As we run through this tangled forest
from genesis to forgetting
our naked skin gets scoured

and the lucent sheen that clings
to the silken virgin soul,
the residue of origin,
the patina of the mind of god,
gets polished in the brush and thorn,
youth in all its faith gets worn
and in the end this dusty sheath
after a lifetime's harrowing shed to thin
betrays beneath its gleaming leather
bones which long for sand.

All is gone but essence
but I will have no fear, no fear.

I will open my mouth
and words like fire will come
to burn this demon's wings to white.

Bright I will burn this demon down
to its angel bones
and from the sulphurous flesh's ash
will wind a fertile vine.

Then, in the springtime of my aging,
once the vine has thickened to wood,
when the waxing crescent moon is ripe
at dusk will come a flower bright,
exhaling mercy,
white as silk.

A window, a mirror,
pregnant and essential,
a single flower, perfectly
reflecting all I am.

The feast that is the great salt sea
consumes itself entirely,
all flesh within fast is but meat
awaiting its digestion.

A life may pass, even endure,
for years before, but it is sure
not a drop of flesh escapes the gate
of tooth, of jaw and gullet.

Cannibals swim in the deep,
the sweet salt sea it swells with meat,
and not a drop of flesh escapes its fate,
its change, its resurrection.

So eat, you hungry, shining beasts,
eat, that you may glisten.
Within your skin awaits a meal
for yet another, listen:
The cold flesh it is pulsing,
below, I hear it quiver,
the blood of life, by all this strife,
it flows fast as a river

and by the time the morning comes,
emerging in the dawn
will be a feast of new life born
whose days will count not very long

for teeth grow sharp
and skin so thin
wraps flesh so firm,
the feast within;
for foe and kin,
by fang and fin,
the feeding is soon to begin.

Flies the poisoned arrow,
I recall my mother's hand.

A flute is playing low,
a string is put to bow,
and stretched back like a band
to lay me lonely down to land.

Another tree has fallen
in the forest of our dreams
and one long growing barren
which left no seed to swell.

Another temple has been razed
in the city of our yearning
and in the void in its place raised
a desperate hotel.

What becomes of the monument
changed to vacant corner,
a testament to nothing,
a poet no one knew.

As I pass I hear the crash,
lonely and triumphant.
I hope in vain that fell the false
and standing still's the true.

The theater of la calle,
where blood rises quick as smoke
and the children's laughter mingles
with a hidden blade,

to we who watch from window high,
to we who pull our shutters tight,
is an unfamiliar madness,
a dance we cannot join.

It's the drama of a bull pen,
a fishbowl full of fighting,
a dance of cocks, proud feathers tattered,
stuck from skins of scars and wanting.

But wanting is not all
for here there is a flood
these streets of stone they run with life
as surely as with blood.

With a quiet eye on the gauntlet of sea
I fathom the depths of it and me.
In the rising embrace of these murderous hills
there crests a reward of wisdom.

For out away far in the swollen deep
there is only mercy or flood.
A sailor must make his humble ship fast
or failing, must go down in glory.

The mariner vain is coaxed into wise
by every day's struggle and its lonely prize,
as a man at sea, a man unveiled,
chasing the horizon.

The storm flaunts his mortality,
but he is calm within the rage
for he knows eternity
is just below the sodden dusk,
and with a turn of that crimson page,
with or without the seaman sage,
tomorrow's dawn will rise, will rise,
tomorrow's dawn will rise in rust.

Gone, the illusion of security,
granted, nothing but wet and free,
naked he sails above his death.
It is this, the privilege of the sea
and the sacrifice that is its cost
to the sailor humble, small and lost,
who though to his end does surely flee,
above his death he sails there free.

I for enrapture
and you for ennui
have forgotten the words
we spoke on the sea.

I by surrender
and you by surprise
misread the offer
in the others eyes.

So he by departure,
and she by dismay
changed a dusk for a summer
and all its nights for a day.

And now he by a haunting
and she by a scent
remember their nothing
with whim and regret.

