Black Bird
When you said that word – it was the way you said it –
rage soared, spread its wings
covered me
a black bird with orange eyes
stabbing at muscle and bone
pecking at my veins
until they exploded in bloody flames
that ripped through the sky
and devoured indiscriminately.
Then fizzled.
Leaving the husk of what was between us
feathers stirring listlessly
waiting for an updraft
for that word to be unsaid
it was the way you did it
tossing it over your shoulder
like an afterthought
like a sack of garbage.
Twice.
Goodbye. Goodbye.
***
Exhibition
A figure dwarfed by an ancient landscape
physical and psychic wounds reflected in the face of another
the shock of your body turning on you
the collision with mortality
carved in lines on your chest
a slow painful healing
a desperate urge to be as before
while becoming during and after breast cancer
a man awakened to suffering
to the grace and gift of each day.
a sense you are no more than a grain of sand
and a will to survive
your life in ten shots
***
Black
He is resting
against the morning
heavy hide
cradled by blonde grass
he is enthroned
to the end of time
eyes will behold him
enshrine him
in memory and illusion
his outline fading as the light
grows harsher
and the morning trembles
to afternoon
his slow eye sidles
until a horn-shaped moon
tattoes it with dollar signs
his half-sleep no anaesthetic
for the famished vigil
the grasses already
leaking and foetid
the violent dawn
drenches the sky
in scarlet obscenity
they have eaten
their own faces
***
Courtship of eagles
there are times
when I begin to speak
that my tongue is a moat
hemmed in on all sides
by teeth and eyes
by towers
of words as cumbersome
and unforgiving
as unspoken truths
there are times
when words flow wild and free
skim through walls
sweep aside boulders
ride the sky
as eloquent and soaring
as a courtship of eagles