From the Devil Dog:

Three Poems About the Moon for Late October

He Does Not Care for This Movie

he won’t say “I love you” or “go to Hell”
though each might apply equally
when she has become the full moon
hiding behind clouds        the Gothic sky
and he is cast as the open book
full of demonic engravings
pages flipping in the wind
he does not care for this movie
twisted shadows gypsy music prophetic poetry
he waits for the book to slam shut         coughing dust
the clouds to slide away like mercury
the moon silver light to rain like bullets
shooting through wayward wolves
the lovers who’ve forgotten
they have been cast aside
the same cursed curs
who scratched at the door
waking the dreamer before she could swallow
the cure

Walking on the Moon*
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon? — Marlowe

God wept fire.
The Devil spat out the moon.
Angels and demons, and you

toss a bit of silver onto the plate.  You
know the saints swallowed fire.
You know sinners walked on the moon.

You know the pearl in the Virgin’s ear is the moon.
She knows angels and demons
know you.  And you know

the taste of fire.  She walks with you
across the moon.  Through God’s fire
angels and demons and you

spin and stumble and swoon.

Moon**
Every night the moon is mine — Natalie Imbruglia

you lie
suspended in the black vacuum
of the heart your light bleached
and unoriginal
O dull mirror        every lover’s conceit
how the practitioners cherish you
the single pearl saved
from the broken necklace
O false sun        that you would blind me
just once        that you would hide me
cloudshadow crossing mountains
that you would turn your eye         away
so that I might see for myself         open        in your cold light
your mouth against my ear        the thunder’s prophecy
the cold rain        your secret places
your unspeakable names revealed
O haunted lover        promiscuous satellite
acknowledge me         initiate me
tell me         you are mine


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*This poem originally appeared in The Blue Moon, Volume, 2, Issue 5, May 2004
**This poem originally appeared in The Moon, Volume 2, Issue 6, June 2004

Three More Poems from “The Offical Handbook for the Creation and Care of Clean-Eyed Machines” (2003)

Three Poems from “The Offical Handbook for the Creation and Care of Clean-Eyed Machines” (2003)

Fiji Mermaid in the Birdcage Theater

Three Poems about a Witch

Poem 1
That Woman

she opens her mouth
and the tranquil half-moon dissolves
on her tongue moonflowers bloom
in her mind’s garden her hair is long grass
drowning in a flood her words a chain of bubbles
pulled from between her lips coherence
unbraided by the rage of current

you must fill your bags with sand
build the dam don’t follow her
thought’s Celtic knot
bury the other half of the moon
poison the bloom beware the mud lying
under the river of her voice the trap
she will never be like you

Poem 2
Picking Flowers*

The woods are like this at night –
lost souls tangled in the trees,
shaking branches, trying to get loose.

For over forty years I have prowled
in this place, collecting
charmed blossoms and choleric berries
beneath the second-hand light
of my floating lamp, the moon.

My ungrateful husband never knew,
never once stirred as i crept
in and out of our hoary nest;
I would lay a broomstick beside him
and whisper:
“Tonight, sweet dreams
of a good wife beside you
and the riches of kings.”

I did that for a man
who seasoned his food with saltpeter
at a time when i was the fairest
in our village.

But this is what i am here for: purple-veined
henbane, and there blanched
thornapple, and succulent midnight blue –
and over there, the deadly nightshade.

These are the tender, terrible delicacies I gather
for myself; ingredients for the tingling
ointments I concoct
to hurl my spirit across the world
so that she may meet
with her sisters
while my arthritic frame sleeps
in a corner of the root cellar.

Look there! Monkshood,
a purple procession of cowls;
solemn flowers
I keep hoarded for my bitterest potion,
for my last escape
from reproachful priests.

But here, come back
to my hut with me, and I’ll show you how
to make the sky blacken and crack
from a pot of cold swirling water
and a handful of rotten sage.

