Embodied Erinyes

Desperate like me times three
Dark idol of my jealousy
I called you out embodied Erinyes
Thought I knew what you were all about
Your self cursed first impressions at the Thanksgiving feast

Daughter of Bacchus at the wholesome table
Fallen far from Aphrodite's cradle
Conceived in a chthonic desert grove of cacti
You mothered one of my own
Among the rattlesnakes and mescal

I could of been you by three degrees
I drink wine alone heavily
Finger self destruction before and eventually
Knock on the door of heaven or hell depending
I could of been you easily, refuse all judgment

Desperate to paint, recreate Fate
Make Beauty from childhood chaos
Merry masochist marry Narcissus, son of a passivist
And birth sweet February princess of Prudence

Temperance's final week was peace on earth, your illusion
Then steal her away like Hades down a bullet river
Our darling, emerald eyed wonder sacrifice
Full cheeked smile pure laughter
You should of been mine
Twin of my daughter
Survive another story longer
More like me mammal in the water

You both left us like riddles in stain glass windows
Feeling alien, disconnected like non believers in an ancient cathedral of a far off culture
Without right, in selfishness
Your madness I would of carried, levied
The lead weight poisoning, carrying you down the abyss w/o hope of a shore

Devoured by the demon bull of your soul
Labyrinth thoughts, a ball of string all tangled up
You trapped her in your Minotaur maze, mother gaze
No hero could spare
No angels allowed to care
Kinswoman grief I bare
Desperate like me times three
Embodied Furies wearied of this vengeance oath

Mourning is a Radioactive Mirage

I.

Your dance of harmonic tremors in the rift zone are over
In the deadlock of destiny young fern fronds grow, singed and rusty

Upon the graben valley between two warring fault lines
Goddess Pele devourer of land and Kampapua'a, feral hog former husband

Igneous insanity from breathing deleterious gases

Her paroxysm fractures creation

Pele struck her fluvial daughter but no volcanic sacrifice was necessary

Collapses the cliff swallowed by the ocean

Losing her was like a Polynesian paradise obliterated by an atomic bomb

II.

God's tears fall in mammoth, obsidian raindrops

The soot avalanche mixed with debris formed in the dust cloud of Kilauea's explosion

Sonic boom hit by the shock wave flash in my soul

Radioactive numb my brain to the core

Blister my crater center, engulfed by the island gods' legend mushroom cloud struggle

Unexplained angelic failure to stop the gushing molten magma

Heaven and earth mingle

Glittering strangely like a mirage with bits of broken rainbow

Ring of fire around our shattered trinite hearts

A prayer cloud eleven miles high, flames of rage rising into the stratosphere

Navigate mourning in a tailspin flying blindly

Radioactive wasteland

All that remained, a lapilli path of stone to the kukui doorframe

Power Outage After Dinner

The night before I found out my niece Emma was killed, I  watched these two fireflies while on holiday in Anda, Bohol, The Philippines.

Power outage after dinner

Stars obscured in this foliage 

Embrace the raven black, its only night

Jungle eclipse fills the cottage

Then two fireflies flew in from between the thatch roof cracks

We two from our bed admire 

Their cold light frequencies whirling jubiliant lights

Synchronized phosphorescent couplet mystery

Little flicker souls glittering circles above our head, 

But beetle lifespan is like a breath

One glowworm fell like a fainting petal on the cold concrete floor

A luminous snowflake  or scintillant beating heart

I watch it immobile, still radiant

Surmise her partner lost its lightening

To the absinthal darkness

Mélange and Martyr

This is about my niece Emma's tragic death taken by her mother, before my ex-sister in law killed herself.

I.                     MOTHER PRESENTIMENT 

The afternoon condensation hangs like a catechism in the air

Do I dare lift a finger to burst the humidity?

Like an embryonic animal sac born intact, embrace the monsoon

Beyond this perfect mother-daughter holiday pact

Do I dare anticipate for one last langniappe?

Mother devotion so endless and yet I wobbled near a precipice

Grasp I had one final rapture reserve

Beyond beginning or end

Grope the enclosing cloudburst

Like a mist or fog, a leaden shadow umbra

Motherhood’s veil is her daughter in early morning’s bloom

Reconsecrate her to the One

Envelope us in garland arms full of fuzzy bees

Free me from my self anathema

II.                   DAUGHTER DELECTATION

From my bamboo castle precipice

I survey the xanthous flower perennial highlands 

Above their thatched villages and metal roofs

Over their children’s polyphonic voices singing rehearsals

Over packs of barking dogs

Beyond flying fowl

Consider farmers below burning refuse

Scouting the single motorcycle light like a firefly on the muddy road

The earth spreads out like a patchwork quilt before my reverence

All the ocean horizon and every far-off island my vigil boon

Regard my aunt, or maybe quondam cousin

Mourning maiden kith writes a crambo in her refuge

My lucida peace reigns from this celestial mansuetude

Honeymoon In Indra’s Garden

Inspired by a dream I had the other night:

