Labyrinth

 

 

 Labyrinth

 

I played in the field of the minotaur's horn.

The rose trees stretched for twenty miles.

His black eye blinked

my slow heart's beat. I danced all day where

the elephant's hip burned blue in the shade,

where I glimpsed the escape the animals made

before the age had been born.

 

The green grey moor 

was soft as a sponge 

on my cheeks where tears

disappeared in the mist.

I wondered if we'd ever kissed

in the halls behind the labyrinth's door

where the beasts blew their breath on the shadow play.

I saw them come at the end of the day

with all to give and nothing to say. 

Their souls each put in a hazelnut

that sank in ripples of earth's wet heart

covered in time from fire and flood,

from our hands that pull the world apart,

that turn his field from grass to chalk

where roses blow for twenty miles

and the animals at last

have begun to talk.

August 2021

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Minotaur Caressing A Sleeping Woman, 1933, © Pablo Picasso  Fair Use

Swans Reflecting Elephants, 1937 © Salvador Dali  Fair Use

Windfall

 

 Windfall

 

 

 

Fill my glass

and let it be. The night 

moves over the unsodded graves

unquiet between

the roadhouse and road,

seventeen mounds

to home seven sins,

my vanities' bones,

my castaway loves, my old

car-killed cats.

 

Fill my glass

and let it come

at the end of the sky

when the broad brass sun

sets aslant on black apples

wind threw to ground, on

the last summer moths fluttering down,

warming them ripe for the locust's hall

with autumn's endings

packing the rows.

 

Fill my glass;

half empty is full. Let it be

as I drowse on the lawn,

sweet shattered moths and

brown thrushes for company, my

sore eyes wrapped with

a bandage of stars, peace

spilling into the void

where understanding

has flown.

 

 

 

 

 

August 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Apples, Jug, Irridescent Glass, © Paul Gauguin  Public Domain Manipulated.

Night Hill  © Andrea Kowch All Rights Reserved   Fair Use

Photograph of cat and wineglass from Sunday Muse, artist unknown. Fair Use

 

Blue Drown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Drown

 

 

I've been too long

in the blue drown

to feel again now

 

too long under

the mirrorglass glowmoon

that tides me apart

to answer your voice

 

too many waves

with their concrete hands

on my throat

their sucking salt drench

in my eyes and mouth

to ask who's to blame.

 

There's no pain left

on this sand 

swirled trashed beach

where I've come to meet

 

the last falling star,

the hungry crabs.

 

 

 

 

July 2021 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Open Link Night at

d'Verse Poets Pub

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Looking For Crabs Among The Rocks, 1905 © Joaquin Sorolla  Public Domain

Two Crabs, 1889  © Vincent Van Gogh       Public Domain

I have manipulated both images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Accordion Man

 

 

 

 The Accordion Man

He stands in my head

where the music once lived

like a tongue in a bell

when the ringer is dead,

corroding a little bit more every day.

He came down from the crossroads

with a small spotted dog.

He plays in my ear

til my dreams turn to fog.

The dog wags its tail and then runs away.

His shoes are like blimps.

His face is like claws;

his hands push the buttons

that work the bonesaws,

to slice out a song no one wants him to play.

He won't ever go.

I know that by now.

He plays in my head

and it chirps like a crow

his accordion clatter of skulls on a tray.

He chants all my names. He adds seventy to nine;

but the worst is

his eyes

are sadder than mine.

I could watch them all day.

~August 2021

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image © Guido Vedovato   Fair Use

 

 

 

Lightning Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Lightning Tree

When I was a child

pewterblue eyes round

as green walnuts, yellow pigtails

pulled tight in shredded rubber bands

I breathed up a world where I

lived in the storm, thunderheads panting like

mastiffs, tongues lolled over the lake, wind

secret as the monster under the bed

smiling, lightning fairy-dancing

into a forest 

of wild branches;

I didn't blink for the peace of it

covering the screaming, the blows,

cleaning my face

 

of a toy's tears. 

