“The Garden of Earthly Delights”

I am not a Christian. Neither Jew nor Moslem
Hindu eroticism and Glorious Buddhist revolutions
stampede out of Grand Canyon to Sligo and pass
humble spirits to fall into every gorge of Mars
and every inferno of the last sun Dante painted --
intimate pubis and phallus celebrates
Hieronymus Bosch and “Ecclesia's Paradise” --
Our Apocalypse twists words and ferment
into portraits of the modern mind gone awry.


2.

I am discouraged, and the year 2005 now 2006
wiggles on a fisherman's hook at Calvary, in the
Underground and the septic Jazz of New Orleans.

Watch the bodies rise from the caves, the stones roll
back, and resurrection, redemption breathes solemn
terror as we walk softly away from retribution --
body armor and suicide bombs crafted as demons
with shellfish spirit rolls down funeral
march while Dizzy blasts his horn as Gabriel's twin.

Look in the dumpster for pieces of eight.
I saw golden teeth in that dead body left to rot --
an example of our common history. Study where
wheelchairs dangle from the balcony.

The elderly drown in the aftermath of levee break
where love blasts the beach and harsh
chemicals debrade skin as we rest with Tsunami codes.

Most complain that it is 2006 and romance
and destruction one year older is not predictable.
I could agree as the unknown, unknown has dark
circles under its eyes from loss of truth not sleep.

Write about now. Capture the present future
with rants and incantations dredged from muddy stems
of legs broken off just as flowers, past their prime
stuck in the earth to evolve again, fail.

Failure is grime and error, brutal mud God used
to fashion Adam from Eve and future disasters
from present prejudice and letters washed out of sand.

The bible's common history reverses ordinary placement
of time as a great forest fire creates new wood raised
out of our lassitude with renaissance sculpture pinched
in our mitts, -- when we stop, breath cannot follow suit
and we either fold or bust out of the game an irrational winner.

Some fake loss. We are sorry for them. Are we?

What red lips she had as she died so old in her hospital chair.

What if we could have rescued her, made her younger, alive
had her work the universe with all her joy revealed as spices
decorate mince pie, hot and fragrant, -- Yes, she
was so alive in sex years ago, the taste of her made
life worth living. Forget the Ministers and Priest.
Look at her hands wrinkled, frozen, dried as bricks
in straw and mud -- the walls of Sumerian city now void.

Life was found there in "Rosetta Stone" when
we chipped time from the edges of primitive bricks
We rub source and eroded mud through our fingers
as potters prepare clay to mime sexual parts
and the tactile spring of fingers to angels
fornicating on the outside of the forbidden forest.

Celebrate this rising of life from death again.
How much better the movie and collected dirty scenes.




XXX