ALABASTER

It is almost always too early
to tell.

You know nothing
of the contents in the boxes
piled against the wall
and crowding the cellar

but you will lie with me
in the darkness until morning
just to ward off
your skin hunger.
 
 
 

THE VIRGIN MARY SPEAKS

Gold and full of warmth
the chapel winks
in the November night.
Virgin Mary presses dried leaves
to her heart,
a crisp reminder
of piety.

The folds of her robe,
fluent statuary, say
"I come only once to be discovered."
You have met me dancing
beneath a Spring moon,
the girl in white linen
who would not look you in the eye.
And now,
here you are
in your sensual world,
frozen before the pale idol,
able to worship desire only.
You put your hands together
to conjure rainbows.
You pretend that life is indelible,
but on the morning after
there will only be ashes
and slivers of bone.

      One more thing:

         When you are dead
         All will be forgiven.
 
 
 

POSSESSION

Caught in the folds
of a mid-winter morning.
Up above
the gods are coyly spreading
their ancient disease.
 
 

Oh, how it stings to want,
to extend a pale hand
with the carved wrist down.
The ecstasy of hours
passing deep into night.
The sound of a conscience
taking flight.

As the wine is sipped,
smiles exchanged,
as another lover is satisfied
on the shadowed garden lane,
bacteria spreads to the scalp,
circles the ankles
of the corpse.

It was always like this-
Florid magicians
embracing their doves,
their swords,
their dancing girls
cut into halves.

And now,
anything to see them,
my lovers of knives
and the naive.
 
 
 

SILENT PICTURES

At dawn
I am stitched
Three times over.
Hands commanding me
To heal, to love,
To rise and live.
Eat from the birdless Summer,
From the solitary Winter.
I bury all of my love letters
Like stiff, dry frogs.
Throw trinkets, sheets,
Clothes out the window
That settle through the seasons,
Fractals of life
Meshing with earth.
Like everything half-forgotten
They are washed of detail
And sterilized.
But what of the baby
In the woods, sunk
In a pile of leaves?
What of the baby doll
I left to the birds
Whose blue eyes were as brilliant
As the Aegean Sea,
Whose mouth was clean
Of all history?
Baby, like all else,
Hungry jaws
Have dislocated you.
These words like a sea
Of black garland
Try to resurrect you.
 
 
 

FLOOD

Awoke last night
to a drowned man
at the foot of my bed.
Perhaps by habit,
his hand held a shell
up to one ear
although he could hear
no elusive blood rush,
no life
passing him by.
Seaweed stretched like a vine
across his forehead.
The water was warm
between my toes
when I rose
to move him.
 
 
 

TENDER

His hand is calm
on the curve of my hip,
eyes steady and level with mine.
The trembling of a smile
surfaces at the edges of his mouth.

He twirls me around
to Mozart coming in waves toward us.
He pulls me in, breath on my cheek
like warm wind against the Sphinx,
and like the scarab
at Cleopatra's breast,
I cannot tear myself away.

Gracefully he conjures
an astonishing white bird to focus on
while the other hand
creates a sensation up my spine
(Cold incision of a fresh razor)
and then a kiss for distraction.
Before long
truth gathers red
at my feet like worms
after the rain.
 
 
 

PANDORA

The night was made
Of broken glass.
Premier beauty
Fashioned from clay
By Hephaestus,
Blessed with every
Feminine prowess.

At three in the morning
Color has left her dreams.
She kneels to open
The box wide,
And menace
Pushes past her face
Like dark butterflies.
All of humanity
Awakens with a red scream.

Only a little hope
Was left cowering at the bottom
Of the god-sent box.
 
 
 

LILITH

Lilith brings you wet dreams,
A full blackberry mouth,
Hands of Southerly seduction.
Lilith be your lamia-martyr
with eyes pale
as forget-me-nots.

She has cultivated the seed
Which brought nectar,
The nectar that drew the birds,
The birds that swim
In the white sky,
The white sky pierced with spires,
Spires that impaled the clouds,
Clouds that carried rain and blood,
Blood that drowned
The love-struck
Conga heart.

Lilith, nemesis and savior
Brings you the black interior
Of innocence
Gone awry.
 
