911 Dreaming of a World of Flesh

flesh

in a world of flesh

sees flesh only

the heart and the mind may suspect
but still too often
see
flesh only

back of the flesh in the world of gears
manipulated triggers pull at the limbs
that dance in the world of flesh

orchestration
and the high art of fraud
are an easy task
in the world of flesh

and the tumbling bodies hit
and the dust rolls in clouds from the streets
but another dust comes
from the smoke machines
and the mirror exchange of the press

some say the Arabs were angry that day
some say there's more to the ruse
beneath the veils are a number of things
that
SOMEONE
has put to good use

other intentions have come through the fire
and now they would burn the world

the convenient timing

the fabulous deaths

the great down winding
diminished regrets

in the unseeing world of flesh

now comes
the junk and the tedious songs
on and on
ad nauseum

the Twin Towers Watch
the speeches and banners

"on Comet and Cupid"

and Tiny Dancer

the peacocks are fanning

the demagogues struttin'

the survivors are jostlin'

through cables and grips

very important envelopes of flesh will
inflate their gills
with the shimmering scales of eminence

and gravitas

and their importance as flesh

and

remind
you
of
that

and... remind you... of that


it goes on forever

it lasts for an age

and-
..... THERE'S NO MORE FUCKING ROOM ON THE STAGE!

for the flesh

that encompasses space in a world of flesh

forget Rwanda,
Sierra Leone

the Congo?

where that's at?

I lost my cell phone

where's my goddamn latte?

is this lettuce fresh?

it's so hard for me
in this world of flesh

no one understands what it's like
for ME!

no one understands!

I don't understand

"why can't we all just get along?"

in the world of flesh

in the world of flesh

flesh expands and presses out over the clothing
and all restraint

flesh billows with the fruit of appetite

the soft melting encapsulated lard
of chewy TV goodies

and somebody

somebody...

blew up the church of the flesh

the goalposts of the empire of flesh
came down

the towers of flesh motivating upwards

the upwardly mobile flesh

flesh...

the lightening struck tower

somebody....

somebody....

now walk with me...
take a walk with me...

behind the world of flesh

back into the gears

back behind the tech's

behind the bankers

behind the money

behind the images

behind the ideas

behind the numbers

and behind the initial divide

far from the world of flesh you have

the uninvited guest

the forgotten lover

the fruit of desirous quest

someone forgot

SOMEONE FORGOT!

a lot of fragmented flesh puppets forgot

a whole lot of somebody
seriously forgot

to invite God into the world of flesh

and God showed up anyway

like the sword

as the spirit-
informing matter of it's presence

but it will never do to look for truth in the rubble

it will never do to think in terms
that flesh cannot accept

it will never do to consider
the absolute precision of the act

the fluid grace

that caught everyone flat footed
with a stupid look on their face

things can only be a certain way in the world of flesh

the impermanent flesh demands it

the vanishing melting vulnerable flesh is trumpeting

and cannot hear beyond it's own noise

the flesh is God unto itself

in the land of stuff

where stuff is God

there is never enough
there is NEVER enough...

just the wanting of the flesh
in a landscape of desired things

the temporary paradise on disappearing wings

rage on flesh

RAGE ON!

wrap yourself in the colored images of dream

wrap yourself in the vain exhortation

wrap yourself in the clamoring

clanging detuned symbols
of the empire of flesh

scream
and laugh

and weep
and carry on

it is never a moment too soon
in a world that is too soon gone

one should never disturb the dangerous dreams
of the lords of the kingdoms of flesh

the heart and the mind may suspect

but they can't get there yet

the tiny voice in the silence may speak

but cannot be heard

not in the world of flesh

sometimes a greater noise is needed

from the lover you have forgotten

the lover
who
has not forgotten
you...

I know you're in there....

[BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!]

“I KNOW YOU"RE IN THERE!!!!!!”

[BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!]

“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!!!!!!!”

I know you're in there...

hidden in a world of flesh.

