Sunday, September 30, 2012

It's All

starting to make sense now.
Just watch how starlight bends
close to the sun, showing
space’s voluptuous curve.
No absolute truths anymore –
time, space, religion,
morality -  all rejected.
It’s only how you take me
into your fractal pointless
prattle that matters now.
And breath becomes absurd -
like imagination itself.
What’s happened to life?
What's happened to the
twist of my tangled tongue?

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Response to Oriah

what do you mean…
IF  I AM
a wisher
a liar
and a
magic bean buyer?


Haven’t I been at your fire
for all these many years 
reciting while playing
an ancient shell lyre?


Didn’t I play games
of finding rune stones,
painting fish bones, and
giving the faeries names?


And what of the moon cakes
I made - heavy and sweet -
for the spirit owls that flew
to our dream covered feet


on those mystical mornings
when the spiders’ webs
adorned our heads like
silver and diamond tiaras?


I know we have tales to spin.
That’s why I have come in;
to sit with you awhile -
to be with you again.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

How It Is

I live anonymously
between breath and hum
and the erratic flights of crows,
their wings a rustle of taffeta
through which I strain
my Pu-erh tea and dreams –
reaching, breathing, ascending…


I’m mostly behind the trees now -
their branches growing
so close to me, I can’t
see my own arms anymore.


But, at night, I do see
the slow drift of stars
and can’t help thinking
that Astraeus must be tired
of keeping all those fires burning.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

N.C.'s Studio





In your studio,
I want to wrest you
from the cerulean blue
and the viridian green
of your inscribed palette.


Or - if I cannot pull
you, body and spirit,
out of the dried paint -
won’t you at least
come down from
one of your canvases
to stand on the worn
floorboards again
like a giant
among your props;
costumes, guns,
swords, pipes, jars,
bones and busts?


Standing alone
in the north light
of the studio,
I am much aware
of your technique –
of you.


With no more
than brushes
and oil paints,
you showed us
both dazzling light
and deep shadows -
and how the contrast
of the two could
heighten tensions
that alluded to the
dangers in life.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Thawing Out

I’m being
unfaithful
to nature –

coming out of
dormancy early,
splitting into
two halves,
and sending
up flowers…

The sun says
I can live forever,
even if the crows
around me fall
to the earth
in silent
ambivalence.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Quinta Essentia

The smell of oak moss and lichens
from the corner of your bungalow,
lingers on my skin like balsam and
sanctifies me in this winter light -
allowing me to respire ancient air
from a distant and temperate wood.

The universe holds nothing more that can heal me;
clary sage, lavender, cedar bark, resin of myrrh -
not even the holiest of chrisms could offer more.