Bloom

The little bud so hopeful as it quivers on the stem,

that feels the light so shining, but that fears it may grow dim;

does it doubt that it is equal to the bloom that it would be?

If it only knew its splendor, if it saw what I can see…

For you have grown already from a tiny little seed,

so lovely tall and graceful, and so much unlike a weed.

So far you’ve come so quickly, and so many trials passed;

but would you shrink from caution at the threshold of the last?

There is a pain in blooming, and it often hurts to grow,

but surely that is nothing that you don’t already know.

The bud will die to make the bloom, and so its prudence warns,

but the bursting life within it is so eager to be born!

And if you knot up in yourself, you’ll never be exposed,

but is that fine protection worth the glory of the rose?

A petal may be torn or may be taken by the wind,

but how much worse, you’ll find it, for the reed that will not bend!

There springs a hope in summer air that buzzes with the bees,

that dances in the evenings and throughout the morning breeze;

and do you sense it blooming there within your deepest soul,

the silent budding hopefulness of someday being whole?

Oh, how I love a flower dear, and how I wish it well,

and how I wish that it would hear the truth of what I tell!

There are no ghostly gardeners and no harsh hand of fate,

it’s simply being what you are, before it grows too late.

The little bud so doubtful as it quivers on the stem,

that feels the light so shining, but that fears it may grow dim;

oh but see it in its blooming, with its petals all unfurled,

feel its living love so hopeful as it opens up a world!

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Chapter Two: Expulsion From the Garden

                

                Although you really wouldn’t expect it, judging by his sort of sideways gait and lackadaisical manner, Tremolo the Tale-Teller could make tracks pretty quick when he had a mind to run. Over the hills and flowerbeds, among the trees and streams, past the sign reading “Barnum Memorial Botanical Gardens,” and sort of parallel to the expressway that could be heard in the distance, Tremolo ran, his waterlogged pursuer never far behind.

                “Scalawag!” shouted the musician (who by now had exhausted the more obvious forms of invective and was in a way you’d say distracting himself from the effort of running by shuffling through the more uncommon pejoratives), “Cutpurse! Coxcomb!”

                Tremolo, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and reaching roughly to the level of his waist, turned over his shoulder to shout back at the dripping guitarist, “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me… well, because no one catches Tremolo!”

                “Rapscallion! I’ll tie your tongue to a tree and play La Marseillaise with your innards!” retorted the other.

                “Tremolo will drop a water balloon on you at every turn! He’ll slip water balloons into your pillow to burst in your sleep!” Tremolo cackled, his eyes aflame.

                “I just wish I knew why you hate me so much!” complained the musician, whose shoes were soaked through and becoming increasingly unpleasant for running.

                Although it’s rather unlikely that either party noticed, so absorbed were they with running and shouting and the manifold difficulties of prolonged locomotion of any sort, an exceptionally odd man seated on a park bench some distance away was observing them quite closely. He appeared to have some desire to conceal his presence, for he held a newspaper (yes, by God, a newspaper! Who would believe it, these days?) up to his face and looked over it sort of Kilroy-style at the receding pair. Two sizeable bulges just above the man’s ears were covered by a black toboggan that, considering the heat of the day, must have caused him no small discomfort.

                “Tremolo hates no man!” Tremolo objected.

                “Then why did you humiliate me like that? Do you know how many hours I practiced this song, just to have you ruin everything? Now she’ll never look at me without seeing that red balloon dripping all over my head!”

                “Tremolo did it for your own good, foolish young musician man!”

                “What possible good were you trying to do?”

                Tremolo the Tale-Teller shrugged dismissively, said, “The highest good, maybe?” He frowned and shook his head at this, ran on for a little while lost in thought, “Tremolo’s got it! The needs of the many… no, that’s no good. How about ‘A penny saved…’ no. Sorry, kid, Tremolo’s just not so good at telling tales when he’s running.”

                “Damn you, Tremolo the Tale-Teller!”

                “And don’t swear, it’s not polite.”

                It was by now quite late in the evening, and the sun began to dip into the horizon as they ran along in silence. The shadows of trees grew long and weary, the light soft and stretching into delicate reds and purples across streaks of cloud.

