Love Letter 264 Adopt Me Into Your Virtue

Assist me

for I remember naught(nothing)

of the truth

Your arrival here

has made me forget

all the gossip

What I had once

worn

is now

old and wrinkled

the place where I live/used to live

has become

unfamiliar

Live on in me,

though I have no future,

I have everything

but death

and that too

comes and goes

without capture

or conviction

and this is good

Your Beloved

Love Letter 263 Silhouette

Love -- let thou cut through me --

for I am just a figure/fixture

the real truth

is that

inside this crystal ball

eternity rises

out of snow

Your Beloved

Love Letter 262 A Poem

you have become familiar

like a favorite pen

I paint my candles on the cobwebs (with)

holding my own eyes open

to see the singe of new light

as I aspire

to become

what can never be

doubted

so it is

you have become

the instrument

through which I whittle

all my useless ideas

into one

stark magnet

of the One

and so

I break all promises

and pedestals

and free lance idols

with indifference

for I know

that all

this foolery

is still

the Path to God

I Love You,

Your Beloved

Love Letter 261 In the Labyrinth of the Witch Doctor

This life is full of confessions

and remissions

but I wonder

if I live a thousand years

that all might play out

taking turns

with each other

that some are dreams

come to fruition

and some are

bedrock

broken

and my dear

this love of ours

in founded

on all that's

broken

and rebuilt

all that silence and discussion

all that larceny and concession

my love

this brutal force

of absolution

and dunking in

to all that's demanded of the labyrinth soul

all that human has to mold and squash

is but a brevity of cups passing under your lips

filled with liquid

filament

of the one truth

and so

exasperated

as the tongue

can get

in the portal

of each confession

and withdrawal

all our sins

are really

all the playing cards of god

and if I beat you

it is only

for an instant

before

you become

the winner

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 260 Abandon Your Preference, My Darling

each encounter

with your new ghost

is like a graveyard burning from the inside

all its fears dancing

in the twilight

with a groove made into heaven

and I have fields of inlets

that wash above the waterline

and fields of infinite kisses

which blister into bliss

if you let it

into your

landmine

and I have founded a new way

to open

up to the sea

without birthing

this extraordinary oil

into another child

but leave it

finding its way

like a mirage

into a miracle

real

and not real

luminous

and not illuminated

this pungent detail

of all love is

is seaworthy

and I have left you

a fringe

of its reflection

to suckle

My Love Is Extraordinary

If You Taste

with something other

than

your

preferences

I Love You,

Your Beloved

Love Letter 259 Supreme Joy

I have not forgotten

how you poster child your love

and how you ancestor your freedom

and how you hold your head high in a certain light

I have not forgotten

how you live

by the book

and make all things

useful

according to the way

but what I like

is that you

put away

your awesome dreams

into a pendulum

that swings

between

how you live

and how you love

and there it is

holding you

accountable

to some other way

you have not found yet

but will find

because I know you, my love

to be the bearer

of all things light

and my trust in you

is so supreme

so untouchable

that I cannot

waver

but delight

in your affixation

of how god will receive you

once you

discover

you have arrived

and I love you for this

all the work

you put in the way

of finding god

because I know

how it is

to wait so long

for something

you already

have

I Love You,

Your Beloved

Love Letter 258 the II Taking in the Answers

God,

I forgot how good

your hemlock tastes

when I have given up

and the shroud of practice

falls apart

and I am still thin and frail

and all my promises

made

(only always)

