climbed, high, high into a royal blue sky
There came lands and wars
Industry and factories
Pain and suffering
Space travel
And computers
We were left
With
Simple
Intelligence

The Clinical Mr. Lackamor

Said the lonely man one misty night
Through an amber filtered world of wine
"That lingerie clad lady is of such succulent sight
That any decent man would curdle his blood and chill his spine
And any detestable cuss would lose his drunken might
For she is a challenge - she'll fall for no man's line."

Now the clinical Mr. Lackamor recognized the dare
With all due logic of a loverless man
"The very best stud cannot be with every suitable mare."
Over the brim of a stein of ale, he then began to stand
Feeling the dry warm weight of alcohol and a rather benign stare
For there sat a woman of all proportions that there was silence from every man

"You agree then that she is a sight to behold, Mr. Lackamor?"
"Nonsense," he replied, "There is more to a woman than just the size
Of a ripe brassiere and feminine curves they now sell in the store.
For in every woman's heart is a special truth masked by a man's lies,
And the only perfect woman can exist in a man's eyes, what's more
We men cannot hear the passion in their hearts over our desire to hear their night cries."

"Now that is a very clinical love you have."
But the tavern closed and the conversation died,
At least for one more night, and these topics of love could make you laugh
If this lady hadn't been the last to leave and without a ride
Through the dark foggy streets employed with a criminal staff
And Mr. Lackamor was all that was left to take this lady's side.

"You are very kind," she mused as she stepped inside his carriage
"Whether a woman is dressed in a straight jacket or chains
A man will always see her in lingerie, perhaps that is why I never entertained marriage."
"Not every man is a fiend, " said Mr. Lackamor, which was rather strange
Because he felt that every man's mind had a devil that saw all women in a perpetual lingerie age
And believed every woman saw this devil in all men of every color spectrum and race range.

"Take the next left," she guided, "what is it you do?
There was no reply, and so she asked, "Do you have a name?"  - "Mr. Lackamor."
"Then the stories I've heard of the clinical Mr. Lackamor are true?"
She smiled, he gloomed, "stories?" he replied, but listened for more.
"Of a man as quiet and gentle as spring, but with a price in lieu
That though something of a metaphysical romantic, he was a single man to the core."

The clinical Mr. Lackamor stopped on a lonely street
The lady said, "we are here," and stepped to the roadside.
"You never told me your name, miss?" Mr. Lackamor never missed a beat.
"Miss Maples, Mr. Lackamor," then she was gone like a setting sun or a shrinking tide.
Years passed and stories were told, "Aye, she turn out to have hot lips and cold feet?"
"No," he would say, and though with a heartful of words, left that as his only reply.

"The loverless man and the porcelain lady are famous tales here."
"Robert, you and your brother, Salty Bob, are rumor mongers."
And Mr. Lackamor rose, gathering his things, finishing the last of his beer.
"Mr. Lackamor, why do I feel I won't be seeing you here any longer?"
With a sigh, he turned, "There is no loverless man or lingerie lady, years ago I wed her."
And though there are open lies and secret truths, Mr. Lackamor's clinical heart only made his
     love stronger.


Red Rose Wine

Huddling hands
Around the cup
Of wept and
Bled away tears

Nail upon nail
Hammered away
Flogged the zeal
From our years

In the pool
Of red rose wine
Spilt over 
The mosaic tile -

The crazy brave
Faces of the fortuned
Winced against
The light of day

The altar man
Prayed away
All of the sins
Manufactured today

Over The Rainbow

Life can be empty
And we can remember
Every tale once told

Teach me to be
Just another sinner
Save me before I grow old

Striding with every lie
Lying through every word
We're only humans, encased in stone

I want to be
Just another heartbeat
I want to feel the wound

If I could heal
Everyone else's pain
Perhaps they might let me live soon

Archael

Sun breaks sky
Light droplets plummet
Willowing green plants feed
Quenching thirst in my eyes

Distant bird's song
A summer breeze carries
Humble echoes into valleys
Where human voices hum strong

Upon dew-ridden knolls
People cluster and gather
A tower graces the horizon
In splendor, Feie flows without lull

Sight kneading dreams
Sound weaves into song
Wanting time to live forever
Feie flows through the tightest of seams

Erase angry thoughts
All gather in band
Silence falls, watching the tower
Memories long but not forgotten




Home

In a sickly shape
A branch sways overhead
As the needles fall upon my cape
I toast my mug of lead

