ALL RESPONSES |
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Britt, thank you, thank you, and thank you for returning to us with Northography! I have been in a writing funk and standing on emotionally dry land since Northography took a break. Right now I am truly taken with life's many important decisions to make (too soon), but Northography has always given me the opportunity to step away from all my day-to-day worries by giving me a wordy heaven where to find myself when lost.
I will be back soon. Rusty yes, but back.
Maria |
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Cherry and tar traces;
the smoke of passing conversation.
Taller, shoulders back, redder lipstick,
weaker hands. Words turn backward- extend their grip
as if reaching for better times.
Here, where sinners gather together
like a congregation, the words always turn back.
Songs of better times, when we were all looking
for something, you know. Something,
anything.
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How did I meet my wife? Oh, the usual way...
We were at Beltane's, you know, on 61 near
the freeway, yeah. The annual thing, with the
torches in back, it was Spring, the remnants
of Winter, ice-chunks still in the storm drains,
and I asked if I could buy her a drink.
Soon enough we'd chatted the night away and
it was time. As the crowd removed their clothes
we did the same. She was bashful, gave me little
glances, bit her lip a bit as she lost her shirt, her slip,
her silken underthings. Giggling,
we moved outside as they shut down the bar,
to watch the wicker effigy, ablaze,
send spears of flame and ash
into the cloud-stained night.
Yeah, they did things better back then, before
the fire codes, and kids today, they don't know.
But us. Then. The whole crowd.
They took the torches and ran screaming
to the river where the demons had last
been seen. The two of us, I and her,
my wife already,
we fell behind till we were alone,
then crawled into the bushes and tasted each
other's smoke-dry lips and we knew
with the howlings and splashing
echoing in the forset, that this,
us moving closer -
would last forever. |
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Wherever you are
then I will go too
we will be at each other
tender and the world
will be strong
we will leave no spaces
between our touches
things will be rich
frightening wondering
what else would be wanted
we have a raft, a battleship
and a pleasure craft waiting
wouldn’t you like to sit
and look and just know? |
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And then
such as we
shall
run bearing fire
baring souls
shedding clothes
shredding woes
torches aloft
sky-clad
we surge
The Lady
is radiant
when her children
celebrate her
with abandon
No surprise
to find
in the land
of sheep’s pluck
on the table
whiskey in the glass
Nessy in the Loch
Hierosgamos
flourishes
still |
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Words Willie wrought:
'Between ripe and rot
there’s many a tale.'
She could write a book
place her words for sale.
Where’s the love here?
What drives?
Is it the money
or an itch to tell?
Never mind which.
Scratch that itch
with white paper
black ink
a rhyme
or two.
A festival of fire.
Help make the world go round,
big lady,
help twirl it whole
mend one’s self
find the $oul.
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Wolf sees fire at night
Smells marrow, fat and meat
Stealthy theft while hunter sleeps
She dares by day to show her face
For want of spear and arrow
Fear subsides between the two
They together hunt the Stag
Magic fills the world of Man
He plows the earth for food
Fire moves to covered hearth
Wolf-dog sleeps beside a bed
Her meal has changed to grain
She learns to bark and beg
For fat and bones and marrow
Left over from the master’s cattle
Flame’s contained inside a box
Machines demand Man’s spirit
Warp-spasm wakes up in his heart
Screams through town at night
Dog needs something more than bread
Is hungry for pure air and water
They send prayers for an end
To fear that’s grown between them
Restless, they begin to wander paths
Ancient, overgrown and lost
To sacred groves and holy words
Marked on stones from other worlds
And find wind of truth, bones of earth
Water of life and living flame
Here they are at peace again
Man and Wolf, his spirit-friend |
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It was the same story each May,
she could never find him
though she called sweetly
and eagerly,
though the flowers in her hair
glinted and perfumed the air.
There were too many bonfires,
too much shouting
and shedding of skins --
how everyone longed to begin again
and again.
