Cowboy Pining

for so long
I have rested in patience
tucked into the desperation
of Penelope's restless bed



in Pandora's cold-glass box
I have heard your blood
sing earnestly for mine
invisible cage transmitting
your heart-hearth heat



a quieted eagle
marked against a white, white moon
black pines frame lapis sky
backdrop for blue-eyed speech
more eloquent than words
trapping me like fallen stone

Trial By Fire

the lady at the deli asked
"Is that a Pagan star?"

I froze, stammered
"My name is Star, that's all"

in Sunday school rooms
trimmed with felt saints
the horrors visited upon
infidels who denied Christ
were cut into my soul

so as I saw the smoke billow
from my little home
all I could think of
was my pathetic denial
of the Gods who loved me
and cared for me
for all of years seven

do we dare dream of vengeance
from the ancients we've repainted
heavenly blue?

my tears did not stop the flames

displaced and stripped
of earth identity
I wander among shadows
dreaming of an honest life

Grainné

Her hair is dyed
A violent bloodthirsty orange-red.

She is Grainné and her face
Is framed by hungry flames.

It is she who kills her mate!
She who slays with a smile!
Three-fold Queen of love and bliss!
Hers the scourge!
Hers the kiss!

Her summer sun will scorch your lips,
Parch your tongue, lift you higher.

Her winter moon too cool to warm your blood,
Fill your belly, feed your fire.

Her tongue that coos as a dove
will morph from pleasure-glove
By degrees to acid-knife and
Never flinch to take your life.

It is she who sings of war!
She who devours the dead!
The bright twin of Battle Raven!
Hers the living!
Hers the dead!

Her hair is dyed
A violent bloodthirsty
Shade of sword-gore red.

She is Grainné and her face
Is framed by hungry flames.

Nursery Rhyme

Sing a song of rye tears,
A pocket full of words.
My love he is a lion
And I am burning verse.

Halloo! cried the red, red fox
All grinning in the briar.
My love is oak-tree honest
And I a careless liar.

Five fishes are swimming
Deep in the lake's dark hold.
My love is bold, black iron
Yet I'm the one that's cold.

The setting sun is winking
All through the chicken wire.
My love is a rich warship,
I'm Viking blade and fire.

The screech owl is singing
A love song to the pine.
My love is a lovely sonnet
And I can't even rhyme.

For The Lost

Here's to you! My stillborn
poems concieved while chatting
up old ladies, consoling clinging
co-workers, flashing by when
I'm far from trusty pen and paper.

The ribcage of the rabbit, pulsing
frantically, seeking exit from a fenced lot.

The rude Buddhist whose husband mocks her
in secret because abundance is killing him.

The loud Canuck who spoke faster than his
thoughts could formulate and changed his
mind rapidly and adamantly, losing arguments
with himself before they even started.

Each image a flower that will never bloom...

Naomi's Lament

I have shorn my hair.

Call me Mara for I am
brimful of bitter salt.

My love is a Stone King,
immovable void, and I have
discarded the copper curls
he loved so well.

Cross Dominion

The sign of the Chevy
is a distorted cross,
15 MPG, a fitting symbol
of man's dominion over
earth, granted by God,
eternally ineffable.

Once, with slender seeking fingers,
Pandora tilted back the lid
to an ebon casket loosing
tendrils of darkness to the world.

Thus her waxen image is set
beside decietful evil Eve
in the hall of women.

Now with oil-slicked hair
and styrofoam grin
man halves what can't
be seen to reassure
himself he's above
a humble earth...

...for a moment,
but how many moments more?

Low Like Water

Patched sunlight toys
with lichen dotted rocks,
like your smile,
sudden, joyous,
breaking through
the storms of your seasons,
holocaust of your summers,
with graceful kindness you fall,
winter sharp, bitter, cold,
sweet promise of spring in your eyes
that never is fulfilled.

I'm not like dapled sunlight at all.
Dark crystal cold of water
sunk low & humble, a strength not
proud like stone, rising high,
defiant, blocking bliss like
some seldom seen king's sentinel.

I curve to one side, suddenly
slide by spraying a mist
of quiet laughter on my way.

A Fruitarian Dirge

They are stolen
these moments in cool valleys.
The girlish laughter of the creek
a reminder of the innocence that
flies from this native stone.
These mossy rocks will dry
before long and barreness shall
drape the fern decked bank.
For the atmosphere is roiling,
a feverish cauldron boiling
a virus called humanity away.

