Oak Creek Canyon Echo

(Written at 3:00 am on a motorcycle between Sedona and Flagstaff) I want to write dirty and convoluted, connected and wet And in the mess of my words Feel the stain run down Over the nice clean ordered objective, detached From the structure you claim to know about I want to write congested And ingested, Not divested of that Which causes me to feel and to think The outpouring of what will not stop And does not want to change, as you Try to sever my relationship with All the things that allow me to dwell inside What I write about Not often objective But captive and subjected to And part of the unholy unwashed I want to sleep with the dogs of night And if fleas are the only price I pay I welcome them home A gracious host that they may feed off As the wounds stay open Bleeding with all that is still unknown Those things that I mention Giving birth to what was not there before And if death is the one that truly calls I hear her voice But she must wait Until I make the translation of her words sacred And of my own resolve And if she takes me sudden She risks my anger As I will drag all new beginnings Into what she seeks to end Pushing her further from that monocled eye And with one foot frozen In the world behind Refusing to leave I curse the new regions with my words Knowing that death, like life Is to be passed beyond Not staged or romanced But catalogued once felt as Forgotten turnstile As her soulless call becomes Mere lighthouse For those places —I refuse to go (Oak Creek Canyon: November, 2011)