                The runners passed a pair of gardeners tending a flowerbed off to their left, and the musician shouted to them, “Catch that man! He’s trying to cause a general disturbance in the Botanical Gardens!”

                The gardeners set down their tools, exchanged a brief glance, and then took to their feet, breaking into a run some distance behind the musician.

                “You’ll never catch Tremolo!” Tremolo taunted, a wild grin dancing behind his beard, “It’s logically impossible, you see.”

                “We’ll catch up with you in just a minute, you’ll see,” answered the man with the soaked shoes. In the distance, he thought he could hear the gardeners murmuring agreement. Still, overcome by some slight doubt, he couldn’t help but ask, “But why do you say it’s impossible?”

                “Well, you see,” said Tremolo, turning around to ensure that he could be heard clearly, “If you’re ever going to catch Tremolo, surely you’ll grant that you’d have to reach the place where Tremolo is—“ The completion of the paradox was unfortunately cut short by the fact that Tremolo the Tale-Teller here ran into a rather solid tree with a resounding smack! He fell to the ground, crying out and moaning histrionically.

                The musician, moving to stand beneath the tree with his hands on his knees and panting considerably all the while, waited for the gardeners to arrive before beginning to speak: “Well, Tremolo, it looks like we’ve gotten to where you are now.”

                “What seems to be the problem?” asked the first gardener, a thin, wiry little man with a thick moustache.

                “This man,” said the musician, indicating Tremolo rather breathlessly, “Dropped a large and very heavy water balloon on my head, causing probably irreparable damage to my guitar and in the process really quite seriously running the risk of breaking my neck. Can’t you see he’s a menace to society?”

                “Is this true, Tremolo the Tale-Teller?” queried the second gardener, a tall, muscular woman with an even thicker moustache.

                Tremolo the Tale-Teller, lying on the ground in a heap, sighed, raised a finger into the air, and croaked, “I deny everything.”

                “He denies it,” explained one of the gardeners.

                “Well, of course he denies it,” said the musician.

                “Would you be able to produce any witnesses in support of your claims?”

                The musician flushed, made a face, shuffled nervously from one foot to the other, “Well, maybe.”

                “I deny the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the grass—“

                “You do realize that this is a serious business, sir?” said the shorter gardener, twirling his moustache menacingly, “Now kindly answer the question: will you be able to produce witnesses or not?”

                “—the dirt, the sand, the trees—“

                “Well, in all honesty, I’m not sure if I can produce witnesses or not.”

                “—civic virtue, electricity, the scientific method—“

                “And why aren’t you sure?”

                “You should really be sure. Shouldn’t he be sure?”

                “He should be sure.”

                “We’re in agreement, then? That he should be sure?”

                “Sure.”

                “You should be sure, sir.”

                “—climate change, conspiracy theories, cats—“

                “Well, I’m not sure, because… because I’m not sure what her name is.”

                The gardeners exchanged another look, perhaps what you’d call a meaningful look, before the short man turned to the musician and asked, “And just what would be your name, sir?”

                “—materialism, Boolean logic, personal identity—“

                “My name?” sighed the musician, taking a deep breath, “My name is Roger Nobody.”

                “Mr. Nobody, is it?”

                “Roger that.”

                “—frame narratives, intertextuality, cellular respiration—“

                “Could you kindly let us know what happened, Mr. Nobody? From the beginning, please.”

                “Well, first there was the Big Bang, or maybe God created the Universe out of nothing, but I guess the really important and relevant beginning came with the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the subsequent Fall—“

                “You could skip to this evening, if you would.”

                “—the Law of the Excluded Middle, transcendental idealism, probability—“

                “Tremolo the Tale-Teller dropped a water balloon on my head while I was playing the guitar under a tree, and I’ve been chasing him down ever since.”

                “After you threw away the water balloon in the proper trash receptacle, naturally.”

                Roger Nobody made a face, “I didn’t have time for that, I had to chase him down. Now look, let’s just get all this over with so we can—“

                “Sir, you do realize that caring for the environment is part of the civic duty of every American citizen?”

                “You do want to leave a sustainable environment for future generations, don’t you, sir?”

                “The earth is the only home we have, sir.”

                “Yes, yes, I know,” nodded Nobody, “But don’t you see that—“

                “Not to mention the five hundred dollar fine for littering on the Botanical Gardens’ property.”

