Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Night

How cold the world becomes
so quickly
Even dawn is kinder
with her cautious stretching
over the shelf of the horizon
and we are unafraid
because she has made her long magic
in our midst and we are all guilty with her.
The night does not need our guilt
to exonerate, to let her free.
She is hungry and so she eats
each of the blinking lights
from each shelflike window
and licking her lips flows down the streets
singing her hunger song
and we shiver leaning back into doorways
unsure
if we are willing to risk the walk
because when she is done
with each of the little lights
sucked dry the swinging bulbs
and crunched her way through streetlamps
then she turns and comes
for us
with our warm heavy mouths
all full of sound and song
and the scent of something strange
like fear and bravado and freedom
something so close to her hymn
and she is unsure of us
a lion stumbled upon kittens
who show her their slender claws
and scream their small wails
against the indignity of insignificance
and she lifts her giant paw for silence
or perhaps for solace.
She is the fearsome freedom
sweeping through the streets
and he who throws his fate with her
sings a song of hunger and fear
and son of night becomes free
How cold the world becomes
when standing against the night.


Sunday, September 26, 2010

Till the Wind Returns

The eastern wind
clung to you
with small grasping hands
like a child suddenly afraid
I wondered what it knew
why it tied your hair so tight
across your shoulders
weaving a net knotted in ebony.
Why did it gather the dust
and scatter it to rest
along the edge of your feet
walls of temporary grace
and still it blew
O eastern wind what have you done?
What have you done with her
my careless love?
O eastern wind did you carry the song
that she listens to next to me
and I cannot hear?
She had the star light in her eyes
while I blinked against the moon
O eastern wind answer me
will she be returning soon?
My careless love with her careless eyes
and I that was so full
of all the cares of the heavy world
saw nothing of what she watched.
O eastern wind you have taken her away
in the dark of the wide night.
O eastern wind what have you done?
Lifting her aching wings
when all I've ever done
was build a path for her feet
weary day by weary day
and in a wild whirling night
she is gone.
O eastern wind my love is gone
my careless love has left
O eastern wind when she is done
will you carry her home?

A Tax and Toll

The morning has passed
easily enough
amidst the long grass and light
The river is close by but not the mud
and the breeze lifts the curl from your forehead
Hunger has not yet tapped your shoulder
and already your hands are close to full
with the thin stemmed blooms
that grow scattered among the sweet grass.
This is the wealth of spring
woven between your fingers like dripping gold
and it is sweet and right
that is is not for you but for her
that you so plunder the field spring gave graciously.
Noon is coming though and heat to soak the earth.
Homeward turned and almost to the road
but lo
Spring has grown teeth and with a wicked gust
taken a bite from your bouquet
For love is sweet and right
But she has her bite
and takes sometimes the blooms she gave away.

Lovett.

I shall build gargoyles
on the four corners of your home
with snarling teeth and eager claws.
I shall file away the steps
in raw uneven blocks
to send the spirits tumbling
dulling their teeth on the concrete.
I shall plant red flowers before the door,
hang a mirror before the lock
all these and more to keep the dark away.
And after all these things
I shall say the simple prayer
quiet and still.
Keep her safe keep her safe keep her safe
I love her.

Community

Move ahead
Move ahead
(If you move your head
you're dead.)
Form a line
A straight line.
(Don't you know
everyone's fine.)
Stay in the light.
Don't leave the light.
(They are right
We are all alright.)
We are one.
We are all one.
(We are done.
We are all done for.)

Shadowweaving

It is something I suspect
at night when the sun- with his bright reason
that burns my thoughts away
abandons his post at last.
At night he is gone tucked beyond the horizon
and only his distant cousins stand guard
over all the sensible statements
but they are sleepy sentinels and much slips by
and so do I
with my thoughts and suspicions.
They are suspicions though I am almost sure
because I cannot see any way to test it
and I cannot stretch the hypothesis out
beneath the blazing light of day.
It would surely shrivel and dry into dust
but in the night the shadows swallow it
and I can only guess with fumbling fingers
it's breadth and form.

