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.