"I dance on the red floor of the sun I hope to die clean "
More Perihelion:
Bob Sward's Writer's Friendship Series
Poets featured in this issue:
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Contact
Bei
Dao
What My Mother Knew
my
mother was crazy one day
she
held in her hand
dirt from the garden
showed it to me said
this is god
now
I know
she was right
my
mother died years ago I
sit in a chair in the garden today
write random words in squares drawn on a page
random
as leaf
I bite one it
bleeds blue honey of sky
the
earth is bronze
purple weed in its clay
I
dance on the red floor of the sun
I
hope to die clean
in a whorl of white ash
the
yarrow hums summer
I
sit in my chair breathing green asking her
what
is the deep courage for
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Blessing
of the Crazy Mother
I have been split apart by stones
yet crushed them to sand
chained to the moon
yet bled her white
my heart pierced and devoured,
yet I eat for my daily bread the heart of some child
sun has charred me to black bone
yet I burn in your breast forever
I
am not tender
I
am not gentle
I am
the churning sea you continually
struggle to birth yourself from me
I
breathe upon you
kiss of the serpent
give you the truth of your being
Have
I trampled enough?
Have
I raged enough?
Have
enough fires blazed from my eyes?
Have
the hills rung loudly enough with the cries of the bright eyed lions?
I
will never abandon you
never cease to abandon you
restless and tossing in the
ship of your dreams
I will destroy and re-make you forever.
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Crone Anger
I
reach fifty years
bitter kernals swallowed
skin pocked with assualts
tired
of teaching anyone
anything
(if I ever did)
wasted
with effort of
setting boundaries
calling you to focus
hold a focus if you want to see!
hold
anger
clay in the hand
moist eye
plunge my thumbs into
smooth a floor in the dark, cup
hollow
what
is anger
fired?
rough beggar's bowl
strangers toss in
coins
bread
good luck charms
will
I take grace in bitterness
crouch, fangs in the dusky swamp
gnaw bones
I
place this bowl
down on the earth
leave it to night
rain petals
snow water whole moon shells
rind of sun
when
I come again
pond
of myself
I drink
clear water from black stone.
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