T h e r e, t h e m o o n, dry as a bone
s o b o l d s o b r i g h t for dusted stone,
h u n g i n t h e s k y, but not alone;
In the company of my longing.

A n d t h e r e t h e s t a r
on which I gaze
I m m o r t a l theater a c r o s s t h e h a z e
where the centuries pass as the days
and millennia live as moments

yes even there
that vacant throne
where is no breast, where is no bone,
yes even there, no, not alone,
In the company of my longing.

BY THESE HANDS ARE GOOD WORKS WROUGHT

AND SOME WOULD SAY THAT EVEN GREAT.

FOR MEN TEMPT FATE FROM THEIR SMALL PLACE

AND BUILD IN DEFIANCE FOR THE WIND TO ERASE

AS THEIR SONS WAIT ON WITH GREED OR GRACE,

WITH PATIENCE OR WITHOUT IT.



WITH NAUGHT BUT FINGERS, MUSCLE AND BONE,

HE RAISES A FORTRESS MADE OF STONE.

ALL HIS WORK OF IRON AND STEEL,

AN ENTIRE CITY HE CAN STEAL

FROM TIME FOR A MOMENT BEFORE THE FADING SWEEP

OF MEMORY'S SAND AND OBSCURITY'S CREEP,

BEFORE THE WINDS OF TIME CATCH HIS TEMPORAL CRIME

AND TURN ALL HIS INDUSTRY TO DESERT.

THIS MYSTERY, THE STRANGEST GIFT
THIS PORTRAIT UNSIGNED THAT WE CARRY FOR LIFE
HOW AM I TO HOLD THIS SCEPTRE?
HOW AM I TO SHOW MY FACE
WHEN I CANNOT SEE MYSELF

WE STEP INTO THE ROAD
HOW? NOT QUITE FORLORN
WITH SENSELESS DESPERATION
DO WE WAKE BEFORE THE MIRROR
HOW DO WE GREET THE MORNING
HOW DO WE SIT BEFORE THE SETTING SUN,
AS NIGHT APPEARS, IN IMPOSSIBLE GLORY,
AND KNOW NOT WHO WE ARE.

A MAN CAN START A FIRE
A MAN CAN BUILD A CITY
A MAN CAN WRITE A THOUSAND WORDS
BUT HE CANNOT KNOW HIMSELF
HOW CAN I SPEAK THEN
DON'T ASK ME TO ANSWER
HOW CAN I BREAK THE SILENCE IF I SPEAK WITH NO ONE'S VOICE?

IN FLIGHT THE WIND IT ANSWERS
A VOICE IS BORN AND CARRIES
IN DEATH'S EMBRACE, WITH EVEN BREATH, WE SING ETERNAL SONGS.
WE CRY BEAUTY'S SORROW
THE SOUNDS OF LOVE WE MAKE
THE PAIN WE BRING TO FLOWER,
ALIVE, WE HAVE NO CHOICE.

Please don't tell
me the lie
that keeps your eye so bright.
I fear I will betray.

The fragile light that you emit,
this light which cuts through words long writ
in stone, and outshines day,
I fear I will betray.

The brilliance there so thin and fine,
whose troubled light I must decline,
even if born of blatant lie,
such fancy I cannot deny.

Who could deny such beauty,
for want of wretched proof?
Fragile as a diamond, then,
this beauty conquers truth.

IT IS TIME TO TELL AS I LAY WELCOME
TO THE COOL GROUND, EAGER TO EMBRACE ME,
THE STORY OF THE LONELY WORD
WHICH LAY ME QUIET HERE.

IT LEFT A PAIR OF MOIST LIPS, PREGNANT,
AND CAME TO REST UPON MY CONSCIENCE.
IT SAILED FROM THE PAINTED SHORES OF ITS BIRTH
AND TRAVELED THE COLD WIND TO MY SHOULDER,
WHERE IT SET ITSELF HEAVY,
TO MY SURPRISE,
FOR ALL OF ITS WARM INTENT.

I could accept a lay so low
if I only knew just what she meant.

