Now it's my turn to sit in a dive,
Wicked smoke clinging to my thumbs,
Drowsing beats of aging drums,
Spilled alcohol soaking wasted ash,
Two rats nibbling at the mounting trash.

Bourbon refracts differently than gin,
Clashing voices stir the unhealthy din.
Your voice did not undo the folded lie:
The open question is simply why:
You foolishly claimed there is no state.
Before such bold claims, let’s hesitate.

Your courage cooled your simmering rage,
As walking evils stalked the darkened stage.
Your fight became an affirming flame,
Who dares today to do the same? 
 
Poets gather; an impassioned team,
Slurring words now fill our dreams,
Saturated with tender thoughts of you,
A wasted poet, you brooded too.

Discordant music disturbs my reverie,
A silent madrigal is a curious song.
The soft light radiates a gentle hue,
A thin man coughs and I cough too,
Awakening to the dishonest decade,
Grown dingy, grown dark.

The public has abandoned, what all school children learn,
The reasons have become, a source of grave concern.

Feeble dignity, diminished at birth,
Imagines his arrival equates to his worth.
The son is freed from a loveless womb,
As warm and embracing as an icy cold tomb,
To share his brilliance and his cunning too,
Until justice arrives to collect its just due.

When dark Chanticleer’s rumbling midnight chime,
Awakens keen ears to a world of rhyme.
When opulent feasts and light follies depart,
Leaving Dante’s dark bow drawn deadly, drawn sharp.

Then shall white clouds descend into day,
Then shall white clouds darken our way.
Then shall red furies, demons and dust,
Swirl fearfully before us in twists of distrust.

Sharp diamond snowflakes, now drenched in blood,
Potent hot waters, threaten a flood.
Shivering angels have fearfully fled,
Chased by icicle daggers, rusty and red,
Daggers we meet when we meet with the dead. 

We breathe.  We freeze.  One of us faints.
The pious among us, shudder and turn,
Seeking salvation lest they must burn.

Suddenly, on golden chariots all aglow,
Warring ministers arrive to strangely bestow,
Razor-like jewels in ruby red gowns,
Exposing long-silent, hushed deadly frowns.

Morning emerges through trembling talons,
Skillful at healing thin feverish skin.
It is morning now, and now worn thin.

Church, temple and mosque, and their cloistered few,
Hasten to escape to the innermost pew.
Gypsies, Romans, the wandering Jew,
Embroider together and seek to renew,
Lonely love lost, in a field of hate,
A barren field full of waste. 

Searching souls now divine, 
No more lust and no more wine. 
Searching souls now greet their fate,
Dust engulfs them at heaven’s cold gate.
The pitiless souls, they asked too much,
And now hurriedly flee from the cold hallowed clutch.

Mr. Auden, we’ve never met, 
A source for me of late regret.
I may be wrong yet quite suspect, 
Mr. Eliot would reject, 
My supplication with hurried hiss, 
With back of hand I’d be dismissed. 
His furrowed brow would hold derision, 
For my moment for indecision, 
Leaving no leave for my revision.  

So Mr. Auden, hear my heart, 
Show me ways to make a start.
Teach the healing of our hearts.

Here I sit alone again,
I’m all alone without your pen,
Beside blank paper in my den.

Mr. Auden, I come to you, 
Seeking guidance on how you do, 
Explications of the whole, 
With unmatched ear for our soul.  

I’ve heard about historicizing and thematicizing.
From the best.
So they say. 
Let’s be honest, poet to poet,
What is left to poemize?
Fear, hope, love, scorn, sorrow?
Your brilliance; her wit; my despair?
Where is joy? Or the next Eliot?
Weighty questions; but who would care?
Or are we more inclined to lyricize and adorn: rhythms, rhymes, ornate stanzas?
Literary symphonies of noiseless sounds.
Let’s bring German idealism to our dance,
Where shy metaphor mingles with a primal archetype.
A perfect couple. The critics and computers agree.
Let’s sprinkle cute couplets with anaphora. 
Here and there. A bit more there.
A delicate spice for poetic cuisine.
Critics and poets agree:
Let’s follow social science into abstruser fare,
That holds promise, shall we dare?
 

Stories overheard by the stalwart tree,
Shape its bends and dye its leaves.
The green at birth could not hold,
Gold set in, as air grew cold.
Midnight melts to morning dew,
Inking stories with refreshed hue. 

A naugahyde couch,

Those were the days.

We sat and time stood still,

While we grew older.

The mosaic bricks,
Prompt three thoughts, 
Of mosaic bricks as I walk.
Patterns concealed, patterns revealed,
Yet the patterns manage to fade away,
And leave this poem with nothing to say. 

What if:
What if all philosophy, 
What if all of life,
Were quite simple?
How nice.
We could discard global warming and modal logic.
Modal logicians on welfare.
Climate change too. 
What if love and anti-love were axioms,
In search of the perfect theorem,
For a solution that only you and I (with you) could solve,
Through answers that modal logicians cannot debate?
But who would turn on our lights?
Who would fry our eggs?
Or wash our clothes and whisper good night?
Or lend a neutral arm?
Did I lead you astray?
Or was that always your way?
I dreamt your arm,
You pulled it away. 

