25 Poems

The Bone Forest

Contents

1. Hedonic Song
2. The Black Dawn
3. Afterbirth
4. Animal Prayers
5. The World Eater
6. Old Dreams
7. Starvation
8. Silent, My Voice
9. Genesis
10. Again Again Again
11. The Beautiful Winter
12. Northerner
13. Number 333
14. Cyanide and Apples
15. Prophecy
16. All We Knew
17. The Star
18. Number 709
19. Night and Day
20. Witch Birth
21. Truth
22. The Child Grows
23. The Bone Forest
24. Ave Mythology!
25. Sonnet of the Poppy

Hedonic Song
Hedonic song, the ill are listening
They know, if they could, they would be singing:
The end. I used to sing their song,

each time I poured gold into ogre's mouths

or when I, thoughtless, ate of myself
when I severed my head then I sang, glorious!
I was silent when asked about water
the gold sings: never delve for silence.
Tomorrow is like a nightmare striding across the dawn
And, planting seeds, dreaming prophetic, I am in love.
will I transcend my singing past to survive?
when will the new water come wash me clean?
I know I will dream, meanwhile planting ghost seeds.
A nightmare dawn is coming. Tell stories again.

The Black Dawn

A writhing, newborn creature
I watched the heartbeat of earth exposed
I saw where, in the swirling black muddy sands,

She twisted and shook and bled out

The metal fingers of tin men grasp
For hearts that arent their own
And frack the womb of mankind
And my mother,
Umbilical cord of foot to soil,
Was weeping in measureless crude,
And aching she enfolded me
In a shimmering, drowning death

Afterbirth
Apocalypse, the apocalypse, come and gone
The wasteland is less than barren. we mine for dirt.
Our treasures sundry have now become corpse and ash.

But the water, running, running, floods here again

The water runs with new blood and electric glow
Here my child drinks
And I must sow the seedless soil
Apocalypse, the apocalypse, crept in slow
A human hand rises against wreckage and waste
A human hand recoils. Skeletal dowsing rod!
The masses remain, churning, dying, searching here.
The skeletal hand finds water profaned and scarce.
Here my child drinks
And I must sow the seedless soil
Apocalypse, the apocalypse, wretched home
The ancient sun has become an enemy god
The dawn is red and aluminum mountains burn.
From this empty place we watch rain fall as acid.
Ghosts are in seeds. Ancestors demand survival.
Here my child drinks
And I must sow the seedless soil

Animal Prayers

This is our radical communion,

genetic memory,

the baptism.
Here is a moment for the old gods!
We are now rehabilitated.
Abandoned
Is the theology
of destruction and domination.

The World Eater

The worm spoke from a plastic mouth
A lament for the work left to do

I can listen to him with my child on my lap

And I can watch as he works all dead things to soil
Once, in my youth, it seemed a heavy price to me
now I wait eagerly for him to make a grave
A grave that is capable of consuming me
So that I may become the fertile ground reborn
I would be the tomato plant with ripe red fruit
I would be the energy of dancing children
I eulogize for the undead who do not rot
The worm spoke from a plastic mouth,
A lament for his necessity

Old Dreams
One day the winter will be beautiful again

The stove will be warmed by the crackling wood

Jars of honey, dandelion, true gold
Summer compressed, consumable sunshine
We will eat in winter and not fear snow
We will curl around the warmth of our love

One day the winter will be beautiful again

Starvation
Fruits burst forth on the vine so abundant
Ruby peaches. Figs of gold. Countless treasures.

Harsh
Hash like death
Harsh like death. No sun.
Harsh like death. No sun again.
Winter.
Bright eyes. Soft lips. Warm skin and parted legs.
Heat and health even under a black sky.
White
White like snow.
White like snow on ground.
While like snow on ground. Barren.
Death.
The body decays on the thawing ground.
Flowers bloom and twine between white ribs.

Silent, My Voice
Silent. my voice is strained by lullabies.
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My hands rest on the stomachs of children.

Sleeping rib cages rise and fall, slow and soft.
Wild. the dust storm beats against the windows.
When will sleeping creators awaken?
I can't sing enough to quiet the storm.

