The wicked, the naked, the holy abstract dying...
sinister whispers from their papery lips rasp,
painting lies on the forehead of Deity himself.
Black ribbons bleed, are used to tie the earth
onto its galactic post.
Sins, crimes, acts of inhuman terrorism
against children.
Each winking star the soul of a baby
best not brought here into this pestilence of spirit;
this disease of immorality.
Murderous hands cover eyes so evil they
cannot be looked upon;  the living become the dead.

Rather than the clean, quick nuclear fire,
we will dribble and ooze our noxious cruelty,
our diseased DNA and the pus of our vacant minds
until we make of earth, an abattoir.

Old women are forgotten wombs
whose graceless bodies have fed the world,
then been sent to sit in its shadows...
not quite seen, unacknowledged
and without nurture.

Old women are crucified with the nails
of oppression and poverty.
Invisibility swallows them when
age freckles out-number the fresh
patches of youth.

Old women have scarred and calloused
knees from kneeling in submission to
lesser minds that felt bigger for the
looking down.

A rosary of sorrows is strung through
the weary fingers of old women.
They are hung on the crucifix of youth
and beauty to wither into dust.

Old women have crabbed and ruined toes
from shoes worn too long - that a child
might have new ones.
Alone in cubicles or corners, frayed photos
beneath their coats, old women remember
children that have long forgotten them.

Old women do not seek a man’s arms...
for that is not a refuge, but a honeyed trap
where souls are flayed and burned.

Old women talk to themselves because
no  one else has ears to hear, or words to share.
Even their echoes are faint and whispered.

Such wondrous minds...libraries of living life,
vision and experience...left untouched because
they are not behind a pretty face.

Behold the woman....she is a wealth of wisdom
and power, beauty and courage - to those
wise enough to touch her power.

Her reckoning will come...

Until then - she endures.

Love has many faces...many guises.
Nature has many hidden secrets and places.
Penelope rode the Swift Shadow
out of Chesapeake harbor, great sails
catching hands full of wind and pitching
them into the gleaming sheets - sending
the Shadow flying across the water.
She was not happy, even at the thunder
the voyage put in her heart.
At a far harbor awaited a man who had
petitioned her father for her hand in wedlock.
A painting of the proposed groom had been sent.
Penelope’s father was pleased, but she saw
in the muted colors, a pale, vapid appearing youth
with slightly crossed eyes - she wept in her room.

For three days the mighty sailing ship ate up miles
of sameness...blue water with no land in sight.
On the fourth day a fierce storm kicked up the waters.
The ship swayed and mightily fought to keep its keel.
But at last the sea won the battle and threw the ship
to its secret deeps, where bodies were held down
by watery hands.
Penelope found her heavy skirts pinning her
beneath the insistent waves - she knew she would drown.
Suddenly hands grabbed her, held her close and lips
closed on hers...giving her sweet breath to sustain.
When she opened her eyes she was in a cave where
a man...creature... stood before her.
He was not of the earth, but of the deepest sea.
A scream echoed from Penelope’s lips through
the cavernous space.
Touching her gently he told her his name was Sir Brine,
prince of his father Neptune’s kingdom...

And so, in the fullness of time, Penelope became a bride,
resplendent in sea foam and pearls...deeply in love with
the man who had rescued her from the sea - and her other fate.

Angie’s blind eyes wander aimlessly in their sockets,
one white as the belly of a snake, the other a pointless blue.
She has one dress she wears every day, and a cane that is
without tip and has lost most of its red paint.
In the building she has memorized even the pale illusions
well enough to scoot about without hesitation.
She likes no one.
She likes me.
Thinks she is JFK, talks of herself quite lucidly and with
deadly accurateness.
Found herself a spirit-lover, asked me to perform a
marriage ceremony for them. What the hell, it’s a sad
life with no one in it, although that does not apply to me,
who loves my self-imposed isolationism beyond reason.
I find a pretty stone broach, a stuffed teddy-bear holding a
red satin heart that says, “I love you…” and a doll with
ribbons in its hair - these were her dowry.
I say the words over my open Bible, inviting blasphemy
to call out my name.
Now, she has become a Velcro-shadow.
When I am ill her zeal to cure me is fanaticism incarnate.
Foolish woman, I - who chose her own path to trod,
but along the way tripped over a crippled bird that is sure
to peck me to death.

What black-cowled apparition this,
creeps on raven’s feet through my house?
What forsaken, decaying reflection?
It slumps around and waits for me to pass.
then it lunges and plunges the daggers
of its hatred into my heart.
Lying, stunned, my soul withering,
as does a peach in August sun...I die.
She who pulls herself up, like-visaged,
but not me.
This replicator of old poets dances
in my skin, ******* in darkness
as if it were afternoon tea.
The sky grows fierce with clouds
as curdled as milk from a witch’s ****.
Bird song dirges cry, melancholy.
All the doors in my room slam shut -
throwing their bolts into locks,
more meant for keeping me inside
than keeping the world out.
The bitter blade of insanity
has cleanly severed my living cord,
and I must writhe in hell’s fires,
knowing I am unloved, unwanted and shunned.
Waiting until the hateful, hurtful deed is done.

Morning melts and dribbles
through the blinds,
where it rests
in molten puddles on the floor.
If you are very still
you can hear the tap...tap
of its fingers as it
tries to seep under the door.
Afternoon is a
pyroclastic lava flow...
devouring each bit of flesh,
******* the breath
from laboring lungs...
melting flesh into tallow
for the candles of night,
to be lit upon
the sacrificial altar
of your tongue.
Hide  wherever you want -
go ahead, find a place.
Count to one hundred,
hands over hidden eyes;
childish giggles bubble
from your lips,
but it will find you,
no matter your disguise.