Bear

Sleeping deep within the Mother

You walk the dream-time

Traveling the star-road

Through the void

In the forest of the otherworlds

Wisdom-stones beneath your feet

In silence and power

Instinct mingles with intuition

Finding truth and emerging into new light

I lay upon my bed...

I lay upon my bed,

The light turned out an hour ago,

The embers shimmer and glow inside,

The waves rolling off my skin,

Light the shadows all around.

I think of you and in my mind,

I hold your body close.

Although my heart would be for you,

A place of love and healing,

My mind tells me that what you need,

Is not what I can offer.

I focus on your pain,

On my desire to transform

That sharp thing,

Into something else.

As intense and overwhelming,

And consuming as my need.

My body and my soul want you still,

Even in your darkest hour.

To feel your force,

Your frustration and your anger,

Your loss and grief and despair,

Pouring into me,

Purged and purified.

To be battered in your arms,

To feel your violence and your hope,

To feel your control,

And your abandonment of it.

To feel your hands around my throat,

Pressed against the wall,

With no escape,

No choice,

But to surrender to your will,

And be conquered by your power.

Midsummer

The Sun in strength shines warm and bright,

The Earth in green bursts full with life;

The veil now thins, the night descends,

The faeries dance in starlight bands;

and now begins the growth of night.

Oblivion

The demons lurk around me, surround me,

creeping in the darkness,

in the quiet of solitude,

inside me they hide,      

and wait to over-come me.

I run, wrestle, try to escape, to chase them away.

But still they come,

like bad dreams,

the night-mares I have

when I am awake.

Reality comes too close.

I seek oblivion, my refuge.

I pursue it everywhere.

Finally it comes to me,

slips over me like a blanket,

the demons are purged.

Gratefully I rest,

and am safe.

Waiting

At midnight I sit among my candles and incense,

music and wine, waiting.

I think of you driving in the night,

and I wait for you to come to me.

I hear you at the door, before you are there,

and then you are, and you come inside.

You don’t have to talk, just lay beside me

I hold you and you sleep in my arms.

Every night I wait, every day I wait,

for the day that you need me,

the day that you want me,

the day that you love me,

and I wait for you to come to me.

Sleeping Babes

on a saturday in april in half-light

a motel room in the afternoon with the curtains drawn

my friends sleep

in sheer exhaustion

the sleep of wine

and the extremities of lives lived too brightly.

I read poetry

and paint my nails red

drink cold coffee

smoke too many cigarettes

paint my toe-nails too

and go back to playing solitare.

I watch their silent forms

and fight the urge to touch them

“for fear of waking them “ I tell myself.

Two children in their beds at night

when mother opens the door

to see the faces of her babes once more

before retiring to her own sleep.

Insomnia with a Friend

Love songs then love-gone-wrong songs then road songs and wine,

laughter and candlelight, poetry and chess,

bad jokes then black-jack, more wine then sleep.

We have said nothing,

I dream of waking

and wake and cannot sleep.