Genesis
Together, we terraform our own home.
No alien planet. Our earth, unenvied.
We can make rivers shining and silver,

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silver with the scales of fat bellied fish,

theyll illuminate the dark waters!
Now we will colonize the wild places.
Wild people, relentless mycelium.
Consuming old wood, we blossom undead.
Together, we are one grand organism.
We are the bioluminescent sun!
Together, we eat the dead and the dark.
Proclaim we are a part of. Not apart.

Again Again Again

Hey there, Ouroboros!
We dance the old circle

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Birth to death. Back again

Hey there, Humanity!
Our eyes open at last
The child, youth, and elder
Hey there, swirling Cosmos!
Exploding. Imploding
Big bang miniature
Hey there, my beating heart!

The Beautiful Winter

Inside her hollow bones is a bird song.
Little echoes where the marrow turned to dust,
and the happiest croak a raven could manage,

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stirs it up - a dust storm, a cacophony!

It is the winter. The bone-birds are silent in summer.
The heat makes throats too dry to sing. They wait for winter.
Once the world hibernates, her birds prepare their voices.
Now they sing, those dark-throated songbirds!
On the stage of the silent earth, when civilization sleeps,
her skeleton writes an aria as she walks through the snow alone.

Northerner
The night breathes

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Moonlight expands the forest's ribcage of gaunt knotted trees.

Wind rustles the forest's vocal chords. Leaves sigh in unison.
If I touched the darkness it would envelop me in boreal arms.
The night breathes
I would be lost, my body evergreen, in a forest of bones.
The north wind upon my neck, howling soft for me.
The night breathes

Number 333
I was reflected in gold,
His eyes were distant, the river wide,
but I knew him.
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He caught my thoughts.
The Watching Wolf.
Her eyes were staring like a doe.
I heard her coming, booted feet on rocky ground,
I thought about her skin.
The girl I didn't know.
We were illuminated by gold,
He stood immersed in dawn light, by the water,
I felt him.
He caught my emotions.
The Waiting Wolf.
Her eyes startled like a doe.
I saw her stop, body still and enraptured,
I thought about her bones.
The girl I wanted.
I was trapped in an iris of gold,
He was calm, the water shallow,
but I did not cross to him.
He caught my cowardice.
The Wolf Alone.
Her eyes leapt from me like a doe.
I saw her fidget, biting a plump lip, rocking on her feet,
I thought about her entirety.
The girl I couldn't have.

Cyanide and Apples

I went to sleep under an ancestral spell
Interred, entombed, preserved in DNA
I went to sleep to dream my prophecy

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Again, as always, of old growth forests

I do not want to hear an engine start
I want to breath like paper being crumpled
I want to hold my breath until
Until the wad of paper condenses to a seed
A seed watered in the warm earth of my mouth
A tree must grow with the red wood of my tongue
The dawn will not touch my tomb
I will be cloaked and covered. Evergreen.

Prophecy
A carving in bone says return
I sought to defy the foolish divination

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I was a pale ghost of my own dream

I ate seeds I should have planted
The scent of honeysuckle and cut grass
Winter descends femur-white, ribcage-white,
And still, the carving in bone says return.

All We Knew
The moon rose first,
Before the sun could define the world
The moon

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Whose light was gentle enough for the infant of us

The moon, who rocked our ocean cradle,
Who churned the primordial waters, rose up,
And shone on the exposed skulls of our forebearers
She, who would be called the madness-creator,
Softly lit a land without graveyards
Where we, in innocent infancy,
Knew nothing of apples, whoremongers, and
The smell of burning plastic
And we, only just born,
Knew more than we do now of death
The blackness that bore us

The Star
Some wolf howled for the moon and I, boldly, responded.
And I, like the spring, have become a rebirth.
How strange a thing it is
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To find kindling within

The spark, a soul (or two), physically brought forth
The bonfire grows
A star, giant against the sky
We have burnt the brush of dead winter
I, reborn, am now triple souled.
I have become a spiraling wildfire
Which slowly, slowly grows
To illuminate the black unconscious
I am dreaming again in undeniable prophecy.