to myself

shear time

of its innocence

and this holy veil

made of sin and water

these abundant sewage sinews

which make the grass green

with their homages

I cannot avow

anything clean

when this wasteland has abutted my predicament

to do God's work

I must rescind

and erase

I must fall over laughing

at the instant cost

of all my fear of pain

I must stop the labor

of forgetting

and protecting

all my bad omens

and colossal shame

I have given up

the silk stone

and the pocket watch

ticking as an instrument of malady

I have given up the sorcerer's polite quest

and the bridge to holistic magic

I have given up

giving you a single thing

to remember me

and I drop

into the subterfuge ocean

because I am not dressed

for the funeral

but

for the resurrection

and this single silting sign

of my own openness to death

becomes my warpath

it raises its hand

to strike

all that is fragile and frail

all that disgusts me in its sorrow

all that makes me weak again

and instead embraces

with a sky

so ravenous

that I cannot surrender

but must

drop

drop

into the pylons of immortal glory

where I can stand confounded

and adored by my own images

of fate

and still

the tired wheel

of rabinith

burns away my beauty

everything is

torn

torn

torn

the apostles in the sunset

of their gathering father leaving

and still

finally

the resurrection

reconciliation

I am at the bottom of my misery

all mystery -- debunked

the only thing now

is this still grass

and the cloud

which is dispersing

you remember my name, love

and this wish has taken everything for granted

you remember how I was the star

of my own

sky

virginal and dusted

but you took me down

down

down

like a pedestal that wasn't working

I needed to come

up

from the ground

first

to know the first thing

about

taking away all my glory

so I might glorify

that which is the True Light

keep the flame

of that which is the True Fire

renege all my adjustments on my master

and let him

lead me

by my need

into the emptiness

flogging my headdress and its assumptions

by my neediness

I have emptied

my assumptions

by my greed

I have surrendered

by my loneliness

I have given my potential

to God

and this, my love,

has freed me

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 258 Further Notice

I was there

from beginning

pulse

storm

erotic change

the multi-bred chaos of perfection

bending

all direction

into

one still thrust

of constancy

and You,

Beloved

put on all your garments

of confusion

and lust

and swallowed me

but

I did not

go away

inside you, I broke

into everything

and you used me

to attain

that master password

Love

Your Beloved

Love Letter 257 Unknown

the heart's thesis

is but a tertiary bedouin

the real love

is the practice of awkward acceptance

Your biography is a mustard seed

on the throne of the acropolis

no one

has loved me like you do

yet I am still in this body

yogis arrive in the am

cleansed by ashtanga

the sangha does kriya

the mountain lion has claws

which leave no marks in their tracks

what does this suggest

but that I am hungry, looking

flipping through cabinets

emptying shelves

with my restless

lack of achievement

it is past 4 and I still have yet to shower, yet to build an ashram

yet to bend like a reed in the wind

dear lover

what has come to pass is but a stretch of imagination

a mere rock in a world of sand

my love,

every compunction must be obliterated

the mind must sin, sin, sin, until it is done

being the elaborate master of its own syndication/vindication

My love

every ounce of pressure

is but a shock

sinking in

I am not lost

but I am finding my way

slowly

like an organic garden

the soil

is so polluted by expectation

that I cannot do downward dog

yet forever I can hold the pose of

awe

but can I shift my gaze to include

my own flaws?

beloved

there are rings for every finger and chants for every circumstance

all I am

is a bed of dirty poems

holding up their begonia flag

waiting on a chance encounter

with Grace

I Love you

Your Beloved

Love Letter 256 Invisible Ink

Oh Mystery,

this chasm is our grape field

where wrath has gone to wine

and snarls have been smoothed

the aching gale of every life is fleeting

Love puts her foot down

and

for all this cantankerous pounding

your stamp is on my heart

each cask like a swollen lung emptied

of her habits

tears like birthmarks

begin to Fade

in your altercating affection

I thrive

and all those past infatuations

become thresholds

to more love

like a cylinder being honed

for more madness

the madness of complete love

the asylum of the single stem

and the tread on path, which has already been worn into a temple floor

Oh mystery and madness

the contemplative tradition

has a dance with these jesters

and the sun never sets

to declare a champion

but oh, your beauty

is a trap

and once entered

all illusion is eroded

Love

Your Beloved

Love Letter 255 Intimate

Oh stranger at sunset --have we not first tasted sunrise

to know the rest of this story?

what bliss has harbored here her own heart and departed -- with not a kiss

but an ecstatic wincing that we must part?

was it something I said?

to annihilate your wonder?

some simplicity gone in our speed?

some beautiful erosion -- which made this spark separate --

Oh One,

what have I done to distort your image?

and how might I see?

ever again.

