Power Couple, 1970

 She said,

"I shall strike a sewing needle through your heart

for a gyroscope to keep me level.

Spin, wounded dancer,

declare yourself a world."

Spinning and bleeding, he said,

"Primp yourself a pelt

for ornament and testament.

Live your life upon my wall,

to collect and devour each passing eye."

And every bird begins its bower

with a glittering bauble in the early hour.

Wearing him as he wore her, she said,

"Make yourself a mummy,

preserved forever in cement Jello.

I shall bury you with various anchors

I calve from the ice of my womb."

Tearing himself away,

he became a skeleton, dancing, playing a flute.

"I have found a new mask to marry,

made of prescriptions and rococo furnishings.

She is a lovely acid, a suicide waltz."

And every bird in its rotting nest

fades with its bauble low in the west.

______

for The Sunday Muse #175.

Watercolor

 Last night I remembered you into being

like rose-colored paint swirling in a water glass 

from brushes dipped in street scenes and night windows.

Remember, black-eyed susans sleeping by the step,

remember, rain caught on the upturned leaves of silver maples,

recall, to no point really, the dusty lanterns on the lawn.

Last night my fingertips wandered along the lines of this poem,

looking for the place where your body moved like a brushstroke

looking for me, the way I was, the way I loved how you were.

Last night, I remembered you into being

and the moonlight on the wall made me afraid, of time 

and of memory, and of these lines where they meet, like mourners.

___________

 for Sunday Muse #174.

Wild Garlic

 

wild garlic grows

between our teeth, those fallen stones

from the ruined church of our mouths.

wild garlic roots

are round and thin,

a lie we wear as shoes.

we waver, tall and gaudy,

our white flowers like lace,

seeding every time we prate our nonsense

no more significant than

the markings of wandering dogs.

we are legion, the first to appear in Spring,

a disease of the soil,

dying even as we conquer everything

even the air

with false plenty,

and the thoughtless vanity of pretty parasites.

______

image: The Muse Inspiring The Poet by Henri Rousseau

for dverse OLN

Benediction

There is a bell in the tower by the lake of the swans

and a blind priest with his stick on the path.

What hymn can matter to these bickering birds?

What pew can comfort the bewildered dead?

The swans trick the dead to come into the lake

and fool the bell to fall from the rope. 

The priest is found on the bench in the dawn

his mouth filled with feathers as if they belonged.

__________

The Mountains Have Heavy Hearts

 

The mountains have heavy hearts.

The earth, like a fussing grandmother,

feeds them altitude

and early light.

Inside each house

is a beautiful girl, waiting.

Beneath each house

the earth understands what waiting really means.

My hands are like broken hinges

on a door warped from rain.

In my mind, grandmothers and mountains.

In my heart, my love, rushing. 

I have cared for a woman, perhaps.

I have cherished a dog for years.

He drowses to the touch of my big useless hand

on his back like a happy burden.

________

for The Sunday Muse #173, where I am hosting.

the art is "Self Portrait With Accordion" by Guido Vedovato

August & Crickets

 

As a girl, I carried the cage I was given

and searched for the bird with the duende call,

its heart spread thick by a grandmother's hand,

there in each prayer and then not there at all.

As a girl I was given soot in a basket

and told not to sift but to husband it close

then sent to a seaside cliff via landslide

where the mayor of filth gave himself the last dose.

O bird! O sky! O flesh made of lilies,

grow light on the bones of the bird on the stalk

of my sorrow, my bloom made of August and crickets

transformed in its throat to an arcing flock.

As a girl I was given a purse with a ticket

to a room with stucco walls and a bed

where a woman crawled from the wreck of the fire

and stood by the window, my bird on her hand.

_________

for The Sunday Muse #172.

My new book is out!

 My new book "Gypsy Bird Cage", 25 pages of fierce beauty, is available now at Amazon! 

Contains:

In The Garden of the Moon

Aberdeen

The Last Auk

10 Lines About Lucy Medicine Crow

The Angry Damned

Michigan Vacation 1967

On The Subject of Enduring Love

Mi Amada

Mermaids

Stunt Pilot

Green

Black Jaye

Fox With A Feather

The Stag At Evening

The Mercy of Tigers

Moon Rabbit

Cirque Du Folle

The Thing I Couldn't Tell You

Lilies On The Altar

Incantesimo

Swans & Roses

Anodyne

Wolf Pack

Apple On The Sill