Lice & Pentecost

she let down her hair
golden rivers flowing to earth
and the women gathered around

seeking with suspicious white fingers
combing carefully through yards
of golden fleece

seeking signs of a tenacious evil
visited upon their children

they wept and lifted their voices
to on one high as their hands
wandered through the sunshine silk
of her imagination

pleas of mercy filled the room
fit to burst until at last
they had seen the last
pale strand clean

they softly shouted praise
with weary smiles then

she was clean
there was nought
to keep her from revival

Southern Gothic

slow-sanded shuffle

tattered denim lifted
in curtsy clear of mud

plaintive wail cuts dull-edged
through valley gale

wind winding, seeking,
searching icy as mountain streams

counter-point tapestry of sound
where banjo sharpens fiddle

cleft of farm blossoming
in deep forboding pine

rough squared hole enables
railroad spike of light
to invade the living-black
of cabin

a bobcat's scream, woman-like,
electrifies muggy August nights

butchered ghosts pause
at periwinkle door frames

Invocation

God walks in your bones,
His footprints scar your lips luminous,
holy light etched into the details of you
are curling strands of pure delight,
see how the sun has braided love-locks
into the tanned creases of your eyes,
God roams freely in you, He has no
choice, you never let him free, even
when he bends toward the darkly
fierce Goddess in me.

Photon Valentine

curving through
the cold silence
of space
millions of miles

a ray of light

diffused, tamed, by
the roiling soup
of atmosphere,
dancing between
broad lime-tinted
laurel leaves,

forms a heart
on the linoleum
of the dull gray
bathroom floor

I disrobe, a cloud
covering me and
melting my fleeting
heart of light,
and descend into
perfumed water
sending fragments
of you down to
complete the journey,
my love in rivulets
sinking deep
into earth

so is the sun's
seduction of the
earth echoed as
you bend over me
and like a ray of
light, an opalescent
river, a salty rain
you pour forth your
love

confessional

oily oak doors shut softly
bathing me in dense silence
ghost of incense lingers
repulsive, my own breath
suffocates, laced with
tropic mold

I reach down with
my sinister hand
my dark hand
trying to recall
every moment he held
me captive, lashed
to irises of blue

primal scream
splits the dawn
cloaked in full-throated
despair
&
my voice is raw
from the salt-wound
he gave
&
all day long
I will drip
discarded honey

Fenris-Christ

The wolf came down and
dressed himself in sheep's
clothing, his hair soft as
lambswool, his voice sweet
as the sheperd's. He hid
his fangs and from his lips
honey dripped a seething
seeming truth which inflamed
the restless mob.Then he perched
on a beam and played possum.

He said he'd return to
gather his pups at the end
and I don't doubt him.
He'd been back sooner if my
Daddy's friend hadn't bound him
tight. He's learned to make do
with one hand since.

Just 'cause he's tied up
right now don't mean Daddy
forgot about him. Daddy knows
the wolf, the wolf's people
and their evil ways and he
will not let him devour us,
gobble us up when the world's
asunder.

He will fight the good fight
even if fighting means dying.

Picker's Lament

Big fish in little pond,
how I splash around
and feel like a whore
each time I come to town.

The Chase

the chase is long
he hopes it will never end
that she'll lead him over
hill and dale, valley and glen,
tense anticipation, pulses fired,
predator hush, prey's chill of delight, arousing fear,
he'll never catch her
he'll never let her go
the chase is long

inked words are silent
inked as I drown in sound
plaintive fiddle cry
banjo plunk thumps pulpits
dulcimer lifts her skirts
and dances a sprightly jig

His Girl's In CA

All the miles of black telephone lines hosting choruses of small birds,

Every startled satellite blinking silent in space,

Rows of shining white keys before a glowing monitor,

Can never be warm lips in the morning,

A silent look of knowing,

An arm draped possesively loving in the deep black of night.

The Tiger

rusted projections
like damp leaves
slap against me
in the gale of your rage.

they cling with clammy
need for a moment yet
they always fall away
before a skeleton impression
makes a lasting sketch
on flesh innocent and clean.

The Little Fish

The little fish have no
expectation of me.
They are thin slimy
lengths of dark pearl
and content to be so.

The dapper blue jay
with his precise, minute
patterns of deftly-shaded blue
has no hold upon me
nor I on him and so
we sit and watch
the little fish
in peace.

You murmur hello and
my silence
dissapoints you,
your expectation of reply.
You are not simple
as the fishes,
free as the jay.

I am student of fish,
bird, river, tree
and when you leave
my heart pretends
it's stone.

Bad Poem

tapping toe steadily
I listen silently
as the sound fills me
like
the roar
of
a
mighty waterfall.
then I leave quickly,
jerk-off my voice
where no one can hear.

Save the Net!

Last Pew

I am not Enemy,
nor do I see Enemy
in China-blue eyes
that disagree with mine.

your fumbling
self-defining hatreds
do not apply to me.

within soot-blackened walls
you seperate yourself
from those who do
not style their hair
with as much care as you,
who do not wear their
rue with a difference.

I will not hide
behind your moldy fortress,
limit myself, my heart, my loves
by your narrow comfort fences.

let me open my blouse,
peel back the flesh,
unhinge the ribs
so you can see my heart.
round as a dinner plate
and pulsing in shifting rhythym
ribbons, every color and shade,
flowing out to embrace
all my gaze encompasses.

the clay of my humanity
is fired in the campfires
of a dozen generations,
a thousand tribes,
it gleams with thick glaze,
rich hue, potter's imperfection.