Rider, profess,
confess, now come,
let us hear the equestrian pretenses

Which you've conjured
as barren fields you've sown;
the paradigm which you call home.

Horseman,
bring your staff and stand
humble before the renaissance throne,
and tell, for we would like to show
the world just how you see it.

Let us examine the reins you've held
before we break them and so free it.

Like a lion who walks
through a marketplace,
here moves a king without a court.

In the absence of the sacred rites
lavish in sandlewood, oils and silks
and the sanctified touch
of the desire-eyed harem,
performing in dark-winged night it's duty,
he is cautious and watching.

But ritual still governs the night,
there is no escape for the regal.
With a gaze he sows his soveriegn lust
amidst subjects unaware
in sullied and shaded smoke-filled rooms
fertile with a strange glory.

Though absent the thunderous silence
before the tremble of the prostrate, bowed,
though hidden from shine his gold
before an audience informal,
though hands aren't kissed,
and ladies rare,
and no protocol hovers in the infragrant air
to prevent the sharp gaze of strangers,
armed well in their intrigue,

still, here in these hungry shadows,
regal he willing follows.

November 6, 2006

In golden sand,
in gold, my stand,
in windswept, sculpted, golden sand.
With the skin of my hand,
I caressed it and
the diminishing sun kissed the desert sand.

In bronzed light,
she glowed, that night,
her molten skin it drowned my sight.
Her eyes they shone,
as black as night,
at once, like love, both dark and bright.

Yo
You who would fish with the gods
first must fly to the shore of sky.
From there you will see
down through the clouds,
the angels naked, without wings,
swimming in the water.

With a staff of science and a golden line,
cast your lure into the world.
Move it in circles and make it shine;
It's with a hunger they bite, these men.

If you seek their green teeth,
sharpened on stones,
there are many hopes to put on your hook.
There is heaven to draw them,
and fortune, the lust 
for purity, truth, illusions that sell.
And if seduction's not working
to bring in a fat one,
then tackle damnation
and bring them with hell.

Well, you came for a tip,
you want to fish well.
You want to bring many,
but you'll be surprised when you go.

For hunter, you
who would be a god 
without compassion,
the divine counsel;

When they bite, let go.




November 4, 2005

Love is the force that moves me, even in my anger.
It is love that pushes me to resist, to challenge and create.
Only love.

Yet to create is to destroy,
even if only a vacuum is vanquished.
Even love destroys the loneliness
when something new is born
and to build a new home is to ruin the old,
for stone doesn't grow, it crumbles.

See the foundation of this world
tremble beneath the frozen weight
of the receding centuries

The stones they fall
and the leaning walls
before the eyes of all
sway to and fro

And those tired forms and systems
which by their nature must resist
the reality of change, whose very ability to exist
is only possible through the denial
of the present, around them pile,
by the light of times dim fire
wasted stones, rising ever higher.

Built straight up
to fall right down,
we lay a path to ruin.

What is ending is a tired way,
we've seen them come and go before
but today who can say
whether by flow or by fray,
by a slow crumble to dust,
as iron ships rust
or whether, as flame,
by a bright something more.

A hot burn to ash
leaving land and sky smoking,
a bell to toll of sound and fire,
a great voice in the sky
to speak in thunder.
Is it this that we desire?
Here we await, envision and long for
one great crash to say its done,
but in the silent fade is barely perceived
the raising of the new to come.

Yet comes it swift, the future vital,
a dream that will makes real and true,
and a quiet finish is an ending grand
if in it's wake we begin anew.

An outgrown skin is bondage when it's ready to be shed.
As a people we will prosper from this progressive ruin.

Don't think for a moment,
with an air of despair,
that this ending we witness
will leave us empty or cold.
For in truth this is morning and a new world renewed
is coming up fast through the waste of the old.
The fire leaves darkness along with the ash
but the light of the sun returns with the dawn,
and the cold rushes in where the fire's heat flew
but in the bright dawn our new skin will be warmed.