 
 

SCARECROW

Faded flannel stretched
against the dry interior.
A magpie cackles, lands
on a lethargic shoulder.
Mold erupts
on the lidless eyes.
No cry escapes
from the cross stitched mouth,
no love steals
into the corn husk heart.
In the field at night
Scarecrow yearns
to walk among the rows
of fresh green,
to mingle with the workers
who arrive at dawn
singing their simple songs.
The dim figure
fails to inspire fear,
shifting and settling on the pole
while the seasons ease
in and out.
Scarecrow can only reflect
with a demeaning permanent grin
how humility
is half of being human.
 
 
 

TOUCHING THE WOUND

The September after you died
I slept 310 nights
without passion,
the music box leaking
Moonlight Sonata.
Touching the wound constantly
became a habit.
Looking for your face
in the scars
was a holy ritual.
It was a dream that told me
where to find you,
standing erect
between two cypress trees
on Ruby Hill,
your face white as stars.
Unnatural breath,
bloodless and lost
with no idea
of who I was.

My holy wish gone awry.
 
 
 

LE PURGATOIRE

Halfway between azure blue
and flame red
the green grass
fades to desert,
the willow branches
tangle into nooses.
Compass hands turn
around and around,
circle the world without you
dozens of times
before you realize
you're somewhere
no one can find you.
 
 
 

BYRON'S RAPTURE

Hesper inflames a white sky,
The mares breathe fire
In the stiff, frozen air.
Passion gathers jewels
On the forehead of Byron.

Chrysalis of the worm
Clings warmly to the underside
Of the divan.
Linen whirlwind,
Deep rapture
As the pod separates from flesh,
As the tongue slips
To receive suspiria.

Byron, immaculate lover,
Sweet messenger of ripe pleasure.
Creator of nocturnes and devils
Squirming in the belly.
You rape with petal soft fingers
Cool as pearls.

In the grey garden
Shrouded from the shoreline
The birds rave on.
Sounds of madness.
All is lost to winterkill.

This is the season
Of the heart's massacre,
Of the glittering
Cerebral bomb.
 
 
 
 

LITURGY

HERE IS THE CHURCH

At the screen of confession
where not even a mosquito
could fit through
I tell the priest
I am tarnished,
and in the garden
where the striped snake hissed
I broke a mirror
when we kissed.

And afterward I climb the tower
to where the great bell
rings on Sunday
in the early hours.
The scent of blood red roses rising,
These are
Mary's favorite flowers

HERE IS THE STEEPLE

Lonely crow,
black as the devil's breast,
you nest inside me.
You murder here,
you defecate,
you fill my silence with raw gust.
You carry your messages
from here to hell
and dream a solitary lust.

But I
was built for holiness.
 

HERE IS THE GRAVEYARD

Yawning each time
a soul is lifted.
Drawers full of regret and dust.
Mausoleum brimming
with disjointed lovers
and animal bones
and gold and gold
and diamonds and gold.
 
 

With my cypress,
stone saints
and endless names,
I am a halfway house for the dead.

Sooner or later
         you will nestle at my breast.

Here is the church,
here is the steeple,
here is the graveyard
full of forgotten people.
 
 
 

JACK THE RIPPER

Carving out a cross
in White Chapel,
surgical symmetry
your signature
of insanity.

We would not know more-
your last feat
plucking the fetus
from an East End whore.
 
 
 

TOUCHED ME

Cocks crowed
In the Spanish hamlet of Cebriero.
A collection of amateur angels
Looked down on my remains.
I, Magdalena,
With 6 stars etched
Around my navel
In gold and scarlet.
I was no Black Dahlia
Cleanly sliced in neat sections
With a starlet-red mouth
Still intact.
I was more
Like a witch in the water,
Distorted and limp
As a flower left to dry,
Retracting bloom and color.
I was 35, taken by surprise
As I picked heather and golden star
By the river.
My killer was handsome,
Stroked my hair for a moment
Before lighting a cigarette
And strolling away
Through the trees.
It took a few minutes
Before I realized
I could touch nothing
And nothing could touch me.
 
 
 

FATIMA TO BLUEBEARD

I discovered the bodies
last night at dusk,
suspended from the ceiling,
swinging slightly
in a neat maze.

        Bluebeard, I did not realize
        You had loved so many times,

that you were sentimental
and clung to old mementoes.
Yes, I know you warned me
to stay out of that room,
but the skeleton key,
rusted the color of dried blood,
fell from the top shelf
when I was reaching for the tea.
With another long night ahead
and no one but the rats
to keep me company
curiousity did prey on me.

        Bluebeard, I could not muster
        Jealousy for any
        Of your former wives.

They were quite thin
and drained of beauty.
Flies dizzied around that hot room.
I flung the window open
and for one slim second
I could hear the women
breathing a solution
of belladonna tea.
Even now they show you
infinite mercy.

