music muse

The darkness of his fire

emerges from the core, out of the void

He blazes deep down the roots

detonating through the crown

engulfing stray thoughts

and ideas for feeble verse

igniting straight up, moving through

undulating rivers of blood and

airy leaps of synapses

reconnecting luminous whispers

Abundant recollections teeming

in the lustrous pools of

imagination that bend space

part open the veils of time

welcome in ancient truths

again brought in through the egress

on the edge of what’s been alleged

and freshly understood again

His bass strings pull away from their source

opening cathedrals of ample air

His drumming binds my heartbeats

in polyrhythmic harmony,

a dissonant crash then dive into the puddle

lifting out strands of swirling wine winds

golden blinding air bursts into steam

breathed up mind’s deepest pathways

down through eclipsing masses

His voice sinks down the apple’s core

bricolage of the pieces pulled apart

dust devil of sun’s desire

gathers the lingering melodies

evocative bass lines

perpetual rhythms

into a brewing center which

opens to reveal

inner knowing

not sensed

I woke up with 'Love left the room' hanging around my mind

Love left the room

We missed it

Saw his shell still sitting there

and thought he was inside

Felt his children running around

and mistook them for him

in the lightning flashes of their eyes

Love left the room

Discreetly,

Staying embedded in her devotees

but long gone from their daily temples

She submerged out of form

Love left the room

Became slowly apparent

in his absence

After dragging afternoons

saturated in ironic sunlight

cut into empty wintry nights,

one frosty back curled up against another

Love left the room

Her presence dissipated into focus

on what those hearts held

Running with the children

Profound and spacious in the mountains

Open to the river’s harmony

And that one union

slipped out the door

From an Atlas of the Difficult World ~ Adrienne Rich

I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour.  I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet.  I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age.  I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.

Adobe

Adobe

Before Eve’s dawn of an era on Gaia

Lilith and Adam formed the roots of our walks,

together out of the mud

hardened into one love’s dream of life,

relinquishing whole power to hierarchy,

they sat out the dance of balance

The old ones dug and worked and formed it

The clay pots, heavy holding vessels ready to contain

Walking among those who feel

profound, solid, unmoving certainty down in the bones         

The container is open only where it’s open,

and moved with care it won’t crack or shatter

Respect its form or it resists all movement

The humans formed the mud back into

Goopy gods and goddesses

deep damp Venuses,

receiving branches and rocks and limbs,

anything that falls in

A softer warmer quicksand

shoving your face into the earth,

releasing it to breathe

then back in, through the roots’ bottoms

to the fiery core

Here awakened strands of

alive adobe emanate flexible from every pore,

breathing softly in your ear with the tides of earth’s waters,

dancing with creatures’ feet,

tickling an angled wing

Embracing fallen trees and

pooling in the leaves

Sliding down rock mudfalls

moving heartbeats through arroyos

opening bubbles of air in the rapids

basking in the sun to a more solid stillness

perfectly ecstatic constantly changing forms and

thriving with aliveness

Still in form,

Still moist

Pure solid and still yielding

Building an ever-moving morphing home

Refreshing form in each moment
into a whole

I am acquainted with the night ~ a couple of poems I love

Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night. 

~Robert Frost

Her Kind

I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind.

~Anne Sexton 

I met a tree

I met a tree

Root down deep

Solid long peaceful trunk, grounded strong

Striations, curves and booming extensions weaving through and from, 

up and out

Many-armed, branches twisting and swirling in a mad dance that 

evokes a calm center

Heartbeats encircled by layers of curious sweeping and creeping rhythms

Ever growing through forms into reaching V’s that extend with each breath

Magic at the tips,

leaves of open-cupped hands receiving the light and transforming it

With barely a sound of a shapeshifter’s chuckle,

making food for every part in its own way

Fruits that spring and hang, alluring in promise and full in substance,

Blooming soulful sweetness when you receive a bite

Leaving no craving

Not leaving at all

Staying perched, an inquisitive bird on your mind’s branches

trembling joy of a humming heart,

dizzying flight of the bird inside

free-falling surrender into body’s knowing

of what’s good

right here