Please lure me with your answer

( I am so willing)

Your Beloved

Love Letter 254 Fierce Undercurrent

The sea is calm today, lover

should I tell you?

her fury always temporary and remarkable.

the last few days, like a tempest, she beckoned and then turned

her heart like a violet asteroid ambushing my innocence

all the rugs from her ocean floor

got pulled up simultaneously

and left out, by my door

where I could see and smell all she had been maintaining and containing

my dear love

is this possible?

that one so great

so indifferent

has her heart squalled and complicated like our own?

that all her sea weeds must be ravaged

and rearranged on every shore, throughout this world?

is it true

that her voluptuous nature

is like our own

turbulent and rocky

mysterious and calm?

has she handed me a plate of stone

so I may sift through my lucidity

finding only her?

this great wave is coming

and I have set up my longing all along its coast

I know

that when she

is ready

she will devour

all that I love

and still bellow her caterwaul whoring

and angelic transcendental shroud

all the while,

lover

she will be at her center

staring straight into the eye of God

and at His command

she will evolve

into Holy Water

and all I have lost

will become her veil

Love

does it destroy me to be so close and yet so far?

yes

again and again

I am destroyed

day after day

altar after altar

all my personal wants thrown back into surrender

all my emotional needs like jelly fish dried up on the shore

everything

I have wished for

is mocked

moment after moment in continuous procession

by her flattering, discombobulating current

all I have prized, from this flesh

becomes a whimpering edge on the dregs of my omnipotent dissolution

my love

the ocean is calm today

but there is butter

in the pot

and an oven

which is already

turning

on

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 253 Chalice Love Song

May I prevail, oh My Beloved

My Partner of the One Love.

In You, all things are cause for laughter, cause to Love

In you, I have every romance

predictable and demure

every adventure

outrageous and awakening

In Your love, In Your power

ecstasy is my very soul

and I am no one prevailing, but Love, which always is

Your countenance a Divine Example

Your Religion, the right to love

Your perfect frame for my fumbling

Your complete orchestra for my solo

Oh Ecstasy Devout, I scratch out every symbol,

eat only Your words

Drink only Your Tea from the Clouds

I am better and better

and still the seed swells with wanting more

You Visit me

and I am like a tavern of illusions

so You become the broom

and sweep me with your sagebrush and frankincense

You offer me pearls, which dangle only from wisdom

and You take off your shoes,

and show me

how to kneel.

I am suffering to know you

and yet

it is enough

to feel your bare feet in my temple

My Lord

you have captured me, like a bird who only wants to sing to her hero

let all my songs

make You more evident

in this world

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 252 Free

My Love,

I have been to Gibraltar

seen the Queen of Abalone

tasted nectar from beneath the parables.

I have lines so deep, they fill with water

yet my heart is flat, Lover

an open plain of endless love, with no flock to indulge it

no cattle to chew its cud

no army of ants to build their spontaneous castles

My Love,

I have been to the Red Sea, washed up in its sand, found the fossils of Venus

yet

I am still dry

like a canvas held up to the sun, my colors turning to dust

which artist, will come, who has new brushes, and an intense passion to live?!

My Love

I have flown a biplane, sung to volcanoes

and seen the serpent of the most high turn into remedy

but I am a wasteland

vanilla and chocolate

but no children

I have tossed my anchor, cast my net

and still

I am unblemished

I sit amused

Tolstoy has ordered my summation

yet

this wheel cannot touch solid ground

all that I am

spoils

in the shadow of the world

I have invited thieves to empty me

to wrestle me

to harvest each oyster

to no avail

My Love

I remain

unchallenged

I Am Still in God's hands

no matter

how I offer myself up

All my service, all my slander

cannot still the pond

of Her everflowing Cup

I am ever enamored

and I will never burn

to the ground

or disappear

there are no marks

on my being

God looks at me

and sees

anew

that I am His

perfect

chaste

and wild

Your Beloved

Love Letter 251 Your Ruby

I'm not afraid.

