We Dream
We dream of beauty, we dream of joy,
We dream of life becoming a multitude
Of complexities, joy flowing into beauty,
Flowing into the vast expanse of our lives.
But sometimes, the world is small.
A very narrow street. So narrow, in
Its vast firmament, there sits only
One star. And the whole of being
Is drawn to that lone star.
The whole of being
Throbs
Toward
The lone star.
It is an exquisite feeling.
Agonizing, deeply agonizing—
Being drawn out of the center
Of its becoming toward another.
It hurts.
It rages.
It calms.
Being drawn toward
Its own death.
But in death, it becomes, and
What a feeling of rapture, what
A feeling of pure bliss! Being
Drawn toward another and is
Because the other is also irrevocably
Drawn toward it.
And two
Selves
Cannot
Find
Themselves
Except
In
Each
Other.
Two souls. Two stars. Burning
Brilliantly, where once, there
Was
One.
==============
A Walk Down the Avenue
My love, let us walk down the Avenue
And feel the gentle sway of the rolling
River.
My love, let us walk down the Avenue,
And see the laughing lady arrayed
In her finest apparel.
O love, let us walk down the Avenue,
And feel the heartbeat of the day,
The heartbeat of being,
The heartbeat of the world,
The heartbeat of two souls,
Old world, new world,
Beating side by side, beating side by side,
Walking hand in hand down the merry Avenue.
==============
Bird of Paradise
O bird of paradise, O flower of paradise
Dancing in the sun on the island of Martinique
Sweet, sweet flower, O sweet, sweet flower,
You remind me of one so many times
Sweeter than you. O flower of paradise,
O flower of paradise, if you have eyes and can see,
You will marvel at her singing beauty,
O flower of paradise, O bird of paradise,
If you have eyes, and can see,
You will marvel at her marvelous generosity.
O bird of paradise, O bird of paradise,
You remind me of my love—
Star of the emerald isle,
Where the purple dog is king.
==============
Cheer of Heaven
Summer is here, love. Summer is here.
The gentle rains of spring have departed
Into the near horizon. They will come again,
But not now, for now the gentle rains
Have departed and summer is here, love.
The earth is sashaying up and down the slopes
Of heaven, and the sun is laughing like a young girl
Full of life. She skips up and down the slopes
Of heaven in her long skirt and summer is here,
Love. Summer is here.
I know your finals have come and gone,
And before you now lies the sunny horizon.
My love, skip like a rose in the sun.
O love, skip like a rose in the sun.
For summer is here, love. Summer
Is here.
I know you will don your T-shirt,
Do your head in a ponytail, wear your short pants
And sneakers, and dance in the sun
Like a rose, yes, dance in the sun like a rose.
For summer is here, love. Summer is here.
I know you will laugh like a rose in the sun,
Laugh like a rose in the sun. O love, laugh
Like a rose in the sun, for summer is here.
And if you see a laughing rose in the sun,
Pick it up and smell its fragrance.
It is my gift to you, O love, it is my gift
To you.
And, so, dance in the sun, love.
Dance in the sun, for summer is here.
And spread the sunny breath of heaven,
O love, spread the sunny breath of heaven.
And when the sun stoops low to do a waltz,
Dance in the sun, love. Dance in the sun.
And spread the infectious laughter of heaven
To all you meet. For summer is here, love.
Summer is here.
==============
To his Love
(For Ifeanyi and Ogugua)
My love, lay your head gently down upon my bosom,
For now all the world is ours. Here now, where your eyes sparkle
Like distant stars from an unknown galaxy.
Misty like dew on a lovely spring morning,
They arrest me, spin me, and let me go.
An oasis in the Kalahari Desert, they draw me
Into refreshing pools of blissfulness … oyster shells snapping open,
And letting their pearls glitter.
Long ago in a Roman coliseum, a gladiator will ensnare
His foe in a vanquishing net. But this is no bloody web.
It is love’s intricate threads. And I willing prisoner, gaze,
Dream, meditate, and imagine worlds into being.
Worlds. Worlds. And more worlds—of you and me,
Traveling, floating, caroling in wonderful clouds of bliss.
And night, tender night stretches into night.
The moon lingers on willingly—eternal sentry
Over our window. Over this first night of nights.
I travel now through paths of yesterday
Of our first telephone conversation, of your words
Dropping like honey dew in grasping ears.
I travel through paths of silent longings,
Wish-prayers, and eloquent imaginations.
I travel through time, through space, as distances
Disappear, and swift from a rented car I disembark.
A raspy knock unfurled itself on your door,
Torch-flare of nerve endings at the razor-edge of bated breath,
I breathed in and out, and out and in, my heart blowing bellows.
And when paradise swung open on the hinges of a door,
All I could do was to go back to my earliest beginnings,
A child in sweet rapture, crying,
O God! O God! O God!
For so sweet was your presence, an eternal sun
Breaking forth on the wings of earliest dawn,
And words painstakingly forged at the forges of the cogito shattered,
Faded into nothingness. A day. Two. Maybe two and a half.
But so brief was time, for no sooner had I entered
Your frangipani presence, was I thrust out of Eden.
The door slid shut. And you daisy of my soul spread cheer
Into a dull Boston morning. The halo of your figure appeared
And appeared again in the rearview, and, then, it was gone
Like some sylph flitting through naked ether.
Asphalt spread before me, endless nothingness,
Hundreds of miles home. Seconds became eons.
And distance became light-years. Eternity limbered along
Like a stupid, punch-drunk snail.
