Perhaps You Are A Lover After All

Perhaps you are a lover after all;

Perhaps like some tender gladiator

You were created merely to perish,

Or else wrestle the dread angel of love

Until he softens, golden and pliant 

In your laughing embrace.

Perhaps running is not your strongest suit;

Perhaps your legs are exhausted from flight;

Perhaps, in any case, you can’t outrun 

The crown on your brow, the sword at your side,

Or the fire dancing forth from your heart,

You soft, mad dreaming child.

Perhaps, finally, that bold, restless girl

Waiting bravely outside your fortress walls,

Carries within her deeper mysteries

Than those you have so dilligently sought

Amongst the melancholy secrets

Of your wizard’s tower.

What Happened?

(song for a captured queen)

I.

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.  Ye shall know them by their fruits.”  -Christ

He sang,

“Woe to you, teachers and scribes of the law,

I come not to judge, but fill you with awe,

I come to bring life to your sick, your dead,

To light you up, to turn you on--

-- and scare the darkness from your head...”

Therefore come back to me, my broken girl;

Take your madness beyond their grasp.

To gain your soul you must lose a dead world,

Unmask the tyrant of your past.

For the wolves of the old, jealous way

Will gather to exact their cost,

Casting their lots for the raiments you wear

At the foot of your witch’s cross.

II.

“Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was made for man.” -Christ 

“I want to live, I want to love, / But it’s a long hard road out of hell.”

 -Marilyn Manson

Where is your wicked rebel’s dance,

My child of life,

Child of chance?

Where is the vigil of freedom you held,

With your arms outstretched

Aross all you beheld?

Were you young, too young, when you sang that song?

Were you so far astray, so lost and headstrong?

For you laughed at Saint Mary’s twisted love,

Her shameless confessions of emptiness,

But now, as if by decree from above,

You’re wrapped in the gown of her righteousness.

What happened?

Did they rattle your ship 

With their friendly coercion,

Did they sell you their 

Virtuous orthodox version?

Did they look in your heart 

And find the fear there,

And take aim, and then fire 

With terrible care?

You tiny flower,

Fleeting hour,

You who wept for cheated time,

Who spoke of love in magic rhymes.

III.

O where is your furious, questioning fight,

You of adventure, you of twilight?

And where is your shining discovery,

Which unleashed such torrents of mystery?

Be free, be free, O don’t hesitate,

Don’t stand long on the threshold there,

For the stage is set, and the hour is late,

And the devils of Heaven are poised to ensnare;

Poised with pious, creeping shame,

Poised to un-blossom, poised to enchain--

And here you falter, ringed around,

A frightened doe with a thorny crown.

Well, if you go, O if you go,

If you turn at the point of that holy lance,

Don’t hope that any special chance

Will save you from their deadly trance.

You tiny flower,

Fleeting hour,

You who wept for cheated time,

And spoke of love in magic rhymes;

You slender elf,

Unseen, unfelt,

You who crept forth from the pews

To save the soul she swore she knew.

Prizes From Hell

(or the cry of those who know)

I.

Life is rife with pain.

What happened?

No one knows.

I don’t believe in any jealous, punishing god.

Surely the inventor of lilacs and stars

Didn’t drum up this mess for brutality’s sake;

Subtler urges must guide so inspired an artist.

I wonder if hell was bestowed on us as a gift,

That through our striving here we might create 

What could not be born except 

Amid the pressure of this savage place.

For we are striving, some of us,

Seeking pinholes of light in a sky of stone,

Digging for living seeds among ashes and cinder.

What does he want, this drunkard at the center of life,

This grinning genius whose creations are so totally incoherent?  

What does he seek?  Surely not only our tears, this unending wail,

This rent upon the face of eternity.  He must have a reason.

Sometimes a fierce and truthful beauty comes,

Concocted from bravery and hell endured;

A new element, gleaned of a cosmic alchemy:

A devastated, faithful soul will open up his twisted mouth 

And sing,

Open up his barren mind 

And dream,

Open up his broken heart 

And feel.

II.

Go on home, honey

If you and yours ain’t got no money,

Go on back to the wishing well

If you got no funny stories to tell,

Go on back where somebody cares

If you ain’t got a grin or some lovin’ to spare.

‘Cause we don’t wanna get depressed,

This place don’t take no gloomy guests.

We just like to sit and dwell

On the rich delights of our prizes from hell.

Moses knows chords and he tortures the blues,

My baby got a voice that can bend and bruise,

Old Saul got terrible stories to tell,

Make you laugh till you scream he’s a ne’er do well--

He just says they’re his prizes, 

His prizes from hell.

III.

So go on home with your sad mistakes,

With your broken heart and your wedding cake,

Go tell a priest ‘bout your ugly beliefs,

How life is a prison, no hope, no relief,

Yeah, don’t come around with that old name-calling,

I’d rather listen to some sick dog bawling.

Here we just wanna roll till morning, 

Or till the lights go out without a warning,

And the sky explodes like a great bombshell--

At least we enjoyed our prizes from hell.

I’ll write you a sonnet with soft, wicked rhymes

About the paradoxes of death and time,

I’ll show you the dances of sweet Jezubel,

Make you fall to your knees like a hollow shell--

She just says they’re her prizes, 

Her prizes from hell.

