Mother-In-Law's Tongues

 

even

as the edges grow

cutting open my body-womb

spirit sheath,

I speak the wound called poetry

blooming dying leaning to

the light.

_________

A cameo poem for What's Going On?-- "A Cameo Appearance".

Looking For The Light

 

When you look in the right place, there it will be.

(I'm talking about light.)

Your eye interprets everything from within.

Blue skies, gray skies, all an illusion.

The light of your life isn't in a face or a star.

When you look in the right place, there it will be. 

You have thought yourself a moon, reflecting.

Rods and cones are the heart's handmaidens.

(I'm talking about light.)

That person, that sunrise, they are lit because you lit them,

just as they lit you, from loneliness, darkness.

Your eye interprets everything from within. 

______

A cascade poem for What's Going On? "The Coming of the Light"

In Camera

"You've got to remain to bein' yourself... you cannot be

Nobody else, it ain't no use tryin' bein' no whirlwind

An' uh, jumpin' here an' an' playin' checkers with

Your own life, that ain't gonna work, baby..."  --Propher Omega 

The mirror is running a con.

No reflection or meat-suit can tell you who you are.

Yes you, in disguise there. You are

a sparrow flown straight from the hand of God.

You are a bulb that wants its light back,

but you are the light.

It's the bulb that struts in its brittle body

voguing like it thought you up.

We have come through the looking glass, 

in costume, in camera, incognito,

even to ourselves. We wander lanes of traffic like amnesiacs,

dreamers who show up naked and unprepared, in a panic of shame

for a test we have already taken and passed. 

________

for Sunday Muse 227. 

Music: Adrian Belew and Prophet Omega "I Am What I Am"

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.

A Tale of Ravening Beasts

She wandered into the forest.

Summer rolled lazily into leaf-blown fall.

In winter, her hair turned white, as camouflage from ravening beasts. 

She crawled into a cave

and lay down with a ravening beast.

Spring arrived.

"Well now," spoke the ravening beast, and she didn't care for his speculative demeanor. 

She returned home.

"Well now," said her mother, her brothers, her cousins,

who fell upon her as ravening beasts

disguised as petticoats.

"Now she's an albino."

The year turned.

The girl swam to an uninhabited island

and set up a badminton net as metaphor.

There, she began writing her book of poems,

entitled "Ravening Beasts."

Her hair fell out and she wove a boat from the strands.

"Hey cue ball," came the welcome in the seaside town.

"Hey head case."

Her great spiked crimson heart rolled inside her ribs,

and she breathed fire.

"Crazy fucking bitch," they said,

but no longer to her face.

She was wings and tail and ten feet tall,

a ravening beast come among them.

-----------

for Sunday Muse.

From Ashes

From ashes, 
roses,
carnations,
mint.

My trunk of failures overturned
by your need,
and my humbling sorrow.

What is plenty, in a desert?
The bowl of your need I filled with double portions,
secreting my heart in the stitching of a new shoe.

From ashes,
roses,
carnations,
mint.
From distress, alchemy--
lead turned to gold.
______

for my son Joe--we have always been there for each other; light in dark skies.

and for Friday 55, hosted by the best poet I know, who I'm proud to call my BFF, Hedgewitch.
_______

Scorp Angel

Often,
I come half awake
in the hour before dawn.

I keep my room dark
but I rest easy,
knowing that something is rising just east of my dreams.

Still,
nothing else is so pleasing to me
as simply knowing that there is you in the world.

Whether you are near me or not,
I always hear your voice in my ear,

and the sound is
soul-soothingly familiar
and sweet.
__________

top image: Cristina Scabbia

music: Jewel "Angel Standing By"

 

Red Diamond

Perfection manifests colorless--
on light entire, the faultless cut is fed;

Your bride, intact, will give her sweet pale hand
that clasped those lilies cool enough for dead.

Give me the fortunate interstitial defect--
the flaw that splits refraction thread by thread;

My damaged, love-bitten throat commands your gaze, dear,
when I wear my black diamond choker, or the red.
_______