Gem in an Iron Crown

By: Gus Victoria

She will never know the tears you have wept,

Save them for the one that has kept

The love in faith pure and true

The gem in an iron crown,

Angel in a flowing gown,

Waste not precious time on what never was to be

And enjoy that gift you refuse to see,

The hearts, with Cupid’s arrow, run through

Beat ever faster, always as one,

Captivating, as you try to run.

That other, now a shadow lost, left you alone

Taking the love you swore she did own,

You wandered, troubles not a few,

Until then another bright star

Blessed your path, healed the scar.

Undeserving of the first, second and third

Your worth spoken to you unheard,

Humility, pride once slew,

Broken man, broken dream,

Adrift in a hopeless stream.

Destroyed by an angel,

Healed by another,

Forgotten by self,

Found by faith.

Made whole in love.

Live and Love. Be Proud. Be Free.

By: Gus Victoria

The past week has been quite important for millions of gay people in this country and the many millions more that proudly call themselves friends and are family to them. The great joy in the Supreme Court’s decision to deem Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional was palpable. Sometimes it takes great moments like this to realize simultaneously how far we have come and how far we have yet to go. A victory, even one such as this, should not distract us from the still sad reality that for many people, in many states, the ruling did very little if anything at all. Also it cannot easily bridge the gap caused by those who with either ignorance or hate choose to deny to some of their fellow citizens a natural and just right; the freedom to love and profess through mutual  lifelong commitment that love regardless of sex.

Those who would redefine marriage do so without an understanding of what marriage is and a depressingly active trivializing of love. To cite God and a sacred scripture as the grounds for that action is wrong on several levels. Firstly it blatantly shows a willfully malicious and selective reading of holy texts. Secondly, it disregards the very clear principle of separation of Church and State that this country was founded upon. Third, and to me, most tragic, it dehumanizes those it seeks to control by labeling them sinners and not acknowledging a very real love.

Love is ancient. It is the fabric of human nature that binds us all to each other and beauty. The divine essence is love and we all carry it within ourselves. From this fount springs forth compassion, empathy, joy, hope, and faith. No one is born with hate in their hearts. Hate is learned. Hate is not the opposite force of love. Hate does not oppose love. Hate inhabits an empty house. It can only be sown where love is not. There it grows if allowed to, if fed more hate. Until of course, inevitably, it becomes a force unto itself. Even then, a true love that delivers in its light understanding can banish the darkness cast by hate.

Marriage, as those behind such an oppressive act of government want it to be understood, is fairly recent and it has nothing to do with love. A marriage in that regard is a simple legal contract. It was created for purposes of inheritance and politics. Its purpose was financial and political. Love rarely if ever figured. If marriage then, taken in that context of a legal contract, is such then there can be no question as to its legality between same-sex couples. Religion plays no part and to deny such legal protection to one portion of the citizenry is against both the laws and principles this country was founded upon.

If Biblical scripture is used to define by some argument of precedent or natural law that such a union must be between one man and one woman it  ignores much. It chooses a few passages throughout the entire work while ignoring many other laws deemed unnecessary, inconvenient, or outdated. Also it chooses to focus, with detrimental effect, on a tiny portion while missing the entirety of the message contained in the rest of the work; that love prevails above all.  Adherents can love, but if someone chooses to love someone of the same sex, no matter how sincere that affection may be, they are by necessity and without argument wrong.  I must allow myself to be wrong for how can I learn and grow if I know everything already? Yet, even in those things I feel right about, I cannot allow myself to use that conviction to deny others their rights. Truth stands on its own and demands no further defense.

It is faith in that truth that must ground our convictions. That indeed love will prevail and those that seek to stop two men from marrying, or two women, will inevitably lose. That marriage will be redefined from its imperfect birth as a cynical legal contract to that which it has always been destined to be; an outward manifestation of an inner truth to be celebrated by those friends and family of the happy couple.

As we celebrate Pride this day and every day. As we mourn those whose lives have been cut short by the depression and weight of unacceptance. As we look to a brighter future let us not lose sight that it does get better. It WILL get better, if only we let love guide us. Hate imprisons most harshly he that originates it. Spread love and be free!

The Inexorable March

By: Gus Victoria

The inexorable march of Time

Recognizes no barrier

And is grander than Thought.

It outlasts Death

And grind us all to dust

Marching on

Memory forgets and then

Even the dust disappears.

The fertile youth once

Is no more

Hopes and dreams

That sprang from boundless potential

Are dashed upon the rocks of reality

Sterile, dead.

Love is no subject of Time.

Eternal both,

Without beginning

Without end,

They exist

Boundless and limitless

In power and in scope.

Hope is their child.

Faith is believing

What cannot be seen

And seeing

What cannot be believed.

Faith always dies first.

Charred Bush, Silent Rage

By: Gus Victoria

The bush burns

And God speaks.

The madman has a vision

And God speaks.

The preacher needs a raise

And God speaks.

To affect foreign policy

And impose upon nations

The will of “the people”

God speaks.

Yet in pain

In despair

I cry out to God

And…

Silence.

I read the fantasies

Of cultures long buried in sand,

Of the magician carpenter,

Of the imperfect saints

In faith perfected.

None stand as pillars

To the firmament of my belief.

None give solace

When hope takes flight

When God is nowhere,

When faith replaces sight.

I bleed as you pray.

They hunger as you dance.

Your Creation Lord.

Your abandoned problem,

Your neglected children.

We killed you,

But first you let us die.

