Tinderbed

feel fire silk
wash flavours of absinthe
along the path

burning smokey rose
cinders where we roll
and rock
and rock
till light, too light

the torches brush us
white
on white

On the Subject of Ecstasy-

your passion buttons,
beneath my fingers,
run open like
mother-of-pearls
on wedding satin.

The Lily Spurned

I dreamed of you: 

dead sheep's head, ruptured skin-  

from your mouth 

apocalyptic verses spill, 

all dark, 

all torn, 

no revelation woven through. 

 The sky that roiled and burned 

has hardened so that cherubim 

cannot emerge. 

 Your sons and daughters worship you, 

but I would say you're not the god I thought I knew. 

 The tiger's roar, 

teeth, and claw, 

are butter-myth, 

soggy in the summer sun. 

 The dream is done,

your ashen wings, mere cinders, 

disintegrate 

upon the tongue.

The Paddock Beyond

Rain has closed around us
like the grey dream bubble
where the voice of my thoughts
meanders inside myself.

The road makes a soft groove
muted gravel roar in accompaniment.

Sheep huddle their woolly dampness
in blobs of cream fuzz and nibble
as though they had never seen
the pen and ramp behind that loads
stock for the freezing works -

as though they will never lunge
and crash after each other
onto the trucks.

We drive beyond ourselves,
to the very edge of our comfort zones,
like the youngest child
who constantly pushes to reach
older brothers and sisters,
never accepting that miles run
cannot overtake years lived.

How much better to rest with the sheep
and nibble greens while the pukeko
struts his blue mussel body
through a neighbour's paddock.

The Looks

Surrounded by men's stares,
I wish they'd put their eyes away.

I love women they say,
and rouse the fire worm.

Looking, always looking, their gaze
begs food I don't want to give.

They take anyway.

I saw two men today
with only one eye apiece.

Though only half the eyes
they had twice the stare,

each single eye
a starving mouth.

Lucky you my mother said
but I want to crawl into a burrow,

pull the mud over my head to cool
the fire worm as he licks his terrible lips.

Fractions

What will you do with your life?

Do you want to be the tiny woman
trapped in the iron spindle
that winds the golden wool of her hair?

Or the woman with a beard
who loves other women
for the pleasure of men.

Do you collect stray children
and read them poems?

Who comes out at night
and sprays messages on the walls -
graffitied pustules of diseased progeny.

Are you aware of yourself as a single entity,
moving in air and light -
do you acknowledge yourself
as an adjunct to the wilderness of ghosts?

What will the night hold
as the moon fades
and Queen of Hearts dissolves.

The great bull snuffles
knee deep in wavelets and bellows Homer,
but Homer is an inarticulate cartoon.

We are a chain of light, glowing beads
spinning on our narrow thread,
dimly aware of our 3/16ths of dimensions.