A harmony of sound

From where my dream has run to
Damn, get back into town
Leave me here, with or without you

Settle down on the road again
Leave me under this tree
How can you stop what could never begin
A symphony of green, a flower, a bee

This is my everyday excuse for my dreams
To keep it alive when I know not what it is
Rivers run in beauty, as does this stream
They all live with laws, without cause

A hook overhead leaves me distant
A passing thought becomes my new dream
The chirp of a bird, loud, everlasting, persistent
All here is never as it seems

Gently, my friend, with your promises
Life runs with, on or over us
Dreams we live until the end and then dismiss
Brown bark overcome with moss

Thoughts to erratic to dream of my own dream
Action to reaction and all is lost before it is known
The rain falls silently and the house is clean
And it has room for me in its undergrowth





For Equal Rights -- Believe It, Or Not

The city is trapped in a blistering cold
Where roads spire to unpleasant ends
Brinn hikes her skirt and becomes ever so bold
Walking the miles of oppressive men

  ... yonder rests eternity

Pestilence, famine and disease
Breeding insane new life, alas
For life's glory, rest in peace
When all is gone, we are left with blades of grass
Yonder rests eternity, the glory knight
For under the fire's sun, the new garden grows
Fueled by the hate and corruption of night
The knowledge lost is the survival that grass knows

Green

Nature's last colour is green
Over the red and blue now unseen
Beneath a sun so serene
Comes the everlasting cold, nothing seen but green

Earthen land soldered deep
Waves of seas crash and seep
Feeding seeds to be reaped
Green subsides beyond oceans deep

Above the sky twinkles the stars
As I throw my gaze upon them afar
Burning and shining in seminar
Nothing lives forever, only green outlives the stars

The Rose In The Snow

The icy morn brings death
To a life as lovely as thee
In each drawing of breath
Nothing but white do I see
                                    
This chill seeps into my soul
The winter white has expunged
Life for this white cold
And the rose's song is sung
                                    
The trees sway in the winter breeze
As leaves fall in the afternoon
As a rose, lovely to see
Longing for it's loss quite soon
                                    
Nothing survives save that of the snow
They have found a homage in death
And I long to witness the rose in the snow
To fully understand life's breath
                                    
 I must be in dream, for this is not real
Your hand in mine, and this I know
Only a kiss and our love will seal
But that is only a rose in the snow 

A Cafe Rose

a cafe rose
lonely and old
rests upon a table
she's seen, she knows
the coffee's cold
The bread just a little stale

she wonders why
she hasn't seen a blue sky
in so long, so long

they call her wind
she'll blow her breath again
she's been a sage
everyone is at her age
they call her old
they call her cold
she is what they say
as the doors close
left to stand alone
petals in wilt 
thorns mellow
a cafe rose

To Be Female

From these breasts
Milk shall feed the hungry
From this womb
A child shall be conceived
Through these loins
Life shall grace this Earth

From these nipples
He shall taste my secretion
Into this womb
He shall invade, erected
Through these loins
There will be a red heat of passion

Ears to hear
Words of love
Lips to speak
Baptized vows we shall cherish
Through these eyes
I gaze upon the life I love

And yet, something amiss

From these breasts
The milk is soured
Inside of my womb
Something sick and twisted grows
These loins no longer allow
The erect male passage

The world crumbles
Becoming shards of a shattered mirror
Gods word is but an echo
Deafening inside my ears
Against the cold floor
The woman dies in prayer

Leaving only a man

Somehow Magical

When magic licks the earth, it seems
In dream you hear the angels scream
As fire burns the seas, you look in the sky
When you needed him the green dragon lied

Hearts thick as mud
Antimony pentaflouride for blood
Nightshade on their breath
Dirt for life, dust for death

Unicorn, unicorn, whinny to the wind
If it bends, magic won't come from the virgin's hand
Leprechaun, dressed in Geia's green
Gold weans young hearts to life from years as teens

Godot and Poe
The "Kubla Khan" Joe
Byron and Joyce
Somehow lost their voice

Hearts thick as mud
Antimony pentaflouride for blood
Nightshade and opium on their breath
Dirt for life, dust for death

Waiting, waiting, waiting for a wish
Licking the ground for the taste of magic I miss
Cold skin to colder stone
Somewhere back there I was left all alone

Nightmare, nightmare, carry me away
One day it will never again be this way
Fairy elf, oh god not today
If I may, I will love you another day

When it will be true
When it will be new
Not so old
Somehow, magical

The Man Outside

With hearts so warm
They mellow to music
Without remorse
To the true sickness
Awaiting them outside

While I listen
To a heartbeat
Without recourse
To the Lord, our God
I pray for salvation

Hitherto, the dream
Beckons me further and further
Beyond the call of sanity
I can only feel the silk
Upon my skin

Naked Angels

Are angels in the kingdom of god naked?
Are they gay?
Do they love like we love or as I love you?

