A Wall of Black Birds

a wall of black birds
met my eyes
with a slamming start

black wings and black eyes
falling on me
in one swoop
and a woop
and a call

suddenly
I was upright with my mouth
now wide open
gaping
mawing
stretching from here
to that Christ-like figure in the sky

black birds, black birds
in my teeth
reaching for my throat
black feathers sliding down my belly
sprouting out my arms
decorating the crown of my head

my vision darkens
the fury of the sheer beating of wings
drowns me in bleakness
deafens me
weakens me
I hiss through my teeth
and turn my eyes upwards

the sky is black
I choke on feathers
vomit up my undiluted love
I raise my hands in front of my face
crying out loudly
I flap my arms
and fly furiously on

Bull's Blood

he raised the axe above his head
his swing long and true
the moonlight glinting down the blade
his hands straining against the wood

with my feet pounding down that dirt road
I saw his arms moving
my lungs burning with air
my blood cursing my veins

Big Black Bull
it's hot breath snorting
dust kicking up under its hooves
an eye gone wild pulling against the bonds

Big Black Bull
calling out to the night in frantic timing
my legs faltering as I ran down that drenched road
the darkness cutting before me

the Bull as black as the night surrounding it
I raised it up with my own hands
raised up that Bull
and called him mine

when the axe met its mark
that wild eye rolled back one last time
his arms shuddered with the impact
and the blade came away now dark with blood

finally reaching his side
he turned to me and said,
'gather up the blood in a steel dish,
for to waste nothing is to want for nothing'

I dropped down beside that great beast
its hot breath now cold and un-stirring
I dug my fingers into the dark bloodied fur
and nestled the dish beneath its throat

I wiped my hands on my long skirt
staining the fabric the deep red of Bull's Blood
my hands dark in dirt and fur
Bull's Blood running down my arms mingling in my own veins

I am now a bride of Bulls
mistletoe tangled in my hair
white Bulls at my side
my skin dark with blood

I who have seen them thundering from the sea
I who have seen the priests in the trees
I who have stood as Bull opened up the ground
I who have rode upon his back with swords in my arms

the Blood is flowing in me now
forcing my heart to beat
I turn one mad eye
and my breath comes out in a hot snort

he pivots to me at the sound
the axe still at his side
I run my hand through my hair
and feel for horns growing there

A Dim Wish

You have given me words and I have used them;
You have given me thoughts and I have twisted them;
You have touched me and in that moment I let it happen.

Your hands took my integrity
with the force of your fingers,
digging into my thighs
running your teeth down my spine.

I screamed and you smiled.
I crumpled under your weight and you giggled madly,
Madman...
Madness riddling your brain;
making your eyes little dark holes in your head.
Your smile is all crooked teeth,
and malicious intent;
You peer into my mouth with that look on your face
and I know I am lost.

Lost to your crippled heart;
When you pull against me, I bend,
I never wanted to
but in the moment I lose all choice--
All independent movement;
Suddenly puppet to your demented driving,
The mad giggling shrill in my ears.

You are poison reaching, poised intent;
No gentility only tearing.
Me, tearing.
A ripping in the event,
The time, me.
You are the year in reverse,
mad eyes rolling back in your head
as you drive your fingers deeper into me.
Ripper reaper nipper seeper--

You are the death of my dreams,
You are the death of my skin,
all teeth and fingers and material madness.
I hate you with all my aching,
my arching,
I hate you.

A dim wish fills my mind--

Your hand covers my mouth,
Fluttering,
and everything goes dark
in the shadow of your black intent;
Your darker plan.
And I am extinguished in the eyes of God.
Abandoned here,
Wrecked on your insane shore.
Wreckage all around me.

I drown in you,
Rippling in the light,
Grinding your teeth together,
Running your tongue over your rotting lips,
I am looped in the loops of your hair,
and know I am drowning there.
I hold my breath and sink.
The world goes dim-- dark,
I hear you laughing from far away,
I am gone,
and no one will ever search for me here.

Fire Break

beyond the fire break
the woods are burning
columns of dark smoke
snaking fingers into the hazy sky

the heat of the summer day
becomes choking
the crackle of pine trees
becomes deafening

the forest screams
in the throws of an unstoppable force

as the night falls
the heat remains
and the vast fires
turn the skies red as false dawn

a boiling licking tongue
scrapes the blood red moon
the world speaks a language of dry tinder
moaning in burning ecstasy

behind the blackened columns of cinder
with a face streaked in ash
I listen to the forest die and be reborn
and in turn chase my mind
to thoughts of driving rain

If only there was water
If only there was no fire but water
If only water drowned us all
If only...

