"To Sit at the Table"

It's fine. I'll take this cup.

This pious meal: a harsh hyssop.

First desire, then Dukkha.

It's fine. It hurts. I've had enough.

The pearl-less palms elicit alms

Raised foie gras limbs

Down feather hands

The eye-wide kiss

A leathery honest man

Incandescent prayer coin drop

Saccharine purple plastic shot

The kings and prophets

and their human toys

coin slot daughters 

and faithful chorus boys.

Mantric songs, the fancied half

New Kinder-Marxen Gilded Calf

Performative tenets, 

Compelled radicalism:

The pubescent pains

Of a nubile religion.

And for you my Friend:

The cavalcade of desires

A silken bedroom in a spire

...Nothing unoffered.

That detour to glory:

A wild weekend in hell.

Just keep your head high

As you draw from the well

A while back,

I quit filling buckets

From inside of that leaking vessel

Yet, the tattered canvas offers 

a dull whip crack with the breeze

Still.

I pretend like it's easy,

If it was, there'd be no bottles in the wood pile

I'd never have a brick-broke knuckle 

Or, been warmed in someone else's silken sheets.

It's fine. It hurts. I've had enough.

This pious drink: an empty cup.

First desire, then Dukkha.

It's fine. I'll take this cup.

And, when, some day we get to sit at the table.

I'd love for you to rest your head on my shoulder.