The Thunder Gods

written during the Taurus Moon

Caught by the gods,

I am soaked, 

soaked through my skin

by the tingle of power

rippling aflame down my neural spine

and up again, wildfire in my mind

this thunder drums and drums

heartbeat thrown off kilter

a trance, pronouncement of doom, judgment come.

I crouch under the trees,

their bodies wracked by wind,

the sinew of their bark stretching, creaking, cracking

as my own body sinks to the ground, pleads, 

entreats in the soil and slime,

leaves now sewn to my skin by needles of light.

This dark light pierces me,

pours into my wells of knowing,

and the thunder keeps coming,

banging

earth shuddering as lightning hits,

a violent kiss.

In this storm, 

I do not stand tall, I do not greet the sky

or its thick tumbling clouds.

Instead I bow, pressed flat against the mud, 

limbs now tangled with roots and vines, 

splattered and dirty, impure.

I am but a creature of this earth,

a snake, belly all sinuous embrace of my utter chthonicity. 

I cannot look up, eyes filled with rain and lightning's terror.

Here in the storm, there is only blindness.

And then I feel a spark:

it rumbles, 

it shakes, 

it takes me,

until I call out to the thunder gods, 

Take me! Take me as your sacrifice! Make me into fire and flame. 

I dare now the lightning, stare it down from the sky,

its flashes destroying all illusions. 

There is a fierceness in me roaring,

rampant thunder bull with three electric eyes,

Body trembling, unfolding, muscles taut with will,

I am but string on the bow of heaven aimed at a distant peak--

The Mountain of Ten Thousand Thunders, 

they call it in their rumble speech,

those gods of the upper reaches,

no trees, no shelter, no place to hide,

only hail and wind, balefire and storm. 

Strip me down, I pray,

beat away this clay,

unveil the quartz-stone heart

until all that remains 

is a core conducting life's power

deep into Gaia's belly,

impregnating the planet anew. 

This Body: This

I didn't know her.

I met her in your arms, the way you held me down

and grabbed the wolf howl in me,

until I knew this body was sister to the moon

and all dark things that cannot be understood by light.

I sang with a whine, I sang with a moan, 

my belly made full by the power of your lust.

I met her in the fox gleam of your eyes,

a hunger that ate my heart,

the way you held my throat and turned my spine to fire,

the way I knew there was no other way to be taken,

but completely.

And then I knew her, this body,

this feral pearl fire creature,

this ocean of feeling and tidal curves, this

Thisness. 

  

   

This Body: Fleshy Cactus

This body, fleshy cactus, black-spined passion.

Touch not the flame or else be consumed,

insatiable, sucking the marrow and desert dry,

fervent lust melting will, piercing to pith 

until white sap oozes from every pore.

Taken - and taking - cutting down the spines,

no defenses here. In a pulse, 

revealing the soft watery heart, ready to surrender its bounty

to the bravest man alive.  

  

This Body, Lush Apple Blossom

This body, lush apple blossom pouring her sweetness out into the spring

Longing every moment to envelop bees, take their honeyed nectar into my pink folds.

Where is my fulfillment?

The delight of being used, filled, my petals crushed so that they seep out warm summer fragrance.

Will I ever become an apple, fattened, round, juicy and ready to drop life?

What creature will devour me, ingest me, imbibe me to his core, intoxicated?

I can't stop myself, can't stop this process of unfolding my fecund depths,

It's as inevitable as the seasons.

Then I realize:

My body is blooming

but not for you, 

not for anyone but because I can,

because I am who I am,

orchard queen seducing the world into fullness.

This Body, Full Moon Bliss

This body, full moon bliss glowing in the room. 

Shadow of sand and tide, I am awash as luminescent pearl, 

splendor seeping in to the dark watered night. 

I touch my breasts, two mountains of clam pearl light 

and feel the foam soft lushness of my pale form, 

the succulent wetness that floods in and out like a tide. 

I am white fire. I am a winter dawn come at last. 

I am this body of pale fruit flesh and redwood bark hair. 

I am the Diana of darkness, and my presence breeds life.

Rhiannon Singing

You are as one already dead.

Give yourself to me and I will sing, 

call back your shredded self from the eight corners of the underworld.

I will form you anew out of loam and leaves,

my blood your mortar,
magic-making your immortality as
the man who fell in love and lived.
 
  

The Vulture Queen

Let me be your dissolution.

Let me swallow your orgasm’s light.

Let me follow your woodsy stag scent and danger-blow cry.

Let me catch you in the night of swollen hunger,

taking you, there amidst the dark erotic soil of your soul,

Let me root, fibers piercing your thorn-ridden mountain face.

Let me devour, crack, break with teeth, rhizome, bone, snarl, and stare.

Let me love you in sharp-beaked ways,

with sweet ocean-blooded love, salivaed fangs,

with hail that beats down the green-eyed crops.

I want all that you were and are and will never be now.

Let the fear in you and the death in you be mine
and I will engulf like the sea taking back what is hers. 

Chrysemys picta

I disturb them, 

they know me first, boots squelching mud, winter twig and fern. 

How many pass this way unseeing 

as shell bellies and sun-bathed backs dissolve into empty log-in-river, 

no trace but a ripple now fading. 

I regret my trespass, 

my clumsy unskilled gait. 

Like a child out here, 

so much I don't know 

all feelings 

all scent and sight and sound— 

but thought, what use is thought in a place like this? 

This place is what it is, 

speckled foam passing and passing forever. 

From this promontory overlooking the river, 

I see I am what I am 

more bird and granite, pin oak and painted turtle 

than any law or creed. 

I sit surrounded by web, 

the chickadee chuckling at my predicament. 

He announces my place amidst dead beakrush stalk, 

igneous rock, 

river oak and river oats, sycamore and ground ivy. 

At first, I cannot see the web, and then it’s there, 

all around, sticking to me and I’m caught 

caught in the woven filaments of mind, 

invisible except by awareness' shimmer. 

But I won’t break the web. 

There’s room enough for mind out here. 

I simply let it be, let it shimmer in the wind as I sit, 

silent 

watching ripples and shadow, half light turned soft, 

as my dark reptilian self re-emerges to bask in late day sun.