It comes down to this:
before it drives me mad
I suspect that you are a thing
of mainly bone all stacked up on each other
and these bones are built
of honeycomb cells one against the other
edge supporting edge with it's six walled wax
and wrapped in the wax lies a small secret
all sticky and silent in its cocoon
it is their soft breathing that shifts you about
cell by cell bone by bone and suddenly
you have moved across the room
and are alone again
This is the tentative truth that I believe
about you
you with your honey gold skin that clings
to the slender bones that stiffen at my approach
are triggered by the secrets
with their breath double timed and poof
you are gone
and I am alone again.
So I suspect you with your frame riddled
with small golden glowing secrets
are beyond my touch with bones of cold calcium
and nothing more.

The sun is rising now
and another shadow stretches
next to mine.

"Where have you been?
I've been searching all night."

How the dawn loves your honeyskin
and so do I.

Climbing into the Highway

She flashed by
A slender face in a long blur
wrapped in the peeling creme
that at first glanced looked like skin
with the anxious organs beginning
to tumble forward and away
and soon all would be lost.
All would be lost again.
Her speed was too great to stop
and ask
Which way are you going?
Will there be someone there?
Will you be
Will you be okay?
She flashed by
a slender face behind a glass shield
a slender shape in a metal shell
a cracking metal shell to soon rebirth
and perhaps she'll emerge
A slender throat a slender song
and shining wings.

The Shoures of Aprill

I found my love
in the green green briar
with the quick green cord
wrapping him round
I found my love
in the green green briar
while the witch green wire
held him bound
I found my love
my lovely love, my only love
I found my love
in the green green briar
She had seen him
the glowing staring queen
My love was wrapped in the briar
and the colour round his heart was green
I found my love
in the green green briar
He was looking in at another scene
and his eyes, his grey eyes were turning green.

I have lost my love
in the green green briar
and hateful it is to me
that all the world is green

Friday, September 17, 2010

draft

let the light back in
with twitches of your thumb
twist the blinds away
twist the blindness into a way
to see again
and this motion reigns
with the swath of light
draping itself across your face
rendering you mythic
Atlas unchained and unsure

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Confession.

I like accosting
strangers in the street
and telling them we should meet
on the corner and pass secrets
one to the other
and carry on our days with the secret
curled in the palm of our hands
and I'll meet you at the corner
meet you at the corner
where the world turns around
and everything is new again
so stranger meet me at the corner
we can fall in love again

Abduction of Alice

What a clever ambush to build
and how the fingers itch
to run away
with these thoughts and presentiments.
What a wondered world this is
where even the flowers sing
(though every rose, it's told
must have it's thorn).
I am lost with this growing self
that is this and that and the other
and suspiciously smally me.
They call her by my name
and say how she has grown,
how lovely she has become.
I am unknown
bewildered in this wilderness
by how tame it seems to be
but everything (oh everything)
has it's teeth.
And so the flowers sing
waltzing matilda, waltzing matilda
oh matilda waltzing home.
I want to wander home.
Will someone walk
with me through this land
where the flora snarl
and I am slowly sure that something
is becoming someone
somewhat like me
which leaves?
And the flowers sing
and they tell me,
It's a mad world, a mad world,
and I know, I know.
What a clever ambush
to build in these words a
wonderland...


Sunday, September 12, 2010

Art Never Stops Growing

I have been blessed with beautifully gifted friends!
Miss Megan Feniak has once again taken some scrap of mine and transformed into a unbelievably lush piece of art. Turn your attention to the screen, ladies and gentleman, and prepare (after clicking all the right buttons) to be overwhelmed with gorgeous music.

http://spaceshipsandthings.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

How bold a thing man is to take Fate's pen from her hand
and demand to do her weaving.
How hungry he gnaws at her coloured thread
tying anxious knots in haphazard patterns
What a thing this Delphic frenzy
and still he claims his unfettered freedom
So write the battle hymns and sing the ballads loud
(the dirges will come, will come, will come she cries)
Spite the night and mock the day
What can stand against man with sword in hand?
Here him lift the anthem cry I think therefore I am
and look and hear what is man
this standing thinking thing.
So wind the horn tell the long tale
Build the lonely road and choose the only love
Rage until you fill the empty echoes
and build your homes into the wilderness.
So spite the night and mock the day
Cry down witch drown
For I am Macbeth and unafraid!

