crossing the river styx

it is so quiet in my heart

it is so quiet in my heart that
i thought your silence would move through me without taking flesh.

it is so dark in the once sweet night
without you
that bleak stars hide the ancient moon

we sat once on a butte

you and i

looking west

searching the hills for smoke

from the glow of campfires

where hippies made love in tents

and the smell of their cleaned curls

sapped the pungent canvass sweet

i lived other lives fully that night,

my Kali years coming and going
as tiny souls bringing crumbs
to lay before Siddhattha's hands

(breath pause breath)

you taught me to live outside time

because you do

and as i dropped to the water

your skilled hands held
one patch of my skin

so tightly and sweetly

that briefly
my body was strong against the river

but your heart is still stretched raw,
your sorrow still struck by secret chanting,
and nothing i sing or bring to our tent
is fire enough for simple calm

i want you in moments

but even your silence is too much song.

she
opulently breasted ulrike
touched his face
he had no voice
but a celibate
kyrie

silence the drum now
tum tum
silence the hum now
tum tum
beating now
tum tum
tum tum
tum one
sing
the wet wild mountain sing

oregon duet

oregon duet at cougar hot springs

a quiet place
but for sounds of bark-stained sex
from hippie groins awake to flesh

water womb - hot
scalding scolding
flesh burned pure in kali's cistern
mother's tomb not father's holding
stabat mater dolorósa

jesus mary vishnu kali
each from each to you for doubting
me the mary on your flesh
the smell of nets pulled slowly from the sea

eulogy

you knew secrets they say:

where streams came from and rocks

how mountains could sing kyries

when slapped by waves for a million days

you knew that birds once had no wings

you knew the song that old bones sing

how fish found graves quite near to sky

how trilobytes were kind to die.

even skeletons looked sweet 

in your hands.

one can bend time with such knowing

and tickle death with those cards showing.

hearts you saw among those bones

the naked rock singing.

moss and earth, simply skin

you scraped aside to see

what is

deeper

beneath 

soil

they say orpheus knew such things:

it was he, they say,who made rocks sing

but he was more enmeshed in flesh

than you i think.

when i hear stories of what you knew

it isn't orpheus I see,

i think your soul was more the she

eurydice

stepping down  

stone by stone

one

two

three

night sky : if children were stars

night sky

if children were stars

the sky would shimmer the more

if planets were playpens

babies would fly amidst lore

if fairy tales were water

all would be safe at the shore

hail neptune, moon, venus and mars

if only our children were stars

finally the goddess mounts

finally the goddess mounts

stone is stone
bone is bone
skin skims above the River Styx
rowing, flowing, sticky mix
sacred sap
wordless tongues
angels sucking sweet white clouds

i intone with shrieking pleasure:
music begins
flows
and starts again
in circled measure

here i wail the kyrie

credo to the endless flesh

secret womb now wet

i follow you now to a river

i follow you now to a river
the dark speckled water
ultimately nameless
but known by legend's tongue

cut me not loose
i am not so strong as you claim
but find me, always, in the forest
beyond time's meadow
stepping carefully,
eyes on the deep grass