You have put me together

every time I have wanted to fall apart

You have taken these pieces, like gemstones

in your jewelry

and made them shine.

You have made me from broken brambles, stems, and humus

You have taken the time

and patience

to wallow with me

touching my sores

swallowing my pride for me.

You have allowed the sun to keep coming

out of the blue

and its energy to continue nourishing

You have taken me from a scrub of brush

into an ongoing garden.

You have pulled out each splinter, like a star

and you have taken

all of the weight

without

telling me

to stop complaining.

You have woven Your oar

into my great ocean

so that no matter where I am

we can work together.

I have given You nothing

but shattered glass from false intoxications

and you have made me the ruby in your crown.

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 250 With a Brave Switch

I came here,

to get away

from it All.

from it All except You

I wanted to be only in one place and one time, with one masterpiece

all of my heart and intention directed on that one light

but the waves are coming over the seawall

and the weather is like a match against gas

and suddenly

there is no getting away with getting away

I am only with you

each flood so flammable

I can draw the curtains, love

but

if I know you (at all)

the roof will start caving in

and the windows will be blown out

by love

I Love You

Your Metamorphosing Beloved

Love Letter 249 Scrumptious!

Stop Judging Yourself! Beloved!

You, I Adore!

How dare you trace your missteps, with guilt and anything less than ardor?

You!

every exquisite feature transposed by Gods!

each lingering abstinence, each missionary, each design for failure fraught with a pendulum from God!

I love your every frailty, Beloved!

Your every compendium!

Your manufactured, or dysfunctional arms at erect defense!

Your dirty dishes!

for they hold traces of your birthmark, fingerprints, preferences!

All your dirty laundry is so Lucky!

for it has been so close to you!

airing on your skin!

and Lover!

all that clutter! Oh delicious, exceptional, beloved clutter!

I reach my climax in that clutter!

pages with your name

remembering your birth

and piles of this and that which you have touched and set upon the floor as SCULPTURE!

Ahh Exquisite and Divine Rapture to let me know such Bliss!

What is there to criticize? Are you not the most Beloved and Blessed Creature?!

Are you not just right?

Just as the Divine Author would inscribe you to be?

or have you forgotten your Blessedness?

For each sliver of judgement.... a slice of love cake, My Beloved!

for each sacrament of you is Holy!

All your evidence strewn everywhere is Immaculate!

Every wrinkle in the Divine Fabric is a layer of Ecstasy!

I Love You Beloved!

So Let Me, be the judge ---YOU ARE PERFECT!

and I will not be contradicted!

Your Beloved

Love Letter 248 Root Lock

40 days and 40 nights

I have been complaining

"why, have you not come to my desert?"

I sit like a statue on a silky square of cloth

and make penance to the wind

my love

you have abandoned my holy winning

you have looked away as I so fatally sold my soul to these plans

you saw me obediently squaring off my nature

yet you did not interfere

oh, but I was lonely

busy forgetting you, by the long line of tv shows, and places to shop

my mind like its own cinema

and memories -- like a concession stand

my love

did you see me trying to not try?

then try again?

did you note my posture

and breathing?

I was holding your gaze with my suspicious root lock

oh love

you cast your entry,

but I was busy, building a castle, with a moat

and sea serpents to protect this rock

to make it magical

to suffer and sacrifice like a diligent fool

all to win your entry!

if I had only lifted

that single silk square

I would have seen your omniscient eye

and known your omnipotent love

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 247 Caught in the Act!

we can stop hiding.

We are already having an affair.

no matter who has caught us... we have caught ourselves...

you know it

and I know it

each time we look at each other, We are having an affair

each thought we have

of the other

clothed or naked

kissing

or washing dishes

leaving

or turning back around...

this has got to stop!

