Even the Dog's Crying

I thought that I would never love, then you thickened
every lean thing inside of me, even my bones
flushed with too much marrow, and I marveled
as this glass girl melted and burned blissful, unknowing
she was damned.

Now, the seasons silvering between us elongate
like corseted spleens, thin and frail without breath,
constrained as empty rooms that narrow quietly
overnight, compact with stale air and the rumpled sheets
of hysterical dreams.

Why couldn't I be born a bird, bereft, yet nescient?
Or the slim wing I see at night, lying with you like a lover,
curled around your fragile flesh somewhere deep
in North Africa, the last thing in that wasteland left
knowing your name.



First in a series (perhaps?) of poems inspired by a WWII air force locket I acquired recently. They were given by the airmen to their girlfriends and wives before leaving for war. The reoccurring question: who was she that had this locket first?

Angela Carter

"His hair was marigolds or candle flames....

They were standing on opposite sides of the fallen queen. He lightly set his feet on the stone buttocks and sprang across, and, seized by some eccentric whim in mid air, raised his black p.v.c. arms and flapped them, cawing like a crow. Everything went black in the shocking folds of his embrace. She was very startled and near to sobbing.

'Caw, caw,' echoed his raincoat.

'Don't be frightened,' he said. 'It is only poor Finn, who will do you no harm.'

She recovered herself a little, though she was still trembling. She could see her own face reflected in little in the black pupils of his subaqueous eyes. She still looked the same. She saluted herself. He was only a little taller than she and their eyes were almost on a level. Remotely, she wished him three inches taller. Or four. She felt the warm breath from his wild beast's mouth softly, against her cheek. She did not move. Stiff, wooden and unresponsive, she stood in his arms and watched herself in his eyes. It was a comfort to see herself as she thought she looked.

'Oh, get it over with, get it over with,' she urged furiously under her breath.

He was grinning like Pan in the wood. He kissed her, closing his eyes so that she could not see herself any more. His lips were wet and rough, cracked.It might have been anybody, kissing her, and, besides, she did not know him well, if at all. She wondered why he was doing this, putting his mouth on her own undesiring one, softly moving his body against her. What was the need?"

from The Magic Toyshop

Lupine Love

Say again my name like a starving man, beastly
shadows clinging to your skin, my shame

a mask, all rosy cheeks and raw lips from falling
into this yearning that tastes of blood and teeth.

Wild, you used to wear the false shape so well,
hell hidden for five years until I too caught fire

with craving. I still ache from transformation,
cloak shredded for the baseness of fur and forest floor.

You come and go, but bitten I remain, cursed,
world warped crimson through lunar fog, thick and feral.

Even now as you prowl on across the plain, I whisper
the wind to rush through bare aspen branches,

breath through bone, marrow music calling back
a creature made to break, I pray longing to be broken.

Near to the Wild Heart

Have you ever found something outside yourself, something you had no hand in creating, and seen a piece of your soul? Is it not beautiful and horrifying both in the same moment?

All-call for the Carnal Circus

This troublesome lasciviousness --
a daylight night terror with tenacity.

Smirks and steel strings are predators
for girls who pretend at being pure of heart

while dreaming mad melodies; nightly,
these little unpruned poppets merrily doff

their fears for feral Russian lullabies. Watch,
as in the still of safe suburban slumber,

the sweetly savage-eyed devil clambers
out of his portrait and under the covers

where white silk Barbie dreams
are waylaid by wicked wanderlust.

It's just an itch,
hitch a ride --

on the highway to hell,
which is also his mustache.



(for Eugene)

"We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them."

Anais Nin

from the past, out of time

Your bruised and swollen mouth
Could still read me poetry
Bourbon in the South with
Lightning bugs all over the veranda
Your eyes are like those of an animal
But, oh god, your mouth,
Your pretty mouth
And milky skin
Hands like an artist
Long and thin
With ink under the fingernails
Hinting at your transgressions
I am wearing a cotton dress
From 1969
Muse in another decade
Long forgotten by time
But hands still clutching damp thighs
No more than a girl
The june bugs are buzzing
No cities before our eyes
The sky slowly drains of light
But the thick swelter lies heavy
And the crimson sun drags down the night
Your eyelashes brush my neck
Just like a world-weary child

"At two o'clock in the morning, no one is to blame."

Amy Bloom

Hearts speak with the tongues of children.

awaiting

those eyes
spun ice
winter tundra eyes
quiet lashes
upon lashes ink
stained fingers
my poet a flutter
in November
twilight electric
aspen leaves
over prairie plains
those eyes I drew
from memory I drew
as my dream
I drew as smoke rising
from my lips
my poet passed
within miles & I lost
a breath
the cello stirred
sleeping birds awoke
the Lady of Shalott turned
from Lancelot
for those Black Sea eyes
in everything