more than anything else i want to know you O my soul! you, who are draped in Spirit! you, who are the First Cause! of my being— i say these things from second-hand knowledge, i know these things with my mind because my guru has told me—O my blessed guru! i bow to you for telling me these things and you have also told me that i alone can walk that path that leads to my soul! i alone can bring about the conditions of mind and body that allow the soul! to shine through. O my soul! i wait, and suffer, and snuffle and wail, and bitch, and whine—lift me lift this fallen consciousness, lift this blathered life, lift this booby-trapped angel, lift this slithering coil to the place where you are, where i want to be, where i want to meet my soul! my Spirit, my God—O Great Spirit! O my soul! more than anything else i want to know you.
Image: Created by Grok inspired by “My Soul in Search of Divine Romance”
My Soul in Search of Divine Romance
I looked in the river & the river just kept rolling on out to the sea. I looked in the ocean & the ocean was just too big to see across. I looked in your eyes & saw nothing but the blues. I looked in the sky & the stars got caught in my corneas. I looked in a book & the words just snaked across the page. I looked in men’s hearts & saw bottomless pits of darkness. I listened to the wind & heard not one word that sounded like a lover’s confession,
so I listened to music pounded out on a piano, flowing out of a guitar & men’s throats & women’s throats & found no lovers. I listened to liars who made love as useful as a moth-eaten sweater, whose affection was just slick, swollen sticks of flesh & I pushed & sucked until I realized this is not love, this is friction.
I stop listening today, now I will wait. Only You know how to love me but I don’t yet know how to understand— the mud of this world sticks to my thighs & the slime of lovers who have tricked me for over half a century—
but today I renounce it all— I will no longer look for You in the disappointing automatons who inhabit this world. I will not listen to the tacky voices that pollute the hallways of my ears. Let them all grab & squabble & grow fat & drunk on the blood of desire.
I renounce it all— I cut out my eyeballs, & hack my eardrums to pieces, & flay my skin, & chop out my tongue, & snuffle my nose, because my soul has no need to carry such baggage traveling in search of Divine Romance.
Image: Created by Grok inspired by “Song of Silence“
Song of Silence
Your silence has begun to sing to me again in the voice of my old poem, “To Love Pain”: “I can lose You again and again / And my heart will beat back stronger / As it is lashed by the whip of Your absence.”
I did not recognize You in April: I mistook You for a young lover come to swim in my eyes, touch my lips, and part the warm sea flesh that opens for lovers. And I slid down and down into that primal ooze that has kept me hide-bound.
But now that You have hidden that body of mud and have silenced his voice that lured my lust, I see Your body of light dancing on rivers of words meandering through my soul. I hear Your astral singing in every silver syllable of pure vibration.
O Divine Singer, I come to You alone to sing my song and to devote every last ounce of flesh and bone.
Image: Created by Grok inspired by “On the Brim of the Day“
On the Brim of the Day
This day I drink in the possibility of warmth— Sending a letter to the snow, kissing the nose of the pup, Eating honey in divine rain, singing with the bird. I was ashamed and hid myself until this blood had cooled— Then petals fell from these eyes, and I saw his face again. Now on the brim of this new day I grow on the morning Like the sun climbing the sky.
And I will sail across sunset Like the cloud hiding his eye. I will yoke myself to my faith And climb again Like the moon saddling the earth, Riding like the horseman against the sea.
Image: Created by Grok inspired by “This Salt Sea“
This Salt Sea
Because my mother bore me, I navigate this salt sea that pulsates under my skin, this blood sea the moon urges. In the push and flow, I still my eyeballs and listen to the ocean in my ears,
but I can never find the boundary they call skin. I never know where I should end and you might begin: I feel you are a wave and I am the sand. Or you are a long strand of kelp and I am the forest.
Maybe you are a school of fish and I am the food they toss from the glass-bottom boat. Maybe I am a crab and you are a gull,
though I suspect you’re a shark—
but you’re probably just a slippery dolphin whose language I wish I could learn.
Image: Created by Grok inspired by “River of Soul Love“
River of Soul Love
A saint hears her soul singing silence deep. She listens and lusts no more for a man. She hands her Divine Friend her heart to keep.
She sings glad hymns His Sacred love to reap— Her heart rises above its human span. A saint hears her soul singing silence deep.
Her eyes of devotion no longer weep— She needs no mortal to complete her plan. She hands her Divine Friend her heart to keep.
Her blood flames cool with the vow she does keep. None can end what her Holy Friend began— A saint hears her soul singing silence deep.
The river of soul love flows then to sweep From her body all debris now to ban. She hands her Divine Friend her heart to keep.
She rests in silence—is blissful in sleep. She races and beats every clock that ran: A saint hears her soul singing silence deep. She hands her Divine Friend her heart to keep.
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