It's time! I write a lot of poetry! Most of it doesn't make it here, but over the past year or so I've been refining a few of these and now they are ready to share. Themes include: Blood, Death, lesbian love, lots of moons, names, and Springs. I think I've been most impressed lately by these subjects, particularly the death/beginning cycles.
Different poems are separated by a "---" in case it isn't obvious.
Please enjoy.
"To light a candle is to cast a shadow."
-Ursula Le Guin
 |
| "Catalyst" Artist: Minako Ota |
----
My olfactory
capabilities
are not great
but I see
touch
polychromatic
are not great
but I see
touch
polychromatic
As I lay beside you
gazing at your back
my nose touches you
softly
softly
visuals of floral notes
I see a collage
of deep rouge
buds
and I drift off
on that raft
that is our bed
on that raft
that is our bed
like the girl with
the sun in her eyes
the sun in her eyes
across your skin
gently whirling about
and dusting off
the invisible
edges of you,
I try to re-align
these vessels
I blow them kisses
of imaginary sheen powder
(you spread over my
latex laden nipples
that one night)
May the thoughts that press you
slip away
quickened by this passage
cleared
cleared
I close my eyes
wondering if I can find you
in your mind
dreaming
if I could wrap you
in blue sky
and warm sun
because that’s in my mind
I can snap us
into muscular dolphin bodies
or moist jungles
we could slay
giant insects
with our unicorn horn swords
and there are no zeros
or ones
between our bodies
only bliss
which must be the active participle
of blessed
in some other language.
------
Between two giant foothills
looming frozen
pale waves
and sundering
Under a full moon
I am held
but walking
My birthday
night hike.
My mind seeks,
as minds do
connections with the creatures
that watch me
creak by
I know they are here
though I am unequipped
to know as they do
I am here
though I am unequipped
to know as they do
I am here
shadow figures
deer
graze among the sage
with a flop of the ears
with a flop of the ears
lazily acknowledge my presence
Night hikes
keep my mind busy
on the present
I forget my supposedly
privileged
human form
Even as a child of the woods
and the thicket
and the thicket
I come upon wild life
as if for the first time
wary as they are
and curious too
Reverently,
I keep my distance
tromping along
as only a bipedal can
Under the full moon
I don’t believe in headlamps
Again and again
I come back here
The flood
made her own path
down the mountain
now
there are barricades
so the humans can
reforge a way
Their way.
The deer keep eating.
 |
| "Hoping for Wings" Artist: Judith Blair |
-----
So we change our names
curtains drawing
not for the last time
light changes
our shadow
silk
fits the form
and a womyn
and a man
and whatever else
is not born
but created
a shadow that follows
without sun.
I fix my gaze
in the space between
the horizon
and me
the point I made-
up
slightly
and centered
I open my eyes
and I see this point
I close my eyes
the point doesn’t cease
the point
is not even
the end of a line
I keep on living.
------
This is an ode to the Love between women.
"A Biased Poem About the Supremacy of Love Between Women"
When I create love
it does not become
nor does have any potential
To Become
prosaic.
Our linear little
human moments
of centuries
dynasties
empires and hearth cultures
alike
human moments
of centuries
dynasties
empires and hearth cultures
alike
have seen
a number of traditions
around coupling
mostly neglecting
or forbidding
romantic love
between
womyn and womyn
And so It has happened
In That Way
that one can say
whatever it is people can do
they have done it
From racing turtles
to summiting mountains
We leave nothing
undone
untouched
Except
love between women
often manifests only
in soft glances
misplaced jealousy
misplaced jealousy
we see and don’t touch
we touch
but don’t see
and then we flee
because a man presents
for us A Reality
already written
and rehearsed
paid for
Man possesses,
we are taught
by chilling examples
of illusory duality,
what we do not.
But I write my own Reality
and in this one
women are both passionate
and compassionate animals
and women are not women
because Woman is a dark corner
we’ve been hushed into
We are women because we are lovers
of womyn.
