Yo Sindo

Posted on February 26, 2019 by

The dancer
and the piano,
My fingers on the keys

her legs
scissoring
across polished wooden flooring,

click clack of stabbing, rhythmic heels
reflection up her body:
the once youthful legs,
spinning skirt
blood red dress,
bare arms spread wide
supporting stony face,
dark hair pulled tight

she pivots, struts, strides

to the beat I try to pull back, but…
fingers keying, hammering
strings one by one, faster
slower

(it ain’t my beat at all, after all)

driven by the click clack,

matching the stride, note to note
at first, her heels and my fingers

explode apart, a door opens

and she tangos out, alone
(as always, and better for it)

into dark streets, her own beat

as I break skin on keys,
smear blood in some desperate sacrifice

banging harder, moaning now, lights flickering out

in this room I love

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On Ragged Mountain

Posted on February 22, 2019 by

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There’s a luxury –
a pleasure
really, it’s that more

not like the joy
of an avocado
(not to dismiss that joy,
sliding along the skin,
opening the ripe fruit
to eager hands,

fingers sliding into flesh
to scoop
and taste
and slip along the tongue)

No, not that
but the ecstasy
of the familiar,
the wind rustling the trees
and that caress…

The fecund scent
of spring about to break,
the earth beginning to swell,
already pierced
again and again,
preparing to burst…

And this moment
in the trees,
amongst the trails
in stillness
on Ragged Mountain,
the only track my snow shoe treads behind me,
the slope above me
waiting to be explored,
if never known.

And the birds, the wind, the land
waiting to sing
as they birth
in this strange spring in winter.

 

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How I Read

Posted on February 12, 2019 by

When I was a reader,
spine balanced under palm,
fingers trailing along pages.
words that almost moaned and whispered aloud.

Eyes greedy,
seeking understanding
to know the body –
the work at hand,
moving from page to page,
syllable to syllable,
words that almost moaned and whispered aloud,
the whole growth and breadth of song after song,
the rising chorus,

Caroles and chants, hymns to the body,
the trembling page
underneath my roving hands, fingers, eyes….
words that almost moaned, whispered, screamed….

In joy

When I was a reader… with eyes to see

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The Answer

Posted on February 11, 2019 by

There was a wind
winding down from star to sea,
whipping along eastern ranges,
whispering strange words in accented syllables,
a Romanian Shakespearean rag,
sometimes humming something from The Weekend.

Sometimes a muse must be answered.

There were scrubs worn in the imaging room,
fancy dress for after,
the hint of musk on curving neck begging for a sniff,
there’s was that kiss and caress,
fingers to skin – oh, baby, that skin!
And the whisper of cloth dropping,
the dropping clickety-clack of high heels along a wooden floor.

Sometimes a muse must be answered.

There were those words, foreign accented,
challenging: querying and teasing,
a sip of gin, a taste of oyster,
the need to meet, to great,
and skirt along our freedoms –
the glowing heart, the dark eyed look.

Sometimes a muse must be answered.

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Stars | Dust | Breath

Posted on February 10, 2019 by

I was kissing you with my mind
before my body –
only body –
quickened
in motion, in fluid,
in heat

some juice squeezed
                             from my pomegranate

thought like fire,
the mind that never wavered
querulous, you challenged me,
the push, the pull

there were breasts pressed
and there they bruised the teats of their virginity

instinct riding reason,
breaking will and focus
the hill, the aching climb
mountains and song, the gasping breath

and I drank of the wine and was drunken,
                               and lay uncovered within my tent

time and space
immaterial, an echo,
physic a false start, dark matter and the mirror galaxy,
gravity and wells, the dip in space
that proves it, curving like your belly
raising up to meet my lips

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Wrapping Backwards

Posted on February 9, 2019 by

Something about
losing small pieces –
an errant tooth,
the color in my hair,
the smell of autumn as
father held my hand,
fading vision /
a kidney butchered
under failing hands,
and
time

a butterfly
flapping backward
through time,
wrapping itself in strands

fading memories
wandering banter
stolen kisses amongst the shrubbery,
the illicit touch
bare skinned thigh

sweet honey,
do you remember
kneeling as voices passed close by,
my sigh?

the
cocoon wrapping
strand
upon
strand

time
that takes us,
piece by piece,
strand by strand

a caterpillar
arching backwards

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Burning Autumn

Posted on May 11, 2018 by

In the autumn, with leaves burning, safety
as children running
embers floating in the air.

And I am burning leaves again.

The tulips i pulled from your garden
how you say me hiding,
behind our pine.

Eyes wide.
Knowing that you were one person.
And about to become another.

How. You. Yelled.

And how it tore into me,
a torpedo, dropped bomb,
burrowing.

When I got into trouble again
I went into a house.

The neighbor with the old fan.
Brass cage.
Thick, cracked rubber blades.
Heavy.
Fissured dark,
Rocking back and forth on their axis
in the wind
in the window,

Back and forth.
Wishing they would rock into life,
That your will would gain power.

Still wishing.
It’s a false false,
after the fan
and the pine trees.

The hips thrusting.

Now they’re just hanging there,
fan blades,
setting sun in a window frame.

The house is set back,
in the pines.

 

Posted in Creative Writing, Poem, poetry, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 26 Comments