the awe / ness of her

enwhelms my heart

leaves me knowing what

I don’t know

creates some / ness in her awe

anoints with laughter

and hugs

what has not


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 2017

For poetry was all written
from 'The Poet' by Ralph Waldo Emerson

for poetry was all written before time was,

and whenever we can penetrate into
that region where the air is music,
we hear those primal warblings,
but we lose a word,
and substitute our own,
and thus
miswrite the poem;

for
the all-piercing, all-feeding, and
ocular air of heaven,
that
man shall never inhabit.

The religions of the world are the
ejaculations
of a few
imaginative men. The history
of hierarchies seems to show, that
all religion's error
consisted in making the symbol

too stark and
solid,
and, at last,
nothing
but an excess
of the ***** of language.



Transformation
from Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore

the soul    Thomas Moore said    is fostered
in the many turns of the labyrinth
making intimacy with the heart
a profound coupling of ego and soul
in deeps of intensity
deeps of fear
and
deeps of bliss

metamorphosis with artful participation
blushes the ivory to gold-tinged flowering
transforms by imagination
Narcissus


c. Roberta Compton Rainwater 1995/2017

a mockingbird strips the night
of quiet
opens a portal in my soul
to let what was in    out
and
what was out    in

to make an exchange of balances

just so does the cave Lechuguilla
**** air through her ******
in the desert near Carlsbad
balancing air pressure
in great    ******* puffs that make her moan
like a lover satisfied

or perhaps not

perhaps she groans and sighs
for the **** of her million-year solitude
for the loss of her art-full loneness
perhaps Lechuguilla sounds
to stem the contagion of sobs
daily growing in her heart
each sob feeding off the one before
marking like guideposts
the descent she now takes into oblivion
searching    searching

searching for herself

the story of a princess
scratches at the edge of my mind
a princess whose ability was as rare
as the sight of an egret flying against the star-crusted night
she mounted to the roof of her palace
each night    there to repose
to light the whole city
with her radiance

everything begins in the imagined

you donned your suit of lights
to woo me from myself
to court my innocence from its cave
now    head down    pawing dust into fog
I charge    bristling    and snorting threats
through my nose

you    beautiful in light-catching suit
send my barbs like adorned words
into my flesh and soul
I bleed the last of my happiness down my back
into the dry soil
of our We
our glances nick    then slide away
drawing more passion
to coagulate in tidal pools at our feet

I cannot be your imaginal woman

I am my own
I speak in wordchunks like charcoal
hiding fire within
I beat my rhythms to music you do not hear

because you have no reck of me


c. 1994/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

she took deep breath of him through her eyes
he snaked through her brain down her neck straight to her heart
there he stopped to drink from that sacred bowl,
then coiled and wiggled his way to her ***.
she felt a surge as her organs shook
her breath came in bursts.
her mind snapped from her inhibition like a flag
in a stiff wind.
she knew his scent without going near him
it was fern-laced and green, and she wanted
to put her nose to him and inhale to the bottom of her lungs.
she felt his ****** mistral blow through her, warming her limbs
he was water-wind-breath, po-wa-ha.
she felt her old skin peel away in the force of his mistral,
in the clean wash of his waterlight,
and the caress of his breathing on the air around them.
she stepped out of her old pelt to reveal
the woman she had always been.


c. 1995/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

those Pinteresque voices enjoy dictation
enjoy giving orders full of menace
like to see me writing their words
into books placed neatly on shelves in a bookcase
as though their sentences full of
what-ifs and that-suckses and you're-guiltys
are precious gems of wisdom
composed by Verdi's drunken librettist
for an opera maleficent, full of sound and fury

I made a secret door of the bookcase

laughing, I swung away the words
and entered the world where no menace inspires


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

the look of words - in any language - across a page
brings to mind the gestures of dances
slow, or wildly free
a waltz, perhaps, or
an arabesque
a twyla tharp choreography or
a martha graham ballet
an earthy folk dance
a Japanese kabuki,
a Chinese dragon or lion dance

some lines of words also look like music
some, like wind instruments
others are a slow walk to anywhere
(which is a dance, too)
the flow of words takes us with it
expresses through music and gesture
so much more than their definitions
are sacred sounds expressed through
movement across a page,
across an invisible divide between you and me,
over a mountain range on elephants,
to conquer a heart

and satisfy a soul


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

once a bell has pealed,
can it be unpealed?

once liberty is cracked,
can it be uncracked?

once one is loved,
can one be unloved?

once something breaks,
can it be unbroken?

once a light has been lit,
it can be unlit
then re-lit.

once a crack opens,
once a break occurs,
once love falls,
the Light gets in.


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater