resolutions shmesolutions

prodded by a caf thread
for 2007 - my (writing) resolutions:

I will write every day.

I will take the brakes off when I write.

I will start actually using my blog for blogging.

I will take my head out of the barrel instead of scraping the bottom.

I will work at not working.

I will try to remember there is more to Fantasy than Tolkien and Howard.

I will try to remember there is more to Tolkien and Howard than Fantasy.

I will learn.

Lunch with the Aztecs

Lunch with the Aztecs

We sit down to eat
in pleasing familiarity
tomatoes
beans
the perfume of flowers
freshly picked
The mother smiles at me
with folded hands
In the bathroom
she says
father's in the bathroom
shaving
I imagine him
the last smooth scrape
complete
he considers the blade
and why not?
an offering
a minute sacrifice
a slice of skin
for family health
a promotion
kinder neighbours

I wonder
if I listen close
under the sound
of my breath
What will it sound like?
Knife
splitting skin like butter
or the wicked wicked
sawing through
of tough leather
and will it boil over
like thin red lava
or splatter splatter rush
out like a river
subterranean once
now liberated

And then he will sit
with us
his fresh wounds glowing
with the pride
of paternal self-sacrifice

And the snake will dance
before me
its thick green body
swelling
with its sap of life
adorned with feathers
bright bright feathers

Atop the dizzying heights
of a decaying pyramid
I will squint
uncertainly
into a valley of bones
sharpened to daggers
and count which ones
I arrange for my enemies
and which ones
are arranged for me

When the Words Matter

When the Words Matter

It happens when I am sunk
deep into the ink black night
Or when I'm burnt brown
in the unflinching noonday Sun.

My Words lie on my palm
like hard empty diamonds
with no trace of breath or blood
in them, no trace of life.

They slip away onto the grass
in a hundred irrelevant arrangements
And I am left standing to ask
Do they matter? Matter at all?

And I consider myths
The general inspired by a single
line of verse to raise an army
and lay waste a kingdom.

Lovers seduced by a single
word, its syllables blooded
like rose petals, by a phrase
spelt like a chain of promises.

Words that have carried shame
and hate and hope and laughter
like thin shelled eggs
shed to hatch demons.

This much then is given -
to be the weak triggers, keys,
linchpins of events and happenings.
But this is not enough.

An argument that bends
weakly like the blades of grass
crushed under the wordless
demanding weight of my body.

And the meaning of the words
comes to me with the coolness
of an arriving dawn, the warmth
of a departing evening breeze.

It comes to me with the
raking sound of the nails of
a demon of pain that will not
depart until you coin its name.

With the sound of the ache
of an ecstasy of love that will
burst you open like over-ripe fruit
unless you vent its description.

With the unsounded scream
of terror at the deep night
of aloneness that swallows all
curses, hopes, pleadings poured into it.

With the unyielding will of
a prisoner knotting his own nerves
saying I will not forget ever
I will not will not will not

The Muse

The Muse

Each night he writes and writes,
Scratching out black gashes
On the thin skin of notebooks,
While I hover inches from his lips.

Each night he wants me to come
And light up the tender tallow
Of his flickering imagination.
Each night I come to him in vain.

He chose this house for its
Quiet solitude, but he know not
What lurks beneath its floor
Each night I try to make him see.

He thinks I come to help him
Write his sentimental verse.
I come to try and make him see the
Demons scraping up towards his feet.