A moment of flight & In memory of the storm

These poems are very much connected...

A moment of flight

I watched her put on the white dress

and ruin her manicure

because she could not keep her

twisting in her lap

hands still

a wedding cake mess

with too much lipstick

and a groom who knew

as much as she did

and she was never me

All she ever dreamed in the devout hours

of page turn prayers

was of the way love might feel

undiluted raw-root and essence

For her, it had only ever been

soul silent unrequited

slow blink and look away love

for Orthodox faith had failed

her, and there was no space

the plans had been in place for years

written, signed and sealed

in her yearly birthday cards

the blessing to grow up and build

a 'binyan adei ad'

a Jewish edifice of a home

based on the laws of the Torah

the rest of her life was details

and thirteen years elapsed

as wife in skirt and a wig

while "man tracht un God Lagt"

The plans of men rose and fell

the laughter of God

flowed as always

along with the woman's

profound quiet loneliness

A soul stranger to the man

called husband and Father

to the children

even wrapped in each others

arms, him inside her

closer then hell fire's

breath on her neck

she could never meet his eyes

curled up alone

in her rib cage-bred heart

that beats the ice drum

of wrong, wrong, wrong

and she knows now

with the clarity of sunrise

and now he knows too

soak her to the skin

as a burnt offering

in the temple of torrents

and tears that cleanse her of sin

for that rather then this existence

of shrouds and lies and

God sanctioned emptiness

rises and roars in her ears

and her throat

the scream of a summer hurricane

she climbs and she climbs

up the steps of the building

and plans to leap

and to fly for a moment

What is life without truth, without love

without touch, without dreams

and a moment of flight is

almost

like falling

in love

In memory of the storm

Somehow swept

into the paper heart maelstrom

a handwritten fragment of a

shredded love letter

seized in a barbed wire whirligig

and me, the battered veteran

wept for rationality

The surge, was wicked,

sharp and savage

to love then-like a love-that has never loved

a spiral sensual seismic need

so keen it pulsed

like the minute hand of a schoolroom clock

waiting for the bell

an illicit kiss of shock

as stones thrown by my neighbors

met their mark, and matter

and shattered the windows

of my soul in audible

stage whispers

the screech of ice as it clinks and falls

flailing into a glass of water

and shard blades spread and splinter

in slow motion

and bite into flesh that wills it

in a kaleidoscopic pattern

like a hand sewn quilt

for the lovers bed

Pick up a handful of stones

hurl them true at my breast and bones

so I can watch the bruises bloom

a legible testament on my skin

that aches with love

Please,

I want to see the bright sheen

of my blood on your hands

and your lips,and on your cheekbones

so beautiful, in hot blush

Touch me, my love,

thrust me into the fire

and the flame of the forge

and immolate this seethe and softness

extinguish mercilessly into ash

as I try to breathe

hurt me, my love

do what you will

for that I can endure

more then this

who were you,

with your tempered fire

a blacksmith in the foundry

you held what should have been

nigh untouchable

a precious metal

that yielded so reluctantly

I was a mere molten glow

in the sacred trays

amongst the gorgeous embers

purified in fire, but

your hands were idle

your bellows laid aside

and you simply looked away

What of these witless on the wind

tears that streamed from my eyes

like a fallen bottle of virgin oil

and tell me what has become

of my wise wolf woman eye

and my sensible spirit

of the raven?

I fell back into the rain of obsidian rocks

as they flew from the clouds

into eyes so full of dust and ghosts

that I might not ever know

the shaken to the core, oak tree

huddled under the howls of thunder

curled arms around knees

when the sky is no longer a shelter

we all appear like dream sequences

of angels in the exquisite

purple crackles of flash bulb lightning

before we fade forever

into the gravid heavens

and love, my raven

flew into the storm

This is the poem I finally tell you

This is one of the hardest poems I have ever written..

I did it in twenty minutes, without overthinking or letting myself censor my heart...

I cried...

