when I saw the eyes
of my first child
I knew that when I  
die, someday
sometime, someplace

I knew then that I will die
staring right into his eyes

if I might be
so lucky

"She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

~Shakespeare, from 'Macbeth'

all our little itches come out to play
I eat them aflame as if I were next

I know I am to be
next comestible girl thing

something, irritant beneath your back teeth

and you sit on your sofa and wonder
you fall down my stairs and look up

we sleep by the river and listen
to the frogs and the praying mantis
as they glisten

all that matters
as they walk a certain way

all that wonders
why you and I just

seemed to fade a——way

as I couldn't chew weeds
like the rest of them
as if a dog choke chain we rot
circus familiar to me,

smile like you feel it, baby,
grin as if you are inside those
photo graphs

see clouds of pink paint
descended of you
clouds love me so
love me more than you

I am what I am
a fog of knowing

knowing how you will love me
in your very veins is restful
eases me to sleep a rolling
train way dream each night

midnight wakes me
your name on my lips

I am a dark slick highway woman
moaning like a new birthed bird

I am never going to be yours

but you could borrow me
take all that  I am

I will be here sighing,
waiting for the true blue

****** of you

everything we could have been
never leaves us, that’s a myth
we see now, and it has no service

I choose for us a perfect ending
this is my living song
I just forgot
how to sing

really, I thought for once
we nestled in your
head

what if someone kills alongside the highway
where

we left her to live or die, a life sentence
& when she gets a gun and kills
many men all in a row

is it serial ****** if every single one
looked the same, acted the same
said the same words, as the first one
is she really a serial killer?

(who made her what she became?
all of us did this to her)

perhaps she finally make a start
at disaster containment
to eliminate the plague

one corpse at a time

rain love fell a dream tonight
you were not there, but felt close
seeing nothing in mist of trouble
walking cloud of forgotten shrouds

no one, dank street, cruel houses
no dry place no cats about
wearing red and yellow slickers
long while cats hidden entire

wandering one wet world
slick pavement sky so asphalt
empty windows gaped calling
out deceptively catch the unwary

windows, concrete, no trees
mother's voice laughs soundlessly
no signposts, no streetlights
oddly forlorn, my hometown

unmarked, without direction
darker than hell's moonless night
this is my town, my place
one learns, find a way

feel the way, march in tyme
crawl slowly out the pier
knowing bay so full tonight

use poet radar
you will not
fail

once we were one, so close
now turncoat in lakes of
oleander, creeks run poison
we two betrayed

what stolen ideal cast
in stone against her?
my anima still wants love
from me, yet twists on proverbial

dime

coats were rejected
colors negated, unflown
prisoner of tumble town
chained like a queen

a shanty wish disregard
so no wings, air of nonesuch
grace barrio color to fly

in my mind, sleeping
mariachis playing loud,
my anima rescued me

real,  such desert here
just my shivering id
skinned seal, bad memory

still hopeful still here
surely mi anima mi alma
will grant my dying

wish

I am the traitor of my anima

love like we did
cavern toes to nose
bury me where

we sleep

move on again
you must keep moving
bury me with my single bead

bone I save from my lost child
if this one dies first,  then
bury us together

not in death season
not worth it, not well
if you can, I know you

you will bury me in long grass
like fingertips licking at fire
you will place me just so

so that I will move on
next plain of understanding
hope, love, anointed with right

oils, please take this sad body
bury me with my lone bead
never forget how we loved

life

want to throw myself into you
give it my all, every atom
meet me there at the edge

waiting is best part

no apology
just sleep


sleep
what a strange

word

weighted scales fallen from eyes that I do not own
other monsters come beneath and rise over them
we place napkins so lightly arising and weep
tea time, flowers, amenable, soothing

running to get a foothold, three steps before a leap
none will say goose goose gander to you or I
nobody wants games now in my rubble of storm
all is a heap of torn down things floating away

hold onto your hat, it's deep here, a gamble
there are footholds in a marsh inside my dream
pitons need sharpening, moon shines merciless
as we tumble into said ravine on one long string


lost, as begun
never to
rise

No Garden awaits here, I am Stone
You are Water, so We are lost
Gardener: tend my arid places

Hope for me when I have nothing
Be my Rock to future flowers

Maybe there are none left me
Masada palaced and unplaced
Our longest dreams of lions

