Apollo’s Raven King, or Commentary on a Kiss

When you were very young, for the birthday of Queen Titania,
you danced before the court.
So pleasing to Apollo (in attendance on that day)
that he declared the gift to you of up to half his kingdom.
Your reply, in truth: not the head of John, but one word, “Ravens”.

Then, thereafter, you proceeded in your vocation,
ignored risk, defied fear and death in the creation of your art,
pursued truth until exhaustion, exercised immortal strength fueled by Apollo’s pleasure.
Angst that your expression might bear meaning past the mundane.
For truth’s sake, never let yourself be fed, preferring hunger to the full.
Now, fled to this location of intentioned isolation, to a lonely valley most remote,
pursued, rejected, hated, or much worse, misunderstood, ignored, betrayed, sold off.
You wept until you couldn’t, mind entirely unhinged.
You have no will to feed yourself, can’t accept it from another hand.

From your place there lying on the ground,
only strength enough to turn your head
to aim your wearied eyes up towards the sky to see
a gray-black cloud appear, approaching you unnaturally.
You knew they would, this massive, cawing constable of ravens
come to rescue you, a forsaken, dying prophetess.

The ravens, they discriminate, saving no one but those worthy souls,
predetermined by their enchanted council, or as directed by their god,
those in extremis, none other help forthcoming.
The mercy of the ravens: how they feed their young.
You’re dying, so don’t bite the hand, or, in this case, beak
that vomits in your mouth to save you.

First, the water that you lack, they carry to you in their beaks,
thimble-full by thimble-full, tiny swallows up until
they know from their experience and intrinsic wisdom,
now strong enough for food, though you barely move,
graduate from their regurgitant to solid.
They leave bits of bread and meat upon the crude stone plate you fashioned.

Near death myself, far off, alone and in retreat,
having fasted for enlightenment too long,
my mind unhinged, quite by mistake
now trapped: no water, food nor strength to venture forth.
The raven king approaches.
I refuse to part my lips any more than is required
to whisper to him that most lonely place where last I saw you.

I swallow what he bore me in his throat,
hear him speak your coordinates to his command,
slip into unconsciousness just as he dispatches
a company of black-feathered nurses
to apply their ministrations to you.

Untitled, or, In the Center is a Darkness

In the center is a darkness, in the middle, in the center.
Where I meet you, meet you always, in the silence, in the stillness.
How I wish I’d meet you, always, meet you in your breath, the water.
Bleeding now, we bleed together.
Wash away the clinging darkness,
using only blood and water,
wash away the darkness always, ever after, evermore.

The darkness lives there in the middle,
in the center, obfuscated,
hidden from my probing vision.
I would destroy and re-create.

My loved father’s heavy burden
that he simply can’t surrender,
in the ether is the telling,
doesn’t struggle to remember,
pleasure’s records, most perversely,
ethanol consumed, lips loosened,
and it’s minor in the details,
but a child’s heart is fragile,
and it was a forced conscription.

What the master wanted? He made
sure it was communicated
in a most clandestine manner:
fill in blanks, imagination,
can’t imagine at the shaming
that he felt while feeling helpless,
past tense, it’s always and the same.
He personifies your prison.
Smiling, his ejaculation,
not at all was your vocation,
but it was an expectation,
that of course he thought accepted,
task that couldn’t be rejected.

In the details, there is Satan!
Always here, how to address him?
Laughs at blatant adoration,
glories in our two-word praying.
Dark liturgy, gross perversion,
in your hatred, middle finger
raised in cursing, you cry out that
all-purpose spell and curse: “fuck you!”

“I’m a censor of the vanquished,
intercepting their petitions,
making sure it’s not too easy
to transmit communications.
I would stifle their communion,
knowing how to break their spirits,
I immerse in isolation,
it’s a torture most unique,
leaving bruises on the inside.
I will never leave my station,
I’ll prevent illumination,
always shielding them from truth.”

Edible Flowers

There are flowers you can eat.
I would have one on my plate right now.

Their taste is most delicious.
In truth, a little fishy, and while I know it may sound strange,
like cat piss, skunk, in marijuana strains,
the taste is quite outstanding:
always metallic, somewhat tangy, bitter yes, but also sweet.
Once you’ve had such special taste sensation,
in the future simply nothing else will do.

Not only taste, but texture too,
that perfect blend of firm and tender,
surrenders oh so slightly when I bite it gently,
through the petals, through their stem.

Of course, the petals join together. In the middle, most delicious center
is a secret, tiny button, yes, the bud, she’s so delicious.
She’s the prize that must be savored, yes, a flavor so intense!
Let her linger on your lips now as you would no other food.
Linger on your tongue like wine,
or better yet, an intoxicating tincture.
My spirit’s lifted as I eat this flower,
that quivers and exudes more moisture as I savor every nibble.

Imagine my consumption is this flower’s consummation,
a holy marriage made inside my mouth.
Created for my pleasure, a narcissist’s secret thought!
It’s surely my imagination, that these petals swell,
with each and every bite, again, just a tiny bit more swollen,
I will lick them, these most luscious swollen petals.

The swelling happens when they bloom,
engorged with blood or water, wait to eat them
‘til that most sacred instance when they, completely filled,
are ready to be eaten, then the button is the moistest!
I lick these gushing petals, run my darting tongue between them,
the creases where they join together, probe them for that special spot,
that most luscious button that I taste, the one exuding tincture.

