witchery

Soon the fire of
Self denial will
Burn down to
Ashes of tenacity.
Then I will have to
Burn candles
Throw salt
Draw on the strength
Of my familiar
And deep earth truth
To steady my hand
And not write your
Name.

what women know

(Usual caveat: no poem worth its salt is ever about only one person. Well, that's a lie, but this one isn't.)

You think it's the size,
The thrusting hard thighs,
That makes her moan
When you two are alone.

Caught up in your myth,
Your physical gift,
Only from skin and out
Is what it's about.

You're wrong, but then,
Like most men,
You cannot fathom how it can be
Erogenous to see
Vulnerability

You can't see the rest
Beneath her peaked breast,
For who thinks of emotion
With bodies in motion?

So she came to your bed
With sex in her head.
But why was it you she chose
When she wanted to take off her clothes?

My friend, what put her there
Was not just your hair,
Your hypnotic eyes,
Or your tumnescent prize

No--your pain and your need,
Weakness, and greed,
Your adolescent love of toys,
Your need to make noise.

The way you love your mother,
How you always need another.
Your talking and singing,
Are what keep her stringing
Along in your wake,
Expecting heartbreak,
But alive at your touch
Saying little, feeling much.

So bodies meet in a sacred communion
And sparks fly from your needs' union.

quark

You don't know you are magic.
Your insistence on science and dirt
Makes my teeth gnash.

Your essence rings the room large
Like a balloon in honey, sweet and
Orange and sticking to everything

And still, you keep your prosaic eyes
Down and insist on sinew and bone
And cellular degeneration.

What quark expresses your charisma?
What effect does the burning whisky have
On your spirit?

That was a trick, because whisky is magic
too.

micro-poem 1

I'm never more lonely
Than when I'm with you.

nurse bear

Threadbare in spots? Certainly,
Since nurse bear has been on duty
For nearly 40 years.
That's a lot of wear on the fluff.

Offering kapok cuddles,
Soft tear-absorbant face-burying fur,
Love, no judgement, no recrimination.
Nurse bear has tended all comers
With equal gentle care.

Nurse bear, when do you lock the bathroom door,
Toss down some valium and soak in scented bubbles?
Buy yourself flowers, jewellery, Chinese silk pillows?
When do you have time to think your secret thoughts,
Crewel stitch your love onto a shield
You can use to repel the constant onslaught of others' need?

processed self in modern times

I am one pixel deep but as wide as a lake.
I am made of cork and mirrors and outtakes.

I barely exist except in a dimension of need
and facade.
My batteries are failing, my usb corrupted but
I have to go now, the 'Applause' sign is flashing and
That's my cue.

Quick, someone take a picture of a cat
With a Hitler moustache,
Show me the grotesqueries and pantomime of
So-called stars with no careers
Show me the human burlesque parade and teach
Me to contort my wants and speaking paths to
Fit in this digital box.

In the sternly seething flesh world --IRL LOL--
I am not your princess. I am not your slave.
We do not exist as these people. I do not
Know you, really.

Circuitry isn't even an analogy now, it is all
Post-concrete, post-threedee.
Tactility is so 2008.

We live in flashing lights, we live in TSX sound.

In the cave where my meditating body dwells, a
Rat gnaws my bones.

Process take one

Here it is raw, off the tip of my brain. I will percolate today. This format may be too restrictive for what I'm doing. It's not there yet.

The first sip from his amber eyes
was intoxicating, heat spread through her
And she wanted
More

Months in, drinking in his wit
And winning ways added sparkle,
And joy to her
Days

Months passed and the times between
The redhot joy spread like
Grey; Each hit still great, but not
Enough.

Soon, too soon, she trembled
In his absence, tried to recreate
A brittle flirtation with a
Substitute.

She wept to know his power,
And he, drunk with it, withheld
His caress to watch her
Beg.

All the sunshine fled her and
The dark clouds that flowed
In were more like
Smog

Finally, prostrated and empty,
She crawled away, beyond
Desire for escape, seeking
Ending.

Friends found the shell
Her once-bright eyes dulled
Propped against a tree
Lost.

Deprogramming, and withdrawal were
Long but at the end,
Harder, sadder, she was
Saved.