(It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
)


Freedom Drive

it's a rainy day

lets run away

there have to be stars

somewhere under all this grey

you grab the wheel and I'll find the map

we can use it to spread across our laps

we'll look at the roads like veins

and trace the thickest with our fingers

we'll follow them until they cluster

and then tumble out into a new freedom

here at the heart of the world

It can rain if it wants too

we don't have to wait for it to clear

I've got you and you've got me

and there's nothing else to fear

Monday, September 6, 2010

Is this then the Age of Men?

Spandex doesn't hide anything
with it's breath-tight grip.
That's why the heroes wear it
to show they have nothing to conceal.
No gaping wounds, no trick knees
not even the ridge of a scar
to tempt thoughts of mortality.
So here they come
flying to the rescue
without even the dust upon their feet.
Congratulations.
How great to be the Untouchables
saving the untouchables.
What happened to the knights of old
carrying their virtue like a weight
across their shoulders in iron?
They knew what a dangerous thing
it was to claim to be
anything more than human.
To come thundering instead of gliding
with the hours of travel behind them
weary and worn with armour chafing
but arrive ready for battle.
What sacrifice in defense when
your smile is kevlar thin
and if you seem to die it's only
in order to emerge alive again?
Rather ride with mortality astride
looking for the red dawn
for justice and for peace
and the fear that would freeze
the best of these
if they could ever feel it.
So here to the weary warriors
who have seen too much of dark
here to sharpened swords and dulled armour
to truth and justice and fear
all wrapped in one.
Hail.
And for the invincible, the sure
a suit of spandex with nothing to hide
and nothing inside.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Tripping.

Something about the act of motion
these days
nauseates me.
Sitting toes curled in as far as they will go
and I can't quite close my eyes
because we might not make this turn
even though we always have
before.
It's not that I don't trust you
with your long hand on the wheel
and your mouth telling me
where we are going and where we should be.
It's the Road.
I'm afraid of closing my eyes
of losing my head
and being swept away.
I'll end up somewhere I never meant
with a stranger beside me
and you somewhere behind me
at the very tip of my shadow head.
I will never reach you there.
I have tried-
but you always stretch just a little further than I can
and slip into the dark.
It makes me sick to breathe
thinking like that
but I'm sure the Road is just waiting
for me to look away
to think of you or freedom or speed
and I'll be lost forever.
I will never find you again.
Sometimes counting the streetlights helps
or seeing how far I can push my feet
into the thin carpet between me and the pavement.
There is metal too, I suppose
and that helps because metal won't bend
but then I remember magnets
and am terrified all over again.
It is strangely quiet now.
We have stopped and you are looking at me
waiting to open the door.

Today I reached safety unstolen.
Tomorrow the Road still waits
with all the patience of the future.

If I love him

I found you feathers for years
wrapping them in tissue
and packing them away in this
shoebox from the first heels I ever wore.
(No one told me that I was supposed to check
and see if they would leave you taller than me.
How was I supposed to know?)
One winter I found a cardinal's feather.
It was the greyest day
with the pavement half-melted
and the clouds uneasy in the wind
crouching against the horizon.
I found it on a last mound of snow
half buried and I was afraid
that the bird was still there
curled beneath the cold like an ancient king
waiting in his icy barrow.
It is the only red feather I found.
There was the one from the beach
and the sparrows that built their nest
above my window left a handful as a gift.
The box is almost full.
I gather my secret treasures
from under the bed and slip outside.
It is almost time.
One by one I lift them out
and lay them along the wire frame.
The clock flips on through the minutes
and I am almost ready.
the cardinal feather at the very tip
and the time is right.
So I light each birthday candle
that I have saved from each sparkling cake
making the last wish of all as the wax drips free.

I made these wings for you.
Don't fly away from me.