                Roger Nobody’s eyes widened, “Isn’t that a bit excessive? I mean, surely these are extenuating—“

                “Sir,” said the woman, “If you’d kindly accompany I can escort you from the property. You should be hearing from our legal department in five to seven business days.”

                “Well, can’t I just go find the balloon and throw it away? This all seems terribly—“

                “Sir, please don’t try to talk your way out of this. You’ll only make this situation more painful for all involved.”

                “Some people just have no respect for the planet, do they?” mused the short man.

                Roger Nobody gave a defeated sigh, followed the mustachioed gardener off in the direction of the park exit. As he disappeared off into the distance, he shouted back, “I’ll get you, Tremolo the Tale-Teller, if it’s the last thing I do!”

                “I deny that most of all,” Tremolo muttered to the wiry gardener who remained beside him.

                “Are you all right, Tremolo the Tale-Teller?” the man asked.

                “Quite all right, thank you,” Tremolo answered, springing to his feet and revealing in the process that he was marked with nothing so much as a minor scratch or contusion from his encounter with the tree.

                “So what happened back there? Why’s that poor sap got it out for you so bad?”

                “Tremolo will explain,” Tremolo explained, “By way of parable.”

                And with that Tremolo the Tale-Teller opened his mouth and began to tell…

Ways and Means

“Who is it that takes, the better to give?

What is the rope that’s loosened in knotting?

When will there blow the Seventh trumpet?

Where is the space where two roads join?

Why did the God appear as a beggar?

How does a seed know when to grow?”

You seeker, you hoper, you floater,

interrogator, questioner, doubter,

judge, warden, executioner,

you who love truth:

show me the question

whose answer stills a mind.

Herr Professor, you who spout

gleeful ink

on your tissue-paper margins,

who interpret with thought alone,

who snuff the candle

and complain of the darkness:

step from your path

and find a way.

Observer: drop your telescope

and learn to see.

Swim the ocean of thought,

and learn its winding currents.

Waves threaten your tiny raft,

and no place is safe:

learn to dive.

Call the sea your home,

and never cling to land.

To drown is not the worst of fates.

You are free:

fear will imprison you.

Treasures wait in the depths;

courage alone retrieves them.

To the Cloud-Hidden Moon

Oh Goddess in the waxing moon,

That idly weaves the yellowed glow

‘mongst vap’rous strands that preen and prune

Thy light they neither see nor know!

Thou Goddess with more tender light

Than e’er did shine from Sun’s harsh eye,

Thy humble servant call to sight,

Take heed his prayer, or else he die.

At thy least word growth bursts to spread

In forms below and forms above;

Denied thy favor life’s but dead.

Sweet Goddess, wilt thou let me love?

Love kills the bud, the flower births,

Though in all change black terrors be.

What wonder through a thousand Earths,

If I die not, to birth but me?

Let love unwind what’s knotted tight,

Weaved strands their element to know;

Let sunshine know more subtle light

That one to all in one may grow.

Goddess above, but grant this favor

If my song pleases with its savor.

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller, Chapter One: The Man Under the Tree

               He curled himself up in the shade of a generous tree, licking the air periodically with a scarlet tongue. When the breeze caught his hair, rippling in the air like so many reeds, the dance of fibers revealed a somber playfulness in dark eyes above a melancholy grin.

                The quiet passing fullness of the moment unfolded itself all around him. There it was in the beds of flowers encircling, whites and blues and reds, in purple, yellow, orange swaying in the breeze. There it was in the roundabout whir of the bees, the lilts and dives of robins and doves, runners on the asphalt track, and the laughing cries of children at play. There it was in the single bloody rose that towered above the rest of the garden. Above all else the fullness, the wholeness and purity of the moment deeply impressed him. Very full, profoundly ripe indeed.

                With a giggle, not altogether dignified, he reached for his instrument and began to play idly. The time and place were right for it, is all he really knew. But let me tell you, it was really something to see him at work, the harmonies he was able to tease out, the way the strings vibrated under his touch like buzzing echoes of the honeymakers. A few passerby turned to listen for a moment or two, continued walking as if they’d heard nothing. He really did have a particular skill for playing, though he himself would never have gone so far as to claim he was particularly talented, or anything. It really did seem to come alive under his touch, though, in a way that was at once immediately obvious and impossible to point out.