         Anxiously awaiting your return.
         Your ever-loving,

           Fatima
 
 

THE PIPER

The tune wound, boa-like
through cobblestone lanes,
tickling the ears of pink,
budding children,
embraced by the warm feeling
it gave them.

They followed the lullabye,
entranced by a tall handsome man
who breathed magic.

             No one saw their orderly flow
            Past the gates.

No one but the tall stranger
whose debt was ignored
could relay the missing hours.
With neither rats nor children
sun-washed Hamelin
was quiet as a tomb.
Cakes and pies grew stale
in anticipation of them.

Some say a few
eventually returned,
their faces bloodied,
and clothes torn
without the knowledge
of who they were
or where they'd been.

Others say the Piper was God
and corralled all the innocents
into heaven.
 
 
 

BEFORE THE FALL

       "Dig, I say dig, you'll find arms,
        Loins, white legs, to prove my story-
       And one red poppy in the corn."
                  -Dannie Abse

In the late silence
Birds chip the dark
With fragments of song.
The Kirlian limbs,
Powdery mouth
I openly kissed
Quietly become wildlife.
What caused me to

          Now, after all this time
          When I was just beginning
          To learn the undoing
          Of sensuality.

My bare feet are covered,
Sunk in black southern mud.
My hair washed red,
Cartoonish with blood.
You're not so big
Lying there, only
The length of a sunflower stalk
Beginning to sway in July.

Your pulse
Slipped so quick
Out of my hands
Like a little mouse
Running to hide
In the fields.
 
 
 

UNTIL MORNING

Angels spread thin
with ghetto song
lift white hands skyward,
prayers Stradivarius clear.

            The windows of the tavern
              Are filled with deep blue.

A shepherd gathers his flock,
sheers heartbreak
from their soft bodies.

           We talk until morning,
            The heavens moving overhead
              Like a player piano.
 
 
 

SUSPICION

In the modern world
They kill
What spreads too fast.
Mourning doves
Suffer from insomnia,
Robins make the rounds,
Their breasts like Romeos.
Island clouds and the slow
Motion of fenced in animals
Lining the highways
From east to west.
Glorious cactus
Sprouting flowers
And covered with syringes.
The deadlines
And dark suspicions
Of the all night diner,
And its pulsing
Red invitation.
 
 
 

THE STRANGER

It was deep summer
When the stranger came.
The bells from Saint Andrews
Were still and soundless
That day.

Later, he said:
     "She didn't feel the razor.
       It was clean.
       I smoked a cigarette
      while she bled.

Her white dress
Swallowed up in red
Like the spreading
Of the Red Sea.
 
 
 

FALLEN

      Across the broken snow,
      Past the question mark crows,
     The buzzards circle and descend
     On fallen deer.
     Pulled through the tangle
     Of bittersweet,
     Pale and half-eaten.
     Hungry birds.
     Loose feathers,
     Past the railroad tracks,
     Toward the enclosure.

     Ghosts from our mouths.

     The stigmata that would not cease,
     And there, just beyond
     A body risen clear and white
     By the wayward
     Frost heaves.
 
 
 

BEFORE THE KISS

From a crow who held vigil
at the foot of her casket
she heard her obituary.
It was cold by the hour
and the minutes were sterile.
The tree limbs did not part
to shed even an inch of sunlight.
Small, snowy hands
clasped stiffly over her heart.

Always she thought
of the apple gleaming
and the crisp sound and taste
that lingered on her tongue.
She thought of the old woman
balancing the apple on her fingertips,
and then polishing it
with a frayed shawl.
And the sudden immobility,
7 faces hovering, exclaiming.
She could not even blink.

She thought of the apple
again and again
and believed that it was the curse
of all women
to taste the perfect fruit
and suffer for it.
 
 
 

AFTER THE FALLOUT
 

I.

West Babylon is stripped raw.
There are no deities
In the bone-white clouds.
We place our dead
In frozen rivers
That circle the city.
We hold our breath,
Pretend not to notice
We are breathing the apocalypse
And chained to these moments
Like the sculpted
Dogs of Pompeii.

II

Even the flies
Were quiet and dry.
Hunger pains
Had ceased to signal the brain.
I burned 12 years
Of manuscripts for warmth.
The words curled blackly
Into blank smoke.
Then smothered stars
And dead prayers.

               History was eating
               Its young.

III.
 

