neck stretching heavenward we
found ourselves at the stiff peaks
of a cold thought impossible in
these tropics of equatorial want

imagining we could reach

the gods of mountains forever
clad in the cotton rivers we came
here to leave and escape the waves
endless of new peoples arriving

we were here and we gaze down
from the ocean from whence we
came still burying our dead in
the boats we know they were born

even in caves we sail

into the sky as ocean these heights
in boondocks became fortress
and haven against the rising tides
of cypress and roses overtaking

the plains falling down to ocean
in tempest of what we could have
never known coming as brothers
then staying as conquistadores

we were what remained

of a relentless flood water rising
coming from oceans to coasts to
rivers to jungle we sing the dawn
from the clouds remembering

Clouds was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

and nightmare. the nights were long
and full of the terror only the inhuman
could dream into being they were
then perhaps all too human in self

what was it that evoked

such sacred terror of a woman
split from that which creates life
profaning the holy logic of birth
reversing that which was natal

into a soul deprived of life and
possibility unborn that which life
ordained to live must now be
the horror of the profane it was

all too human after all

like the man-beast head losing
the head that wastes all direction
needing to reverse the order for
sense in return — acephale unbound

in all the terrors of the thickets
committing atrocities unspeakable
made exactly clear what it was
we were so afraid of in the dark

it was the mirrors we became

we knew that there were no gods
in the dark night of our souls we
hid in the blood of ritual unable
to escape stench of rot intrinsic

Jungle was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

then balangay raking the command
of the seas into rivers it was not the
conquest or dominion we have been
taught to imagine — just sacred rite

piercing blood for slaves that

they may become datus unknowing
yet still the final stroke of being one
thing bound by blood we were not
born into this — it was a promise that

nobility came from prowess and grace
not the blood we were born into course
like rivers separating still the already
sublime disparate lonely islands of myth

we did not take more than

but take we still did in the violence
decreed by desire we did not know
deigned from the heavens as duty
enmity perhaps yet no dominion

that was a lesson for later we fell
down into an intimacy with radiance
where power was not structure but
mandala emanating scent royal

godlike here was polarity

and duality in becoming that to go
forth was not to dominate but to run
deep and with the rage of rivers and
storm together — not over in dominion

Rivers was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

what is it that we wish skipping
smooth stones on the waves to forget
perhaps it is to forget that we forgot
we stand on the edge of memory

knowing folds back into nothing

there is no origin we stood on our
aching feet imagining a new world
from a coast to another coast feeling
the baking sand between our toes

phantasmatic between the changing
colors of the grains in seasons and
endless islands there was so much
to be had there was never even any

need to try it was all there

in the beginning we took what it was
that was needed giving to spirits now
called demons what we never needed
for ourselves and growth and grace

were just seasons of love no machine
gods still aching for more there was
just this and the endless sea as words
split from promethean mother in all

changing form of coasts we

did not create walls or monuments in
our forgetting we now call great we
knew it was enough to simply be under
the harmony seeing ourselves unseparate

Coasts was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

all that hope to pass through
these islands voyage across past
endless waters raging in the
legendary trade winds that have

brought everything

blessing and curse bringing all
oblivion and memory in the mere
possibility of becoming more then
becoming less and an entirely new

creature unknowing what it is in
the schizophrenia of being then
becoming the ocean becomes more
than mere metaphor for these depths

it becomes the very flesh the skin

that we inscribe meaning on gaining
and losing etch and forget in the ebb
and flow of the tide primordial wash
the orchids and stone into endless sand

all we have forgotten the olvidon of our
memories in the origin of myths our
histories bleed down back into the ocean
from whence we came it is not madness

when we scream for apolaki

forgetting his name in the blister heat
of the sun battering endless islands
like the tides we are born in the tension
of disaster and specter created by amnesia