I had a dream many years ago.
I dreamt of ghosts in my mind and life.
They taught me to speak their language,
called the "So".  So say the ghosts, for all words
are only metaphors for pure thought.
And that is the only way an angel can ever be pure
is in the nude.  But, of course, that is only
what the ghosts say.  In many forms of
prayer, the so-sayings remain of the strongest,
for they reach out to the spirits closest to you,
the ones playing the most important parts
in your life.

Silver wings grace clouds,
So said the herald that cried out loud
Clothed in the robes 
That hide thing exposed in Eden,
So said Job, who in pain 
Of loss, had every right and reason

So say the spirits
That dance through the night,
Where every human limit
Is exposed from the flight
So say the angels
Who are naked from time to time
They wear their clothes for the devils
Who wait quietly in our minds.

And there are things I'll say
In the quiet and peace of my time,
That proves I can be death to the so sayings,
Because the hill was just too high to climb
- on my own.

The Nature Of Somethings

whispers through trees
     of you and me
echo in the breeze
     with a playful tease

I say my love is true
     but you are gone
before the sound reaches you
     my words echo on

standing in the shadow
     of the past morning light
hope is means only the somehow
     it will be alright







Nature Born

(In Memory Of Debbie Simpson)

A leaf is natural born
Of the mother tree
Acorns blot out the ground
In an eiderdown soft memory

The derelict echoes
Of homeless birds, dampen
The blunt explosion
Of the mother tree that's fallen

In peaceful reverie
She lays under a halo
Of children and family
Home to squirrel and crow

When a tree falls in a wood
And no one shares the elation
All of creation shall hear
Her immortal salvation

Memory

Remember a memory                  rememory a thought
Inconsequential harmony            a pain your love bought
The smoking chimney           black despair, smokey and hot
White picket fence reverie              the countenance we forgot

Sacred order we will not profane
Important feelings which bring such shame
Kiss the mirror of memory's name
Embrace the cold floor in a lonely lover's game

Another Memory

Natural harmony
In as much as can be found
Rests in a prayer
Where we reveal
What we've truly become

The sole memory
Of my soul's memories
Is that it needs to be
More than the flesh allows
Something that must be released

If the gods would only show me how

Wild Orchid

Exotic, exposed
Into thick gaseous fog
Shadowed overhead
Sewered at foot
Erotic, embraced
Feathery petals nurtured
Beautifully, golden trimmed
And white in full
Ecstasy, orgasmic             [chorus of reeds]        perfume the air
It pulses and throbs                                   she knows you're there
Heated and hugged                                 she knows you care
In a thick blanket                                smell my air
Solitary, isolated
Darkness washes away light
Moon shining down
Stunted by clouds overhead
Wild Orchid                                       perfume the air
Blossom for me                               she knows you're there
Come to my hand                                   she knows you care
I treasure your love                                   smell my air

Wild Orchid: In Memory's Time

Saturate my petals, embrace my thorn
Cutting through your callous hide
Until you bleed like a babe freshly born
Your wails as loud as when you first cried

- A whisper of wind blows
  over you each time you touch me;
   it feels good

"I want only your mind
  every moment of your life
  in memory's time
  I could even be your wife"

Blanket my loneliness, I am no rose
But place the stem inside the vase
Upon the sill, keep the window closed
And I will preserve for you my heavenly grace

But now I am cold, where have you gone?
There is no one to protect me
The only sound is my own willowing song
Is love lost what true love must be?

Prayer

There are dreams
and then prayers.
The line between them
A crossroad and the marble stairs.

