Tag Archives: poems

“Though No Horns Adorn My Head” (A Poem)

Though no horns adorn my head
My spirit points to the moon’s sky.

Though my legs don’t end in hoofs
I walk a cocksure prance ‘cross sacred Earth.

My body is hairy.
I’m a proud-hung young buck.
Behind sharp eyes my soul stalks wild.

Horned God–
Horny As Hell God–
Reviled by  fundamental debasers of flesh sacredness–
You still live
in me.

I will drink red wine
I will eat bloody venison meat
And I will dance and sing and fuck and live
So that you may be sacred still.

So that I may be sacred still.

So that life will be sacred still.

“Threshold” (A Poem)

Planks solid underfoot

then

storm and waves and
wind bash and batter
splintering
that on which I stand.

I drift
looking at stars for guidance.

The dark god
has struck
is trying to keep me from
landfall
I have yearned toward.

My heart is strong.
I swim like a bastard.

Estuary.
River mouth roaring turbulence
and it seems I’m lost
just as I am saved.

I pray the god of this river
for sanctuary:

O great flowing god
god of life and motion
and change; 

O great god,
I ask your mercy
I am on my knees
your suppliant

and I see that in your flow
is wisdom gained
and strength born
if only I swim, and look,
and realize.

Grant me, o god,
sanctuary and
sanctity;
safe harbor;
calm shores to salve
my wounds…

and spirits to guide me.

And then were the waters
calmed;
then, the sky grew blue;
then, the bright sun
burned away darkness,
leaving shadow, plain to see,
but woven into the world of light,
unhidden
undangerous.

Landfall.
And I am alive.

And living.

Run For Deer Life (A Poem)

you run for        deer life
blood shoots through veins of flesh
horns       rattling branches       as
hooves          sink in dark autumn mulch

and         rifleshot cracks         the cold air
shatters your ribs          blood exploding     spraying
you stagger         pain       and run on          pain
world reels in your eyes

rifleshot cracks

your head jerks       odd angle
bony point on right antler        splinters
in near miss       pain   in   side         inside

but        then      eyes clear  as lovewarmthstrength
fills you      pain washes away     spindly legs become
muscled springs launching through forest faster than
before      ever before     and       in mind mixed
of personal moment and species past is sudden
recognition of        GODHOOD       in you but
also utter terrifying            aloneness
other deer in forest      but you the last of herd
of line from out you heaved       bloody sticky awkward

cold air      run     no pain      run      hunter far behind
you reach sweet drinking creek      slow      blood flow from
side of mouth     hot sweet       stagger       fold
to earth        painless grace     vision rolls       breathe
breathe      breathe                   not
two spirits die        in you
your herd         your line
are no more.

She Rises Lunar (A Poem)

She rises lunar above the crumpled flannel horizon
Heavenly body shimmering with lambent light–
Beaded sweat–
And the tide of blood in me flows toward her.
Then my Rising Sign waxes
Called by her–
And her fullness wanes
Across the dark-wall sky
And by the moonlight beacon of the window
I am eclipsed
Wet
Once again
By her darkness.

Earth moves.

The Sweet Sadness of Parenthood

A friend posted this poem on her Facebook page and reading it brought tears to my eyes. Ah, parenthood…

“Her Door”

by Mary Leader

There was a time her door was never closed.
Her music box played “Fur Elise” in plinks.
Her crib new-bought–I drew her sleeping there.

The little drawing sits beside my chair.
These days, she ornaments her hands with rings.
She’s seventeen. Her door is one I knock.

There was a time I daily brushed her hair
By windowlight–I bathed her, in the sink
In sunny water, in the kitchen, there.

I’ve bought her several thousand things to wear,
And now this boy buys her silver rings.
He goes inside her room and shuts the door.

Those days, to rock her was to say a prayer.
She’d gaze at me, and blink, and I would sing
Of bees and horses, in the pasture, there.

The drawing sits as still as nap-time air–
Her curled-up hand–that precious line, her cheek. …
Next year her door will stand, again, ajar
But she herself will not be living there.