Your Troubadour

Candy hearts crush against the teeth
…but I can never resist a bite
Truth be told - I devour my own
And cuts in my mouth burn deliciously
Cherry sweet, and sharp

Your faithful Troubadour, truly now,
Sings alone, composing with broken strings
I always meant to fix this (promise)
Just like me, to offer a fistful of drooping notes
Wilting flowers for my lady

Oh, slippery beast of a muse
If I find you again, beloved
We’ll end each other - finally...finally
Gasping, glass eye’d, purple beyond purple
Garroted by the laces of our own purple prose

Lord of Arcadia

Herbaceous, lush green as spring
Sun basked, ruddy, dew sheened
Tangled, bramble snagged
Vegetal musk and black soil
Here, the Lord of Arcadia
Gamboling, wet earth patterned - cloven and burled
Run, run, gasping, drinking clear air
Hide, hide, white stalks sunk in rich mud
Teasing, swaying -
Tantalizing - catch as catch can
Matted curls dampening, wading into warm water
Succulent mouth, rose hipped
Tongue like ripe fruit, sliced and dripping
Finds one reed in seven
Music issues from her throat
Shrill and sweet

Collision

Foolish I am, writing love notes
to place amongst dusty flowers
a makeshift memorial from a long time ago
a roadside shrine in my heart

but - something happened here, on this spot
this is where the collision happened
Unintentional, accidental, cataclysmic
this is where it occurred

and I was changed forever, deformed
my heart wrenched in twain, cleaved asunder
and I cannot go back to the way it was
the pieces don’t fit together the way they did

a jagged rib bone knitting crooked -
the thought of you catches in my chest
blood from a scar long healed, tearing
I drink to remember the taste of your lips

Embers

Your hand is a key
against the cage of my breast
The door open at your touch
I am alight with flaming birds
Free, they carry my petitions
like fire and smoke
drifting embers, wind swirled

I don't need to set lights for god to see
god already knows

Every whisper against your cheek
is a shower of sparks, soaring heavenward
New burning stars
For god to arrange in his diadem

Corbeau

Some night you will find me,
under the stars
my hands clutched - claw like
palms pooled with rubies.
Clever corbeau, my eyes will say,
this was the only treasure I had left.
You need not scavenge what was given freely -
plucked out to guard against your breast.
Though not an unkindness,
you and I, are murderers by nature
of the kindest sort.
A flock not of angels,
or carrion crows,
but here still, there are feathers -
brushed over my skin,
and a crush of velvet blackness
to find my hand in the dark.

-For J

Dawn

Here in the night beside you,
may I be lain to rest.
(for a thousand small deaths exhaust me)
with nothing regretted and nothing left undone,
my spirit sated and inclined to slip
like white silk pulled from a medium's mouth.

Here, pressed against you with cooling skin,
(salt tasting from spent passions)
I could follow the rhythm of your breathing
deep and hypnotic
and drift into blissful oblivion; quiet, endless

Wavering between planes,
I may flicker there in the inky dark,
the azure flame of a low candle guttering -
until the comes pale dawn
(when for your sake, perhaps) - I will rouse.

Come shake your sister from her moribund state
and warm her corpse cold lips,
mon frère soleil -
for a rapturous moment stolen
an entwining of my errant soul with your flesh
and a thousand more deaths to die amongst the living.

for a friend
1/30/14

Eulogy

Let it never be said I was not dedicated.
Let it never be spoken of - my passion impaired
There was never an instant the waves didn't hit me -
There was never a time when my soul was spared.
There was never a second that I was not present.
There was never a moment my eyes were unclear -
Don't let me fool you, I had always been watching,
Don't let me convince you I never had cared.
My desire was pure, and fine, and constant -
I filled in the gaps that were left behind.
You will never see the flame of my being -
The light and the color, only heat to the blind.
Let it never be stated, I was less than devoted -
I gave all I had, till my spirit was bled.
Let it never be said, I was not dedicated -
and let it never be proper, speaking ill of the dead.