Now is now, a furled fist
Behind my back and seen
Not at all and never again
So it never happened, we all
Agree
~*~
Read Me all the Poemes You Fynde
My Rising shall Be just to Hande
I Arise to Illustrate Your Care

Earn thus Existential Tendril
Iambic grace, Rarest remonstrance
Pentameters helplessly Entwine
Willow so Willing to Your taste

I will take your hand
Lead you far and a-
fielding

A great song eats strange hours
Horses know, wielding such power
A-stamping and snorting
Horses born crazy, now bending tame
Never underestimate planetary power
To lay you to ground

Sleeping, a runaway,
One changling thing who clings
Inside sweat-soaked dream burrows
No evasion, no escape

In such wild grown tall goddess
Places, clinging to a broken bit
A knuckle’s worth of bitter
Traded for a kiss

All is well

"Dark Star”  by Stephen Stills

Forgive me if my fantasies might seem a little shopworn
I'm sure you've heard it all before I wonder what's the right form
Love songs written for you it's been going down for years
But to sing what's in my heart seems more honest than the tears

I am curious
Don't want to hurry us
I'm intrigued with us
Ain't this song a bust
I don't care dark star

I met you several years ago
The times they were so strange but I had a feeling
You looked into my eyes just once
An instant flashing by that we were stealing

Another time you felt so bad
And I wasn't any help at all as I recall
We didn't know quite what to do so we left the wanting be
Still there for me and you

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

It's easy to be with you
Even with the storms that rage beneath your search for peace
We must make some time together
Take the kids and find a world that's ours to keep

Now you've got me dreaming girl
It's been so long that I thought that I'd forgotten how
My heart is once again my soul
We touched we did you know we did no more teasing now

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

Dark star I see you in the morning
Dark star a' sleeping next to me
Dark star let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

Let the memory of the evening
Be the first thing that you think of
When you open up your smile and see me dark star

Tu y tu solo en este mundo
Tu y me conoces tan desnuda y me conoces
no tan bien como me gustaría que sabíamos nosotros solos

Te veré de nuevo pronto siento esto
Sientes esto, lo sabemos
esto es saber en la sangre
bajo la luna, cerca del rio

donde soñé con encontrarte
hace tantos años mi amor

¿remarás este bote a través del río?
Algún día tendremos que dejar de lado estos sueños.
Pero nunca the dejaré ir sin mostrarte todo mi amor

todo mi amor
hueso profundo a mi palma
todo tu amor
donde la x marca el lugar

Tiempo es un círculo que se come a sí mismo
no sabe nada más que hambre y anhelo
Los días nos pasan como antes

somos mejores que eso ahora
quiero coronar mis años
con algo que se siente mucho

mucho como tú
ai ai ai ai ai
mucho como tú

mis años vienen cayendo sobre mí

años tocan y se van
tienen mucho que decir
tantos sueños que nunca
fueron puestos en palabras

te quedas
te quedas
te quedas

written by  Medusa

I would have gone into Scottie's garage to the mattress with you when I was nine and you were twelve, or seemed like you were.

And we would have lain on that bare bed-like thing in a shaft of light and dust.

We might have laughed too.

Initiation rights, the kind I always wanted, might have occurred on that worn out piece of flotsam in a back alley idea of someone's suburban dream in the 1960's.

Between two poets who were destined to meet up anyway, so it was fate, sunshine.

Definitely fate.

Curled against me at any time of day
Stronger than iron, we are one

My son pitches himself against me
In every way, last gasp,

Puberty can’t be avoided
It will end the innocence of

Desperate devotion between us
As it always has been meant to do

Pain, such cleaving pain,
I reject it for now

Give me one more, no
Give us two more years to live like

This, oh please,
This World will wait

A bit longer
To devour him

my grandmother typed poems out for me,
she was almost 100 years old, and still the women
lashed to the mast, half-naked, screaming in lust
in pain, in poetry from Anamae's imagination

straight to my brain, turning me into a flapper childe
wanting gin and jazz, I did, wanted to wear her skin
even at 6 years old, she knew what she was making of me
Anamae was proud of me, in a way my mother could

never have imagined

who has waited for thirty years
i counted him dead, but never could stop

loving the dead man
doing that dead man waltz

so now, my dead man
come find me some way

it's no longer the Seventies
you may find me by a half
broken/half-built wall

if this kind of thing even matters to you
come find me by a broken civilization
I will be the only puppet left in town