Buried in a world of flesh

Patrick Willis narrates:

9/11 Dreaming of a World of Flesh

His Rachel Corrie Moment (In Memory of Asma al-Mughayr)

the cross-hairs fix
across the rooftops

wind from the south-
....five knots

and leading
across the space where birds
have flown

but now
in the cold Ashka-Nazi eye

the young girls form
moves in laughing dance

arms gathering the laundry
she dreams
and surely she must hope
of a world and a life beyond today

as finger tightens
upon trigger...

when it came
the explosion was

of such a force that...

he came too

like Romeo's ghost upon
the imagination's palanquin of night

the bearers of the darkness
they toiled
underneath the thrust

of bullet and finger touching
the silenced heart

and
blood like a fountain
sprayed upon the sheets...

....some secret code
that she read as
she fell dying to the roof

this...

his Rachel Corrie moment come
round at last.

Patrick Willis narrates:

His Rachel Corrie Moment

(In Memory of Asma al-Mughayr)

Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?

[I wrote this a few days after I saw that Congress was trying to pass a resolution on the fiftieth anniversary to request that Japan apologize for Pearl Harbor.]

---

"Should the Japanese Apologize for Pearl Harbor?"

the Japanese were not the first
to bomb Pearl Harbor
we were

so i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor

just as soon as we apologize to the Hawaiians
for bringing the mosquito and yellow fever
killing thousands

for bringing venereal disease

for the horror of sugar cane

and purple mountains travesties
above the looted plains

for sabotaging the beaches with kiawe thorn trees
to force the natives to drape their bodies
from the hot gaze

of their twisted
goddamned
christian missionary eyes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to the Japanese Americans
for interning them in concentration camps

and as soon as Richard Nixon's Quakers apologize
for stealing their properties

(which were left to them in trust to be returned upon their release
which they were not)


I think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki

(still simulated every year at a Texas airfield)


i will always remember how the blast fused their shadows
into the building walls

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as we apologize to the Native Americans
for the ruin of their culture

the theft of their lands

the whiskey and infected blankets

the destruction of their hunting grounds

and for stripping them of all humanity and dignity

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think the Japanese should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America apologizes
to the African Americans

for slavery

beatings

emasculations

rapes

hobblings and brandings

pretended emancipations

segregation

lynchings

and

the slandering
imprisonment
and murder of their heroes


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
just as soon as America
apologizes to Cambodia

for 3640 B-52 bombing raids
and 110,000 bombs dropped
during a war that never took place

and for backing Pol Pot
as the legitimate representative of the people

(i remember to this day
the pyramid mountain of skulls outside Pnom Phen)

THEY DIDN'T GET ANY WARNING EITHER


i think Japan should apologize for Pearl Harbor
as soon as Attila apologizes to Rome

Salome apologizes to John the Baptist

on the day that politicians become honest
bankers become generous

no fault applies to love

and the Pope shits in the woods


and should be delivered to the White House

by a woman on ice skates

ten minutes after Hell freezes over



A song:

♫ Frogman ♫

If I were Inside You

I could form a garden from the wind
Make it stay for your enjoyment
Then turn it back again
If I were inside you

If I were inside you
I would not move
It seems so slow
But you would move
I know

Heaven and Earth

You would be the gate
And they would be the same

Flaming letters would write your name
Upon every living thing

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
I would expand
Till you could not contain

Thunder would break the sky
And lightening would flash

There would be rain

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
The door of everything
Would open
And we would rock upon the water
Till the sea gave up the dead

The fire in my heart
Would be the sunlight in my head

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
Every pore upon your skin
Would open into rainbows
That would tremble and dissolve

Over and over again

If I were inside you

If I were inside you
Because you let me in
I would fold my tent forever

Hell would curl up at your feet
And go to sleep

And I would never leave again

If I were inside you

Patrick Willis narrates:

If I Were Inside You

Elsewhere

i have known love
and tasted both delight and sorrow
there on the dark altar of the night


and in the end it did not matter to me
no more than the promise of fortune or revenge
i remained a pauper,


poorer from this multitude of desires
and i am no more wise nor more skilled
by that to which i never gave more than half my heart
because my attention was Elsewhere
always Elsewhere.....


