Love Letter 353 Answer Me

I witness you

because you are the cutlery

with which I whisk my fingers

and dry my eyes

so thine own work be true

I unstead my fast

so I might be steadied

I hold your yoke

so I might be keeled into unmettled union

I bare your flask

so I might wear the serpent

and drink his venom

just to know God

in these thin halls, where the weak mind keeps on binding

I bend down my heart

and rub it in the soil

of your unseen sound

and prepare my prayer

like a ball gown and a garden

and still

your steps

mistake my vow

for worthiness

Oh Love

anoint me

at the foot of your star

and allow my little light

to wear your Oil

Oh Love

take not my rest

but my pungent steadfast lunge at your crib

to honor You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 352 Calm me

For I have known forgiveness, my lord

But I have not known you

For I have known bread and butter

and my enemy by his name

But not you

For I have fortuned and entered the very plan of my own heart

aching and meeting

again

the undulation of the breath unknown and the thing ungiven

and still

Your Breath

maintains

a singular identity which embraces all

And I know not

how

to break free

and Love

that which already Is

so Precious

without begging to know

HOW

it is

it came to love me

Oh Lord, I ask for your intercession

as you know me well

and claim over me

all that ever is

may I bask in you

forever

whether I know or not

how it is

You came to Love Me

Your Beloved

Love Letter 351 Exceptional Following

I relish you

down to your toenails

each fine arch of trouncing comfort cuddling the ground

gripping the grit of each step with triumphant steadfast fumbling

precise exclamation of each vibrant beast of life

standing in its power

coiling and uncoiling

positioning Your Body

to Greet Me

Each Day

positioning Your Body

to Greet Me

Each Day

like a Holy Trundle

Rolling Across Salvation

to Make Me Whole

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 349 Tear this Chapel Down

My Lover,

those twigs which stoked my fire, burnt down, to twine, with which I tied our love

and your usefulness began at once, to feel ushered and pragmatic

I went to you

first

because I could not steady my entanglement

but your oar

bore like a blade

through my insistent heart

we are mourning

can't you see that?

this thread

no longer holds our warmth

from the boat

I drift

my own anchor

to love

addictive

you spill oil

over the edge

and I am swimming

in separation

but

I love you

no matter where your eyes look

your pen retorts

but

I only hear

that you can't come

when I call

but

Lover,

my patience

is borne of God

my pretend abandonment

can be pawned

from the sobbing

the shaking

exerts

a freedom from paralysis

God has dragged me

to the center

of my love letter

He has put in my hand

a wet cloth

and He has pushed the whole of us

across those fine bedouin letters

until

they did not exist

She said to me

"this is not love"

and I wonder what is

I point to you

He says, " that is not love"

I want to protest

but

in Her hand

are all the letters, and all the lovers

and I feel nothing

I am at a loss

what is love?

I do not know

"There!" He says

"There, in that thought, is the cracking open of the heart!"

The cracking open of the heart?

I do not know is the cracking open of the heart?

"Yes," She says.

"In the I don't know is the edge of the I Am"

I let the letters burn in the loss of our love

the cold wood consumes those words

I let the humor of all my cravings

spit you out

and I vacate

myself

silence

is what is left

a silence

which knows

nothing

a crevice

in the noisy art

ah!

the best day of my life!

Your Beloved

Love Letter 348 Finally At Sunset

Like a virgin

on the lip of lust

I have been here, treading water

treading virtues/virtuous behavior

all for the willing drowning

of sunset ---

when my breath would go under

the ample sea ---

along with my chastity ---

oh, lord,

so we could finally be lovers

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 347 Barter Away My Lord

I am bartered away for new love

all I am is given

By the one

Back

and in

All that matters is the new love

that comes

and all that is given

is dust

Given into new love

By its combustion

I give myself

But I am given

I lose myself

But I am still the matter of the gods

If I think I am

then

all I thought

is compost

in the garden of the One

and all I am

is hidden

because the one

will take me

back

from myself

any day

to mix me

in again

with the soils of love

and bring me back

to love

without myself

for you,

Beloved

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 346 The Licorice Cross

Your plates come filled aplenty

Your wardrobe like a Greek Spire

We have nothing

to hollow out

Oh One

for everything

is solidly Abundant

At Your Feet,

I find the lamp

filled with oil

On my lips

I know an inordinate amount of verse

In these hands

I hold a quenching and insoluble heaven

On these knees

I find the power

to know you more and more

Through my humility

I come to flower

in my abatement

I find the truth

Oh Lord and Lover

You have wounded me with such perfection

I cannot cure Your love

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 345 And They Rode into the Sunset

