Said the Valkyrie

there are days without forests
but I wouldn't want them.
I need the calligraphies
that write me into being,
into the explanation behind it,
the vermillion and the ochre sap
the capillaries and the reality:
the heart is not a pump.

It breaks over distances
like morning eggs in
the skillet-iron, the bloody taste
of the skin cut open. the sear
of expectations; the woods
are always silent when I stop
speaking, and so are the mountains,
in their deep vibrato hum.
I was a lonesome dove long
before you decided to come home.

This is Valhalla. but all
the warriors are gone.
It's like the median between
the mead and the honey,
the fermented hero, tossing
in sleep, his weary head.

it's too barren to say
"it's complicated." It's
too broad and beautiful and bright
to say, "it's simple." Nothing
ever is anymore. Not prairies
or watersheds. Not the notes you
leave tethered to my wrists
in the middle of awareness, opaque
as vellum, as spiritual parchment,
I can see the breath and the water,
the ink of the matter,
bleeding in between the loving
and sagacious winged penmanship.

 

Reviews

[Emily B]

these words seem to have wings and be poised for flight at any second

[Ed Hart]

"the heart is not a pump"...there are only six of us that know that...