Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Many Have Loved The Rain



Many have loved the rain.

I alone have loved your fingers,

Whether caressing them with mine,

Kissing them,

Or staring with lovestruck tenderness

As they relaxed at the edge of the bed.


Many have feared the rain.

I alone have feared your vagaries of mind,

Whether dreams that have seized you,

Or passions,

Or simply storms gathering within

That I sit helplessly watching form.


Few embody the rain.

I alone embody the earth,

And will always receive what you give,

Take it within me,

Turn it into as much beauty as I can summon;

Or simply shield myself as best I'm able,

Endure and love,

Because I am wrapped around your lovely heedless fingers.


Darling,

Many have loved the rain.

___________________________


Tuesday, September 23, 2008

So Dark Is The Night



They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

And shine on you

With holy light.


But oh.

Oh,

So hard are the hours,

The dead hours I spend without you

And

So dark is the night.


They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

And shame the devil

With His truth.


But oh,

Oh,

My heart is like shale,

Splintered shale that falls with my tears

Here

Without you.


They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

Give Him your wounds

To heal them from within.


But oh,

Oh,

Let your nails break my skin,

Your red nails that make me know I'm alive

Screaming

Out my hymn.


They said,

Let God's love fill your heart,

With holy light;

But,

So hard are the hours,

So dark is the night.

__________________________

Monday, September 22, 2008

Our Lady Of The Snows



It was all so bright--

All the futures they said were hers;

Their wind of words stung her eyes,

Our shivering patron of the blind.


No rivers flow here--

No tides, just the cold-cracked moon

Too distant to conjure a saving madness

For Our Lady of Frozen Tears.


Sleep,

In your crystal dream of lovers--

A sky full of wavering willows

Bends over you like a mother.


It was all so lonely--

Not lessened by the dragging cautions

They hauled like sledges of endless noon

Above Our Lady of the Morning.


Ice shimmered across the floes,

Wrapped ad infinitum in ivory blank;

Blood came to seem better than the emptiness

Which afflicted Our Lady of the Snows.


Sleep,

And all a crystal dream supposes,

Will carry you where the willows grow--

Our Lady of the Roses.

__________________________________

Honesty



Honesty and Tactlessness

Are siblings, but not twins--

One lives in solitary pride,

The other stays with friends.

___________________________

Saturday, September 20, 2008

"I Love Your Blog" Award!



oOo, I'm a star!!! Marty, at Dark Star Discovery http://dsdiscovery.blogspot.com/

has given me the "I Love Your Blog" Award!

*does happy dance like Snoopy*


As with all awards there are certain rules to follow:1. Link to the giver.2. Nominate up to seven other fabulous blogs and link to them.3. Leave messages announcing their rise to greatness.Note - You may have been given this already, so that means you are a GREAT blogger.


I would like, in turn to honor the following outstanding blogs:


Cynthia's incredibly rich poetry at Epiphany: Amour Habito Intus Vos http://poemflesh.blogspot.com/

Cynthia has been an amazing source of support for me, as well as a singular poetic talent who has astounded me from the time I first read her work.


Advice From A Shark http://sharkbutt.blogspot.com/

Sharkbutt is a cat! He speaks his own language and there simply isn't another feline blogger who can hold a can of tuna fitch to him! Endorsed by that noted blogophile, my dog Bosco!


Lastly, I would like to nominate Poetry For A Nightowl http://www.owlnight.com/

This is Wordcrafter's simply stunning poetry and image blog. The combination is powerful and I love visiting. I think that you will, too!


Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Tuesday At The Cider Mill



I could bite into an apple,

And then run it down your summer-darkened shoulder

In a wet kiss.


I could trail my fingertips

Along your ribbed tank as if I were creeping through cat-tails

Like a black tabby.


I could fall in love with you

Any day of the week, as if your long hair were leaves

And I were the breeze.


Kiss me in October,

We'll buy a bag of donuts;

I'll give you my hoodie to wear

And my heart to keep,


When the days grow short

But no less warm for that.

_____________________________

Monday, September 15, 2008

Black-Eyed Susans



There was no one but the black-eyed susans

To see her thighs so smooth and strong

Her feet so lost

And her heart so broken

As she gave herself, a wafer,

On the tongue of the shrouded water.


Fog was a mercy,

Or the turning-away of god

In the memory it both brought and obscured

Of love within reach--

Two girls and the early morning.


Where was I?

Where was anyone, when the water fanned her dark hair like a lover's fingers?

There are mornings,

When I am struck scalding blind,

Deaf without body or blood,

Without lover, without sister,

Without anything but the black-eyed susans

And the foggy invitation of the water's depths.

_______________________________________

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Dinner At Josephine's


I watched your fingers in the candle light;

Your rings shone differently at every angle like phases of the moon,

And even your open leather jacket glowed like foxfire

As we sat with only window glass and our shifting reflections

Between us and the rain outside in the street.


It all follows me like fog, you know.

It rises like mist right through me,

And I am the one left wavering, insubstantial,

Remembering the moon

Remembering your fingers

Remembering our single tender kiss--

All I'll ever have

Of you.

____________________

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Blackbirds


BLACKBIRDS by Shay

I remember how he came in that night. Like a thick cloud across the moon, and just that way, he made the world dark. It's still dark, without Caroline in it. You'll think I'm a foolish old woman, full of stories. But I know. I was there. I knew she was dead from the look in his eyes.

Caroline was my sister. We were Mackinaws. Our father was French, but our mother had the same black hair we did, until it went white, like the fox pelts our grandfather used to trade. My sister was the east. She rose and burned. I was the west. She fell into my arms. Yes, it was like that, just like that. Why would we need anyone else? That's what no one understood, or understands now. We are like the wolverine. When I die, everything we were will die with me and be gone forever. It should not have been that way.

