Love and Death Sonnet for Diotima

Some point out rightly all things joined are parted.

There’s no exception to this bitter rule.

So why pursue what leaves one broken hearted?

Why love, they ask, when Love's end is so cruel?

I’m tempted to reply, they've not loved You.

But I know well that answer won’t persuade.

Another fool, they’ll say, who fears what’s true,

Who lives oblivious to Death’s sure blade.

I am a fool. Let that be stipulated.

For only fools are granted to glimpse this:

In perfect Love, not even Death is hated.

His cruel cleaver also joins in bliss.

All things must pass. This truth brooks no exception.

But Life’s our wedding. Death is our reception.

Love and Death to All,

- John O.

Mystery (for D)

Such a Mystery to tell

from high above your Fontanelle

to deep beneath your Sacred Toes,

there's a Mystery I know

I don't know, and cette je ne sai quoi

hushes me and pleads “tais toi!”

But as poet I must sing

this Mystery and I must bring

a thousand times through Heaven's Hell

such a Mystery to tell.

Forgive me if I tell it now:

You have made me Love somehow.

Yours in Your Mystery,

- John O.

We Could Get Together

There's a preacher in the Bible
says that all is vanity.
There ain't much you'd call survival.
Get it straight for sanity.
To everything there are two seasons:
a Spring and a Fall.
Don't ask me the reason
but it's true.
Still as long as there is anything
anywhere at all,
we could get together
Me and You.

Darlin, you be a shore breeze
and I'll be some old trees
I could bend with You until I died.
You be the Vast Void,
I'll be an ast'roid
orbiting your starry insides.

You be a jazz band,
I'll be a tune.
Use me every song in every set.
I'll be a bridge span,
You be the Moon.
I think we'd make a lovely silhouette.

If You was a little vine
needin a place to climb,
I could always be your garden pole.
If I was a thirsty horse
lost on a desert course,
You could always be my water hole.

If You was a sunflower
bloomin just one hour,
for an hour I would be your stem.
If You was a deep bog
and I was a tree frog,
I would hop down all the time and swim!

Honey, You be a southern clime,

I'll be the sunshine.

That way I could always keep you warm.

If you led the bees' life,

I'd be a beehive.

That way you could come to me in swarms.

Babe, I'll be the summer air,
make like a mountain.
Between us we could melt a little snow.
You be a public square,
I'll be your fountain
somewhere in the south of Mexico.

Some say this universe
stinks like a cesspool.
Some say it is beautiful and pure.
I don't know good from worse,
I'm just a crass fool
but I will always love You. That's for sure.

[Adapted from The Mr Bones Doggone Versations]

A  Smashing Love to All,

- John O.

Kingdom of Ghosts

In the Kingdom of Ghosts the Queen is also dead.
Her silver shadow scepter threatens only the deluded.
If they knew that they were dead, it would have no point
but I, who thought I lived here, felt it sharp enough.

No one lives in this cold electric land.
I see the way the light shines through my body.
My sex is phantom and even if she beds me,
even if she calls me King, I’m dead.

She thrusts but I don’t parry. Now I know.
Ghosts can’t hurt ghosts, but I remember
sunshine and water and the breath of the living.
Smash this ghost with love. I will be born.


Love to All,

- John O.