Honeymoon In Indra’s Garden

Inspired by a dream I had the other night:

Throw off your sorrow like the harness from a morel steed

Bolt on panting horse into the middle of the earth

Beyond the fog, within a Capricorn constellation

Breathe out with rapture the names of God, the ancient incantation

Until virtue becomes 2^nd nature

I’m carried off into this sanctuary for saints

Like love at first sight, the sacramental surprise

Immured in our dark teak chamber set in a glade

My beloved and I from our bedroom window worship the view

The saffron petrichor panorama from the foot of a supernatural mountain

All the horizon was coral tree blossoms, their jacinth flowers a carpet

Their barks like hoary bones bleached silver with age in this altitude

Susurrus rustling petals falling like North American leaves

Reminiscing over the suggestion of a previous November incarnation

From the alcove in Brahma’s bungalow

Peculiarly familiar was Indra’s Dev garden

Being the orange of ripening persimmon

Presently drying sticky sweet in the autumn sun

The lurid perennials are dancing little fires

Sweet nectar embers reflected in our lovers’ flecked tiger eyes

Throw open the ancient timbered shutters

I crane my head out the oriel to realize

I’m at the foot of an erythrina mountain tapestry

Its cap beyond human or homeland understanding

Behold Mt. Meru all the galaxy circumnavigating

As tall as the earth’s diameter by a mighty 85

Towering above comprehension, primeval volcano, lingam filling the sky

My eyes roll to the back of my head to regard the peak,

I a breathless, hummingbird bride, scope the pinnacle on wing’s heartbeat

The mandara tree celestial crown, flame thicket festoon

Sprinkled like vermilion powder on Vishnu’s throne

The Creator is a white star like the persistent snow on His palisade

Abiding apricity my final devotion

Above material security, sensual pleasure or season

He brought me to rest, to fill me with joy

He gathered us, a sierra of honeymoon union

Releasing salvation in this demi god grove

Don’t resuscitate from this resurrection reverie

Ineffable rapture, peaceful purgatory, together we love

The Cage Was Cylinder and Small

Inspired by a dream I had the other night, I think influenced by my grief at the recent US election:

The cage was cylinder and small

Appearing from a cryptic dream

Like Eve before the Fall

Massed hands unleashed their regime

Pandora’s box 21^st century

Their debris and swill, festers downstream

To global mutual horror, our collective penitentiary

Verity was sacrificed

Kindness in totalitarian jeopardy

Spew rancor, retch partiality, bias legitimized

By history’s loudest bastard mockery

Age old rally, justice cry we mobilized

Against the ugly horn of demagoguery

Flash our search lamps into the darkness

Free the Philistines from their poverty

Sounding convincing he seemed harmless

Resonate with these fears

All that’s ugly in our subconscious

The outsiders, pariahs shiver from sneers

Refuse to accept their bleeding anguish

Bleeding Jesus to hide behind sullied veneers

The poets, the seers, myself stranded we languish

Compelled to rebel, with amity endure

Until all ignorance and spite can we vanquish

The progression of humanity still so immature

But Earth’s out of time and facing extinction

We must not cloister in this 4-year detour

No time to be neutral, side with moral distinction

Choose love for the poor

Hear this upright inscription

My party are four blue love birds miniature

Placed by hand in a cage

Silent, song-less feathers azure

Beware when they sing call forth to engage

The young will respond

This my grief will assuage

Yet, cerulean wings will soon break their bond

Soar above carnage to the healing beyond