Category: poetry

  • call in Storm

    feral you, on petite, lithe and narrow
    dancing on the edge of betweens
    with stolen kisses on slender promise
    while others argue, deaf to your muse
    bound within the must and dust of
    parchment giants lining every room

    a wink, a smile, and a theft once more
    then,
    we raise twin hands, call in Storm

  • three o’clock moon

    she ghosted me through
    with otherside push
    and we danced 
    how we danced 
    all bone and lithe
    under the three o'clock
    moon 

    dead man's bells singing
    as she fell to arms weeping
    laughter staining corners 
    of eyes

    "what will you do? 
    what do you say?"

    "yes, i agree," replied i
    and slept on the mound
    given myself over...

  • bog bodies

    why phantom chasing
    through time's forest mists --
    an echoed tether stretched taut?

    hush now, and forget
    the voices are will o' wisps
    drawing to thorny bramble 
    tangled in foxfire's decay

    leave those bog bodies to lay
    reunions come soon enough

  • cautionary tales

    if my curses frighten
    it is only because
    they are wellearned

    cast a bit of salt
    and hold your poppet
    close and tight tonight

    morning will surely come
    as it must, mustn't it? 
    oh, my lovey love...

  • limbs and stones

    limbs and stones and
    sticks and bones and
    snicker snack those
    limbs will crack and
    bones will grind
    between twin stones
    while pricked with sticks
    while you are
    hagstone peering and
    hagstone fearing
    cold iron cold iron
    cold iron cold iron
    cold iron cold iron
    cold iron cold iron
    cold iron cold

  • drawn

    i stone of bone flint smoke
    i acorn of mandrake
    mistletoe and thorn 
    i mantic the needle pine --
    can you ache of sickle moon?
    then draw me down
    into your loam
    down into your song

  • tired long

    perhaps it is only
    because i am tired,
    if so
    i have been tired
    for a very long time
    but i have not
    been able to dream
    those kinds of dreams
    in a very long while, or
    i realize those dreams
    were never meant
    for me

    so i carve them away
    with rust-pitted blades
    at the end of a tired
    long day
    watching dreams
    slip down the drain

  • knowing, of sorts

    i hold to storm sky and
    give to barrow flint
    recalling all these
    dreams i am, knapped
    to a razors' edge
    at the scrape of bone

    chill, cast shattered
    each wonton drop
    for the fell heather,
    scree to quench the day

    i ache to not
    ache to know

  • bramble gate

    down along that night river
    just a wee drink to forget
    boots wet at the bank
    with these soles worn thin

    maybe, baby, i'm never
    gonna find my way back
    from this bramble gate
    cos two coins, i have, and
    some lives like mine are
    bought on the cheap

    cats laughing in lead*
    as they swap laps, boiling
    from red vinyl seats
    in a wrinkled mirror—
    searing way down

    already, i am ready
    to burn october, and
    maybe, baby, i don't
    want to find my way
    back to the place
    where i come from

    * the Pb type; ask Robert Plant about it if confused

  • dollhouse

    Picture this, I said by way of gestures, and less of word:

    dreamscapes & lemondrops
    discomfitures & dollhouse memory
         (i dress pretty one day)
              over tea, biscuits, the telly
                   and her rye
                   (always, there is rye)

    keepsake those now,
         those nicotine bones,
         those tar stained ivories
              all in tow with the
    mustperfumed gingham of a 
         silent generation
              slipping to broken stone