4/14/2015

The Nature of Sand

I had always believed
and though unlikely,
a sand-colored beast created
from sand and heat;

a holy birth.

Accept my apologies
for wanting to see the naked-ness
of beauty at the very instant
it became

such

yearning is not
betrayal

but could be.

Once the sensation
of hunger burned me,

I carried its glory.

Thou Shalt Not Ruin

Choose two stones the shape
of eyes, a cape of bone and straw,
a chain of teeth.

Confine your precious things
in silver boxes, forget their wounds;
they do not intend

to forgive you.

Tear down the golden hives,
let fly each winged mystery,
they will follow you

religiously;

the wondrous creature's skulls
grown roots of leafless tree,
share their vigilance, study

their weakness.

In metered syllables speak
of sleep, tame its hollowed spiral
dreams.  Guide the innocent

away from deceit,
quickly.

The feathered sparrow, gashed
and bleeding; it isn't wounds that
needed healing, but reconstitution

of half-digested berries,
scattered, wasted

seed.

4/11/2015

Again

you are like yourself, sad
and far away, a dark ruby,
a slow celtic dance by night-fire
when no one is watching.

See how the hills recognize
your singing, how they lie down
satisfied, their mournful brown faces
buried in their muscled arms

listening.  How evening wraps
its purple robes around your back,
a velvet funeral gown;  the earth
anchors your heart like root.

Again, the moon casts the cold
glow of her own loyal sorrow
across the wild strands of your hair
and dances with you.





Like a Blind Wing

All night the ashen bats
rush against our breasts
in short, uneven flight-

quick deaths.

Their fibrous wings
the wind, the darkness
sightless find

fresh targets-

their bite sweet
and final.

Death: a Black Wolf

Like fear, now
you cannot hear me
through the labyrinth of bones,

the body's malignant
frozen seizure, my cries

cracking teeth, viscous
winds, the howling of wolves

in a sudden blizzard
unheeded;

breath became blade,
your motionless body
arrested prayer-

wild and dark and still
like the gutted carcass
of a gorgeous star

flung
limp and light-less

to earth.

She Drew a Charcoal Heart

Charcoal pencil, black
dust to outline what matters
most.  To consecrate,
capture light

as if to arrest
a wild beautiful-ness
as if existence were

made of want,
drawn by will.

Perhaps it is
after all two separate
pieces born from a single

desire, turn
and twist, climb
similar ladders,

decay and rust
in divergent skies

twin stars whose
arteries pulse, whose
blood cells rush,

split and die
in the simple sketch
of a human heart.

Holes in Its Pockets

No longer secret like an over-sized hoodie,
red with the eye of God, a tattoo
of the silver Lion on its back; the carcass
it rides, missing a heart nor recalls
when it slipped out.

Like a curtain in the night
between its folds, in dim-light something
large and dark living inside

the body encased in stone unable
to crack or cry.

We are given a line, a small plot
a field whose fences have rotted,

a threadbare jacket with gifts
in its two shallow pockets;  gifts
we held so quiet and loved
and lost.