III.

So listen when I tell ya, 

Go on home where I can’t smell ya,

We don’t need the aggravation, 

We don’t want your dead creations,

Go on with your eyes so cold and wan,

We’ll tell jokes about you when you’re gone.

But if you ever find something that’s sweet and true,

Baby, bring it on round, we ain’t simple or rude,

But with eyes full of hope that can’t be dispelled,

We’ll say, 'Show us your prizes, your prizes from hell.'

‘Cause when you get to the end, baby-cakes, baby-doll,

And you hear that final haunting call,

And the clang of that weird old closing bell,

You gonna look back up at how far you’ve fell--

But all that you’ll have 

Is your prizes from hell.

I Did Not Know

I Did Not Know

I.

When I stood on the deck of my wayward ship,

Like a pirate, an outlaw, with sand in his teeth;

When I stood there alone with grim eyes set

And a lonely voyage haunting my mind,

I did not know that you would wait for me.

But you waited,

And when I returned from my strange seas,

Drunk with my broken freedom,

Your saint-like eyes lit up a heart

Which I myself

Had forgotten--

For I was tired and scared,

And did not believe.

II.

When I turned away that final time,

Turned like a thief escapes into twilight,

Vanished from our scented chamber

To wander a cold, aching mist,

I did not know that you would leave me.

But you left,

And when I returned from my desolate streets,

Seeking the arms that had wrapped around me,

Our chamber was empty, the oil was burned;

For you knew,

My love,

You knew;

You knew in your heart that the soul of our love

Was a youthful and delicate soul,

And its brightness might falter and flicker away

If I sailed off again like a stubborn outlaw.

And you knew that your heart

Was not dressed in mail,

That the blade of my terror

Could vanquish us both;

Ever so wisely, 

You knew--

You who stood beside me,

You who let me go,

You who left me, 

You who found me,

You who like a queen

Welcomed me back

From a long and shadowy exile.

Wisdom Of The Ambien Man

Ambien Man:  Look, the truth is, you can fuck a girl and you can fuck her friend, and you can fuck a zillion girls in this way; and you can fuck her up the ass and let her have it like it’s really something, ‘cause she wants it and you know she does and you’re gonna make her beg for it, man, because let’s face it, she’s a whore and you want to see her as a whore and you want to see her take it like a whore.  And you can line up three buddies to fuck her too, and get her as fucked up as you like, and make her do things all night long that will make her look like she’s a fucking animal.  But finally you find that in some not unimportant part of yourself, it leaves you coming up cold every time.  It leaves you feeling like a monkey on a leash, every time, because you never really felt anything.  It leaves you thinking, is this what we hoped for, is this what we strove for, is this the great pay off we dared to envision?  Doesn’t this leave a little something to be desired?  Is this all that I can hope to acheive through love and through the glory of the female touch, the music of a woman’s touch...?  No.  There is someone else that you are.  There’s someone else who starts to wonder.  So then you wonder.  You go out for a walk on the street and you wonder, what the fuck else is there?  What am I missing?  Is there maybe something else?  Is there another thing?  Isn't there another mode, which although it may sound trite might also be quite true, that as that singer declared who was shot dead, I believe, by his father:  “Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing baby.”  To say, c’mon, baby, I wanna get to know you?  Let’s go maybe get some ice cream together; let’s go for a walk together; let’s go out and look at the sky together, and talk, and find out about each other, and talk about what’s important to one another and talk about what it is that matters to the other, and about what it is that we’re thinking we’re gonna do, or wanna do, and what we want to do together.  To walk and talk and laugh and think together about what it is that could be happening.  That, that.  To cut through the bullshit and the layers of loathing and pretension and desire and stupidity, to cut through all that. . .  that’s very fucking hard.  And if you can say that, if you can do that, I envy you.  You’ve found something very few people can say they’ve truly known.

Pale Blue Eyes No. 2

I have known you--

Not long, yes,

And yes,

It was between the blinkings

Of mad stage lights

Or the swirlings of strange twilights--

Nonetheless I have known you,

And let no reasoning practical soul

Tell me I have not.

For I have known 

The witchcraft of your eyes

When they descend on me

From mysterious skies,

And I have known the gentleness

Of your sorrow

Looking out onto a deadly world,

Known the lightness of your touch,

Known it to be the touch

Not of a vampire or a miser,

But an explorer,

A shy adventurer’s plea

Merely to live.

I am told by fathers and kings that

You are young,

But the blue wisdom of those dark smiles

Says otherwise;

We are on fire,

Our minds are on fire,

Our limbs are on fire,

Our hearts;

And what is youth,

What is thirty or twelve or a thousand

In the light of this fire?

Come to me,

Wrap me with your kind legs,

Your crimson kisses,

Give what you will of love or of madness;

I will take it up.

Break what you will of the life you know;

I will stand here

Wanting like an animal,

Fighting to civilize myself

Against this furious hunger,

Burning with love and greed,

But a friend finally,

I say a friend here finally,

To know you,

To know you,

To know you.

I Do Not Want To Forget You

I do not want to forget you,

Or the radiant lessons

Of your kind 

Depthless 

Eyes.