When I try to write to you I hear broken Em# ninths
Chords &  Wings and all the smashed things

You have haunted me to the end
End? Nothing is stronger than my need for you
Crawling as I might do in search of the one, the You

I become a lobster, or worse,
I am a Crayfish

For Your Love

life is so real, and so in my face
what is most wanted is not often
even breathed aloud, nor dreamed

seeking a dream of the senses
a tree who waits for me
to climb him, in velvet

while wolves & witches bark
full moon sails over our heads
so we can see the eyes of us

this is me climbing up your perfect limbs
my arms, legs, toes, grip you everywhere
all I hope for is to ascend to win

only need everything, now
all of you, all of me meets tonight
way past time, way beyond space

breathless, full of hope
learning to sob in joy &
land in your solid arms

grateful to be held
so close to you
for so long
hold me

Here come the woman
With the look in her eye
Raised on leather
With flesh on her mind

Words as weapons
Sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die
How the other half die
Makes you wonder, wonder, wonder

Here come the man with the look in his eye
Fed on nothing but full of pride
Look at them go, look at them kick
Makes you wonder how the other half live

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Here come the world
With the look in its eye
Future uncertain but certainly slight
Look at the faces listen to the bells
It's hard to believe we need a place called hell
A place called hell

The devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us

Here comes the woman
With the look in her eye
She's raised on leather
With flesh on her mind
Words are weapons sharper than knives
Makes you wonder how the other half die

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

Devil inside
Devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside

The devil inside
Yeah, yeah, yeah
The devil inside
Yeah, yeah, yeah


Songwriters: Michael Hutchence / Andrew Farriss
Devil Inside lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group

"Mystery Cult of Two" by Medusa  (in translation)

<this is Modern Greek, transliterated so that I can study, but it is my own original poem>


oi archaíoi pólemoi ypoféroun apó ti moíra mas
poté den eípa kalá, poté den eípa alítheia
O, i agápi mou, poú échei páei i alítheia?
ópos ti mními kai ti dikaiosýni

pou chánetai sta óneira
den oneirevómoun pléon apó ména
gnostó vathiá se sas

móno eseís, epithymóntas kai oi dýo
mazí mas gia álli mia forá

oi archaíoi pólemoi ypoféroun
mia moíra san erastés
to parelthón den tha gínei poté
na eínai arketá gností

mia mystiriódi latreía tou chrónou
makriá, mia latreía mystiríou
dýo, móno dýo

agápi: mia latreía mystiríou
tou eaftoú mou

am I evil?
wanting illicit thrill
am I bad?

looking for my garters in satin
buying more stalkings
sheer as a good knife

plotting, planning, I must be
truly evil, sin is fun
feed me

thinking all of those yearnings buried
walking about this planet securely wrapped
tighter and tighter and even more still
finally something broke

my red balloon floats free
letting in all kinds of
memory, imaginings,
cravings, and love

definitely love
love is there
right
yes,
oh
yes

right there
yes, there
oooohhh
yes, yes, yes

oh god yes,
please

if you only knew
how I feel when I see
your face, the only one
I ever learned in a day

if you knew, then what?

the landmarks all there
but not my hand,
only your face
for a camera

if you knew my mind
as you seem to at times
what is left to say

but come & find some
way towards me
where I will be kneeling
in the desert at moonrise
and in the sea at sunset

facing towards where you last
walked away but having no
memory for that time

only new mind for more
it's a completely different
evolution for us

nothing is impossible
now

We missed our chance.

But it’s not a problem: we gave it all
All came back sighing, lovestruck:

Then mutinous alliances recalled,
We fled.

Now, cautioning and antennae’d
Weary, we crawl upon hot lava

Yet still we wave.

"Southern Cross"  
by Crosby, Stills & Nash 1977


Got out of town on a boat goin' to Southern islands
Sailing a reach before a followin' sea
She was makin' for the trades on the outside
And the downhill run to Papeete

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas
We got eighty feet of the waterline nicely making way
In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you
But on a midnight watch I realized why twice you ran away

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

(Around the world) I have been around the world
(Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl
(Who knows she knows) Who knows love can endure
And you know it will

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time
You understand now why you came this way
'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small
But it's as big as the promise, the promise of a comin' day

So I'm sailing for tomorrow my dreams are a dyin'
And my love is an anchor tied to you tied with a silver chain
I have my ship and all her flags are a' flyin'
She is all that I have left and music is her name

Think about
Think about how many times I have fallen
Spirits are using me larger voices callin'
What Heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten

(I've been around the world) I have been around the world
(Lookin') Lookin' for that woman girl
Who knows love can endure
And you know it will, and you know it will yes

Oooh ...

