The Pines

I made my skin call itself snow,

and wrapped that body around my heart.

There was no sound except the groaning of the pines.

The world has died, I said.

I have died, there is no sound except the pines.

There was still the sun, 91 million miles away,

dribbling through the branches of the groaning pines. 

There was still my skin of snow.

There was still my heart, a stunned bird fallen from the pines.

Hear the song of the snow falling from the pines,

falling on itself, increasing itself

in thrall to its remote Master,

saying, we are small white suns without heat,

bright, blinding.

I made my skin call itself cold,

and wrapped myself around my heart. 

I said, idiot pines, here is peace, here is stillness.

The pines stood groaning, green day and night,

oblivious to the Master's moods, saying glory glory.

All the while, my heart stirred, brown and puny,

whispering itself out as friable desire

for light, for voice, for the pines that sway

in the unseen, unending movement

of the empty, restless sky.

_______

for Sunday Muse #145.

Pool Party

Olympic freestyle w/ jungle animals was an instant hit.

The world's top swimmers, driven by ambition and terror, amused the crowd with feats of athletic derring-do.

Behold the gentle panda

blocking lane three

and the gnu in two

basking elegantly.

It was indeed unfortunate about the hungry tigers

diving in and disturbing the plastic markers.

Next, we offer soccer w/ lion pride.

Test audiences loved it, sponsorships galore!

That's tonight at ten.

Gymnastics w/ wolverines tomorrow at four.

______

for Sunday Muse #144

While The Devil Sleeps

 

Even the devil has to sleep some time,

dozing by the inferno, daring a red-lipped smile.

Let's dance, though the downstairs neighbors bang the broomstick.

Let's wear sequins and furs, hats as big as platters,

and take the train with our big brown bags.

Put an air on, try an accent, we're beautiful don't you see?

We will land like birds on a fountain in a square

to sing ourselves as Whitman would, while the devil sleeps. 

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for Sunday Muse #143, where I am hosting. Join us!

Black Jaye

He said, "Black Jaye, when you strike a match

you so quickly shake it out

as if each time you find you're with,

you long to be without."

I can't spare love for the Promenade

where searchlights cut the sky.

I paint my dreams in a bed of wheat

growing golden four feet high.

"Black Jaye," he said, "so small and slight

with your scarves of indigo,

why do you sing in Quebecois

telling no one where you go?"

Down by the shore, down by the sea

I loose my hair and call

to bones of birds all crossed and cursed

to stop me if I fall. 

________________

Greening The Jade

There are wheels on cobblestones

outside the windows of her words.

There is a sailor's parrot on a velvet swing

and strands of colored beads in the doorway to her room.

There is never any summer, no noon to white the wall

and so she'll understand if what you told her wasn't real.

A Persian's ears are there to warm her hands

indifferent to the wheeling way she feels.

San Francisco gray as gulls' wings in the morning

or Barcelona in the lazy afternoon

are in the jeweled clip that holds her careless hair back

to ease her eyes to catch the moon.

Don't say you're sorry, don't sing softly in her stairwell

where the echoes' angels fade.

She always knew that open windows let the rain in

to blue her dreams and green the jade. 

________

for Sunday Muse #139.

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.

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for Sunday Muse.

Interview

It is not new

this interviewing of myself.

In a dark or dull hour

ghosts rent my tongue,

black flocks rend my mind's sky.

I called a nightmare by name

to break its back.

Making a paste from fury and innocence,

I conjured a papier mache landlord,

all purpose, no heart.

The renters scattered.

The birds flew into a vortex, blind and damned.

Moving into my own skin,

I learned new oxygen

with my keys held tight between my fingers

just in case.

______

for Sunday Muse.