Holy Saturday

I was a changeling child,

Left in an unguarded crib

On Holy Saturday.

 

I was not made for a mortal world,

But mother loved me fiercely,

Even as I fell into despair.

 

I could almost make the twilight

Into the subdued half light of the

Fey Summers.

 

I could almost make the stars into

The countless eyes of our hideous god,

That so terribly, tenderly made me.

 

Mother held me close, made me hers,

As the seasons passed, as I made my

Shadows fall on the world.

 

I hug mother tight, I kiss her head,

And then walk into the night, looking

For a home I’ve never known.

 

I love you mother. Thank you for

Everything.

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Storm Wall

McKayla sits beside me, bundled up in a parka, and wearing black leggings and black boots in this mid April, for it is colder now, here in Galveston.

 

We sit on the storm wall, light brown and crumbling, beaten by so many storms. It is the 19th, her birthday, and the morning is clean as the sun rises.

 

The world has slipped away from us, all of humanity is washing into the sea. The sea washes in, the morning tide, and she squeezes my hand, time being short.

 

The sea was the womb, the sea shall be the tomb, storm season never ending, the storm wall crumbling. We talked of a family once, now only holding on.

 

To dreams tended, for what little remains.

Jazz

Her middle name is Jazz,

And it fits her, like that old jacket

She still wears, reassuring second skin.

She is disciplined and offbeat.

 

In far off places, in the movies, among

The stars, she is the wounded hero,

Still pure in heart, though afraid of loss,

Like I have been so many years.

 

Can I be brave like her? A hero too?

 

On a chat show, her wild and tight

Rhythm shows, in her smile and angelic

Anarchy of off kilter jokes, innocent

Wisdom, the light of her fair eyes.

 

I want to be like her.

 

Her poster on my wall, her magic

Reaching out to the skies above,

As the evil and light fight for her,

Like they’re still fighting for me.

 

I look at this poster as I drift away

To sleep. In life, in sequels, in eternity,

The war is never over and done.

I hope I dream of her in the stars.

Orlando Winter

A young woman, awkward and gamine,

In a loud and rowdy bar, a snowy scene,

As winter pushes spring back and back.

This my little dream, facsimile of black.

 

Snow makes promises it never keeps.

The hopes of the addled it softly reaps.

Such a smile she has, I hang a star on it.

A stinging fool, the angry bee in a sonnet.

 

Comes a chronic shiftless unquiet.

The words burn, blister, run riot.

A beer, smooth and tasteless, to stay.

Once, in an Orlando winter, I knew to pray.

Right Eye

A street preacher all dressed in well worn and fading black, stood on the corner, exhausted and whispering, telling them his divine, unwelcome revelation.

 

Sex is rotten and corrupts, turn away from pleasure and procreation, turn away from touch, see only the soul’s light by taking out your right eye.

Take out your right eye, and see your brothers and sisters true heavenly light and their true face, true shining beauty, and blind yourself to hungry, devouring flesh.

 

No one listened to his hushed and broken words, not the families or the women from the bridal fair and all the boys on the make, all of them hungry to be devoured.

 

I listened while I was on my smoke break, glad for the early spring cold, quieting the flesh to a dull ache, a gnawing sorrow to soft to chastise.

I thought of Maggie, and what I saw and didn’t see, and the heavenly light I refracted into slick paper and all the black holes that swallowed up so much starlight.

 

I ground the used up cigarette under foot, and knew I could not see the light God breathes into her, and all that is eternal, all that eyes and flesh strangle.

 

I look in the window, catch Maggie’s eye, and smile for, and she smiles for me. Then I take the Winchester pocket knife out to remove my accursed right eye.

 

I take out my knife to set us both free.

Dead Saints And Their Ghosts

Waitresses never keep their word, leave for Colorado with their best friend with the vintage golden Firebird, for UFO kicks in the dark, lonesome nowhere, playing songs no demons ever heard.

 

What does Wednesday night mean without trinkets for her absolution and the animal grace I’ve never seen, the high stars she cast on me for devouring the magic and hope that loss makes clean.

 

The college library has the sweet tomes of the pure, adolescent saint, shorn hair and strong and carrying banners to homes on the Seine, and of the Holy Grail, that she seeks as a ghost she roams.

 

Are dead saints and their ghosts and the impossible salve and glory of Christ’s blood all that I can adore as youth boasts a mass of revelry and bombast and the light of stars made surrogate hosts?

 

She is lingering, The Rockies so cold in the first of spring, snow lingering so devoutly in her brown hair. I’m too old to chase her, and the aliens come to me in this thickening town, all my prayers sold.

 

 

 

Hazy Drunken Wonder

Her face seems fuller and plumper now, no longer the svelte and hard drawn lines of the night she perfected the spell that gave her flight.

 

It’s 8 am in the bare beamed and unfinished attic in an opulent and dreamless Belmont home, as she floats in the lotus position before a sunlight blasted bay window.

 

Like a comic book mystic, but melancholy as the sunlight has been stolen from her, and her time in the sun burned out her eyes.

 

When she was an angel I gathered the roses burned for her, an incense of narcotic adoration and sickly touches, what got her free while her eyes burned.

 

Up in the blue sky, the sun that ate her was eclipsed by her silk wings stark white, sewn by taking her spell of flight to an interloper that drank its blood.

 

And what was I hoping for, when she could only be an angel for a morning and afternoon, and I drew dark sigils with the wing feathers she gave me.

 

Face fuller, body now round and master human, the spell faded away, but other spells have fallen on her, hazy drunken wonder. All our sigils brought her this.

 

My love.

 

Bad Dream

Eve died childless. This has all been a bad dream.

Cornfed Cinderellas

10 PM on a Sunday night,

The TV too much on my eyes.

Women’s volleyball game,

Iowa are cornfed Cinderellas.

Root for them, glory of the left behind,

And the dark haired girl I’ve made

My favorite.

 

Wind swept plains, still in snow,

And I imagine that dark haired girl

Came from a big farmhouse, and that

She could see the pupil of God’s eye

In the tearful and dark blue sky

Right before a storm.

 

The dark haired girl is poised to serve,

The moment where anything can be,

In the highest heaven and down to the

Wonders of the quarks and terrors.

It doesn’t have to burn away the dew

And we don’t have to fall like Lucifer

Or Icarus, burn or melt, kiss or sigh.

 

Try to sleep now, what’s done is done,

And what magic was sent has found her.

The TV still glowing mindlessly,

I look out the living room window,

The plains closed in by worn mountains

As I hope I dream of the dark haired girl,

Hope she is the ghost standing by the road.

 

Laughing Wraith

A morning in April,

My spirit soft and cool.

I want to see her again,

Though I’ll act the fool.

 

The sky gray downtown,

Remnant of late night rain.

Her name is Soledad,

Like Mary, alone she’ll remain.

 

A hard freeze this late,

She’ll wear that blue jacket.

In these blasphemous times,

Church is just another racket.

 

We’ll hear the Episcopalian choir

And remember childhood faith.

When even gray days were Eden.

The wind the laughing wraith.

 

Cold morning and we’ll get ice cream,

Eat in silence, content, but afraid.

Can God save us, does He love us,

Us on whom Christians have preyed?

 

We’ll see a movie on Gay Street,

A simple love story, so quiet, tender.

Sunday morning into afternoon,

An archangel coming, a magic lender.