The landscape aflame twists in whirls of smoke
a wall of fire rages
I turn my face
everything explodes
I drop my head and run

I feel that fire reaching for me even now
with dancing digits of orange
rain forever just a dim wish
I wake choking on imaginary smoke
and see all the world burning behind my eyes

I sit upright
and through clenched teeth
wish for death by drowning

Milk and Honey

I have fed on milk and honey
sweetness sticking to my lips
gently dripping down my chin
rivulets flowing along my neck
collecting in the curve of my bosom

I have tasted you and known sugar
our lips meeting like the petals of a closing flower
your mouth dipping to my breast
your hands sliding down my hips
we have lapped at each other in a moment of quivering weakness

we have shared that weakness like a drug
breathing heavily in a near breathless moment
skin taking on a glowing sheen in the dancing candle light
silken hair draped over the exotic satins of the bed
your fingertips enchanted with music

it is here that I was transported to another place
another time where my heart was light and my soul unfettered
when my Eros stood unchallenged by rough voices
and I could see clearly through that sheer top you wore
to your soft breasts beneath

I could see your heart beating through your chest
your pulse racing up your throat
we stood in that throbbing mass
twisting to the beat of a demigod in plastic
sliding bodies moving without measure or restriction
and loved each other as only disasters could

now as you lay panting in my arms
I drift between coffee-coloured worlds of movement and stillness
our limbs tangled like ripe vines
our breathe sweet with honey
I capture this moment in the slow sap of my mind
and never let you go

The Furies Bring the Serpents

"Bring me the skin of David," she said

a scream that was heard
from ancient hill to ancient hill
shuddering in the distance

blessed are the cursed
for they know the truth

Erinyes
their voices one
awash in anger
serpents on their tongues
death in their eyes

all the world held a shuddering breath
each wing beat to the movement of blood
each eye an accusation waiting

borne of night
every drop on the ground a resurrection
twisting in her image with a sword in each hand
many heads but one eye
many eyes but one head

underworld, Orestes
that is where you go
to the gates of Dis
where they stand in judgment
one heart beating in many chests
an eye turned on you
an eye of madness
your hand still on the weapon
your mother's breath barely gone
forever

you fed on soft milk
and knew the cursed

Athena, stay your hand
Athena, let them be
let us be renewed in hate
a curse dancing feverishly on our lips
for they have put their will upon us
and we can never rest

here Furies wait
in the violence of every lifted hand
know they are the serpents
in the eyes of your victims
and their anger will never ever cease
when we open our mouths
and let that curse spill out at your feet

retelling the story

this is the happiest moment of your life
you are so very happy
so very fucking happy

i am afraid
afraid that you are reading this and not telling me
i am afraid you have found me out
found me under this pile of rubble i have named my soul
my heart in pieces like a collapsed building
the structure buckling under the pressure
pressurized hate in the form of soft words
i will build a kingdom of letters
and an army of sentences with no punctuation

i am stripping my clothing off
i am doing it slowly
seductively
sliding silk down my skin like a waterfall
scent curls around me softly
lifts me to my own hands
running down the length of my legs
kneading the flesh under my fingertips
slipping into another space
a different place in the world of my mind
i drift
and i do not come up for air

you are just so happy
the smile is cutting your face in half
cutting across your vision
she's everything you ever dreamed of
so young
so nubile
so lithe
so thin
such perky tits
such sexual energy
such a game you play

i darken your day with my passing
i am a rain cloud
heavy
a lightening strike smoldering in the ground
a crater to inevitability
to discomfort
i am not thin
my breasts sag with the weight of age
they sway in a mesmerizing hypothesis of damaged reality
my stomach is round with a life lived rather than a life denied
the scars that dance across the pale expanse of my epidermis
whirl like spinning dervishes of pain and story

here!
this is where my leg run afool of a large rock in the swimming hole
this is where my cat dug his claws into my arm in a moment of fear
this is where pain took me over and i sliced away at myself
trying to find the truth
trying to find the exit
look here!
this is where i split open and the entire universe fell out
i am a mother in the stars with no children
i birth only ideas
ideas and eroticism that has grown useless in the intervening years
i am breathing stardust
coughing on emotional warfare
and throwing it back up
the river flows out of me in a wave of blood
and falls back down to earth
i have crept forward and stood in the light

i manage this every few years
every few years i manage this resurrection
every few years the feelings reemerge
i feel for you again
i open myself with the tiniest crack
and i let you in
every time i regret it
i regret the light seeping into the back of my eyes
and i regret your words most of all
maybe i am finally finished with you
with all of you

i am living for myself now
i am living for the ecstasy of the Idea
the moment when word forms the Idea
when speech fails but the Idea remains
when the logic of it becomes
the most erotic eruption in this space
these references to other poets
our Ideas existing
just being
being

your happiness means nothing to me now
i eat men like fire
and only the Idea remains
i am the erotic in my own right
and i exist alone
in a world
without
you

