New BLOG

I have moved my blog over to Tumblr. the new URL is mothandthegoat.tumblr.com I will be moving my poems over shortly!

Ghosts

- For music

There are ghosts
Inside a guitar.
Ghosts of music,
Each a ringlet of
Sound sewn into
The rosewood neck;
Beauty in a
Hollow cherry carapace.
Embedded in the back is
The spinal herringbone
Divining rod that
Guides these
Synesthetic spirits to
To the neck, to touch
The player's fingertips,
To suffuse with his
Heart, to become a
Song.

But these are rare
Beasts, and they are not
Coaxed out so easily.
For with these golden creatures,
To coax is to stumble,
To chance upon a scale or
A bit of their black flesh buried in the endless
Cacophonous dregs. And when it is
Pulled from the earth,
It may first appear in horrible
Deformity, all muddied,
Eyeless, and drool-soaked,
But with intense incubation
And meticulous preening their
Golden feathers can begin to unfurl.

And when fully grown,
These grand shadows of sound
Birth themselves through the whole
Of the instrument, and out into
The air where they exist forever. And while
Their essence can be conjured timelessly
By the player's hands,
That actual aural ghost is gone,
Silently winding its way towards the
Vanishing point of memory.

Organ-Flower

Bosom-born, my skin peels back
As the sapling cracks through my sternum.
My heart-vine quivers in
The evening air. The moon has fallen
Away. It did not see my blood slither,
Or my bone crawl from that rough plant.
My wasted form lies half buried in the soil,
Shoulders pinned to one another,
Chest arced high (for maximum exposure);
My mouth whispers
The earthen tongue of roots.

Along the stem blinks a spiral of woven eyes,
Each resting in the valley that two others'
Edges carve. Dilated, they slide in their sockets,
Consuming the night, this fresh dusk. And crowning
This horrid stalk is my heart itself. The chambers,
Furling and unfurling, emit a guttural croak
Like some dark hound gasping for lethargy. Its flesh
Pulses red and violet and blue in the twilight,
Reaching skyward, guttering out to the absent moon,

"Mother, I am free! Mother, I am free!"

And with that,
The eyes close, and it falls
Flaccid upon my chest,
As some sleeping babe upon its mother.

And though I nursed and tended that organ-flower,
It will never flourish beyond my chest, for
The world denies my heart
Its own life. It cannot go free. So, it slinks back
Into my chest, muttering sullenly to
Mother.

Beneath

beneath his hands
the flesh of gentle
eroticism. his woman
a vaporous specter,
a cold spot in his bed.

beneath her hands
are the blankets
that kept her warm,
that keep her away.
her silken tomb
denies her release.

beneath his hands
is the dirt, ground
up. he cringes before
her, golddrunk. he
crawls away, sober.

beneath their hands
are the faces of children,
children who must learn
to listen for quiet days,
for words whispered from
outside the window.

Hollow Crowns

an observatory song.

there's a rose upon his green stranglevines
i've watched them grow i've watched them climb
far above his home, now too small
to support roots that are bound to fall

when my ghost now recedes from your sight
you can see that I'm not a pool of light
you know I'll be there for the short and the long
for all the things that you know are wrong

winter's ice now sticks to our frozen hands
as we march knee deep into the quicksand
I tried to carry upon my wings
your soul, my love, hollow crowns of nothing

Black Dog/Red Bird/Mountain's Blood

A love song.

my love is a black dog
sitting at your door
my love is a black dog
howling out for more
howling out for more

Let me taste your bones
Bleached and bare
bleached and bare
Let me taste your bones
Bleached and bare
Bleached and bare

my pain is a red bird
sleeping in my head
my pain is a red bird
never hatching from the egg
never hatching from the egg

let me dry your wings
let you go
let you go
let me dry your wings
let you go
let you go

that girl's a mountain's blood
earthen and serene
that girl's a mountain's blood
she's my molten dream
she's my molten dream

let me swallow you up
In my sea
in my sea
let me swallow you up
in my sea
in my sea

and there you will be
floating inside of me
mountain's blood no more
a heart beating at the core
we could have that and more
girl, if you just open up the door
and let that black dog come in from the cold

Black Song

This is a song/poem I wrote called "black song."

amongst newspaper clippings of giants that crush
all the paths for our children all lost in the rush
for glory & sex & magic & fame
but all the stars are dead in their mansions

and I know dear sir that your price is steep
but my blood's a-boilin' & my eyes do weep
for the stuff you're selling unjust & outright
but please oh please can I have some

and did you see him the man from the west
with his blue steel pistols, with the hair on his chest
and in the whip of thunder, a hellhound calls out
glory praise be my lord is risen

so dear boy don't pick the dirt from yer mouth
don't speak outta turn, you're headin' down south
so just pile that slop up's high it'll go
boy, this ain't just a grave that you're digging

the sun is rising
the sun is rising

and applaud my death with hubris and spite
and never mention my hummingbird life
just coil me up, put me back on the shelf
and consume all the good left within me

our ovations rise with your downfall
inhaling the dusk, that soothing pall
of greasy black smoke so thick in your lungs
just for the gilded facade of freedom

launch me to the moon in my exquisite corpse
and scream like the raven, scream till you're hoarse
and i'm howling back, meaner than before
for my god does not want to know me

do you see my knife as it comes down with a shake
to sever all the limbs we're too hesitant to break
oh c'mon now baby it's just a little blood
to bind us here in synchronicity

call out for mercy
call out for mercy

you know i love it here I don't think I could ever go
away from this land of drunken carnival shows
planted here, right here in the big top showcase
the oracle of delphi is naked

bone cages rattle inside your battered tomb
as birds of solid chrome born from your womb
are plucked and gutted and put on the spit
as i lay cold upon the lakebed

and here I am among serpents and swine
just wastin my life, just biding my time
for that one tiny insignificant chance
to clear my soul of any feeling

and so now that I'm clean I can lay here with you
and wrap myself in ether and black voodoo
and fall blooddrunk deep into your arms
as your dress falls down toward the ceiling

my wounds are healing
my wounds are healing

oh I see the fawn with her brown hair let down
traipsing through the forest with the wind in her gown
i call out a name I heard somewhere before
Ophelia Ma-Beth Johannson

now drop your chains and slack my noose a while
and consume the desert's flesh, all darkened with bile
babe it's better than nothin', so don't you complain
just listen for the falcons' call in tandem

but how i wish to have you, so soft and bereft
with whitewash orchids draped upon your breasts,
and a curve edge dagger held tight 'tween your teeth
so that every word you spoke could kill me

and now as I watch you sleeping so sound
upon a bed of shadows I mistook for the ground
you will stir only slightly, and open your eyes
and whisper in a voice soft and lonely

tell me are we free
tell me are we free

now in the sunlight I can see from your back
grow two mottled wings feathered evanescent black
that shudder and shake and seethe in the cold
my babe you're such a thing of beauty

so now we ride on the wind's ebbing curl
I sleep in the talons of my calico girl
she sings ballroom romp and old cabaret
to tempt my every taste and fancy

the milk of human kindness now mixes in
with the rich red liquor of deviance and sin
and oh how we drink it down cup after cup
cause your soul is always cheaper than whiskey

and now we've landed, press my ear to the ground
but gone far away is that dear heart sound
of the sweet sweet earth run so afoul
as her black hands wrap about me

i feel them run through me
i feel them run through me