Ignis Fatuus

 Would I be taken to task

if I were to ask

if an arsonist would be shamed

by a candle's brief flame? 

In a roaring bonfire, 

what is another match?

The catch is that

the great act of 

self-sacrifice is the 

pyre of future action,

the dwindling of choices

to one final

kindling of despair, 

to fare with the struggle

no more.

I do not think this is what

the great gift of our lives 

was for. 

It is not complicity to merely breathe

in a world of ashes,

and although I may grieve 

(in my own way)

I would not make an ash of myself. 

Burn not without, but within,

with motive pure,

go on with your life and yet fight.

Endure. 

On the Wing

 In our beaks

the taste of it--

the thought that

the cage around us would

melt away,

the breeze beckons,

and then?

That wild, vital thing

inside would 

take over

and we would be

alright.

Maybe not for a long time,

but a good time.

Masquerade

 I have a persona.

You see this me I have to be

the real me isn't even known

to me. I haven't been that me

since I was maybe three. 

I made a me subliminally

and you would get my jokes

folks if you watched me doing this

can I can I think I can dance 

throughout 50 or so years of knowing

I don't think like you all do. 

But I make like I do because 

I have to. And it's OK.

I don't know how any of you 

are doing this on the real anyway. 

I don't think you don't do a mask 

yourself, I just suppose

you don't know the mask you wear 

when it's under your own nose. 

The Chase

 It's time for this ritual again

as the quarry has appeared,

moving out in the rough like

a jewel--I have seen them

like pure white elk or

perfect red heifers or

an ebony doe, streaking

free and unminded

and then brought down

by a thousand arrows:

or at least, by Heaven! 

the men will try.

Every one of them an attempted sacrifice

to the withered limb of a 

bitter little god with a face

like a dried-out apple.

Powerful witches who had to be

stopped, lest their magic shrink men

to the size they want women to be.

The hunters shout after them: "Medusas! Jezebels!"

as they watch the desired prey,

uncovered hair waving like

tired snakes threatening to snatch

these sorry heroes like

fish in a net. They cry like dogs, 

sent raving mad after a 

flaming brush disappearing into a field--

until the grass itself is set afire

with her brilliance.

They could never hold what they intend to catch;

but they would see it destroyed.

Peril

 Underneath the cradle,

in the nursery

someone had placed a trapdoor--

whoever would have

put it there?

There, where the innocent

lay sleeping, over

the dark tunnel--twisting dark spaces

filled with deadly hardware?

It is both a terrible metaphor

and not.

I can't even tell you where the child 

is now. Fallen

like a leaf from

a storm-tossed

bough.