Another evening of rain whispered dreams of cleanliness to me in my sleep. I woke in a start, a vision of a shattered padlock in the cellar, the echoing thunderclap of iron chains snapped, the instantaneous collapse of time. Through the window, the frost white moon blazed amidst a thrash of soaked branches and curtains of rain. The frenzy of the storm was naked, unsheathed in the moonlight. In the dark mirror across the room, I sensed myself, watching the watcher, the eye beholding the beholder, wondering what does it see, who is the one who toils in the cellar, scouring scrolls of Baal, listening for eternity's promise in the screams of the penitents, letting the blood of angels, opening the wound to close the circle. "It is I, lord," I called to the puppet master in the mirror. He met my rapt gaze. As the exquisite sensation of righteous judgment swept over me, mounting me like a steer, the rising wails of the storm outside drowned out the incessant cries of the damned below.

The Way

One day many years ago I went on a long journey to a faraway place and after many obstacles and missteps and tremendous suffering, I found a marvelous treasure. It was truly wondrous, the kind of abject beauty one doesn’t know to look for or how or when it even comes to be, yet there it is, perfect and complete. It wasn’t a shining stone or an ancient spell or powerful sword or anything one could use or sell. I’m not sure what to call it now, but back then it was the most important thing to me, because it was rare and splendid, meaningful and hard-earned. And most importantly, because I couldn’t take it home with me. It was firmly rooted at the end of that dangerous, fantastic journey I had undertaken. 

Eventually I had to leave it and returned to my homeland. I cherished it for years and years in my memory, and even as its image lost its luster and refined edges, I didn’t worry because I had held it once, and I had a map, so I knew the way back to it. 

And indeed one day, a few years ago, I did return to marvel at it once more. The map served me well, and as I unfolded its tattered edges, large flakes of paper fell away, and it somehow revealed a new shortcut to me. Before I knew it, I was back in that foreign yet familiar land, back at my original destination from years before, basking again in the treasure’s brilliance and warmth. At the time, I remember it looked and felt different from before, slightly duller and smaller, but I didn’t mind because I was just so happy to have it once again after so many years via the map’s shortcut.

Many more years passed, and I’m sorry to say that I nearly forgot that first journey I took that revealed the treasure, and the treasure itself and how overjoyed it had made me. Although my life had become very busy, and some might even say prosperous, I started to think about how lovely it would be to study the map, travel that nostalgic path, and behold that glory once more. It almost felt like I should do this not for my own sake but for the sake of the past, or the sake of beauty. 

I resolved to do it. Just a few days ago, I set out on the journey one more time. As it turns out, this will be my last. I’m writing to you now in a lost and bewildered state of mind and time and place. The map has dissolved into a black fog that now obscures the light of the sun and moon. Both the original route and shortcut are concealed from me - so too is the way home. I don’t belong here, and I realize now how blind I was to think I ever did. To my horror, although I have not found the cherished treasure, I am certain it’s ruined beyond understanding, effaced from my memory, not just today—my last day alive—but in all of my yesterdays. I held it not even once. The sum of my life has decreased. These, my final words, are a stillborn attempt to convey the beauty and profundity I didn't experience but might have.

Light-hemmed waves

glide against the glistening lakeshore

like silk on glass

Summer cicadas cry

A fat dog rolls in the grass

eyes wild with joy and oneness with his owner

who pauses to absorb the radiating bliss

The sound of the waves are the ticking of a clock unheard

Terror of death sleeps behind every shape

Each glorious day is buried under the one before

There's no one

in heaven

All's right with the world

death death death

death death death

lay down the white book, unread

devein the petals of life's flower

swallow body

eat and be eaten

envelop self

recursively into nothing

Hanging on the cross in great suffering,

Jesus cried into the heavens:
Woman, behold your son!

Ceaselessly she beholds all,

Yet none can hold her gaze.  
Time is her filigreed looking glass.
In her reflected eyes:

Now is here.

Here is everlasting.
And here she is.

 
From outside side itself,
She beholds her son,
The son of a lover long-gone,
The son of some god.

Vastly and immaculately she sighs,

returns to her looking glass,

and reclines into all creation.

The dunes are dead and so am I,

encased in wind. The desert sighs.

It longs for life but not for me,

for I have joined its vast debris.

In No Time we'll be as one

swept, dissolved under the sun,

too dispersed to be displaced,

too undefined to be effaced.

Philsophy of _____

the night stars cascade across the velvet sky

like a goblet of diamonds spilt by god on the dimensionless black curtain

that separates the earthly realm from the heavenly abyss

o, what stain!

beholding all its milky extravagance

atop these violet windswept dunes i'm overcome

by retroactive loss that blackens the hourglass 

my life has been so long

yet how will i ever finish it