What the Muses Leave Behind

- "and in my wild heart what did I most wish to happen to me." - Sappho I. Swing you heavy door behind teeth and tongue Slip into Habibe You song of Veronica Tupelo rose of mad Ecstatic lyric in fifths In lazy samba Gather skirt 'tween fingers and thumb Climb each rung As slick in shadow As in summer fog Rise in adagio II. Shimmer you elegant orchid canopy You sweet capitulation Net this shy cosset Like swallowtail and birdwing Mercy give mercy Quake calm  Under heaps of tight curls Under heavy lids I run for cover as Your eyes find mine Dive for andante  III. Ring you tangerine canyon You seismic syncopation Rock my hips my shoulders Tremble in Richter scale A fluted pulse to slake thirst Like apples and tea And amethyst and filigree And Saturday half past ten Deep deeper I delve a velvet interlude Surge in allegro  IV. Spin you endless of dance and stumble You dark Rati Maa Dispel...

It could be like chocolate milk the way Yoo-hoo soda finds its bubble of heart dance Use the recipe Smooth Easy as pecan pie Forget the sugar Just be good to me   Today there are only buck-thorns To bring the pennies from heaven   Who who who Says now for then For this place on the good red road Around the corner Sticky with coffee spills Wednesday brings Sunday   Maybe five seasons cold Is all you need to see Shiva Loud with light and laughter Maybe the sleep of seven moons Is all the dark one need weep For gardens to break with bounty September   We run with the hounds Of curiosity for the bulls Howling like coyote  Crooning in barred owl Even so   Waves of shiver Kiss 5 AM Awakened between chapters Ground to azurite dust The very gravel of first borns The very sass to climb Gibraltar To gaze back Survey our progress Bring water home   To turn now and open permiss...

-- to our progeny It seems a plausible imperative, (she tells us)  trust yourself  -  ride the intuition. It will wake you at 3 am, mercurial as an infant still in womb time. Unannounced - it can take your breath like the Tower card from Waite Ryder, all those flames and falling bodies. Trust yourself to just exhale. See, winter passes, (she’s rolling now) it's 85 outside - we're between jet streams. Trust yourself – just be naked sometimes – turn up in a favorite dream. lead with your belly, walk with Ursula rising from nap time. She's ravenous, grumpy. (so are we) When we lumber into the stars of summer, we'll suck on bones of worry -a marrow that kicks like sin. (she pauses) Trust yourself - it's in the water, this love dance of fractals, this swirling Troposphere weeping mercy onto deserts of Somalia and Djibouti. Its gift is fresh gumption - lifts wings and ...

Mickey’s Bradford is blooming deep in Central Harlem deep in the place where even weeds are named where precious is knowing who lives here who is fat with fruit and seed who died yesterday who lost the nerve to flower today - precious Mickey’s Bradford is brave and blooming maybe there are no dandelions now sacrificed to salad – see where brave got them monocot clones muscle apart  the concrete pads tethering Mickey’s front door to the pulse of big apple stealth never sleeps somewhere a dogwood winter has wolfed a billion blossoms casualties noted, precious but not in Central Harlem bloom Bradford bloom!

The blood moon needs attention. She bangs the glass panel by panel as she passes through the naked canopy of oak and ash - she's desperate for praise, for veneration, for the long moments of worship like the early days: a world lit only by fire. It's not until she pours those globs of gold into the amber goblets in a south window, that I notice six little lanterns of moonlight,  flush with her fire, ringing like sonorous treasure, like a suspended chord, a perfect 4 th in salty satin harmony with the sky. I devour the scene with my eyes, my ears, my skin, my tongue, my heart - a feast of Indian ragas.   And just as my body shivers in its own light, the showboat glides behind a cloud.  "Shalom, Shalom," she sighs.

What if we go now beyond forest into carnival surely nothing grows lost like they told you all things pass even the great blue skimming the canopy dragging my line of sight with it all things bang for deeper understanding a breeze to toss each breakthrough dog with a bone  they told me  it doesn't have to look any particular way leave palms open to go Where

(from Serrano Peppers by Jane Hirschfield after my uncle was hit headon by a teen texting) Remorse as with smashed hands first there is adrenaline, then just anguish, what urgent message, pressing call, what thief of presence, slothful larceny exacts such unkind toll: the wherewithal to hold a wrench, tie a shoe; plunder rendered to wanton absence; lightning strikes a cherry in bloom, so weeps the wind.