"bestiary" poems
Oh, Woman
He’s dreaming of your depth
like a synergy of effortless truths
your imaginary *** a mystical shore
waxing and waning in violent tides
of affectionate sap
He would fly his kite running out of breath
like a child blessed with forgetting
puer aeternus
He would spin the hours in laughter,
in untamed visions
and here it is...
time revisited with gossamer touch
the bestiary revised with tender beings
making love in the naked air
in the breeze of forgotten forests
in purple shy sheets
in the miracle of tomorrow
in unshed skins
imagine the bliss of the first breath
the dreams in geological strata
She’s just waiting for your rhyme
for you in primordial waters
unborn
now and again
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 11:41 AM UTC
#7 from Geo-Bestiary
O that girl, only young men
dare to look at her directly
while I manage the most side-long of glances:
olive-skinned with a Modigliani throat,
lustrous obsidian hair, the narrowest
of waists and high french bottom, ample
******* she tries to hide in a loose blouse.
Though Latino her profile is from a Babylonian
frieze and when she walks with her small white dog
with brown spots she fairly floats along,
looking neither left nor right, meeting no one's
glance as if beauty was a curse. In the grocery
store when I drew close her scent was jacaranda,
the tropical flower that makes no excuses.
The geezer's heart swells stupidly to the dampish
promise. I walk too often in the cold shadow
of the mountain wall up in the arroyo behind the house.
Empty pages are dry ice, numbing the hands and heart.
If I weep I do so in the shower so that no one,
not even I can tell. To see her is to feel
time's cold machete against my grizzled neck,
puzzled that again beauty has found her home in threat.
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 7:47 AM UTC
Unlocked, loaded, let your words flame papercandle-flame
set arson to thought-control, combust news.
Pyro-dissident: touch fire to their views
Reveal new topographies, mind-shaper.
Spark a candle – a single thin taper.
Subvert what worldlings dare not refuse.
The herd will always revile or accuse;
but contours alter for you, landscaper –
so chastise darkness. Proclaim what is right.
(When their stable burns down due to your light
or smoldering, implodes, it’s not your fault.)
If the status quo will not acquiesce
then muster another frontal assault.
There’s no shame in a flame; just incandesce…
Sep 9, 2015
Sep 9, 2015 at 9:00 PM UTC
The chimera of
yours, the only unextinct
creature in your bleak
bestiary; that's
what I really am:
formed from one-half love
and one-half throe by
you. But I recognized my
borders by learning
your limits for I
wish to forge my own path out
from your false mythology.
Nov 16, 2016
Nov 16, 2016 at 6:35 PM UTC
Why you...angel--why you...to peep through
the finality of white walls?
To overspread the concussed skull that bangs
against them to keep time...why you?
Why were you born against a spillage of air
in a freefall of wings?
Nothing...absolutely nothing... between your
wings, save for what you will embrace in that
freefall...why you?
Schooners rounding earth's violet aura--
dissolving into the transcontinental bestiary
of souls...why you?
You are what shone through the breakage
of humanity--you are the emanation of our
breakage...why you?
You...legions of you...fence the Romantic's
chimerical stead...only to retain the character of
what implants itself face first...as so you.
Oct 11, 2012
Oct 11, 2012 at 1:05 AM UTC
Unlocked, loaded, let your words flame paper
set arson to thought-control, combust news.
Pyro-dissident: touch fire to their views
Reveal new topographies, mind-shaper.
Spark a candle—a single thin taper.
Subvert what the worldlings dare not refuse.
The herd will always revile or accuse;
but contours alter for you, landscaper—
so chastise darkness. Proclaim what is right.
(When their stable burns down due to your light
or smoldering, implodes, it's not your fault.)
If the status quo will not acquiesce
then muster another frontal assault.
There's no shame in a flame; just incandesce...