The Kingdom of Set

Desert Lord I may be

But far from desolate...
Sand runs through my fingers
And behold, a treasure of kings
Garnets and quartz
And the bones of living creatures
From before time was measured
Their voices carried upon the wind,
These are my subjects.
A Lord alone I may be
But far from brooding
For it is my blood that feeds this place
Cast out dry and crystalline red
And when my hand raises the storm
The tempest of my passion
Will devour you
Wave upon burning wave
All your glories, all you are,
Ground to dust
Disintegrated into jeweled fragments
To glitter against my russet skin
All your vanities -
Clutched here, in the palm of my hand.

Damocles

Precious
like a single golden thread
blonde hair twined in my fingers
torn in the clutch of passion
perilous as it may be
divided for love's sake
this is my own sword
my own force invoked
and I may fall on upon it
but I am better for the cleaving
and still better for the cleaving
I regret nothing
for I am clean wounded
and warm blooded at last

Lest I die, Unshriven

I have imperiled my immortal soul in your name

I have imagined your eyes, abyss-black with desire
I have delighted in the thought of your absolute corruption
I have dwelt on violence, envisioned you shocked and colorless
I have toyed with obsession, seen repeating patterns in your every gesture
I have felt myself slipping, and cursed myself for not letting go
I have been unappreciative, petty and trifling with your affection
I have let myself become enthralled by my own despair
I have screamed and raved to incorporeal spirits about you
I have laid tricks in your path, stolen tokens and worked charms against you
I have undone all my good works for one fleeting moment, here and now
I have dreamed of you every night in the dark oblivion before the dawn
I have craved you as a succubus that comes to me, all consuming, as is in your nature
I have truly adored you and all that you are, your heretical divinity
I have cherished each breath you take and the trip-hammer of your heartbeat
I have never meant to distress you, but I cannot apologize for the way I am
Lest I die, unshriven
I request absolution
The calm that comes from the heat of your proximity
The forgiveness that comes with the brush of your hand

My demons are quelled by your momentary trespass
I step back from the brittle edge, unbroken again

Ode to a Dis-eased Spirit

I remember you, always
beloved geisteskrank
holding your face in my hands,
my opal eyed beauty,
your lips to kiss, cool and soft as night

but how often i would find you
brooding and preening
or flouncing off into shadows
or pouting in darkness
like the petulant dead

and years that pass into memory -
now I drink flat tea from chipped cups
with absent guests
that leave red lined calling cards
etched on my pale skin

here among the living
as you are, but are not and will never be
one step between you have always been
and I the medium, poor at my trade
can never again call you to rise

To Divine You

No crystal sphere I need to see
where bitter memory still leads me.
Take my hand, my soul departs
your ghost will shatter my opaline heart.
No tokens to throw, no cards to deal
your passing, mere turning upon the wheel.
No need to decipher this ancient cabal
Fortuna upended, the tower will fall.
No mirror black I need to scry
to follow the strand between you and I -


..I close my eyes to divine you
(cast your bones anywhere, I can still find you)

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

Night Barge

The moon is bright as a silver coin
covering the eternal eye
but god is only sleeping -
perhaps dreaming
wings folded, plume upon plume
beaked head drooping onto downy breast
perched imperious
drifting on his glided barge

Sleepwalker
in the azure dark you loved me more
cooled by the breeze that billows the sails
and ruffles the head of a dozing god
hidden from the blind eye
shadows wrapped around us like a pall
hearts feather-light
like stars we burned together
all the doors of the Underworld opened

Lord of Silence
sarcophagus bound
will you take with you
your ornaments and instruments
two knives crossed
blade of copper, hilt of gold
sharp as a star point
tracing scarlet constellations
into the spangled flesh of Nuit -
may she bend to kiss you
gold flecks raining from lapis sky
as the night barge sails on