burning-moon

found an old poem

2009-07-08T19:02:00.001-07:00

while looking through my files:

Without Ravensong

Raven's used to nest here once,
beaks full of lucky coins and sunshine.

They'd play for hours, dip and twirl,
then curl against my breast and rest.
Tell stories to the pearl moon
of daytime colours which night light
turns to grey.

Tales of children crouched beneath flailing fists,
of beds pressed against virgin doors
while angels hail, suspended beyond the window,

they wove a rainbow corona around the lunar orb
but now my ravens have flown away into the solar burn.
The moon is torn asunder and bleeds silent rivers
over my skin
scored with ravensong.

Support

2009-06-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

I reach for what I want,
stretch far beyond my fingertips,

lean way out
over the precipice,

knowing I cannot fall
from the circle of your arms.

Rose Gold

2009-06-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

It's hard to say
whether the wedding band
on her finger wore down,
or the flesh
softened and faded
from beneath it,

but the circlet has thinned
to a wisp of rose gold
that swings and slides,
threatens at any moment
to slip away.

Jenny Craig

2009-05-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Jenny Craig lady
has displaced her weight
to her
fat
white
S.U.V
overflowing
the parking space
next to us

Blackberry

2009-05-20T17:31:00.001-07:00

Breeze musses red-petalled poppies,
scatters clouds, insubstantial as smoke.
And see the crow, crouched over my bed
as though it has a right to be there.

Oil seeps from its feathers, greasing
the visage of a holy man across the sheets,
coveting the essence that drives me.

January blackberries have dried
to gritty clusters on branches
in the fall to winter.

They crust the bushes
like eyes of sugary crows,
sweetness and decay the essence,
fluidity absorbed into flakes
of petal skeletons that rise,
'as the crow flies,'
on the skip of breeze.

Correspondence

2009-05-14T17:35:00.000-07:00

She lies in her envelope of blankets-
letter of skin, signature
of bone.

He reads her like sign language,
stamps his kiss upon her -
a seal of wishes
in blackness and privacy.

He'll fill her belly full of light
and send her safe
through the cavern of dark.

How They Fall

2009-05-14T17:21:00.000-07:00

Angels fall like plungers in syringes,
like mercury, like the fists of a man
as he beats his wife.

They land hard and with precision,
so the bruises won't show,
so no one will see what they create.

Friends of my children fall in the street
at the plunge of a syringe. They fall
into the arms of angels,
they have created nothing-
they leave no mark.

Teddy Bear General

2009-05-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

He's made for battle.
Years of marching, climbing,
full kit 10k runs, digging in,
and bugging out, have toughened
muscles to teak.

His chest is wide enough
for a field of medals
and his heart commemorates
fields of poppies where previous
generations of soldiers rest.

He’s a marksman rifleman,
when I asked him to show me
some self defence, he looked a bit blank
and said: ‘well ... but
soldiers aren’t trained that way ...’

It took me a while to work out
what he meant -
he can kill in seven different ways.

But he holds me as if I was a Faberge egg,
and he sits every night painting me
a tiny teddy bear army.

His hair reflects the light
like the glint from a helmet,
and I almost see a ripple of silver
as his charger prances alongside his chair.

Unrest

2009-04-30T21:20:00.001-07:00

On sapphire days
she emmanates waves of heat.

His kiss fills her mouth
with light-

persuasion she cannot evade.
She stays until darkness shimmers

hollows into cheek and neck,
undermines her gloss.

All the things she's laid
so carefully behind

rise up inside.

Last Call

2009-04-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

Trumpets sound.
I open the bedroom curtains
to look outside.
Lights criss-cross the sky
in every direction.
Buildings begin to collapse,
tier upon tier.
Spores grow from the bed,
crusty and gelatinous tentacles
wave from among them.
Loud cries and wailing
rises up all around
and changes to shrieks of terror
as a dark horse gallops across the sky.

We have collectively imagined the apocalypse
so many times - finally
we have brought it into being.

Honeyboned

2009-04-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

i
The animal urge is strong,
see how it stretches
its jaw with longing,

girds its loins with oil
and rouses hunger's glistening
pulse and throb. Even the weeds
are sprightly, green with vigour.

