Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Red Night

Red Night


Shades of legs walking down corridors
In thunder, under the red sky after
A storm has passed on to the east.
I can see them moving to the country,
Which is now full of ground mist
And damp fingers of summer life.
These delicate limbs, engineered to
Hold such a great weight, bounce
Rhythms deep within the earth, hollow
Beats on the chambered ground. They
Call many things to life, as they have
Done with changes in themselves.
The first were light, smaller and clawed,
With spotted backs like fawns, with
Bright eyes that ringed themselves
And searched the fireless nights.
In the madness of fear, these small things
Grew stronger, faster, grew rounded hooves
To pound through the open nights,
Baring teeth and throwing power through
Muscled limbs. Wolves would fall
With legs severed at the shoulder, jaws
Shattered. Men would hang from painted
Shoulders, cooking slices of flesh beneath
Saddles as they rode, merging flesh
To hide. In certain parts of the sea,
Some fell to the gaping mouths
Of sharks, slicking the surface
Of a new blood plain, streaked toward
Dawn in its madness. Now, as I watch
Them streak toward the night woods,
I look over their backs to see the
Vapor stained shapes of old lives,
Tragically articulated in the lines
Of still-living forms.


One screams out, holding
Its long jaws oddly apart, looking
Anywhere but where I stand.
Its leg is tangled in a bundle of wire,
Rusted and matted with leaves,
Impossibly complicated, digging
Blood from the bony shin, pale
With the dust of the passing herd.


In this dream I pull madly at
The bundle, with my own
Arms now impossibly tangled in the
Rusted mass, trampled and dragged
Without pain, somehow rising and
Falling with the staggering gait
Of the condemned.


Now it screams and twists
In the air, head down, biting
The metal like a dog, tearing itself
Apart, its whale eye glowing
With the reflected sunset.


The metal bundle is now a flame,
Darkness surrounds the circle
Of redness, blood on the ground,
The animal now dropped to its knees,
Still screaming, wheezing, weakening,
And I have disappeared into the flame.


In this dream I feel the ground shake
Once more. I feel the coming of another
Passing herd, and watch as they trample
The place of struggle. Each is all, and
They move as birds wheeling in the sky.
When they have passed, there are only
Embers left on the ground.

In April, for my Old Lady

In April, for my old lady:


Your old bones are showing,
As you jingle and clatter. You
Are thirsty every hour, no food
Is enough. Once I prayed for
Your long life.


It was given


And I prayed for you to
Return to me.


And you came back.


You ran sleek in summer,
With long deer legs, not
Strong. Your eyes shone
In connection, as earth flew
Behind you.


Once, a wolf dug a hole
In your side.


It was sewn.


You walked with horses,
Bared your teeth.


Now,


Your old bones are telling
Me that I might be the one
Who sees you out.

Now I pray that I will find
You silent, still, curled
On the old towel you prefer to
A bed.


I will hang your tag on my wall,
Wrap you in cloth,
Offer food for your journey,
Spread flowers over you,
Cover you with earth,
Leave you in an old place
I can always find.

Dreams in Spring

Dreams in Spring


The eye sees each new growth
Separate from the old,


As if living things are new miracles.
Even with the knowledge of


Decades, longer, there is something
In men forgetful and unforgivable.


As the first greens appear, and thoughts
Turn to years reeling in consciousness,


Lifetimes fisheyed and colored in the
Surreal breath of lapsing days;


It is not enough to only see. To remember
Is to connect these things as they are.


It is to sacrifice the hollow comfort
Of memory, to understand that


The past is a shifting thing, false
And corrupting. Wakeful


Eyes see the new life of spring as
An uncertain upward reaching,


The hope of the dead, their claim
To this world, far beyond our


Modern sight. As stars shine their
Dead light through darkness,


Our momentary flashes are seen
Only in part. Other eyes watch


From more solid ground, dropped
Suddenly and impartially from


Dreamlife. They see us as we are,
Their own cells and life parts


Reborn ever as children in this world,
Never seeing. I would like to think


That they guide us, and perhaps they
Do: Mothers come in dreams,


Walking down a familiar hill, aged
As if the body had never died.


A brother walking in the dusk,
To the window of his dreamlife


Sister, reaching to lay a hand on the back
Wall of the house that once held him.


Perhaps they are saying: Rest your poor
Bodies, for you will no longer need it


Once you are like me.
There is no time anymore, only days.