                No, not really particularly talented, just the fruit of plenty of practice, which was itself the fruit of a manifestly solitary and really quite inhibited nature just trying to break free and find some way to have meaningful contact with other people and the world and, and… you know, all that kind of thing.

                Not that he actually came out and said any of that while he was playing, because after all that’s a mouthful and it also doesn’t sound very good with guitar accompaniment.

                “—just some jerk playing his guitar under that tree,” announced one of the passers-by in a needlessly loud voice.

                He frowned slightly to hear this, and felt shame that he wasn’t able to simply allow such things to pass over him unmoved. But the moment passed, and he once again sat under the tree, lightly playing for the love of all things. In a voice that (perhaps) made up in earnestness for what it lacked in technical skill, he opened his mouth and let out a resonant tenor:

My love is everywhere;

the moonlight is in her hair.

And if you saw her eyes

you’d know that she’ll never die.

Love, oh love, my love.

                Oh, you singer, you player, you sitter, you who rest by the tree and dream of things first and last! You clown, you joker, you dreamer: why do you bare your heart and mind, pour it out in so many thrumming strings at your lap? Do you know why you do it, why you must present your deepest longings, fears, and terrible doubts before the world? Or do you simply know you must, that without your song and happy playing your seams would burst as if from the weight of a shining star?

                Who knows, and who could say? But still he plays on.

                A little ways off, standing in the shadow of cherry blossoms in bloom, she gazed and listened with pointed eyes. Though all the world passed by on the asphalt track, and now and then a few figures stopped by to take in a song or two, in her distance she watched; for somehow (who knows how?) she knew the song was for her.

                What a whirl of emotion passed in her eyes, there where no others could see! Leaving aside any aesthetic or sensuous responses to the music, here we see the whimsical curl of curiosity, the knitted brow of suspicion, the hurried breath of anticipation, the subdued tremble of anxiety. Into the penetrating, ever-watchful, ever-observing look of her deep brown eyes there crept something faintly like hope, as if at finding something long-lost and only faintly remembered. Above all there was… oh, but you surely already know what there was above all else… don’t you, reader?

                But still he sang, periodically turning to glance at her with a mischievous grin on his face:

In ancient days the sirens jolly

sang so sweet that (oh, by golly!)

the sailors never reached their docks,

so many drowned among the rocks.

                Still she looked on with a bemused smile. Daylight grew weary and settled into evening, and a softness crept into her eyes. Almost without realizing it, she took a step towards the singer beneath the tree. Not directly, naturally. Of course she made a show of admiring the flowers, which was anyways quite understandable because they were really quite lovely there in the fading light. And so in zigzag fashion, almost amounting to more of a circle or a spiral, she came ever nearer, ever closer to the player on the summer grass. She never made direct eye contact, naturally. But still the distance shrank, ever nearer by degrees.

                And how she walked! The sway of her lithe form was the music of the spheres, which philosophers say pervades all of creation without meeting the human ear. Every little breath she took was the invitation to a ballad, the hope of a symphony, the chance for a song. The silence in her ears was the hope and desire to remake this world in sound.

                If he noticed her approach he gave no overt sign of it. But she thought she could detect a growing excitement in his voice, a greater intention in the strumming of each chord.

                There came, as was inevitable, the moment when all pretense dried up. She stood before him, head slightly tilted as she looked down. Something like infinite terror accompanied by infinite longing stole its way into his eyes as he returned her gaze. He set aside the instrument.

                Silence. Her lips parted as if to speak.

                “Oho, an apple for the snake charmer!” came a sudden cackle from above. They looked up to see a crooked man holding something very large and very red in one of the tree’s lower limbs. He dropped it with a shriek.

                “Alas, that that which I cling to should be already lost!” the man shouted, bounding from the limb and tumbling to the ground just as the red object came down on the singer’s head. It burst with a squelching sound, and water spurted over the ground, covering a quite considerable area all around.

                The musician, thoroughly soaked with the balloon’s remnants sitting on his head like some grotesque hat, wiped his hair from his eyes to discover, with a really quite awful sinking in his chest, that the woman had vanished. The crooked man, however, stood hopping about on his hairy feet, a laugh in his eyes and scraggly beard.