Among the vibrant grass is a cat.
Long soft smokey fur
and khol-rimmed, golden eyes.

She crouches over her prey,
lets the wing fan open,
allows a small fluster,
then catches the ruffed throat
to her again.

She scents the bones already -
toasted honey.

ii
There are dead birds
in the next room.
No heads, just wings
and tails, sometimes
laid in rows,
but also scattered.

The wings are cloud white,
hunched, as though lifting glory.
Here and there a surprise
of small mauve curls, like grapes,
have spilled from underneath.

A man is shouting -
shouting -
waving his broken penis
in my face.

I don't know how to fix it.
All I can think of
is to leave as fast as I can -
and the rows
of beautiful corpses.

Weasle

2009-04-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

You are a poem with
a mouth full of sand.

Blexel Skimpolonius,
you plodded rezel,
I'm a lurch n scaffold
near your hurt.

Intall stretch n stretch,
but hush n posals
bode no good.
Weezall fried,
allied to smoke and fire tongs.

Soft n soft n cushy velve
heart n swells
a link to morphy
us'n dwells.

We sweet suckling, burn
within the belly brown,
the earth,
and hold.

A metal orchid opens claws
and blooms the scarlet phrase
of hell.

conversation with myself

2009-04-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

This tree, wild with meat thorns,
once held the glory of god,
ignited for Moses.

See how it retracts
from the cracks of heaven
where light blades down.

See the twigs and branches,
twined in their frenzy of disarray,
a leafless, godless, bouquet.

So thinking about Moses
and the thorn bush,
weren't the Israelites cursed
after they made golden images
and worshiped them instead of God
when they went through the desert
to the land of Canaan?

I think so. Maybe.
Weren't they cursed to wander forever
and never have a land to call their own?

And isn't that what's happened to them?
They've been fighting for as long as I can remember-
cast out of so many places.

But the Jewish people don't accept Christ's coming,
or any of the new testament do they?

I don't think so.
But would you accept something that makes
much of your belief system obsolete?

So, God said that the Jewish people
were proud and stiff-necked didn't he?
But supposedly he made man in his own image.
So maybe he didn't like what he saw of himself
reflected back from mankind?

Do you still believe in God?

I don't think I believe in the sort of God
that looks like an old man with flowing beard etc.
I don't think God has a physical body,
unless he chooses to don one.
In fact, I don't think of God as a persona,
more as a set of qualities,
or as an energy with self awareness?

I feel a bit scared to say I don't believe in God.
Lightning might strike me.

That whole God thing
certainly sparked off a lot of shit
in the world didn't it?
It's like as soon as God chucked out the Israelites
it left the field wide open for a whole lot of other people
to start auditioning for the role of 'God's Chosen People.'

Yep. And how much blood has been spilled
all down the centuries
in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And the diifference of opinion
over whether they're three or one.
I mean, what difference does it really make?

And now that we've screwed the earth -
now that those four angels have given up holding back
the four corners of the wind
and gone home for tea -
what was it all for now?

NB: I hope this doesn't offend anyone's religious beliefs. It was just a conversation I was having with myself
after I wrote the little poem at the beginning, so I thought I'd write it down and think about it for a while.
I have no religious persuasion. Don't believe in organised religion and have no agenda to peddle. Just thinking out loud.

The Biscuit Man

2009-03-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

Formed in a dark kitchen
by an angry chef -
beware of the biscuit man
with his pudgy corners
and ginger smile.

His yellow eyes are milky
like a clouded night sky.
He's killed a three-and-a-half
year old with a kick to the head,
and he'll kill you too
with his wish to be dead.

Take care of the child
with the cuckoo mother
who throws her own baby
out of the nest-
biscuit man's prey
is every child.

If you let him in bed
there'll be crumbs ... crumbs,
please,
slam him back in the oven
and let him burn.

Honeyboned

2009-03-30T13:32:00.000-07:00

The animal urge is strong,
see how it stretches
its jaw with longing,

girds its loins with oil
and rouses hunger's glistening
pulse and throb. Even the weeds
are sprightly, green with vigour.

Among the vibrant grass is a cat.
Long soft smokey fur
and khol-rimmed, golden eyes.

