Thursday, December 8, 2011

Dawn from Defeat.

Turn aside the burning blush
let the fire settle from thy smothered eyes.
Let grace like silent snow fall
and cool thy singed soul.
This is truth and grace abundant
that in the midst of despair
is the gentle hand, the turning sound,
the path made straight again.
Step away from the immolation
shame is not your birthright
You are a new generation
and the dawn is a gentle light.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Hazards

The address cannot be read.
The ink has grown into a spider's web
woven against the mossy envelope
and there is nothing to be done.
There is a room
in the back with no door but a slit,
A blank faced wall with a thin lipped mouth
always open but unwilling
to swallow each slender morsel.
Day by day they feed it
stuff it full of telephone bills
and birth announcements.
They have not checked it in years
gone back to see how full,
how heavy the room had grown
They did not hear how it groaned
under the weight of the words in their thin paper skins.
The words that were not read,
were not yet grown into thoughts
could not stay their germination
but burst instead into luminescent bloom.
It is Christmas Eve
and the Post Office is on fire.


Monday, December 5, 2011

Shadow Sonata

The dog next door is howling
I try to remember that he is just a puppy
and does not understand the lonesome sound
he makes in the deep night
but it is hard when I think of him alone
in the quiet apartment
making his own noises to keep away
the shadows that seem to slide under the door.
I too have my shadows
that slide through off-hand comments
and grip with a brutal grasp
leaving bruises where I used to breathe.
It's hard to breathe
thinking of you in the dark
walking some sidewalk by yourself
while I thought you are safely asleep
or at least at home, shut away from the night.
I am so afraid
that the shadows have lured you through the door
have taken you for their hungry own
and will not give you back.
The dog next door is howling
and I am crying with him.

Shame

There is a sort of sickness seeping
through my soul
As if hearing through a fog
that all my bones are broken
that they have no marrow in their middle
They have turned cold and brittle
beneath my skin
and stripped of their calcium
sit like rotten twigs against each other
in an autumnal pile-
not even good for burning
for the sake of the sullen smoke
that singes as it sulks along the streets...
there is a sort of sickness in my soul
and not even sleep will silence it.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

The story starts
between one breath and another
and it has such terrible teeth
sinking into me, so hungry
with its carnivorous strength.
It beats like a fist on the door
a shaking fist of a man
who I have never seen cry.
Why he is crying now, I can't bear to know.
But I open the door anyway
he is standing there and I am afraid
that if I hide he will not go away.
That what he says will never go away.

It's a lie of course.
It cannot be a true thing.

We were going to be married in July.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

First Freeze

The first skin of ice
grows like dawn across the pond
with fractal patterns
spinning in a liquid fingerprint.
A breath would break it
but still it stretches with fragile edges
tightening its hold on the smooth surface.
A misty layer taking a pearl sheen
it is the quietest spreading thing.
What would not bear a fingertip
will grow swirling bones of strength.
Winter nurtures the newborn
and nothing thickens into new stone.

From a tendril of affection
comes a love you can stand on.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Blinded love

For this only can I give you
the sweetest shade of my own two eyes
In your place of pain
in your gaping wound
I can place no healing hand
Stand you there shaking
with the spit and spittle
scattered across your face
with the stench of loss of control
streaming from you in potent flood
and you are a broken thing
an eagle on shattered wings
I cannot reach to you my friend
cannot speak to silence the sounds
of those gutted breaths you keep taking
I am myself bound
myself a broken bird
a mouth of fear standing in darkness
This only can I give you
That I shall not see your shame
that you must not see me seeing
you in all your filth and fear.
My eyes are closed and heart open
This only can I give you
the blessed darkness of face turned aside
of a shame unseen.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Ice Snap

The loudest rupture comes in spring
on the tallest finger of the oldest cherry tree
out in the midst of the green
The bees wait for it
slowing their buzz in their waxy cones
to better hear the report
The birds keep up a constant pattern
across the nondescript sky
drifting on silent breezes with cocked heads
The sun lingers day by day
each day a minute longer or two
just to see, just in case
The loudest rupture comes in spring
on the tallest finger of the oldest cherry tree
With the first petal sprung
Spring sounds out across the green.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Rude Awakening

I woke up and all the clocks were changed.
I walked out and all the locks were changed.
I have no key to turn the time
no hand to turn the key
There's a circle with the center
and I'm a perimeter
What does it mean to be a cipher
with no denotation, no equation
no clue towards conclusion?
What does it mean to ask a question
but as a suggestion?
You asked if I was running late
if I thought I should go walking.
You always held me in a net
but there was never a connection.
I dreamt you were a dream come true
but I awoke and all the locks were changed.

seamaid

Boot it ill to claim
this sort of travail, this travel
as a crime, this climb
to the top of the bottom of the heap
and at least it was not so deep
as the last dream
where you swam like a fish
across the scratching sand
and every breath was strangling
with your jewel skin streaked all ruby red
and the whole world a facet, a faucet
with the light turned off
with no water flowing
How to handle that dream but to dive
again and dare some transformation
so it is and so it shall be
but what worse curse this
with women's wiles and fishy styles
half-soul, half-flesh
and nothing doing.
Don't call it travel-- this travail
you half thing in water, in air
dragging your descendants
through evolution.

Friday, October 28, 2011

No Spark.

I planted the home on fire
with yellow marigolds glinting
just above the low smoulder
of last winter's brush piles
Red snapdragons spit their flame
up against the siding
and the water stains seem
to be steaming with the paint
boiling and swelling from the old wood.
The grey clouds sit on the roof
like sullen smoke.

Only the rain spoils the picture
They said you were my perfect match
But it doesn't seem that we get along
like a house on fire.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

To fall, To follow.

Wild worn nature with your tangled tendrils
hanging off the shoulder
of the wicked, winsome Eve.
How terrible could your wrath be, your least displeasure
when this its greatest joy rings so loud throughout the trees
that I have awoken
dragged from something like death, like dying
into all that is green light, green life.
It was winter when I slept and spring replaces dawn
but when I go to sleep it will grow cold again
So turn and turn about but I am a man of fire
heat and light drawn from me, hissing, into the air
as though something taken, something stolen.
How could a man as rich as I be robbed of anything
and weep as a peasant shorn of his dear only lamb?
This sibilant whisper says nothing loath
a counter melody to her raindrop footsteps
and the whole world seems to hum.
I am the last of the first, the men of old die with me
I am new born, and late to die
let all who follow, follow me
As I follow winsome, wicked Eve.



