To: the most beautiful being in the room
Human being, I love living with you
in the Truth.
And if the power of Truth takes me away from you,
I’ll have to love living that life too.

And if it takes you away from me, well
we already know how painful that would be.

It would be really, really, really, really
bad
but for all the good and all the hard times we’ve had
I love you and I miss you and I’m glad.

And this is just a love song
it’s dedicated to my pain
dedicated to the times
that I’ve cried in the rain
it’s dedicated to my own dedication.

And this is that sensation
when you’re feeling really sad
and you realize that sadness is beautiful.
Sadness is suitable
and it’s totally appropriate
for everything you’ve been through

This is that place where sadness and love can co-exist
you feel neither anger nor listlessness.

And maybe you feel love.
Maybe love songs can speak to your sorrow,
fall in love with tomorrow
and yesterday
re-learn how to play

And this is just a love song.
It’s dedicated to you.
Dedicated to everything you’ve been through.
This is for you.

And if I showed up at your door, would you talk to me
Or would you call the police
and get me off the streets
because to love you right now would be crazy

I just came looking for the truth
because I love the truth
and I thought that I loved you too
but you were just a lie
and that’s fine
it’s your life
just don’t bring your lies into mine.

And maybe you really do believe that I’m crazy
OK
praise be to God.
I didn’t need you.
I just came looking for the truth.
It’s sad that I had to drag it out of you
and your paranoid parents too

And this is just a love song
it’s dedicated to this huge misunderstanding
dedicated to the year you left me stranded
dedicated to this place where we’ve landed
to the strange and subtle ways that we planned it
to the space and the grace in the misalignment
of all these planets.

No, this isn’t for you.
This is dedicated to the Truth.

I once had a job but I lost it in high school
Whenever I fooled myself into thinking that I needed their help
I was their fool
But now I’m my fool
And now I sign pools of rhymes into time cycles.
I align myself with this bed of nails that’s been recycled
until I’m finally alive and dying at the same time.

And when I sigh then I’m sighing for peace
And when I die then I’ll rest there
Where I get my breath there’s a source of oxygen
a solidness imbued with phosphorous
and a solemn intolerance for anything but love
And it’s rooted in love
It’s rooted in beauty
It’s rooted in a sense of simpleness and ambiguity

And so I’ll focus on discernment and breathing
We’ve all earned a learner’s permit
Permit yourself to grieving
and be freeing
and to teething when you’re teething
And see peace in believing bereavement’s bereft brethren’s
seven settlement’s indebtedness to the betterment of love
and to the practice of love
and to the sadness that comes
with the lack thereof

I won’t speak to the world when the world isn’t listening
deeply
That’s why I waited this long to release this song of songs
Songs of Solomon enthroned with the wood of Lebanon
Songs entombed in the womb until I felt that there’s room
to stop absconding with my pregnancy
And now Ba’alhamon is expecting me
expectantly

And I’m incessantly setting precedence in the presence of the president
who presides presently over the peasantry
I’ll set aside a suit of simple symmetry
Synthetically I synthesize the story of what’s natural
It’s a glass half full of embattled saturn plasma
It’s a boy
No, it’s a girl
It’s a toy
No, it’s the world’s surface enduring certain circumstantial services
Super solemn, superficial, super sacrificial splurges in our endless bags of purchases
The sermon at your service spoke to sympathetic tourniquets in need of seeking reassurance
for the next effeminate person to pool a possible burden

I speak urgently because it’s urgent
This emergency’s emergent
and I’m another word surgeon,
serving solace from my person
Signs of solidness ensuring
that I’m a growing a maturing little
Butter fly

I. Can. Fly.
Signed, my guardian angel
staying sane at the same table as the stablest savior saves
all the other saviors
Bringing peace to your neighbors through osmosis
The closest soldier knows this war is hopeless
He knows that we’re impoverished by the fists we’ve thrown
So now our foes can go home
and we can plow the ground with swords we’ve melted down
and use them to harvest all these seeds we’ve sewn

So now we’re saying prayers of gratefulness like grace is all we’ve known
We’re singing songs of freedom like they’re songs we’ve always sung
We’re sweetly leaking Jesus juice like Abraham’s last son
Tell Isaac that his time has finally… come

And now I’m looking at the Moon like I’m the Sun
And she’s reflecting passion back to me, the energy to run
And i don’t care that it’s night time
I don’t care that day is done
I don’t care that all the owls stare and judge me like I’m dumb
Because I’m not dumb
I know enough to know that I don’t know
My wisdom is sufficient to be quiet and to listen
Because in the basicest of instances our languages are different
and the isolated brain is intrinsically indifferent

