For half a revolution she spends her days
in caliginous caverns
where worms like silver thread
weave through moistened walls.
Water, endless dripping,
howling, whining, stalagmite fangs.

It began with a stranger,
shrouded with shadows.
Petrichor breath,
and beetle black eyes,
twisted root fingers,
and scattered seeds.

It was lonely at first,
death and loss and
weary wayfarers with tired souls.
An estranged husband,
a trio of rumbling growls,
and the lonesome echo of her own footsteps.

Waiting for a someday,
that will never come,
her titles, a mantra,
repeat in her head;
daughter, lover, mother and wife,
stealer of souls and giver of life.

So when the daffodils bud,
and the world awakens,
when she blinks through sunshine
and steps into the light,
she holds her head high.
She is Queen of the Underworld,
bolder than before,
she will evade their pity,
and transcend them all.

i think you liked the way
my coronet of flowers was
tilted when i reached the
bottom of your black stone stairs
i think you liked the way i
placed the pomegranate seeds
one
by
one
onto my tongue and whispered
"don't tell my mother"
and i think you liked the way
i walked right up to you
as though you weren't a demon
but a fallen angels wanting to be loved
i smiled
and when you said my name...
that was the beginning and end
of everything

Wait with me. Wait for the world to exist.
Wait for what she will tell us.

True, our breath echoes the sea’s
sweeping tide. The inky bleeding
of saltwater that calms and soaks.
Drenched, this collective exhale.
I’ve always preferred silk over velvet;
that’s what the sea is. Silk over velvet.

The moon has seen every unholy rite,
her glare is cast cold. Over the Mysteries,
over me. Every pulse of her is lapped
up by the sea beneath. This shared breath
is echoed in the sea is echoed in the moon;
the universe folds itself. Lives inside a gasp.

Wait with me. Wait for the world to exist
by her own rules.

Our stars are fading like so many discarded
loves. The world is tired, she crumbles
our castles. Crumbles our convent,
exhausts our goddesses. Daughter of life,
who slipped through Death’s doorway;
she sinks below. A seasonal existence.

Sunset spills red on the horizon, dedicates
her evenings to us. We exist by her signal
and her permission. She stretches her skin
for the moon. Lays herself as a blanket
on which night may sleep, cradled and safe;
a nest of stars. We all seek Dawn’s relief.

Wait with me. Wait for the world to exist
in anger, in yellow, in rain.

I refuse to be
Persephone
I escape brooding moods
And the reflections of souls dead to you
To accept a pomegranate seed or two
From the underworld was a mistake
I will not pay for
And I do not expect anyone to save me

I cry that your world is so dark
you believe the light inside me is deception
the seasons will come around again
and I will not return
your soil is too damp and oppressive
for any healthy sprout to grow
and your richness and grandeur
too gloomily cast

Familiar with the voice of dismal
and disdain,

I will not be restrained
I will not be abducted
I will not be compliant
I will not forget my life in the sun
I will not be isolated
and
I will not be afraid of gathering flowers

She wears the golden ray of sun on her dress
Her laugh so sweet any man can't resist
Flowers bloom on her every step
As she smile the world celebrates
Oh daughter of spring
You even melted Hades heart of solid ice
His monochrome kingdom burst into colorful hue
And because of that he won't let you go
Your disappearance payed a price
Now that you were gone
The world turned frozen and dry desert

Her soft pale goddess skin
Had not been sun kissed
In six harsh months
While earth above
Also suffered much
Demeter’s sorrow was shared
Condemned
By godly men
A starving child
Ate one pomegranate
Now her captor demanded
She must suffer in this hellish cave
It’s always the gods
That come up with
The strangest harshest ways

I found a coven in the woods
Amongst an oaken forest glen.
There,
hidden behind a curtain of Spanish moss,
amongst fiddlehead ferns and fungi bloom,
two of Gaia's faithful maidens
Enchanted me unwittingly, and took possession of my gaze.

A Pair of Muses
One, of the forest
One, of the sea
Both wind and fire
Equally
In opposition and in sway

Their incantations softly chanted
In a tongue to me unknown
and I listened quietly entranced,
between them in the glow
Of their cauldron hearth fire
Embers burning low

She of the forest was enigma, playfully shy,
coyly toying with the strings all men share,
And in her den, among her herbs and powders and potions  
In preperation, and prepared.
She spoke in riddles and in parable,
Both with body and with stares.

Instantly she knew me
As I had never known;
As if Devined by a mysticism,
Ancient and pure,
So sublime it startles the soul.
In her eyes,
so sweet and sincere,
simplicity and innocence obscure
A strange and intoxicating knowledge
Of the rare and deepest old
Of the world and it's great secrets-
What its darkest reaches hold.

She of the sea
Was shimmering
A specter
Against the stars
Floating

She was Waves
Of aquamarine
Blue Green
Irridescent
Obscure and reticent
Behind her ever pulsing shade

Camaflouged by her surroundings
This piscian vision lingered in relief
Over a Gilded titan mother of pearl chariot;
The Persephone Throne.
She cast her stare upon me;
My hypnotized mind laid bare,
Wiped clean of anything I had seen.
No man could know her shrine of love
Nor the secrets that she keeps,
And none ever remember;
For one cannot resist her lair

An aquarian cavern,
A haven of calm,
Rest, respite and solitude.
It's lotus blossom lantern
Heart of glowing gold
Cast in shadow upon the ceiling
Glimmering radiant refractions
of the waning day

Her ocean sings soft and sweetly,
Casting mist into the air,
And a siren's song disrupts me
Ever suddenly
She washes over me,
Unaware

And though the seven signs they showed to me clearly
Still the stars I misread
through misted eyes,
and soon I fell to dreaming without sleeping
Or so I thought, though i shall never know

In their atmosphere I relinquished this mortal coil into the haze,
And disappeared completely
For an instant, just a moment,
perhaps it was hours.
Perhaps,
it was days.

And as abruptly as rushing water to the somnambulists face
I awoke,
As a dreamer awakes
from dreaming of waking,
alone and bleary-eyed,
dreary and confused
amid my own disheveled cave.
And where they've gone, I wish to go,
But where that is, I cannot know
For I would follow them until the days
Turned forever into nights amongst
The Forest and The Waves

What is love?

Sweet nectar on poisoned lips;
Or ripened fruit on curious tongues.

Is love sealed with a righteous kiss;
Or is love selfish and stealing,
Hidden away for all to miss.

Does love see no bounds or limitations?
In awe of you; of your beauty.
Is love a relentless invasion?
On a four horsed chariot poisoned with cruelty.

Will love die for you; with you,
Take your last embrace.
Or will love trick you; take you,
To end the long, lonely chase.

When all is said and all is done;
pomegranate and poison are both written in fame;
Sweet and bitter,
But love all the same.

March feels wintry
On the first day of spring
I am an abductee.

Hades' hunger for sexuality
His underworld queen
Pomegranate seeds

When spring isn't spring
And the grass isn't green
I am Persephone