The Phoenix Chronicle (continued)

۞         ۞        ۞

My life is a barren field.

I begin again.

This is the way,

I am the Phoenix.

Jake was my uncle

a Texan, who drank to drown his sorrow.

When he was younger

he thought he had what we wanted, Jessie

his wife, his high school sweetheart.

It was a desperate love.

She was unfaithful, but so was he.

Jacob was no saint

but there is a rule in Texas for women

and one for men

that it ain’t right nor fair

just ain’t germane.

He killer her lover on a full moon night

coming home from a three day drunk.

Caught them in bed together.

Killed him with his hands.

His best friend.

He served his time, seven years.

Jessie was long since gone

His children to

Scattered to the winds

He returned to the oil field

Late nights, slamming quarter inch pipe

down deeper and deeper holes

to the bowels of the earth

They said of Jake

he could do more work drunk

than two men sober.

He took more wives

but it came to nothing.

Always his sorrow, his secret grief.

Living in cheap motels

stinking of cigarettes and stale beer

he worked less, drank more.

Always a bar stool for Jacob.

He died drunk in Dubai

rolled his truck down a mountain of sand

I was with him once, asleep at the wheel

When the wind moves the sand.

it sings his story

it howls in the wind.

Jacob’s Lament

I am Jacob

I have grown so weary.

Life is a barren field

and I am hungry.

I sew the seed by hand

I water it with blood

still nothing grows.

Shall I live to see the rain

and if I did

who would I tell.

I am the dust.

Will I ever be at peace

until death,

Or even then?

taboo

Transcription from the black moleskin, "Dark Matters"

"the nymphet, now with a dash of Irish blood, was really much the same lass,... but otherwise the thing was new and had grown in secret the claws and wings of a novel" - Vladimir Nabokov (1956)

He wrote his story, and then went to burn it as promised,
but the wife stopped him on the way to the incinerator
and saved the final copy.

Commentary:
(Deleted)
obliviously unaware,
of the cock of her hip
I transcribe immoral words
on the soft fold of her

shoulder,
(Yes, less offensive, shoulder.)

She casts a glance back
questioning
(an encantation)
then cast a spell.

dusk

o'erlooking the great unsalted sea

kilkare cottage
grand haven, michigan

The Phoenix Chronicle by j.b.  

to she who suffered as I came to life
And she that is the joy of my heart,
When the tumult ends, we will dance in silence.

*   *   *

I begin again

over and over again,

always new beginnings

my odyssey

fear not the flames

I am the Phoenix.

What was it I wanted to say here?

What was it I wanted to do that has driven me to this abyss?

To see myself for who I really am,

to touch the place where my heart resides.

The forces of fear have gathered,

what can I do to stem the tide?

The cleverness of my speech is gone,

standing naked to the wind, I am not cold.

A fire grows in my belly, a hunger, a thirst.

I've searched the bull these many years

Still no glimpse of eternity.

I sit me down.

Having tried to apprehend the truth of existence was I successful?

It is not for me to judge.

the first step of the journey

It is said Satori, enlightenment comes in a flash

I have sat a lifetime, still the door is closed

go to knock

I will speak for no faiths

No ism, no cause, save one

The celebration, the sustenance and the surrender of life.

It is the last of my hope
Which I throw away

take no side in matters of violence

sit poised watching the majesty of life unfold
though it is written with pain and bitter tears

there is also joy in life's embrace

and a word, not yet uttered

love

now, forget this too

it is too much this hope

too sublime, too clinging

too late for tears, too soon

we are the dust