ten wings on five
black birds
sitting together
on the mulberry tree
set flight
all at once
startled
just one set of wings
the ones
on the woodpecker
his *******
stayed
pecking
as
the stealthy yellow
and white striped cat
clawed her way up the bark
closing distance
he just kept at it
some insect
peckpeckpeck
or the wood itself
and the cat her claws
driven into the bark almost
at the same intensity
rose almost to the limb
that held the peckerheaded
intenseness
of the stalked in
his one-sighted business,
as the cat,
on the limb below ,
close close as breath quickened
back arched
hunched
woody flew off.
***** willowed, scented the
limb the ****
crack of the *******
and
licked her paw.
No loss.
There is always
tomorrow.

She arched, and peeled
a red plum into my
mouth, including
the ragged pit;

though she had the charm
of a pumice stone, I did
not spit or complain.

Every morning she awoke
as he fetched cups and bowls

from the cabinet, the sounds
were gentle awakenings, like

sparrows hopping across
a window sill; oh,  so, still

and quiet the home
became.

I search for the best lay of the land
between hillsides & beyond
concrete

where gravel roads wander
toward birdsong and gut
laughter with

few  fence posts
and sleep filled
nights.

It glowed gold
not orange or yellow
It was gold I say!
When I lifted the blind
there it was
from behind those distant hills.
Gift of the morning
and I welcomed it.

The warped cutting board
the stinking drains
not enough soap,
nor medicine.
Never enough
Gratitude a long way off
Then this gift changed
a complaining heart.


Out there I am queen
Out there I can breath
Unsullied by housework
and balancing accounts
cheated of playfulness
and human contact.
This gift of the morning
this  ribbon of gold.

I move the pen
let it bleed
pinch out more life
yes - this is hemo-
camouflaged in black
camouflaged in black

falls on the page,
tumbles, rolls across
the eyeballs
and the gray matter is eased
of unwanted and unknown images
emptying
created out of black and
my ready hand
still steady
still steady

Cramming the words and letters
across this barren wasted papyrus
ancient scroll
for pharaohs and scholars

3 ringed and blue lined
receiving the unwanted, unwarranted
the wood block of
uncontrolled mind

Insistent
the blood
that rushes from heart to
feet and up again to brain
out my restless hand
camouflaged in black
camouflaged in black

Onto the desert
onto the Waste Land of Elliot
briny tavern of James Joyce
and black coffee pots of Thomas Wolf

Bleeding, in need of a tourniquet
medical attention
or at best psychosomatic drugs
control this outflow
stop the nonsense
it serves no purpose

bleeding out your sanity
proving you have lost it.
uncontrolled and deranged
wandering  running from
the bogey man
the bogey man

Who comes out of the dark cellar
quite near your little bed
with its pink flowered coverlet.

and the blood leaks out the
end of this instrument of
Terror
In the shadow of Stephen King
I make my stand
only poets get to say
things people can't grasp
The rest do graphic violence
camouflaged in black
camouflaged in black
their blood too
camouflaged in black.

arching my back
the sparks fly
like shaved metal
off of my sternum
as something
like happiness
flecks through
in metal firebuds
that screech coming
over me as a
wave washes
through my
molecular structure,
inside the libations
held up to the
small goddesses
running through
the rush of
the chainsaw shrieks
of bloodstream
now a fomenting river
of tiny waves
cresting made up
of my tears
shed all through
the mineral-encrusted
night
Now those tiny deities
with singing plumpness
of breast and thigh
indigo radiating
from their third eye
are dancing
inside my being
as I strive to catch
the shadows that
only just surrounded
me in that last hour
of plague
of chasm-patched torment
tears insulating me
until I could not see
for the steam
just on the edge
of inability to
contain my
filtered out
pre-injected rage
Here I now sit
a few inches above
the grasslands
lotus in each palm
pumped
with manifestation
in my very fingers
                       of life