I don't think of myself as a poet. But over the years, now and again, I've been inspired to try to write a few. These are my attempts.
The Invitation
Come walk with me into my madness
Where dark and light and up and down
Mold and fold into each other
Where before and after have no meaning
And in and out are all the same.
Come peer with me into the pit
Where monsters squirm and demons dwell
And laugh and cry with me
While we poke at them with
Sticks and spears made out of words.
Delight with me where flesh is formless
Blow fire on the cinders of my soul
And kindle therein a conflagration
That some new Light might shine
Into the world.
Come dance with me upon the precipice
Of what is real and what is not;
As defined by only choices we decide;
And diving, fall, until we reach that place
Where everything is nothing inside out.
I am the woman who stands*
I am the woman who stands
at the end of a driveway
with a child
waiting for the school bus
to rumble up the road
while the sunlight flames
behind the trees.
I am the woman who waits
at the end of a driveway
looking for the school bus
to tumble down the road
spilling children
while the shadows lengthen
over the fields.
I am a woman who sees
At the end of a driveway
The seasons rise up,
Then fade;
And school-buses come and go
Churning children
Across the years.
*This poem was published in the Litchfield Literary Review in Spring of 2008.
For my friend, Debbie
How did it happen that the sun
Could choose to rise today?
How can the sky be bright and blue,
And all the world so gay?
The trees remain in full green leaf
The cars buzz to and fro.
The world remains as just it was,
A day - or less - ago.
But now you lie so still and cold,
Your race forever run,
Your eyes forever closed to mine;
Your suffering finally done.
Thus it is that mine begins;
I wonder how it is
That everything seems as it was
Before my world went black.
In memory of Lorraine Stanton
Today
I found our photograph
And remembered
That a year has passed
Since we were last
Together.
Today
I remembered
How "See you in September"
Turned out to be
Just a line from a song.
Today
I remembered
That the feast day of my name-saint
Is the day we hugged
Good-bye.
The Song of the Sacred Prostitute
When the sunlight comes spilling like gold coins
In the last red hours of day,
I rise from my low couch and hasten
Where road and desire meet.
Down terraces lush with green-life,
Hot stones beneath my feet,
Leading me to the broad river
Where men and desire meet.
On the razor edge of the evening,
On the tide of the night-jasmine’s scent,
I drape my Self over the stairway
Where dusk and desire meet.
I feel the weight of the eyes fall,
A hundred, a thousand, all bright
As the stars now studding the purple sky
Where night and desire meet.
Some turn away with a shudder,
Some turn away with a sigh
But few below don’t feel a yearning
Where flesh and desire meet.
There’s always the ones who come closer,
Lured by the curve of my thigh,
A glimpse of dark breast through a white veil,
The promise of all that might lie
Between the curves of my thighs. They come,
Up the broad steps from the street,
Red stones still warm from the heat
Where lust and desire meet.
To me, they come to surrender,
To offer themselves to Her call,
To give of themselves to the Goddess,
Where sacred and sex meet.
It’s my choice with whom I will worship,
It’s my choice who I shall lead
Back through the halls to my low couch
Where Goddess and desire meet.
Through the tide of the throng I see him,
The One the God sent to me.
Our eyes meet, I know him…
And he knows me.
I hold out my hand, he takes me
Under a fat moon’s gleam
Back through halls of the Temple
Where Love and desire meet.
My Self as a House
In my Self as a House
The sunlight pours through the windows,
And the scent of the ocean washes
Over the wide white sills.
In my Self as a House,
There are couches covered in
White slipcovers that
Smell of powdery white sand.
In my Self as a House
The sea roars in the distance and
Rosemary always blooms somewhere.
In my Self as House
There are books -lots of books
Loosely organized -
And a fireplace in every room.
The shelves are full of photographs
Of people who smile back at me
And the braided rugs on the wooden floors
Cushion every step.
In my Self as a House there are dogs,
Who woof and sigh and sleep
Who wag their tails upon my entrance
And guard the secrets of my soul.
In my Self as a House
There is a room
Somewhat gray and at times neglected
Where a poor Player struts and frets
The short hours so easily wasted.
This empty place, this hollow hall,
I recognize it still.
Ode to a Scorpio Moon
Moon-lady gleams like a bone in the night,
Rending the darkness with shadows so bright,
Lighting up poets and madmen like me,
Outshining the stars that hang on the trees.
Something Silly... just for Spring
Today I saw quite a wonderful thing,
There, on my window, the first bug of spring.
As I opened the door to shoo it away,
It flew off with a wink, and I heard it say:
"Oh, red are the roots of the cormorant tree,
And orange the sap that flows all through me,
Yellow's the color of all that is fair,
And green is a ribbon to wear in your hair.
Blue are the clouds when the moonlight is bright,
And indigo sings like a nightingale's flight;
Violet's the color of all that you are,
And clear is the love that shines through the stars..."
Thoughts after 9/11
Seventy-two virgins
Lined up and waiting...
Waiting for the heros
To enter Paradise...
Does Allah make them
Fresh each day like doughnuts,
Or only days
That innocents die?