Late and alone at night
I steepled my hands
God had somehow forgotten
To watch over this land
And a man without a prayer
is a man without his destiny
A woman without her hopes
is a woman without her family

Through astral eyes
I made way over marble
With all dream left behind
And in the sleep called night
There was no startle
For I awakened as I had slept
Alone, afraid
And in need

A mad cat lifted his head 
And sponged milk in the August twilight
His needs had come true
But ours were unheard of, locked away tight

One night I flinched back
And gave the Father no name
Instead I looked into the heavens
And made a challenge for a god to claim
Answer this prayer 
I'll know my soul is theirs
But only silence rung in the hallways
Through the crawl ways called mind
I prayed long and hard
For nights and years
Believing in something 
That never believed back in me
The friendship tool was broken
The door is locked and there is no key

Pray, fold your hands, close your eyes, pray
Pray for each other, for you and me
No God should claim your soul
When they aren't giving you what you need

Hell is pain for a lifetime
Suffering for all your years
They tell you it will come if you sin
And I say we are already there

Aphrodite, Venus, Athena, Jesus, Mary and Yahweh
All know my needs
So I pray, in the name of the father,
And I awoke, tired, lifeless
A cantankerous old coot

Praying is asking to get what you need

So I don't plan on giving anyone of those 'so called gods' my soul
Until they make up their minds and ease this aching heart and mind.

Sure, I will ask


Another Prayer

Malcontent, this minstrel
Menstruates music
Of another kind
Shortened of magic
Each prayer more tragic
God left someone behind

Whispers in the dark
Once balanced the world
Now mean nothing

Boy, male
Father, son
Drifts apart
Until only scattered shards

Girl, female
Mother, daughter
Blends together
Until only a fade blur

And the power of prayer
Has no one that cares
At least on the listening side

Queens Of Fashion

Pray, say the Ones
The royals of fashions
Kilted and bloused
Their heads highly glossed

A precious few laces
Gather their scripted graces
Arm to ringed hand
Deafeningly loud in their band




A 2 O'clock Quiet

Down the stairs
South of everything held good
Someone slipped their share
Someone missed their chance 

Wind singing before the window
And a gusty face through the door
Package in hand, prize to show
With tears in my eyes which I try to hide

Two O'clock and the silence grows louder
On the other end I heard you breathe
A place where the lonely share the rent
Then the madman cried with no place to live

Razor Burned Legs

Lithe beneath the silk
They twist and turn
Drift and dream
In pools of honey milk

Sleep offers dream
With love and hate
Soap operas and drama
All through the night it seems

Almost every man has hairy legs
The kind that are thick
And rubbery when in sleep
Feeling like a lady's razor burned legs

The Regal Couple

Eyes stole the blue
Out of the sky
A voice deafened the life
From the green mountainside.

A black, rank tar
Pitted in my stomach
Crept over my throat
For I could no longer breathe.

I took the match,
Holding it to her eyes
Watching the reflection,
Looking into her soul.

It was lonely in there,
Like a desert flower
That knows no rain,
A life that wants just the same.

The musky air was hard to hold
With each labored lungfull
And as I held the icy hand in mine
I wondered why I had done this at all.

The Rubber Ducky Of Life

Life is like a rubber ducky. 
You sit and bob in the bath tub of life,
Subjected to the waves of cellulite thighs
Plunging into soap-scummy water.
Sometimes your head goes under 
Or you plug up the drain, but you never really
Have control over how you ride the thunder-thigh waves 
Or how well you last in the steamy water. 
Sometimes your own squeaky-hole gets fouled up 
And you have to wait until 
Someone steps on you to get it cleared out.

Sometimes you have to put a leash on your rubber ducky 
And let it pull itself around the bath tub.
Sometimes you have to squeeze your own sides 
So your squeaky-hole is loud and
clear and fresh from bath tub soap scum.
Sometimes life is like a rubber ducky,
You just have to sit back and smile
and thank God you weren't made an inflatable Barney.

Feel For Me, Feel For You

Occasionally you'll stand alone
Sometimes stand without fear
Times will come and times have gone
Times we share are growing near
We met so many hours ago
And the words you said so loud
I simply want to hear your voice 
And the way you feel when you scream it loud
How does it feel, how does this feel
To know you are wanted in more ways than one
How does it feel, how does this feel
To know you could share your life with someone
I felt the cold far too soon before the storm
These friends I have are like soundless ghosts
Tomorrow I may see another girl come
But just let me know how you feel when it shows
Sniffing eiderdown blossoms in a desert heat
It has to make for a busy day
There is a warmth in me that is another heat
And I want to know what you feel everytime I say
     goodbye to you
     goodbye to you
     hello again
     tomorrow
     and each new day
     I love you
     in some new way

Streetlamp On Wicked Bridge

Love
Consumes a thousand words
To digest a pure
Wickedness
Poets
Literary pawnbrokers 
Have sold their souls for love.
Oh yes,
They are the ones who define
It as cantankerous
And humiliating
But they at least experience it
Like neither you nor I may
For they see how powerful
This love
Can be.
We work for our bread
And hard, leaden water
While we are told 
What love is.
Love, in a thousand words, more or less,
Is a light which shines 
When no one looks
And no one cares
Over the single woman
Who has thrown herself from a dreary climb
Into colder, lonelier waters below.
Life,
The Wicked Bridge
From birth to death, spanning death
In all of its natural beauty
Yet still we fear it,
And it leads nowhere.
It is only a moment away
From eternity.
And love is the streetlamp
Which lights our way
Just before death consumes us,
Saving us from the
Wickedness.