A gentle glimpse, a covert glance; and then once more,
Take a chance. (I mean, please, take a chance),
Into a gentle lift, into a slow recline, 
Into a graceful dance (I mean a drowsy, touching, melting dance).
But why “into”? As if the two were two?
Lifted by rays of blues and greens,
Lifted by memory’s passionate swings.
A graceful dance, a light romance,
As her flute plays softer sounds,
Dancers scarcely touching ground.
Lips meet lips; lovers too;
Let’s meet once more and start anew.

• Leering Zeus, in withering rage, 
  Fled late for safety from his stage. 
  A luminous stage built on iron,
  Now commandeered by a scheming scion.
  
  Relentlessly closing in,
  Indifferent to the sin.
  
  The scion’s greed and darkened eyes,
  A balanced feast for growing lies,
  Circle Zeus in deadly noose,
  Zeus flails, he falls, he thrashes out,
  Death’s clarity erases his final doubt. 
  
  In an instant Zeus is wounded,
  His greed and lust burst forth,
  A spread for the dissolving floor,
  Leaving an empty hole,
  The size of a soulless soul.
  The scion strolls slowly by,
  A twinkle in his eye,
  He spreads his withering wrath,
  His bloody oil for a bloody bath.
  
  Relentlessly closing in,
  Indifferent to the sin.
  
  In frighted flight, the immortal soul, 
  Less substance than a thought,
  Flees the carcass, flees the stage,
  Trembling purple rage on rage.
  
  Wings of angels singed and scorched,
  The causal outcome of a flaming torch.
  Quiet angels now at rest,
  Filled with dreams of what they do best.
  
  Resting birds rest on beds,
  Laced with poison of the dead.
  
  The stage now darkens, 
  Save fluorescent light,
  From flames of passion, flaked with flakes of fright. 
  
  The stage now quiets in pathetic groans,
  As fear meets fate to die alone.
  
  Lesser gods now awaken,
  Stunned from stupor, overtaken,
  By the rot of empty carcass,
  Wasting waste of an empty hole.
  A carcass emptied of its wasted soul. 
  
  Once gloating gods, now stripped of gold, 
  Drop onyx icons and behold,
  Soft perfumed clouds adrift in dew,
  Carrying the scion and his minions too.
  
  Virtue has fled the living.
  Virtue has fled the dead. 
  
  Relentlessly closing in,
  Indifferent to the sin.
  
  Lesser gods, proud not learned, 
  Stumble mortally to greet mortal man.
  Lesser gods, vanity shaken, 
  Wish too late for a wish not taken. 
  
  Lesser gods learn the lesson,
  Children and mortals fear to know:
  Eternal love finds love’s limit,
  In fallen kingdoms of fallen kings. 
  Eternal love finds love’s limit
  In the falling of a fallen star.
  Eternal love finds love’s limit
  At the core of who we are.
  
  Former gods who once knew matter,
  As apparel of souless souls,
  Once defrocked and cloaked in matter, 
  Are blown, dispatched, and ruthlessly scattered.
  
  Reified mortals, pale and shaken,
  Stripped of pride now awaken,
  In a low land rough and craggy,
  Breeding envy, breeding famine.
  Molton rocks, hot and heavy,
  Rocks of lava, hardened beds,
  The resting place of the freshly dead.
  
  Relentlessly closing in,
  Indifferent to the sin.
  
  In a celestial palace,
  That floats in celestial blood,
  The hungry stride on marble,
  Marble polished and red.
  Home to celestial serpents that feast on blood of the dead.
  
  In a celestial palace,
  There sits a celestial stage,
  Studded with wondrous rubies, 
  Wasted relics of a wasted age.
  
  Relentlessly closing in,
  Indifferent to the sin. 
  
  In the castle moat,
  In that lake of blood,
  A newly-nourished serpent twists and bathes alone.
  But serpents too, like feckless gods, 
  Must bow to stronger love.
  
  Cupid has waited among us,
  Silent in silent shade,
  Cupid now emerges, walking next to the sun.
  His arrow targets the serpent, 
  His arrow deadly as death.
  He holds the serpent in his eye,
  Death precedes the serpent’s cry.
  
  Cupid summons a stranger,
  Dressed in the color of love.
  The stranger is made of angels, 
  And each angel is made of a dove.
  
  The stranger releases the angels,
  Each angel releases its dove.
  Soon the choir arises,
  Chanting lyrical songs.
  Soon the cantor starts chanting,
  And righteousness silences wrongs.
  Soon grey skies are clouded,
  With clouds colored in doves,
  As feathers float gently above us,
  As hate succumbs to love.
  
  Let us learn where we can,
  A gentle weapon in a gentle hand,
  Is as deadly as a ruthless man.
  
  Let love stir us to our feet,
  Let us sing in unified beat.
  Let us unite in our song,
  As we sing in the breaking dawn.
  And should dawn’s light start to dim,
  Then we shall sing of hymns on hymns.