I was 16 when she married Dane. At the wedding, I dug my fingernails into my palm in a murderous rage. Later, still bleeding, I smiled and touched his cheek, leaving blood on it. I'm glad now that I did it. I was glad then, too.

My sister was never afraid of this land, or the winter. She moved into a house with Dane, out near Blackbird Pond. In summer, we would swim, naked in the sweet water, the mud between our toes and the cat tails high all around. Sometimes he would come down there to look at us. He was noisy as a moose, we always heard him coming. We would sink down to our chins in the water and stare at him with our black eyes. He would stare back, as if he wanted to ask us something. But he would only put his hands in his pockets and go back the way he had come. I would kiss Caroline all the more hungrily for him being so close by. It is sweeter to steal from under someone's nose. And anyway, Caroline was mine. Always. If Dane had understood that, she would be alive right now. I would kiss her with my next breath.

He knew about us. He would sit at the table and watch us with his eyes narrowed. We would only be making biscuits or stew. Two birds can fly as if they were one. I know he could feel our beating wings. We should not have teased him. But we did. We were young, and it was summer. What did we care?

He threw me out when he caught us. My fingertips were resting on her breast and she was sleeping. We both were. We had gotten too careless, too sure. We thought that we were magic together. We were. But even magic has its limits. He picked me up by one arm and dragged me out the front door. I wasn't wearing any clothes, and Caroline leapt on his back like a wolf, but it made no difference. Her heart was mighty, but Dane was a big man. Later, she followed after me with some clothes and a few of my things. We kissed beneath a great strong tree, the kind you might hang someone from. Then, with one last backward glance, she turned and went back to him. I wasn't finished. None of us were. It was nearly fall.

I would sit in the tall grass and watch him until he left. Then, I would walk right in the front door. I always spat as I did, because it was Dane's house. It kept my love away from me. I would have liked to take her with me and leave it burning behind us as we ran. But we never did. We should have. I could sleep with her under the same blankets tonight, if we had.

There are things that will have their way. You can't stop a river. Or the seasons. I kept coming. And he knew it, I think. In December, when the days are shortest, he caught us again. It had just gone dark and I was still there. I think I wanted it to happen. But not the way it did. The room was small. Dane had probably never hit a woman before. He broke my cheekbone. I lay on the floor against the wall and couldn't get up to fight. I heard both of them snarling like timber wolves over a kill. With one eye, I did see him walk out and come back with his rifle. I got up. I grabbed at him. Then I don't remember anything for a while. The night filled everything. There were no stars.

I don't know how long until he came back again and I knew it. Things were scattered, a lamp broken. There was blood all over the floor. I looked at him through my one good eye and saw no blood on him. But his eyes were full of what he had done. I heard a terrible scream, like an animal dying. It was me. It was my heart. He'd killed my Caroline.

I ran out past him. He made no move to stop me, all the fight was out of him. By moonlight, I followed blood on the snow and two sets of tracks down to Blackbird Pond. It was partly iced over. I couldn't find Caroline. Then I heard Dane right behind me. I turned around and faced him. I was shaking. "I killed her." he said quietly.

The sheriff came. There was no trial because Dane had confessed. He stayed in jail in Jackson for nine years. Then he died. I wasn't sad. But by then, I knew the truth. He killed her. But not the way everyone thought.

I was nothing but skin, bones and grief. I wouldn't eat. That spring, I sat by Blackbird Pond for days and days. I began to see things. I saw Caroline rise out of the water. I saw the bedroom, and the broken lamp. I saw Caroline's delicate foot, cut and bleeding. I saw her run out of the room, and Dane chasing after her with his rifle and his rage. I saw Caroline step out onto the ice. She was wearing a white nightgown and looked like a spirit in the moonlight. She turned to look at him. Her eyes were like a doe's eyes, when she knows the wolves will win. She went quiet inside and just looked at him, so sad. The ice made an awful cracking sound. I saw all this in the light of an April day, sitting on the brown grass, half out of my mind. I saw Dane's face change and saw him stagger once and moan. He turned in a half circle and then back again. He spoke her name as if he had never really known what it meant before. He moved toward Blackbird Pond and he pointed the rifle at her. He was holding it by the barrel.

"Take it," I heard him say to her. But she only stared, in that heartbroken way. Like a broken winged bird. That's when the ice beneath her delicate feet gave way and she fell into the water beneath. That water was cold. She couldn't have lived very long. I felt the chill myself. I shivered there, under the springtime sun.

I knew he hadn't killed her, not the way everyone thought. And after all, the man confessed. No one made him. I could have told someone what I saw. But who? The sheriff? The warden? They would have said, crazy Indian woman, go home. The truth is, I never forgave him for being her husband. He never forgave himself, either. So I never told anyone what I knew. Now I am telling you.

One day, probably soon, I will go to the land of the Mackinaw. I saw Caroline that day, rising above Blackbird Pond. With every beat of my heart, I have wanted nothing but to see her again. I have saved every kiss for her. Let the day come.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

How Missing You Feels



This is how missing you feels--


Like olive oil running off my fingertips,

Like dawn without her sister, sleep.


I remember how touching you feels--


Like rain on cat-tails,

Like my name spoken by church bells.


And when I feel opened, oh...

When I cradle my wound like a favorite child,


When I cannot bear starlight

Or kindness,


That is how missing you feels.

___________________________

Foxglove



I reached to touch the foxglove--

On its stalk, red blossoms swell;

I didn't know the foxglove

Is called the dead man's bell.


Wicked fairies gave the fox

The blooms to pad his paws;

Many a witless bird lies dead

Who never knew the cause.


Sweet enticing foxglove,

So pretty at the start;

My cunning, silent fox-love,

Be still my beating heart.

______________________