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 4:14 PM UTC
time is circling its core like a villain
streets are running under my feet
is that the inflamed sky
call me your fortune teller, disaster, whatever
I condemn you to the bestiary of my clarity
you'd better make up another camouflage or transparency,
a savage new name for devilry each day
you smile an unfiltered smile,
like a Sisyphus of tease and play
Jan 25, 2025
Jan 25, 2025 at 1:28 PM UTC
I’m tired
tired of trying to be strong
of not being allowed fall
on the ground and cry
for as long as
I need
working and living
with those who are thinking
everything that’s wrong is so right
leaving me to look forward to
alcoholism and depression
in no particular order
the powerless letters I carve glow in inappropriate spaces
withered clouds humming a fluttered contribution to naught
I wear a jacket, once loose and hungry, begging for release
from the corrective lumbering of my contrived conceit
this is not the girl I was looking for but
this is the girl that I found
my tumbledown baby
waiting to drown
beneath my warm butter breath
a half sunken death
of drunken larceny
and all the while I am growing
out of the conventions of relationship
the paper smoothed, green,
drink and drugs exercised
in a push for contaminated revenue
maybe this is why
the coffee tastes like **** today
and all I write are
three white wisps
the smile wiped off a blue faced sky
ignored by the Berghaus couples
matched down to their laces
each distraction disguises the bestiary that is civilisation, ironically splashed upon an earth that, like me,
has no interest, that grows bored waiting
for the next great extinction
the helium has already had enough, every party breath inhaled in jest lost to space forever,
it won't be back could I un-dream it all
I would, in less than the spurt of my heart,
and wrap it all in the bloodied rags of
your disgraceful god
Mar 2, 2015
Mar 2, 2015 at 3:15 PM UTC
Riding stolen horses
The guy living large with the hat,
dressed to the nines in black,
with eyes sweeping a broad dry valley to the cows,
who seeks his eyes, then humbly brings a store-bought
present to the woman tall in leggings with
long hair free, like an ancient story ***** alive.
He is frozen in communal memory,
this single cowboy guiding his returned
stolen horses at dusty noon all rock and dust,
the hooves as staccato rhythm for manly wild eyes
stating be here now as permanent fever
moves toward the rushing transparent river.
Forever the big sky breeze caresses his stoic
face schooled in fragile civilization,
knowing soon in the script he lives he will
push outward swinging saloon doors
to face another lawless soul, another wood built
village/far trail—prepared, as if venerated
teachers in his few years of school saw him
stripped of words pounding in a gallop,
protected by the silver belt buckle
and tall boots scuffed and pointed, the shaped
hat shielding eyes from the bright—
as a copied tintype—the crooked squint and smile
slowly emerging untamed. Deliberate, the hand
moves in habit to the gun in a muted painful sepia
myth robbed of mom and dad progression.
His stripped history has been released
into wild context—mixed with spaceship/
instant access—on the cartoonish
thin fringes with 50s big hair, as a brave bluff
facing forgotten consequences. Nonetheless,
he struggles from the bestiary of faceless others,
grizzled and contained and handsome, to
head on out, away, alone as always.
May 15, 2015
May 15, 2015 at 3:37 PM UTC
TEUHTLILLI
My family looks for me. Why, then, do I,
Here in this hideous House of Serpents, wait?
A hellish bestiary of constrictors.
But now, behold where, from the grisly gate,
Our golden eagle lights like daybreak’s rays.
Enter MOTECUHZOMA.
MOTECUHZOMA
Well met, bright steward. Rise, and meet me, sir.
TEUHTLILLI
When might a mortal’s eye behold the sun?
MOTECUHZOMA
When, sir? Why, when he dwindles in the west,
When, blushing red and swollen full with care,
A man might ogle with unwinking eyes
Before his flickering orb of day winks out.
Look up, my scout. I wish your sights were high,
And eyed a brighter orbit for your liege.
TEUHTLILLI
I do, your majesty.
MOTECUHZOMA Come, your report.
Jun 3, 2017
Jun 3, 2017 at 1:49 PM UTC