(to the garden, the world)

Essay

When beginning my essay
there is such a look
about the first words standing proud on the page
fierce pioneers in the blank blizzard.
I am loath to add to them
to crowd them round with lesser thoughts
with piles of therefores and wherefores
Wondering what it's all good for
I pause
and take another study break.

(Off Whitman's Beginning My Studies.)

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Storm sense

The storm surrounds me and I
submerge my voice into its noise
Submerge, not subject
not as though it were reduced
a mere part amongst the whole
but rather released
as a fish submerged into the sea
becomes more fully fish
I and the storm become
lovers
as young people fall in love
not out of their element into another stranger world
but swelling towards their truest soul
falling only
because there is not enough room to rise.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Scraps

What a wicked wingspan you have

feathertips straining at every window

You have to enter every door

sideways

I wonder if that affects your view

of progress, of regress

The only way you can go is up

but the ceiling is made of glass

so hope demands a sacrifice.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Almost alright

It's not the swinging door
or the empty bed.
It's not the quiet table
or the stripped closet.
I can stand losing the smell
of your shaving cream
or coffee in the morning.
Your mismatched sock
showing up at last
doesn't reduce me to tears.
You left and the house is empty.
You went and stripped my finger.
But I'm alright.

It's just that the only thing
that won't leave me alone
is loneliness

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

feeling rundown

tongue tied up
laid on the railroad tracks
vibrations say the train's coming
I've never said such a word
but the metal can
speech without air, without lungs
and I've got those and a tongue
but it's tied up on the tracks
Train's coming
whistle screams
and so do I

Tongue's untied.

(I still died)

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Modern Stability

There are three things that cannot be moved
Four that cannot be shaken
An iron tower built on rock
A king without mercy
A mother from her children
A misquote from Wikipedia.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Roar

Learn your lesson
like a lion learns the gazelle.
Let fear be your teacher
the tooth takes its toll.
Rise and take the floor
you are either one or the other.
Take the ribbon in your hand
shall it be leash or lover?
Take the last of those who left
were they bound
or found free and wound
around your little finger?
Be taught by the open door
by the empty floor
You cannot act the child
and demand to have more.
Love is full of fear
tooth and claw and a locked door.
Love is always near
but it demands all of you and more.
Learn to love
like the lion the gazelle.
With hunger and heat

Would you like something to eat?

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Commandment

Take, then, woman and be
mouth and heart and all the world between.
Be word and song and all silence between
and stand in the line of twilight across dawn
Bend like wind and stretch like the river
keep the faith like a kitchen lamp
keep the kitchen like a castle
And above all woman be
mouth and heart
and all the world between.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Hope

Chain me up
tie me down
Take all the ropes and words and
whatever else you have.
Make a wall, a window with a lock
a door with a bolt
a castle with a tower.
Keep me shut up, shut down,
shut in away from all that out there
the out there where I could wander
where I could be lost.
Lock me up
Chain me down.
I don't want to leave you.

When the hero falls

Who sent you
who taught you the words
to say to me?
You have the face of a stranger
with blue eyes the stranger
for being behind such a tongue.
You have the face of a stranger
but the voice of a shadow
the one behind me
always whispering the half lies
after all the man who tells a half lie
has sold the bastard child of truth
sold him into darkness with weeping and gnashing of teeth
and who are you to speak with such a voice
to use such weeping against me?
Who sent you with this message
to freeze the very heart of me?
Do not give me that with your knife tone
Do not hand me the handle of that dagger.
After all it is only said that
I cannot shoot the messenger.

Tristram

To take a footstool for a kingdom
To trade honor for a kiss
I have turned my body to shield
and my sword to pillow
there is no tenderness like the blade.
To drink the blessed poison
To toast most meddling Fate
I have taken wine with another
after swallowing- with myself.
Greater than my self, my higher I,
and not myself at all-bound to another's crown
To taste joy in liquid and despair in dregs
To drink to the bottom of desire
She is all red and white
The crimson flame and the other's bride.
To be both nephew and lover.
To be dishonoured and delighted.
To be Isolt's- and no one's.

Isolt

This then is to love:
to eat the wild greens and not know hunger,
to drink the mountain stream and not want wine.
This then is to love:
to spend the day in sun and not know thirst,
to spend the night awake and not know weariness.
This then is to love:
to speak the whole day and not waste a word,
to stay silent for hours and need no song.
This then is to love:
to sit alone by the willow tree and be always two,
to stand at the river gate together and be just one.
This then is to love:
you there and I here and not a gap between.

Mark

To stand in ice- and not know cold
To wait at noon- and not know heat
To hear the harper- and not know song
to see the cathedral- and not know faith
To be in day- and not know night
To be in night- and not know sleep
To be alive- and not know death
Is to be in love- and not know love.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Kent.

You have a thing for heroes
Achilles and Hercules,
flashy swords and light feet.
You're all about short speeches
quick quips and battle cries
For Narnia, or Rome.
You like the mystery
of the mask and cape
so Captain America.
You're into tragedy
the great sacrifice, the bait
the battle of Thermopylae.

So what about the
milk-skinned, mild-mannered man
the alter ego without the alter
(but also not the ego)
Because I'm dying here
with nothing quick to say,
no game to play
and no mask to save the day...
just me.
I have a thing for heroines.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Sam's sons.

The foxes are full of fear
dragging red fire behind them
And the fields parched receive them
The grass waving their long arms
Crying "mercy! mercy!
on us have mercy."
but there is only heat and fear
and what does a fox know of grace?
He knows fire
and fear
and fleeing.
O how the fields are burning.
The fire runs like fear through the grain
and the fox flees on.