Then,

You came

and the rest of my imprisonment

faded away

Your luminous candor

like the operating table for my rage

I went out hunting

only to make love to my prey

over and over

until

I too

became the prey

of love

Your royalty

spooned out

inseparable courage

so that I slay the doubt of the dragon

into a transformable passion

that rode out to the ends of each legendary limit

and surpassed them

with the illicit glee

of the already knowing Goddess

of

irrevocable

Certainty

I had to do nothing

in order to receive

the final and unabating

Certainty

of my own Source

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 344 I Kindle my Rapport with the Beloved

This thin encounter

has only been the garb of god

I have not used it

as my defenses

but to relinquish

all

your courtroom

is translucent

the sentence

always

to love

each step

that I abandon

let me brandish

the next

in my knowing

your harp

holds the ancient tune

each string --- a candle

and the shape of the wood -- a cathedral

which catches the soul

in its melodic net

Your tune

is the fingers of your tribe

rattling their return

(rapping on the door)

already kissing the floor

with reunion

I am always near

if not,

then

I, myself, am you

Your Beloved

Love Letter 343 Bandits in this Castle

one drop

and the swirling buttress of truths

falls slack

the hollow temple heaves its last stone collapse

the lowered head

mischievously thinks of lifting it

I am content

my lover waits in the back room

brushing the truth off each tile

he knows

I have come to inspect

the gracefulness of certainty

he pours a cup

for me to drink from

and predictably I will wipe the rim of the glass

why, you ask?

because I have never handled something so worthy

of my service

Your Beloved

Love Letter 342 You Know Me Better Than Anyone

until I had traveled

in safety

I could not trust

Until I had clean water

I could not drink

until I had your face to look at me

I could not believe my own existence

Beloved

you have been a creature clawing at my cardboard shield

with the sword of de-separation

I clung to that edifice like a victim

saluting it, like a flag

I have only seen

one or two

flashes

of your light

as they swiped at my illusions

and malaise of fear

but I have relished

them

like havens

in the midst of my defenses

and prayed through the glare of my curses

they would succeed

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 341 Every Drop IS the Ocean

he went out

and that's all I knew of him

but the back of his face

haunted me

he went further away

and then I asked him

in the silence that linked us

What should I do?

It is impossible to improve, he said

meaning, the world

I could not argue

I could only let myself

get used to

that truth.

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 340 Sustainability

Are you in love with my forms

or are you in love with me?

My darling

My master

I Love You,

Your Beloved

Love Letter 339 Guilty

dear lover

I have not found you

looking at the stars

I have not wandered into the night

I have not selected my clothes for the ceremony

inside, I stayed

today

and yesterday

feeling the dread

of this disconnection

this salient saboteur

pulling me closer

to separation

My love

you were by the bed

but I blew out the candle

and hurried under the blanket

I did not let my eyes

find the palace you made for me

I did not let ears hear the confession of your love

I did not let my head rest

on the only heart I beg to adore me

I am not wise

I let the rain water someone else's flowers

while I thirst inside

I let you wait

in the garden

of constellations

while I will not meet you

I will not give myself a chance

to come out of the shadows

of my excuses

I push the door of the black cage

open

I let the wax cool in my sleep

all my hummings

and the thick cord of my bench pressed prayer

beckons the leader of the band

to break my habit of

keeping you

at a distance

my laziness like the last steps of a stones drowning

why can't I let the lit candle guide me

to your gifts

what shame have I to adore you

and not avoid you

my love

I am eroded

by my own

routine basking in hell

the fingers of your ward

run their chaste wave at me

but I press against the kettle of these bars

I press against the costume of this jail

I put on deprivation

instead of

my wedding dress

and play piano with a cylinder

of your requests

My lord

this penitentiary is but a bird I have given your perch

let your astronomy

consume my crooked star

and give me nowhere to hide

from our reunion

Your Beloved

Love Letter 338 Nothing to Talk About

If I surrender,

will it be true that you love me?