She crouches over her prey,
lets the wing fan open,
allows a small fluster,
then catches the ruffed throat
to her again.

She scents the bones already -
toasted honey.

Through the Eye of the Needle

2009-03-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

How the days strobe past,
unremarkable
in a light-trashed sky.

In the house on the hill
the lady has foresaken doctors
and returned to belief
in candles and beads.

Drips of candlewax
collect like sweat
on the top lip of hosannas
and hail Mary, the sky
is full of grace.

How the lady burns
as she turns on her rich sheets.
All her coins will weigh so heavy
on her eyes-
pressing her into her grave.

Salt

2009-03-30T13:07:00.000-07:00

There's a scatter of salt
over the polished wood table.

We plant our elbows in it,
swish curves and rims with cuffs,

make galaxies and nebulas,
whisk it from fingers and palms.

Like gods we sprinkle
planets carelessly.

The waitress clears our plates
and wipes away all trace.

So easily, our small
saltine universe erased.

away

2009-03-30T13:05:00.000-07:00

it's a blue day

day moon

white balloon

in the sky

flies me away

The Fatherland

2009-03-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

is a place where fathers
have hammerhands.

They build play houses
and break the glass on doors

when small daughters accidentally
lock themselves in.

They wash hair without ever
letting soap sting eyes,

smooth tangles
from bird's nest hair

and tuck tuckered out
baby girls in bed.

Then, sometime after
the first wife's funeral

and the second wife's
inaugural ball

they drop discarded daughter
on her head.

Fishmonger

2009-03-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

You have your fish eye
and your fish mouth,
your spew and swallow of fish -

speak in fish tongue
the gollum, wordless,
with only sounds of water
gulped and spat,

and scales you strip
from my hide and weigh -
you weigh me
till I'm weightless.

A ton of shining silver
arced over bubbling steps
of surf.

Slyboots

2009-03-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

Isn't it cunning,
with its demure outline
and bewildering array of doors.

Yuo'd never guess
the scarlet lingerie
trimmed with glossy bows

beneath the pleased to meet
and greet with renaissance
skirt and jersey.

its inane twitterings
disarm my battlements.

National Poetry Day

2009-03-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

the rounds of glass
reflect the light
and the care with which
they were polished
on the matt black cube table
between the matt black
cubed couches
from which poets release
winged words to fly about the room
eyes tearbright and lost in myth
breath fluttering in bird breast

the tulips in the gloss vase
with their orange cloth flame
slowly catch fire

Photographic Sex

2009-03-26T19:57:00.000-07:00

See how their bodies
bleed and boil
into each other
in seamless curls
of steam and skin.

The black and white
stretches and speeds curves
into fast corners,
indistinguishable poses-

no unseemly hair,
just a head of tousled straw
and a starving hunger.

What it is

2009-03-24T14:09:00.000-07:00

This morning I found a place,
in the center of my back,
directly behind my navel,
that I never knew was there.

Straight and strong, no
roundness of extra flesh
when I pressed my hand against it.

The discovery made me realise
that all the times in my life
I've felt unloved or unlovable,
I always held this kernel around which
energy flowed and formed.

As a baby, still awash
in the language of stars,
I began to collect knowledge,
to gather experiences of my new world:

my father's hand,
warm, enfolding mine;
my mother's voice;
the seersucker brunchcoats,
my sister's and mine the same,
but in different colours;
the bars of my cot, a first house -

occasional dots of colour. History
building into a life, the same way
any other's does, but unique to me.

I realised, with this new part of myself
found today, that my days
are an accumulation of dots,
and all I can hope to truly know
is myself.

Gabriel's Passage

2009-03-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

It was there the fiend slid his dagger -
into the narrow apex between the angel's wings.

As the pearl feathers dip
a garnet runnel licks, flickers
groundward -

fire is the nature of angel blood.

The moon makes a half rice wafer
between night clouds that conceal the stars
and streak the sky like tracks of tears.

As he lands on green earth,
stench of black oil from the serpent rises
to fill his nostrils for the first time.

It is winter - grim - kissed with ice.
Gabriel's sword craves, and his bright heart
rises like a silver fish
from the morass.