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: 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.  

  

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. 

Anam Cara (Soul Lover)

Image: Howard Sokol*

 

 

to friendship and my dearest friends

 

Here with you now

I am aware of the space between us

and the gentle river of words and gestures that fill that space with love.

You are like soft autumn rain seeping down into the meadows of my soul,

lush with delight, a great open field of freedom

rushing down to the sea under stars.

  

It is here I meet you,

as you are, as I am,

our bodies like bowls resonating in the night,

sounding out our recognition,

echoes of some other destiny once partook together.  

  

We are two weary pilgrims at rest for a time,

stretched out in the grass with dew and dirt,

beach below and the receding surf reminding us that

somewhere in primordial memory,

your grain of sand and mine lay nestled next to each other.

And now in this eon of lifetimes beyond the original clay,

we feel the same sense of next-togetherness

deep in our bones and breath and blood,

bound together by water and fire and the bond of human spirit.

Our journey is long, roads into darkness and unknown dreams.

But we wander on in the womb of the world

to be polished from sand into pearl.

One day our jeweled selves will shine forth.

One day we will lie side by side again as we do now,

strung on a cosmic necklace of stars,

the constellation of our love made more brilliant

by lifetimes of travel apart. 

*

 

http://www.howardsokolphotography.com/

Another Faith

Speak into the darkness
like a child praying.
Age does not lessen
your need for faith.

I don’t mean
blindly binding soul to dogma
or sacrificing intuition at devotion’s hands.

There is another faith
that lives beyond these,
waiting for you–
not on the mountain top of wonder
but beyond,

                    in valleys
deep with yew, oak and hazel,
moss, cress, mushroom and stone,
fine leg, hoof, snout, fin and tail,
hiding behind the mask of many.

It is faithful love
who dares look straight into the
Heart of God
and mist-melt into that morning sun, again and again.

To feast at the table of faith is
  but opening your mind
to human vulnerability, 

like fruit, long fermented.

Admit without shame:
you can never live 

  your own expectations.

Instead, faith is setting free
the subtle fear
that makes you believe
every other power but your own.

When you tread with faith
up the spiral milky Way,
you are a star in the night
a naked light without agenda
or any other feat but to
shine.

Only when the inner heat of longing
burns away the clothes
of what you thought you knew
and all the loves undeserving of you,

Only when there is nothing left
between body and darkness
can you make love,
skin to skin and breath to breath,
with the Heart in all hearts.

Only then does faith become
another word for “know.”

    

 

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.

  

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.