There were the garlands,
endless and tangled;
she clung to them
following their trail,
but they didn’t lead her to him
only to more fools
leaping through flames,
convinced that this year
would be better than the last.
She knew better,
golden goddess, Freya,
daughter of Time.
Maybe that’s why
he was so hard to rouse --
why he slumbered
so deeply and dreamily
so warm
in his winter blanket
of twigs.
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The woman at the end looks
like she’s in love with the dead
given up on breathing, she has,
your knuckles on the bar top, raw
Put your head down, she whispers
I bury animals in the woods
and don’t mind touching them
No, that part is a lie
Your body is still warm, is it?
it has everything inside where
your heart must be
Loving the dead is like looking
into a full sun and not going blind
is like diving into a cold lake
and everything goes silent
She tells you she is an addictive,
that she could be licking your dead body
if only you would let her
(pause, one last
look around)
you half expect a pack of naked
people to come rushing through
the place carrying torches
A quick glance at the clock, two am,
you say, what the fuck, you don’t need
any other living people in your life tonight
anyway, let’s go, honey,
let’s do this one for love |
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What if there was no timeline,
but there was one longstanding reason
for me to believe
that this vicious and beautiful scene
could be like those of yellowed seasons gone?
What if you took off your shoes
and underwear, and trampled endlessly
from one hill to another, and
kissed fire with the wonder you had
when we were young? But the even bigger question --
What if I forgot my pessimism
and learned these nights remain blessed?
What of that?
And I want to say that I can hear you
and feel the earth shake
as your feet act almost heathen and
pound the growing grasses, but
I wish your foreparents’ voices
had never departed
from this ever moving pageant.
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The fire moon is here -- when giant children roam
around the city with brands scorching the walls.
The time to plant. The time to make furrows full
with seed saved through the starving time.
When you walk out your door tomorrow it will be
too late. You must go now -- run and live hard.
The apple tree is blossoming. The birch will always
be there for you when the time to die has come. |
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Bacchanalian grandeur, the sulphur
odor of torch fire, musk, semen,
sweat, wine. The feature is death
of winter followed by the rising
of a seedling, be it grain or flower.
Shadowed faces, here the dancers’,
bedevil the night; we are off spring
of gods who ruled the earth and chaos.
Their little joy was to keep us alive
amid our troubles. So rejoice.
Winter cowers in the corner, its ice
no contest for the fire’s. Earth has
turned around in its huge bed, big
rumped earth is snoring. The flames,
our guide, leaping and cackling.
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the torch handle burns
the born words turn bodies
loose
like genitalia,
on the heat of this dead line-
age
on the pyre of marginalia
pubes
these
scribblings
these
body wrinkles in brains
this writhing from
wombs
towards the surface.
the moon, they yell
rains light
without the hell
we write
page by page,
pregnant rage
strips
essays of clothes.
make me know
longer tongue and
primal rose
this is
where words
weak
die for
finalelipsis... |
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“You’re my husband,” she is calling to him
across the line of fire, shouts and oaths. Flames
shine on their bodies like bloody birth.
"You’re the one I have chosen," but he runs,
looking neither to the left nor the right
straight to the circle, shouts and oaths
burning in his loins like snake fangs, like the rustle
of hooves in the forest, like ocean spume.
“You’re the one.” She is pressing her breasts, her breath
to the back of his slick skin burning with his
scent, like the sea from which they were
once born, womb tide, wild rush of wings
which laid them here one at a time, helpless and pure.
“You’re the one I want to capture me this night,
Beltane burning in me for your seed,
your essence, to make me woman of thee.”
But he runs on, shouting an oath to
the gods, does not notice the woman
stumbling as she is swept into an embrace,
frenzied dance, ecstatic ritual. Safe passage
from winter to summer gain: the grain, the flowers,
the honey, the fruits, the mead. The burning
unites them for the deities, or ancestors,
to own. She lays down her human heart
for the sake of the sacred, the sake of her tribe.
It is interesting to note that, just as during Dia de los Muertos, the veil between worlds thins at this time.