So we cheated and we lied and we tested
And we never failed to fail it was the easiest thing to do
You will survive being bested
Somebody fine will come along make me forget about loving you
At the southern cross

where we all wonder is where we wander
against nature, against planetary pull
things reach out to stop our falling spheres
but nothing can beat free fall out of us

wanting this undeserved frail moment
chasing it down to ground below trail
following til nothing left of myself
hunting rest, knowledge, dreams

nobody gets the sleep
of the dead

one of my daughters sat me down
yesterday and so patiently explained

Luna Girl is the Villain, mom
ok, look, the one you like
With the glittery hair?

mom stop talking.

there are Villains in here.

the one with all the moths around her?

she is a Villain.
she is Luna Girl.

so, humbled, a bit afraid for the three
of us now that Villains had been invoked

I became silent

ancient wars suffer our fate
never told well, never told true
oh love, where has truth gone?
like memory, and justice

long lost in dreams
no longer dreamed by me
known deeply to you

perhaps only you
wishing it were both
of us together once more

ancient wars suffer
a fate like lovers
the past will never
be quite known

a mystery cult of time
long gone, a mystery cult
of two, only two

love: a mystery cult
of me & you

all is warm and one
you are here in my mynde,
where I keep the holy relics
all along the martyrs' trail

****** footprints less than
walking on your spirit hands
so skip, dance, you martyrs

you signed on for this: mysterium mysteria majestic
now you are here, there is no turning back,
you ate the knossos bread, you drank the wine
you are tainted by ancient perfection

You are one with the Golden Age
You can no longer be less than you are

welcome, welcome, rose petals at your feet
next harvest, perhaps you will be our sacrifice

but for now, live in thys moment
become what you know you might be

so many to cheer your life as it drains away in dust
revered, beloved, nothing less than a God
you are to me, save the crops for another year
become the bread between our teeth

grind me like corn beneath your hips tonight
that moon demands a sacrifice, but first
you are the golden god of our dreams
we need you, trust your blood

singing like erinyes at your heels
singing helah helah helah
as you walk the white dust of the path
The path that only Iphegenia knows

we love you
we love you
selah, love, selah

we would die for you
will you die for us?

if i dig deep enough
surely i will find

true root of you
all i need of you
never given

once denied it seems
i must pine as tree to be
obsessively in love but perhaps

tis only envy, mortography
memorography, encapsulating me,
it won't last, tis just a mood

nothing a spell cannot be unspelled
but letters & songs they matter
more than we imagined
we are caught in between what

we felt then & where we want to be

who knows where

the time

goes?

remaining mortal is
curse enough
our love is mortality
writ in water, not dust

thus it lives on

because I wrote

it so

you returned as you left
sure-foot fleet & elegant

black eyes see all and one
you always saw everything

perspectively right or wrong
we two were dangling

precipice arighted you
found us to be true

we won the day

sending you the wind in my hair, and highways
lit up so bright at night that you feel like a movie
star, and you gotta wear your cheap shades
at midnight just to get through Circus Ville

machine dreams, big rigs, perfect coffee hot
& fresh, god bless truck stops,
buy a fluffy key chain,
three pounds beef jerky, ride all night
out into the  hand-painted desert
where you know you don't belong

when the rocks turn into freighters & sail over you
like pirate schooners in the coming dawn,
& the price of your awe is more than you can afford
so you laugh, step ******* the gas, turn it up

dylan rasps out some ****** tempest tunes
all you can think of is how pure this air
he's singing about scarlet town, where you
were born, and you try to understand, but
feel it instead

because there is where you were born
listening for twining leaf & thorn
casting out for clues, in the blue vastness
of his voice in your husband's old bmw

racing through towns to nowhere
listening, breathing, playing a few rounds
of some game inside your hollow point head
before the sun comes back to the huge cacti

eats your eyes, swallows this plain

we love the feel of highway beneath us
wind everywhere, touching us in places
we need to feel something

all-american something about the car
indulgent as some old rock song
I still love, like my sharona, I am

helpless
hopeful
driving

no resist in me for you,
pulls me in every time
road and wind and that
beat

let's g-go, speeding
my lovely engine,
my sweet machine
stutter it to me
car shaking

shudders
my *****

336 miles to go
tonight

time to
ride



~a~

Hey Man
You got me
Like You Always
Had me


It must be written in Stone.