In some Jamaica of the mind,
peering like a dream miniature over a gulls wing
drinking in the sun drenched waters
of another endless ocean


the summer cliffs of Big Sur
wandering in deserts
hitching the nowhere highway
like Quixote in Spain
dreaming of Elsewhere


tracking the Elsewhere
a place i can barely visualize
barely trace the outline
like some blurred face on an old coin


yet it never leaves me for a moment
it penetrates my every thought
until nothing is more important
than to be Elsewhere
to be
where it is


like Marcellus
who won the robe
and was burned to the soul when he put it on
they say the love of God is like a consuming fire
and he could not rest
until it had consumed him


there has been laughter and tears
and visions
and descents into the dark splendor
more than a few times
to educate the serpent in the spine
who is neither good nor bad
but both
alternatively


nothing


i have observed


is consistently anything


nothing but the truth
which cannot be observed



everything in time
turns to its opposite


day to night
hot to cold
the hope of youth into the resignation of age
and the hell of a compromised life



the loyalty of anything
leads ultimately to betrayal
where does one stand...?
on what?
And for what?
we let such little things destroy us
we do not see the Elsewhere
i have never held anything completely


there is a place...
i know it without question
it is the highest note above the keening of the wind
it is beauty and despair
it is the suffering spirit in the house of the rich
it is Lazarus at the palace gates


it is
and i am
and one of us is displaced


nothing is harder than to get there


i write these words because i am in love with it
somehow i am marked by it
too much has happened in this life
too much that can not be explained


of course
it could be only the arrogant mind
that imagines for itself
a high destiny


but my dreams are not of golden plunder
ten thousand horsemen
or a high throned kingdom
though real fame does intrigue me more than the rest
to be anonymous is best
i have seen his name attached to many things


i dream of freedom and
bright sunlit rooms
beautiful faces that speak to me in music
who are they?
i have been here before
but not in this world
this world is only a shadow of it
quite simply shit
brushed with rainbows
that glow in the ghost light of a neon nightmare


can love be accomplished here?
the wind whistles through dead trees
and that is all the answer that this world gives me
and I,
like every other fool
have asked it more than once
out of boredom
to be enchanted and bewildered


lost at birth
abandoned in the great hall of mirrors
slowly borne down the continuum


in these mirrors i have seen my thoughts
the good and the bad
they are the moment
and what the moment says
is like the wind that whistles through dead trees


too many mirrors breed a carnival of despair


after a time
love becomes the supreme effort
it works in every small way
diligent to seal the cracks
through which devotion leaks
into complacency and death


such a love does not sleep
its power is from that Elsewhere place


there is a highway
and it is not separate from life
they are the same
each filled with exits and entrances
lined with attraction
and circumstance
that lead into every possibility of the imagination
none of them lead Elsewhere...


beyond-
the wind that whistles through dead trees
and it is Elsewhere
at last
that brings us everyone to our knees


every stop on the highway
is another death
disguised as justified delay



it is so lonely on the highway
for on every side the only sound one hears
is the wind
as it whistles through dead trees


in the distance are the lights of town
there are warm seductive rooms
crowded with all the postures of approaching death
but in time
taking on the very appearance of life


time blurs the critical eye
and we see what pleases our reasons to stay
and we must stay
out of the fear of the meaning that comes
to one who listens overlong
and understands...


...that voice
like some great and solitary raven
perched atop a gutted skull
that is the face of the wind
as it whistles through dead trees


there is no forgetting after that
no drink nor drug can erase it
i have tried
believe me i have tried


in the end
there is some truth
to the mutterings
of those robed and cowled merchants of word magic


after a fashion there is some truth
to these phrases
"be here now"
"we are all one"
"let it flow"
"do what thou wilt"
along with all the others
do not believe them
they work for the bank


the truth is Elsewhere
has always been
Elsewhere
and their words are the origin of the wind
that whistles through dead trees


so many imposters
they have taken us all
perhaps they believed what they said
perhaps they did not
they spoke of somewhere
but not of Elsewhere


now...


i do not know
what I am about...