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It’s easy to be a devil
Just strip down bare
Indulge your senses
And be certain to rush
Or better yet
Rush others
It’s hard to be an angel
White is not my color and
Wings are just impossible
Restraint is clumsy
Clouds ridiculous
Kindness, unnatural
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Like running with scissors,
the grief of night, smoke, flames
born brazenly into the woods
to conceive for a Celtic god or goddess.
No May pole here at Beltaine.
No dancing girls in party dresses
holding streamers.
Just pure adult fun.
On May Day it happens
when you least expect it,
lying still and empty,
your heart beating in your ears
like rain driven to roof
and you know that what’s inside
can leave and cycle the universe,
as surely as you rise and set, as surely
as fire burns with night,
and you decide right then and there
to join in the night’s revelry.
You unclothe
petal by petal open,
spirit out from your ship of bones.
Your naked dreams run with you
into the forest, the shelter of eyes,
as your feet sprint across uneven,
black loam and the discarded.
The earth will not comfort you,
will not hold you sacred as you do it,
nor remember your long dead gods.
You can howl all your like,
but you’ll find no sympathy here.
The earth only swallows and recycles.
You may believe in birds,
believe a part of you can just leave
without return, you run for
the fireflies, the crickets and cicadas,
teeming with strong feeling,
and the night fills with you,
all this shedding and giving to
the earth, sky, fire, and life.
You may realize afterwards
you go home to an ordinary existence,
to clothing that remembers your shape
and original scent worn
into the world like a shield,
like moss, like a charm.
You were no different than a hummingbird,
batting its wings with alacrity,
flitting from bloom to bloom
never finding the ultimate,
not satisfied but to taste again and again,
until that something inside
that drove you momentarily mad
and out into the night with fire
settles into mourning
what’s lost
and never again.
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First a cascade of changing hues
the way the waterfall elides
from pthalo to turqoise as it tumbles
down the chute shaking
the bamboo at its edge.
Then all surprise — a Blue Morpho
butterfly opens its brown wings
to show translucence on the inside,
stained glass, Chartre blue.
After, history returns to our lambent bodies
an assault of early morning energy.
Remember how the children once
clambered into our bed.
Train screams, traffic, voices bundle us
back into our brindled body suits,
shackled to the clock-tick of heartbeat.
Last night pleached color onto color.
Indigo islands rose from sea-lavender.
Scarlet brushed over purple cloudbanks.
Surfers in black crossed pink tide pools
as if returning from out of time,
a place where we once ranged and fed
shining in the quick play
always starting over.
Can we come to terms with change?
Those cool blue hyacinths of mountains
were once volcanic clouds
of molecular ashy radiance.
Once we sat along a rainforest river
deep in smells of bloom and decay
sometimes parrots, sometimes quiet.
Beside us one blue heron spread its wings,
rose from shadow into star pricked sky.
It held in long lupine vision the two of us,
rootless orchids in the school of the grass moon.
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There is a host of naked women inside of me
that I approach as if entering an orchard
that is known to me,
that will one day be my inheritance.
I inherently have in me
a field of women, each growing her fruit
or dropping it to the ground in distaste.
I am learning the names of trees.
Fire in the forest means so many things:
Silver maples in the fall, or pollination.
The women are cooking, smoking fish.
It could mean that I am visiting.
What is striking is how firmly planted,
how differently shaped, how silent
aside from bold leaf colors. They are
teaching me to stand upright
even in the face of fire. |
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The clouds were not iron
as you supposed
Neither was the grass clinging
to our lips
Bath of fire
Provenance
of feet
bare to the knuckle
Spitting dirt
I loved you then
as I do now
Wasteland upon my heart
Science dares to name you
For one, I am not such foolish a child
as I sound
Filling smoke; fleeing the fire
Beneath a cold and watchful sun
We became ourselves again
limp in the dark shadows
licking the sightless black
Quietly tricking the tricksters of legends
happenstance
we lay down in the grass
bending the damp blades
Daring them to break
under our heavy silhouette
of timeless wanting,
reaching,
finding sunlight
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Bonfire assembly
beware air swallow
furtive flame crack
ignite denuded trees
shade ring, shadow sting.