With my tongue, my lips, I kiss them, and though my mother told me not to
play with my food, I can’t help myself with these.
I must hold the petals in my fingers, feel them up against my cheek.
They are so soft, oh so soft against my body.
I’ve never played with food this way!
It’s so good, I wear it, oh, that ever-gushing tincture, on my face.

So many flowers in the gardens!
I go to pick them by the armful,
skipping gaily, return to eat them,
cry aloud: “Each one is so unique!”

For each flower whom I would pick, then, I would pray a special prayer:
that she would glory in existence,
though just a plant, yet grasp the pleasure I derived,
and glory in that joy herself,
so greatly that each petal might be enlivened,
resurrection through my act of eating,
come quite alive again, if even by explosion, or
involuntary contractions.

With a moist and gushing center,
I have bit into your flower,
your flower having fully blossomed,
she explodes inside my mouth!

The Ferryman Frog

Ever since you were a wee frog,
fascinated by that creature,
not believing that the heavens
in fact do direct our passage.
Ignoring all the warnings
and, in truth, unfair prejudice
held against a fellow creature.
While he’s not patently evil,
a needle on his curving tail,
eight legs, crab-claw hands to match.
You always were enthralled by his
appearance, by his visage, that
you committed to befriend him
though you knew his reputation:
repays each attempted ferry
o’er the waters with a stinging.

Arthropod, it sounds so simple,
innocent, just like a flower.
Double “S”, his tail is curved,
at the end, a needle, venom.
The request of this “crustacean”*:
carry him across the waters,
and he promises no stinging,
or else you both would drown.
You almost quite believe him.

Swimming, almost at the shore then
when you feel the sting sink deeply,
deep into your froggy tissue.
Wow, you really can’t conceive it!
Broken promise, deep injustice,
but you’re hardy, you were ready.
Can’t deny your fascination,
claw-like hands and multi-legged,
curving tail just like a hook.
On the end is a syringe that
did just puncture through your permeable skin.

Very sick, but you’re not dying.
You would take some time off work.
You had found a rare supplier
of the venom of your carriage.
Knew that your vocation
would require preparation.
So you dosed yourself most neatly,
not ingesting too much poison,
just enough to build resistance
when at last you can commence it:
your aqua-transport business!
Now you swim across the water,
breast stroke that you know by heart.
Despite the complex of their bodies,
those you carry are quite light of weight.

Aesthete frog became a ferry,
and your foresight and endurance
did reward you. In the future
you will never have to fear them
and in fact you just might eat them
if you’re hungry. Instead, probably
charge them money for the crossing,
and not quit from eating flies.

____________
* Replace “‘crustacean’” with “arachnid” and the poem works the same although the attempted humor is lost.

Shared Pleasures

I don’t want to love you
because then these words might stop.
These words that give me pleasure
in a way you never have.

But that’s not true, because in fact, these words
are exactly what you gave me!
Trade that other pleasure for this one,
or possess both simultaneously?

My longing for you will not stop
on the day when first I love you
because that pain is very sweet.
Great art in love born from such hunger.

The only way to salve that pain,
all I have, both now and then,
without you: more words written to persuade you
that someday soon that other pleasure we should share.
Then we will share both pleasures most exquisitely.

An Execution

I’ve been tied onto this post,
knots from which there’s no escaping,
stuck in the sand just at the water’s edge.
With the tide, the water comes up to my neck,
drowning not the real intention.
The trial is exposure, suffocation is too fast.

The ground I stand on, too, was taxed
with special imposition.
Not only must I pay the final price,
but my estate must also pay
the costs of execution.
It’s an insult, what’s the cost?
A post, some rope, the watchman
preventing my release.
Now I’ll die here in this ocean
with this day’s flowing water.

In plain sight of all the ravens
but they have nowhere to land.
From their perches all around me,
they can’t move against Poseidon.
Hear their incessant cawing.
Their king’s voice above the rest:

“We’ll see you in Valhalla,
our beloved fallen comrade.
You are dead but not defeated,
this is just another gate.
We will fly there now to guide you,
guide your spirit o’er the water, but
you never would get lost,
soul connected to the light.
Our privilege to accompany
when our ministry has been thwarted.
Through our wings stretched by the flapping,
absorb the exult of release.

“Almost there now, can you smell them?
Flowers in the gardens growing,
each one planted just for you.
You’re released, now, here is your reward.”

One Word

All I can do to write these words,
I use my mouth to speak them.
To speak without these words, to use my tongue to tell you,
what I mean by all these words.
You would feel them, I would taste you
on my lips, my mouth, my tongue, and you would scream them.
I would speak them.
I would bring to you the taste that we can share
inside my mouth, these words you read, you screamed, you felt inside you.
Screamed them to me, words you tasted with me.
I would speak to you without my words,
these words inside you with my mouth, my lips, my tongue,
all the things that I would tell you with them.

As you screamed, I saw your teeth,
your teeth are sharp, and I’m enchanted by them.
Offered up for your consumption, pray that you would eat me.
Take me to your lips, your mouth, your tongue that you would taste me.
Eat me, love me, speak your words around me, oh, my darling!
Bring to me the taste inside your mouth,
the taste of your words, share them with me.
We will taste them, eat them, scream them, speak them, feel them.
Tell these things without your words, but with your mouth and tongue and lips, and
I will scream inside you.

One word, one word, would I speak it?
Would you hear it?
Now we speak with all these words,
with mouth and tongue we taste them, eat them, scream them, speak them.
One word, that one word that we would taste and scream and speak and feel and eat and hear.