The age demanded that we sing
And cut away our tongue.

The age demanded that we flow
And hammered in the ****.

The age demanded that we dance
And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed
The sort of **** that it demanded.

Some wore armor,
those freshbread women
with plums for eyes.

The River God said,
a lot of good it will do you,
then sank down
into a water lily dream.

One went to him
holding a blade made of summer.
Some say he married her
but she never came back to say.

Some wore bracelets
made of fall leaves and owl call
with sorrows lined together like dolls.

The River God said,
one is wise, five are deceitful
and none can sing, or love.
Then the water iced over until spring.

The women went to the silent edge
bearing a robe made of crows and rushes
but when he didn't appear, then or at any other time,
they gave the robe to the morning.

Some wore armor,
but most wore willows.
They were freshbread women
with plums for eyes.

A crippled dove is dying; her wound a dusky red
in the maple's crook she's hiding.
Her heart her wedding song; herself the newlywed.

A carmine blaze upon her breast to mark the place she's bled
like a penitent confiding
A crippled dove is dying; her wound a dusky red

The purple splay of sunset now reveals a fraying thread
in her tiny breast subsiding--
her heart her wedding song; herself the newlywed.

Beneath her injured wing, she hides her tawny head
as the sun is lower gliding
a crippled dove is dying; her wound a dusky red.

The summer grass, soon bereft, would take her place instead
except for circumstance dividing--
her heart her wedding song; herself the newlywed.

The presiding night has finished; the ceremony said--
her new master toward the threshold swiftly striding.
A crippled dove is dying; her wound a dusky red--
her heart her wedding song; herself the newlywed.

Zebra are seen mainly in dreams,

With licorice stripes--

And bodies of cream--



Their jewelry box hooves

Are made from the moon--

And their manes were lately

Bristles on brooms.



You can take off their heads

And fill them with clouds--

If you fill them with coins, they weigh five thousand pounds.



Lions like stars--

So they hunt in the sky--

But the zebra are hiding

Behind your closed eyes.



Zebra are seen mainly in dreams--

In the morning, they follow the sun--

When its warmth is felt, their cream bodies melt,

And then, away they run.

I am ten crows, twenty-three starlings,
one tree, a world of racket, every dusk that ever was.

I am a holy heart four angels defend,
other times I am nothing but flesh and fingertips.

There are four seasons, three necessities,
two sides to the moon.

The window has eight panes;
I am in them all.

On the white screen dance the stringed dots
Mind spilled codes of hieroglyphic thoughts
Slowly they emerge handholding lines
Not always yielding intended designs.
Something was brewing inside the head
Coaxing to weave and take it ahead
The drunken horses so wildly gallop
There is no leash to make them stop.
Nerves are taut and they won't relax
Till all is vented they reach the ******
It was thus fated the moment it was sown
What's to be grown could never be known.
As the fever wanes arrives the new child
It may be adored or it may be defiled
The canvas is washed clean as in the rain
Something is brewing to be vented again.