1.

Curse the poet who resides here
          takes up space
and grits my teeth, bleeding
what she calls a gift, rousing me from sleep
                              I need. 
She is greedy.  Always stewing.  Plotting.
                              Writing
lists.  I scold her, threaten
                              to ignore her raging.
Her retort is sharp,
 a defiant line by line red-inked refusal
               to comply.

2.
I do not need
fire –
I am warm enough.  What I need is rest. 
The machinations of a sounder soundness. 
Routine.  A day job. Reality.  An alarm clock.  Not these constant fragments
            stretching
               tense across my skin,
playing on and on
like the never ending stream
of teams
of canicule cicadas, membranes
               all abuzz.

3.

I terminate all previous agreements,
       try to let go this hold to hold instead
       the ready flesh of body right beside me. 
But Calliope purrs, rubs her recalescent presence up against me,
       massaging promise into the solidity
of my shoulders
and whispers (like a breeze through trees, creeping with murmurs
             in crystal streams
 though I still can’t sleep) that I have wings protruding
                                    where I feel numb, addressing
me as Angel
of…

This is how she catches me.  Keeps me hostage.
She tells me stories I can dip my toes in.
She has a handy set of ever ready pens 
of every color and a garden of sumptuous, steady
                                    green .

If she was a squatter,
soon to leave, I might tolerate her antics,
but she’s unpacked her gaze, fragile as hizen,
and if I fail to be careful
she could break, weeping pages. 

4. 
In a state of fever, Mnemosyne
comes and leads me to
that gate
that leads to the upward-downward path
that leads to the Plumbago fields of fabulous budding
                                                 blue
that stains my fingers. 

I follow her in where she begins to pluck and gather
  fuel.
My steps have left invisible marks
  so I can’t return. 
She grins,
 livens, and I am swayed by her
possible beauty, tantalized by the tonic
she says can cure my fever. 
I swill the spell. 

5.

Oh    dear man    deliver me
of this spell

Swirl me in your own   passionate way of sway  
Flower me with your flame    Poison me with your purpose
                                          to stay 
The desire   in your smile    grounds me    I forget
the muse 

Tattoo me with your box-thoughts 
See me through one lens   past my pure skin  regard the fractures
in my framework

Step into my ferryboat     enter through
my scintillation
my susurrations  
Know what to say to bring me down
and higher
Your hands are stones that I hold tight
when I worry and there I find glory 
Stay next to me   until morning
and arrive
when evening opens up her doors
Sweat
out
of me
the state I’m in
with the movement of your cooling touch
Willow over me volumes of your sweetness

6.

I am not porcelain
You do not need to hold me so
gingerly and my white   though delicate   is game
I am famished    starving on the plenty that is within
aching for rainfall and for your fate    to turn
above me
Feel out route of my nimble vertebrae
for housed there    is your luck and in the gaps    
a type
of beauty in which there is no sorrow

The Sunday Whirl