Throw off your sorrow like the harness from a morel steed

Bolt on panting horse into the middle of the earth

Beyond the fog, within a Capricorn constellation

Breathe out with rapture the names of God, the ancient incantation

Until virtue becomes 2^nd nature

I’m carried off into this sanctuary for saints

Like love at first sight, the sacramental surprise

Immured in our dark teak chamber set in a glade

My beloved and I from our bedroom window worship the view

The saffron petrichor panorama from the foot of a supernatural mountain

All the horizon was coral tree blossoms, their jacinth flowers a carpet

Their barks like hoary bones bleached silver with age in this altitude

Susurrus rustling petals falling like North American leaves

Reminiscing over the suggestion of a previous November incarnation

From the alcove in Brahma’s bungalow

Peculiarly familiar was Indra’s Dev garden

Being the orange of ripening persimmon

Presently drying sticky sweet in the autumn sun

The lurid perennials are dancing little fires

Sweet nectar embers reflected in our lovers’ flecked tiger eyes

Throw open the ancient timbered shutters

I crane my head out the oriel to realize

I’m at the foot of an erythrina mountain tapestry

Its cap beyond human or homeland understanding

Behold Mt. Meru all the galaxy circumnavigating

As tall as the earth’s diameter by a mighty 85

Towering above comprehension, primeval volcano, lingam filling the sky

My eyes roll to the back of my head to regard the peak,

I a breathless, hummingbird bride, scope the pinnacle on wing’s heartbeat

The mandara tree celestial crown, flame thicket festoon

Sprinkled like vermilion powder on Vishnu’s throne

The Creator is a white star like the persistent snow on His palisade

Abiding apricity my final devotion

Above material security, sensual pleasure or season

He brought me to rest, to fill me with joy

He gathered us, a sierra of honeymoon union

Releasing salvation in this demi god grove

Don’t resuscitate from this resurrection reverie

Ineffable rapture, peaceful purgatory, together we love

The Cage Was Cylinder and Small

Inspired by a dream I had the other night, I think influenced by my grief at the recent US election:

The cage was cylinder and small

Appearing from a cryptic dream

Like Eve before the Fall

Massed hands unleashed their regime

Pandora’s box 21^st century

Their debris and swill, festers downstream

To global mutual horror, our collective penitentiary

Verity was sacrificed

Kindness in totalitarian jeopardy

Spew rancor, retch partiality, bias legitimized

By history’s loudest bastard mockery

Age old rally, justice cry we mobilized

Against the ugly horn of demagoguery

Flash our search lamps into the darkness

Free the Philistines from their poverty

Sounding convincing he seemed harmless

Resonate with these fears

All that’s ugly in our subconscious

The outsiders, pariahs shiver from sneers

Refuse to accept their bleeding anguish

Bleeding Jesus to hide behind sullied veneers

The poets, the seers, myself stranded we languish

Compelled to rebel, with amity endure

Until all ignorance and spite can we vanquish

The progression of humanity still so immature

But Earth’s out of time and facing extinction

We must not cloister in this 4-year detour

No time to be neutral, side with moral distinction

Choose love for the poor

Hear this upright inscription

My party are four blue love birds miniature

Placed by hand in a cage

Silent, song-less feathers azure

Beware when they sing call forth to engage

The young will respond

This my grief will assuage

Yet, cerulean wings will soon break their bond

Soar above carnage to the healing beyond

Pomegranate Wine (As Hades Spies Persephone)

I.

Arouse a virgin purpose, a goal, secret promises

Atone for the whole previous nudnik year

Intrigue a garden conquest to find a new lover

Divine a more primordial calendar

Dismiss the past chronology like a childhood shadow

The vulpine master lurks seeking sylvan union

Grey mistakes cascade like crimson foliage to the forest floor

The nagging of summer washed away in this exhilarating breeze

Throbbing psithurism under the scandalous rustling of leaves

Cry separation eulogies in the night estivation

Circadian rites and twilight duty bring us ever closer

Discern a prelude in this autumn, a keyframe threshold adomania

The eternal summer oppression has been dragged away like your youth

II.

In my underworld garden I’ve started a second growing season

I stole rare seeds from my mother’s terrace

Cultivate these miniscule homeland stowaways hidden in pocket envelopes

Transplant your somber marrow entombed beneath my crocus crown

Rejoice in the spontaneous dehiscence

Between our glances a seedling grows

In this obscurity my cavern oasis sprouts, flourishes and ripens overnight 

Eyes only for you, lust grows only in your orchard

We affirm my devoted subterranean pilgrimage