Poem 3
Knowledge

no apples in this picture
no snakes but secrets slinking
up your spine circling nesting
in your head        the witch flexes her fingers
begins the cleaning        scouring        shaking
out damn security        out damn trust
make room for the serpent pregnant
and ready to burst

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*Seattle Review, Spring/Summer 1989, Vol.XII, No.1

Bus Stop Bicycle

Three Poems with Wheels

Poem 1
The Useful Object

Never call up an earthquake;
it will follow you around the rest of your days.
– Japanese proverb

how thrilling the first time
plates and books falling water
springing from the floorboards sex
interrupted in mid-flight the girl on the bicycle
riding into the yawning dry mouth
in the middle of her street

so you do it again
but the walls only crack and refuse
to fall the vase slides to the edge
totters then stabilizes the sparks
from severed wires sputter and die laughing
the children turn over in their sleep

so you do more and you do it louder
because the pines shimmy rather than shake
a handful of pebbles and dirt slide down the crevice
of your throat making it impossible to call out
eventhough you feel the earth trembling through
the thin soles of your shoes

it’s returning to you the overbearing lover
the calloused hand on the nape of the neck making you
into a most useful object a rattle a gourd
filled with the dried seeds of regret a rhythm
out of sync with the heart
out of time with the world

Poem 2
Who Goes with Ferris?
1893 World’s Fair, Chicago

all over the country-world
people burst lines of the Gilded Age

to push inside the corral constraining
the wheel of great magnitude:

train cars for gondolas
Easter baskets of steel-

cable and struts
a monumental 20 minute revolution

a steam-powered groaning
giant of engineered determination

completing its first circuit
in a hard rain

of freed bolts
and forgotten wrenches

Poem 3
untitled

on the road between Tucson and Tombstone
jellyfish clouds float overhead
our hurtling car a submarine on Mars

Still Life with Broken Butterfly

Three-D Poems: The Doctor, The Dustmaid, The Dispatch

Poem 1
The Diagnosis*

The flutter in her lungs
is not pneumonia;
it is constrained wings beating
against the soft membrane
of her self-restraint.
Put your ear to her breast
and listen:
the frantic cries of her chained desires
echo down through the shadowy cave
of her dreams.

You say she is at peace
in the dank solitude of the local cathedral,
that there she drink holy water
to purge herself of this
heaviness in her chest.

Her priest is concerned;
he send her prayers
steeped in garlic
and rosaries carved out of saints’ relics.
Still the illness continues.

Tonight, I prescribe your dress her
in black lace
and tie her to the bed.
Keep her mouth
propped open
with wet stones;
I will stand watch over her.

When the moon touches
her chalky throat, the bat will fly
through her mouth
and roost on the crucifix hanging
above her bed.

I have a gun.
I have done this before.

Poem 2
Dustmaid**

you have no idea what you did
while you were sleepwalking
– Bubbles, Power Puff Girl

clad in the uniform of starless nights
dustpan hand dustbroom hand
back bent with the weight of her bag

the woman walks behind you
the dutiful drudge sweeping
up debris brushing away tracks

scraping the evidence off the street
of your wanderings into her coarse
and bulging sack

she has traded her teeth
for this job has abandoned her child
for the chance to follow you

to gather the wriggling scraps
of your crumbling life ingredients tasty
and absolutely essential

to her changing shape to her emerging power
she is every shadow laboring to be born
into the waking world

Poem 3
Dispatches from CrazyLand:
What We Watch on TV

according to Nielsen:
when company comes to visit we keep it on
Animal Planet without American politics
human sex or war reportage
the image of a crocodile eating
the head of a zebra
after a frolicking skirmish
on the muddy banks
of a misleadingly tranquil pond
is not meditative or informative but is
hypnotic         a visual narcotic

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*The Midwest Quarterly, Summer 1986, Vol.XXVII, No.4
**The Moon, Vol.1, Issue 7, July 2003