Vampire Lily

Deeper Earth

Fourteen miles off road, due West,
the horizon bleeds an oil slick
that stretches out for miles like a song
that you can’t quite chase from your brain
where your feet melt like glass through your boot soles
and fallen men beg for water or death-

In that dense gnawed up bit of sand
too dry to recall rain,
you left behind a single bit of silver that wormed
loose from your dusty pocket
a narrow hole that your hand had worked
in search of matches and a lone cigarette-

You’ve come to love twilight
in her cool, dark robes
that pour to the ground like your sorrow
for a mother that never needed and
father that never loved or even remotely understood
a colt-legged boy who’d find his own way-

Across the wind warped territory, in the small space
between here and there
you’ve dragged your fingers through deeper earth
a resting place, a womb for bleached bones
the low restless hum that never was,
that never existed anywhere but in your skull-

Miles and years from here, like age
that cuts the corner of your eyes to slits
makes no promises to those without spines
bites like lead scathes the flesh
is a face that no tree will shade or hand hold down
that no looming ghost dare cross-

Authors Note: This piece was written the morning after i had watched “No Country for Old Men” for the first time.  I had gone to bed with my brain filled from this film and had a very vivid dream where i was lost in the desert following someone in a dark coat. The wind kept sifting the sand so i kept losing his trail…. it would sweep into my eyes, my hair….my body felt heavy with it. Every once in a while i’d look down and find something he’d left behind… a coin…. an odd, tiny birds skull….a book of matches. I never found him.

Song

When first we came of earth,
Before we knew of touch or kiss
Embraced within her trembling membrane-
We spent our moments in gorgeous darkness.

Before we dared breathe her salty essence,
Or walked the sandy edges of her gown-
We coiled within each others mirrored likeness
My pinkness wrapped within your luminous palm.

Before our mouths first stuttered with language,
Before we knelt before uncertain Gods,
Before man dictated our rights from our wrongs-
We just had each other~ and it was enough.

On the Darkest Night of the Year

On the darkest night of the year,
i follow you through this faintness here,
and like a shining bangle on your wrist
i will worship and confess~

i will follow you to the orchard then,
be you sister or be you friend
and offering secrets not mine alone
tell your heart as if it were my own~

Shall i sing of things to come,
of things not found, of things unknown~
and speak of questions, not yet asked
of all that’s gone, of all that’s passed?

For we are more than what’s left behind
creatures of another time
weaving our gowns from borrowed thread
of what we are and what we’ve been~

so i will follow you, where you go
discover you still from what i’ve known
and like that threading in your dress
i will worship and confess~

Original Sin

so,
i found the apple and just bit…
juice winding down my wrist,
its vibrant flesh stroking my lips…
“this is not merely a suggestion,” i heard you say…
“this is sin-”
yes,
and gods, it was delicious.

Totem

I fed the wolf my beating heart
And each throb was his last,
And he was mine and I was his
Since first the die was cast~

And with each tender, crimson gnaw
He of my heart, And I, his paw
We fell into the driving snow
And stayed as one within the thaw~

And when we dissolved and became the river,
Drifting now and then, forever
I wore his pelt as a living cloak
As he took my arms about his throat~

He of gray and I, of flame
We’ve become the others name
Rising finally from ash and bone
Two breaths becoming one alone~

Two souls thrive, my wolf and i
In one element, two survive
Two songs that are sung by one
To consecrate what we’ve become~

Babel

what lies beneath each word,
a blessing of sound,
a rapture of the tongue,
an orgasm of the mind~
Entwined
and entwined
and entwined~
Our language curving and entangling
organic magic
nourishment
that mimics speech~
As earth feeds root,
suckling suggestion
bearing fruit,
i consume what is offered
hungry
and as always
famished for more~
a passageway beneath your feet,
a gateway above your head,
and in between
i feast.

Altar

This heart, the color of a bruise
Is an oracle for your devising,
With your flesh wanting too,
I have become the sacrifice~

A prickly evening bloom,
Sweet and burning upon your rising
I offer myself up to the moon,
A vein that has bled for you~

Oh, Life! Oh, Lamb!
Devour all that lay down before us,
Consume the essence of what I am
And take me low before your altar~