All our trying to refrain, restrain, withhold, be in allegiance to something other than this,

every prayer we draw with our glimpses

every time we go to bed by touching hands

I hear your laughter across the room

You are watching me

no matter how subtle it proves,

We are still in Love

and all our subtleties make falling in love so complicated!

I may have said, I couldn't, last time you asked.

I may have been addicted or attracted to something else

I may have said I was taken

but Love,

I was lying to myself even then.

When I thought I knew what love was

when I thought that necking in the dark, having babies, listening to the same music and saying I do was all there is

when I thought my words were relevant, important, profound,

when I thought my eyes could see all

and that my own heart was a watch, under my steady winding.

no no no

this curse will never lift, so long as you and I are lovers, in secret

what love then, can be abundant! and enjoyed?!

Your eyes have met mine for the last time

in secret!

I am telling every grain of sand

about our affair!

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 246 Now Has No Sequel

My Love,

Your perfume is never watered down --

whether just from waking or a long night of seizures

I feel you interrupting my hell

with clovers from heaven

I feel you enter my cocoon, your cooing voice outstretched

like a plank into the marching eye of God.

what phonograph turns with just adept compassion?

And how can I thank you?

Each time you blink, I get a rest from your all pervasive love.

so I don't forget to breathe, and burst into ringlets of your all-seizing fortuitous fire.

Oh keep me ablaze, beloved

in all those melodies

transposed from your altar into a prayer I cannot stop pronouncing.

with all my organs humbled in unison,

we weaken and engage,

our restless vacancies engorged with your irascible gonging

I Love You

Oh Persistent and Reverent One

you break into my cocoon

with your persistent perfume

your reverent humming

each score, a quartz sonograph, elevating my soul

your scent like the raven halos of the innocent,

the martyrs in intoxication,

and the beggars with their mouths contented.

oh Mad Jedi, of my stupefaction

I have noticed you, upon waking... the sheets still wet with your walking on water

and my fingers still curled into clinging casks of your aroma.

Oh Singular Trust, which expends galaxies to make one soul,

I am yours forever

your elixir, a residue/memory of inhalation in my lungs

that strange stratosphere of your amorphous

where I celebrate you,

without knowing how I know you

I Love You

more and more

Your Beloved

Love Letter 245 Fertility Symbol

Oh Beloved,

my whole core is empty

why are you not here?

a single reed standing amongst dead flowers

why are you not here?

there is

no candle left in the pot

the wax extinguished by All Your Light

which has come and gone

like the whistling waves who transfigure out on the ocean

oh single wick, wave, reed, burning her farewell

we are not lost in these winters.

Your abundant grace is like a juicy shadow keeping my place for summer.

I know you well.

like a quill in the ink well

Your jubilant letters have arrived

but I have folded them back into coffins

and let your rapt voice quit my openings.

I have let your rapt heart become the prism

through which all things come

and I have avoided its myriad of Light

in all forms.

I stop writing...

... for what is this beauty?

something comes so miraculously and I

am busy writing.

I must put down my pen -- to see it.

Observe its Beauty.

whistle at the Glory in my soul's own seeing.

I know Joy.

not from writing.

But from seeing what these words are trying to convey.

not the writing, but the meaning.

the way the sand has made its own pattern and the dead brush is quieted and muted by the stone day.

or the reed, which is not separate

from all this pen's lifting.

But my eyes which see most dearly into the heart of the world -- that Void-- which you have given, holds me.

and it is not me who is empty

But the very nature of you

giving me something

giving my always the fertile recipe to awaken.

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 244 So Used to Chasing

Where would I go Beloved?

YOU do not play hard to get ---

I am so used to chasing

something...

...What is my indecision?

to be with you, there? or here? ---

This is my dilemma.

I know it's laughable.

creating my own struggle within a paradigm of

already there.

Wondering if I should leave you... here

just to be with you... there.

Laugh with me, Beloved!

I go through what I think is real.

Allow this humor to dissolve the temporal -- so I may see the everlasting.

