I saw the face of Marguerite Porete, The mystic who beheld Divinity. It might have been a dream, or better yet, A vision only Seeing Eyes might see.
I wondered if she chose to thus appear To show herself, to let herself be known. I wondered if Divinity was near, Or if her soul had vanished on its own.
Her gaze, a mirror burning yet serene, Reveals a love that law cannot restrain. A fire that stirs both absence and what's seen, A silence singing through both loss and gain.
And in that face I glimpse the soul’s free flight, A deathless life that shines beyond all night.
I wonder what the world will think of next I wonder if it gives a shit at all The world is just a word of simple text Simplicity, the god before the fall So now I watch and wait and wonder too The world is more complex than what it was The world was once simplicity I knew So does it give a shit? Perhaps it does Perception is the mirror we perceive Reflecting what we think we ought to see The blindness of humanity may grieve To find what’s next reveals what’s meant to be A simple couplet ends the world’s great verse A simple wondrous rhyme. It could be worse.
The rockets tear at night above Ukraine While Gaza burns and children choke on dust Taiwan is warned by shadows in the rain And treaties rot, corroded into rust.
Here in America the guns don’t sleep They prowl through schools, through markets, through the night Our blood is cheap, the graves are dug too deep The headlines blur, yet never end the fight
The planet scorched, the oceans forced to rise Refugees march where borders slam them shut We call it peace, but peace itself now dies A word that’s strangled, ravaged in the gut
Don’t ask what front: the front is everywhere This war is now. It thickens in the air.
We wait like raindrops, contemplating drought We wait, for what? The end that might begin? To turn perceptions into certain doubt We wait for changes, much to our chagrin It doesn’t pay to wait for certain change It doesn’t pay to change when we must wait Dichotomies are nothing if not strange It’s strange to think of all we contemplate Then back to being raindrops in the drought We contemplate perceptions which will change Is this what dried up life is all about? Is waiting thus the way the gods derange? Deranged in waiting, everyone is god A metaphor perceived as simply odd.
I watched her disappear in songs of smoke I thought she’d be the one to prove them wrong But breath is only life until you choke And brilliance fell to shadow in her song She moved through rooms like rumor, half-believed A trailing laugh, a shadow at the door I’d turn to speak, but find myself deceived Her voice remained; her motive was impure She danced on coals and called it poetry Mistook the glow for grace of ashen youth Her exit staged in careful tragedy A burned out lie she passed off as the truth Let smoke recall her, beautiful, unwise A flash that sang of air and smoky lies
The quiet roar of stillness in my dream Invites the little songs to find a voice Like fabric finds a bordered stitch, a seam Or finds it never really had a choice The way that stark precarity ascends To other worlds above the damaged plain I like the definition it defends The etymology of tender pain When little songs awaken in my heart Then find their little way to where I write I wonder if they end up where they start They may not be true gods, and yet they might They might proclaim divinity with grace And dwell forever in a holy place.
A kilt is how we show the world we're free From all the world's conventions, which would bind The Highland soul and strength we seek to be Through freeing both the body and the mind
A kilt is freedom's comfort, worn with pride The pride of independence, bought with strength It shows the strength of freedom born inside That liberates the soul, at any length
The man that wears the kilt is strong and proud Of heritage that bears his clan, his name He speaks his words in silence, and aloud! He knows his life is more than just a game.
And yet he knows when games are meant to be A kilt is how he shows the world he's free!
I walk on faith, a splinted, golden crutch, Where once I flew in knowing’s native air; The wound is old—no memory of the touch, Just phantom wings and ache I cannot bear. The veil was stitched before my birth, they say, By archons blind, who rule the things that rot; They named it “truth,” and taught my lips to pray— A borrowed speech for what my soul forgot. But still I limp toward light I do not see, My balance held by hymns I cannot feel, Each creed a cast around the mystery, Each sacrament a brace that makes me kneel. Yet in this bracing faith, some ghost remains— The shape of knowing pulsing through the veins.
To find the truth of poetry within One knows the word of god must be revealed To hide the word is thus poetic sin And wounded poets know they must be healed
And so we seek the words by which we feel True knowledge is the poem we become Beyond the tombs that others seek to seal We rise and wait for Magdala to come
Thus gnosis sets us free beyond this world In which we have been trapped to just perceive Material perceptions, flags unfurled And simply sit and wait and weep and grieve
Our knowledge of the trap won’t set us free But we will know the place we need to be.
