(no subject)

the cat lay on a sundial
in the garden below the window.
it has conquered time.

the cat stretched and sat
and eyed the lavender flowers.
it has conquered color.

there was no sun
so time didn't notice
only the flowers felt robbed
and swayed shadowlessly
alternately bowing and mocking.

first draft

Songs to Water

I
--

The song of ocean
sings no world is
more divine than
the pearl

No man waits
past the floodgates
he was taken
through the fire

His voice is an echo
His wisdom makes sense


II
--

The lake song
gave me the sword
I cleaned it with blood
I hid your gold
I tried to tear
my way back

I put pearls in the sky
my enemies' hilts
anywhere
I could not reach

I became another
I sang to the river


III
---

Sweet sisters
sway singing
somewhere weeping
somewhere a bough breaks
a mast bends
an eye widens
to the tide

I have heard your notes
my head on your knees
I drank from you
my mother refused me

I step in patterns of song
my death; imagination


IV
--

I am at your mercy,
myself
I came to the water
to put you out
like a goldfish

what do you know of currents
and have you touched the horizon
is it like being buried
or suffocating? asphyxiating?

you survive. you take me back.
take me with you. I am free of you.


V
-

He was gold
brilliant but not buoyant
when he fell
the earth lost a star

or was he.
now that time
the first ocean
has made him murky
like a sunken boat
that has become a kraken

I don't miss him anymore
it all drowned; hatred


VI
--

I've wanted a child
a time traveler
a ship of love

She was as painful
as a perfect lake in summer
her pearled body
could describe the constellations

I left her to the air
she had breathed water long enough
and I

I learned to be another
I left my lungs behind me.


VII
--

Lorelei
oh lorelei
how could you take them
to your room?

When all I wanted
was you you you?

What I became for you oh
what I've become

eyes of lead, looking down
toes that drift like silt


VIII
----

The great dragon
hides a great treasure
everybody knows

he is orange
the treasure
spouts a rainbow

he is young
his skin ripples like a storm
a sea cave with sea nymphs
he guards
it has no bottom

you will outlive him
but the treasure is at the bottom


IX
--

oh moon
one black hair from full
a pearl, the last

before the cosmos
one white to their white
lost in clouds

here at the end of the earth I will see you no more
and the way we swell like the water
and the way you press into me like steel
like me a hand stretched to water
a hand stretched to sky

oh the strain oh the strain it is killing us
look at us, scarred and hiding


X
-

The rain song
is soft and long
the clouds grey
the world

There is no girl
in the oceans blue
you drowned yourself
for you

You saw yourself
the water sang
your past it came
away

like a dolphin you emerged, a child
grey and wise and full of song