Call it a coda

You roll up in your stretched out accent
want to take me riding in your syllabic chariot
driving on your round vowels
into your stiff diction landscape
(did you forget darling?)
You ring the bell into a cathedral call
intone invitation with swing and hook
singing a weather of sunshine and breeze
(dearest I hate to bring it up...)
Moving with your skip rope beat
all twitches and tenderness,
double beats of the heart
rhythm taking up flesh for a while
and you want to take me dancing
(sweet, my dear, don't you know?
I'm tone dead, all deaf, can't move
I've got no where to go
I've gotten over you. )

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Queen

You've got your hair slicked back
into a smoothed up beehive
with a black silk dress
sticky as honey along your legs
with shoes all gold and glow
upon your winged feet
and when you sing you hum
and i feel the buzz between your lips
like a sting between my skin and bones
You've got your hair woven back
and my fingers get trapped in the wax
I cannot pierce you sharp and sweet
cannot feel your honey swell
to hear me sing me back to you
I am just a drone

Sailor saved

coming out of the water
and the sand feels like knives
on these fresh new feet
do I dare to walk again
to claim the grass as my realm
the road as my right?
how terrifying the world
with the clouds stripped away
how broad and bright it lays
across my dazzled eye
Is it true that I once ran
here and farther than the light stretches?
All I've done lately is drift
in the half cocoon of water's grip
unsure of if it's sinking
or swimming when your feet lose their grip.
Still here I am
washed up on this shore again
So tell me land, will you bear my weight?
All I ask is that you not betray me
and send me lost again, lost at sea.

lost in translation

I have written of the secret
I have written of the shadow
in this sacred cuneiform,
these holy hieroglyphics
and it seems arcane to demand
these troubled brows and whiskers
to learn such things as what a nun
may mean to me, or not.
Shall I strip the word of vowels
the image of it's story?
Should I send with ravished beams
a trembling masted ship
from shore to shore throughout the storm
and give it nothing but a casual kiss?
You sit waiting, all ablaze
to know what
what I mean, what I say
what? Do I mean what I say?
and I laugh and tell you of once a girl
in a story, you haven't read it?
Well then this is not for you,
it cannot be.
Off with you and your hungry eyes
I write the holy verse
use the old world's words
to spin my hurt, my grief,
oh help me help my unbelief.
I use this sacred cunieform
to tell the world how I was born
Now would you read it back to me?

Friday, September 2, 2011

Deidre

Oh Deidre of the night black hair
for what are your lips rose red?
well might the blood rise
in your porcelain cheeks
for this is the voice of the hills
calling out to you
O Deidre where are the flowers we gave you?
leave your lilies of the field...
they stood and sung and were our dearest bloom.
Deidre why did you draw them to their doom?
How slender your feet
so rarely did they touch the ground.
Fian carried you like the summer breeze
and now what have you done with he
he and his brothers three?
Deidre do not look behind thee
he is deep beneath the hazel tree.
O summer bloom, our dearest darling,
where is he now in this fateful hour?
You cut him down with a smile
drew him to his fate with your face
and now there's nothing left but to tuck
our warm arms around and take him for our own.

What scandal? You would follow him here?
Let him be, let him sleep.
A curse upon you Deidre.

midnight madness

let me take you as rope
old grass or linen
long hay knotted over and over again
till it looks something like wood
til it looks like something
I would want to keep
Let me try that, to turn my eyes
across the shape of you
with a squint or a monocle
anything to manacle
this creeping sensation that
you don't have the sense to
come in out of the rain
too simple to swallow
so lets add some levels
lets add some evils
let me take you as rope
it's hard to hang yourself on hope.

Sunday, August 7, 2011

The Lady

The river is the last road I will ever take
with its one start and one end.
I've been on the river all my life
treating the current like ocean swells
and wondering what solid land
would feel like below my wrinkled feet.
My feet have shrunk
without the weight to stretch them.
The water whisked their strength away.
Once I found a slipper along the muddy bank.
I slid it on my foot and it slipped right off
breaking along the pebbled bed
into sparkling shards.
Perhaps things on land are not as solid as they seem.
As for me, the river is my only road
and I will drift down to the sea.
As I sleep I hear them calling behind me.
The Lady, the Lady,
The Lady of Shalott...
I hope they find her.

Dawn

Among the hills
I am the last to leave the cradle
to see the sunrise above
the earthen swell that defines my world.
My sister, who sleeps beside me,
climbs to the ridge
races to meet the morning halfway.
She is all light
leaving no footsteps
but her shadow
and a faint one only.
The sun is the tightest hug she will accept
with its stretching fingers brushing hers
as its spare hand lingers across the hills
(across the flats, the sea, and the hills again).
She stands and watches the light
bend across light and sees it only
sliding along the skin of one
who climbed the ridge, and the next, and the next.
When it has risen and become fully hers
like the day she cannot share
she returns to bed
curls among the covers and creates
a darkness she can pretend is night
so that the relentless sun reaching for her
through the curtains, the covers
is a new dawn still.
When I shake off the dreams
that keep me quiet and still in the light
she wakes next to me
a whole day ahead.

Pro and Conversation.

How do we keep you
keep you safe
and I suspect a placard
hanging off the sheer glass wall
describing a natural habitat
inscribing natural habits
where this specimen was bred and why.
We'll make you comfortable
keep you calm
and I see a bed
transformed into a whole room
with pillow corners
and sheets so starched
they become the sharpest things there.
It will be so quiet
nothing will upset you
and the lacquered box
is soundproof with no air
to carry the sound.
The dirt is so heavy
that nothing could tip me over the edge.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Shard of Truth

Glass isn't water.
Sometimes I forget
and picture you inside your house
with all the window walls-
the last specimen of some swimming species
caught haphazardly in a bright lit world.
Sometimes I wake up
panicked
that all the windows broke and you
lay gasping across your sea-green couch
with your hair drying in long knots
and your wet eyes hardening
into wooden replicas like museum skeletons
where they pretend to know that the dinosaurs
wore red across their backs.
All the children would come and stare
sneaking pokes against the back of your arm
when their parents aren't looking
just to make sure that you are really
real.
Sometimes I wonder if you are
and that's why I came crashing through
your living room wall today.
Sometimes I forget
glass isn't water.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Homestead