I love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 243 Abolished Shanty

Your Greatness is every where,

every strand of hair, and the shore's ever- changing hemline,

necking sea and sand right at the public's feet

You have warned me

but I waited for the siren, to grow tired, not loud

yet your anchor swept me

into its ambient tunnel, its paragraph of fantasy

this dance, like a wave hitting all that stands between its limber jumping

and its subtle impulsive throes

Oh My Beloved

you wanted me to wade in

but I waited for the water

to get so high

I had to laugh

when it came through the window

each drop like a lead quill, romancing my denial

broken glass, and bent hinges

the whole world an island in your sea

I was so patiently avoiding you

because I wanted to know

how badly you wanted me

Oh Love

You came through

Your jealous ranting, just an encore of an ever present love

-- an ongoing melody

the storm, just another gem sent to adorn me

Oh Love

I have not -- not noticed

Your alarms are like the spines of a fir tree

so scented and assertive

I am always reminded

there is a Way

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 242 The Wooden Mystic

I Am too simple... using words to arouse the obvious --

breaking bread with the flesh itself.

I Am not here to move you out of yourself -- only closer to God.

The mystic must balance the obvious with the mysterious

so as to make music the mortal and the plaintiff can hear

willing to let love lubricate even the most obstinate, limp and longing ossicles

My dear

your single word -- for which there are an oracle of euphemisms, pronouns, nicknames, curse words and letters omitted for their sacredness

my Dear One

who deafens me with beauty

I have lost my longing, at your single gesture toward my heart

I can no longer say I am hungry

yet

I still starve, in the magnificent spaciousness of my own practiced separation

You are here, if I but offer you a place to sit, or a single intention

and yet my suffering

is profuse

because

I keep the obvious mysterious, even to myself.

Oh burden of burdens, awaken me to the greatest depth of fear, so that I might surrender all this loot, to those mighty angelic thieves

allow me to beat my breast in epiphany, when struck dead,

I turn into You

and no lack lingers

no sugar sours the most obese sweetness.

My Love,

it is you

I sing to.

my cello, just a humble lute, still chanting another name

but, it Knows You

by the thundering pang of your orbit

all sounds, become tin kindling

each spice, like a blade of grass grown to be cut again

My Love

all that I have is a wooden leg to put on your fire

and having done so, can finally dance

Your Beloved

Love Letter 241 Decadent Mistress Symphony 11

you, my love

are so seductive, that I too, begin to seduce

I feel all leopardy, and things begin to transfix me into iconic places

I want all passion, and I forget from whom I have won this ransom

it is too tempting...

to try on

your eyes for a while

to get lost in your penmanship

we sprung together, like two seeds, enjoying so much sun

that the rain, became just as lush and advantageous

and nothing could restrain us, from playing our violins, one into the others scroll.

I wanted you

quick and easy,

all your hands

and the uneven way you stared, and then stepped forward, almost to

kiss me but

never quite touching

my doubt

with your fear.

and I was looking for something

to stir me

even though I know

that God Is Here

I still go looking

for a way into the maze, again and again

wanting to wander

wanting to knock at the gates of hell, wanting to crank call

all the beautiful impressions...

what have you done?

I have limped along this road, before

hearts in disastrous poses

my own, in ruin

but still

I consider

falling down this well

when you use those urging words

which feed my ego such solid milk

my mouth waters, to be had

and then to have you.

I run my fingers down this curse

just to see how it feels on my tongue

again

and then

Mary

begins to lay out her stones --

a jeweler's witchcraft.

she carries me back to bed

with hot water

and a long list of ways I have averted myself

and inflicted something other than my pure incarnation

there they are

the linens of sabotage

spread about these holy houses

like the occult

oh lover!

my lips are stones rubbing together to spark

desire is just a noun, unless I make it into this careless verb

oh please, surrender

for I would be your mistress, within the time it takes to bring you here

but, lover

I must

become

what distraction's task is committed to foul.

oh lover

I must tear even this mattress from the bed

and all those foundations of loneliness

I must channel this longing, into what it truly is

the beginnings of a temple

so repute

I must bow down now, before I even build it

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 240 Indulgent Penance

AH!

