There it was again, that feeling of having been skipped out on by someone I trust. Trusted, past tense. When had this begun, this sense of having a rug pulled out from under my feet? I drifted backwards in the pool of memories and landed in my one-and-a-half-year-old self, watching her as she made assumptions based on her limited experiences up to then, heard her thinking, felt her feeling angry. So angry. And ashamed, because she was angry with her mother, and that was a betrayal of her mother, wasn't it? So betrayal worked both ways in her. She was the betrayed, and the betrayer. I pop out of that memory fast, then shudder.

I can feel a misty fog descending my mountain of a brain. I feel myself start to shut down, go catatonic. I sense that someone is calling me to them, but am lost in the fog of fear. I can't move, my whole being is away. Somewhere else. Gone. I'm left in this shell which has no brain, has no heart, has no meaning. Do I go up? or down? Do I stay put? Is it safe here? or there? Can I even lift a foot to step?

I can feel myself hyperventilating and feel powerless to stop it. Then a rough hand grabs me and I'm tumbling. I hit and bounce. Hit and bounce. Head over heels. Back flips. Dives. Something tries to get my attention. What IS that? "Spread your wings." What? "Spread your wings." What wings? "Spread your wings."

So. I spread them, and I'm flying instead of tumbling. Or maybe soaring is more like what I'm doing with them. Soaring on a thermal spreadeagle. I feel like a parachute, open and catching air as I descend to a narrow valley. When I land, I keep my feet.

I am too soft, lumpish
of myself alone -
single -
Unpartnered, softness droops
it sags
it melts
without hardness rubbing it smooth.


I.
I need your carpentry -
the plane of your hard muscles,
the hammer of your broad hands,
the sandpaper of your chin
on my skin
to smooth me straight
to sharpen my angles
to repair my dents
to build me into my true shape.

II.
Take my lumpish metal into your forge
heat me until I burn through
mold my metal
into my true shape
Then plunge me into
your cooling waters
to steam me strong, unlumped
flowed, beauteous


Take my softness into the chalice of your Being
mix it with your hardness,
your directness,
in perfect measure.
Put me into the mold of your heart
and, with your love,
make an art of me.


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2015

I see your eyes shining full
watching me from the cave of your heart
the tholos of your soul
An untamed wind gusts through me
toppling my walls,
freeing my Siren howling
screeching into my shyness
eating it, killing me
Informing me, body and soul.
Untaming me.
Blazing me incandescent, confident.
I am yours.

I touch your raw manliness
feel its roughness, its smoothness
stir its rawness
prowl its borders, roaring.
I take the chalice of your hand
and cup my breast in it
Cup my *** with it
fill it with my heat
my wetness
my hallucinogenic wine.
Drink.
Eat.
You are mine.

I take you and blow winds
across the atlantic of your body
storm winds from the hot africa of my body
to flow up to the peninsula of your neck
to swirl and sinuate through your mind
to gather your thunder in them
to gather your lightning in them
to gather your hurricane in them
to gather your tectonic arousal in them
A continent-crashing
mountain-thrusting
breath-abating
heart-shatte­ring
tidal-surging
Storm
to carry us beyond our continents
beyond our seas
crash us into each other
into our Selves
into our untamed
raw
chaotic
surging
humid
muddy
slippery
Souls.

2/14/15
c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2015

You can not stop me - for long
I will overtop your weirs
I will bust through your walls
I will seek your lowest point
And
I will succeed (I will succeed)

You can not harness me
Unless I allow it
You can not outride me
Unless I allow it
I am the creative force
I am the unstoppable creative force
And I flow where I will
You can not outrun me
You can not retreat from me

I am
I am the power
I am the power that
I AM THE POWER
That powers you.


c. 2014
Roberta Compton Rainwater

myths say
the stars lactated from her *******
but I think
she wears a scarf of stars until nightfall
then
she pulls it from about her in voluptuous motion
and lets it fall
to puddle as it may
the stars in its net doubled on themselves
the way a chiffon scarf
looks, melted on the floor
or a river
turned back on itself

O Voluptuary!
make me the sky -
wind your cloth of stars about me now -
let me feel their antique heat on my back
let me feel their electric path
as they shoot across this human sky
let the hammock of your scarf cradle this solitary
in the nightness of your lights


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014


**Nuith (noot): Egyptian goddess of the night sky

I am the oasis I seek,
because Source is there
to quench my thirst and shade my brow.
I rest my weariness in Its bowering Love.
I renew myself in Its gentle breath.
The way before me no longer leads me into mental aridity, but
into soulful moistness and earthy imagination.
I and my Source are soulmates and lovers.

c. 2014
Roberta Compton Rainwater

pale herons huddle
along a bank of grasses
like whitecaps, abandoned

November in the wetland


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2014