My grandfather's shower smells like blood.
I suppose you get used to it.
He was born in this house
made of wood and concrete
and one door that opens off the second floor
into the air.
He is the last of six sons
and daughters too
but they married and moved and changed.
He hasn't.
In the barn walled in by corn
there is a roof beam that reads 1842.
It could be amended to
"1842 and still working"
but nothing in this house is ever amended.
Mended yes, fixed and repaired
but never changed.
My grandfather has hands like wood-
oak root, that snaps concrete.
He is the master mender
but even he does not change.
He was born in this same house
as his father.
His father died here
and so will he.
The shower water smells of blood.
It has seeped through the house into the earth
where nothing ever changes.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Godmothers. (without the wand)

Now it should be taken
as a remark upon his character
that he takes such effort and care
to conceal
his baldness
which is no fault of his
but only Nature's whim.
As for his figure
he is well proportioned
with a stolid girth that close reflects
his standing as a steady townsman
whose opinions carry great weight.
For his worth
it is well over two stone in silver
and half again that much in land.
His beard reflects his wisdom
and if it is somewhat scraggly
it is well greyed
a sign of much experience.
All this to say that,
considering your waist
is your best dowry,
the sir is as well endowed as you
and the match should be made by May
though even a January rush could be managed.

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Other Cinderella Story

I'm going to need you to pay attention.
she said
and the way she had of raising her eyebrow
to match her voice
made him look twice
and sit up straight
but the bottom of his spine shook
and he couldn't tell if it was terror
or something else.
I want something that really pops.
I might be the mother of the bride
but everyone knows
I'm the brains of the operation.
The fairy tale business is old news
blah blah blushing bride and handsome prince.
Boring.
What everyone wants to know
is how the woman who made it happen
thinks, walks, and what she wears
and if you hop to it, that label will be you.
So...
I'm thinking red
something smoking--
this mama isn't going to sit back
and dandle gran'babies on her knees
even if they are heirs to the throne.
Make them flashy with a bit of heel
not too much you know as it'd be a bit of a shame
to wear what the queen ain't got--
I can laugh at her even if the press can't
'cause after all I got her the crown
and the ring which might be better.
Cut them tight
if they look too big
people might start asking questions
like how that little bitty slipper
followed something that looks like this.
We'll let them talk
and I'll dance at her wedding even if she can't...


"And the wicked stepmother was given red hot iron shoes
and danced until she died."


Thursday, July 14, 2011

On Wishing Well.

She saved all the pennies she ever found
face down on the ground like they were
praying -the last honest worshippers
to the last Lady of Luck.
She kept them in a silver sleeve
that once held a golden photo
with his hair and the sun all glowing.
Now it's just pennies
and every full moon she pulls one
with it's copper sphere to match the silver one outside
folds two hands around the tiny circle
and every full moon by the window
she closes her eyes.
she wishes...

for bridges to burn
for a fiddle to play
for a globe to upturn

for one more day
where he was hers.

Doorway.

So he's got this sword
and shoes that look like
they look like they been somewhere
PHEW. they smell like they been somewhere.
so he's got this sword. and the shoes.
and this look like.
lady.
and i can feel my toes in a way
i haven't since last may
when tom went swimming after that old bag
and came up with kittens and a full summer smile.
but still.
there's the sword and that look.
but it's after dusk and the door
well she says the door should be latched
and checked THREE times
but she also says thrown salt keeps off the Eye
yeah and who's the one who sweeps
so there's her
and there's this sword and the shoes and a man.
and he says.
lady.
are you gonna let me in. or what?

So i did.

So there's this sword and the shoes
and a son.

Where's the man?


Shut that Sass

When she sasses
it swings down the street
on long sticky of strands of
she saaaid whaaaat.
and it sticks to the mouth
of all the slack-jawed children
with a sweet sugar sting
to fill up those cavities
bouncing around in they empty heads
like rubberball fireworks
till it explodes off their hands
and the clap clap telegraph
begins again
she said she said
she said husssssssh
she said she said

-You better not miss that bus-
and husssssh.
the street is silent again.
But when she sasses...

Not your Tom

crook tail'd king
knows he's unlucky
and he don't care who he damns
takes his time
swinging between
a slouch and a sullen strut
but who's watching
who's worth walking for?
corner cat, king of the street
corner cat don't want your meat
lights out fur
and full moon eyes
crook tail'd king
don't want your anything

One Last Salvo

People in a battle lost
love differently.
time flickering out
in the looming night

In a lost battle
the lovers know first
the difference between surrender
and salvation


Thursday, June 30, 2011

God save the listening.

And they cry, "God save the king,
save the queen, the priest, and me"
O save, save, save,
O Ave Ave Ave,
how holy you are, with your holy teeth
and your bleach, and extended reach,
and oh how the people crowd
to hear you preach
and you teach them to say
and they pray and they pray
"God save the king,
save the queen, the priest, and me"
Say it once say it twice
Say it a thousand times or two
If you say it loud, and loud enough
the echoes might make it true.
That's how truth happens
it's how it came to you
out of the darkness laughing
So scream on with your bleached teeth
and your holy corners on unholy streets
scream "God save the king,
save the queen, the priest, and me."
With your hungry mouth
and holy smile
I will sit and wait for the bows
wait a while.
All I hear is
God sate the king,
sate the queen, the priest, and me.
And as far as I can tell,
you're still starving.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Ideal (Deal Me Another)

O! A curse on Florence
on all the cobbled streets that ever
ran over riverbeds and replaced streams.
Shame fall over Verona
blur the sunsets grey and the stars
into a dirtier shadow over painted roofs.
Ill luck on all of Italy
raisened wine and fallen olive trees
storm and drought and broken fountains.

Doom and despair, darkness and dust,
Let all the lovers cry:
We have walked the roads of Rome
and Romance is still a lie.

