Fancy Girl

I saw the moon and the moon saw me
when the night was tardy,
whipping her dragon's spiny tail,
headed through the Bardo.

I used to be a fancy girl
with pretty, curling hair,
in love with every luxury
and lovely thing to wear.

I stepped on hearts tossed in my way
and never heeded how
they wept red juices in the street
under my satin shoe.

But now the tide has turned on me,
my heart is crushed to powder.
I lope as lonely as a loon
where the demons loitre.

For love's a two-way thoroughfare
where travellers come and go.
Don't wear your heart tied to your sleeve
on a velvet bow.

Wings

Pin-drop stillness.
The chain-saw is silent.

The immense crane
towers above the pit.
The building hovers
invisible over the street-scape.

Wings sprout from my shoulders,
my breast-bone grown hollow,
my mouth full of the breeze.
Blue flowers pollinate the night-sky.

Call me a miracle
to squeeze love from a stone.
We spliced the quick.
Our thread untwists
(blame the unlover)
he twines his strand
around another.

In an Instant

In an instant
minds uncoil coils
uncoiling coils
uncoiled in coils.

Blotched ink,
refusenik tongue-clicks
jam a dissonance.
The squealing peals
dumb flummery.

Can I construe it
shorn free of old pills?

The pearl within the world
shifts scene, unseen
everywhere and nowhere,
a hollow sphere.

The pearl within the pearl
is born in every world
unborn, inborn
in an instant.

Heart Poem

My heart,
a red bird,
strives to fly
between my ribs
as from a cage.

Red bird, she beats
a breeze. Strange balloons 
strain at their moorings
ready to fly
somewhere, out there
into love.

Old Words

'Fee' is an ancient word
among old words
like 'feudal fiefdom'.

Like the Latin, 'pecu',
like 'pecuniary peculiarity'.

Like the Sanskrit, 'pashu'
meaning to be bound
like animal capital,
like chattels, like cattle.

The nomads droved their flocks.
They were as rich as barons
though paper money was absurd
as science fiction before the invention of ink.

They wept when they slit the neck
of a sacrificed lamb
with their sharpest blade.

When did we forget
to kill clean?

The wolf kills clean.
The jackal eats a corpse.

What entity amortizes
flesh dead before the kill?

What kingdom does it scavenge in?
Not animal.  Not human.

When were cattle changed into
black sigils in a maze
comprised of corporate reports?

Remember the cow
and her sweet milk.

Remember the steer
and his red flesh.

Remember the heart beat
blood heat of the bull
roaring in his cave

for bound souls to be free.

The Animals

The big, gentle animals
who never in their lives willed any harm,
the beautiful, gentle beasts
who feed us their meat

are slaughtered by hacks,
are grossly murdered.
I am screaming though I can't manage the TV.

'Any action
less than the immediate suspension of live export
would be grossly inadequate'
concludes the radio report.

I stroke my cat. The purring boy.
Little buddy. My friend.

Mangala Mantram

svasti prajabhyah paripalayantam

nyayena margena mahim mahishah

go-brahmanebhyah shubham astu nityam

lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu

Blessings on the people.  Let Earth's rulers

protect the Earth in a just way.

May good always come to cows and Brahmins.

May all worlds together become happy.

She Came Down

Late morning I look out
at the leaves spinning
in the sun. Their shadows
graze the white wall

and the song-bird calls
once from the tall tree.

Somewhere there are tears
thick as clouds. I cannot
say where they came from
or when. Time before mind

so it's told, a star
came down and never
found her way again
into the sky.

Butterfly

His jugular pulse
beats swiftly against my heart,
the gravid flutter
interphasing the soft shock —
a butterfly lulled, kissed, flown.

A Pomegranate

On the winter tree
a pomegranate snickers,
red beads on display.

Hand Tree

Among the imbrications
of the palm

two hands sprout.

A span of blue
berries drops left of

fingers dripping

berries thick as

blood.

Pictogram

The black shag velvet
on the sofa back
drapes a brush tail
over the woven roses,
peaks twin triangles intent
on the meander of a gnat.
Enthralled in seeing
through the day-lit glass
I read a cypher written on the trees,
the pictogram for CAT.