This is the poem I finally tell you

I am two

a mere piece of a person

and I stand against the wall

wait for a moment the teacher turns

then slide out the door like a butter moon

down stairs, freckled stone

and away to where the dandelions grow

I do not care for the preschool soprano

circles of the teacher

singing prayers

or the way she makes rules for art

or the bible stories

that have to be heard without pacifiers

I am six

my Nana is garnishing the tree

and tinsel alights on plastic boughs

snow constellations and colors

red like fairy tale hearts

green of magic potions

sapphire blue and sword silver

and the gold of fools

Mom doesn't know

that Nana tells me of Jesus

Mom at her shabbos table

full of guests and food and hospitality

it almost makes sense

except it is drowned in the feel of

duty and rules and

synagogue so tedious

slow and foreign Hebrew litanies

only when they sing

do the chords strike my belly

and why doesn't God understand

my English?

and Nana is not wrong

and Mom is not wrong

they both need spectacles

or something

to see clearly

because none of it matters

but light and color and feel

which drips from the crust

of the heavens and glimmers down

like icicles at the corner of eyes

when you know and see

I am nine

now

and he is going to die

the life fades from his blue eyes

my eyes

dusk fades in my spirit garden

and the religious laws

seem so much more stupid

for him to abide now

a fucking waste of time

when even small tasks

are so difficult

and there is no time left

but there is love,

so much love

and love is all

I am ten

and Nana is mute

her words eaten by a stroke serpent

a giant theft in the night

and she looks at me

with the blue eyes

of a wounded sparrow

my eyes

Where is the hot white warm net

of all that exists in heaven and earth

where is the dove

and the owl of the spirit

that calls to the pull of the tides

and the music crescendos

and the scent of cinnamon and flowers

and the neck of a woman I love

where are the wings of the angels

as they brush the babies cheeks

where is the tree and the bastion

and the rock and the edge of coherence

where is eternity and its gentle hands

the eyes that know

the love of it all

that brings me to my knees

with the embrace

and all I cry for

this is my God

A quill as sharp as daggers- a poem

can I return to the imprint of

what never was for me

but was intended in the wishes

of those who dream those

cat and mouse cataclysms

mourners in their grief wagons

cats eye marbles,

a whole bag of them

to roll in the neat lines

in the sand

but I can't play with the boys

it is not allowed

mother earth's magnet

pulls lightning bolts

out of the spiral of the spheres

into her body

like fingernails scraping

the back of the earth

there are ridges of dirt

in the rooted lines

on her palms

and her wrists are

perfumed with

jasmine and

pulsating veins

I got my fingernail torn out

by a Doctor when

I was four

he was allowed

It was infected

from clay stuck in there

because I got carried away,

in play

I tried to run on little legs

futile, he threw a sheet over me

the reeking, hospital blankness

suffocating

he could not know

about those dreams

in black and white

where I got buried alive

again and again

he could not know

He stabbed a needle

into my wound

I don't know if it worked,

the anesthetic

but I felt it all

I died and was reborn

out of the altar of agony

in my thumb

and I was changed

just like that

fruit on the ground

as surely as

a witless madman with a sickle

wreaking havoc on the harvest

this is your heritage

your flesh and your blood

your wine

your elemental

your air tipping with rain

I write on the mind

of a witch

with a quill

as sharp as daggers

that still bears

the scent of a wing

on the wind

I sometimes have a grin

as wicked as a

torn throat

Pax- Beggar of Moss- a poem

The beggar of moss

a basin of blood before her,

for quarters

and pax

the languid alchemy of hips sway

conjures up a fleet of

sailing ships

sensation

I watch incense burn

smoke curls from lips tranquil

and blue

Whale call to the substance

umbilicus, a crucible of ambergris

melancholy music

like the leavings

of a glass of brandy by the fire

the exquisite need to paint

to the sighs of it all

the hair on the brush dances

with restless color

and spreads like longing

across the canvas

beads of coherence forms breath

bestowed as air inside bubbles blown

by a seer child

who watches them fly

into the firmanent

with the intensity of a bonsai tree

who bears the lion heart of a redwood

with sure footed boots on streets of

grey-eyed stone the composer looks

but never sees

He looks away

as cupids bow rubs against

the strings of a violin

it trembles and cries

like a gorgeous lamb

a eulogy to anguish so ancient

at the requisite rending

without hesitance the strong

and smooth steps towards the furnace

and the fall

into the beds of consummations

with the fluid fed wick

and incantations

All that is ever taken is scent and soul

and the fall into the beds

of childbearing, the scribe

always seals the birthright

of subjugation or marks mastery

without virtue

for those who do not believe

the twelve signs, are mere glitter

a shower of star constellations

crenelations

notches on a belt, on the walls

and towers of ivory with beards of ivy

in the nooks

coarse chest hair sprigs in crows nests

and water pools as the rain falls

into runnels caught in jars

like dreams of danger and druids

sickles and olive oil and garlic cloves

hanging with potatoes in hessian sacks

with sheaves of wheat and barley

staples shared in chipped bowls

and the fall into the beds

of death in glass bottles

from an apothecary with elixir brews

and tincture

but crowns form in the flames

with the candles lament

knitting prophecies like socks

in the wax