Mangy Dog

Mangy dog humping the earth,
his black-red eyes follow me like sword to heart.

At first he was just -– a dog,
but then he said my name, over and over
one hundred thousand times at once,
the force of his knowing like a thunder-
bolt in the belly.

How many nights must he hunt me,
nose raised to entrap my essence,
so that sweat fouls the sweetness
and all my fetid carcasses are undug
from the soil of my soul.

No muzzle or chain can contain him.
He is far too wild for training.

Mangy dog, humping the ground,
his shadow stands guard at the edge
where both known and unknown fall
before his rapacious maw.

  

Time Is A Pack Mule

Time is a pack mule,
bad-tempered to boot,
his master a gypsy, slightly tipsy
but still all suave and slick-haired flourish,
a bargain of colour for every passerby
who is subject to his seductions and pleas,

cloths unrolled across the fareway,
travellers forced to stop and stare,
or step around in the mud

green copper banded with tarnished plate,
elixers and fixers unlabeled (untried!),
bells missing tongues like ghosts en situe,
but worst of all, a sin for his kind!--
violins unstrung . . . unsung.

"Ahh" he leans in closer with a gaze,
eyes as embers from some everlasting flame
in a field of night, but without delight.
"I only sell the instruments--
          --not the souls,"

face solemn with foreign knowledge.
"If you want their soul,
seek the madman with his steed,

he it was who first dare string 

          the devil's fiddle,
a fiddle so full of human desire
it was strung from fine golden hair and sinews of heart
life ripped from her lips
from her he loved best."

Then at your dismay, the gypsy laughs

a wildfire of despair glowing in his veins,
and at last he pulls it out

          that fiddle of hell
strings silken as hair, golden and pure,
and yet red as blood beating in the ear,

          that fiddle of heart
crazy, revolting, and utterly alive.

Bone finger to fiddle,
      he strikes up an air
that sinks into the pit of your heart like a stone, 

shackles of longing long lost form anew,
as gypsy once man now melts into mule. 

  

  

  

  

Almost A God

to my lover

You're a stranger to me,
crazy vast man, almost a god,
a universe inhaled with your thoughts,
so that each day I remain
astounded and undone,
the circle of my knowledge lost to the stars,
as the heavens in your heart rise 

untouchable to these searching fingers.
No matter how long I love you or how deep,
your magic remains the same,
a mystery to my mind.

   

   

Mountain Storm

storm brewing in Snowdonia, N. Wales -- Mynydd Mawr is nearby

There is rain tonight in the valley,
     rivers running off course
and even the wind has missed its directions,
          leaves stuck in my hair,

eyelashes kept open to the gale,
     forced breath, light dip but no depth
          beneath the panting weight of
               slanting
cloud come down around the very feet of
Mynydd Mawr, the Great Mountain,

roads washed out into fields,
barring the way instead of leading home,

while black cattle hang their calls
     on a hawthorn--little shelter in its spines,
     while my refuge is the gorse, golden but
hardly more protection than the forlorn thorn in the field.

Bare foot, shivering, soaked to my very spirit,
there is no turning back for even the wild things,
no relief until the relentlessness slackens with its own
weariness, wondering that perhaps it has had enough
of itself, just as a child cries out its woe
until there are no more tears to be had.

     Until then, I will wait,
struck by the adamant intent of a landscape to survive,
even in the face of a storm which knows no difference
between fence and field, woodland or mountain heath,
only its own release into the world
     like my words now dropping on all alike,

tawny owl taking what belongs to it,
each poem agile in stealth, waiting for you
     in the dark night of dissolution
to steal you beyond death into

          clouds parting, sun gleaming,
and the whole world glistening anew
on fire from
        seeing itself once more. 

  

  

 

She Arises

Blood thumps in my ears,
a drum I cannot drown out
for all my drinks and devilment.

Quivers my body, an arrow ready strung,
aimed at the bulls-eye of knowing
there is no escape from her,
the woman crying alone in the bathroom,
sick at the cycled sight of vomit,
even her own body rejecting her.

How did the mind go crazy?
Nothing sensible, sense blown to dust,
am I who? —
–- ”Another shot, double quick.”

In the shrunken horror of a glimpse,
I cannot do this anymore.
Hands paralytic, the glass no longer rises,
as heaviness insults my suicidal hopes,
a flame fueled by recollection,
spark in my dimming sight screams

“You can do it … just … let … go.”

Whiskey medicine wasted on the floor,
glass like diamonds cuts away my fears
as I fall 

falling into the street, panting, breath eludes the lungs,
homeless, drifting, warmth ungrips his hand from my head

I am cold, so so cold
on these cobblestones, crying tears I'm beginning to feel,
running down my face into the gutter
  lips pressed into the bottom of the world,
kissing, blue, crawling, face a-light

like a toddling child
who has just discovered world as mother

and above me, oh above -–
there are stars, thousands of stars,
pinpricks of light arising from death’s drunken maw.

Mother, help me live again.

   

   

 

My Great-Grandmother's House is Gone

My great-grandmother's house is gone now.
Nothing left but farmland
     returning to old habits,
and a few outbuildings as vague reminders
           of once-human habitation.
The fallow fields emerge,
                                a mandala of sweet pea and poppy,
      summer scents swaying
               with the delight of their own pollen      
and everywhere there are saplings,
a silent people moving slowly.

In search of heirlooms,
                              I enter an outbuilding subsumed in kudzu
 and find a box--          
                          empty
  soaked through with rain
          and the floor’s damp compost.

Hands clutching soil,
                     I walk out into the sun,
mind like milkweed

I take off my clothes and sit
in the waiting grass.