                “For shame, it seems that music is no match for Tremolo’s water balloon,” the apparition observed.

                “Damn you, Tremolo the Tale-Teller! You ruined my guitar!”

                “Well, all’s well that ends well,” Tremolo decided before turning to run with a sort of lopsided gait.

                “But you just ruined everything!” the singer shouted at the receding figure.

                No reply was forthcoming. With a sigh and a glance at the waterlogged instrument, the man under the tree took to his feet and gave chase.

A Lament in Many Voices

Oh, but show me something simple!

What do you want?

I beg you, show me the raindrop

that does not reflect eternity. Where will you find it?

Who are you?

Where is the moment that stands sufficient?

Where is the thought that points to none other?

Where is the wolf that howls to itself?

Why did you create me?

“I thought the bee had a broken wing.

It buzzed, crashed curling in agony on its back.

I wondered if killing it would be a mercy,

and was glad when it rose to the skies.”

When will you stop speaking in riddles?

And how they hurt, the angel choir

with their hearts and anxious feet,

they who walk the fiercest fire

and hold tight the judgment seat!

How to learn what they desire?

How to learn what you desire?

“We planned you, son, your

father and I. You’ve got a purpose.

You’re not an accident.”

Echoes of duty and eternity.

It was raining. What to say?

“Our Father, who art in Heaven…”

What do you want?

But wash me clean in

your grace,

your water,

your fire.

“Where were you when I laid

the foundations of the Earth?”

What do you want?

“And if you watch me through the window…”

“Would have to cry if I didn’t…”

“…river that laughs as it runs.”

What do you want?

“He was a good man,

may he rest in peace.”

What do you want?

What do you want?

What do you want?

“For the Kingdom,

the Power,

and the Glory are yours,

now and forever.

Amen.”

Visitation

He did not sleep, though night fell dim

and creeping hours long,

and clouded thoughts so troubled him,

so silenced every song.

And how to tell what he did find,

unearthed as if to start

a thrumming engine in the mind,

what motor in the heart?

As if an angel whispered still,

so quiet-loudly in the ear,

“Go speak to Her, you must and will

in this sweet autumn of the year;

and do not question why or how,

but seek Her, as you must from now.

Though all against your reason shouts,

I tell you simply: seek Her out.

And though your road seems dark and long,

you would not wish an easy task;

so I command, and do not ask:

be true and faithful, good and strong,

and though it tests your every art,

you must present to Her your heart.”

And how he wondered, this to hear,

and doubted every word.

What worm within him made him fear,

and call the thing absurd?

“I do not know the one you speak,

but met Her once or twice;

would not my mind be very weak

to follow your advice?”

She seemed so sudden ancient old,

so fearful now, he gave a cry.

She said, “But do as you are told,

you’ll later learn the reason why.

If you’d become the man you must,

you’ll simply hear my word and trust;

and if you wish to find the way,

you’ll hear my voice and you’ll obey.

There are more secrets in the earth

than mere thinking can discover;

and if you would this truth recover

you must begin to prove your worth.

And though it takes some passing seasons,

with time you will work out the reasons.”

What was this voice outside of time

that spoke to him that night,

that set his feet upon the climb

to show Her Her own light?

He does not know, nor often ask,

says, “Angel, maybe dove.”

He’s far too busied with the task

of showing Her his love.

And though he knows he is absurd,

he still would gladly die

if by some loving act or word

he brought joy to Her eye.

The Trials of Tremolo the Tale-Teller: Prologue (In Heaven [Naturally])

"And who shut within doors the sea,

when it burst forth from the womb;

When I made the clouds its garment

and thick darkness its swaddling bands?"

-Job 38,8-9

                In those days, there lived in the land of Kentucky a man of passing iniquity, intimate with all forms of vileness and blasphemy, loathsomeness and villainy, intransigence and oratory. His name, which you may have heard (for even now some speak it with contempt) was Tremolo the Tale-Teller, and verily his evil was without a bound. Speakers, talkers, tongue-waggers, conversationalists, nosy neighbors, announcers, marketers, deceivers, tellers of Monday morning rumors, whisperers through the confessional veil, dogs, late night variety show hosts, sign language interpreters, forgers, flight attendants, sales executives, inviters to games of hide-the-penny-in-the-basket, and Roger… verily interlocutors of all kinds conversed conversationally of Tremolo’s iniquitous iniquity. Maker of bad bargains and puppeteer, they called him, liar, swindler, gambler, raiser of stakes, smoker, joker, midnight toker, drinker of regular instead of diet soft drinks, sometimes leaver-upper of the toilet seat, oft-times buyer of cheap coffee, moocher, loocher, objectifier, faker, hipster, leaner, grinner, lister, fister, flip-flopper, and melon baller. All these names and more they called him, and know ye, reader, that the guilt of him plunged far deeper than any dared imagine.

