Come, Holy Spirit

Let it come, not tickling like a feather
or like the fan of the temptress,
beckoning me to secret chambers
not like the caress of a lover,
a light touch to wake me in the pallid pink dawn
but like the wing of a dove sweeping sharp
or a rush of fire cutting through blind haze
brutish as a slash throat razor
and there is the truth spilling out
collecting in pools around my heels
clay bound and crumbling to dust
as I am -
Come, holy spirit, enlighten me

Disclosure

Never doubt my devotion to you
I might say
still setting a tooth edge and tip of tongue
against your neck
you've left me once too often

Please ask me where it hurts
I might point at plaster statues
aren't we all
cheaply painted stigmatists
in our garish array

If you ask me about the swords in my back
I might tell you which one is yours,
depending on my mood
it's all of them of course
but I don't want you to cry

If you check in my left hand
I still might have
sugar cubes for all the pretty horses
red white black and pale
the blood in my ears still pounds like hoofbeats

Or you may see me sometime
picking black feathers from the ground
I think these will be important later
my guardian angels, I might say
some assembly required

My purity is transparent but clouded
a veil dragged through dust
some things are better left desecrated
or scorched earth
I'd make a better widow than a bride anyway

I want to crack open and bleed
like a china vase
scattering flowers so long ago given
they're nothing but dry stalks
thorns and colored parchment

I want to walk with you in dangerous places
and with your face in my hands
shove your back against dirty alley walls
my swollen mouth catching you
between a rock and a hard place

I want to close my eyes in the pale pink dawn
cooly twined in body memory
taste of salt and anise
and the vain hope to not wake
as daylight dissolves the tranquil illusion

Book of the Dead

Cross and circle and ellipse
unbroken lines
my fingers tracing sigils
this is the spell and the sequence
the emerging into light
the transfixing
where you come undone
your skin
translucent as alabaster
a canopic jar, unopened
your heart ripe to pluck out
a succulent red fruit
in my voracious hands
my mouth ravenous
like Ammut, to devour

Poppet

So tell me -
Where is it hidden?
The poppet?
I know you have one
If I search your room
and sort through your treasures
Or look inside your pillow
Or beneath your houseplants, tangled in the roots
Will it be there?

Half black half white
Rough red stitches
Blind eyed doll-baby
Tell me -
Does it look like me?

Do you hold it as easily as you take my arm
When we promenade down the street
Do the button eyes glitter in the dim light
Black as mine
Do I mimic its movements subconsciously?
When you and I speak in the drowsy evening
and my head lolls to one side like a rag doll?

If I find it
If I rend the cloth body
If I rip myself open
What is in there?
I have wracked my mind
To figure out what you may have stolen
A picture perhaps, snapped of the two of us
But with your face cut out
Or a lock of hair lifted from my coat collar
An affectionate gesture of grooming
Your hand then slipped quietly into a pocket
Or a purloined note, scrawls from my own pen
My name barely legible - but each loop and line revealing all my secrets and tensions
Or the hem tear in my skirt
Did I catch it on something or is that more of a scissor cut?
It's hard to tell

It must be somewhere - tucked away
A charm working, a trick laid
For what else could be the explanation
For how often I think of you
And how often I see your face when I close my eyes

So where is it hidden?

Vox Nocturne

Thinking of your lips tonight
all your pretty words
Oh, I remember each one
your beautiful elegant lies
Web weaving
Silken strands
So easy to tear through
false futures spun from fantasy
crumble to dust
with the slightest disturbance
and holding ashes
I convince myself
that was real, that was real, that was real

Oh but I get it
that's just pillow talk
that's just things you say

as you're backing out of the room
trying to get away
from the person holding the knife
You know, I didn't murder you
but I can't say it never crossed my mind
and you would have laughed to hear me say that
and how I would flush at the thought of it
of my hands pressing in
your eyes rolling back, white, then closing
drawing your last breath into me
Or a blade, yes, sharp as your tongue
Or an athame
god knows you couldn't be killed by normal means
Thrusting in and thrusting forward
until I can hear the blade scrape the wall behind you
the rattle from your throat as beautiful as a choir of angels
My heart at last at peace
My soul untormented and still

And now that you exist only in my head
alone in the dark
ears deaf from blood pounding
you wouldn't believe the fights we've had
still sparring with you
How eloquent, how poignant I was
arguing my case
undaunted
Still trying to reason
with the unreasonable
Surely no long dead voice
no long dead love
would ever pronounce me guilty
and I tell myself
I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine

In the garden (a death)

In the garden moon-pale translucent silver dollars
papery as fly wings
feeling them between my fingers
wondering when they might be ripe enough
to spend on penny candy

In the garden
a tangle of honeysuckle
clinging to the tall chimney
drunken hummingbirds
sticky sweet cloying perfume
rising up like heady smoke

In the garden
chinese red and mandarin orange
bearded snapdragons
keep their own council
never speaking out
until picked by small hands

In the garden
funerary arrangements of white lilies
clutched in two hands
prone on the green grass
gazing up at passing clouds
a soul contemplates heaven

In the garden
russet bricks covered in amber moss
brushing back the fine hairs
soft as silk velvet
pretty enough to use as a pall
for your powder pink casket

In the garden
long gone and lost as Eden
petals shatter, brown as caramel
curling and going to seed
dormant under turned earth
waiting for another spring

The Beetle

The room was clamorous, but she was in a quiet place
the Medium, unseeing and seeing through heavy lidded eyes
hands pulled by other hands
brushing the air around me
seeking through static
lingering finally, touching left of my heart

She(he)said: Do you remember when they placed this here?
when they placed the beetle here?

Strange the point where her(his) hand now rested
had often caused me pain
sudden, sharp and shallow
an inexplicable hitch in my breathing
like my flesh snagging, tearing
catching on a splinter of brittle rib

She(he)said: It was a ceremonial rite. An initiation.

I don't remember. Too much time has passed.

But I tried to picture the(my)body rotting in the desert heat
resined and spiced and desiccating
the fan eared jackal in silhouette
the charms and gilded promises
my mouth opening, my silent voice restored
the scarab enameled in the bright jewel greens and watery aquas of living things
golden and shimmery like a vision of eternity,
placed reverently on dry bones

She(he) said: You were alive.

Alive as I ever was and still am
eternity is my Ka drifting
my eyes open in other eyes
and the beetle, somehow still present
an occasional stab in my side to remind me
this shell is irrelevant
still alive, still here
still eternal
the insect basking in another dawn