i’m in the same place where i wrote a poem about yew
where eye compared the dawning sky
to your aura of light
but i forgot yew can fall just as much
for potential instead of for who
yew are.
eye saw what i wanted to see.
yew bristles around me
sap drizzling thru my wounds
words of red berry yew dripped
onto me like a cloying poison.
i choked sweet in Faerie
hungering for more which i cannot
taste. hollow bark hollow branches
reaching for my spirit(s) as eye
cross onto another plane of existence
where yew cannot follow.
eye am hardly free in this place
childhood memories under the
yew tree making virulent memories
laurels & wreaths wrap around me
eye am guided? eye am saved?
by yew? following yew across
Hell’s rivers. the Styx looked back at me
in the eyes of myself. Acheron stung
like the needle of yew thistles.
The Lethe offered me cleanliness
but as eye cannot forgive
i do not deserve to forget.
Phlegethon scorned me like yew jealousy,
the Cocytus bade me deafness
thru my own wails & eye ran
these yew trial me, seeing if eye
cling like a cicada to your bark
screaming and shedding skin in graphic
rebirth of the self against yew.
eye run from the truth but i have yew
to thank. guide me threw
steer my path correction course.

the axe finally lands. yew fall.
eye use yew bark to burn away
what remains of you
&
eye.

Tulip in a Grove, alone in Spring,
Like young girl's hearts, it's a fragile thing.
Too bright for its dark abode:
A brilliant corner on a lonely road.
Petals, like shields, rise up as guards.
For all that lives wants to part
The Tulip from its Spring.

But look, there, in the greenish gloom,
There are other colors in this furtive room.
In twos or threes, they stand apart,
Each guarding their own and another’s heart.
Bright heads like maiden’s reticent mane.
Each shines for the other’s gain.
For Summer comes too soon.

- 2011

In November early, I planted true,
A yew, golden under Pagan moon,
It's fibers I laid into moist dark soil
And set her proudly in foggy shawl.

Before six moons had turned down,
Her needles fell out of limbs frozen,
By wind and rains *****, unclothed—
Sun-clad boughs now fodder to moon.

This heaviness in my chest is a grim room.
One cherished by a fool,
something that will never come to light.
It is a constantly dim room,
never lightening,
only strangled into night.
There is a lone rocking chair
in the room, cast out of yew.
My madness here is aplenty
and my silver thoughts a few.
My heart is made
of gray rotten walls
and deadly nightshade.
Maybe one day,
when a certain light
passes though the curtains,
I will walk out the door.