Scorpionic
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The forest is old
obscured in ghosts and mysteries
Come out in the wild night with me
dressed in the stars
Serenades from the Moon
intoxicate air aged in adventure
Exult with me in pleasure
Far from decay of leaves, sad savagery
*
That strange stained light in the darkness
Silence, a pause in cycling
Isolate
Tender reflection in the settling sky
a throne to reign
weary tantrum waves below
*
I can relate
the deals reality baits me with
so overrated
I’m left unsated
staring at fate’s rear
Now escapes me
running into future skyscapes
holding yestereves
stiff and strained
closer than this moment
as it slips
into one more
I seek that honest sigh,
that joining smile that art
of distilling meaning
Pictographs along the wheel
to distract from
its unceasing
crawl
*
Caught
an instant
surrounded in space
demanded in time
tells the reaper
continuity
is in the eye
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On the Threshold of Silence
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Absorbed by rabble noise my tired voice trails unheard.
How can it matter what I say?
A fool, I record hard travel truth in written word
to scatter as if for use someday.
*
Realize that my eyes see uncommon visions.
My mind seeks to find unlikely decisions.
My lips may seem gripped, but that’s not done on purpose.
What I know doesn’t show on my nondescript surface.
*
How can I explain,
entice suffice to hear,
what isn’t always clear?
Notes of refrain
jumbled with pain;
I must be insane.
Lyrics
play with my inner ear,
keeping me guessing.
Burden or blessing?
Of course you don’t care.
Just turbid notes on passing air.
*
Weaving through aether,
permeating atmosphere,
essence I ache to share
already everywhere.
You never heard it from me.
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Scorpio Blue Moon
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Snakes & stones
& Dr. Bones.
Worlds of lies
within my eyes.
A chance to fake
a drunken wake
for romance forsaken.
Doorways to more ways
to choose
Fool’s paradise.
Ritual demands payment
naked supplication
rhymes intoned thrice
for Momma
for Poppa
for babes wandering in the woods
from salvation.
Deep in enchanted mist
touch the veil
along the cortex
dissolving reason.
Points detach from
space-time-memory.
The puzzle reformulates.
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Infocontainment
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Valerie Plame, Valerie Plame
The very fact that we all know your name
is a crime.
So, who’s doing time?
American splendor,
a pop carnavale.
The greedy get famous.
The poor rot in jail.
The glitter and star light
is doing its job:
distract and divide while
they rape, kill and rob.
*
Is that a pimple on my face?
Oh, I’m such a big disgrace!
I can’t keep it all together as I should.
The only explanation’s I’m no good.
I want too much. I need to much.
I never learned to mind my p’s and q’s.
I didn’t toe the line and pay my dues.
Now my opportunities
ooze beyond reach,
bleed out,
disappear.
What am I even saying?
If the right people hear, surely
despair’s a treasonous crime.
And, unlike those Whitehouse lackeys
I may well end in a cell doing time.
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Persephone’s Breakthrough
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This is where the idea is born.
*
soft green meadows gently disappearing into fall
sounds of dying, scent of woodfire and candlelight
no separation between what is becoming
accept and be revealed
*
summer’s wild adventures
spring was a torrent of clarity, precious rain,
Earth coarse, ready for fecund pleasure
Queen of night in daylight’s realm
obsessed in flowering
roses and daffodils
valleys and nubile hills
all is vanity and laughing vice
“But, Mother, I’m not a nice girl.
I’m a creature of the breeze; secure in shadow;
alive in the cutting edge of the storm.”
Myth in revision
standing at the back of the playground
learning theater, tucking metaphors
through interstices of sense and dream
In spring, kicking stones along sandy riverbeds
reading the classics
expecting valor, glory, dramatic lines
*
Summer deceives
the stink of rot where flowers bloom
ancient feuds, retaliations, rage
tyrannosaurus feeding future waste,
absorbing a zeitgeist of want, of predation
*
within greed swollen seed infectious fear
search for further truth
mythology frustrates, curls back on its own ash
burn with hazy summer wine and dance
feet connecting dust to sky — but only in designated
spheres, with designated peers, self-selected inhibitions
sweat out poison into the ground; now, eat the bounty
midsummer farce, far from clear, far from sunrise,
counting out the chimes as if time were treasure
silly summer madness as if what matters
is so circumscribed, so predictable
*
Early autumn firelight
reminiscent of witch hunts, ghosts of cavalry,
dire warnings and endless hide and strike
the game, the funhouse, turns deadly
sanctuary calls, demanding sacrifice
the noble phoenix fed on frankenseed
can not rise
*
skies descend, dark mirroring
smell the woodsmoke, intoxicating, soft and sweet
masks the taste of bitter bile, secret vomiting
starving despite harvest’s gay array of treats
faded, nearly blind, falling in and out of
shamanic fever, primeval native dancers beyond sight,
ripple of tribal beat at the periphery
ecstatic vision dark/light/agony and brilliant breaks
starbright constellations
*
Traversing worlds
seasons, years, moments of clarity
no need to travel, to invent boundaries
dance of the highlands warmth and sustenance
permeates
makes whole
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HERE AT THE BAR AGAIN
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Here at the bar again, bar nothing to me.
Deepest Scorpio, gusts tinged icy.
Onward toward Chumley’s 2 pm Village poetry reading.
Searching outside book stall for bargains,
found a Paul Goodman
with cat and dog and baby photographs
to give to Cindy
a gift of love for a fragile child
stranger/sister.
Still affright from last night’s heavy scene,
wherein the police took my man away again,
this time with my blessing and accomplicement.
. . . A man is a hard thing.
Also a drag on my developmental aspirations.
When all he does is loom and threaten
Big Brute Violence
to storm my sensibilities.
(What’s frustrating is he doesn’t hear me
plead for shelter.)
Laughing in the park we loved
Crying in the night we parted
Oh, beseech I, gods above:
Why must you leave me broken-hearted?
(and I know he’ll be returning with more disregards
and diatribes and possibly pistol drawn to fire)
So I sit here in the bar, again.
Drinking sweet Kahlua and awaiting the poetry.
Taking a respite, you see.
Oh, Goddess, for this while,
bar nothing to this troubled child
(for child I feel, though woman grown).
Let peace alone assail me.
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SISTER SCORPIO
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Black as hate; drained blood white,
shrieking Fury
punishing Saint.
Your patient, erratic torture
left me shattered, bereft, blind,
drenched in torrents of pain,
unable to move
forward,
unable to exhale, breathe through shame
or engage in
polite discourse.
*
Yet you were never satisfied.
I was not your chosen sacrifice.
I was merely inconvenient,
or too convenient.
Dressed in goat suit,
queued up to be driven to slaughter,
how could I expect to be seen with
fellow feeling?
But it was the Executioner’s blade
I anticipated,
not frenzied repetitive
back stabbings, epithets,
steel-cold rage.
*
In a simpler world,
we could have been sisters.
Giggling secrets in the schoolyard,
smoking pcp in the girls’ room,
shooting up the classroom,
dying in each other’s arms.
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