Taking the Company out of Coup

At least it's a creative
catastrophe --
I can always trust
you for an apocalypse
that really pops.
None of these half-
hearted half-moribund
tales that stumble across
acrid post-aced landscapes.
You scrape the scraps
from the bottom of the barrel
and then light it
on fire.
Even the necromancers argue
that you take all the romance
out of the Spanish flu
and Italian emphysema.
I cannot emphasize enough
how the empaths shudder at
your sesame street creeds
Sharing isn't caring when it involves
more scaring and scarring
than the average cocktail
with a molotov wick.
It's another 2 am Thursday
and with you
the week always ends
with a bang.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

feather free

Everyday I watch you
sit on the porch and pluck
out your wings
it seems a strange thing to do
after all the trouble of growing them
but then it was a strange thing
to grow them in the first place
How you managed it with those distinctly
human bones I'll never know but I suspect
it had something to do with the boy I saw once
slipping between the trees with earthen grace
with wide hawk wings tucked beneath old denim
and feet that didn't seem to leave a mark
I know. I went to look.
But they called me back to say
that you were sick, that you were crying
through the fog of a fever
saying that you saw feathers, that you heard wings
And I cried by your bed for the angels to leave you be
The left you alone but you were never the same
always in long sleeves never with a smile
and I wonder what covered you so.
Everyday I watch you pluck your feathers
from your scarred arms, watch them fall on the littered porch.


Thursday, May 12, 2011

Monday, May 9, 2011

Dreamed

You've put yourself in all my dreams
tied them in a knot around my finger
(don't forget me don't forget)
I can't tell you what it means
to wake wishing sleep would linger
(don't forget me don't forget)
When everything I do is obsolete
a sort of rhythm without a beat
(don't forget me don't forget)
You come like thundered harmony
You sing like the whole hungry sea
(don't forget me don't forget)
You are on the old night street
when the moon forgot her silver shine
(don't forget me don't forget)
I get lost hoping we meet
and you remember you are mine
Don't forget
Don't forget me.


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Muldoon

How brash, how bold--
you brandish your dictionary
like a buckler slung low
on your almost feline hip
on your almost female hip.
Come at me again with your
whin, and gorse, and furze.
Tell me of the swamp grass under which
you saw me lying, saw me loving
and how it bristled in thorny ceiling
to shield me from the sky, the sun
but not from you with your rapier of incisive verbs.
Tell me that you saw it as rape, as racking, as wrath
and you shall say it so in print, in verse, in rhyme.
Load up your derringer of daring with your pocket of metaphors
and fire scattershot after your ten paces of nobility.
This is after all a matter of honor, a dishonorable matter.

How bold you are and brash
to accuse me by the whin, the gorse, the furze.
I tell you-- you shall need more than
one witness by three names.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Diane

You are a fearful thing in the park
with the dappled light leaving gaps
in your already ethereal skin
and when you run through the trees
almost I can see horns amidst your hair
and hear the baying of the hounds
hungry hunting you
and your hungry joy and their holy fear is mixed
with your hushed fear and their hunting joy
They would not dare you
alone
but in the rush they come
down the hill, invincible, crying out
their fearless, swelling joy
For they have found you and shall have
their piece at last
You must hear them in the wind
sounding the triumph call
Frozen and staring through the trees
Love find me running, crying out my fearsome joy
for I have found you and shall have
my peace at last.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Armchair

It is not as if you are a particularly charming armchair
although if you were an armchair
you would out charm all the polka dots and plaids and paisleys
and leave the solid respectable black leather and suede in full shadow.
Nor yet are you a sort of celestial sun of heart and magnificence too much to bear
though if you were how the planets would flock around you
jostling in their orbits to swing nearest to your blazing glory
and turning away in despair when you are too bright to see.
The sea and moon are too ordered for your likeness
for they change according to their laws and you only to your pleasure
how could any telescope chart the waxing of your presence
or sonar measure the trenches where your deeper mysteries lie
Besides you are dawn and noon and these ladies are only servants of the night
You are not the last great microcosm the smaller self of earth
for earth was made for your feet and voice and rule
and you formed for no master's hand nor tyrant mistress
to tease and prod and cajole is not your role nor will you suffer it
Earth is of the meekest dirt and you are nothing clay.
All these things you are and are not
All these things you are and are more
To list and argue, define and declare would take
a hundred years or more
and if I had a hundred years I'd rather
spend them curled in your lap
although it is not as if you are an armchair

Sunday, April 17, 2011

For you.

Comets come closest to what you are
bright and far and how
can I ever fit inside what you
are and say and do
You have all the grace of physics
a marble on a wooden plane
the longest arching curve
Gallileo weeps that you followed him
that he came before a voice
silenced in the streets of Florence
(may its windows never bloom)
In all the world you move
most like itself
A thing not written nor seen
a song unhummed.
You are where the sun goes when it sets
the sea's first love and the night's firstborn son
Echo's eldest sister died for wanting you
it is her sorrow-love the wind sings
and in the spring all the earth's affection
grows brilliantly gowned for your eye
Everything is still when you come
Everything dark when you leave
In all the world there is you
only you for me.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Blondie (edit)

I cannot remember a time
when my neck did not ache.
I walk bent forward
like an old woman
trying to bear her weight on her knees.
My shoulders curve from my spine
my spine from my hips
and it is only when I am asleep
that I may stretch straight.
Even then it is an anchor
tugging against me
when my dreams toss my head
from side to side.
It is why I sit so still.
Dragging this mass behind me is a tiresome task.
It coils around my feet and slicks a heavy heat down my back
till I am just sweat and skin and weight.
If they call it beauty let them bear it
and brush it and braid it.
As for me, I'd let it all burn.

Friday, April 8, 2011

seared.

Some words stick
fly out of careless mouths
dripping with glue
to land sullenly
on sidewalks or stop signs
or selves
and stay stubbornly until
with sun and time they scar
pale and shining.

These are not freckles
They were my whole skin's tone
before you spoke.


Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Breathless.

I long to be that sweet air
which drifts past those parted curves.
White virtue seals their red gates
but wind's smallest finger reaches casually
and without a key easily enters.
How cruel to be barred from earth's best treasure
and on top of bondage watch
with unjust simplicity an unknowing thief
enter and leave with brazen confidence.
Swiftly in and just as quickly out
leaving where I long to linger
How daring in it enters
and how fearfully it flees.
I would test my own courage
against this answer and those flashing teeth
I have been stabbed by those eyes,
wounded by that quick tongue
but still in the fray I would press
further and deeper in.
Step aside, air, thou coward's foe
and let me stand on thy battleground.
Come dear, my only love,
I will take your breath away.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Option B to a Serenade

the thing which bought back the night
was a plastic pellet
shoved uncermoniously
down the plastic muzzle
of my sleepless sniper's revenge.
it is funny how a thing so small
could make such a mess.
there were feathers everywhere
and the night was silent.
there were feathers everywhere.
and I was not sorry.