                Tremolo made his dwelling in a run-down shack on the wrong side of the tracks, and there he practiced his unspeakable arts. Of the arts themselves, it suffices to reiterate that they were unspeakable, though Tremolo would often claim (as we shall see) that, “Really all I want to do is to show people how I do it.”

                Naturally, no one believed him, and the wiser and cleverer of his listeners (of which he had many, irrespective of his unsavory repute among the populace) were largely of the opinion that Tremolo was here speaking in the manner of parable.

                But it is of course poor form to give up too much too soon, and so to proceed…

                One day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, “Whence do you come?”

                Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “From roaming on the earth and under it.”

                The Lord said to Satan, “Have you seen the man Tremolo? Really, there’s nobody like him on all the earth. He’s had the Commandments Department backed up for months! We’re falling behind, no really, since he’s been thinking up nasty things to do faster than we can ban them.” The Lord added with a bit of a sideways look, “He’s been posing quite a diabolical problem for us up here.”

                Satan took a few seconds to answer, being momentarily engrossed in observing the sons of God, who were rolling around in their diapers and gurgling at one another with a few squelchy mouth sounds that sort of turned Satan’s stomach a little bit. With what you’d really have to call a disgusted look fading from his face, Satan turned to the Lord and shrugged, “Hey, don’t look at me. I know what you’re thinking, and no, Tremolo’s not one of mine, thank you very much!”

                The Lord sighed, waved Satan over into the kitchen, “You want a salad or something, I think maybe I have some tofu chicken in the fridge?”

                Satan made another face, waved his hand dismissively in an almost you’d say automatic motion, “No, that’s all right. Thanks though. I just already ate, is all.”

                Shuffling through the refrigerator, the Lord turned to give Satan an inquiring and almost mournful look.

                Satan flushed slightly, scurried back to check on the sons of God. “I picked up some fast food on the way here, I didn’t know you had anything prepared.”

                “That’s a lie,” the Lord announced airily from the kitchen.

                The sons of God were just fine, and Satan watched with a sort of clinical fascination as they lolled about listlessly, which he supposed would maybe improve their musculature and fine-tune their motor control. The word cute appeared floating through the air in cursive handwriting, all pink and bubbly and full of flourishes. Satan caught the word with one hand and tried to attach it to the potato-shaped sacks of flesh and bone, to no avail. With a sigh he stepped back into the kitchen, “Well, what makes you think it’s a lie?”

                The Lord gave Satan that look again, “It’s a lie.”

                Satan held up the flat of his hand, cocked his head to the right with a practiced motion, “Don’t judge me! Only God can judge me!”

                The Lord chuckled politely and chewed his tofu chicken, to all appearances with a totally appropriate degree of enjoyment. He silently motioned to Satan to sit across the table from him, then asked, “You’re certain you know nothing whatsoever about Tremolo the Tale-Teller?”

                “No, nothing, I told you.”

                “Are you sure you don’t know anything?”

                “I’d never even heard of him till you mentioned him a minute ago.”

                “Hmm.”

                “What makes you so sure I do?”

                “Who’s sure? I’m just making conversation.”

                “No, no, no, don’t get all high and mighty with me, Mr. Lord of All Creation. You’re driving at something here, don’t try to fool me with those mysterious ways of yours.”

                The Lord simply chewed his salad, watched Satan with a faintly amused expression on his face.

                Satan made a face and examined his fingernails intently. Passing on from the nails, he discovered a small cut on the palm of his right hand, one he hadn’t exactly noticed before, and tried to will himself into being as fascinated with it as possible. The silence grew oppressive. Satan heard a clock ticking, probably from somewhere down the hallway, and wondered that he hadn’t noticed it before. Sands of the hourglass… ugh. Across the table, the Lord continued his meal, and Satan suddenly realized that although his host had eaten very nearly a full salad by now, the plate was no closer to being empty than it was when they had sat down. The ticking seemed to grow louder.

