New poem

PROGENITOR

The red black dance of fire. Upon the wall
shadows and shapes. A small child's tooth-pierced cry.
Thunderstonefall outside. You know you'll die
quite soon, hunger, or beast horn, or a fall

of snow in which you lose the way and starve.
And practice death song as your mother taught.
You heard hers when a treetrunk fell and caught
her leg and hip.You watched a glacier carve

a mountain crumble. Biggest thing you saw
that died. You're nothing, but the eye that sees
the mouth that sings. So drink it to the lees
small time of life. And we have so much more

we sing your children. Small things, great sublime
Dear mother, sing beside me in my rhyme.

Another

ELBOWED

Two unfair goddesses both smile and frown
perhaps a third. Love spins Fortuna's wheel.
Kiss arrows wound my heart. I'm quick to heal
surprisingly. The scales jerk up then down

heart stutters, jumps, gets faster than is still.
Somewhere another voice sings. I can't hear
it all that well, so write it. Costs me dear
sometimes, then costs me nothing. I feel ill

the morning after but it's on the page
where nothing was. It's like loose lace on shoes
this thing I have to fix. She calls, the Muse
I wouldn't want to put her in a rage.

She stands behind the others, makes them nudge
the path I walk. My muse, my love, my judge.

It's been a hard week and something has come loose

PROPHET

Shatter their idols. Melt the goddess down
to coinage – you have hungry troops to pay.
Sober and starving on a sacred day
men's love is dearer to you than a crown.

But not as dear as knowing whom to praise-
you grope to him – it's him, you're sure – through mist
of failed ideas. You've written down a list-
writing is hard. Ideas and words will craze

your mind if let. So let it rest a while.
A hint of what he means smells like the rain
perhaps he's simply when there is no pain.
He's thunder anger, terrible his smile.

You dread you've built him. Pray he sits alone
unmade, dictates you true names from his throne.