The future is here and the present is past
away as the light from the long faded stars.
The world we will know
will be the world we have made
for the next comes fast from the ruins of the last
and the next world to come, it is ours.

We follow signs to a nowhere place.
We rush to get in line to chase
an empty shell, a cold embrace,
distractions from our wisdom's grace.

We pride ourselves on fantasy,
we seek illusion's ecstasy,
yet as we sleep, reality,
appears from out of shadow.

Forgotten dreams we do not see,
nights road it shimmers subtly
yet as we sleep, sagacity
appears as cryptic vision.

Every night, there's clarity.
Its sacred forms are offered free
and all one has to do to see
is exercise bright memory,
in the light of morning.

How long can he hold up the farce
How long can the stainless strain be borne
before ligaments snap and boughs of bone break
and down to earth with a crash it comes,
the collossal weight of a mighty lie,
the tremendous mass of great deception.

It presses down upon the man
who gives his heart to false command.
He gives his head, his hand, his all
and left is he with nothing, alone,
embraced by an enormous stone,
flattened by the lie.

You say 
I've known you 
I want you 
inside my body 
I say nothing 
but take you 
and taken 
you take me 
into your breathing 
behind your skin 
this inward journey 
we travel within 
into each other 
to the space between 
the one and the other 
abandon

gone every boundary 
gone every fear 
into the morning
we disappear 

I I seek not truth, but clarity. 
It's not by knowing that one sees 
things as they are, as they will be, 
it is with a clear vision. 

A man's eyes get clouded by his truth, 
the very concept it obscures. 
Too solid to let the light pass, 
the truth is pavement, the world is grass 
and reality moves like a gas 
ever reacting, ever changing. 

No, I seek not truth, but clarity. 
With crystal wisdom I would see 
the world as it is, as it will be, 
and I see it's ever changing. 

This summer night's skies
drown in my eyes,
the spiral galaxies swim

The wandering lights in eternity's vault
speak each with a shine
in a color distinct

It's into this night that we sing
and all the cries of the earth
they sound as one voice
across infinity's hall
as they carry

This song is so strong,
even time does not slow it,
in the darkness all merges
in a chorus of worlds.

And all of them lit
in night's diamond majesty
long travelled through time
across this miracle sky.

I was with horn
one bronze and red
My gaze it wandered from my head
out into the streets so dead
with nightfall coming down

I rode, my horn
bright in the dusk
I called to her
she surely heard
but frightened was she by the must
whose heat would burn, her fairness feared

Next another fair I saw
and firm was she, she'd take the heat
but alas she could not hear my call
and disappeared down the dark street

And then I saw her standing straight
this one for whom so long I'd wait
and smiling quick with eye so bright
with speed my blood she did alight
Spreading warmth it took my soul
as up I clamoured from my hole
out into the world she'd built,
my horn the blade
her love the hilt.

The mirror has no memory,
it will not hold you to a gaze.
Your face, tomorrow, novelty;
each morning's birth, both new and free.

Select a mask,
or none today.
Your hands are wet,
your ego, clay.
Wear a dream,
decline to play,
the choice is yours,
its freedom's way.

Though some in fear,
when freedom hear,
imagine lonely, lost, and cold,
the truth is when you disappear
there still is someone left to hold.

Our love it was haunted
by the stag and his sister,
graceful, with horn,
emboldened and brave.
In defense of his lady,
a hushed patient doe
the earth he did pound,
his pride for to show,
and when with it he died
in a river of tears,
there rose a flood
on dusk's country road.

In the ritual then,
they were but players,
siblings long lost
of a love close, but so far.
As familiar as kin,
one jovial, and one thin,
but both under Saturn,
that difficult star.
It's curse, while a blessing
with wisdom to share,
is the bondage and smother
of love's brightest flame,
as the strongest of feelings
that we felt together,
they turned and they boiled
beneath its dark blanket.

In a beautiful sorrow
we were deceived,
she mother, my sister,
I brother, her love.
With a grace so familiar,
and memory longing,
the tree of our family
was felled from above.

