Joan Floating
Burners turned herky-jerky,
the berserk motion of drunks----
From what basin do these waves accelerate?
My arms, sails, winding around masts,
take flames leeward
then shelter the hush, astonished
by what oranges, topaz, bejeweled gusts
bleed up blue.
How anguish is just relative,
indigenous to such dancing that eats,
chafes, dazzles sweat's fever.
To where is it blazing?
Not liquid bronze, this garment of flesh,
a collection of swathes
presently darkened in succession
'til only bones would resemble gold
if their char's ever washed away.
So, billowing, I smoke, float,
a swooshing of voices now crackling
their wireless to root reception in place:
There, cloud gauze, adrift, betrothing
Juno to her essence. A sea gull's cry
wheeling circles somewhere painless
and above
©2008 Stephen Mead
Isis As Mortal
Feline as the sphinx & more veiled
With secrets, I'm re-rising
From my last burial
Yet keeping it all contained.
This is a primitive thing: only eyes,
Breath moving, the pulse probing beneath
Dunes to unearth winds, the old crypts.
They will search you out.
Centuries I have, the will of stock
Found in a Nile steep with blood
& equally black.
That darkness invites light & shelters it,
Sun or moon, cast magnetic over poles
So you, Osiris, shall surely be a drawn tide.
Make no mistake. I do not stir at amulets
Left, wince when inscriptions scratch
Or some soul breaks off hide bits,
A remembrance of solace, the most my quiet
Profile has given, & gives.
Will that always be enough?
I can't afford to question, have doubt,
A conscience of luxury. I can't afford knowing
Distraction erodes or could give hope
When I am so fixed by this position
& never dream of you as lost.
Lost! As if one could misplace a heart
Ripe in the throat, in the gaze, as if
One were not yet a temple fullest
When empty of all but one thing.
Osiris, my walls turn to veins & the veins
Are highways. They travel long, go deep,
Waiting not for caravans, the usual parties,
But for the day, the night, where concrete
Turns to sand & your waters come in.
Still, I must admit, many of these wanderers
Have such need & I see, feel them as loveable,
Not made of stone after all, Osiris, nor even,
Quite, nine hundred lives
©2008 Stephen Mead
Candles From Mist
Weigh spirit with a feather, fill, buoy up.
Evanescent light thing, look, a final place:
Find, rest.
Love, since you parted, those likenesses
Buried with you, image after image, reflect & dream.
I have only kept one, I, Nefertiti, wed to worshippers,
Gossip, now hiding Akhenaten, a pharoah's idol,
Disfigured.
How can I confess it? They'd talk, shy away.
Yet, sphinx-like friend, I remember warmth,
Our involvement, the west sun dying nightly
Then miraculously east born...
Doesn't the beetle, that scarab, represent
Metamorphosis, & you, you too, a common man,
But symbolic, your head, a vision-house, large
As can be.
Does the skyful expand? Is monotheism real?
Storms, blessings: religion is a concept.
Far flung weather, the Afterworld-----
Does the breadth spread? Is it luminous?
Yes, we accomplished several daughters & built
A life hand by hand, so, why---ignorant, petty---
"His ailment", "a tragedy"---& civilization so strange...
People point, visit, have a desire to rob tombs,
Covet treasure, all Nile lost souls now curious,
Thirsty for jaded scandal & souvenirs...
Oh Akhenaten, I want none of such.
Let them take all of it but this: a window,
Lit alabaster, glowing like skin, from within:
Some soft mist candle. I clutch it, a statue,
Your profile carved there. Will you call, fly
Refined?
Pyramid strong: yesterday, tomorrow, all days
Are ghosts, but their quests flood, preserved fertile
From our divine all-seeing valley.
Dust the crypt, kingdom, this gold inlaid sarcophagus
I caress to put my missing
Where it rightly belongs
©2008 Stephen Mead