Elsewhere waits Elsewhere
and i wait here for Elsewhere
and i believe that Elsewhere will come to me


why else has it filled my every dream?
why else has it caused me-
consistently to fail,
from having given so little of myself
to every effort in this world?
from having found no ambition to be strong enough to fill me
from having loved nothing enough to forget how much
i wanted to be Elsewhere


now...
there remain those small duties of life to attend to
those efforts i have overlooked
in my desire to be Elsewhere


not seeing that Elsewhere
forever retreats before desire


that Elsewhere
is just that place where desire ends
so


there are matters to attend to
and time to attend to them
and that is good
and very much like being Elsewhere
and in all of this


the sweetest of musics


the warning and the witness


and the heart of patience itself


is the whistling of the wind
through dead trees


in memory of Elsewhere

Patrick Willis narrates:

Elsewhere

What is not Under Discussion

somewhere
in your wet
moist
jungle regions

in the undiscovered mystery of your skin
in the beckoning
in the squalor
in the given heart of everything

in your dark parlour

lies the mystery of becoming

a thing activated by and for
the endless expressions of itself.

sinuous and langorous
unique and
infidelitous

incestuously congressing with

the infinite permutations of itself

Saying hello

Waving goodbye

running its hand up your thigh

why?

for the perpetuating image making
congregating pressure to become

and

to expand

to live in temporary splendor or

in the pursuit of one thing after another
as a veil upon the truth..

or...

and generations of imaged beings overlay

and overlay

the white hot starlight at

the sweet silent center that keeps the kitchen warm
and puts the heat into your jeans at alternating locations.

Can you feel it?

Hmmm...

Yes... it's a mystery.

It parts its legs and the world appears.

The dynamics insist that the attractive impulse should be for the thing

magnetized

apart from... and then...
into communion with elements and compounds
cooking up fiery chaos...

but rather does wisdom suggest
you keep your hand close to your chest
and your heart single
when division is death

Massive impetus...

incalculable pushing out and sucking in
that web of sunlight can grow sticky
and dense..

denser yet....

down into carbon oil and diamonds...

Wow! Look!

It comes out the other side again.

How comes the fire to be fiery hot?
What is the sensation of burning?
What makes water wet?
What is the nature of pain?
There are as many kinds of fire and
motivations ...as definitions of gain

Yes it is a mystery

Things fall and things change

Things hurt and heal

Buddhas shimmer where the sun hits the water
Jesus glimmers in the virgin mind
Mohammed makes a tapestry
and all of it divine and moving on

sense and nonsense
thinking and feeling
pleasure and pain

and

Time

It's a lily pad
It's a lotus
It's all hocus pocus
Its a lie that depends on the I
see for yourself.

Sticky... sticky taffy.... sweet incandescent morsels of murk
flypaper... amber...

screams frozen in Time
Laughter, screams, laughter, screams
You pay for what you get
You get what you pay for...

You are the currency
the moment looking at itself
devoid of understanding the thing on which it rests
it seeks security against the inevitable

instead of shelter
beneath
the incomprehensible

Herein is the wicket and the key
and you're on a Busman's Holiday.

All of this
so simple and so intricate
hiding in plain sight
with or without light
does hinge on one thing...

one question...

is it conscious?

Are you?

Well then...

Nothing more need be added or done
Either it is or it is not

If not... then from where comes the capacity to question?

Ah..

uh huh...

precious, precious jewels draped in cobwebs
tracked by ghost spiders

blind groping round the corners of the mind
while the buffeting distractions go on
without end
where? where?

slippery as a fish
elusive
monumentally present
overarching and
groined

penetrating
essence

oily

luminous

There where your treasures be
is each personal conclusion
at that point where the teapot
pours out the paisley and
makes a Persian rug or a dungeon keep.

Real Love

Love opens things
So love would hurt as much as heal
It would hurt first


Real love-
It would confuse, disarm, weaken and destroy
Everything in its way
Everything that was, in fact,
A part of you
That would conceal
Real love


Real love lasts forever
We do not last as long
until we become
real love


Real love has come to town
Six gun blazing in a town full of lies
Now is the showdown
The duel in the street
Real love is the only thing standing


Real love rides alone
Squints out of one good eye
Nails the coffin shut
Nothing got out alive
But real love


Real love is going to make you cry
Make it worse before it gets better
Tear you up inside


Real love-
Who would want such a thing?
It takes the atmosphere away
Breaks all your toys
Burns down your house
And steals your car
But you’re not going very far
Anyway