So I’m going to be a body and I’m beating like a heart
And I’m hoping that you’ll be the blood to travel with this art
Because the muscles might be tired
They might be atrophied
they might be looking to caffeine for energy they need

But come on, let’s get together
Someone be the lungs
Someone be the need to breathe, and
Someone be the tongue
Someone be the eyes and ears, and
Someone be the hands
Someone who can persevere
the feet on which we stand
and you’re the rock, body
No One’s Gifts Left Useless
The Universe needs you to do the best that you can do with
just what you’ve been given
with everything you’ve got
Your finite contribution fills a hole that mine does not

And together we can stand
Together we can run
Together we collect our calories straight from the sun
Together we envision all our lives combined as one
And together we compose this bloody, bleeding, beating drum.

The scene is calm.
The pastor speaks.
The people sit
in their seats.

The aisles are long.
The church is dark.
It’s nearly impossible
to find your spark.

A woman coughs
a baby cries.
The echo is infinite
You close your eyes
the air is musty
it smells like dust

You’re wondering why
You keep coming back
I mean, you could be working
or flat on your back
enjoying the gifts of the creation

But a matter of law
is a matter of fact
and you pay a tithe to the church
you pay more than a tax
you pay in spirit.

Your children are hungry
the preacher spouts threats
about going to hell
and paying your debts
and you believe him
because he wears that hat.

Then:
in strolls George Fox,
looking like he knows something
speaking in verse
as if the words weren’t rehearsed
he makes people panic
and they turn away, afraid
immediately apprehensive
until they heard him say

“Yo, pastor.
this pulpit is sacred
but so is the shop where I bought my shoes
and these people are sacred
as they’re sitting in their pews
they don’t know God’s love
any less than you.”

And sometimes,
when the man is through with his verse
the people rise up
and follow him out of the church
but most times he just gets himself arrested.

He says “powers are vested
in only the few
but God vested his power into you.”

It’s like this mister Quaker
in your broad brim hat
you don’t doff that hat for nobody
and if you did doff it
often its a solemn
little following
of Christ
or the Inner Light
Whatever you can call it.

In a prison in Exeter
a prisoner got a letter
He sits in the corner
unspoken.
They said he healed people
they said he might be Christ
with the letter next to him
unopened.

He had written hundreds of pamphlets
to the enemies of Friends
God was sending him to
listen to the answers
but one fanciful question
that he had to entertain
in the same way
as he prayed to understand it.

James Naylor hadn’t slept for days
he might have missed the gameplan
in the following ways
but it also might be true that he was faithful

He keeps saying the saviors don’t favor the few
and that Christ speaks through me too.

It’s like this mister Quaker
in your broad brim hat
you don’t doff that hat for nobody
and if you did doff it
often its a solemn
little following
of Christ
or the Inner Light
Whatever you can call it.

And is he simple?
Hell yes
that man is simple
with his simple dress
his simple speech
a simple smile upon his dimple
when he walks down the street
that street is his temple
because when you got the right sentiment
every place is sentimental

And when he sees a noble man
he doesn’t call him “you”
because he’s talking to one person
not to two.

Because he’s kind of a leveller
and he’s kind of a ranter
and he’s standing with a lantern
trying to show you the light
cause when the Spirit’s on fire
it can burn so bright

It’s like this mister Quaker
in your broad brim hat
you don’t doff that hat for nobody
and if you did doff it
often its a solemn
little following
of Christ
or the Inner Light
Whatever you can call it.

And to:
Mister George Fox
James Naylor
Margaret Fell
Solomon Eccles
Isaac Penington
John Woolman
Lucretia Mott
William Penn

DON’T DOFF YOUR HAT

He’s in love with the sound of the rain.
Refrain:
Every time around is a little more pain
Every time around is a bit less change
Every time that the sound of the speech is the same
he’s to blame.

