Inclination for ornamentation
for ceremonial reflections about necessities of life
the indulgence of free time scrimshawed
on ivory, cultivation of craft culminating
in the ballroom dance of celtic knots
on niello, mandalic meditations
on damascene, gold gilded
onto the firelight of night
~ Lady
I have my keep… there’s something about a goddess guarding a man that happens in this reality, your goddess wrangling snakes of dualism, emotions zapped to me like lightning I stand under moon and stars and cloud and big star and clouds again and whatnot, I demand banging fists against golden cliffs, I call hot dragon breath and float on mists, I make new myths and tell stories to entertain The Big Listener, yield dividends like taking my earring fishhook pull up islands for our house on rock, yes part of me I’m a lizard wahine with angry red eyes or a totem, a panther, a leaping leopard with curling thirsty tongue, and part of me I gave to you a year subtracted from my own and past lives for many more to yours–one of many barters of my myness for the world–here’s a cast for a greater span for the wise man with kindly growling voice, I do I do, like a huge hug of hand I hold and forage and push I do, I have my keep
~ Lady
Raconteurs relate trickster
beings empowering themselves with cunning
escapes, Brer Rabbit, African American fables,
rabbit escaping chain, rabbit escaping Yama,
rabbits springing from hand like ripe water
releasing jewelweed
Alex Haley lays down roots healing
robberies of the unwillingly transplanted–
griot helping ancestors rest–ash and shadow
decanted into sweet cleansing waters of an
oasis’s arms raising baby to celestial bodies
and the crescent moon
~ Lady
A coriaceous book spine narrative
given jacktars, romance of masculine flounce,
marking skin with punishment proud tattoo
on roses of muscles, scrimshaw feast
for eyes
Drinking, flogging, religion and rocking courtship
of creaking boards and shifting stances, wind whipped
sunburned toughs blooming sails, tugging feel
on rope
In actuality
there was the ladening of burden
dispensed unequally on the cast of fraternity,
the clenched taking of it, muscle taxed,
mind gritted, hollowed out until what’s left
either’s hulked husk or honed bone
body polished to an ivory knife
pushing abacus’s possibility
of mutiny
~ Lady
The Morrocan men I met
had some echt fatherliness, the
responsible gentleness of which conjured
femininity to my European-American
lens
Homegrown walks
through the neighborhood, children
dancing like dolphins alongside, tell me
a story, give me an apple, sing me
a song
Musicians in galibiyas played
a music box of sound on walks back from
parties, their late night returns adjoining
the sacred hour of early morning spiritual
commuters pattering like the shine of
ecclesiastical chandeliers
At the mosque the soaring moan
curtain of woon–call to God, call to Allah–
meet us like the slow and peaceful glide
of the crane to his nest in
the minaret
~ Lady
The Valenciennes lace on grandmother’s coffee table was a
meditation mat to rest my eyes on as I listened to her home spun
stories–that both related–because she was my grandma–and didn’t
relate–because it was hard to imagine her a neotonous young girl.
Her narrative’s cadence a candle of beautiful hands guiding me back
in time, bobbined memories of our ancestors’ escapes, exodus
spooling out the underground railroad. I remember her folding the
lace, a whole drawer of it in the credenza. Here, feel. They appear
delicate, but they’re sturdy.
~ Lady
DREAMING
She’s under starlight on a park bench
Lincoln park in Cleveland
Head down in her chest, she dreams
a magic hour, dreams
She wakes a magic hour world
Queen Maab on a park bench
Dream blinking from her eyelashes
meets dream under starlight
Fairies’ve laid a jam and butter sandwich
on a blanket by her side
Milk and honey
sweet cold water
fruit and nuts
A bite like a kiss into white bread
delicious provisions and memories
of her childhood
Holy feral night in her little church
in the park under the stars
Moon her sun
She picks her lyre
up out of her bag lady disguise bags
She plucks and wakes up sparrows
who adjust in roosts with nips
and muffled chirps for hours
waiting for daybreak
When lucid light of suntime comes
she visits Civilization
for coffee
~ Lady
IF I COULD TYPE STARS INTO EXISTENCE
If I could type stars into existence
I would and maybe…
I can and am
That words are handles is obvious enough…
that they are requests and creative devices, not
so obvious
The word water, it’s said, is not water
itself
But it can be a coalescence
condensation of sorts
precursor to rain
For life wants a soundtrack,
a story, and an explanation
Who knew that God, instead of being only
an answerer, would want to be the child asking us
questions
and direction?
~ Lady
JOY
Chinking of bells
musical bells
like the tinkering
of elves in a workshop
but it’s not little elves
and they’re not in a workshop per se
I’m hearing bells
from musicians
or spiritual practitioners
or both
They’re chinking bells
and it’s like pleasant
knocking on my ears
asking, “are you here,
can you be here?”
What can bring me
more into the joy
in the present
moment
than a bell?
There’s a reason people say,
“I hear you, clear as a bell.”
The other day
I turned my key in the door
and rotated the doorknob
It was Sunday and it happened
to be at the time to announce
church service,
and as I turned the knob…
church bells chimed!
And I felt part of
this big clock
this big Sunday instrument
glad for the availability of
happy sunny sobriety
humane society
~ Lady
