VISIGOTH ROVER

 

i went on the bus to Cordoba,

and tried to find the Moor's

left over

in their excavated floors

and mosaic courtyards,

with hanging flowers brightly chamelion

against whitewashed walls

carrying calls

behind gated iron bars-

but they were gone

leaving mosque arches

and carved stories

to God's doors.

 

in those ancient streets

where everybody meets;

i saw the old successful men

with their younger women again,

sat in chrome slat chairs,

drinking coffee to cover

their vain love affairs-

and every breast,

was like the crest

of a soft ridge

as i peeped over

the castle wall and Roman bridge

like a Visigoth rover.

 

soft hand tapping on shoulder,

heavy hair

and beauty older,

the gypsy lady gave her clover

to borrowed breath,

embroidering it for death,

adding more to less

like the colours fading in her dress.

time and tune are too planned

to understand

her Trevi fountain of prediction,

or the dirty Bernini hand

shaping its description.

 

 

ON THE TRAIN TO EL CHORRO

 

on the train to El Chorro

something cut me loose,

and i left this tomorrow

of my youth-

in the twilight of a lake,

in the sky mountains break,

rock chasms of echo and truth

brought me to young olive groves,

standing like soldiers in sun-starched rows,

ripe for some buyer and vendor

to trade them

and train them

so profits accrue-

in the style of Milo Minderbender

dealing in Catch 22,

when women loved like floozies,

and sat at the back at the movies-

showing me what to do.

time turned each page

of idealism's rage

into cynicism's age-

on each point of winding track

as i thumbed back

through the book of that tomorrow

on the train to El Chorro.

 

 

OVIRI ( The Savage – Paul Gauguin in Tahiti)

 

woman,

wearing the conscience of the world-

you make me want

less civilisation

and more meaning.

 

drinking absinthe together,

hand rolling and smoking cigars-

being is, what it really is-

fucking on palm leaves

under tropical rain.

 

beauty and syphilis happily cohabit,

painting your colours

on a parallel canvas

to exhibit in Paris

the paradox of you.

 

somewhere in your arms-

i forget my savage self,

inseminating womb

selected by pheromones

at the pace of evolution.

 

later. I vomited arsenic on the mountain and returned

to sup morphine. spread ointments on the sores, and ask:

where do we come from.

what are we.

where are we going.

 

 

 

SHEDDING CLOTHES

 

some soul exposed

open closed

looked at

put back

where it was

because

 

because

it was done

being in sun

unalterably changed

randomness rearranged

moving on

 

moving on

rising out of what has gone

through opaqueless

weightless

windows

shedding clothes.

 

 

THE COMET OF HER WORDS

 

he sheds his matelessness

and shapeless

statelessness

undormed

to lie with her undressed

in woods earth warmed.

after drinking

and thinking

in the hollow trunk of an ancient tree

she reads

his tea

leaves-

and he hears

her nature in the pattern

of her years,

saying now we happen

and the comet of her words

weaves it's sentences

in his,

lets go of bleakness

walking through wilderness

light footsteps in senses.

 

THIS CONCERT OF CONTOURS

 

ear nibbles

neck kisses

sex ripples

mouth wishes

to arms and legs

with minds and heads

is a body ballet

of rock and sway.

this concert

of contours

that squirts

mine and yours

is never too far away

from broken loneliness to play.

your beauty's blushes

colour in my years

and time's rushes

are hands that paint like soft brushes

so unwanted darkness disappears.

 

Strider Marcus Jones

Seventeen Year Itch

Marcia was 17 the first time thousands of locusts rose from the fields of her father's farm and filled the air, sounding like zithers unable to stop. Her father was angry but Marcia loved the music the locusts made. She was in high school then and chose to make locusts the focus of her senior paper. 

At the town library she learned locusts spend 17 years deep in the soil, feeding on fluids from roots of trees that make them strong enough to emerge  at the proper time to court and reproduce. Courtship requires the males to gather in a circle and sing until the females agree to make them fathers.

Courtship and mating and laying of eggs takes almost two months and then the locusts fall from the air and die. Marcia remembers the iridescent shells on the ground shining, She was always careful not to step on them. She cried when the rain and the wind took them away. 

Now 17 years later Marcia is 34 and the locusts are back again. Her dead father can't hear them and Marcia no longer loves the music the way she did in high school. Now she stays in the house and keeps the windows closed and relies on the air-conditioner to drown out the locusts. Marcia has patience, however. She knows what will happen. She reads her Bible and sucks on lemon drops, knowing the locusts will die.

In the seventh week, the locusts fall from the air in raindrops, then torrents. "It is finished," Marcia says. She pulls on her father's boots and goes out in the fields and stomps on the shells covering the ground but she stomps carefully.

At 34 Marcia's in no hurry. Before each stomp, she names each shell Billy, John, Chuck, Terrence or Lester, the names of men who have courted her during the 17 years since high school. They all made promises Marcia loved to hear, promises she can recite like a favorite prayer. She made each man happy as best she could. They would grunt like swine the first night, some of them for many nights. But then like locusts they would disappear.


Donal Mahoney 

Bloody Genes

Barefoot in bed

with Pinot Noir

to flood the veins

Ancient and rare

back to Dionysus

for the fire

Hang on the cross

bloody and bruised

wait for the solstice

Kissed on the cheek

don’t believe

they’re here to help you

Sell your cloak

buy a sword

the time is nigh

Like a thief

in the night

karma never misses

Memories of Atlantis

Angels and Nephilim

the flood will come

No Buddha raft

no God-sent ark

two by two to drown

The primal soup

gene swarm collision

collective rises steadily

A primal roar

up on the mountain

warn the herd

Kingdom of wolves

red stained cloth

empire of fangs

Scott Thomas Outlar