There is no past anymore, only sight.
Only now, never then.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The Earth in One Cell

How I been left in the sun,
Longer I lust for the cold,
How long I've crept on my knees,
Cut my hands to the bone,

One cell divide,
Live three times,
And cut for the heart of the sun.
Bad luck cutting its bones
On solid ground

And never fall out.

Ever I left with the dawn,
And ever I crept on the wind,
Earth is too big now to hold me,
You'll never lose bad luck again.

One cell divide,
Live three times,
And cut for the heart of the sun.
Bad luck cutting its bones
On solid ground,

And never fall out.


It's been too long,
Will I ever fade out with the sun?
Bad heart yearns,
Feel its blood burn,
You'll never leave bad luck alone.

One cell divide,
Live three times,
And cut for the heart of the sun.
Bad luck cutting its bones
On solid ground,

And never fall out.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Eat The Low Dogs

We cut through blood in the light of all time - In the shadow of god we are ruin sight - I 
hear a savage throat, will claim my soul. An ancient fire, cook my bones. Where is your 
fear? Where does it hide? A mark on your soul, for all time -  We have slept and cut 
through blood - Sickness, black as coal. We rise with dogs and follow darkness where it 
goes. We are one and war is god, and bodies reek in our wake. It's hard to believe, 
question your faith. Submit and make it change. Say sister I hope you can find our way. 
There is no new sun on the rise, and there is blood darkness in your eyes. And your empty 
mouth swallows my sight. I have taught you how to fear. You'll be consumed within my 
shadow, for I live in the mouths of worms. With fang and claw. My mind is gone. I eat the 
low dogs, can't stay strong. You don't question my existence, but you can't trace my form. 
I am older than your body, I am older than your soul. I'm in the ground, and I have 
scorched this earth. I have taught you how to fear. I have taught you how to fear. And I 
don't ever change. I can fly on the wings of a robin. I can slink like a low dog. I have 
taught you how to fear. With fang and claw, I lie deep beneath the water, reach up and 
snatch your soul. I have taught you how to fear. You walk with fire, stand naked in the 
sun. In the morning light few men can see your wickedness revealed, one shape and form. 
Withering flesh. With fang and claw. I feed. You say you speak for god, understand its 
power. You lie. You lie. One judge of man, one crumb of earth devour. Countless men, 
returned to dust, in that awful darkness that you even fear. Paranoia - Indecision - Black 
Lung - Control, control. A dark sun rise on a lamp black sign. A low dog crawl like the 
black on my soul. With the dark sun, I'll be leaving. A world without end, in my bitter 
mind. I pray to the sky - I pray to the sky.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Run Thick in the Night

Run Thick In The Night



 - In The Night

Mirror glass,
Stars they fall.
Seeds of fire,
Blind and bright.
Strange alike, to one another.
And are legion in the night

Strange and Still

She has killed the stars, and confused our eyes.


 -  Wolf on Anareta,
Cry the distant stars
Seed so old and forming, dying ancient light
Wolf on Anareta, destroyer of all kinds
Whatever cloak to guard them, whatever hand to bind.


When I recover, I will build a weapon
Erase your mark from man
Wolf on Anareta, destroyer of all kinds
Whatever cloak to guard them, whatever hand to bind.



Who seeks your counsel?
Are they listening now?
So alike my enemies
And will cut your throats in kind
Wolf on Anareta, destroyer of all kinds
Whatever cloak to guard them, whatever hand to bind.



I hear a savage throat, lay claim my soul
And an ancient fire,
Cook my bones
Wolf on Anareta, destroyer of all kinds
Whatever cloak to guard them, whatever hand to bind.

 - I know your face,
Your seasons
In green shadow, high mountains
Evermore, I am your body
Evermore, in flesh and bone
A skin that will peel back from nothing
A specter, and it is willing,
When the light, it falls
It sounds, a call
In its reaches, Fire is sleeping


 - Fonta Flora lies beneath
The dark waters
Watching people pass above
As they sink, lifeless,
To lie with the long dead
Left behind, unmarked
Pushing the ripples upward


 - Ephraim in the Stars

As we are minds
As wee see cold
Feel the moonlight, shift and move
And see our fears
In the dark and narrow
In barren circles,
Light in our way

