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.