drone on

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No eye melted can see again: Dresden
fire rain a storm leaf fixed to a girl’s clinched
palm, held up against the sky. And again
bombs drop, drones in the mountains, a girl’s pinched
face turned. How many sisters have I lost?
daughters? mothers? aunts? ——Tell me, leaf of flame,
tell me names, faces. ——In the holocaust
to come, who’ll remember this face, this name?
No one. I shall huddle with my sisters.
Machines will drop fire on us. ——Do you hear
me? Drones will drop fire and you’ll be smitten,
or you’ll write about how all us lovers
are low dirty dogs. How the thing you fear
the most is the pain of rejection.

salt

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We teach this craft, this light craft, this whimsey
of salt and candles. —First pour a circle
of salt, —sit in it, —call, —so mote it be.
But it shall not be. Salt is a crystal
warning you need to decipher. It rules
in our skin. It commands. Misconstrue
salt and no circle will save you. Vain fools
think these elements light. I hope not you.
From the North comes the machine’s death, comes Earth;
from the East comes the furious art, Air;
from the South comes the devil’s breast called Fire;
from the West comes Water, the night’s mind, the birth
of fear. Call, call, call, but be warned, this prayer
will bind you, —to salt’s rage, —salt’s dark empire.

sea salt’s ire

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The sea calls, hark! the shark hears but does not
obey. Some spells forbid the use of squid,
no one’s lord. Use a martyred whale, nets caught
in her baleen. Or a seahorse’s kid,
poisoned in the surf. We banished starfish,
seals, the bizarre man-of-war. The oceans
die and no one will heal them. The eel’s wish
is not Eros’. The octopus shuns
you. Let the otter, lover of sins,
guide you. Grind the skull of a gull, rub it
and salt’s ire, seashell’s grief, rage from seaweed
into a dolphin-toothed blade. Sea pagans
shall drown. Raise a turtle’s devil. Now split
the surf. Come aid the sea in its dire need.

in praise of hypocrisy

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Despair sells. Once I swam into early
darkness, surf’s twittering filling my grave.
I had wanted to give myself, body
bone, up to that shape dissolving in wave
on wave, flittering in the deep region.
But I was washed back by breakers, stretched out
palely. Flesh! rejected by the ocean,
leaving me a dark burning, full of doubt
and sand. Now I drift only in my sleep.
I wake up—but not to drown, for the air
doesn’t care, I’m left alone in these hells
of false mornings, sick and restless. I weep
for you, vulture, hungry for my despair,
and I, carrion, for knowing what sells.

circe’s wishes

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guerre magique du feu et de l’eau.

I’m the child of world wars. I praise witches,
their war magic of fire and water. Praise
the fey boy who worships Circe’s wishes,
son of the sun, he falls in love, obeys
that dark calling. Shame to those in peace time
who praise it, who fall mute at war. Poet,
where were you? My lover’s magic, her rhyme
that can run riot, burn time, rain ruin,
works like this: I kiss her hair, part her spell-
soaked twat (peace is a vague concept, but twat?
that’s real power), suck her clit. War magic
that ends war, my parent’s legacy, hell.
There’s been war my whole life, and still we’re taught
peace stops it. What stops war is orgasmic.
.
notes:

The quote at the top, guerre magique du feu et de l’eau, is French for war magic of fire and water. I’m not sure what it means but it sounded cool.

In Greek mythology Circe, was a witch, living on the all-vowel island of Aeaea. She was renowned for her vast knowledge of drugs and herbs and turned Odysseus’ lust-filled sailors into swine, perhaps not the world’s most subtle of metaphors.

fox in moon

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And the day’s journey takes the whole long day
until the slow dark time begins, then in
gardens and the darkening pines the stray
lonely things with ancient speech, their fur-skin
pale from lack of love, destitute monsters,
honey in the eye, bottle of bones, curl
in the lip and claw, wake. Wake, wake, lovers,
death I am, ginger girl, girl-o-moon, girl
who fell in love with a fox. The ghost fox,
sombre and soothing, in the moon. No dog
can catch. No cat can worry. The lamppost’s
light does not shine for you. Fox of mohawks,
switchblades, kick boots. Until the first dawn’s fog
and all night long. I’m in love with a ghost.

at odds

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At odds I saw her in sunk tide, her crow’s
kiss, her arched ankle. She wore a crookback’s
slicker her breasts were unbound like Garbo’s.
These are a hollow child’s love poems, wax
from my ocher candle, dusty light. “Child,
whose love are you?”
she asked. But, of course, love
between worlds doesn’t work like that. Exiled
spirits forget. She sang in an octave
only the ashen hearts of first love gone
sour can hear. But I love that ash. The thrill
that ache brings. Her arms were smoke, her kissing
was like water-glow. O blue amazon,
first love. We stood on the beach in the chill,
burning hearts burned, my spectral love laughing.

sea flow

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Where once your green knots spun their lunar-splice
now these two drowning jaws form my sea flow.
Now the dead turn up an eye. Vice is vice.
Vice where once the waters of your ghost blow
blew me. Sea faith. Mermen pushed their cocks in
to roe, to boyish winds, tripped through salt-root.
I loved a sailor boy who slept within
the drake down weeds. Brutish vice. Skin flakes. Cute
fish food in my mouth. Flaking hips. Black drips
on my fingers. I’ve played with him gummy.
So be it. If the one love that I find
is weed-wracked, it’s still love. Still the heart rips
from this touch. Sea serpent spending crazy
in my clutched palm. I make drowned boys go blind.