Sing to me in the tongue of last lives
When knowing was strong
and our minds flowed like a fog
and hugged hill and riverbed
and the moon was wise.

I am not, neither you
and who can say?
nor sky in its rotation
nor forlorn thrush who calls and waits.
Will you answer?
Will you touch face and hand?
A balm of oil on my forehead
and behind my neck?
Help me to see stars
and the kiss of flowers
and to lie in grass.
I am not, neither you.
Can you see the face of the gods that were?
All is dark and serene and hopeless
I saw them when I was young and free
and when our lips touched
and a kiss upon my forehead
and upon my neck.
Can you speak wisdom?
Can you pour it in my ear
and paint it on my feet
and upon one finger?
A scar across my forehead
and across my neck
and I am not, neither you.

A wave of violet, aware and unbounded
enfolds itself in dark blankets
My head drawn oblong into the void
and the tunneling neverend.

Black hunters envelop center and core
in hypnotic cycles and purple and darkness.
My eyes doze,
stitched shut with cords of panic.
Sweat and tears and a vice grip.
Conclusions of terror.
And I a center of coal, cold and hard
looking out from the last eye
allseeing, the remnant of thought,
upon heaving visions of regal blackness

Gem of amethyst, wing of onyx.
Cloud of purple, black tiger.
Violet tide, night of death.
Mist of lilac, end of all.

Magpie blind and crippled
benighted and inside out
visceral wings wheel over lake and bridge
a trail of black soaring blood anoints her passage
and the smell of death marks her course
can I love thee?
can I touch the black of thy being?
Inside warm places where we cry and tremble?
I thirst
My leg fails and heart beats slow the tempo of defeat
I drink the waters of the world and still I thirst cold and raw
Skinned and hung tearing flesh
jagged festering hooks through sinew and breast
and I hang exposed
I thirst
Magpie flying, do you see me?
Drip black blood and quench the thirst
Drop a feather and end strife
and the war drums
thump angry in chest and loin
take my head as a trophy
my manhood as a badge

Magpie blind and crippled
benighted inside and out
disresent the rot of flesh
and dark of eye
I thirst
let me drink a drop from your mouth
and sleep.

The potentate charms of dewy hibiscus
and nail and lash beriddled with cipherous mold.
Brow and cuticle akin, resplendent with luscious mildew imagining.
A thought, a wave
and idea, a song, a gasp
And the fevered trembling curtain falling deeply over darkened eyes.
A wave, a dream
a remembered thing
and vanishing.
Adrift embraced alive into missing fields
and painless deliverance.

The lift and clean drop
then floating-flying to grey dawn
wistful and calamitous
and filled with shame.
Once I was a sailor
and once a fox
run free and distant
lone groping in dim caverns
and black pools
and long to forget.

Vicious smiling the blackened grin of loathing
and deepening greaseful bliss
Bounding round and dropped raw
Skinned knees and bloody gums
Spat teeth over the glow of the moon
Into the grey snow and hill
Fat and dark and young
when memory was new and painful
As we stumbled out of the furnace in tatters
and burned clean
and washed down
and eaten whole

more than money or power or thee
I love the slippery lies we drip into our own ears
and tell us dark vanity
and grinning ooze
and lay back and gaze into stars
misty glancing points
and pricking moons of eons
drift aimless in voids of light
glazed thick on my face and arms
and I sing lies to thee and me

We none of us fit within our skins
and bursting stich our careless spines as one.
Vain, and imagining our eyes meet
and words speak
and skin bristles.
And shuffle silent and alone
With our delusions and lies.

Clashing wisps of grey thunder threaten the gates
and spill cloudy fingers of shadow across the purple boundary
I am a liar and face painted and raw
I am a liar and rain-washed white
The shrivel-molder of touching devils
and demons of the forgotten.
Does it move not nor speak?
Slitted shadows of misted sand
waste across vast dark shoals.
I am a liar and red foam at my teeth
and spit blue from blackened lips.