Salmon People

Certain fish swim upriver
And plant their flesh
In the bones of the water:
Shimmering life givers
Bleeding their essential sacrifice,
Blessing
The belly of creation.

Forests become metaforms,
Life forms around the sea
And her metamorphic fish
Spawning in swales
Nursing in headwaters
Feeding in deltas
And maturing in the sea’s bosom.

For any animal that eats
Or is eaten
The smell of blood is paramount.
When mountains bleed their
Vital sediment, the scent
Of ancestral burial grounds
Sounds the season of winter’s egg.

Salmon people are like nails:
They hold this temple together.
Forever their blood is in our veins,
Rivers coursing to seas receding,
Revealing bleeding dirt
Birthing forests that make rain
For this peninsular altar.

Black Bear Cubs

Silas for silliness
Trillium for feeling this
Life expanding,
Handing down tools
Building
Flowering buds
In a black bear den.

Smiles come when
Smiles should:
All the time.
All the time in the world
For laughter
Unfurled
Like petals unfolding.

Uncommon kinship
Is a common virtue
For two peas
In this pod:
A clan destiny
Masked
Like raccoons.

The world is an oyster
And palms are for pearls,
Fingers curled, cupping
The sea
Carefree.
The earth is an altar
And children are candles.

There is an invisible mirror
Reflecting their likeness
Like myself
Distilled,
Filled with wonder.
So I ponder their nature:
They are completely natural.

There is no greater gift,
No greater joy
Than my twin boys
Sleeping, waking
Running or walking,
Talking in tongues
Teaching me about life.

My Mothers

I have mother issues
So I live by the sea
Surrounded to east, west and north.
My mother lives to the south.
I am surrounded by
My mother,
The one with many names.

My first mother
Had no name
No face
No specific shape,
Just a quiet liquid
Darkness.
Her primal
Primordial
Uterine waters:
Blood with purpose.
She is called womb.

My second mother
Brought me forth
From the depths.
She had the shape
Of a river with
A persimmon floating,
Flowing downriver.
And her hair was like seaweed,
A nest.
Sometimes I think I’m still in it
Somewhere.
She was a tiger
Wearing mouse fur.
She is called Marie Yoko.

My third mother
Had a dozen names
A hundred talents
And a thousand petals.
She grew like a scrubby oak,
Bent and contorted:
A subject of life in the old days,
Subject to the elements.
She was a woman
In a male-dominated century.
She was a woman
Who made her own damn world
Defied custom
Outran bullets
Married for love’s sake
Hand wove rugs
Spoke nine languages
And was 4’10”.
She could have conquered the world
If not for arthritis.
That’s my grandmother,
She made my second mother.
She is called Jigar.

My fourth mother
Is constantly pregnant.
She is continually
Nursing
Her countless children.
She is beyond description....
Her blue becomes green
Her green becomes brown
Her browns are yellow
And red runs below.
Her blood refreshes,
Her blood fertilizes,
Magnetic and dense,
Floating
Through the Milky Way
The Hammered Bracelet
The Path of the Ancestors.
She is a fertile egg,
A cloudy womb.
She is called Earth.

My fifth mother
Is a mirror,
She is what I would be
Without skin.
She is dressed in scales
Wearing seaweed for hair,
Her eyes are pearls
And her sex is apparent
With receding tides.
My mother is a storm
Turned upside down.
She is what defines
The land:
She has yielded
The firms
And blessed us
With salt.
She calls me daily
And she surrounds me.
She is called the sea.

My sixth mother
Gets between my toes,
Under my nails
And stains my pants.
She is playful
Childish
Wise
And ancient.
She teaches me
With leaves and feathers,
Her text is stone
And her words are spoken
By trees.
One would think her sad
With these rains of sorrow...
Few understand
Her need to quench this thirst
For remaining
Eternally green.
She is this land,
She is a dragon.
We’ll call her that.

I have mother issues
So I live by the sea.
I live upon a dragon’s scale
I ride a serpent
Surfing a planet
Walking a path
Strewn about the ancestral sky;
And this Earth,
Like me,
Emerging within
The shapeless
Primordial darkness:
This universe
The eternal mother.