If I hold on

will it be true that you don't?

All meaning like a cigarette wilts

when you meet the One

everything you thought

was spicy

is bland

yet

slowly beautiful

all this humility

the true one

comes from

stabbing at the ego

with a lot of love

salt and sugar

are not love

Your Beloved

Love Letter 337 It is too Tired to Say I Love You

Sexual Chemistry, is a whisk touched by these ingredients

every eye I lay on you

is a mystery

each searching is still a quill in the ink well

My love

I have given everything to know you better

but given so little of my suspicions and expectations up

I arise to meet you

each greeting a long bridge between where you are and where I want you

have you stretched this far, my love, to forgive me

and say "I do?"

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 336 Wild But True

I don't need to write to you

anymore

my love has expended galaxies

in one dare

and a glass ballet slipper stands outside the castle

while I slip on

one last word

my love,

each of us

dare to dare

once in a while

we pick up sticks

and slay the dragon.

we win the war of wine and tea

we have laid out the flowers for the king and queen to enter

we have made our prayers out of nirvanic straw

but my hands go up

at the thought of these last letters

all of them, too long, too short

and these calisthenics have been practiced into a dull hell from which the center has been lost

dear one

have you hit your head on my word?

as I danced to midnight shuffles of my mimicry of love

have I lain down enough in that hearty snow

to know

that love isn't made of cartwheels

and the temple walls are not glass without stone?

have you rested on the answer

or the anchor of this living

or have I tried to rake those stones like a wild pack of neon wills?

have I chosen

the right path to love you

or will I always wear one shoe?

I love you

Your Beloved

Love Letter 335 Not a Winner But Thank You for Playing

It is better not to be too amazing

they will see you, court you, draft you

and then

who knows how they will place you on the prayer wheel

I died of sugar shock

and they fed my corpse ice cream

I did not know

how to wake them up

and they figured

it wouldn't hurt

So what do I do, when it's my turn?

I show my ticket at the door, but still

will it be enough?

if I lean toward you

when it's over

will you say I look sexy when I'm humble?

Your Beloved

Love Letter 334 Ignore My Groping

All these candles have wax, my love

what can be done?

if lit

the wax drips

what to do?

in time

it runs out

how will I see?

but nothing

has changed

except my dependency

on its light

before

and after

you are still perfect

the way you are

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 333 New Dawn

The rooster crows in the new temple

just as he did in the old

shits

and mucks about

as if

this isn't rutilated quartz and inlaid gold

makes a racket

during sermon

and silence

cares not about shoes, sex, or showing too much face, neck, arm or leg

no

this wall

has been an arbitrary dance

been politeness and politics

when this temple is old

the rooster

will still crow

and its prayer, my love

will always

be heard

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 332 Cold Tea

I suppose, my humanness, has disappointed you

it seems all I've dreamed up, is still a dream

and I fluctuate between a few pounds of idealism and a few pounds of realism too many

but

I will still write

you

I will still smack my lips against the stamp

and stick it in the mail

I will still

keep the password

a secret

and wait for the post office

to send its chariot

of your love

I will apologize

too many times to project out into the future right now

but

I will apologize

I will know

that it is no good to try to change

anyone

or even anything

I will let the tea brew too long

because

I will forget to be present

to the tea leaf and the pot

but I will still drink it

and that, my love

is the part of myself

I will

give you the key to

Your Beloved

Love Letter 331 Bounty Hunter

in darkness,

I swept my eyes

clear

there was no epiphany but light

I did not judge, depth or shallows

for to one accustomed to such fathoms, it is not dark

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 330 Beyond the Red Carpet

Do you need a street sweeper, My Love?

