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Showing posts from March, 2014

Faerystruck Down

In the rolling fog of the purple sea Where slugs infest the ridge And breeze-bent heather Tethers ghosts of the drowned Beyond the threshold of the mind Where sea hags howl at the moon And shapes unseen Sneak away human babes Lies the maritime trail I was warned not walk Urged by patrons of the old pub To return to America, and be gone at next breath: “For too tempting is the tourist from afar!” But I split my sides at their heathen pleas Doused their cares with whiskey and ale Till after a spell, I was cheered out of town Pushed along streets of leaping whispers So onward to accursed shores I went Bold with humor and the prod of drink Where fish-lipped merrows in cohuleen druiths Leered from frothy kelp isles And the mutterings in belch-bogs grew ever near . . . And the perverted, creeping shadows . . . I will never forget their dream-drenched faces As they sang and danced and picked over my end Goblets high in the salty spra

Quieting the Agnostic (old unpublished poem)

I have the quixotic urge to steal thunder from the rain; to take the pain from our tears.   To secure and sculpt it; to create an elation all my own, so that in a god’s honor I can set the thing free.   Because I’ve come to know that everything sad or lost is not really sad or lost when the day comes; when the truth comes.        And all the cold stars      are a million degrees.

Making Amends

He is making amends to his victims in a swarm of their ghosts, enduring the blades, beatings, wringing hands— each angry shade tearing at his soul as their own deaths rebloom and blacken. For thirty years, few women walked that city alone. In dreams they shrank beneath his police sketch, took to prayer in the gore of his wake. The law’s eyes went bloodshot seeking answers. When at last he died in old age, a pack of shades broke from limbo, scurried like bats to the gates of hell. There they howled and wept and dragged him away. He is making amends to his victims. (From the book  The Hunchback's Captive and Others )