Tag Archives: Poetry

sea salt’s ire

09 Monday Sep 2013

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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

09 Monday Sep 2013

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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

09 Monday Sep 2013

Posted by in Erotic, Poetry, sonnet

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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

09 Monday Sep 2013

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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

09 Monday Sep 2013

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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

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

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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.

venus de la mer

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Feminism, Poetry, sonnet

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–venus of the sea

Heartbreak housed in the side, my Butch Venus
break, a chrysalis of horn and fog —Ball
of sea, of water, leaden —Buxomness
with the rod of Lilith. Den of shape —all
her whelps shot through the fin, wrenched by fishers
men, their bud and plague. The long voice. Water-
handed grave and rancid; drowners —rivers
of blood. Country of sea, boxed. My lover
rises. Fathoms. Cold cross the bar —Inhale
her dead seeds, jelly-fish egg, the green grave
and the dew of acid —My lover’s breath
drove her on —up —out —gasp now —now exhale.
Breath you’ve come. In waves you’ve come. Waves, death, wave.
Crave the grave’s breath —de la mer —in for death.

blithe fish

04 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by in Illustration and art, Poetry, sonnet

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mother ghost in a mother sea

Drop of dusk on Dyer Island, she pulls
her maw gallows, up the rays of her eyes.
Tubarão mãe, requin-mère, ma haai: bulls
make way and children scatter. There are spies
in the kelp off the cape. Swan-like, dusking
in the waves, she comes. We fear as blithe fish,
never leaving the sand and the landing,
killing her when we can. We are hellish
to that mother shark. I, young Cassandra,
cannot get you to listen. I have failed.
You do not listen. I speak of absence
in the waves. Soon the wharves of Africa
will be empty where these sea ghosts once sailed.
Saint shark hymning in the myth-hung distance.

notes:

Dyer Island, located near Gansbaai, South Africa, is famous for having one of the most dense populations of Great White Sharks in the world.

Tubarão mãe, requin-mère, ma haai are the words for “mother shark” in Portuguese, French and Afrikaans, respectively.

In Greek mythology Cassandra was cursed by Apollo with the gift of prophecy that no one would believe in or listen to.

zaptieh

03 Tuesday Sep 2013

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“Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

Living and forever and me. Heh. Heh.
Heh. The drums of Hell kept beating —beating
—I fought next to General Zaptieh.
She was given the right rear flank, forcing
us to a stand still. I though my mind once
numb. As if all that heaven were a bell,
and that bastard —But an ear. I, silence,
some strange race born from a queer love, queer hell,
a queer fate —Our orders were to attack.
Instead we made a stand at the bridge. Drown
and drown in waves swept. Again and again
we fell. Rotten fate beaten falling back
through plank fell, faith fell, we dropped down and down
—We hit a world, dying and knowing —then—

matter

03 Tuesday Sep 2013

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Killer mine. Transformed—rendered into this
confining body, this bodiless brain,
abusive hole I smell the flood pain, bliss
of the carnal after a hurricane
the waves the pull the wailing to cover
letters written poems full. Sentinel
come to me loosen these brief moments blur
into this blood. Plain, like tryst, like carnal,
like sun. You believe in three gods and one.
You say chromosomes matter. What matter
comes from dark labyrinth? Matter: now please
come. A night bright, a black star, a dead sun.
Matter. What is this? Killer transformed. We’re
brainless, bodiless, a whole new species.