Poetry

Hungry

I will not starve a dark wolf

She too is hungry

She too was born of Earth, of starlight, and the endless space between

She too has a place here

I love the White Wolf yes

But my secret

Is that I love the rich-furred wild Black Wolf equally

I need her

And I want her

It is she who protected me

And kept me alive

When the rabid packs were circling.

She stood beside me, teeth bared and coat warm

In the coldest lonely winters

She belongs here too

And has a home within my breast

I will not starve her because she frightens you

And you would have what you call purity only

I will not betray her because you have forsaken what is wild

I will not forget her

Even as she walks unseen in sea of blind men

Her heart beats just as yours does

And she is made of the world

And belongs as every tree needs a shadow

Every mountain a cave

Every ocean her depths

Every day its stunning death into night

I am the mother of every wolf

And I fold this dark one in next to her sister the light

Both suckled with the milk of love

Both mine

I claim her.

Ensuen~o

How the wind as she flies

Up the cliffs, from the salty

Dove waves, stormy mar 

de cortez

Ocean mami

To kiss many besos

My throat

In this Latin dream,

Ensueno, 

with ene

Her music sweet-sliding.

How gray in the sky

Competes

With the ocean

To signal the storm

Her darkness still forming

How violent the pink

Of bouganvilla y fachada

How deep dive the dolphin 

To unknowns with bravada

My window is crooked

The glass, it is drafty

I hum out of tune

With a salted Sol melody

I tell you of nothing

But bring you here with me

I love all of everything

If only this instant

The palms, they are quaking

The maelstrom is building

I dance in monsoons

My dress, wet and clinging

You sigh for my body

Our sweat is commingling

We love like the mourning

Of doves in the evening

The dogs, they are howling

Iguanas up-downing

The streets though they’re cobbled

are trash-filled and dusty

My home, it is nowhere

While church bells are ringing

Our lives, they are melting

While the children are singing

Slip now between waves

Through the portal

Of dreaming

Come here, be my witness

The door, it is closing

I laugh, while my hair flies

Wild as the ocean

I love you in secret

And pretend it is nothing

We sway with el vino

But no one is watching

The moon calls the blackbird

And mountains are burning

We cry for the poor ones

And then we go numb again

I know that you love me,

We fight, and make up again

Leap now, through the crack

In the sky

It is narrowing

Our home, she has died

And the dream may be ending.

The Middle

i have been grieving

while the moon grows fat

i have been doing Nothing & Everything

but grieving

Meanwhile a reservoir

an aqueduct, of mourning

steadily rises below

i will say Anything Beautifully & Mysteriously

but not so plain

Plain is as it is

this Dreamland we have come to

i’m sorry, you could say,

sorry, but i cannot Dream this

for your eyes

or sing it for your ears

my countless flow of cells

receive the flood of this Time

without warning or explanation.

i’m sorry but you

cannot

ever understand

though if you open the ears of your body

you may Know.

I keep forgetting her name

Because she has forgotten her name, her

Heart

Lying there on the table

“Look” she says, it is broken

She can’t see it

The starlight winging it 

To the center of her

She can’t see, just yet

That it is a jellyfish

Swimming floating wandering

The sea of her life

Tethered to home

Anisoptera

Dragonfly landed twice

On the silver edge

Of my laptop

Modern times seem

Unromantic

But anisoptera lingered

And loved here

Just the same

Later, two wasps fell

From the sky

Locked in battle, or maybe love

Maybe both

On my table

I can hear the freeway

From this suburban cafe

And yet Apocrita

And her foe

Burst through

Now ten or so

Starlings

Dance and flutter awkwardly

On these berried branches

Listening to poetry

Ignoring the exhaust

Racausly flaunting

Their Sturnidaen freedom

Once I dreamed

That every painting

Is a portal

To another world

Ecfrenus, thank you

For the reminder

The story of initiation

I don’t remember a home

Other than a watery view of stars

A pleading

And longing

The cavernous heart-place calling my soul back

So I lied

And i betrayed myself

And so i died

And woke up screaming

And so it began. 

The places I failed away from

The failing that save my life

The sacred solitude where I knew myself

A little

The stripping away of all that danced on the surface

Of my love that was so much deeper

Than I knew

The distance from those ocean depths.

I am a mystery to myself.

Why should you know me

Take down my weapons

And throw me naked into 

A world

That is real

Tell me to wake up

Or die

Both.

To live

In the shadows

Where i can see

And don’t have to lie

Where I can hear the trembling heartbeat

In all things