wolf ,
         can you land meat ?
            or are busy being needlessly cruel to 'lesser' peers ?
could you even take a basic stalk about the woods ?
            or would you be blistered
               breaking in those brand new pricy walking boots ?
a full moon ?
   maybe you'd drink to excess on those nights ?
   maybe pick a fight or beat on your loved ones
                                   but whimper the next day ?

that smart suit ?
ridiculous over your fur
heard you're on a trendy fad diet
you fidget at your desk
you fidget on your screen
work is obscenely wasteful
distractions are just plain obscene
you are a coward to your soul
soiled by domestic inactivity

this is where all the secrets are held
in the smell of yesterday's rain in the air
in the dark, and in that pool
in the little moonlight patch falling on my bed
with the window open and the air cool
and the night young and wild and a fool

I occupy this space
unconquered
unclaimed
just a matter of existence

this is where I shall begin
in this pool of life
displaced by so many others
until it is overflowing

I am beyond the gates of birth
released to a wild horizon
don't tame me
I'm exactly who I should be

midnight black arabian prince,
his neck, impressed by the wired
fence
holding him back forever
from the woman of his dreams.
        dark horse
they came for him in the evening
soft, dimming sunlight grazed his eyes
an endurance horse, for one hundred miles
they wanted him but
        he was lazy
his inclination was to stand still
to stroll slowly about a green pasture
forevermore
forevermore, his dream,
spent on his own name.

he fell in love with the mare
on the other side
of the wired fence
she teased him, an older woman,
awakened his rebel soul,
inspired to break out
of this arbitrary cage
his courage and his passion
only roused by love by desire
something a human would not understand
could not understand
not in the same way

he felt alone he felt trapped inside himself
so he tore down the fence,
cut his legs on the wires
just to be close to
       her
to brush his nose against her
sharpened spine, inhale the scent of
dust mixed with love mixed with
pheromones,
for only a moment
that could extend into
       forever
encapsulated in his memory
a snapshot: one piece
of chaotic bliss
amidst all that running
the flying floating cloud of dust
still chases him.

though he no longer runs in fear
no longer gallops away,
lazily trots, hooves dragging sand,
happy under his bold, italian rider
she doesn’t come around
often enough.
today he is young but
soon he will be aged by experience,
wherever they send him,
he has no real home,
only belongs to the night sky,
only matches the color of darkness,
i hope he remembers the way i tickled his lips and
fed him handfuls of dead grass.
he could be gone tomorrow because
animals do not choose their homes anymore.

motherless
this must be just another test
utter less
stuck on the ****** to **** on the other breast
silken milk of the real deal and i feel like an udder mess

motherless

cover this
mist is sick with twisted, i discover less
it's colorless
put with the other gases to suffer and to smother this

motherless

It all started with a walk through a graveyard.
We came to sprinkle glitter,
we came to ring the claw bells,
we came to read the eroded epitaphs on 200 year old tombstones.
Instead we found a “working” aimed at killing someone.
A black bird without a head.
Lopped clean off.
Some kind of voodoo.
Consecrated with a dark blessing by a tombstone.
Naturally we took the bird home.
Laid it out back in the freeze.
It was a “working” aimed at killing someone.
A santera over on east King street informed us of the details.
Told us to burn it and take a sweet bath.
Told us to put water next to the door to catch the demons off our shoes,
tracking in all the demons off the street.
I put water next to my bed to catch the demons in my sleep.
I wondered to myself just what exactly was going on.

A cat got to the bird before we could
but it left us the wings by the fence in the yard.
Monica stretched them open and now they are drying in the garage.
A set of wings to fan the smoke once we light the sage on fire.
I didn’t have a good feeling.
I wanted to burn the black bird.
I wanted to stop the “working”.
I wanted to leave a green pumpkin for Oshun by the waterside.
But instead I only watched it lying on the leaves
out back under a tree
from the kitchen window each time I did the dishes.
Then one morning it was gone,
but I didn’t say anything.
I thought about other things until I saw
the stretched wings in the garage,
until I pulled the Raven card from
the Oracle deck.
Black birds came to visit me.
I was advised I better start getting crafty.
I had been diligent with the water by the bed.
I purified the demons with the singing bowl every morning.
I bless my demons in the water so they don’t use
my mouth to scream
and my eyes to cry.
But the raven came to see me still.
The one without a head, and the one in the oracle deck.
And the ones that fly around the power lines outside where I walk,
cawing and cackling in a crooked ******.

Fancied myself a priest
baptized by the Holy Spirit
home of the Sacred Feminine.
Found myself screaming in hysterics like a little boy in his blanket
after he's told nothing shall be as it was.
So much for the priest hood.
So much for the New Earth.
I pulled the Tower Card.
And that,
along with the ravens
and old man Saturn…
I had never been so afraid for my body in my life.
Now we walk around town and find bird heads on the sidewalk.
Starlings, and a little wren.
I learned my demon’s name is John and that he stands behind me.
Big and wooly like a wild thing on two legs.
He doesn’t fit in a glass of water
so I brought him to the Lemon Street Cemetery
and said bon voyage.
Buried him by a gravestone tree stump and said the prayer of two deaths.
The walk home smelled like ginkgo nuts
and the dust from the crumbing of the Tower hasn’t settled yet.
Now it’s as if I've been inoculated.
I lost my sense of taste for a week and didn’t break a sweat.
I’ve pulled the rug out from under my own
two feet so many times
that if I don’t learn to levitate
my poor tailbone won’t have a chance to heal.
Home of the root
Abode of the World Serpent.
I wasn’t prepared for what was awoken within me
that day up in the promised land,
and it's been climbing my spine ever since.
Now I bless the water by my bedside every night
in case John comes back to roost.

I cover my floors with happy feet
I paint the walls with candle light
I light frankincense and tie prayers to the smoke
I watch them float to heaven
I ring a singing bowl
I put the demons in the water and I drink them.