Not Quite the Atheist - Yet

With an admitted touch of irony, it is a leap of faith to disbelieve the ancient belief of Deity. It is a mark of courage to go forth in this world without the support of old dogmas and oft-repeated myths to guide and to reassure. Evil is as universal as good so long as there is a will to promote thought and exercise action. There is no hidden or apparent moral compass in religion that did not first find its creation in human thought. Why use the kaleidoscopic vision of a created divinity to filter back down what was ours always?

Religion might have once had its use. To unify and to create identities that allowed ancient peoples to understand and interact in their world with each other and various mysterious forces. Forces that have in that long march across history been explained, understood and re-understood time and again as we grow in knowledge, driven by our insatiable curiosity. As we have discovered much we have also realized there is much more that we do not know. That gap in knowledge no longer creates new myths that require strict adherence to some moral, civic, or social code. We carry around our inheritance of religion as ancient baggage that with each successive generation becomes heavier.

I am not yet brave enough nor strong enough in faith to jettison completely the millennia-old deities of my forebears, but I’m close. I look to the stars with the same wonder man did 5,000 years ago and before. The gods have changed, but that basic wonder never will. God may be out there, but I do not seek him out here. The universe is so vast it would be arrogance to limit what was created limitless. 

For another rant on the subject, check out Sorry John it Took Me So Long, But I'm a Dreamer Now

Chasing the Fairy #13

Love is a putrid fruit

To the empty soul

That, dejected, weeps dry tears

And prays false prayers

To a deaf god.

Love is an illusion

To that intellect

That, arrogant, rejects all

That senses cannot account,

Substituting chemical interactions

For Love’s reactions.

Noble is the lost hero,

That rejects those that reject

The illusions they proclaim

And knows truth,

As wheat from chaff,

Worthy is the scholar

Possessing an agile mind

That does not stumble

Upon discoveries,

Made and unknown,

Who walks with faith

Upon infertile soil

That bears miraculous fruit.

Blessed is the lover,

That brave soul

Who is above all

Friend of hope,

Enabler of faith,

Light in the darkness.

Faith Undone

Faith Undone

No marker on the grave

Where buried is our faith,

No joy in the world

That we betrayed,

Blood flows freely

In ruinous rivers,

Irrigating nightmares,

Reaping a tragic harvest

Effortlessly achieved;

A birthright

Of the clever enemy

Humility left untouched

And compassion abandoned,

A gift

Evil hid in Glory’s cloak,

Death delivered by War’s hand

A gift we drank eagerly

And we proclaimed gratefully,

The thirst unquenched,

The cup poisoned,

Revenge and pride

Spilled ever more,

Until maddened we consumed

All we once were

And all we would ever be.

Hostage With Wings

I am a hostage of love

A willful prisoner

Bound in dreams

That with hope do sail

Far across the sea of time

And across space,

Meaningless beyond moments

Eternal as love blooms;

The flower unwilted,

Given to joy

At the precipice of tragedy,

Given wings by tenuous faith

That I may learn to fly

And then fear not the fall

That ever near,

May never come.

Crook and Orb

By: Gus Victoria

The Shepherd’s crook,

The monarch’s orb,

Noble gifts

Used as locks,

To heavy chains built

In darkness,

Paraded in light,

Proclaimed with glory,

Unmasked to shame,

By those unfit to wield.

Embraced by those

Quick to yield.

Eagle on Cactus

By : Gus Victoria

Eagle on a cactus in splendor arrayed,

Harbinger of a future bright

After a past darkened in crimson shade,

Eyes dark and round

Melt an iron heart

To a flameless light

That burns ever bright

In longing beats

For an ideal lost

On the waves of fortune

In the path fate laid,

As a trap to the thinking soul

That in hubris would attempt

An escape from its dealt destiny

That in utmost clarity

Is seen and known as wrong,

The heart blazed another

Even more daring trail

That would immune be from failure,

If only equal measure of faith be given

For that is the rub,

Faith is currency rare,

And cannot be substituted for countenance faire.

Chasing the Fairy #9

By: Gus  Victoria

A bird of a feather lost

On the path taken most

To a confession given freely

To him that asked.

A stranger hidden

From the truth given

On an empty plain

To sit on a barren pedestal

Of marble cold.

An inscription of gold

And the silken glance

Of the admiring youth

Give honor

Where ignorance is due.

Lack is surplus

When we worship

The lost empty space

Of unknown faithless frivolity.

God is greater than god

For man is more than men.

And woman mother of both. 

Chasing the Fairy #7

By: Gus Victoria

Light!

A lover’s flame lit,

Fiery comfort

Of a charred memory

Encased in glass

Glowing brightly,

The way leading

To the lost gone

Wandering in wait.

Expectation of Desperation

For a thin faith fled.

They wait alone

Crowded in their solitude,

Pitied before loved,

Keepers and jailers,

Barriers to their own happiness,

Blind to the fire

Of Passion,

Slaves to desire

They cannot posses.

The Sigh Discontent

By: Gus Victoria

Hero and Leander - Peter Paul Rubens

A single half-sighed cry

In the ocean of deepest thought

Is heard on the shore of reason.

Heaven hears

What Hell fears

And Hell lets go

What Heaven will never know,

Rejection then sets my course

Toward that distant cry

Heard far away…

Oh that dreadful  sound!

Heard far away

On that dreadful night…

Multiplied now the cry is two,

The soul split

On the given Cross disjoined,

Element and tradition,

One force now two.

Run, swim, think, be

Action to inaction leads

Hope and despair together dance and duel

Who wins?

You always choose…

Oh that cry!

Oh that cry?

Where has it gone?