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