Ocean was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

speak of collapse like a wet dream
giddy and unrushed the revolution
begins in possibility to make the
world anew bathed in light and grace

yet when we killed the kings then
the nobles their heads rolling
down golgotha we forget that in
gethsemane the christ faltered

surrendering to the dharma

and in our oldest myths in memory
spooling to unknown crevices and
wastelands that humanity traverse
we could not imagine anything

new — nothing under the sun
yet live in knowing that possibility
arrives on the heels of sacrifice
destruction so bright words fail

appearing in the stitches

of the same wound we find ourselves
wanting — we enjoy the chase not the
thing we shout we fight and bleed for
the journey is fantasy — not collapse

where the logic has run rivers dry and
the mountains leveled the ocean boils
we sit and stare at our works we call
it good and writhe in our opium dens

scrolling for the next big hit

and when the world nods just enough
feeling the too much of the too good
the sneeze shifts it ever so slightly
adjusting the course but unchanging

the logic of ruin — this is all that is
all that will ever be there are no gods
now but only gods can give salvation
and they all remain silent — uncaring

as another innocence is butchered

on the altar of all that has come to be
and all that will ever be dressed in the
brightest colors of the same bloated
corpse floating along irradiated rivers

perfume the rot once again — pretend
that this is all new even as we fail try
to hope for the change — to become
all that we have never been

a broken constellation of possibility

Mundi Mutatis Mutandis was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

see this is the trick first you
pretend that it’s all over then
you burst from the rotten
corpse hiding in all meaning

the carriers are all in collapse
moving faster than light and
convince them that they
enjoy profanity — call it sacred

there is no longer any need

to try, they are, after all doing
it to themselves they just want
the beauty of it all not the
blood necessary to sanctify

then a mad cackle in the neon
hum shouting beauty will save
the world not knowing that it
was beauty that would ruin

reject all terror, embrace the light

an orgasm unending in the
bacchanalia of eternal light we
don’t even need to try anymore
they are doing it themselves

illuminating the sacred arcana
to know how it works this is
the absolute logic of light
dissection is desecration

but to know is to be divine

what want still remains to
become like gods when we
have dismembered them then
feasted on their remains

that’s the trick, after all make
it look so pretty that they vomit
unknowing the violence needed
to bring heaven to earth — seethe

none can say — this far, no further

La Peste was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

do you understand the breach
we have all gone insane losing
our heads stargazing into the
impossible heavens retching

choking on our vomit we are
the headless necrophiliacs the
world only moves forward in
the sickening death of millions

do you see the movement

in words so sterile you could
eat the world raw the children
cry but we could not weep for
them in their necessity it was

the swans luring us into the
butcher and the commands
unending to keep machine gods
fed to more than their fill

apologia, it was necessary

for the light to flood the earth
it was first necessary to break it
in the haunt of the Name of a
Father the sunken tortured god

the death of meaning was not
just murder but dismemberment
and we ate the carcass in glee for
the hopes of becoming gods

our heads have gone to heaven
but our bodies writhe in hell

Acephale was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

thin the veil between worlds
thinking to bring heaven down
like a republic of ideas below
and bring light into caves

but pause. a moment did it
never occur that perhaps
the darkness of our minds
was grace itself pouring

who could witness it all

watch the bodies contort
to the great squelch and
moaning of the underworld
enjoying fully their rot

cannot stop this ecstasy
even if you tried to collapse
this is all that there is and
all that will ever be it is

after all, ultraviolence

would stand at highways to
screech and end this monorail
understand the blood necessary
to consecrate a new republic

who can sit — ride on horseback
sword drawn smiting to ruin
a whole universe of meaning
who can stomach the stench

of the great piles of dead

unmourned on the crux of
sublime terror the unheard
cries of the innocent caught
in the greatest silence unheard

who can thin the veil or tear
between worlds to destroy all
for the sake of possibility and
grace and salvation — and yet

who can sit to watch the violence
necessary to keep all in place

Asriel was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

hung like a noose on
the family tree swinging
to the whims of a wind
stretching my neck to see

not snap just enough bared
to know — and gain whatever
knowledge there was to
be found in immolation

the abandonment of god

that which it was necessary
for what was created to sin
destroy what was created
to recreate Paradise brought

down to the earth we become
the emptiness of the saints
swearing all for the dialectic
revolution like rapture reeling

that white horse to arrive

pale and sickly with all the
salvation we deserve this
scaffolding is not enough to
carry the weight within me

like a noose now empty alone
a body headlong on the fields
a betrayal necessary for love
who was it that was sacrificed?

it’s happening to everyone

for the price of revolution was
the possibility of softness to live
grace was made through violence
in gethsemane, two brothers in wait

a kiss, soft, to begin the passion
a noose a fall a spilling of blood
salvation was bought with the
thirty pieces of silver — necessary

iscariot died for our sins also

Perverts was originally published in LeatherBound on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.