The stag and his sister,
the two stood together,
there in the moonlight,
their love it was pure.
So sacred the sadness,
the delicate silence,
when there in the garden
the past did we stir.

It's what you hold when you've lost all else 
and empty handed stand alone. 
It's the first step taken, forward landing, 
when your naked backs been pickup up off the stone. 

When looking to the future and stepping high 
it's what you climb to meet the sky. 
It's the wind that lifts when sails are slack, 
cool water on the hot dry track, 
it's Hope, and you'd do well to keep it, 
to lose it is surrender. 

But no, you have not lost it yet, 
I see you hold it still. 
For this you were born,
to live and breathe, 
and sure you have the will. 

So use it then, come wield it now, 
see the first step taken. 
See the future as you will, 
and into it awaken. 

Like the music
that you hear
I move through you
but i'm not here

Like the wind
that lifts your hair
i have force
but i'm nowhere

I have mass
have it to spare
I'm solid flesh
but i'm nowhere

You see my face
my mask is clear
and i see you
but im not here

And like the rain
that wets your skin
I will touch you
but deep within
and deeper still
we'll seal our sin
but rest assured
in morning's din
as the world creeps back
both thick and thin
i will not be here

Come into this world of light
you who have forgotten
forgotten everyone
who promised you the darkness
remember now by seeing
remember in the light
they promised you the darkness
but gave to you your sight

Our sacred gift 
what it may be 
is worthy of honor 
but adrift in a sea 
of ubiquitous messages 
empty of meaning 
which push wave after hollow wave 
in a relentless stupid swell 

This disturbance is temporary 
and doesn't seem real 
but the movement has grown to a tide 
that will crash as trial on a future shore 
It's the right to thrive we steal 
It's a solemn future's fate we seal 
and forced on forward, onward, fast 
these hopeless symbols shine and flash, 
but their falseness of their promise cannot be masked, 
not with specious sex nor anger. 

And this ride it runs fast 
the fuel is ignorance 
the destination destruction, 
the passengers, we. 
And longing, it smolders, 
hope lives, but buried 
as a silent seed 
awaiting the wise rain.  

Are those clouds I see? 
There before the horizon, 
rising in red sky, a turbulent glory.
I pray for rain. 
I pray for the flood to come. 

This woman, when wanting
holds her whip, serene.
Amidst spies, her eyes,
never tell nor waver.

Like a cat, she stares,
but she does not stalk.
Her claws sheathed deep,
she claims her corner;
Serene, she bides her time.

In silence, she's hunting,
she seeks through the haze.
She speaks not a word
and wields only her gaze,
bright and potent,
the instrument of his capture.

Soon he is struck
and writhing beneath
the mass of her vigor,
the weight of her love.

Then like a cat,
sated in scarlet,
she adores him, her prey,
and loves him to pale.

She craves his lust,
but finds him weak;
They are not hale,
these handsome men.

So serene, she cracks
the leather back,
then bright red a kiss,
then back again.

The serpent couples with the goddess
they the two beget the world

The waters shining
in the ether
the mass of sea, a mystery
In darkest space,
the earth, obscene,
disrupts the silence with its form

And we emerge, we screaming children
a burst of flesh in a silent sky
the serpent he hides from our chatter
he digs deep into the fertile soil
where he shelters his skin
in the cool breast of his wife and mother

Meanwhile, up above,
we scream

There,
waiting still
and ever-steady
beneath the turmoil of the changing
worlds of man
she remains,
unchanged at heart
ready to receive
any people, so willing
as willing as a fruit tree bearing forever ripe

We honor her
with the life we live
or we defame her in our ignorance
but either way, we touch her skin
as if it were our very own
and there she waits
in the wild storm
as she always has, she still, provides
refuge for the refugee
abundance for the empty hand
a life for those who wish to live
a sanctuary for us all

And all the love
of all the women of the world
she is a song they sing together
in the springtime of the year
on a blessed morning
in the autumn of a winter
she is mother to this glory
and familiar with this grace

