Scorpio

Here at the bar again, bar nothing to me.

Here at the bar again, bar nothing to me.

Early Scorpio warm, warm village 2 pm poetry reading

at Chumley's

Searching for bargains, found a Paul Goodman book

with cat and dog and baby photographs

to give to Cindy

a gift of love for a fragile child

stranger/sister.

Still afright from last night's heavy scene

Wherein the police took my man away again,

This time with my blessing and accomplicement.

. . . A man is a hard thing.

Also a drag on my developmental aspirations

When all he does is cry and threaten

Big Brute Violence

To storm my sensibilities.

(What's frustrating is he doesn't hear me cry.)

Laughing in the park we loved

Crying in the night we parted

Oh, beseech I, god above

Why must you leave me broken-hearted

(and I know he'll be returning with more disregards

and diatribes and possibly pistols drawn to fire.)

So I sit here in the bar, again

Drinking sweet Kahlua and awaiting the poetry

Taking a respite, you see.

Oh, god, for this while,

Bar nothing to this troubled child

(for child I feel, though woman grown)

Let peace alone assail me.

Sister Scorpio

Black as hate; white and bloodless

shrieking Fury

punishing Saint.

Your patient, erratic torture

has left me broken,

bleeding torrents of pain

unable to move

forward,

unable to sleep

or engage in

polite discourse.

Yet you were never satisfied.

It was not me you wished to sacrifice.

I was merely inconvenient,

or too convenient.

Dressed in a goatsuit,

queued up to be driven to slaughter,

how could I expect compassion,

fellow feeling?

But it was the Executioner's blade

I expected,

not frenzied repetition of

back stabbings, epithets,

steel-wielding rage.

We could have been sisters,

giggling secrets in the schoolyard,

smoking pcp in the girls' room,

shooting up the classroom,

dying in each other's arms.

Scorpionic

The forest is old

obscured in ghosts and mysteries

Come out in the wild night with me

dressed in the stars

Serenades from the Moon

intoxicate air aged in adventure

Exult with me in pleasure

Far from decay of leaves, sad savagery

That strange stained light in the darkness

Silence, a pause in cycling

Isolate

Tender reflection in the settling sky

a throne to reign

weary tantrum waves below

I can relate

the deals reality baits me with

so overrated

I'm left unsated

staring at fate's rear

Now escapes me

running into future skyscapes

holding yestereves

stiff and strained

closer than this moment

as it slips

into one more

I seek that honest sigh,

that joining smile that art

of distilling meaning

Pictographs along the wheel

to distract from

its unceasing

crawl

Caught

an instant

surrounded in space

demanded in time

tells the reaper

continuity

is in the eye