Janet's Swing

Janet left work and walked
Homeward bound, fettered
Imprisoned within the shackles
Of memory and thoughts
Regurgitated dream
Vacancy boring her eyes
Hollow mind and spirit
Humming Buffet absently
A token short 
She misses the bus
And is forced to wait
For her next ride

Green in a steel jungle
A park spread
Weak and weary 
She stopped 
And sat down 
Upon a swing

With a push of her legs
Higher she rose
Only to fall
Backwards again

When she went up
The world went down
And when she went down
The world was again

And she went up
And down
Again and again
Rising to freedom
Sinking back into a rheumy world

When she went up
The world went away
She continued until
The end of day

And her ride took her away

Wild Wolves

unchain my heart
like a stray ray of sun
peaking over mountaintops
leading rabbits on the run
through pastures of green
and gay screams
of perfumed flowers

unchain my heart
dear friend of royalty
crowned with trees
and your speciality
i will never be lost
or forget your name
titan of the woodland

unchain my heart
and i will send to you
the color of my love and
my very soul it's true
and we shall dance
and howl in fame
alone in wild wolf love

a reflection of a woman's age

Woman, you're old
Like time, and stone
No longer warm
Blood curdled and cold
Forgetting things always known

Woman, don't cry
Quiet tears, it's all gone
Long ago he died
When your hearts couldn't fly
You've only a faded memory to show

Woman, there's no time
To grieve for lost ones and sin
Prepare to receive
Punishment for your crime
Of being true until the end

A splinter has rekindled
The embers of your kindness
In debt to those you remembered
You've one last time to dance


The Loser

"What the hell,
All I can do is lose."
Or win.  Or begin again.

But I had lost.
And what a cost!
Nothing but an ounce of pride.

It was all I had
And I should be glad
That I have finally been humbled.

Until they come 
To humiliate me once more.

Natural Selection

Loose in life
We falter at each pebble
Fearing some knife
To separate us from that
Which we love so dearly.
We embrace natural selection
For it escapes society's choice
And a woman may love the voice
Of another woman
Or a man a man
I tell you they can 
It is natural selection

One Day

Somedays I forget to thank God
For a new day, to begin again
And yesterday's triumphs
With each new pain
The healing heart takes it away
And sometimes I am too busy
To ask help for someone else
So when I pray
And hear no "Amen," it's okay
Because He can get busy too
Help other people enjoy
A new day

Frady Cat

The frail cat
A skeletal billow of fur
Falls down, down, down
Scratched and scented by catnip stars
All around, round, round
In a chaotic, anarchial blur

Discrimination Is One Hundred Percent Universal

From shackle and shame
Have my eyes opened
Bound to words of skin tone
Told what to say, not to name

A wave of sea grasps
In firm, antiquated reverie
I reign supreme in silence
Imprisoned within my own tasks

Pale caution catch not my mind
Though with Solomon's seal at my neck
And a warm hand and knife at my back
We are all a mortal kind

The Lord of Discipline

He frequents fairies
Fine whores a finger high
Naked ladies that tease
But do not satisfy

Yesterday the scribe came late
Today not at all
Upon his knees he begged
Until all was silent

Until his fall


The Decay of Sand

Somewhere a foot print
Follows another and another
Leading to Heaven
Somewhere the sand decays
And the footprints vanish
Forever

Tall Boy

I remember being
The small one
Who knew only
Her freedom as a girl
Soon to be a woman

Until I crept
Far, too far
Into the water
When "tall boy"
Took me in his arms

Cos none of us could swim

Innocent Miss Magic

Mother, memorize my laughter and longings
To tell them of my miracles - magic
Carefully and closely caress hands of healing
This world will call me
     - Innocent Miss Magic

A young woman with stars in her eyes
And friends down roads she has yet to go
Through blue skies, on wings of magic will she always fly