One is who is messy, or beautiful, or made out of wooden doves and a chariot with golden legs?

Do you need a Mrs. Clean?

Someone who carries on and on at length about the size of her petunias?

or wears her heart, like a dragon, on her incipient sleeve?

How about a strong wind, or a swoon of Goliath locusts to devour all your foul misunderstandings and derived misleadings?

I have a sponge, my love and a small brush

and my lips go together to inhale or exhale the dust

I have long hair

and a small cart made from recycled imaginings

and a trinket or two which can be welded into a wild underwater vacuum

but I have knots

and kinships

and drafty hinges

and wings which drag on the ground

Your scarlet wonder is calamity in drag

and your malignant pointer is truly a soft caravan of art

I hum in the temple and the shower

I say your name both in prayer and radical disgust

I abuse all of your commands and legends, and then

I bow down to them, I drape flags of them, I quote them on my t-shirts

is this the veil or the unveil?

is this the pauper, beggar, meek, or ambassador of penance and finance?

is this the way, or the unravelling of the only way

is this the fruit or the poison apple in a snow white forest/orchard?

Do you need a second to think about it?

or

are you always ready to say

yes

even when I ask the same question in opposite directions?

Have you need of a maid

or is my circular logic enough maelstrom for your already pristine heart?

am I a banquet beloved, or am I just one beautiful famine

after another?

bumping into God's door

fishing into your pocket

I can do my best, but only You will know me

no matter

what

is under

my carpet.

and I rest in this.

even with my apron on.

Your Beloved

Love Letter 329 If You Needed to Know

Of course,

I have heard you

a siren in the slit of dark, waves over a steady and calm ocean

you are still wounding your wound, but I find you

ever increasingly adorable, as you wring your dreams against a long lot of trembling dinghies

I would not trade you

exchange or even change

all that has perfected you

or that becomes you now

even in your insolence, and self-smattering sorrow

there is something of the magic that I love

there is a fight which is magnificent... an arrow in the bow!

My love

you dance around the truth, but I know

that it lives in you

Your honesty is the ruby nest of the rose petal

Your broken deck, simply room for a bigger yard

You, My Love, will never lose me

even your bruises are a blue sky chamomile

even your fists are like napalm love

I 've wanted you

without censor, filter, foolish cover-up, no glitter is needed to make me notice

there is a light

Within You

and every moment

I am watching it shine!

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 328 Still Confused by Your Miracles

Oh, Holy One

I am sick with discontent

watering the weeds and picking the flowers

furrowing my brow in whittled anguish

wanting to nick my neck on your solemnity

I reach out,

because I know

you will be there. even if I have long left myself

I know the wood is burning

I know the tender sage will envelop my hogwash

I know your sandals

carry so much dust

that I am on solid ground

when I am with you

Your love has emptied me of every thought of leaving

all my curses become a common thread of self-doubt

and in your presence, that silver lining becomes a silver tongue

I bang the gong and arrange the halos

this work of tricking myself into finding and seeking you

when there you are

on the fridge, like a work of art

magnetic and exposed

your gum has sealed my kiln

and now I am only

polishing

the dew

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 327 Contemplation Station

Today, I am remembering

how the world ends

and all my disclaimers

won't matter

and all my gratitude

that is left inside

will become dust

because on the plate of you

God

I have left all my old poems, a brick for each intention

a wisp of hair for a swamp of love

I have wanted only you

but wandered

like a blind man

in a temple.

all the while,

in Your House

with dirty shoes.

I have gone on and on

picking at the bones of my intention

gnashing at the carcass of colluded bone

bullied improvisation

and tender percolations of love, tested by my own hulled beat and stilled cantankerous blows

I have waded into the jungle on bended knee

like a superman

whose cape has long been woven

in his mind

but goes unseen

by the brier and the brush

I have slept in your glass holy water

and still

wanted my own dam pool

My Love,

if I told you now, all my excuses for bedlam

and crises

and laid down at your feet

each malnutrition and elbow shove

and sold all my pertinent curtseys

and flamboyant yearnings for paper wings and a Hathaway smile

would the grocer notice

I had been to God

this morning?

or would I still bump into walls?

