after loving

you're as tempting to me

as a voice in the loitering ear
as a finger within the melding folds
as a release of the theological moan
as a breath of the jubilant tear
as a quiver in the harmonic deepness
as a lure of the rushing smile
as a parting of the governing limbs
as a nuance in the presiding glance
as a kiss on the shading mouth
as a tongue on the greedy flesh
as a flitting of the consoling nipple
as a smelling of the dashing rose
as a rocking of the foraging hips

make love in the making
     find fondling in the love
inhabit the lover in the flesh
     tumble in the skin crying
mouthing the lips with a splurge
     engrossing in the man
and woman in the woman
     man in the man and
falling into a sliding
     tumble to find a following
and groping for them in the dark
     looking for the pearls in the
way your lover plays
     along the piano keys
and licking their way
     to where you inhabit the
grandness of your granting
soul

fall deep
deeper still
joust and shiver
in their arms
but be still after awhile
then find a way to
say it

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pray

now comes my father
prostrate in his
own garden
ebullient and free:
he readies his solomon's temple
and God enters in
a slow descent

green goes the tightened
apertures
dilating
the corrugated irises of
the closed mind
and i leave and
arrive

he seeks - my father -
to burrow down into
the valley toward
tranquility
peace is peace
no doing
no meaning

pitch from the canopy
of pine floats down
upon me;
the grace of a
garden with her
black-eyed susans
and asters and
chrysanthemums are
languid in a thoughtful
breeze

my father approaches
God on a bed of whispers

i lay
in deference
my face inches from
the grass:
blades are congregations in
tufts among
pebbles and twigs
tossed from tree-towers
and they all are epicentric to
my vision, no
landscape no horizon

my father's face
is in the face of
his Lord's
lips to lips
giving and receiving
something approaching
a haloed kiss

the good center
is a shallow pool reflecting
what i know
and in the vein a stream
toward an island
filled with knowledge
- winged horses and
laughing birds

my father delves
- no plea -
a pressing of palms;
a passage over
and through so that He
receives what my father
is, not what he wants

the earth is on hold
this mistress of humans
and the birth-mother of her
inhabitors calls me
to conjoin
and blades become
stones become
twigs become
me

my father
in prayer
is an abundance of
joy and a weeping
willow in a field of barley
his words are for him
and Him alone and i am listener
pulled into the orbit
of my father's blessings

amen

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pammy

pammy, so verbally
pale, yet
soaked with the wisdom
of mothers,
saw her boy sent

has life been good to you?
has life been kind?
has God of others
been God to you?

or did all the heavens
burn up
and her angels fled
the day he was flung
in the night
and left crying?

we are stolen
in our time
from embraces
and from calamities
and we leave our loves
and our lovers
longing

we're all spun
within the same lottery
the same sobering
flip of the wheel
and we are flung
and the ball drops

something turned on you
didn't it?
something from the
clouds
precipitated and the
souls of happiness
they all fled
you

only you can make
the soaking twilight
of your son's fate
rise again on the
horizon
but just on those days
when others aren't looking

and all that meandering
between magic
and mayhem was
the only thing that
kept you hinged
because there's something
good in the moments
before dawn

how do i reach
the woman whose
loss split the
canyons of
love and drowned
the valleys of
her spirit?

i hold a child
in my arms and
fear her departure
is nigh
and i rage for
your loss as much
for my own

but i see you pammy
in a moonlight
lull, looking
out a window on
a staving wood
and i wonder:
how did you shine on?

how did those days
become nights?
how did that ambush
not carom against
your droning dusk
and make you a pale
shell?

i've said and i
say: a woman
whose womb has
spilled out and
with it the shape of
her fear and her
jubilation

is a woman
ascended
and a woman
reached
and a woman
giving
source

i see my mother
and mother's
mother
and i am
held
fast

women like
pammy who've
let loves pass
and became
perched on
the arms
of living

because they
saw beyond
and above and
found no quarrel
with their
God after
all

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pietà by my side

pietà by my side
draw me that
pitying picture

of The Mother
cradling her
spurned son

that has inspired all
those sculptors, poets
and painters

to live, a poem
must die
in the lap of the poet

resurrected by
the source of
smashing love

tear it down tear
it all down and
pietà builds it up

by my side
in loose
lashes of the pen

my partner in
heraldic play
hand to pen to paper

the mother and the poet
sacrifice their children
to brute betrayals

and watch
their ascensions
from guttural prayers

we incant
and we outcast
and we topple

the girl with
hair the color of a
Mediterranean night

proves again
that i must seek
the shelter of palms

of the guiltless
ones who have
a better view

of the source
of the free
and epic heavens

unfettered
by the tongues
of elders

pietà by my side
wings across
the page with doves

as her beloved
carriers; no foil
to the divine process

i fly there
too when i'm
a child

and i have
loosed the latches
on all the bindings

pietà by my side
it's a pity
i don't dance more

the way you
do and let fly
the sins of men

that keep the
mothers and the
poets crying

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tally

takes the tally
and makes his mark
the fouling driver
hollers and the
hungry hawk
hums

with a brute lash
he
makes her a prisoner
with a knife
to inner thigh
lie still and yield

mine mine mine
he marks -
mine he marks -
marks his mine
tick tick itck
she unmarks and unmarks

singing
in her head's head
a hymn from
a former glorious
field
wandering

and he makes the
the blade thrum
'cross the
chrysalis flesh
pleating it
bleeding her

of her senses
feeling it
retreating her
from her
once upon
a time

when she was
a child and
scudding through a
farmer's pasture
bare legs bending
the blades

a wet wander
wild and
hilly
a stumbling
girl's giggling
elopement

the blade
today is a
tool of the warden
to scowl
a lapsed
girl

lie still lie
to yourself
fly from
the shape
of the sound
in a dark room

tick tick tick
mine mine
tally a penalty
into pliant
skin the color
of sin

momma will
say you've
got a good man
to love you
enough
to fight to
keep you

blundering
bitch
blubbering
braying
beast
bestill

this place
her passage
her way
her forward
her entrance
her real

this man
is no man
is a dagger and
stone and
the power
of a spit
coal

and brandisher
a mulling
percher
ambushing the
ambitions
of the weak

pouring
salt water
into the eyes
of
the souls
of innocence

and she
was lured and
slain
and pinioned
between charm
and will

tick tick tick
for each
transgression
against the
father of
her dark cathedral

she won't look
now she won't
dare; for
it's a frayed
fragile
foiled place

yet:

her lover
does look now
a gentle man
looks
and loves
and lingers

there
where the hawk
once made his
mark
this lover
kisses the place

he loves her
he loves the woman
he loves the flesh
and the marks
he loves the woman
and all her marks

he washes
the walls
of the tallies
with tender fingers
tracing
the lines

that will
not ever be
erased
but he washes
at will because
he loves

and the girl runs
wild in the
farmer's
pasture again
free free
of the tick

tick tick
mine mine
you're mine
no longer mine
not mine
released to a

passionate
lover who
knows this
woman:
he sees her
he knows

he looks
he looks
and sees
and kisses
and loves
her clean

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