I breathed it in, petrichor

and the smell of power,

a brew of walking cobwebs

that piggy-backed me away,

a broken-eyed Dorothy doll

searching for Oz.

 

When I asked you to

kiss me like rain, you took me

up high on the lightning tree.

You had a web there, gunmetal strong

and sticky with grief. On the 

edge of those sudden wires,

one foot already caught

 

you don't even know you're dead.

When you fight

to run with one eye blind, 

and feel the tremble

coming closer

 

you learn everything

you lost

 

  all

you never had

 

 and that you 

can never trust

a storm.

 

 

 

~July 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note: Comment moderation has been turned on. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images: Lightning in West Texas © Ryan Smith Photography   Fair Use

Broken doll, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use

 

Driving With The Incubus

 

 

 

 

Driving With The Incubus

(Incubus VIX) 

 

 

 

When I first saw you, neither man

nor woman, flesh nor fowl,

you'd brought round the car; a wisp

of sulfur fog hung from the grill.

It snaked up your shoe to your 

black and white smile

 

neither corrupt nor immaculate,

misting my face like tomorrow's shadow.

 

You held the sedan door wide;

I might have walked away but I was young,

and you were the best chauffeur

the devil could find, with

that changeling's face, the hellpit's flare,

 

black peacock eyes and velvet hands

for the gears. You put them

 

over my fog-wet lashes;

 through the holes

in your skin I saw pinpoint stars

as you smoothed the rucked sheets

of my cheek to finger 

the bed of skull so soon to be yours.

 

It was a black car without a brake

made to run the asphalt years

when the heart 

was a cindered highway,

each crossroads a Celtic knot

the devil my driver

til we stood at journey's end,

 

neither man nor woman

nor flesh most foul,

 

incorruptible corruption

tipping at the edge of the wailing abyss

where all I can see

are waning stars,

sulfur skin steaming fog, your

sharp teeth scarlet through

a feral smile.

June 2021

Posted for Fireblossom, at

The Sunday Muse 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: I've written many poems for the incubus over the years. He's always changing his face. You can find them by searching the blog or by clicking on the label "incubus" below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: top via the Sunday Muse Fair Use

Bottom Untitled, © Zdislaw Beksinksi  Fair Use

 

 

 

Watching

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Watching

 

 

I am the witch of dying things

of things that cling

to a life that's passed,

custodian of the broken-wing

who shakes in the bush

and tries to sing.

I soothe the stings

of the white-nosed pup,

his few days left like clay that clings

to the potter's hands when the pot is thrown,

wagging his tail, eyes growing dim

unsure on his feet, afraid of alone.

I was the watcher 

as life leaked away, you

winding off slow as a traveling snake

loose in the snow, slipping into the maw,

dead at first frost like a turnip top,

grey dust on a root both bitter and raw.

There's none left to be

my watcher, my witch, 

to soothe the sting 

when they see me there

remembering the sun, pretending to live,

old knots of love caught in winter's hair.

 

I am the witch of dying things

learning their ways

while midnight sings.

June 2021

Posted for 

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image via Sunday Muse, Fair Use

 

 

 

 

Sun Kiss

 

Sun Kiss

 

The sun was on me

that day. 

It came

 

through the bars

selfless as my

grandmother's kiss;

 

 clover mead light,

sweet on the lips

of winter's dead dream.

I turned my back

on the itching of buses.

I forgot 

 

the black lilies

spearing frozen worlds, 

nova'd stars.

 

Promises overflowed

the bottles of my eyes.

For a moment

 

I even tasted

the blackberry vintage

of you

 

decanted before me,

then dust

once again.

May 2021

 

 

posted for  Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

Images: Photo, artist unknown Fair Use

Olive Trees with Yellow Sky and Sun, 1889, © Vincent Van Gogh  Fair Use