strong, lean and dark skinned
he holds his broken heart open
and watches soul’s red oils ooze
man wrestles with stormy moods
displaying passion
cavalierly
he wades through the doldrums
which always make him uneasy
he is contemplative, shameless
and much more than these things looking closely
one sees hard-earned victories
confirmed in shadows of his seemed profile
on inner orphic battlefields
he’s leant to gamble with fate
his jewel eyes expose
years of tumultuous passageways
eyes that like saints relics
pierce
calm
anger
his gaze speaks of life’s stern
instruction it’s
clear
bright
direct
bashful
prayerful
brave
playful
understanding comes from his eyes
he is more solemn-tempered now and
not-as-free-as-he-once-was
self-provoked philosophical quandaries
larger than he
pull apart his heart
he’s been wounded by the patriarch’s sword
and pieces his broken parts together
letting time polish rough seams
smooth
some injuries never healed
like mended bone
but his heart is stronger
in the broken places
man’s words articulate
his psyche’s complexities
precisely
guilelessly
metaphorically
honorable abided
he tells of the things which
cleaved his side
and where he still suffers from soul’s
vaporous assaults
man longs for masculine/feminine notes
diluted by contemporary culture
to hear life’s uncharted music
to have harmonies guide him
man longs for once-known rituals
buried deep within him
muffled by the age of sterile electronic wizardry
have truth’s constructs collapsed?
his heart can never forget
its own bio-logic drumming
man’s father stands at the
periphery
bent and cowered, a lonely silhouette
his father lived a different kind of life
he speaks another tongue
(with fewer recognizable words and concepts)
his father is frightened
disinclined to enter
his long-betrayed territories
through man
father encounters his own disowned soul
he feels his awkward injuries
again, the things that tormented
and aged him stand out
man has found his stride
a cryptic credo
he challenges his father’s and the culture’s
ubiquitous shadow
pivoting away from memory’s etchings
he tosses off a deadly
inherited schemata
and the notions of how he
should have been
outgrown
prior generation’s burdens
- once shouldered dutifully
are off-weighted
through his verse
another kind of life reverberates
some new place
is congealing within him
the place of poetry
an ever-changing sanctum where
he flirts with circumstance
he tempts destiny
he dares the gods
he dangles his feet
into a newfound region
a cavern of hope
man, with a sinewy grace
pushes against gravity
balancing uncertainly
he is proud
he is anxious
while future phantoms try to
pull him down
down beneath where intellect resides
his physical architecture adjusts
strains to hold him up
craving intimacy and
reassurance
he solicits the coarse
and soft territories
of other men
their arms
their wet musk
their dented hearts
he wants answers
to common questions/share fears
he pursues encounters that reflect
old knowledge
things that bridge the wide male chasm
he reinvents the warrior’s clan
and casts about for muscled affirmation
praying for atonement - a way home
lingering at the edge of
enigmatic carnal regions
baited
ravenous
whetted
since youth man has hunted
tender
masculine love
his vacuous parts still bid their resurrection
and dreams bring well-known faces
into daylight hours from
his nocturnal imagination
they beg him to go deeper
those figures have appeared
ceaselessly through time
he no longer needs to know why
he knows what they want
they want his naked heart
they want his erect totem
he is not so apprehensive now
man visits non-delineated places
once prohibited and denied
he wanders there enticed by warm
sensations within his groin
- kindled and writhing -
man’s sensuous lips utter poems/koans
one after another
cascading wisely
scribed exquisitely on lined
yellow pages
penning his true-tongued spirit
illuminated lush passages
new worlds
man descends into the
dispossessed chasm where
copiously scents linger
chamisa
juniper
wild purple aster
scrub oak and
cottonwood
autumn’s fragrances soothe him
he recognizes once-known
their ethereal substances
and gathers wise old stones
to hold with callused
gentle hands
man urges others to join him
at the edge
at the chasm
between what may be articulated
and what must be
left for the wind to say
- wordless
by Marc Perry