Oh, the deepest darkness
Oh, the silver moon
Ephraim in the Stars
Lord, suzerain


At night she walks
The deepest dark
The wild mountains, and fiery stars
And she is fearful
In the dark and narrow
And it is a terrible thing to be lost

Oh, the deepest darkness
Oh, the silver moon
Ephraim in the Stars
Lord, suzerain



As we have eyes
And light in our way
There are things that hate to be seen
Belly of a whale,
Light over the mountain,
Eye up in the heaven,
Wheel inside a wheel

Oh, the deepest darkness
Oh, the silver moon
Ephraim in the Stars
Lord, suzerain



Who spreads her fingers
In lunar angles
Whose belly holds the silvery seas
Whose ears are buried
Whose mouth is vapor
Whose eyes are cancer
Whose voice is unclear

Oh, the deepest darkness
Oh, the silver moon
Ephraim in the Stars
Lord, suzerain


This song was written
Before The Leonids
Circled to our lifetime
Showering bursts of light
Down to earth
Pulsing 
Through the night 



 - Suzerain


Attack in swarm
Run Thick in the Night
We are of blood, a rain that is blind
A legion of souls, and feed on every surface
A fog that tastes like Iron
Run Thick in the Night


When we reach the sun,
Into vapor we must form our waking eyes
To look upon the moon and stars,
Swallow up what is left in darkness,
Suzerain


Goes to show, what is known
To feel a certain simple shame
We stand on a dark hill,
obscured
and unseen
We reach
To the abyss
Forever


When we reach the sun, Into vapor we must form our iron hands
To swallow up the moon and stars, look upon what is left in darkness

Suzerain

 -  Maran


Far away from your cold twisted reach
Living under your black could of sleep
And always one eye behind, far away from your shadow
Away from your cold twisted reach
And your black cloud of sleep
And the venom you spit through your teeth
And your tainted breath
"The piping of the quena...
flutes made from human bones"
 - McCarthy



 - Deep Green
Beneath the trees
The wind it feels
The air,
the stars
And breathe its skin
Fade in the sun, thick in the night
The lights to fade
And wane and shift
The air,
the stars
And breathe its skin
Fade in the sun, thick in the night


 - The Devil’s Flower in Mother Winter

The Devil seed
Was sowed and born
Far across the stream
Neath the weeds and thorns
It could find no shelter
It could find no home
Neath the yellow moon, or the golden sun


Smell the blood
On the devil flower
Brings and evil moon
And evil power
If it should live, where would it grow
Neath the golden sun, the winter snow


Born again, dark November
Feel the chill, come late December
Our mother winter
Shines her soul
In the moon, when it’s dark and cold


Mirror glass,
Stars they fall…



 - The Moon in Flesh and Bone

In know your face
I know your seasons
In green shadows, and high mountains
Evermore, I am your body
Evermore
In flesh
And bone


A skin that will peel back from nothing
A specter
And it is willing
When the light, it fall
A sound
A call
In its reaches, fire is sleeping


God and devils
Piss and venom
In time, you reap them
You suffer
Grit your teeth
And take your poison
Leave your body
                           It
                               Is
                                 Ruin.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

I Envy Them In Their Spirals

I Envy Them In Their Spirals

I envy them in their spirals
To view the world as they see it
If not pleasing, at least wide
As they tilt themselves inward
In ever-closing arcs
They bend toward earth
Some long highway in the hot afternoon
Draws them
Where life has been given up
Or taken by these alien predators
That take nothing from the carcass


I read somewhere
That there are more of them now than ever before


Those who watch them
Come down to feed
Many times – for there is always plenty
So they descend
And totter toward dead things
And feed
With their obscene heads that dig and jerk
And beaks that tear like primitive knives
And leave only bones at their slow, final ascent


A woman who captured pandas once told me
That there are some people
In distant regions of China
Or Tibet
That leave their dead for them
Willingly,
In a holy place
So they may rise quickly
With them
In ever-widening arcs
Past our knowing.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Radius

Radius


I have rolled into a ball on the
Surface of stone. Snow has fallen
Everywhere but the place I have taken for
Myself, and as I reach to feel the perfect
Radius I cut my hand on a sharp stone angle
That has risen from the blankness.
My blood evaporates before my eyes.
I can feel the redness, the wound closes
Around a moon shaped stone
Fitted to my hand. All of this has
Happened to someone else,
At another time, on other stones.


