Today is Ash Wednesday. If I'd remembered that last night was Mardi Gras, I would have done something beyond going to bed at 9:30. :-P

Another poem. I wrote this on the bus on the way home, from the last snatches of a dream this morning.


                                         Sky Psalm

                      You in sky                        
                                                             I saw,

           streaks of cirrus                                   
                                                             hair,

                       vertebrae                       
                                                             high & pale --

          my horizon pivot                                   
                                                             round the divot

  at your base of spine.                                          
                                                             Not mine

                          to hold,                   
                                                             not one
                                          
                   to stay, you                        
                                                             glanced

                             down                

                                            once,

                                                              then
 
                 cleanly blew                           
                                                              away

Te Pito O Te Henua, 1722

We near the old ones beneath a clouded moon.
The salt wind cuts our cheeks, brings smells
of those strange crafts riding off the coast.
Strange men, to steer such tall canoes;
eyes like birds', skins like pale shells, words bubbling,
gestures swirling like ash wraiths from deep chasms.
They have no women, only things queer
and marvelous -- daggers, clicking circles,
and common goods besides: fruit and lumber,
poultry, leather.

                         The people are swayed.
Things are not as they were in grand-chief's time;
this chief is raw, wood is scarce, the youth
have no respect, omens foretell calamities.
So we come to ask for guidance:
to concord, or to war.

The wide sea turns around these points,
mana focused in hardened ash-men
buried in folds of lichened earth.
The air burdens our feet. Puissance
carves paths to bone, leaving flesh
to quiver like sponges on hot sands.

Volcano's sons with eyes from the sea,
tell us the future, we implore,
and shudder at our daring.

The answer is slow. Starlight falls
on shoulders, before the great heads creak
to hiss their answer into naked ears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To hear it, some of us stand staring,
eyes rolling like death ships on a mad sea.
Some run to quench their anguish in water
or in liquid rock.

                        And I, alone,
turn up my head and laugh, tears
carving memories of screams
down my ashen face.

Conversation with a Disgruntled Ex-Tenant

Yeah, our last landlord
kicked us out, the bastard.
And after all we did for him --
naming his pets, raking his fucking
lawn. I mean, God, talk about
overreacting! All we did was pick
some fruit (wormy, too) from
that stupid tree in the yard.
Next thing we know, we're naked
on the street, scrounging needles
and yarn. Honestly,
I wouldn't go back if you paid me --
well, maybe if it was
over his dead body.
 
Christ.

(inspired by this picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebba/171966912/)

Storm Front

                                Afternoons like this,
skin feels too tight to sit still in.
An undertingle builds, like bees
incited to swarm.
                                I whisper-hum,
abusing a tune, rubbing pricking palms
on antsy thighs, like heat-cracked skies
lacquered in denim.
                                In front of a storm,
air inhales into green, and birds,
trained in the malice of clouds,
quarter themselves in nervous trees.

They know what comes.

                                What would I give you,
my earth, my ground impossibly distant?
A stripe of destruction from chest to chest,
and after I break,
                                the relentless drumming of rain.

Spring Dance

From February's febrile fog
To April's chrome-bright sun,
   Spring marches an unsteady track,
   With two steps forward, one step back
'Til winter's been undone.

I never know, no matter what
The weatherman may say,
   If Flora bids us don galoshes,
   Grip parasols and mackintoshes,
   If, in short, she'll wring and wash us
With cannonades of spray.

And when, umbrella clenched in hand
I smugly venture out,
   With no delay you'll hear them say,
   "A record high was set today;
   It's hot and sunny all the way,
   Seattle seems like Santa Fe --
Perhaps there'll be a drought."

Civitas

And now I am in her, that goddess not serene
  nor smiling, but measuring and clenched.
I stalk her through fjords of fretted stone,
  past candied wands of trees behind slim bars.
Here she is painted like a pagan egg.
  Here she is pitted, here powdered with flowers
softening the scars of man's abuse.
  Here she is sainted marble, here brick and clapboard,
a work always in progress.
     
Faithful I see her in her works:
  her double-hungs and oriels, picture, bay, and plate,
frosted and barred; her cedar, tongue and
  groove; her pitched, flat, domed and turreted,
awninged, shingled and torchdown.
  Her corrugated gutters, her public houses
springing thick and wiry.
     
O Great goddess, to hold so many acolytes --
  you spread for all who pay the common tithe.
Bedecked you glow for us, O Magna Mater.
  Lapped with rain-washed walls, we light
your lampposts, oblates seeking expiation.

Golden Apple

Little apple, little tree
you're a young fire burning.
Question-marked near my heart,
cheeks sleep-flushed, your pink
starfish hands pat, mash, slap
my breasts for food, fingers flared.
Years of regrets burn clean away.
 
Little tree, little apple
you're a green stem springing.
Sky eyes, shy smiles, curly willow lashes.
You suck away the sour, leave me scoured
clear, clean black earth so rich with joy.

Little apple, little bean,
you're a magic sprout singing in my arms,
in my eyes. A mother-daughter pattern,
one in two. You rearrange me, milk,
honey you.

Daydream

I would kiss you
through the screen
of my bedroom window

some summer night,
necks pricking
with summer sweat,

palms twinned, skin to
skin, searching lips
neatly gridded by wire.

I would cling to
your breath
if I could.

I hear the telephone.
I lick my lips and taste metal.