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

thar she blows, from the Universal Brain
& the ultimate know hole
speaking right into your eyes

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

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

medusa medusa,
let down the lair
medusa medusa,
let down your hair

so said the last one
go find his head
bring it back to me
my own true love

well, my sweet heart,
between you and the lair
I'd be better off
in love with

the lair

you your own self know
this to be true

but I pledged for life
I'm still here

& then

I am:
the first man to touch you
the way you wanted me to
so I am waiting for you

I will stand here and I will wait
I have wanted you for ten thousand years
no vipers could stop me

who are you fooling?
fake snakes with those
cheap black pearl tears

nothing will stop me
but you, so say the wyrd
but you never will

I love you
always and still

it remains three over three
a hand upon a moment
nothing but rivered memory
wrung out in sodden time

more to follow, years of it

where will you hide it all?

mo-mo is 4, a tiny inmate
we live in max security
her secrets already hidden like tricks
me, the unwilling turnkey, the hack

stash of blood polish for her walls
spells out forbidden messages to  ?
stealing everything with a "no" on it
social graces create master thief

society has never worked for me
why push it on her, in her wild grace?
let us set her free, free of false rule

free to hear the pulse of her true
nature

By mere threads do we meet and not lose sight
Of the ones we might have been fated to
Know in this Golden Age.

In this era people go without.
This is a time where magic is
Sunk under the Net of Social
Disease.

Blame Tesla and his perfect radio.

Everything went in waves before
Waves after. But the ocean got left out.
The waves inside us were drowned out.

Too much static. Almost dogs, now, & deaf to ourselves.
We lose more ground by the day. Instead we tune in
Some non-station that not even radios can hear.

Hoping for tribal wisdom, we pray to media gods
Whose evil celebrity is more soulless than acid rain
Leaving us without real faces, totems hidden inside

Titanic mistakes where we hide it all
We've taught everything to hate, a closet
of goathead stickers and rotting VCR tapes

Don't unlock that door, that's the secret
Where I store my bad ideas, so leave it
Alone.

I warned you twice.

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

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.

no apology
just sleep


sleep
what a strange

word

Medusa slips into necessary days, 20th century,
completely by accident, it was a chemical spill

nobody was there to clean up this ms stake
but she was definitely sorry

boy was she in for a surprize
it wasn't golden at all

it was all about the wrong moment
wrong in every way

1944, Germany, Medusa on stage
Fraulein, in tap shoes, wearing powder kegs
beneath her stage set and she had no idea where she
might be but she knew exactly where to stomp down

exactly when to toss that feathered purse
and to whom to throw it, with a moue
a dimpled kiss and a wink

goodbye, my love

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

waiting is best part

twins get to sleep in the living room on weekends
sitting at my desk, I can hear them talking
their bond is tighter than anything

and finally, in bits & pieces, love slips in
in spite of myself, hearing my girls talking
is as good as I can imagine it will get

& Ramona tells me
"Mom, just caaaaallllm down"
Sasha threatens me with dire things

now demanding musical instruments
how can one think of anything else
when Sashie is using my own voice
perfect imitation of a mommy driven

over
the
edge. . . .

now they just found the moon outside the window,
my girls taunt moon, calling him out, teasing

"hey look" they cry "it's morning"

so many giggles, I am covered in girlies
who rain down giggles upon me & moon


moon & me both hide our faces
in front of such joy

why capture ****** or knave
without purpose?

why indeed, asked
her majesty moon

only for scarifice
or sacrifice

everything holds a purpose
inherent to itself

mother really is
necessity of all

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

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

my entire
cosmogony
consists
o
f
the
female

body

(writes johnny noir)

And the choir of the feminine galaxies sing hymns of thanks.
in tonal sincerities mixed patched arching over all is a prayer
of thanks for the men who get it, even imperfectly, they reach beyond us, beyond themselves, and they give it all  back.

we are all made of star dust. nothing more, nothing less.
we are made all of red dust, leaving up in the wind
silent as dust will always, frustratingly
be

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~

<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.

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

I love how the bonds connect so fast
I call a number and I want to buy
a dresser for twenty bucks

but they are looking for a connection,
they want to discuss times
places

we should talk about night stands
more often with total strangers

people are so alone now
with all these ways to connect

wisdom is draining out of us so fast
perhaps it gathers in night stands

or vintage knick-knacks
wisdom lost like this
it must be gathering

into something

you're not even selfish;
would u call the universe selfish!?

Medusa turns to face you and replies,
in monotone, like a dirge:

Yes. The Universe insists upon itself.
That is a certainty. I would call the Universe
Down upon my very head if needed
to say simply this:

Our Universe, Our Call.
My Universe is Willful,
Playful, Immoral as Hell.

Let it roll.

I want to call you, I do
But I have so little time alone
I have shreds here, an hour there
Never any unbroken by needs
I just want to sit here a little longer

A time of quarantine, a house to hold us
We are lucky, I know this, I feel it, yet
I grow smaller, I feel eaten alive
Am I even my self still?

Do I still have a name of my own?

I might find one if I can summon the energy to
Drive, walk, run away from this house so full
For a day or an afternoon, and don't
Lecture me right now because I've tried

And failed fifty times this month alone
I know how selfish I am, but it's innate
I can't abandon the qualities I don't like

This is my life, a prix fixe menu
You have to take me as I am, and so do I,

It's just life

under tundric ice he lay
i suddenly discovered him

as my raisin sharp
runners pulled sled
by the way

dead man?

no.

alive, Miss Alice!

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

write, don't read
but some guy on the subway
he got up next to me
he said

write poems not letters

& it felt like a crowning and borning but my god

it still hurt like hell
nobody better know me
nobody better think they own me
I am so freakin mean

I have half a killed
so many men


this is my simple
confession

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

"Red Right Ankle"                        by Colin Meloy

This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg
And how the muscle bone and sinews tangled
And how the skin was softly shed
And how it whispered,
"Oh, adhere to me for we are bound by symmetry
And whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb"
This is the story of your red right ankle

This is the story of your gypsy uncle
You never knew cause he was dead
And how his face was carved an ripped with wrinkles
In the picture in your head
And remember how you found the key
To his hide-out in the Pyrenees,
But you wanted to keep his secret safe,
So you threw the key away?
This is the story of your gypsy uncle

This is the story of the boys who loved you
Who love you now and loved you then
And some were sweet and some were cold and snuffed you
And some just layed around in bed
And some, they crumbled you straight to your knees
Did it cruel, did it tenderly
Some they crawled their way into your heart
To rend your ventricles apart
This is the story of the boys who loved you
This is the story of your red right ankle



copyright Colin Meloy 2003

"******. Will I never be rid of that infernal woman?"  ****** snarled.

"Now, now, Mister ******. Mistress Medusa is only lookin' out for you. After all, you're only flesh and blood."

"And she's a primordial cosmic force. I get it."

Another sun sets on our lovers as the gods laugh. Y'all know how they love a good laugh.


"Ridiculum" copyright Johnny Noir and A. Wild 2018

"******. Will I never be rid of that infernal woman,” ****** snarled.
“Now, now, Mister ******. Miss Medusa is only looking out for you. After all you’re only flesh and blood.”
“And she’s a primordial cosmic force. I get it.”

~Johnny Noir

~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

tell me why love must hurt
explain it to me, draw it out
a diagram, intricately elaborate
like a four overlay ventricle & canticle
of the human heart in all its muscular

glory

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

"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

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