Real love has got its hands on you
Burns from the inside out
Nothing left


Nothing but wide prairie
And huge commanding stars

You’ve never been so alone
You’ve never been so complete


Outside this golden ring
The cities burn forever


And you can never fall asleep
Again...


real love

In Search of Rest

the image of love in

the mirror

turns...

into a whirlpool of desire

we cannot maintain our balance

and so we fall



was it love?

we are the fuel

and when we are gone

there is no flame



i became brilliant beneath the light of your love

i was alive

and only then was i alive



woven into tapestries of color and sound

where have you gone?



i look for you in every face

but i do not fall in love



i remain apart

one wing in an empty sky



somewhere inside

a woman moves

and at night she often dances

in perfect breath with me



this is the woman with whom i am truly close

this is the only woman



mother of God

sound and fury

silence absolute

beautiful beyond description

terrifying in full approach



the mind dissolves



"be still my child

no harm will come to you

strong men i bring them down

and suck them dry

but my child may dwell in safety"



i looked too hard and too long

i found her and now i cannot return



there is no dream of life that can be believed



there is only the vastness of space

the appearance of time

and the differing weight...



sometimes heavy

like the sorrow of a long past



sometimes light as an angels hand upon your shoulder

steering a course through the stormy heavens

and planetary wars fought in human form

until the last day



she is everywhere

in unseen miniature multiplied



in the air

the earth

the dancing flesh



she takes me in my sleep

flying up the long corridor to my bright home



why is it difficult to leave the fields of play?

here among the doomed flowers

the gravity of bones

the brief exhalation of life



young girls press the pulse

and draw the essence forth

into the raging holocaust

of passion rampant

on a field of blood



"i will protect you my child

i will wash the worlds of form from your heart

i will remove the sword above your head

i will teach you to dance

but you will dance for me alone"



it is the greatest heartbreak

the destruction of the false self

dreamed by the self

and revealed to the self

at separations end



the terror of mortal pain

the agony of life’s constant march



unending loss of everything



unending loss of everything



it hurts to be free

freedom is too much to bear

too difficult to accept



the luminous door appears

and the mind cries out for darkness



it slithers under floorboards and rocks

to hide from immortality



"i will protect you my child

i will hold you as yourself

we are woven as one

eternity and time

forget

forget

forget"




in a world where everything but truth dies

but which few see



in a world that begins and ends forever

that is the playground

for a mind magnetized by dust



in a world where everything is broken

no heart is safe



in a world of mostly water

for it is a world of mostly tears



in a world where love is crucified

no lie is safe



in a world of contrasts

of desperate flights

and measureless descent

where everything is written on

or built out of sand

that flows to the bottom of an all forgiving sea



in a world of waiting

and hoping

where every dream comes true

eventually

and then loses its meaning and disappears



in a world of rumors

and dying swans who mate for life

we move to and fro

in search of rest



impelled by need

in search of rest



tormented by flies and furies

in search of rest



burning in the long night

in search of rest



in search of rest



in search of rest



"i will protect you my child

i have built a garden of delight

it hangs iridescent in the air

it gleams in a drop of water

it spins in the living breath"



a love serene

the emptiness of mind



the holding of one



the mirror of light



the bloom of begotten-

worlds sent forth

in search of rest



in search of rest



in search of rest

Patrick Willis narrates:

In Search of Rest

I Do Believe (an Easter Poem)

In that essential stillness

that quiet endless hour...
preceding every dawn
of every day...

God breathes into the world of sleep
whatever power might be taken
to reach
that waking moment
in the warm falling rain of his grace...

In every year
whenever the wheel has turned
into the place where it must turn again

or stop

for want of hope
or lack of dreams...

God breathes once again
into the greater whole...
this soft malleable whiteness
this stone...

he blesses
this unformed essence of extraordinary love
not yet fashioned with object
or desire...

it awaits our cleansed and contrite heart

awaits our innocence returned

awaits our renewing hope and certain will

that we might approach closer to the mark...

We have fallen back
upon the dying leaves

upon the sidewalks of shouting cities

into the guttering run
where flows the secret mind of our hidden deeds

more times than we can
through mercy
recall....