Once in love the World a mirror
Sensual and alive, no turning back
Each breeze caresses tender places

This planet reaches out to take me
Because you, my love, have gone
So all is well tonight, again

My every nerve is on fire
As if you were astride me
Yet only me and my mind

Dwell in these woods
Tonight, and this fire
Burns to coals

As I dream

<google translate just messed this up so badly that I had to put my real translation here, because even google gets it wrong sometimes>


You, you and you alone in this world
You who know me so naked and know me
Not as well as I wish we knew ourselves together

I will see you again soon I feel this
You feel this we know this
this is knowing in the blood
under the moon, close to the river

where I dreamed of finding you
so many  years ago, my love

will you row this boat across the river?
someday we will have to let go of these dreams
but I will never let go without showing you all of my love

all of my love
bone deep to my palm
all of your love
where the x marks the spot

time is a circle that eats itself
knows nothing but hunger and longing
the days pass us by as they did before

we are better than that now
I want to crown my years
with something that feels a whole lot

a whole lot like you
ay ay ay ay ay ay
a whole lot like you

my years come falling down on me

years touch and go away
they have so much to say
so many dreams that never
were put into words

you remain
you remain
you remain

~a song about shoe shopping in hell~

more than a shoe
a pure snare
for my
soul

sorry daddy, he gave me red
stilettos, yes, I know you warned me
& I done wrong, no, can't stop

dancing for weeks
inside his bed
appears cursed I am
lying beneath him

again and again
cursing & snarling
just as you predicted
because he coaxed

from me the truth
of it all the core of it
given to one man
my all, my self

number of the beast
7 1/2 & 3 days later
at our door lay red
stilettos

more than a shoe
a pure snare for my
soul

I feel scared out of my
drafts file

<devil inside>

It was quite a surprise. I wasn't expecting much, it's just a website for sharing stuff. So I shared. And I read some things and looked around awhile. And before I knew it there was this jesus guy asking me if I wanted to talk.

Of course I can't tell you what we talked about, don't be silly.

Later on he and I were getting to know each other better. Over many months, maybe a year. I liked jesus a lot. He seemed to be the only person I could really talk to and I'm Jewish, but he didn't care about that stuff at all. In fact, I didn't even know what jesus looked like.

We spent hours, like, I mean many nights we talk for hours on the phone, and I don't really have much use for the telephone.
This jesus guy, man, he's a lot of fun. He knows his stuff, I'm telling you. He can keep you entertained with his tales and his facts on any subject you mention. Maybe there’s some strange ideas running ‘round inside his head, but that’s what makes people worth listening to as far as I’m concerned. You wouldn’t wanna hear some of the crazy things I been through with my good friends way back when and that was just grade school.

So Jesus asked if I wanted to write a book with him. This was back in the early days of our acquaintance and I liked that idea right off.

So me an J started writing together and that was really great. We seemed to mesh pretty well. I started to, maybe, kinda get the religion thing then. I dunno. I began to understand it better. It’s hard to say where faith and love and friendship meet.

The crossroads is where I'm hanging out right now.

I'm waiting to get a chance to shove everyone out of my house and call up my man, Jesus, on the phone. He and I haven't talked for almost two weeks and it's like going to church, I miss it.

My faith is strong. My friendship is unyielding. My love is steadfast. Jesus and me, we got a good thing going.

We got very different ideas about things, but then again, we don’t need to argue either, get me?

Think I'll give Jesus a call right now.
Wonder what that scoundrel has been up to today?
Hey, Jesus? (He has so many nicknames, you prob call him something else, he likes "****** Bradley" and he always answers to "S.O.B.")  

Yeah, I always figured that Jesus probably had a great sense of humor, what with that hell of a Dad and all that. . . .

Yeah, me and my man, J, surprised the hell outta me, but we make a really great team.