                Satan sighed loudly, even (you’d say) histrionically, and spoke up a last, “Okay, okay, okay, I get it. You want me to prove to you that Tremolo has nothing to do with me? Is that what you want? That’s got to be what you want. I don’t even know why I come here, because you just give me the same old runaround and I end up even more confused at the end than I was at the beginning. Or am I just imagining it? What do you want?”

                The Lord’s expression was unreadable, but seemed to bespeak some strong emotion.

                Satan continued, “You want me to prove that Tremolo’s not working for me. Fine, I’ll do it. Aaaaand you know how I’m gonna do it? Easy enough. You say he’s so bad, so bad that he invents new and improved ways to do evil every day? I’ll just get him to do something good… Not like what you’re thinking, don’t even say it, it’s not a, ‘Because I’m the Lord I can vicariously allow evil to take place in the world and through finite evil work an infinite good,’ kind of thing. No, no, no, I’ll one-up you on that, I’ll get Tremolo to do good for the sake of the goodness of it. Just see if I don’t!”

                The Lord wiped his face with a napkin, stood up. “That’s quite a wonderful idea you’ve got there, Satan,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I wish I’d have thought of it.”

For You

When your bones grow tired

and no rest can relieve

your sinking weariness,

when you hunger

and thirst

for escape

into a lovely dream…

Dream with me

and be renewed.

And when your mind is wracked

by a thousand fears,

a million doubts,

and a galaxy of dark anxieties,

so that a kind word

could mean everything…

Sit with me

and take my comfort.

Or when your heart falls shadowed

in the midnight of loneliness,

when every face becomes a stranger,

when all this world’s multitudes see your face

but none know you…

Take my hand

and find a friend.

Or when you could die of shame,

and see your every project go awry,

when your teeth ache

to devour your flesh

so you’ll never be seen again,

and your every thought

is of your own absurdity…

Feel my heart

and know you are loved.

Or when you are joyful,

and dance in the stars

of the highest heaven,

when love and friendship

are kind to you,

when you feel yourself

whole and brave and

lovely and strong…

Hear my voice,

and see me smiling for you.

Love's Logic

Oh my referent,

let me signify you,

and let me symbolize

your uncountable infinities!

Now lie with me

on this wide semantic network,

as we wrap ourselves so soft

in this dialectical unfolding.

Let our facts caress

on this logical space.

Oh derive me, sweet referent,

and teach me your laws

of syntactic formation.

Let me complete your set

of well-formed formulae,

that you may determine

the truth-value

of all my propositions.

Do not negate me, my referent,

preserve me from the judgment

of your disjunctive syllogism.

Oh, but let me entail you,

referent, if and only if

you entail me!

Feel the rigor of

my logical operator,

and teach me the law of

your excluded middle.

In conjunction, referent,

please save me from

your reductio ad absurdum.

Let me signify you.

Q.E.D.

(Untitled)

What fills the space between us two,

what worlds thrown distant far apart,

that if I would speak straight with you

I need employ a crooked dart?

You hold a glass and speak so soft,

as if a light from far aloft.

The shine I see so oddly mixed,

as if a signal all unfixed.

If you would speak just as you are

and not insist on switching form

(could you be angel, beast, or worm?),

your light could be my guiding star.

What kind of strange conception,

only present in reflection?

Words of words of words of words,

and though we know just what they say,

if we knew how to mean them,

well, would we be here today?

What did you say, what did you mean,

what did you hear, why did you listen?

Did you just dream that flinty words

would set some spark to glisten?

(I must confess the better good

may be to go misunderstood.)

“Do you really mean that?”

I saw I snake gnawing on its tail.

It said, “God, I’m sick to my stomach!”

A lightbulb opens up a world

but dies a martyr in the end.

And how to trace the shining shatter

so close to tell it to a friend?

There is no stern revealer

like the quality of light,

and how to fend off nightmares

without a speaking and a sight?

How slips the space between us two,

how this drawing all together,

and why must we so change our view

with all the switches in the weather?