Mothers and daughters
Aunts and grandmothers
were never the end
of love between women
To me, the act
of woman loving woman
is endowed with the air
from an ancient wind
but waters
from a fresh spring
(Meanwhile the behaviors
of men and women
have been codified
so many times over
nothing
is without interference
from preconceptions
of receptions and production
Even love is often
little more than perfunctory sentiment
expressed through impulsive materialism
that has colored us pink and blue).
And between our flesh is a fire
rekindled
though we are new
lovers on this Earth.
I posit
between Her legs
and mine
there is another
End
which is more properly called
A Beginning
formless,
is a more malleable energy
really.
There is a myth
that love between women
is without penetration
We lick our wounds
and gently cum
like bouncing kittens
and though that is
one lovely
occasional reality
for many,
It seems
there is an equalizing effect
between women
in a culture dominated by men
so the reintroduction of power,
Power birthed by women
power from building our own homes
power not from independence
but inter-dependence
not from hierarchy
but from reverence and honor,
is hard fought
and sorely won
To Play
again,
Keen Sisters
know ourselves
enough
to know each other.
Once Upon Time
is Now
Because the freedom
for women to love women
grows by the day
as wretched
crotchety southern preachers
wipe the sweat of envy
off on their yellowed handkerchiefs
They called god.
A wood dwarf cannot fathom
the love of two water nymphs
no more than crickets
long for solid state
power amplifiers.
How can we know
the depths of darkness
were she not surrounded by light
and there is a rainbow
of felt experiences
Emotions being
but a few,
but people are not ice cream flavors
and we are not at the zoo
If we are lucky
we affix our own bonds
if we are lucky
we find the keys
to take the old ones off
if we are lucky
we find our Earth
not just a ground;
If we are lucky
we drop paddle
when we get to the shore.
Really
there is no authority on divinity
aside from who and what
you consider sacred
and the language you use.
Theology invents itself
again and again
when what is unknowable
is given as an excuse
it didn’t need
an existence
beyond synthetic construction
We are our own
Childless mothers
whoring maidens
and dexterous crones
A different trinity
without a need
for a Supernatural
Authority,
because our biosphere
is here
(and really there is no trinity
that was a Trick
we’ve paid in blood for).
The Love between women
sheds any hetro pedestrian
mores
the minute She is made.
-----
“An Ode to Blood”
These days
or rather
for a long time now
Time has a direction
because though water
circulates
becomes
returned the state
of water
A river still
flows directionally.
a principio
never so contested
and so we may say
no One
owns
a spring.
People own
pieces of paper
and bytes of digital data
collaring
a multitude
of parsed
inextricables
Zeno’s paradoxes
in boxes.
Whence forth springs
a spring?
scientists have it calculated
approximately
but the precise instant
remains too dull
a climax
to sate the wondering
wanton
grasping
brains
of creatures such as ours
People want to believe
in live(s) after
death
and simultaneously
own beginnings
and winnings
I take comfort
in knowing
this is my last incarnation
regardless
if it were my first
------
some of us
just want to keep
living
my checkbook
lays out on the table
plain checks
in a plain blue plastic
book
The remains of a dead
Liturgy
secured there
little physical notes of non-existence
separate me from a child named
Jagadish
on another continent.
----------
I am not a "great man"
with a wife
sewing me blankets
and daughters cooking
and sons working
as I meditate
as I write philosophy
or theology
with that disciplined disposition
brushing my beard through my fingers
and I don’t know how to sew
or cook
or contritely bitch
myself into a corner
with my legs open.
{What is the resonance
of ignoring
death
as she slices another one off the old
Ham}
but I can tell you
of Death's
anterior plumule
feathers like whispers
so soft so you can’t see the ends
the posterior
plumage
a maladjusted
childhood backwards
a becoming
of unbecoming
A beautiful process
too
draining, some say
but in sadness
there is
Still Life
without pursuit
People wish
a rapid death
swooping down
taken and gone
down the old hatch
She licks her darkness colored
lips of any last traces
crumbs of hopes
driblets of dreams
flies on
but
isn’t that a bit
crude?
