the way to the island of infinite life
in the fresh air of Mother Earth,
i am in a barren desert,
cliffs hanging over me on each side,
with just a backpack and a ukulele.
the clouds have parted,
rain will not come.
i have been out all day.
there is a town up ahead
with a seashore
where i’ll get some rest.
the entire way i am in some peace
with the thought of my lover
in my heart, mind, and soul.
she is somewhere far away.
i might not be with her ever.
i could sit on a boulder
and play her to the atmosphere,
release my worries, fend off my cares,
when what really matters to me
is not here. she is not. she is not.
she is not. but with the thin veil
of vapor in this nomadic spiral of space,
i am soothing myself in strains of E
with divinity in her place.
samaria gorge is a long way
from the gavdos shore,
but when apollo arrives
we’ll be dancing the jive
from timbuktu to today’s infinite life.
here to the island of enchantment
for when we first found it,
we anchored to faith,
on a ship from the
noble firmaments of Fragocastello
where the dog was wild
and the lambs reigned free in the olive orchard,
a vociferous and boisterous settled clan
lounged to sunflower seeds, whiskey
and searching for affirmation from fickleness,
good karma through futile meaning of
the turn it all over again routine,
baptisms announcing gunfire of defiance,
blending in with the sand as the American
warplanes soared overhead toward
the regime change in Libya,
a beach made just for the fisherman to sleep
when he dazzles a round of company,
in an open, defining moment
we dropped it down,
held steady as it absorbed into our hearts,
salt settling in the hull of the makeshift vessel,
two broken shells bolted as a walk on water mass,
dizzy from a broken-hearted land,
on the way to an immortal family,
dressed in robes of white,
the derivative of a need to escape,
to fill blank canvasses with color
as the mountain air provides dynamicism
with the rainclouds and lightening bolts,
we stuck to it like octapus to the stomach,
enthralled in what we had and not letting go,
making no one our port except the Son of God,
and it let us into the vision of the graceful, serene
waters of destiny upon which our ship would now float,
over the porecelain vase of ghost orchids
floating through the Spring reminder of our falling,
to take us to this shadow where the light fizzles
and shoots like the stars, to lead us to some Mars,
where there is a statue of Apollo on a crag
over the sea, on the way, to a purple colony
where everything is not how it seems,
and we get lost again in disarry,
our house built on sand does not hold up
against the turbulent elements,
and so we make our home anew
with the past as our distant view,
the repeated history in our hands,
in which we ask the Lord, "will we be salty again?"
because everyone who goes there comes to an end
and this is the way it is, my friend,
the enchanted island is not the right place to be
when you can simply spend your time with Jesus.
making my way home
during the month of june
i wondered who i was
and what love was
and found myself
letting go of the ego.
it started with a ferry ride
to kythira. i reached into
aphrodite’s nest and soaked my hand
in nectar, trusting the sting wouldn’t
catch me. spread it out with apricots and yogurt
on a thinly sliced piece of delicious toast.
carried the wine bottle on a hike
to an oval cliff beside the sea,
drank it down, just her and me
on my mind, how things might turn out,
all the directions i don’t know about,
and on the rubble of a castle in chios,
she was in my dream while they are in reality,
dancing in festivity, well-fed,
knowing they are in peace of authenticity
in a heap of acknowledgement of futility,
and i kept buying phone cards and leaving unfulfilled.
while the thin dirt roads and boulders of Mother Earth
expressed their royalty, i simply wanted the queen.
her head on my shoulders— things like that.
luckily the world kept spinning and breathing came easy.
the dogs and me ran down the winding path to the sea
and i could hardly believe how good they were at keeping secrets.
while the women and men strolled to their ouzo and water meter,
my wild thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone,
like, will she speak to me in 72 hours?
will she accept my offering of a rain drenched flower
from my tears of being away from her,
my biggest heartache? did Christ also tell her
to keep your head held together when times are low?
and her feelings! why do i feel my feelings and not hers?
the oracle of delphi advised me to watch the North Star
on thanksgiving of 2019 to look for an astral sign.
i write this poem in retrospect. that was 2011;
i’ve waited all this time.
and what i can say is on the overnight to crete
winning a game of chess was like a lucky guess,
and when the hammock of the fisherman
came tumbling down, i was oh so grateful for his generosity.
and when we tossed a dog into the sea
i was so happy that the goat was clean.
and her memory comes back to me
but a phoenix was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
now he is a dove.
Jesus Christ is the light,
the Lord Almighty. He is Love.
poems by Ryan Ventriloquist