I walk through each dark valley deep

and marvel at the bleating sheep.

And all they struck me as so lost

until our shepherd paths came crossed.

But would you give me hope enough,

as shining through the weary years

you see me clipping with the shears…

and maybe other shepherd stuff?b

It’s bad luck to break a mirror,

although I do begin to fear her.

Nightmare

The sleeping steel of nightmare grows but sharper when you wake,

in darkness there’s no rest there, yet the center will not break.

I dream of walls and prisons and of demons with their smiles,

and wake to see them lining up in ragged single files.

I wonder, stubborn body, why you rise at break of day,

and why insist on praying that you’ll ever find a way.

Why cling to hopes of happiness and blessedness and rest,

and dream that in your singing you’ll prove more than just a pest?

You find no joy in playing and you hope for no redemption,

your only sweet release you find in weaving so much fiction,

you have no soul within you and you lack a beating heart,

your single wretched joy is in your calculating art.

So void you are, and empty as the desert and as dry,

so like a red balloon, so much more hollow than the sky.

See, if you trace your lines of thought and turn them all outside,

you’re only playing so they’ll dream that someone must reside.

You spit your venom on the earth and strive to make it sweet,

you mask your face with smiles for the faces that you meet.

And though you pine for loving, I must doubt that you believe,

far too eager in your giving to be willing to receive.

How desolate you find your days, and wind your way to death,

how long the path before you lies, and how you curse your breath,

and how you crave forgetting and would melt into the mass,

absorption in this passing world and shards of solid glass.

You sense you’ve something missing and you search through fading light,

you ache to spread your spirit’s wings and take to soaring flight.

How did you lose yourself, so weighted down and so bereft of love,

you who so admire kindness and the cooing of the dove?

What is this worm that’s taken hold, what stirring of the brain,

what lack has grown within you so that pleasure turns to pain?

And is it only just your fault that life to you is hurt,

and your only little comfort that you’ll one day meet the dirt?

Oh, how to learn the sweetness and the loving and the joy,

and how recall the child’s pure delight in each new toy?

And how to be together yet not shrink from every touch,

and how to be alone and yet not hate yourself too much?

And if you hear me speaking through the far-enlacing dark,

I hope you know you’re not the only one who bears this mark.

Although I cannot hold you close, and cannot mend a bone,

I hope that seeing this will prove that you are not alone.

Child's Play

I should have known.

I should have known

from the beginning.

Duck.

“I’ve got a secret I must tell,”

she began with eyes that shone,

“But follow to the little well,

a place where we can be alone.”

Her eyes were blue as heaven’s veil,

the breath she gave not yet grown stale;

not caring if from love or lust,

I simply followed, knew I must.

There grew a question on my lips

as we traced far the fields of green,

brushed wild flowers yet unseen,

and distant viewed the parting ships.

Though to recall what went unasked,

to me, most difficult a task.

Duck.

It sits in coils that reap the sun

as clouds hold back the light,

the serpent with no feet to run

but many teeth to bite.

Duck.

“But why can you not tell me here?”

I asked, “One spot’s much like another.”

“Just wait and soon you’ll see it clear,”

she laughed and cried, “Oh, little brother!”

Her breath was like the winds of fate,

the eyes she gazed through deep and great.

The secret all as yet unheard,

I followed on without a word.

We two we walked so far so fast,

the oceans and the deserts crossed,

I often feared we would be lost,

and rodents gnaw our bones at last.

And how I wondered what she so

desired I should also know!

Duck.

It sits and sheds one scale by scale,

and peels itself away.

The ancient beast that’s never failed

renews itself today.

Duck.

“And here’s the spot, you curious one,

you’ll hear the tale that I must tell,

and though you’ll think I’m making fun,

you’ll better know if listen well.”

I heard her with a furrowed brow,

took in the well, this light, this now.

And far below the waters ran,

returned to where they once began.

My mind all straining best to hear,

I hastened to her swift command,

and with her lips curled by her hand,

she whispered soft into my ear:

“There is no secret, dearest friend,

as you well knew before the end.”

Duck.

I should have known.

I should have known

from the beginning.

Duck.

It wreathes its way among the hills

and settings of the stage,

it hisses in the won’ts and wills

of this new dawning age.

Goose!