All in good time.

A pair of birds have taken up residence
in the tree outside my window.
They must be newlyweds
the way they talk late into the night
with the same four notes
over and over again
(I love, I love, I do, I do).
I wonder what made them pick
this particular place--
If it is a good neighborhood
for new eggs and young chicks
or if, being barely out of their old nests,
they cannot afford the live oak
that sits stately across the sidewalk.
This tree is old and respectable even
if perhaps it drops more leaves than it holds
and seems a good place for a beginning.
Its' branches start high off the ground
and the corner of the building
blocks most of the wind.
All in all it is a nice start
with a solid seat and twigs for walls
and some scraps of bright thread
set with a natural eye for colour
it will be a home.
I welcome them to it
and wish them goodnight
as well as perhaps some sleep.
Even with such a sweet refrain
after two I wish they would. . .
refrain.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Afternoon

There was a moment
when the wave seemed to solidify
and in rolling across the sand
became a white lace curtain
tumbling to reveal a woman
salt streaked and almost sensual
sprawled on the foam edge

We were children out of school
mermaids were to be expected.
The shore was full of treasures
like seaweed, shells, or the small grey crabs.
One day my brother found a starfish.
He poked it with a stick
but they would not let us take it home.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Phoenix 2011

Burma

Come and I shall fold

these shattered hills around you.

We will hide beneath them

and make shadow puppets

of the stars.

There shall be a peace in the twilight

when the shadows have not grown

but in the dark the trees sound

like footsteps

and the long mouth

of the scratched and silver monster

breaks forth in laughter.

Oh my child, quiet now-

perhaps it was only a dream.

This time is different than the times

before

when you woke to the burning glee

of those that would destroy us.

This time, this time

it is just a dream.

Look how I have built the hills

into a home for us-

we shall call this rock a wall,

and this tree a room.

I shall fold my shattered arms

around you and we will sing

the old songs and the old stories

and the old safety will grow

fragile at our feet.

I will build a home for us

out where nothing can touch us

and the night is as empty

as ever it could be.

O my child, my quiet child

I shall fold the hills around us.

How silent your laughing mouth

in this laughing dark.

Monday, March 14, 2011

taper boast

Do not ask me
my sweet my star
where I have gone
where I have been
I have been among the mountains
and between the doors
beyond the thousand locks
and over the hundred walls.
The clouds have been grey.
The sky has been blue.
The sun rose and set--
I did not forget you.
I have walked among the dreams
of many men who dream beyond me.
I have sought the stars
many miles below the sea.
I found peace and began war
Woke and returned to sleep.
There were a hundred doors
and a thousand keys...
I have worn through six iron shoes
twelve horses and eighteen hankerchiefs
and in my sleep I could not sleep.
Do not doubt my seemed conceit.
I am he of whom the mermaids sing
and the willows whisper in their grief
of my long leaving and finished deeds.
Did you whisper too?
to sea and sand and rock?
Do not tell them--
they love to mock
all that was with what could be
and what was not with faded proof.
Keep your heart well silent
burn the darker torch
by your window watch
but do not be seen
and when I am of the dreams made king
you shall at last be made a queen.
but haste and away
this is at last the break of day.
Do not ask where I am going
I am already gone.

Mountainside

Come careful across the dry streambed
Walk where once water ran
wet and strong over its smooth stones
singing on its own river theme
Water runs still over smooth cheeks
wet and strong the growing grief
Come careful across the streambed

Step softly through the dry winter grass
Walk where once green grew
bright and new through the strong soil
a brave flag in the whistling wind
Still the stalks stand and the wind blows
but no new life will ever grow
Step softly through the winter grass

Walk with me my long lost love
I am climbing the mountainside
Come with me my lonesome light
It is dark and soon will be night
O my love, my only light,
Where have you gone
to leave me all alone?

Come carefully, step softly,
Walk with me my heart
I am climbing the mountainside
We should not be apart



Monday, February 21, 2011

Grimms and Gondor

The cushions have been today
a spaceship hurtling to Mars
the last rock in a sea of lava
the drawbridge opened for
the triumphant knights (once astronauts
and heroes of Gondor).
There are stains that could be
juice (or alien snot
or dragon's blood)
across the pattern picked
for it's versatility
and a long smear of
most likely chocolate
under the arm of the couch.
So it is, so it will be.
For the hour of dusk
this is the largest world
that could be needed
with mountains and seas
adventures and monsters and dreams

Then the book is closed
and it's off to bed.



Defiance

Come shadow and sorrow
with your long low smoke
that clings and smolders
that stings as it singes
and stinks of rot and mold
Come if you dare
from your dank caves
from your dark caverns
Curl and spill
froth and overflow
Be the far-reaching arm
the last stretch of the night
and rage with all your sullen might.
Come shadow! Come sorrow.
Strike with all your gathered strength
Strike and strike again
Gather to strike a third
and fall.
For you with all your insidious insinuations
your sinuous sapping sting
are nothing to me.
Come sorrow, come shadow,
come and smite
I dare you to strike.
Come shadow, Come sorrow.
I have love
and all is light.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Doom-if you wish it.

stiff necked on your single ship
declaiming war and doom to the shore
the wind throws your voice into the sea
and the waves soak it up
salt and bitter is nothing new to them
words are weak when wet and worn
yours are all old
no new thing to sparkle and sting
the same blunt blade using noise
in place of finesse
but no one ever accused you of eloquence
No one would grudge you silence
but you have too much to say to wait
for an actual listening audience
beg your pardon foe being dense
but I prefer hope to your confidence
that all the world is headed to hell
I promise it won't be counted to your negligence
you've done more than enough with your 'sense'

so stand with me dreamers
darers to do
stand on the sandy shore
the storm is coming he screams
the shadow and the silence
darkness and death and violence
enough of this and let us
sink the cynic.
send hope and sweet across the waves
turn the tide with tidings of joy
swell the current with songs
and let us shove his ship along
let us sink or let us swim
but never be a cynic.

chisel and chip.