And time and distance became my mortal foes.
But sweet heaven gave reprieve.
My terrible sentence came to an end. And not a moment
Sooner, for my heart had performed countless cartwheels a day,
And poor thing, its Nunc Dimittis was near.
Lay down your head then, gently upon my bosom,
My love. Let me hold your hands tenderly, and more tenderly
Let me kiss your forehead tenderly, and more tenderly
Let me kiss your nose tenderly, and more tenderly
Let me kiss your lips tenderly, and more tenderly
Let me kiss your chin tenderly, and more tenderly
Let me kiss your throat tenderly, and more tenderly
Let me kiss your bosom tenderly, and more tenderly
This festal night, for your aloe vera skin threatens to melt away,
Like some bewitched beauty cursed to slip away at the strike of dawn.
But I know you are no spectral beauty, for your marigold presence
Fills this oasis of enchantment.
O love! O love!
Lay your head gently down upon my bosom.
Let night turn into day and day into night
And let the moon forever stand sentry over our window
And let no one disturb this hour of paradisal bliss.
Ah! my love, heaven itself has given you to me
And mortal man that I am, what can I do but worship you,
To tenderly hold these delicate hands of yours
Now, now, now, and down all of this winding path.
Ah! my love, lay your head gently down upon my bosom.
Let us be for each other through time, through space,
Through pain, through laughter, through joy, through tears,
Through hope, bliss, and blast, through the entire
Run of our earthly experience. Until the dawn of dawns.
O, until the dawn of dawns.
Ah! my love, lay your head gently
Down upon my bosom. Let us love,
For the night has just begun.
==============
Troubadour
I have sung
Like a troubadour
In the Towns square
Of my own
Being.
It is so
Dark in here.
It is depressing.
The fog rises,
And falls
Like a simple
Wave.
And the sun,
Where is it?
Light from
A lighthouse
Penetrating
The fog?
Love
Is death.
Love
Is life.
I have sung
Like a troubadour
In the Town square
Of my own
Being.
Pain is.
Love is.
The heart’s bowstring
Tightly wrung.
It explodes
Like a geyser.
Sorrow.
Joy.
Life.
I have sung
Like a troubadour
In the Town square
Of my own
Being.
For my love
Is a distant
Star
Grappled
With
Like
A throbbing
Vein.
In the heart.
==============
Emotions
I am torn apart like a lion
tears apart his prey.
I am drowning in a flood
of powerful emotions. O God, save me
from this scourge, save me from the flagellations
of love. Save me from the hard taskmaster.
Save me from the unending cry from the depths.
O God, help me put the bit to my emotions,
lest I drown in this raging flood, and my sun,
now a vagrant on the narrowing river,
sets ere it has danced in the cool Autumn of the Western skies.
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Emotions (II)
O love is an unforgiving taskmaster.
O love is a slave driver that does not know
when to stop. O love is the bully that punches
the hapless little kid in the face until he is sore,
bleeding and crying. O love is a ship sinking
at sea without a single lifeboat. O love is a meat grinder
that grinds away at the vital parts. O love is madness,
when madness is walking on a bed of fiery six-inch nails.
O love is winter with no provision for the homeless bum
on the streets. O love is like deep sorrow, when deep sorrow
is the only clothing on one’s back in the eye of a severe winter.
O love is a long, hard day, a long, hard day that grinds mercilessly on.
Curse it, love it, but love is no warm blanket, when the beloved
is fleeing the heartland of the bleeding heart. Curse it, love it,
but love will scourge and scourge until it has run its wasting course.
==============
When Love is a Raw Country
I have wandered, wandered on the highways of desolation and loneliness.
I have cried my emotions raw until my heart is bleeding like a fish
tossing out his life on the banks of a desolate island.
I have wandered into lonely places and forgotten boxes,
dreary buildings assaulting the skyline of a deserted city.
I have thrashed and tossed in my sleep and wrestled with a thousand
demons.
I have erupted out of the deep blue sea gasping for air, and seen nothing
but the face of a dreary sky on the weeping face of the deep blue sea.
I have waited for the cargo to come in until the port is deserted
& empty of all life. I was at the waterside when the fishermen left
in the belly of the night for the high seas, and was still there, when
they returned with their canoes laden with the loot of the sea.
I am a palm tree shed of all life standing at a spot at the waterside
where the river never comes in anymore, where the water crabs
never visit anymore, where the land crabs carry their burdens
like old men fleeing a plague-ridden city. My head is full of water;
it is a coconut that bounces from hilltop to hilltop. And my eyes
have seen better years, they are sad with the grayness
of a weeping sea. O God, my heart bursts on the banks of this desolate
waterside. Help, help, help, that I may retrace my way from the mourning sea.
Life is too much to spend on the waterside all day long, all night long,
like a colony of crabs, marching here and marching there,
but marching nowhere all day long. O God, O God! marching nowhere all day long.
==============
The Birds have Gone Away
The birds are not chirping in the trees
Anymore. They used to chirp in the trees
Beside my window, all day long, all night long.
They used to sing, sing, and never sleep.
The birds used to sing, sing, all day long, all night long.
They used to sing, sing, and never sleep.
But the birds sing no more in the trees beside
My window. & the trees are now like a deserted land,
No a cemetery. Not even the cheer of spring
Will bring back the birds. Not even the cheer
Of the early morning sun will bring back the birds.
The birds have gone away, all victims of a ferocious sorrow.
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(c) D.M.D. Goodhead