The Cage

Morning;
In this place
it seems I lost something,
Though heaven only knows what.
Folks here talk and walk about
Some work and move around,

There is no hunger, little death,
As if this place were an earthly paradise.

In a dream I lay, heart bear before me

Cushioned on my back
Yet I could not do it -
Nor the breast and sabred shakti
Didn’t get me up -
These nightmare dreams of old loves returning,
Somewhere I lost to hungers spirit

And it filled me like an oak tree.

In that dream I rode down
A mountainside covered -
In gnarled roots and pink cherry blossom
There she came to me again
In ravishment.

A Radiant One
In the shade and shape of all the women,
I have loved
And failed to love.

What does life want from us
In sending such a dream?

For all intent and purpose
My Lord has bound me to a one.
Yet still, I dream; and writhe in guilt;
With her, and her and her,

What strange cruelty is this?
That I wake full of such things -

I must go out,
And kiss the ground -
It seems my soul’s for sin.