It's a late winter lithograph
with the raw rubber cut away
to form skeletons of beeches
against the slender sunset

the first print of the season
the first page to bear your stamp
how cruel to carve the shadow away
and leave the light so bare

You with your steady chisel
chip blank horizons into being
and shave the winter into stiff lines
that will fracture at a touch

So here it is at the edge of spring
and you have carved winter again
another ending another beginning
a frozen world waiting

for your careful brush
to bring it back to color

enough of grief my dear, my love
let the world bloom again

Free at last

Let me stretch my fingers as far as they will go
lengthen their reach with my long arms
and reach with all my hungry whole
towards the red bloomed sky.
Why is it that when you ask about freedom
this is the pose I take
arms out wide and face uplifted
and feet planted in the grass
To be at last a growing thing
to never have to choose to leave.

Freedom is standing still.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

leave the leaves

I have pressed between these pages
the dreams of many trees
with their slender veins unfaded
and their colour still on fire
They fell with a sort of whisper
but I could not catch their song
so I caught them from the pavement
and slid them into my books
hoping that with all those words
they'd find something to say
But after all these years
I'd forgotten they were there
and to find them unchanged
caught me unawares
They lay there still ablaze
with all their autumn longing
a last leap into the wind
from the crowded broken stem
into a freedom scarce understood
I have caught and crushed them
and they remain uncrumbled

I wonder if someday a tree
will cover up my dreams
Will bury root and tendril deep
over my longest stretching sleep

I stole the drifting leaves
I snatched them from the air
Dark and deep my winter’s sleep
And I am quickly old.
For they are dream of root and bough
and must wander as they go
Child, let the floating color pass
On wind, it’s quickest road
So may you dream and lightly sleep
Before the winter’s cold.

Blondie

I cannot remember a time
when my neck did not ache.
I walk bent forward
like an old woman trying
to bear the weight upon her knees.
My shoulders curve from my spine
and it is only when I am asleep
that I may stretch it straight.
Even then the weight sits like an anchor
tugging against me when my dreams
toss my head from side to side.
It is why I sit so still.
To move is an enormous task
to drag this length behind me
and how it coils around my feet
and slicks a heavy heat down my back
till I am just sweat and skin
and weight

If they call it beauty let them bear it
and brush it and braid it
as for me.
I'd let it all burn.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Winter Sun

Winter sun, foster daughter of deceit.
The frozen smile of Demeter in the throes of grief
Cast your icy beams upon the ravaged earth
and we will curse your name for speaking us fair
Speaking fair and feeling foul
The fairest have the farthest to fall.
Winter sun, pale with discontent
The weaker daughter of the stronger sun
Your sister moon keeps to her softer place
and is loved through all her phases
You have stolen in while your father was sleeping
and while playing queen must stay
fixed in the winter sky despite your spiteful weeping.
Winter sun, shallow sphere of summer strength
Sickened shine on silvered snow
a sibilant song against spring's strong chorus
The sorceress skin over the celestial skeleton
to burn and give no heat
the Fair Folk's feast- all glisten and no meat.
Winter sun, sky's first lie
Usurping queen of blazing king
First forsworn and first forgotten
Almost dying to the west go and flee
You will receive no succor from me.


Sunday, February 6, 2011

Journey

My love is down the long road gone
To the west beyond the mountain
the setting sun blinds my eyes
and once set the darkness hides him

My eyes are weary with waiting
but my feet are strong and willing
My heart is sick with breaking
but my hands are quick and steady

Past time to leave my greenwood home
the summer days are waning
Off I search for my own true love
down the long road to the mountains

Come honey sweet and golden hued
to soften his dark sorrow
Come meal and yeast into my pack
That what was ground may rise again

Come summer wine of happy days
to draw back mourning's thirst
Come smoothed stick of many miles
to strengthen down the road

My love is to the far west gone
The long dark road has taken him
But I will go and bring him home
The light will not forsake him

Friday, February 4, 2011

let us love


let us run away
to the west there is a hidden sun
where the mountains were born
and in those softer hills there is a sweeter bloom
where the longer shadows lie
beneath that bloom below that golden sky
let us live there you and i
a slender home of a hillock make
pillows of sweet moss
a road of silver pebbles weave
so that we may never be lost
and there beneath the mountain walls
alongside the singing stream
let us live there you and i
let us live until we die

Keen

Stand on the ice and say to me
with all the frozen conviction of your soul
in your steady voice
that stings my frosted fingers.

O winter wind the earth's first keening!
Earth when did you learn that He
your first son, your best love
had turned had fallen?
They gave him back to your arms
but your womb could not take him in again.
O winter wind born of sorrow
wring me not to your weeping.
I have my own sorrow to bear and can take
none of yours.
Cold song from colder heart-
who carried the news to her the oldest mother?
Who told her dearest had died?
Tell me winter wind do you know ?
He was your father surely
carrying the seed of heavy grief.
Of word and silence you were born
of the calling home and the empty echo.
You so empty and so full
I cannot see you yet you cut my eyes.
O winter wind I begged you
why did you still make me cry?

Stand on the ice, stranger
Stand and say to me
simple and swift
Have you seen my love?
Is he lost beneath the shifting sea?

O stranger speak!
or silent be.
The wind has come
and already told me.




Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Preemptive Strike

You stand in the doorway
extend already into the room
with your voice a pennant streaming
and I wonder if you know
prepossessing
it seems it must have been
your first word.
You walk into each situation
with it nestled into your palm
bending already to your placid will
How at home the world seems
on the golden chain around your neck
You with all your gorgeous looks
always and forever first
before the earth began to bloom
the first owner, the one who came before
blessed with all the glow and gravity
Possessor of all you see
before you see it

oh my dear you are so
prepossessing.

Monday, January 31, 2011

On why the Sea is Salt.

You walk with your hand
the first cradle
beneath your waist
and there is no answer for it.
Among the trees your sister
is birch, white and slender.
Your brother is water
sweet upon the sanded shore
and they both bend to greet you.

Younger sister, companion of youth
how far your heart has wandered!
Come and sit,
let me cool your weary feet.
Lean your aching back against me
We can bear your weight.

O sister, dear brother,
how heavy my burden.
I can feel your new roots creaking
beneath it or peruahps it is my heart
breaking again. Wash well, my brother,
but how can you soothe this stain?
When I left you how light my heart
how hungry my belly with all the hunger
that youth and life may allow.
Now I return heart and belly full of sorrow.
Satiate I am and more than enough.
Through the night I am weary
and in the morning I am sick
overfilled again and again in the new light.
How can I stand in the new spring?
I who danced as free as cousin Wind
now swollen and clumsy
an old water skin filled to bursting.