Your face dry and cracked
Officer licks the pencil tip
"Where were you last night? Why
do you carry these branches?
That is not your cat.
Your cat is a gray tabby
I’m sorry, sir. Your answers
are inadequate. Get into the car,
sir. Get into the car."
Moon’s mouth open in horror
cloud fall, plunk sound
gone red into sky.
Time ratchets up
smell something electric.
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On the underside of each lithe, golden beast
there’s matted down hair, flaxen and straw
bits of dirt clinging and mixing with decayed pheromones,
always at the touch—wetness.
Fires exhaust themselves,
of entropy, water, matter and oxygen.
Dendrites to axons in little starts with
ever less sodium than the one before it.
There’s leather, there’s latex;
There’s Elizabeth Taylor’s head going through a car window and
I know a shaman who’ll hold your hand
while your toes hold coles and
together
with cactus,
you can conquer blindness.
The sodiums don’t add up,
the alchemy works— but only for a while
When something’s relief erodes to nothing
the lions are still there.
Less tinder.
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There was no May Day before her;
no meaningful work, no real labor of love, of mouth,
of enduring kisses and believing
that times would change. There were no little voices either;
no breaking of waters at their birth, no such fullness in any silence I ever experienced; no prior reason to swear faithfulness upon smelling the sweetness of her labored sweat.
Before her, there were no summers, you could say, nor bonfires at the end of the winter days. The full moons of dreams filled the skies of others but not mine, until then, I used to whistle the sounds of her name over when she was away from me, like a practicing cardinal; to feel that part of her, slipping delicately through my lips.
The things she brought me, her pagan ways of body, of lush, of touch. The lavender of her voice, the rhythm of one, riding another, windless and still as early August in the Midwest; as loud and secludedly rough as the wintering Alaskan oceans. Her naked heart, so open, so young, running barefoot towards a life not at all easy, with me.
And yet, it is May Day again and our days of wandering are seemingly over; a time line for everything. There is a kiss, lost in the night; an untouched curve in her body begging to understand my absence; the soft scratches of my fingernails hidden from her back.
(Today is our 11th anniversary. I will miss the moment, the May Day parade, she says, so hurry up and write more tomorrow.
... to be continued.) |
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It is the Fire Moon. We gallop with bursting brands.
It is time to tear the earth -- to plant seed and bless.
You must go now -- the plow -- the furrow -- the plow.
The barley soon to rise under the ripening rainfall.
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To the woods with us, O halcyon day
Spring-white and lily-shivered! |
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Red,
your flowers are upon the paved stones at the antlers hotel
and the four winds glow
Everyone asking what do you do.
Isn’t it a beautiful day that begins:
When we are to drink
When all the green is broke
When there is no more money nor job nor rhyme,
and yet, everything will be fine.
The rich and mighty
can always be a little patient
made of magnifiance
hearth fires and
holocausts
where women can go to hell and return.
Our's is to be an inconvenience
it is to be anything, like love
so we chase these steps just across the lawn
and into the birch grove as some day over the rainbow
we are to be both mighty and fallen.
Never have I been so full of love
before with you my queen
my ancient goddess.
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Fire runs toward the shore,
a battle of dirt, sweat, and cleansing by water.
The screaming open mouths, contorted faces coated in sand,
bodies juggling nature's gifts,
uninterested of shyness nor decency.
We are in it for the freedom
the night holds and gifts us with.
For the heat and light coming from our torches,
held high above our heads,
pointed defiantly toward the night sky
as to suggest more stars are born tonight,
stars made of the animal instinct
that revolts against conformity,
the role our daily life has confined us to.
Blood rushes, breathing rushed, feet rushing
toward a moment of complete abandonment,
where who I am and who you are is non important,
as long as we, together, are.
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