She is as a great tree moves
dancing in the wild storm
and i hang smiling from her branches
my body moving deep within
i press my face to her solid skin
the scent of sun and richest soil
i feel her solid nature
i feel myself, embraced

She is the river at it's flood
and i am carried on the swell
she is a mountain still in the morning mist
and i run naked through her forest

Along the way
what did you pass
did you duck past stones,
so swiftly cast
past those who condemn
with lip and tongue
who scour with eyes of evil
from them did you run, lady,
saddened or fearful

Or did you move with wisdom and grace
to find your rest in a quiet place
to hide your work, the sacred fruit
amidst the golden wheat and lavender

Woman, you fortress,
mother, you vessel,
you are the guide, the ritual, and the resurrection
my blood it waits for you to move it
the ceremony begins
upon your arrival
the night begins
with your fragrant touch

And they called you black,
my lady, black
but what they meant was color,
and future

January 17, 2006

In that place there are no castles
There are no temples made of stone
There are cathedrals, they are mountains and rivers
But there is no altar and there is no throne

The people there, they go lazy
it's not that they go blind
to find salvation they go crazy
to find some peace they lose their mind

They give up on focus and give in to blur
they'll never be certain nor will they be sure
for no hopes do they hold
and the dreams that they dream
could also be called nightmares

No, In that place there are no heroes
there are no great men made of gold
there are no wise men, there are no natives,
all there is is bought and sold
There there is no initiation,
there is no hope for repatriation
there is no unity
because there is no nation
there, there is
there is no nation

I wander the shadowed halls of language
deep into the longing night
reaching for the final word
in a thought as yet unfinished
the passage which awaits it's closure
lingers wanting on the page
the poet's fuel spent as morning
brings its light to quench his rage

When the silence chased away
timid like a strange new cat
the moment gone, before the dawn
before you tried to grab her
so close you came there in the darkness
she was ready and willing to come to your hand
so close you came there in the darkness
before you tried to grab her

Raven, Raven,
Born, reborn,
I hear your voice on this bright morn.
In the sunrise you're nightfall,
You are a dark dawn,
I hear the song you startle.

Black, Black raven,
Bright and warm,
This morning you sing,
you do not warn.
Your voice is water,
you speak a storm,
I fill my cup to the brim with your chaos.

Those washed in the blood
of that holy lamb,
come away not clean, but stained.

Those washed red
in the paint of the dead
find not purity true, but feigned.

For that blood red wash
some claim as clean
in fact runs thick with lies.

And the blood red pool
which gathers there at their feet
attracts not angels wings, but flies'.

She smells like milk
and tastes as sweet
as new born skin
she is as fair
as soft, and smooth
as inviting to sense
as a new flower opening
petals delicate in the rain

When I was a boy
I lived on Jordan cove
Where a tiny little creek grandly called the Jordan River
opened into an estuary and flowed out to the sea.

This was the playground of my youth,
the deciduous woods of maple, oak, and thorn,
the leaves hanging low over the waters dark and shallow,
the life within obscure, yet steadfast and enduring.

Surely this place must have had evoked poetry before
despite the profanity creeping up upon the shore.
Even with a toxic shadow lingering in the air
and with the waste upon the waters,
thin as well, but there,
the Egret white was still as ever,
still as ever, gleaming,
and the child at his window thick
was unrestrained and ever dreaming.

Under a rock in the creek I found a Copperhead Snake.
I pulled it fast from the water and struck it hard with a stick.
It's scent filled the air
and with my head and heart beating
I threw the limp body high into an oak
where the fine bones hung through the changing of the seasons.

I did not know why I had done this,
the passion was a mystery,
and only later in remembrance did I wonder on the rite,
with the Osprey hovering high, high over the still,
dropping down fast for the silver catch,
and I scrolling lifetimes
in wonder, the child's eyes
ran free over the water,
seeking glory, untamed.


January, 2004

All words are my own, and they may be freely quoted.
If printed, in ink or in light, the author requests to be notified, and that credit be given: "www.gregoryprimo.org"