When I have healed, I move myself
Along the descending pathway, evergreens
Curling laurels. Through the trees something
Glimmers, distant, wavering in my
Sleep blurred sight. I stand against the
Rough bark of a windfall, breathing
The cold thin air. It is a light, somewhere,
And it offers me no way to find
My place.


Because you can never tell how far away
A light is.


All time has left me. The snow still falls,
But does not touch me, as if I am a burning
Stone. I am moved now, not moving 
Myself, and I come near the base of
The stone mountain, covered in a field
Of deep white. Enormous hairy things
Root and grunt through the surface of the
Field, blowing huge plumes of smoke from
Their noses, echoing from deep in their
Bellies a trilling sub-sound, astounded by
Their own enormity, unaware of me entirely.

I start to understand that I am not here, that
I am part of the world, only. Another wind
Comes and I go away, blinded by the circles
Swirling around me, and as I fall again I see the
Same flicker of light, this time within the range
Of my senses, this time walked about by men
Who wear streaks of green paint on their bare
Skin, enduring the cold by some miracle, howling
In words I do not understand. They carry feathers
Of vultures, circular stones, a kind of gourd with
A string that they saw with peculiar dexterity. I carry
The sound in my mind, and again I am blown, carried
Moved in some way to another bare stone. I can see the
Same light, quavering, silent, distant. I have no hands, and as
I look to myself I cannot find anything. I feel even more now.
I can see to the light by feeling. Can see the men as they continue
Their dance, and women have come out from the darkness. Their hair
Falls all around them, carrying the light inside them outward. They are beautiful
In the darkness. They carry a long staff with more feathers, ringing bells of glass,
Lights that circle the bundle by some variable orbit. Their song is one I have
Sung in life, one that was carried to me through water. I watch them for
A time, as the snow falls in wonderful silent waves, and finally the wind
Dies.



Monday, February 24, 2014

The Bald Mountain

The Bald Mountain –


November – The days have been gray and dry for months. There is a ban on campfires, a danger of forest fire, a feeling of electric explosion in faces. The earth is dry. The moon is full.


Moisture from the mouth clouds and freezes,
Fingers curl. There is an orange van in the driveway,
Insanely orange, beyond reason.
The driver is another color, beyond reason.
I do not know him well.
There is another man, a friend, and bad luck
Follows him. We stuff our bags into my truck, I check
The levels, our water, our food.
The driver goes to another room, removes his
Normal clothes, slathers himself in vapo-rub
Dresses in a plastic rainsuit.


The road is a lunar surface,
Large egg shape stones.
I crawl over them, slowly
Never scraping my chassis
Miles above the lake now,
Approaching the bald
Said to be a grassy bed
Below starlight.


I carry a pistol on my hip
Because I have felt a strong
Dread, for days.
Bad dreams, electricity.
We need fire, but are forbidden
To make one. Distance, darkness -
We will make one anyway,
And sleep beneath the stars.


We park in a clearing
In a laurel hell, deep green.
Beyond are meadows with
Dying grass, skeletons of milkweed -
Dried mud and tracks of deer hunters
Turkey feathers and rusted oil cans.
Even though the air is dry,
I feel the earthy smell of rain.


The trail winds for miles
Across rocky outcrops, through game trails
As the sky grows darker, the driver
Falls back, and we wait impatiently
As he staggers to us, each
Time slower and filthier
Than the last; Each time
Looking like a rolling animal.

The driver mumbles to himself
And turns to me, speaking bad poetry
He has written as we walk.
He records his voice into a small
Electronic device, vibrating -
Disturbing waves of purple and blue
Resonate from the spirit world
Into the fading dreary light.


There is no trace of the promised meadows
And the way grows dark and focused,
At the pitch-blackest point,
My friend declares the point,
We have reached to be the point
He has promised, even though
It is a deep woodland
With rocks under leaves. It begins to rain


Continually; We scorch a brush pile
With a propane cylinder
But still are soaked to the bone
As we blaze away, throwing flames to the sky.
We crawl into the dry tent,
Where my friend immediately spills
The water from his canteen -
And so we spend the night soaking.


A denseness in my nose, traveling
Down, deep, lunglife, spreading
Out from the now-damp world,
From an alien stone hurled to earth,
Long burned into the mountain skin,
Long-living in the lonely crags,


Darkness - Chanting becomes unbearable,
A surreal narration of dreams
Into the night, into darkness.
Unable to rest, checking the pistol
At my hip, in case of bears – I tell myself
I walk out and fire into the night.
The forest stops, grows still
Shapes in the vertical lines watch unblinking.