Altered Ego

I just want you to know
I have found your secrets
and I have hardened myself against them

words fly out of your mouth
with a slickness
that once unnerved me

now I find your sputtering
with your self-importance
a distraction to my isolation

i still seek you out everyday
but with a limit to my emotions
that curls around my head like smoke

your eyes are cardboard circles
on your doll face
and your lips are always open

I have found your secrets
and know you with an intimacy
only discomfort can bring

I dream like a ghost
and only love the wrong ones

My Red Dress

the terrain of your hand surprised me
each vein a road to damnation
a winding movement to my own futility

the twist of your wrist around my ankle was startling
your skin cold like dirty ice
with you at my feet I felt wavering

swooning at your intellect
and subservience

you had fashioned your want into a shiny black reverberation
a fetish for form and slipping;
a slipping of hands up skirts

hark demon! hark devil!
my own erotic trembling the last right of my body
i control all and nothing

in that throbbing moment
i knew
that i had to stop you
before you could reach up
and undo the few remaining buttons on my red dress

i had to stop you before you reached that prize
your satisfaction could only be my undoing
and your eyes hold no love
in the demonic reflection of my glittering soul

close the door tightly when you leave
i need the quiet to go on

Hardened Season

my tomato plants are dead
each leaf a black reminder of cold ground
the vines have slackened their hold on the world
the fruit is rotten

winter is creeping into the air
the rain pouring in sheets
the crows sit on the wires across the alley
ruffle their feathers sending droplets to the street below

they call out to the gray clouds
now so close you could reach out and touch them
their raspy voices echo across the world
with glinting prizes in their beaks they fly furiously on

my cat at the window flicks his tail
making small clicking noises of annoyance at their tantalizing presence
he turns his golden eyes to me
and purrs his animal love to the wildness he remembers

I wrap my arms around myself
rest my forehead against the cool glass
watch the day darken
and wish passion was for something better than this

Block

these blank pages are confounding me;
they are surrounding me, hounding me.

staring at me in blankness,
mocking me with emptiness,
I search for words to mark up their clean whiteness;

blacken out the page with tightly packed letters,
scribbling ideas as fast as I can,

but this expanse of ruled lines stares back at me;
laughs out loud
at my attempts for literary revelation,
and compounds the ink in my hand.

I lay down my pen,
and wander off to find something to eat.

insects on a windshield

i see no city

nothing stretches before me
only the reflections of yellow highway lines
in headlights
rushing past my image in the dull glass

and the dimness of dashboard lights
cast upon the eeriness of your face
(like a green halo)
reminds me of

the shimmering distance
that connects between our silences
and the pulsing glow on the horizon
cannot shorten the breath
in between these spaces

and even if i could still love you
the destination would never equal
the sum of where we came from

a disturbed resurrection

she believed in Elvis
much more than she believed in god

even as the snake-charming priest
convinced her that virginity was a sin
in the back of a black van
with one broken headlight
on a summers night so hot
that even the walls had begun to sweat

the two big bays
(Mr. Henderson's prize mares)
stood in slow witness at the edge of the field
she could hear their soft throated calls
whispering to each other
as the priest attempted to split her open

as if feeling her insides was a punishment
for the fall from Paradise
and the sins of Eve

when it was all over
when she had stood up and smoothed her dress to her knees
and started her awkward march back home
under an indifferent moon

she let her thoughts turn South and drift
to the holy burning seat of Graceland

the lie in blue eyes

i remember your cruelty
washed in ignorance
i remember being neither dead
nor dieing
but folding under the weight
of your blue eyes

your sweet blue eyed treachery

here i made my home

and returned to it again and again
only to find the doors locked
and the windows dark
smudged deep with your fingerprints

if i can remember your cruelty
if i can remember your ignorance

o' god why am i here again?

Gone

i knew
my childhood
had ended

when i
no longer
believed
that anyone
would die
for my love