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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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

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)

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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. )

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.