Here rests the magnetism,
The sensuality and allure
Of things frozen in time.
Eden, Paradise and El Dorado
Are only rumors
You have fashioned
And clung to.
Even the rivers
   Cannot ease
      Toward greater things.
 

Mother Earth
We are the same angels.
We are yours forever,
Womb-wishing
Where first bloomed life
And safety was a swelling.

We are the same faces
Love caved in on,
Reaching out to a deaf mute world.

And Mother, don't you know
Our hearts
Have always
Been fat for you?
 
 
 

POE

The wild eyes circled in black
Say Oh,
I cannot sleep.
I have not slept
To forget my girl's laughter,
My girl's body light
As a bundle of twigs
When she died.
The moon that night
Was a scythe
And a black threat
Muffled every star.
It was a familiar ritual.
I knew the language
Of these devils,
Knew the chaos and the lull,
How words can thicken the blood
To a standstill.
I never stopped
Feeling like a silhouette,
Never stopped loving
The hostage they collected.
And Oh, I cannot sleep
To forget my girl.
 
 
 

EROS

In this restaurant near midnight
Why do you look at me like that?

I think at first you have designs
To punish me in some deserted room

With those old, sad clown paintings
On the walls, implementing vintage

Torture, pulled from an ancient
Fairy tale. Your young face is serious and bold.

I remind you of something
You should not have done,

And you're naming me in your mind,
Soft names like Heather and Charlotte,

Or do you call me Rosemary, Honey?
Perhaps your Mother was blonde

And all blondes are tainted to you.
Or is that sharp, dry curiousity merely desire?

And you're thinking to yourself
You will come to this table when you have finished

Eating, wrap my hair around your knuckles
Like your gathering rope

And kiss me until I can feel
The rough edges of your heartbeat

And you
Can taste blood.
 
 
 

THE CARVING OF HOURS

In my dreams I am wrapped
In 29 veils: scarlet, lavender,
Peridot green and powder blue
Pulled from the throat

Of a dead magician.
On the smooth marble counter I dance,
Peeling away layers of secrets
Like ancient papyrus.

My heels click like an incantation,
A perfect timing in the flesh.
Black skeletons of tulips fall
With the vase and crash on the floor.

I am a deer emerging from the woods
To feed out of your hand,
To taste the salt of your skin,
To kiss your wrist where the veins

Are the color of Neptune.
Move past cloudy holy water
And lambs locked in stained glass fields.
Wild papillon refuse to have me,

To make a red mark in your Book of Hours.
I know that you will save me in a jar,
Use my limbs for kindling and later
For sacred charms.

My idea of you is a pale bud
Striving to unfold under a cheetah sun.
God listens to every word and motion
And makes a neat note of them.

Now I sing a sticky lullabye
Of how lust has a smell, a warning.
How death is a flowerbed of forget-me-nots.
The life of a rose proves how beauty
Disassembles petal by petal.
So move past the stone gardens,

The sewers of valentines stitched
With fishing line and frozen needles.
A natural magic is pulled
From the marshes and shallow water

That causes even the holiest
To cut their sky blue ties to heaven.
Move past the night blooming San Pedro cactus,
Past wild horses, past your solitary hours

Where the jungle gym is warm with innocent hands.
And I dance for you, and all of this happens.
A little sawdust settles in the bowels
Of the grandfather clock.

You cannot feel the 9 worlds
And each world within these worlds
Rattling like dollhouses in the wind.
Love calls you out from the black,

Blindfolding you for its sly fraternity.
All of this happens.
Leaden sparrows collect human hair
To weave their nests, to warm

The trembling eggs dreaming of flight.
Move past the hypnotic, the eyes
Squirming like confusion.
Move past these words.

There is worshiping and songs rising
From the rivers and white falls.
There is dancing and streets flooded with words.
They spin in sidereal time, burning

Like a bonfire of stars.
 
 

LUCRETIA
 

                  I am your Psyche,
                   Both soul and butterfly.
                 I am the humble servant girl
                 Washing your feet with willow branches
                 And summer rain.
                I am the fiery witch
                With sienna hair
               They call Cleopatra,
               With an army behind me
              And a murder plot
             Tucked in my cleavage.
             I am all of these,
            The serpent-struck
            Daughter of Eve.
 
 
 

ELEGY

      "The beautiful aeronaut and the butterfly.
        They get their wings, they copulate,
        And they die."
                            -George Barker
 
 

Left behind from all of your November,
A gold leaf, elemental dust,
The skeletal twig and the crisp corn husk.

