The Burning Bush (Nov. 2004)

Men build strong roofs
& lock their doors & windows
seeking to prevent those
shafts from Cupid
but (and because) let
that puff pastry
guzzled on Venus milk
find an opening
in the phalanx
(of course he can)
& watch a man
shot by fire
exhaust and ruin
his mortal days
trying to fuck her
(or him) (or it)
but good, if only
for just once.
You’d think
that gold barb
sails straight
between the ears
to see those fools
gambit and gamble
for just one lucky
roll, pushing all
their chips to the
center of the felt.
Amazing how their
fire burns a city
down to fumes &
ennui just to
hasten the inch
of one kiss, one
clench, one sweet
soaring rail of
of unholy,
uncompromising ire.
And then it’s gone,
freighted off in
that suckling’s quiver
to zap some other fool
through the next
Achilles heel.
Nothing of that fire
remains in the chill
of first raw light
where waken empty
and stilled, bankrupt,
all former intimacies
frozen, tossed, dead.
And the men
(or women) wander
through what’s left
like lamps without
a wick or fuel,
their eyes harrowed,
hallowed maybe,
by shadows of
that brilliance
which presumed
to ride the sun
for just a second,
maybe two, long
enough to kiss that
fire & melt and
then come to
watching the world
take shape again
in a dark spot
at the tough end
of one long horrifying
fall. O that we could
be like the bush
that God enveloped
in a voice balloon
of flame and yet
stayed green when
He had said His fill.
That our wick dipped
ever in that pure fuel
welled from our
former nights.
That each
poem I launch here
could burn paper mast
and keel all the way
across to you, and
yet still unfold
in your pale hands
enough to spill
wind and wave
all over every shore
burning beyond
this I and Thou.