My Beloved

You were here just now. shining through me

... I need a tissue

your eyes so bright and near

I could only see light

I wanted you

your words more endearing enchanted me to tears

their love

welled like an arabian knight

and filled me with distinction

I am your worm

lifting through the world

your chariot

like a guiding light above

and behind me

I go nowhere without you

and yet, at times, the dirt, fills my senses

instead of thee

Oh Beloved

I saw you!

there is no parallel

your eyes guiding and blinding

filling every depth and question mark with their clarity and love

Your Love is Juicy

I have set fire to myself

and still

you come

I have purged myself of all oysters, ransacked every ego

kept stars hidden like treasures, pawned pearls

but Oh God

you mistake me for love

again and again

you are with me

no matter my squandering squalls you are never led to relinquish me

I am always yours

no matter

what I accede or concede

whoever I forgive, or carry on arguing

money, allure, more things to give or forgive

forget- me-nots and pigeon tales

it doesn't matter

You Are My Lord

and Your Worship is All My Fever

and I Live Forever More

To Celebrate You

Oh Shepherd and Shepherdess

You have all my favor

you have captured me

with your pearl whip

and your silence

you have stood about me, when I could not stand

you have gathered all the crescendo

in my agonizing heart

and brought it to an abrupt halt

with one statuesque connection

I hail to you

Oh Lord,

My Beloved

You have altered me

beyond my fashioning

and have taken from me all my doom and dying catechism

instead

you have smeared

your juices

liked sweet aerobic jelly

into the fabric of my insecure cult

and taken me out

of that broken caveland

and filled in my heart with your fruit

I hold your honey in my mouth

as long as it lingers

its melting, so cantankerous to my impatient heart

but your lips

utter, what longing longs for

My Beloved

I Am never gone

I love You Forever

Your Beloved

Love Letter 239 Nothing but this Humble Bleating Dance

left, right, center...

each step embraces years of hidden dying

ancient feasts, where mouths are bound

and I cannot stand this endless teething

oh God

but when I enter

this gathering

it is as if

the veil is torn forever

and discarded

as if my feet have taken off their bindings

and become like wilde faeries

cocky for the first time!

I am in the mood

to sing to you, with a million voices staring

and disturbing every powerful regret

until hysteria becomes the mortal proclamation and deepens love

Oh, I know, they will tell me to be quiet, as I thunder

they will say that I have let you, my Beloved

go to my head

but I will howl with laughter

in respect

for how it only matters, God, what you think

of my prayer

Your Beloved

Love Letter 238 Instead

Which game do you prefer?

Watering the Garden

or watching flowers Bloom?

I have gone a long way from my proposing.

so undaunted by my own ego I have gone lax

sugar plums and eucalyptus drop from the trees to know you

and I have forgotten what I was meant to do .

In the beginning I gathered 40 buckets

cleaned them til they were still.

I knew meditation

I carried Your name like the Breath of the One.

Always on me burning within.

I moved from room to room

grove and orchard

lake and hill

I found buried treasure but left it for the natives ---

honey , honey nectar was all I sought.

Your name came back in and out. your breath, my breaths, the One.

I made a pact

to unite you

with the 7 tribes and the holy ghost

I collected collected collected

climbing, crawling, begging, borrowing, worshipping

each drop I might be bringing to you.

And then.

someone said something.

and I lost track of that great admiration

I was having for you.

I began to notice myself.

I began to drink honey and hone my own halo

I became drunk with the sorrow of one who is a slave to his own separation

I gave up prayer and sat in awe of myself

I told secrets

I left the puzzle unfinished and I paraded what I had collected all in the name of you

Then I sold it.

Drip by drip

Delicious ripe spigots of melodious juice.

I gave up chanting and looking at the moon.