I am not

I am not what I say I am
I only have what I possess
I
Am
Not

There are secrets of self
That remain hidden
For a purpose
There are secrets of self
To keep hidden
In order to believe
I am this

Long ago this happened
Yesterday I believed I was that
Today I remembered the truth
I am only what I tell myself
I am
But I am
Not that man

I am not that man
Who left as a boy
And emerged with a broken wing
I am not that man
Who was a forgotten bystander
And unwilling victim
I am not
That man since
I possess the truth

I am merely human
Driven by my mind
And its illusions
I am merely human
Guided by my heart
And its intuition

Let’s forget the old story
It always had a sad ending
Let’s pick up the new story
The one with the unfolding path

ancestral remedy

ancestors
anchors
chorus
of singing blood

see me now
hear me now
this heart beating
this sacrifice
fruiting remedies

in you i live
in you i die
offers of remembrance
carry these prayers
let them congeal
return them flowing

a sacrificial fruit
a sacrificial plant
a swirl of smoke
a circle of ash
a menstrual knife
a drop of blood
a prayer on these lips

what is my life
if not yours?
what is my life
if not sacred?
what is my life
if not a sacrifice?
what is my life
if not bound in blood?

them mens

Them mens they said yes
Even when she said no
Them mens, they wanted
More
Them mens,
They wanted
Menses
Odd senses of honoring
Those women
With intact senses
It wasn’t enough
To ritualize their own blood
They had to create
Their own creation
To replace past tenses

Old creation rained blood
Old creation brought
Impregnation
Old creation involved
The slow pangs of labor
Of evolution
The new creation was only spoken
Just creation
Six day’s worth of fatherly toil
Manly man sweat makes manly man soil
Make a man and take a woman from his rib
Man no lie
Man no tell fib
See, it’s written
And the cursed blood of woman
Lies in the apple she had bitten

Tell me brother
Tell me father
What’s it like,
Creating the world
Without a mother?
Do you bake some clay
Cup your hands and pray
But dare not say
The thousand names
Of faceless Yahweh?
(Don’t say the name,
Just say a word--God--
That’ll do, and Goddess too,
They’re just words.
Remove what’s “odd” in the middle,
And you’re left with just a “g(u)ess.”)

Them mens, they said yes
Even when she said no
Well, they said, we have to go
And make ourselves bleed
And for this we need
To breed our creed of the chosen seed
And with GOD SPEED!
We shall be the masters
We shall be the ones who bleed
Never mind your cursed blood
We shall shed it
For our father dwells in the sky
And this earth is our curse
We must repress it

Tell me brother
Where you come from?
Remember that place you emerged from the sea
Your mother’s yoni
The place of your dream?
Oh how you rape it
Drape it with fury
Hound for it with hunger
And curse it with despair
It’s sweet when it pleases you
But is bitter when it only teases you
It’s heaven when it creams on you
But fishy when it bleeds on you

Tell me brother
What is it to you?
A pussy, a snatch
A catch or a muffin?
A cunt, a cooter
A pooter or stuffing?
Oh how you’d like to pound it
Ground it
Grind it
Find it on your jock
Lick it
Stick it
Poke it
Stroke it on your cock
It’s just so pornographic
When it’s a pussy
And not a woman
--porno--
Let that word sit on your tongue
Roll it around and taste its blandness
--porno--
It just begs you to fuck it
An open space of vowels
Just make sure you come on your towel
And pray your mother doesn’t see you

Them mens, they had to say yes….
To be fearful of power
Is to be second best….
At least, that’s what someone thought
Long ago
And managed to convince enough men
To mutilate their dicks
When inspired by a burning bush

to the christians et al

if this life were perhaps
your only chance
to march to heaven
would you even consider
at a glance the small thing
we call a circle...
would you spend your life
with bent knees
outstretched hands gesturing
please, lord, spare me this strife
like life is a curse...
could you remove the lens
you train skyward
the eyes you pretend
that have the sight
to see inside the light
of geneses incalculable...
or is it simpler to view
life as two points
defining a line you try
to link to a hereafter
you think is greater
than the gift
we're currently defiling?