It is your love

which makes me even wonder,

Beloved

I Love You

Your Beloved

Love Letter 326 The Love Laughing Contest

Remember when this was

optimistic, Lover?

When I, in intelligible articulation, counted your curves, like Jupiter's moons?

Remember how I bombasted the world regarding your nectar... never quite giving away the whole secret, but certainly saying too much?

Oh, I was so callously in love with you

like a virgin, I thought the mystery was Mount Everest.

But, my love

in all this pepper, I have thrust on your delicate flavors,

there is something of the unfolded and confounded truth which, proven temporary, and ever changeable, as you can see by each letter,

that I have discovered

just the right reach of words

for our silent umbrella, and groovy cactus disco

that you and I, are not meant

to be lovers...

no, this is just a joke

that lovers are just concocted egos arriving on a tropical shore, with canaries in their bathrobes, and mexican cool whip in their pina coladas

no

lovers are like Mr. and Mrs. Howell

drowned out by the inevitable quicksand

You and I

we are pen pals

correspondants

rumors

religiously rumoring, that we have rubbed elbows with love

only to

confess

into the dense foam of a lonely mattress

that we haven't, aren't or don't

enough

You and I

are forbears of an economical truth so overshot

that it is time

to reconcile

all that we thought love was

with

what it really

is

a laughing contest

an utter, outlandish, intimidating, reptilian laughing contest

out of which

we emerge

heroes

for having

remembered

the joke

I Love You

in the way a good joke is really funny

I really love you

Your Beloved

Love Letter 325 Struggling To Know This

I have never thought of you as anything less

though I hold myself accountable for many thoughts, regarding our failure

and I never wanted you to be

anything

but purely happy

but I have to admit, that I have often wanted you to be

the very exact and concurrent thing I am wishing for

and I readily agree

that I have altogether

expected

that the world would come to an end

only after

I was done with it

but now

in the midst

of the end

ing

I am listing

how I have been

too harsh

to care

too right

to change

too frustrated

to put all my embers into one dam pyre and burn something

All those old melodies, make me want to remember something more magical

than this

but I have not put my finger

on this

in a long time

so

how

would I know?

Your Beloved

Love Letter 324 Mount Rainier

Rusty, my love,

may I inform you. that I am no better off than I was. and that I was always better. but now, in the infirmary, I wonder, out loud, about all this stuff that has come to pass, to make me wonder about the stones and clouds. I seek your comfort and reason. I am foolish enough to pass the time this way. thinking it will all work out, by not working it out. my time is wasted and yet, the wondering suffices for something. was I enough for you? did I catch you while you were still alive? did I give you cancer or cause your drought? was I the wine when you wanted water, or the water when you needed wine? what predicament did I get you in? did you wait for me in the pool of your ideas? are there any empty glasses for a cup of tea? did you burn your fingers on this stove... and can you ever forgive me for running off with the perfume of your fingertips? I was without love in my imagination...I was without you.

and now. I just remember, that I was always in the garden, kissing your lips. always locked in the passion of your infallible lightning love. always better, ever better.

and this is just me. phoning in... pantomiming to the stars, with licorice lover letters, hoping you find me on the outskirts, of something worth pursuing.

I Love You,

Your Beloved

Love Letter 323 The Seventh Day

I have thought of you for six days:

one before water,

and five,

after.

but now,

I rest.

and still the thoughts of you

arise

like water from a dead planet

you exis

before

life startled you

into breathing,

you became

before being

and coming,

you were,

before I

laid my hands

on this dust

which makes you now.

and so

resting,

I realize...

all of this was done

already.

like running my hand over sculpture

the clay already

ready

to make me understand

all my work and effort

a dream of ideas

pouring

from

an unseen stream

your ceremony

awakening me from my own eyes

I Love You

Your Beloved