California Suite

by Tom Veitch

Once upon a midnight
Satan withered to a dry husk
in the eye of a child.
Oh, but the boy still gave away his power
to false authority and the beast who thirsts!

The shadow of a man must burn
so we can learn the secrets of dying.
14-year-olds with guns
must kill people in the streets
of San Francisco

So nice to be here
So nice to be nearer my God to thee
To be or not in the light of darkness
This sickness that infects all our reflections.

* * * *
O Mother of this Universe,
I am mad with love and longing for you,
I need thee and nothing less.

Stubborn in my faith that you are behind all events
While other gods offer false logic and predatory intent,
I renounce all my earth’s companions, good people
who never created the soul.

Mother Night,
Teacher of winter light
An eternity of fractal unfolding and
fractional worlds folding back
to reveal infinite layers of
fractured relations, the dream
I dream the dream, now
comes the last dream before the dream
of everlasting freedom.
I am ever grateful for death
at the hands of a child.

* * * *
I remember the beginning of the present moment
in 1973.
I remember a woman’s face
was the perfect mirror of my heart
in 1973,
and since then
the feeling of being right has been absolute.

Now I am a cloud of atoms collecting on the wind
and a tremendous gravity pulls me down
into the heart of all hearts.
I have the feeling of being sole survivor
of a long dead race.

On the hillside archaeologists
free a ruined city from the jungle.
I find my bones scattered among the stones
of prehistory.
My sleep is haunted by giants
from that lost world, a time when
rainbows of divinities
danced in a cloudless blue sky,
skies that yet look down and smile
on our lost & forgotten city.

* * * *
Reassembling my body
I rise from blood-soaked ground
and set boots moving on the ancient highway
from the mountain to the plain.
Seven leagues later
I become seeing itself, and
throw off the images that rule me.

Beings on distant planets
come to life in me.
How can Gotham stand against this ?
I tell you, it cannot.

Consider the burning night
And the owl’s secret anger.
Who but the lone hunter can know
the turning points of history ?
You are him, bro, but your brain needs
to go into the shop for repairs.
(song ends)