Foxes cry out in the night, running
Along the rims of the Linville Gorge
Their chattering is human-like
Complex and necessary for them,
And I dream of them speaking in
Human voices, walking in narrowing circles
Defiling down narrow corridors of rocks;
Of mist, fur, blood, and bones.


The morning is cold, bone soaking.
I rise and walk along the foggy rim
Along the soul of the world,
Above the scalp of the ridges,
On fox trails and bear beds
My hands graze the lichens, stones
Wet from springs, from the terrible
Darkness deep within the world.


I have never felt the enveloping stillness,
A dimensionless quavering along
Invisible lines, boundaries beneath
The world, the pulsing of mountain skin,
Bloodstreambeats, structureless, yet taking
Me willingly. I am apart now, have
Left the world behind. I lie down among
The leaves, the soft decay. No time.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Legend of the Earth's Forming

Legend of the Earth’s Forming


A crinkle of late winter leaves
A leg moved, yellow
Scaled,
I counted three
Something must have chewed or torn the other
Finally, given up
And you rested,
And closed your wound
Kept on
Even though I had no thought of harming you
I must have been rough
Turning you upside-down
Watching at ground-level for your eyes to emerge
To see me through that impossible-colored lens
And finally,
You seemed to regard me
As you must have done other times
With other boys
Dogs
Crawling things
The old people from this country say
That the earth was carried on your back
As it emerged
After considering this
I think they must have seen you
As I see you
Because I have risked everything
Present, future
To move you many times
In many bodies
Over the harsh alien scab
Trusting that you must know
Some refuge
A trial to follow
From an ancient map
Made at the world’s forming

Thursday, February 13, 2014

To Wake and Dream

To Wake and Dream

These stars that form
Are ever changing things
To shift like stones
And dirt beneath the waves
To hear and taste
The earthy smell of rain
To wake and sleep and dream

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

A Funeral in the Piedmont

A Funeral in the Piedmont

A clear sun semi-circle,
Flat and dusty cemetery off a two-lane Reidsville highway,
In the yard of an old wood church and tobacco barns:

No one cries.
Not from uncaring or meanness,
Only from not knowing what to do.
My uncle Rueben seldom spoke to others
And kept to himself, with his greasy instruments.
 - Off to my left a black man dozes in his digging machine
And accidentally knocks it in gear, lurches backward
Into a cement angel, crashing with a final destructive stone clap.
The preacher never stops
As my grandmother utters a bitter oath
With layers of old racism,
And a vicious personal insult to the man she apparently knows.
Her voice hums like a bitter string, and
I pinch myself through my suit, and finally dig a small knife blade
Into my thigh to keep from laughing,
Because she is so vivid in her description,
And because she means it and is still harmless
In the way that only old women can be.

 Summer, 1980s-
A long maroon Pontiac creeps to the edge of the driveway,
A large southern black woman
In a house dress and slippers
Shuffles up the smooth asphalt,
Raises her hand and cries out smiling.
I watch from under the sycamore.
My grandmother shades her eyes from the doorway
Walks from the carport,
Also smiling.

Memory-
I would like to hear the tune Bud would have played
If he had known about his own service.
I had often played his ancient Gibson banjo
Black and greased
Ringing cat-gut echoes
Heavy and humming- taught, stamped in Kalamazoo -
Which stayed under the guest room bed
As my uncle slipped farther away
Into himself, without caring.
He was the seventh born son
Of a seventh born son,
And so was known to be apart.
Sometimes his brothers would carry him
In their old cars to play in fire departments
Or the churches of Baptists or Methodists
To be a part of the loud ringing choir
And he would hear the words of mothers
And women, fathers and sons
All without understanding.
It must have been one long glorious echo
That carried with him all times
Through dark nights without dark
In the moving mouths of people
As others were born and died
He saw this without understanding.

Dark, summer, 1990s.
Music floats across the tobacco field
I stand in the yard alone
Outside the house
Where my grandparents hide themselves
From a world becoming another place
Neighbors have died
And the music is alien to them.

Inside the sun-circle:

Afterward,
I look backward out the car window
As the slick suited man drives us
And the dust settles around the upright stones.
The black man has righted the angel;
He readies the earth for the grave,
And my uncle, still silent
Is lowered again.