October poems (2)

10142016 dream

Something that gleams in the hot
bath water, sparks,
and my jerking thighs.

                                      You, falling
           from my lolling tongue and
                               quiet of cooling
                                             smoke.

*

october

I collect masks, laughs
like jittering candles, death
gasps of branches -
a wind brings crystals in the night.

September poems (11)

last-ness

our shadows straggle, lagging
on every brick and twig as
we chase gold down
graying streets











*

i couldn't say

how bodies gasp
how goosebumps glaze thighs
or how the mind, blind
earthworm, writhes and
crawls for rain
or how the skin explodes -
don't ask me to explain.

*

September (quiet autumn things)

With autumn, I'm a quiet thing,
the skirt of fog trailing as
engines whine alive. Go find me
among the grinning burs, restless
with some tale of me; in
cyclones of dust; my kiss
on every balmy blade of grass and
blushing leaf.
One day I'll shake the bones out of these trees.
I know that you want more from me.
But today I watch the red sun
between seams of rain clouds, curled
up in some spot of warmth,
a quiet thing with autumn - let me sleep.

*

do the sweetest thing

love me like a seed a blighted

sun can nourish too; see that

I'll bloom and bloom and 

bloom

*

09152016

girlhood's an

egg that binds

flailing baby

limbs. Ladies

emerging all air and

silk feathers, 

remember, remember, 

the grunt blunt in 

you, your hairy back, your

knuckles only sinking

on this soft beach. 

*

2010

follow the gray path

someday to where the

copper-topped clock 

ticks; sit

on a gargoyle's tongue

once your lungs have

gargled out and

dried

but this moment, like a drop

of rain, runs and runs

down hills and out

past streetlights

and the sun - go there for now. 

*

muse

Want me, explode me. Splatter my bones

on museum walls. Worship me - 

lips, rosebuds never blooming; eyes, winter

sky diamonds. Never know me, but 

speak of me, dream of me, embalm me

like the "i" in "extraordinary" - a syllable you

swallow to make it work - and call it love. 

*

last of summer

she straggles in dapples

of sun across cold fields

dragging her feet, waiting

to meet southbound 

mallards. 

*

I'm a twitch
of rage, a pinch
of anger, puckered
like a volcano, erupting
a moment or two.

*

periods (ongoing)

bent double, I birth
islands floating
red across the warm
bath water

twisting papaya
threads; a split
and gutted fruit

days like a single moaning
wave pass me, nudging

i swallow an ocean this way, gulp gulp

*

092616

yellow evening wedging
into the gloom - a lemon slice,
hints of light this heavy
autumn day

August poems (5)

autumn came yesterday,
golden dress cloaked.

*

rose song

Sweet flower,
make diamonds of
how yearning cools
on waiting lips.

*

170816

let's dig holes through
the days that wait
for us, nest love there
out of time.

*

19082016

you wait for joy like
the moon's gray spots
to fill; galaxies overflow and

spill, child, blossomed
from that dust.

*

where the river changes

I knew you,
River, you were
a kinder thing -

     what sunless wild tore
     your tongue into
     this spitting froth -

     knotted with your heart,

     what swallowed stone
     made home now
     grates to frantic grit

the song that
held me
gently once?

*