POETRY PODCAST voice recording archive audio files

LORD SUICIDE

When I was 15 years old,
I saw lovers locked lip to lip
hands to buttocks
sealed in a wish
around stairwell descents
enraptured were they,
despite acne poisoning
the flowering of their supple skin.

It was a big laugh:
this dry loving, clothe humping
bible bumping, perhaps everything
that Levi Strauss invented
button up flies for puritans of 1984.

For me, love, love-making,
sex and such passions I wore
against with a chastity belt
of naiveté.
But lo’ I was “protected”
and blessed
by the power of
not knowing.

At nineteen, after several relationships
with Lord Suicide, I found a light
flickering within, meekly, like one strand
of pure dandelion transparent when the sun
breathes through its spine as through a single vein.
I followed this light to my healer: a Jungian
sorcerer of dreams.

He unveiled the holy world and slowly observed
stampedes of ghosts dropping their costumes of
mother and father, and of a society who would (if they could)
crucify Christ
all over again.

As mistakes unfolded unto my bedside journal,
I was lifted out of the carriage of my teenage world;
I knew so little, yet thought so much.
My eyes were damned with impending doom
as the flood of life
held back:
Oh great Genesis!

One day when I went to therapy at
my healer’s house,
I inhaled the pleasant sweet smell that
traveled from his small living room occupied by a grand piano.
The air flowed towards the kitchen.
Observe quietly—stood a red-haired angel
freckled face,
with a slight overbite.
She said nothing, maneuvered nowhere.
Then my healer appeared and introduced her as a way
to dismiss her—
so, this is his life partner!
The Healer in Crime!

I often left his house as if leaving a land of pure
white crystals:
a place of purification
damning me, gutting out my soul
and leaving me to re-enter the world
like a saint, whose body is a carcass
surviving only by the food
of God’s Love.

The skies of Denver
crowded like nosey neighbors
as I found myself fighting
the voices of ignorance
I grew up with believing
as to delay the death of my
old Self.

My eyes were never clear
of obstructed views;
Lord Suicide had plans for me.
And through dark lenses I perceived
without thought
without feeling
without soul.

So it was, one ordinary day,
I was given the space-less route
to my healer’s abode.

He had moved from the brick house
that held the angel
and the cauldrons of sweet smells
that although formless had a voice
that sang
only harmony;
songs that echoed from the grand piano
even if untouched:
you can hear the songs
(the imminence)
all possibilities
that were, before they became.

Further east—no, further south,
as though driving, walking, feeding on air,
emptiness graced the city.

At a bachelor’s duplex, my guru
led me to the cleansing room
where the white walls were bare
the nakedness of life was everywhere.
Secrets were absent
Life held its breath
the window cracked open for forgiveness
but the world outside
took not.
God withheld a truth
for me that day.

So the healer said
that the angel had left.

II.

Shy of a year,
before departing high school,
Lord Suicide found me crossing paths
with the lovers unlocked.
The blonde dude with the Rick Springfield
Haircut—was not to be found.
Instead,
uncontrolled gushes of life poured from
the pained soul of the girl that cried when she saw
every stairwell,
every locker,
every room,
every teacher,
every dim light,
every recess bell that called and dismissed
to go away
to just
go away.

I was nothing
but a virgin with eyes sealed tightly shut.

At 23, Lord Suicide decided
to let me go.
The sickle he swayed so perfectly
around neck
was not suitable
for the rays that fed
my transparent being.
His blade yielding no magic
to this dandelion.
I was saved
by light alone.

When she first kissed me
I thought I that I knew everything.
When “blue eyes” opened the door,
it was always an emancipation.
What lies behind but this Love
and Ecstasy.
I could survive on this single wafer,
this piece alone!

Suddenly, birds had two wings
hearts had two halves
feet have two footsteps
yet breath
was just one!

She walked to the river one day
to take her own life;
Lord Suicide told her something
she could never tell.

She returned to me with the news:
“My heart could not belong to you,
it is this
that I must do for myself.”

The stitches of my eyes
tore open—
the blood of reality
trickled streams of suffering
burning red flames
melted down my face
never leaving
like harden lava
lifting up the veins of my skin
and pores clogged with love
that
no longer
could flow.

Angels—where have you gone?

“To the River!” they cried…
“Run to the River!”

The River wailed back, “Lo… Samsara,
we shall meet again!”

So this was the religious experience
of Love.

I thought knew Everything
and had cracked the Mystery of Love!

III.

For three years I walked stiffly through life,
as though my heart were
a piece of wood.

I carried Her within me like a picture frame,
trying not to mar the edges.
I promised Her that I would return:
seek her out
to live again
in our likeness.

Invisible hands
passed over my eyes
as I took on Lovers
that could not love
but only possess.

Lord Suicide returned.

My soul corrupt led me to find
an Angel appearing from across the Sea.
The Siren’s Song was forceful and strong.
“Come to me,
your blood I thirst,
I will quench thee.”

I stared into the mandelas of her eyes—
Behold: wires like the flame of dandelions
circled about me.
“You!
have returned to me!”

I dove forth:
“River of Life—you may have me!”

Lord Suicide smiled happily.

For three years I swam in his smiles;
I flowed happily.
Through ebb and flux, Life’s hair
was in face;
its roots and ends
held no meeting!

I wanted to be just there,
in this place.

And then behold as I turned to Life,
the sickle came down
and tore open my soul;
Light pored out of being:
my cells transparent, darkly froze like crystals
pierced of their essence
rays broke like dead hair
and I fell
not into her mandalas
but the eyes of Death
as Samsara
took me down the streams…

“Save me!” I cried.

“Dear Lord—
why hast thou forsaken me?”

I am washed away,
mutated,
drenched and smothered of essence.

She stood at the stream, and turned away—
she claims,
“My life, would be better this way.”

I undergo
the formless form
the non-being being
the smiles erode
the time froze
the sun shattered
water flowed back

Unto this Life;
behold the clutch of love
hands to lips, “hush”
never let go.

Unto this life, “hush”
the promise of truth
virgin eyes blush, “hush”
they bleed their purity.

Unto this life are
two teenagers at the stairwell
flashbacks of past
box over my head:
two holes cut out to see
a picture of reality.

I thought I knew everything.
I still know nothing.

Lord Suicide,
you have won again.

Everyone is a sore winner. No one wants to lose.
We all take turns.

Beneath dim glows I see
in the murky waters:

the carcasses of two teenagers and
the kitchen angel

they live by death alone.

They live by the loss of light.

IV.

Finally I feel the things I’ve seen:

My time on earth
had doubled since.

Naivety wears a heavy crown
its weight is of a thousand lives.

Faces turn to look at me:
I see nothing, and they do not see me.

Lord Suicide lifts his golden cane
like a Ruler of life points it to me—

“Can’t you see? we suffer by what we see?
Refuse me, and do not see anything!”

Broken, I bow wet hair to his feet—

I could never make him go away.

He is more powerful than I.

His face changes as I change.

His ways are filled with surprise.

He has taught me how to see

the girl whose lips are unlocked forever
the healer’s angel that inherited the old home
my own life broken and sealed again

Through all this, he still will not go away.

I surrender to you, Lord Suicide
you will not make life easier for me:

I see.

Who is Lord Suicide?

but Christ and Darkness as one.