The rhinestone tiara your sweetheart wore
Floats on the black water
Like a gathering of tears.

In your youth you were cinema handsome
With a flair for cutting hearts wide open.
Girls with mouths the color of cardinals

Fought for your attention.
The revolving door of your love
Was always moving.

Even then you were destined to be
A failed comedian with tepid humor
Trying to warm the cold crowd.

The tiara reminds you
Of the colored stage lights,
Of the theater resounding with applause

On a sold out night.
Teresa had been beautiful then
And she stayed when the crowds no longer came.

She stayed even when you could barely feed her
And every gentle word from her mouth
Was like a razor's clean burn you'd recall later.

She refused to go, out of loyalty,
Lack of direction or lethargy.
And one morning it occurred to you

That her hanging on was a grim reminder
Of your tribulations,
Of your long dead celebrations.

In the filthy room at the Hotel Charles
The gaudy tiara hung from a nail on the wall,
Outshining everything.

You had bought it for Teresa then,
Dazzled by her beauty.
She was like a china doll with doe eyes.

And now she did not sparkle any longer.
Her attire unfit for pageantry,
Her voice dulled by years of crying.

Two worlds had found sad harmony.
But it was seeing her, as you did that morning,
Fidgeting with the crown

As it trembled in her unsteady fingers
To finally lay askew in her blunt hair,
That love, in all its refractions,

Was no longer there.
You didn't say a word but her smile dissolved,
Fused with the question mark that hung

Like stale smoke in the morning air.
There was the slightest flutter in your belly
When the decision clicked inside you.

You took her down to the lake where once
You had picnicked under a silver moon,
And the stars had polished her hair

And set the lake aglitter.
Where you would sink your last farewell.
Her hands clutched your overcoat,

Pulling you toward your own reflection,
Toward her muddy eyes that now seemed
To take in the world like a vacuum.
 

And at last her whole form going limp,
The pale spread of her limbs like spilled milk
And the crown working itself free
 

As if it had even tired
Of her faith and constancy.
 
 
 

CHARM

David come
December
with its white skies
and lonely green
You will find your way here
on hands and knees.
David come
with your silver cross,
with your crucifix mission,
with your halo askew
and every star above
delivering five-pointed
mercy to you.
 
 
 

RISING

Oh, look at your
ribcage rising as you sleep.
Look at your hair spread
like the wings of a raven.
Look at your mouth parted
as if in anticipation.
Oh, look at the dreams
you dream, the fingers
weaving harp strings,
the fields brighter
than they've ever been.
Oh, look at you
bleeding the stars above,
wounded by a thousand arrows
and the straight razor
of love.
 
 
 

NOVEMBER

christianwhydoyoucomeherenow?
Withyourhaunting
andyourwanting
toridein
andtakemehome?
I have a dozen pirateswithswords
w a t c hi n g   m y
s   kin.
 
 
 

SALEM TOWN

It was strange, being the outlaw
when my whole life
I'd been so damn good.
It was in my genes,
the curse I mean.
They called me Beauty
from the time I was 8,
and over the years I just
continued to blossom,
and the loveliness only
intensified so that I stopped
looking on my reflection at the well.
I could see what I looked like
through other's expressions.
I was 17 the first time
Goody Herrell crossed herself
when I walked by.
The men were tempted,
I could feel it whenever I stood
close to one of them-this sort of fire.
It was desire that caused me
to be looked upon as a deliverance
from the devil.
I took to covering my flaxen hair
with my wool hood,
trying to shadow my face.
I stopped smiling
and looked only at the ground
as I went about my chores.
I thought this would stop their talk
but their suspicion grew.
What was I hiding beneath the cape?
I was pregnant with the devil's heir
someone said, and then another
that I'd burned myself trying to conjure evil.
It was a younger girl that held my head
beneath the dirty water where the horses drank.
I ran home,
"flew" they said later.
And then one night,
darker than pitch,
they collected outside our door.
Mother and father had no choice
but to open up,
let them drag me from my bed.
I heard my mother crying all the way
down to Turner Pond.
But what could she do
as they bound my body in heavy rope
that drove splinters into my skin,
as they lifted my limbs roughly to throw me in.
If I sanklike a stone I was innocent.
If I floated I was the reason
the crops had failed
and the cats had been eaten by wild beasts
and why old man Downes
had died suddenly
with his eyes open.
The water was December cold
as I slipped through the grey,
never having learned to swim
I was not found innocent
until dawn
the next day.
 

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