#michaeldolce

Links to Michael’s books can be found at the bottom of the page.

Michael Dolce

A Universe to Come   8/19/08

I imagine the smell of earth in the mist of the sweet jungle’s humidity, Caressing my dry face, Bringing sweet and powerful tears to my cheeks, Half of my own making and half not. I can taste the water of this sacred savannah on my tongue With the gracious passion of a man too long denied its sustenance, Lost in a wilderness of wind and unfertile sand. I cool my overheated fingers in the damp mud of Mother Earth’s wet soil, And when I return them to my face, I smell a perfume that brings peace to my restless spirit And inspiration to all parts of my being. Then with the posture of a god atop Gaea’s highest peak, Bedecked in naught but the flesh that carried me from the ocean to this land And bathed in the light of Helios on high, She comes to me, A muse and a dark prophecy of sublime promise; An angel and a harlot, A song of terrible ardor and a whisper of confident purpose. She descends upon my skin as hot rain, Falling in surprising softness upon me, Flowing from my head to my toes in sanguine rivers of joy That speak to me like tongues of fire In a forgotten language no mortal mind ever had a name for. Upon my right and pure propitiation to her, Infusing her with consecrated heat, She rewards me by taking the world off of my back and smiling at me; A girl and a whore, A wife and a courtesan, A daughter and a mother. Her hands draw from my being every last ounce of poison Corrupting the sanctity of my immortal temple, Wrought from the wars of the civilized world. She finds the seat of my power, Where this deity’s machinations are seeded, The indomitable, indefatigable throne of my kingdom. She takes her seat as my queen, Radiant and magnificent, A goddess in these moments, Even unto other goddesses, Who can scarce contain their own adoration of her. As I worship. She holds a place of mystic guardianship atop the watch tower of my domain, And for all of its stolid solemnity, She makes it a beacon that lights the way for the Divine light to bless my great reign. As the sea meets the shore, we collide. She makes the earth from magma at my core, Pushing it to the surface in delightful chaos that replenishes the fertile realm. In the following calm, In the grace of profound silence. The ancient ritual is accomplished. The universe is reborn.

  Join Me           05-26-04

Anyone could blame it on the mushrooms, Especially the people who’ve never taken them And see merely the incomprehensible chaos it brings to people, Causing them to laugh uncontrollably And express leaps of child-like logic that their aging minds have long forgotten.

But it was beyond psilocybin, Beyond the mind, And beyond the flesh and bone that serve as my conveyance.

My soul spoke. My Great soul.

I sat on a dirt hill beside my best friend. We’d joked all night And had howled with hilarity; Two intelligent innocences struggling to cope with the illusory trappings of the Age of Pisces, The iron age of tyranny, political correctness, violence and abject humorlessness.

I remembered having a religion imposed upon me. I remembered the indoctrinational practices of my schooling. I imagined Jews and Palestinians killing each other over who had the best invisible friend, Busily fighting the great unknowns of human mortality. I imagined a world in which the followers of Elwood P. Dowd Committed acts of rape and murder out of an outrageously enflamed belief in an intangible six-foot tall rabbit named Harvey, And this made as much sense to me as the Crusades, the witch burnings & the jihads.

It struck me then.

It was like looking all around the house for a misplaced wallet And finding it finally in your back pocket.

Love is the thing.

Love is everything.

I could send it from my heart through my hands and heal this planet if I really meant it.

I gazed in immaculate awe up at the stars And gratefully into the eyes of my friend, And I spoke words that had come from a source beyond me; A memory of lessons learned, A prophecy of learning yet to come.

“I just want to love.”

My mind was a cool breeze. My heart was a gentle blaze. My spirit was a calm, healing stream. My body lay serenely prostrate upon the soil.

“I just want to love.”

I knew it was the truth of my existence, My destiny, My road less traveled.

I was absolutely myself, In all worlds, When I said it.

An eternity thrived in the scant seconds of my uttering, And I knew myself for the first time.

Decades have since passed.

Fear, greed & anger have come to fight a last battle for supremacy on earth. Confusion, apathy and disillusionment hold humanity from its inherent greatness, And, Imperfect vessel that I am, I understand it now.

I had spoken words that had come to me from a source beyond me; A memory of lessons learned, A prophecy of learning yet to come.

“I just want to love.”

Join me.

Death and resurrection.

Join me.

  I Met Your Girl           

I met your daughter at a Motel 6. She was calling herself Candy. I didn’t ask her for her real name. She never asked for mine.

A box of Huggies was visible Behind the closet door, Left inadvertently ajar. What was she, 18? 19? Already a mouth to feed.

She had a scar under her right eye. Did you give her that When you came home drunk And angry because You couldn’t be accountable For why you earned minimum wage?

What was she, 18? 19? She looked 30. The shadows under her eyes Were as deep as those cast by trees and buildings At sundown.

Maybe it was lack of sleep. Maybe it was drugs.

Did she roll her first joint for you? Did she have her first swallow of rotgut from your bottle? Did monkey see and monkey do?

She took it like a champ, And to the untrained heart, She feigned sincerity with practiced efficiency.

Did she learn that from you too?

The tattoo on her lower back Featured a skull and cross bones And read “here to go”. What was she, 18? 19? And here to go?

Well, I’m no saint obviously, Or I’d never have been in that hotel room With your daughter, Whose name I’ll never know, But by absent god, I’d never have enjoyed her company For that indecent half hour If you’d been a real man to your girl, Instead of …

…Well… Instead of whatever it was you were to her.

The River

The river swallows what it wishes. Water is potent beyond words. Walking beside the river is the purview of the bold, Because if the river wishes, it commands, And the hero, Regardless of imagined quests, Is drawn into unknown, unknowable currents Into which compassionate resolve sinks or swims. Every call to adventure is a call to love, And the manner of the challenge is a bizarre surprise Born of strange occurrence.

It must be so. For if the hero could choose the battles, They would all be encounters the hero was certain to win.

Heroism is the ability to be instructed by such as a river, Flowing with it as it dictates So that one’s formulas may be disproven, False faiths may be rent asunder And one’s own agnostic kindness may be given the breath of true life.

The river calls you. Fall willingly into it, To be bathed and purified, To have this ego drowned in sacred remembrance of universal unity, To rise a perpetually transformed spirit.

God is the river, The lake, The sea, The ocean.

You are a drop in the water, And you surrender So that you may move as the water moves, And in this submission, Your temporal being with a temporary name Is given the grace and force To perform feats of magic in a sterile atmosphere And to wield a candle’s flame Dispelling darkness.

The river calls. Answer.   Allow. Act.

  Boundless Love Sometimes I curse this flesh and bone because The limitations brought are hard to face, And what this damned trapped ego does Can never seem to stretch beyond its place. The truth of love is not the same as fact, Because this ego’s litany of fears Demands at least the semblance of contract, Imposing boundaries so we fend off tears. Would that this were not so, and we were free From form, from terror and from consequence, To say that you are yours, but you’re with me. Both come with some collateral expense.           I wish we had the minds of gods above,           For then we might enjoy a boundless love.

Michael’s books can be purchased here:

Zero the Clown: and a Lovely Garden of Flowering Weeds Desire and Dust Slap & Tickle Magic & Malarkey 69 Sonnets