Nuremburg

Tonight I set fire to a very old book

The wheel was in sage and in frost

It was not my tempest but my midwinter night’s dream

As I struck the lucifer to the side

The sun blazed

An infant on a virgin-tipped breast

And reached out its flames towards strength

Fifty-six pages and twenty-one keys

They burned like the nails in a chain-smoker’s coffin

Speaking in whispers they opened the silence

And let me hold stars in my hand

Five staves were prepared

But nine daggers burned me

The fool all but danced on the flames

The moon broke the chain, and I started again

Eight pentagrams led to the star

See how the hermit lights his poor way

For his brothers all eager to follow

Judgment leaps higher

December winds lash

At the blaze of great Gabriel’s horn

Ten knives mark the night that the tower stayed hidden

Ka as the wind that sweeps ashes aside

Three maids toast the land and their very good fortune

While two more are never here found

Another lucifer

Pope Joan’s benediction

Outlives seven chalices promising dream

They offer their gifts to whoever will take them

While one more is supped by a king

They folded and furled beneath Agni’s stern gaze

Their coats worn thin as a Dickens-book pauper

They turn to black moths

Glow and are still

Sixteen years old the same age as a daughter

Now the world catches fire and is ash

It was the fool who started the fire

But the magician ate of the ashes

Knightwalk

          KNIGHTWALK

The billboards scream commands at me

By day as far as I can see

The sun’s offensive to my sight

So I walk by the voice of night

The grass is blue, my shadow green

To insects’ songs I walk unseen

Nothing between me and the land

The moon rolls, falling from my hand

The silence of the night unbroken

By combustion’s screams

The promises of life unspoken

Save in elven dreams

The tribe of tiger runs with me

We hunt beneath the stars

My mother fills me with her life

I walk upon her scars

My Kind of Woman (a Love Letter)

She was my kind of woman.

She was short and she was tall and she was just my height,

She was slender and she was stout and she was lovely.

Her hair was blonde and brunette and crimson and strawberry and raven and auburn and white.

Silver and gold, grey, ash, coal, and pearl.

Her eyes were blue, her eyes were brown.  Her eyes were amber and gold and hazel.  They were green and they were black, violet, and even steel grey.  Her eyes were clear and full of life, and ah, how they shone when she laughed.

She was dark and she was light, a golden-skinned beauty, Mediterranean lovely, Latina jewel.  Aryan, Asian, Native, alabaster and bronze.  Nubian goddess.  Albino queen.

Her complexion was clear, like ice cream. 

She had freckles like a dusting of cinnamon, inviting me to taste. 

Her skin was unmarked. 

She had tattoos. 

And I looked at her and I knew that I was doomed.

Her curves were subtle, and oh, her curves were grand.

She showed no sign of starvation.

She had long, supple legs.

Her legs were curved, stocky, and magnificent.

They were the kind you could

suck on for a day,

ready to wrap around your waist and hang on

for a year.

Her nails were short on her fine, strong hands,

with long nails on cultured fingers to rake along her lover’s back.

Intelligent.  Educated.  A willful woman with a good heart and a joyful soul. 

There is no part of her that is not beautiful.