Quick rushed the water by
throwing waves against the rocky shore
spraying the greener grass with his rage.
The pale beech paler grew and lo her bark
pealed back in long tears
and the weary sap fell to soak into dirt.

In your sorrow your pink skin faded
the colour sinking like blood into the clay
leaving you grey.
Through the night you wept
your sister and brother crowded around you.
The red dawn found you
still at last
as still as stone
and still you stand
beneath the beech
beside the sand
seeping salt towards the sea.

Earthbound

The salt made sinister

falls

a hard rain solid white

to wash bad luck away

and here I stand on the sea

with all the sand before me

and a growing mountain behind.

Who are you to rise and fall

against the tidal moon

to stand and sing your sorrow song

I swore I was done with you

Sing salt fly salt

behind shoulder like shadow

let white and black embattle

Let the stinging grains make new

the rot that clings to me

I will turn my back on you

I will not hear you sing

The waves may rise the very sea

may beg for what you seem

But I have salt and salve enough

I know what your song means.

So sing salt, fly salt

over shoulder back at moon

I am leaving greying shores

and will not return here soon.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Not Just Dessert

It is important to note
I did not know he was sick.
He did not tell me.
There was no polite cough or
suggestion of weakness.
He ate well and
we argued over the check
and threatened
to explode
or at least to burst
a button or two.
I told him
that if he went first
I wouldn't bother cleaning up after
and he said that I'd
better up the tip then.
We laughed about
a service charge
for such an event.
Enough laughter
to leave
you breathless
purple faced and
collapsed.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Instead of Shanking.

There's a honey glaze
on your skin
that sits and crackles
in the sun
a sort of electric glow
that vibrates like heat
in waves from your contours
it is the lesser magic
to its cousin gravity
and has not yet mastered
the essential invisibility
Still it works
drawing them like flies
to your sweetened skin.

Sometimes I have to laugh
thinking
honey is just bee vomit.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

sanity

Deceit deceit
to be so ill and look well
oh fie on you and falsehood
singing your dirge
as a easy lullaby
that I find myself humming
in the still moments of the day
Sacrilege and horror
to mourn you without knowing
to hear you say farewell again
and again
and never yet reply
I am deaf to the loss of you
blind to your fragility
telling stories of your strength
to the silent audience
I wonder what they see
that keeps them so solemn and still
I wonder why they will not look
me in the eye
and why the softest of them
seem to cry
Deceit and despair!
Did you mean to slip away
without a warning, without a whisper?
To leave me at last alone.

Friday, January 21, 2011

collision.

I am clumsy in this cold
too layered to notice
when I brush
or touch
or- shove
against you
another bundled thing
drifting on my periphery
and it is too cold to turn my eyes
to look directly at you
or anything.
The wind acts the playground brute
drawing tears without a sound
and the ice forms quicker
than the salt may break it.
Now looking back
fingers thawed and eyes dried
I apologize.
It was my fault entirely.

Sacrifice

I saw you last night
with the halo of the streetlight
barely brushing your form
tinging you with golden holiness
You moved with your usual grace
through the night
like one well acquainted
and I felt suddenly a stranger
watching you from our window
I did not look away
but reached with one hand
for the switch and with a breath
submerged myself in the dark
closer to you.
You moved down the drive
and stopped before your seeming shrine
to bend with solemn intent and steady hands
a careful priest reaching
against the smooth temple wall
to press and transform
opening the holy cavern.
It took you to your knees
in an easy reverence long practiced
but I watched your hands shake
drawing forth your slender wand
sliding it deep into the gap.
Your head bowed over it's translucent length
and touching it to your lips
it grew golden and heavy
some blessing swelling from the holy
towards your hungry soul.
You filled a glass
and raising it high stood
to upend the chalice
pouring its glowing contents
to the shattered grass
and the green burnt away to gold.

There is nothing stranger I have seen
watching you siphon gasoline
like some holy tithe
against the road that calls you in your dreams.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Midnight

I made my plan to run away
to walk the sides of the road
and they say it's time to sleep
turn off the lights and go to bed
I walk the roads instead
I'll leave you this
posted on a tenuous silver thread
another connection I don't understand
but there you are and here I go.
This is most of me leaving
out the door and to the corner
and I do not look back.
They whisper at the door
saying dear it is time
It is past time to turn out the light.
The signal is green
I am gone.
Turned past the light
into the shadow.
I will walk the sides of the road.
I am the least unknown.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Elements.

Fire that was first
and in its heat breathed out
and there was air-
the denser light
which broadened from it's birth
cooled and fell and flowed
now water ran below the wind
but dared now draw near first flame
for there was doom and black and
thus was earth born- of sorrow new
so we light the candles at the birth
and finish life in earth.

The Petulant Rose.

It has been a long day
and my dress, though still bright
is crumpled at the height
of your little hands always
tugging as your fall behind
or see another in the interminable
fascinating rounds of dogs
that walk sedately on
their ribbon leashes.
If only I had a ribbon to spare!
and yet why not for the smiles and nods
along the boulevards
are no longer for me
given instead by the young hungry women
to you- the little darling
and how they turn discontented
to their beribboned pets
and attempted to solace their empty
left hands with the weight of the ribbons.
Fools.
It has been a long day
of up and down and her hungry
and thirsty and wanting to go home.
I want nothing less but so it is.
An evening of milk and firelight
and ten tellings of the Little Bears.
Oh but I used to dance in the candlelight
and be easy and free
carrying my little dog on a ribbon-
but look she has caught hold of my sash
again
and it feels like I am on the leash.
Come dear we'll go home
It's time for dinner and bed.

Portrait of a Lady

Leaning forward like that
your pearls almost touch
your folded hands-
another thing just out of reach.
The fold in your fingers
is not that of a well-starched sheet
or a crisp ironed sleeve
but of a rose tucked in
around it's greenest self
or a spring
tight coiled.
It seems they might burst
or bloom
with only the right touch
into wings
touching, reaching, everything.