The Gemini

For my sister. 



When I was a child,
My mother would take
My sister and I
Out in a boat,
Where we would float
Across the sky.

Those technicolor blue
Texas evenings,
Listening to cicadas sigh
In pulsing waves,
Shivering the world
Star bright.

She took us to the Gemini,
Lit green coils for the night,
Twining us in smoke
As we lay upon a blanket
Waiting for the light.

That distant music
From across the lake,
A sunken song of revery.
And my father's voice -
The man with no name
Speaking straight to me.

Going home
She'd hide us in the trunk
With her wedding dress and tailored history.
She'd never forget us -
She said - forging
Our sorrow in that tragedy.

We could hear her
Wondering where we were,
Calling our names as she jangled her keys.
Laughter gave us away -
She was always surprised to find us still there,
Adamant in her memory.

You once thought death would save you

You once thought death would save you
As a thousand prayers reconcile into one
And the rattling breaths of the old man
Shake in the bed of the child unborn.

Her dresses stand still in the closet
And her presence hangs still in perfume.
The dog's bed is unmade in the corner
And the cat will not enter the room.

Come walk with me down to the garden
Where she watered the bones of our love,
Where the silence of her unsaying
Was traced in the dead leaves' dust.

Her hair is like the moss in the river,
A red ribbon in the red robin's nest.
Where is the life you have lost in the living?
Where is the love you have lost in her death?

The Lighter

I’m reading the words of a dead writer,
Soft her voice sings new in my head.
Between the pages I find a lighter
To show the pathway to the dead.

How comes the light from this device?
She just hands me a piece of gold
For passage through this world of lies,
To warm my mind when it is cold.

With this, I wander through worlds of night,
Over mountain peak and ocean wave,
I’m lost and found in desert’s bright
And time for got is not for gave.

And the writer’s device to light the dead
Was stolen by her whose words I read.


See: https://dreamsofawakingman.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-odd-tool-to-operate-on-dead.html

Under a darkening sun

the miller makes a promise
his daughter in the balance
paper under stone as the great wheel
thunders round again
crushing seed down into dust

lilly pads and lotus
great watery fields of green
with blood laced white petals unfolding
under the immaculate unconcern of the sun

she dreams on the edge between
half above half submerged half remembering
orbs of eyes radiant with indolent avarice
in the large mouthed features of the fish
figuring eights beneath the drawn down faces
of the choiring frogs leaping
in lazy coils from pad to pad
the adversary waiting just beneath

the mill pond contains her history
the spring babelling out from under fallen leaves
she sits interpreting whispered prophecy
about the mounding and the making of the dam
the fool's desire to arrest the riverring
to capture and contain the night sky's twire
in the stillness of the world's darkening
bones planted high up there
as in the deep down of things
seeds of future reckoning informing
the pulsing chirp of cricket’s wings
as the day and night are evening

the water wheel turns
the waterfall is falling
and as stone rolls over stone
she overhears again the oath
spoken all too easily
with too many words
each new one further
diminishing
the vow he made to her

now the adversary stands before the door
the miller holding her bright spun hair
as if this golden offering could buy more
time but the adversary smiling says there
is no more time as the great wheel ceases
its constant rolling turning
to thundering quiet

her soft hair comes undone
under a violent hand



See: https://dreamsofawakingman.blogspot.com/2018/04/under-darkening-sun.html

The Tiger's Tail

I

How with this brokenness is the dream sustained?
How does this story go?
These memories that with I alone remain,
Tired out, sleepless, old.

Sheer plodding along through plowed down verse,
Soiled, abused and overtold,
Meat falls from my bones with a curse
Only seeming, never shown.


II

I found my way into the Tiger’s den
As he was dreaming of the Rose,
Clasped my fingers around his tail,
A symmetry in repose.

And what could I do but transcribe old themes?
God’s starbright skull still full of seeds,
The flesh, the bone, the Tiger’s Dreams,
The cut, the cry, and the wound that bleeds.

And the Fool that stole the bone,
And the shell that cracked the sea,
In this abysmal dark I am not alone
The dreaming god is here with me.


III


The tail twitches in my hand,
The rough beast come round at last
To face me where I stand
Tied securely to this mast.

I’ll not let go again
As I have done so many times before.
I’ve honed my mind with discipline
To endure the Tiger’s roar.