Number 709
I sleep under an apple-spell, orphaned.
Autumn is past but I remember red and gold,

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I have not been so breathless

since I was born my mother's squaling child
I have mourners, my friends,
who know the deep, the dark of earth,
My mouth, slowly decomposing, tastes of cider
The gold of apples lost to snow
I want the moon to move in me a waxing, waning heartbeat.
I may have slept an hour, a week, a century,
but even orphaned I cling to the birth she gave me
My lips are sealed in cider, gold and cold,
I will not part them for my death rattle
Dark mother, light mother, night and moon.
One to lay me under, one to raise me up.
I have promised my mothers I will live again.
One for love, the other for revenge.
I wake from an apple-spell, beloved.
My bridegroom, the necromancer

Night and Day

The little girl is in search of courage.
Her dreams are fox-shaped, moon-bright, they have it!
Against the black sky, she reclaims her birthright.

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Her wildheart is inherent.

The little boy is in search of peace.
His bear-like heart keeps the seasons. Hibernates. Springs forth!
Inside himself he finds the true calm.
His is the secret gentleness of all beasts.

Witch Birth
On the barren earth, I saw two girls.
Lips, eyes, hair, all the same.
One was safety and the other danger.

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I spoke to them to learn what they would say.

One said choose, the other obey.

I walked on, admiring the open sky.

A vulture was circling a corpse.
I could see their eyes were one and the same.
I spoke to them to learn what they would say.
One said go, the other echoed stay.

I walked on, approaching a roaring river.

I saw a fish caught in a black bear's mouth.
I stayed silent. The river spoke enough.
They belonged to each other,
but I belonged to no one.

Truth

Amidst their thunderous voices,

she is silent, burning with the need to speak.
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Amidst their thunderous voices,

She is seething, shaking with potent thoughts she whispers.
Amidst their thunderous voices,
She is waiting, in honeyed patient words she sings.
Amidst their thunderous voices,
She is shaking, clinging to reason and screams.

The Child Grows

The end brought spring unannounced

Flowers of myth, when stories burst forth

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From seeds of memory the elders sowed

For flowers to crown the childs head

Magic is in the science. Photosynthesis.

The witch child can learn its ways.

And so the child grows,

As myth flowers give summer fruit
And songs, songs in sun dappled woods
Where roots twine around the ruins

The Bone Forest

I will make a forest of bones, she said
With whiteness of birch bark and marrow sap,
All will rise and be washed clean by water.

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No death can claim me,

Except the quiet death of thoughtless things.
I will fall and rise up with the bones.
The drunken skeleton ferments and dances,
Dances until it breaks apart
Bones shatter and scatter like seeds
The old forest grows again
Fruit on bone trees is dark red
The bone forest bears pomegranate-kin
The taste keeps the key of paradise
For all those who pass through death
To find the bone forest
Where the world begins again

Ave Mythology!
The trees do not moralize.
They do not analyze.
They grow. They rot.
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Over a hundred rings

keep stories concealed.
They hold their history
inside of them, they know
Each ring builds the others
Expose your rings to me
Tell me stories from your grandmothers
Our world will ring the sun meanwhile
we will become stories in turn
Give me your spells, runestones, stories
And I will give you mine
In the touch of a hand
that hides divinatory bones
Our bodies will blend trance-like
a repetition of archetypes
that binds us to all times in one place
Sonnet of the Poppy
Spring has come from hibernation! The children run past
the ruins, without need for word or warning, and
there are flowers I've never seen before. Bright,

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they are moonlight from ground to sky, floor to

ceiling, painted with the scene of our renaissance
Nature, with her teeth and claws, gives us also red
old poppies to flower where the soil is turned, returned,
to memorialize what is buried there. Children laugh and run.
Moonlight brought us towards the sun and hid herself
in the soft white flesh of apples, liberated from damnation
and I am dying slowly without fear. Dawn, clear, has broken.
Papaver rhoeas. The genealogy of red. Pomegranate, life blood.
The fertility of weeds. The seeds resown, fields abundant. Heartbeat,
Wild, the blood in me shows the flowers are my kin-folk.

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