Two Poems From the Past

Bridges

4 day man

Seeks 4 day woman

Crossing bridges

Seeing lands

Speaking truths

Holding hands

Don’t you think it’s time?

There’s less left than already gone

And I don’t like being alone

But I am tethered to this self

That comes home empty

On its own.

Bridges would be wonderful

The piper’s call to every wounded soul

Just to cross, somehow

Unharmed

Without two coins on sightless eyes

It doesn’t seem so easy now

The ruts are deeper

The road less traveled, steeper

Scroll marks in flesh track the passages.

Even machines enjoy the rest of friction death

But we endure a celestial parade of dumb brutes

Too common to see our destiny

Orchestrated in advance to be

Nothing less than Ixion’s wheel

A punishment for crimes fated to occur

Inheritors of the dark horizon

We stand on the opposite shore

And long for much, much more.

August 27, 1996

That Blessed Curse

When did I discover I was falsely made?

The day I first noticed no one knew

That underneath my skin I grew

Some other way

When did I uncover my hopeless agony?

The day I saw me throw away

The ones who wanted me to stay

Forever true

When did I admit I had lost the fight?

The day I first realized

How empty were the open eyes

In my mirror

When did I remember He could heal the sick?

The day I found graveyard clothes

Wrapped around my eyes and nose

Inside of me

When did I discover my illness made me well?

The day I fell into the tomb

And found it was an child’s room

Freed from Hell