For myself,
I want to see her
take me,
glimpse my still body
knowing it now
drought
and ashen.
A culture built on exorcism
waits for their rapture
arguing with the nurse
over oxygen levels
and undeniable hypertension
A religion of coffee and doughnuts
shopping and discarding
“let him go”
says Cosmo
with a fresh new face
new shoe smell
the light refracts
off his face differently
now
the whale oil
reveals his “true self”
he says
aging is slowly
Death
concealing your Light
and I wonder how he feels about the New Moon
but really I wonder
if he is just terrified of a full one
Where is the release
in purloining
light
sliced and reflected
focused and refracted
again and again?
Well I’m not going
to dull my darkness
like this
like Barbara Walters
is a toy doll of a woman
who once pierced
People with questions
go to Oprah now
She’s giving away a box today
it rattles
Lets See
a convalescent box
labeled “Enlightenment”
There’s a latch on it,
it’s a metallic representation
of Spinoza’s middle finger
which spins up
to unlock the box.
Are you Pandora?
Open the box
and It’s A Musical
Box
playing “Do You Realize”
by the Flaming Lips
and you can close it and open it
open and close it
over and over
and over
There’s a great many coins inside
It’s a Treasure Chest now
each coin says something
on each side
and every time
you pick one out
it disappears almost
faster than you can read
the words
"light "
on one side
"dark" on the other
“sister” on the one
“other” on another
every coin is a dichotomy
It’s a Box of Contradictions
The contraption that plays the music
when the box is open
and when the box is full
the music fades
into
a pulse
one-hundred and forty-two
beats per minute
of course
the box disappears
a recourse drawn
Thanks, Oprah.
------
“Women I’m not allowed to know”
I don’t know them
but they are very
what You call Femme
what I call
them
I have Her too
and she grows old inside me
waiting for my sisters
to come play with me
I play too rough
adventures
far into the woods
over barbwire fences
on cold mountain faces
without a light
or man in sight
I move only with the moon
and yes there are sometimes snakes
I like them
and yes there is sometimes hiding alone
hungry
scared
still breathing
Until it’s safe
until I’m free
and like the spring
out
Of Me
We are meandering
this little thing
in the middle of
infinity
nude
but for a few satellites
and our star
I cannot say
much
Of Infinity
She is impossible
to know
fully.
But I can still regret
and yet forget
I am altogether
a different woman
from she
who glimpses
her divine reflection
and adds a little cream
a little blush
rouge lush on the lips
starless night on the eyes
each and every day
For to face a world
unmade
is like showing everyone
a piece
of your death.
.we are invisible to each other.
I cannot contrive
This way
to survive
I pretend I’m zhe-spider
webs shoot from my wrists
and I crawl the ceiling
until I find the spout
but I’ll probably never find it
before the water
will find me
.glistening.
A thin stillicide
coruscates my webs
in this tiny corner;
I’m still here.
Spiders don’t have sisters
we eat them instead
because it's rather fun
To be dead
before reproducing
is the real sprucing
I do not know
these women
but my great grandmother
was one
I did know.
I dare say
she is having more fun
with nonexistence
with Infinity
than she ever did
with her cunt.
To her, I am a man
taller
stronger
all the essentials
without the potential
I cruise in
out
on my rainbow ship
called Privilege
I sail the high seas
from one no woman’s land
to the next
unnoticed
and disavowed.
----
“An Ode to My Crone”
(censured version, had to cut out the personal shit).
To my wonderful crone.
my dexterous lover
May be we parallel in all things
may the waters that are still
within you
be still
within me
May the tides that ebb
and the tides that flow
bring us ever closer
to the shores
of forgiveness
of trust
of mercy
May the great gales
that rattle our widows
and extinguish our candle flames
be but blustering
transmutations of the fire
we create
and dance around
May Your call
be always answered
to beat upon this Earth
with our feet
with our bodies bodies
May we be blessed
with epiphanies
both joyful and true.
-----