Every breath
every morsel of food
every chance of redemption
every possibility of hope
rests upon the bleeding power
that has bought and paid for every coming minute of the age...

Every twisted ugly thing

Every kindness unseen

every gentle thought

every whip hand falling
or whatever we may have turned it to...

all paid for by the living vision
of the one who dies

who is crucified
in the simultaneous instant of every act....

everything is permitted and fed
that we might, through the gift
of this unspeakably great thing
come to see how we might be....

and the certain possibility of that
for everyone of us

no matter how dark the way

how far afield...

is the 'ceaseless' intent
of the one left bleeding....

what freedom is
what love is
what peace is
we have no clue

only the yearning
and the road that leads us there...

Many have filled this void with words

Many heroes come
and seeming villains to meet them in their time

all sleeping now
in places deep and waiting...

but this one does not sleep

Is born anew in every breath

shines from each shining eye

cannot and will not forget

carries us past the trouble and regret.

In tongues forgotten he has come
to every race
in every time

dressed as everyone

always unknown and alone
and waiting...

this immeasurable gift

unappreciated

not understood

remains...

lays on the common ground

is tossed aside as worthless

is unseen among the items in the cart

it feeds us

grants us life where there would be none...

endless granted, giving life...

full and safe and perfect

I do believe....

Patrick Willis narrates:

I Do Believe

(an Easter Poem)

Bend over and Wait

true love is a dream
that wakes up
and blends everything into itself


life has meaning
everything makes sense


sometimes it is more than this
sometimes much less
without it


then life becomes all expectation
hope running nervous at the edges
that are frayed
where they have been gnawed by doubt


too weak in the end to hold together
under the terrible weight of disappointment
which is always the result
of seeking true love
while being unable to truly love


real love is more rare than a bankers tears
more rare than sacrifice in a politician
yet it is what gives us life
still


we dream and wonder


and bend over and wait...


the physical eye is aflame and
intoxicated with form


golden Barbies and volleyball gods
symmetrical curves and perfect lines
youth without brains and
as cruel as a cat


the fruit of imagination
the object of desire


the plain ones cry-
"choose me!"
"no me!"
"sprinkle me with fairy dust."
"smile and break my heart."
bend over and wait...


"image is everything."
in that case imagine Agase sodomized with a tennis racket
an excellent image
caught by Canon
seeming...
somehow...
vulnerable in this new light
lets see that one again
i know
bend over and wait...


life is television and television
is life
there on the mindscreen to digest
serve it with blood in a beaded glass
put the shine of romance on your beckoning ass
while you
bend over and wait...


ah
the wait
the expectation...


small bumps of excitement dot the cheeks
the sphincter contracts
and in a circular twist
its length is rimmed with invisible tongues
slick sweet death to the max
"oh!"
"now!"
"now!"
"now!"
bend over and wait...


visible beauty
the desperate lie
they came here
and confused attention with love
notoriety with fame


and not even death and rebirth
has given them any depth


these tragic shells with nothing inside
they slide through the scenery
as the scenery
crying to the world


"long for me!"


"desire me!"


"lay awake at night and dream of me!"
(clench your stomach tight with need)
but
"don't touch!"
"don't touch!"


let them milk your desire like bees among the flowers
and
bend over and wait...


they slide like snakes in the moonlight
over dark glass
they mate with their own vacant forms
moving millimeters apart


never touching
and always out of reach


two dimensional poster art


the blue television light flickers
and halos their face
lit with the blood-light of swallowing fate


they dance before you and sing


"bend over and wait."


"bend over and wait."


they break the heart like glass
with their cold hard beauty


hard and cold and hard and


adamantine


and valued
as diamonds are


by those who covet what cannot feel
bend over and wait...


bend over and wait...


we are presently dead
actually asleep
and in a dream


buried in flesh


everything is backwards


we wake up when we die


god is playing hide and seek
while you


dream of being serviced by a cyborg
that television said was real


television said
"get excited!"


television said
"let them sit on your face!"


television said
"you should live for this."


and


if they are late?
yea
you know


bend over and wait

Patrick Willis narrates:

Bend Over and Wait