Thursday, July 2, 2009 (rev. 12/19/09)
Music
music,
you cut a hole through my pain
then left me while I mourned you
in a comforting vacuum
in fear of your sharp and penetrating return
for all the times you singed my soul by
mocking my attempts to spread your excellence
I have sealed my ears and shut my throat;
to keep you at bay where you cannot destroy me
luring me to your high c’s -
a disembodied siren.
I’ve sung along these many years
but now
I will betray you with my silence.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Surgeons and Vampires (revised 6/29/09)
everyone in the city has become
a burgeoning surgeon -
eager to cure the blood with a fresh new cut.
I walk the streets bleeding my offerings.
(the vampires at least are honest in their hunger.)
the well meaning faces are smiling
a kind of mercy which serves to kill.
(while whispering, “if only...”)
The heat of the sun reels me forward,
like a daylight zombie I walk toward it
who never once before took notice of me nor cared
whether it singed or seared me.
At least there my wounds might find relief;
Newly cauterized scars
to greet my morning mirror.
Or else
or else,
perhaps,
the sun will consume me into itself
so that one day I may flourish as a series of rays
to swaddle
a new generation of surgeons.
but the vampires
the vampires
will always be safe.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Marie
You, dear girl,
were sent to France.
To be a queen, they said.
You learned
(after Austria )
how to endure.
You, dear girl,
were sent to marry.
Your first deflowering
before you even met him.
they removed your possessions,
your friends and your soul.
replacing them with rich fabrics
and a head like a doll's.
You, dear girl,
were duped.
Your dignity was next in line.
Plucked but not so much as
annihilated by utter indifference.
Yet ever resilient as the returning sun,
You faced your fortune
Gleaming bright and undaunted.
You, dear woman-child,
turned your venom
into a sweet poisoned spell
out onto the landscape
in a selfish rain of opulence;
a thunderous downpour
of cake.
Sunday, May 3, 2009 (rev. 12/19/09)
Field of Dreams
Splendid field of flowers where I've roamed so long
sweetly smelling your births and decays,
suffering the stings for the sun's goodness done;
your calla lillies and your dahlias
attracting creatures that feed upon
their ever fuller bounties.
sweet field of poppies;
the black eyed Susans watch over you in envy
while the Irish bells ring their assent.
I have bathed in your cacophony of color
year in and year out;
grateful as a hummingbird in Spring.
This year, however, I wander -
longing for far off sands and mountain tops.
For the ocean with its dunes and plumed grass.
The sun sits hotter on my shoulders,
the insects bite with more force
and my feet do not carry me all the way to shady area
where the Hostas grow.
I fear, sweet meadow of my eye,
soon you shall be a vision for my memories but
my dream of future dreams no more.