Men would ask for cigarettes and I would burn them.

and then, I came to one town at the edge of a cliff, where a girl

was crying. the aching of the sound brought me to offer her

the buckets I had left.

Empty, but still sticky with residue of nectar,

I was tired of carrying what I now had the courage to drop. and so

I put them down

in a small circle at her back.

all of a sudden

the buckets began to spill and overflow

nectar nectar everywhere

until in it I was caught.

my feet, soaking up the sweet potion began to sweat, my body

lost balance and I fell into the perfect mess

paralyzed with emotion and overcome with trepidation

curses were all I said --

but the night ran clear

and the whole fabric of Dawn chimed in --

and there you were.

the crying girl -- my Beloved.

watching my commotion, you said,

"My love. I have always been here. It is you who left your own heart

visiting these visions instead of loving what is already here"

and then you lifted me

out of the transparent chaos and washed me your kerchief.

You pressed your heart to mine. then

pushed me over the edge.

and as I was falling

I remember hearing you say

"You

are Free"

How holy is your freedom, my Beloved?

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 237 Imperfect Surrender Melting Pot

sometimes, this just trying, isn't working out

i dangle my subject, I thirst, I wad up my research, I sit

for hours, searching the tide for your endless dress

I needlepoint my aimless seeking interim

for anything that looks like/sounds like "Jesus"

I try forgiving for breakfast, lunch and in the evening

the sun goes down, or does it? but it still gets dark nonetheless

I feel your seething as I go to work perfecting myself

and still this assassination

I have wrapped and packed and garbled

I have taken, and sent back

I have ordered, reordered, returned, and finally gone to the laundromat torn between cleanliness and one more isolated youth

but

now

there is still no oak in the fire

and those words I used, on the broken wall, they spell out YOU

and now

I step over or around those shells

not knowing what to do

to end this violence

between

how to meet you half way

and be here

in the present moment

with myself

Oh! disorder, you have come to mute this triumph

but I will still get up, and sit with you

still articulate The Mother out of This Language

and try

to steer myself toward you

with one oar

and a whole lotta love

Love Letter 236 Get Off Your Mat

What have I done to earn this?

Your courtship in my dark?

I have only slivered my fingers

and garnered their blood

I know not of God...

Oh I Am Delivered...

the sun with its purpose delivers a sign

practice practice practice

get off your mat and practice!

Why not let God see you smile?

What do we think we're doing?!

Hiding our Joy from God?

Can you not see He sits in confusion over our choice of moods?

Misery, cynicism, the worn breath and the chattering skeptic

like 2 lynxes waiting for the fox

I have sat out all evening

I have knelt and bowed and mapped out stars.

I know calligraphy and I have studied zen.

but still

there is no ancient reason

not to know God.

I love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 235 Frankly, Beloved

At first

I wanted it to keep raining. the sea was calm, and she was urging me

to get wet.

Now, you know my style,

if I don't feel it... I don't fake it

You never wrote me back, unless

you consider that very general thing you said in your email

but I won't read between that emptiness

because the sea

is still calling

me to

FEEL ALIVE

I feel like improvising

so I went out

in everything I owned

hoping that finally

the world

would

lift it from me

with one shocking soaking

and I would return

naked

as I always intended

it was just too much, to do it alone

writing to You, Beloved

has been my salvation

these little words, like seeds from a good and crucial fruit

seeds arranged to reflect

my constant groping with the question

though I,

Beloved,

have already eaten the moist and ripe, beautiful fruit

ahhh. indigestion...

my love,

the sea, laps at my confusion, indifference, my design on temptation

the sea

laps and laps and laps

and

I must go in

I must devour

all these cloaks

and let the rains remove

the dozen masks I seem redundantly settled in

the sea must make me naked

the rain

must ruin

all I have collected

and then

now

when all has washed away

one little word

"stop"

will cave me in

beloved

I must write you this, in the sand

for even the trees have stopped giving their paper for my words

even the pen

has turned herself over

to the omen

of God

I Love You

Your Beloved