He’s to blame for everything that once was
but now isn’t
he’s convicted of his own cynicism
Because it feels like home

He wasn’t built for the road
but he studied it, so
now he listens to the rhythm
of the television
in an inner city kitchen
in a little Christian mission
Saving souls like his own

Because he knows the hunger
and he knows the fire
and he knows how it feels to reject desire
and if he had another life to live
shit, he’d want to live it
but he’d probably find a dead child
or saint to give it to
He’d give it to you if you knew
You’re part of what he loves
The Spirit speaks through him
and he looks up

Because he worships the infinite
that means everything.
He doesn’t even hate his own hate
And as the television
blares out its lies
he smiles
and puts some food upon your plate

Some would call him a saint
but that makes him uncomfortable
not to say he’s to attached to his comfort
he’s loving it
whatever “it” might be
he’s not ashamed to say that he’s a subject

Instant gratification gets put off
for long walks and talks with God
He doesn’t pretend to know
why there’s so much suffering
he just serves the food
and goes home and
sobs.

——————-

And when he’s done crying
the anger stops
there’s a blurry world through his own tears
and in that blurry world, combining everything
no lies or distinctions interfere.

And he sees it then
the beauty in the symphony
even in our anger and our fear
we’re so beautiful
this life is so beautiful
the truth is here
and it’s clear

And he’s not blind.
His eyes are open
he can see all the things that we call “bad”
but it’s redefined
and at times its spoken
he can see and he’s free to be
sad.

And for a moment there
I was ground down
I had my chin on my chest,
infested surround sound.

But I took a breath
I took a moment.
No,
the rest of this poem’s
dedicated to our closeness.

The remainder of my fame
is aimed at saving all the
hopeless.
I’m committed to this human face and
focused.

So now I’m lifted up
and now I’m lifting others with me
when my silence is serenity’s
a sign I’m living simply
and I’m simply living
in this complex world that we’ve been given.

And I salute the Amish
and all the other life affirmed products
of considering our tolerance for process.
It’s like a long conversation
in which everyone’s involved,
like a deep breath
before you take that phone call.
It’s like a solemn, sullen song
that’s been written and exists
solely so some lungs can laugh,
only after, in sadness, they’ve
sung along.

So let’s make a contract now
a contractual agreement
that we’ll only be what we really are.
And if you’re scarred, then
let me see your scars.
If you’re lonely
I get lonely too
and I’m here to rest with you.
Or to wrestle you.
If you need a vessel for the truth
I’ll be a son of a bitch
or the father of our youth
but I’d rather just rest
Let’s get arrested.
Only time can test
all this time that we’ve invested.
If our settlement gets better
in these seven solemn days
I’ll be a weatherman
predicting all this rain on faith
that intuition is correct
or I’m supposed to be wrong
like
writing a song
when the notes
have a will of their own
or herding cats into a barn
when they haven’t heard
reports that there’s a storm on

And now I’m lifted up
and now I’m lifting others with me
when my silence is serenity’s
a sign I’m living simply
and I’m simply living
in this complex world that we’ve been given.

And I salute the Amish
and all the other life affirmed products
of considering our tolerance for process.
It’s like a long conversation
in which everyone’s involved,
like a deep breath
before you take that phone call.
It’s like a solemn, sullen song
that’s been written and exists
solely so some lungs can laugh,
only after, in sadness, they’ve
sung along.

I’m saying
maybe our sadness
is a natural reaction
to the sad state of living
that’s been so in fashion
this is babylon
and this is heaven on Earth
and since the day of my birth
every breath has been work
and it’s worth it
a solemn, sullen song is just the surface.
It’s a tool to be used
for a purpose
Celebrating life
Celebrating yearning
Celebrating sadness
and our infinite capacity for learning
how to be sad and joyful in the midst of all this mess
learning how to love life in our faithlessness
learning how to love
especially ourselves
forgiveness is a practice that’s essential to my health
forgiveness is the difference between heaven and hell
that’s not some afterlife shit, I’m talking
Now.

Sometimes I distance myself
because we’re not living deeply
but there’s nothing more shallow than
alone.
And that’s the burden of vision
it’s this gift I’ve been given
and it can help or it can hurt the world I know.

And now this pit that I’ve lived in
Self-indulgent and rigid
looked a whole lot different from below

And now my life on the surface
is authentic, it’s purpose
is to be who I’m here to be
and grow.

So now I’m lifted up
and now I’m lifting others with me
when my silence is serenity’s
a sign I’m living simply
and I’m simply living
in this complex world that we’ve been given.

And I salute the Amish
and all the other life affirmed products
of considering our tolerance for process.
It’s like a long conversation
in which everyone’s involved,
like a deep breath
before you take that phone call.
It’s like a solemn, sullen song
that’s been written and exists
solely so some lungs can laugh,
only after, in sadness, they’ve
sung along.