The Hangman's Two-Step Shuffle

The hanged man

did his two-step

shuffle,

met me in his

labyrinth gardens

near that talking Sphinx

in Egypt.

He smiled his

cheshire grin

to the moon and

then back again

to me.

Lime lips

and prison walls

let go of themselves,

cascaded downward

to free the spirits

mad with sex and death,

roaming the planet,

get wet

and dissolve.

Mantra Muse Me

And mixing

wounds and words

in the midnight,

I lingered on an

epitaph

that glistened in

the moon and

listened to the raven

and the mockingbird

repeat your name

over and over

like a mantra.

If we could howl

and awaken,

intuition building,

breathing,

heaving,

we would rise

to help and heal

this screaming earth

and her surroundings.

Could I just

rub up against you,

slow slight touches

early in the morning,

kissing down your back

at all hours,

as the clock ticked by

in different languages

and hushed tones.

Call me hurricane

The air was

wet and slippery,

moss tastes

and blood.

I wanted to

burn with you,

retrace out footprints

to the bastard church steps in Helsinki

where the content

old men sat

by the frontal lobe door

etched in color,

smoking their pipes

and laughing

while telling far away stories,

jazz leaked out of

the pours in the wood that

sighed beside them.

Lift me up

magic,

and drown me in that

twilight song

you used to sing

as you watched

the trees glow red and become

shadows and

fly away into

the night.

We,

the cave coven ones

must emerge

through the earth,

our howls

rapturing the sky

with fire,

fingertips light

down the spine.

I was the harlot

that bait you and

ate you,

twisted bones

with blood together

and summoned forth

the riptide.

Call me hurricane.

Tempted Phoenix

In the midst

of a memory,

I jolted awake,

the piano stuttering

apologies,

licking fire off my skin,

we soaked into each other

and thus felt the world

thump out its own language

of lust to breathe

even in the midst

of such a harsh madness.

The mirror

took great pleasure

in melting down,

for a night,

into the sink

to mix with the hot faucet water

that burned

to be tasted.

I must learn

to electrify myself,

resonate vibrance

from within,

unmask the caves

and deep moist marshes

I know are there

and set free

the tempted phoenix.