the soothsaying summer slights the slack

On again, off again, jiggedy-jig-
Apart, then together to slaughter the pig.
The thrill of the kill is the sun's own these days
And has singed what to nothing, I wonder,
Since we've wandered opposite ways?
I can't say I've ever beheld you in summer's light-
My snowflakeladyvertex of twinklingstarryfrostbite

You and I will never be.
Even when I offered myself willingly
You said a Wolf you thought better,
Thus this Keeper's tether was frayed and severed.
And, you know, when e'er you flit away from me
I am set free from Satan's key.
Or perhaps I've learned, since we last adjourned,
That Tragedy does not need its key
For its floodGates can open Endlessly
Through the tiniest wound that can be found in me
Whenever it sees fit rather easily.

I do hope to find that that Cavalier will be for me
That fork who'll not maroon me to mere foam upon the sea-
That someday I'll sing on legs that stand
And not just of that old mutation of my hand,
That rope that once tied me to you.
I swear, someday I'll bid you adieu.

Someday one another's Spades' jack
Won't shovel out the heart of the other's jill.
Someday if the wolf-in-your-mind climbs onto your back
You won't want my oilblood to spill.

But what do I know?
Perhaps I shan't remember
That I'm only kicking up some reaper's dust
That will cloud our vision come September.
So continues the countdown,
Here's the two of the three,

Before the next swirling fall sinks its teeth into me.

ducklings.

I'd convinced myself I'd never want to show this wretched world to one more soul who'd have to hang his head so low to know such simple joys and tragic pains one must see to believe... Yet the Love in it is what makes up the core of me-

In my young-old age I've tired of these petty wars I wage, and I've learned from the mistakes I've been much too wise to make. Wouldn't I rather be a thing I always wished I'd seen? Devote my life to building that which was always denied to me? Breed some brooding ducklings? Teach them how to fly away and love freely?

In time I want a backyard barbecue where everyone I now know has paid their dues, and my husband's singing with our kids while I play catch-up with my friends. What are the means to that end?

I think at the finish line I'd prefer an empty nest than finish my life knowing it was full of emptiness...











You can hear this here: http://lexland.tumblr.com

tin can song.

i don't want to be what i am
i've got oil for blood
and there's oil on my hands.
my knees will defeat my stance.
but if you'll be my crutch
you can keep all my land...

i don't want to be what i am.
i'd rather be a song machine
you can crank by hand.
i'll reach out to strike whatever i can,
but when you turn me around
i won't know where you're bound to land...

oh, but wouldn't i rather be
some ashen torn-down factory
you'd wrecked deliberately
with a cannonball and your own hands -
just to melt me down
sculpt me into some hol(e-)y tin can
that would only play the tune you wanted to hear,
and you'd never hear anything else from me, dear,
again?

when you first approached, your eyes glowed.
and i can't quite recall recognizing the hue
like silver-paved streets flooded with gutterwater
or polished steel reflecting a sky of blue.
the fire in them alone would leave me the scoriae
from making that music box machine, simple and true,
but i don't think that you've ever noticed
when your face turns my way they see straight through
me.

you were layin in the bed of a pickup truck late one night.
a friend of ours was drivin' and when we stopped at a light,
i nearly jumped out of my skin when you reached through my window
and squeezed my shoulder so quick and so tight.
and i thought on how the impression would never leave
my body
nor my mind.

in my youth, i resented my father
for asking me to be a pull-the-ring-on-a-string toy,
to say and do as he pleased when he wanted, and that's all.
now i wonder if i wouldn't be prettier as nothing more
than a porcelain doll.

Won't you please play for me?

The ditties I write are but eulogies
Of things I once loved now long gone
Engraved by hardened men's hands
Upon cold jagged granite,
Runes strewn across perfect green manicured lawns.

Marigold daisies
like your eyes pushed to sight
As corpses of dreams regenerate the soil
In their tectonic right.

I suppose this to be the thing
You always understood,
So as Orpheus I'll trek
Through fire- and ice-wood,
Valleys of shadow-sea-
To bring you back with me
Where the light beings frolic
In the wide-spectrum-band -
For mustn't Death and Tragedy
Walk always hand-in-hand?

I heard a story you might like,
It goes as such:

My fiddle player fell [to his death] into a well.
To retrieve him I sought to speak with Lucifer,
And thus traversed again the rings of hell -

The Goblins bade me turn away, laughed in my face
At my plight and did my fate foretell-
And Jareth, so cocky and keen once he was seen,
Gave me a task when pledged I my soul to sell;
He spake, "Travel the depths to the Hall of Mirrors,
And bring back only the perfect shard."
And I suppose his jealousy now arose,
Thusly towards me his heart grew quite hard.
Then, when he saw all I'd done to retrieve the glass,
He scoffed at my completed task, and asked,
"Haven't you figured out yet, dear,
What you've truly chosen to sell?
See the True Love that you seek in that mirror-piece."
And, of course, all I could see was myself.
"Little time," quoth he, "on that green earth have you now,
So if you'd like to hear the fiddle played,
You'd better soon learn how."

He then gave me my heart's violin and bow,
And I returned to the light burdened to know
That never would I behold again
My handsome holy grail of men.

My lovely Mademoiselle de Mort,
You know I love you dearly,
But must you kill all mortal men I love,
To help me see myself more clearly?

I must've known you were to flit, careening pitter-patter down the hall and on Rooftops, Contemplating Jazz

you slipped so sullenly through the slivers
between my fingers some summer
and i suppose it wasn't so long ago now
if you hadn't already been planning
your way away as a rum runner
my frightening you might've taken the helm at the bow.

you slid through my synapses
like heavy molasses
too rich and thick to bear
and by the time i caught wind
the sails were all hol(e-)y
(but it was too late for me to not care).

you'd been around since... i now can't remember...
during a season of humid debris-
and departed, only to resurrender
('til the deuce of September)
to the mundane and hot cavity.

such a nuisance it was to run into you!
like a delicate cobweb unseen
(nearly) unknowingly foiling
plans over which you'd been toiling
and these strands of yours upon me still cling...

because despite my fortuitous blunder
you quit me with quiet calm, and left me to wonder
what to make of our whole affair
that thrived in confused, murky sentiment where

the air was moist-
and the season its hottest.
did what we share only blossom to die
at the end of that August?

Pas de Deux

I'm just a Gatekeeper half-grimacing
With other half-of-face not as convincing.
As Matron of the Misplaced
I only ever get a taste.
Any semblance of permanence
Is just another endless distance-
And the time that I do get
Only ever goes to waste -

fear not, i do not beckon to rocky shores...

If you can make it through the gate
And not just evaporate
And if my Endless woe you might abate -
Then for you I vow I'll wait.
If you can fathom my unearthly station,
Yet still behold me, void of trepidation,
Or care to spare a moment of shared elation -
Then I'll swear I can be patient.

But if it's due to your weak resolve
That you simply must dissolve,
Or sink into the Swamps of Sadness of my sway,
Then I'll look toward some other day.
Where some unknown courageous Cavalier can with unsheathed weapon the thorned thickets clear
And bestow a kiss upon this frozen Miss and the shroud of fog from her labyrinthine scene lift...

For so many sailors who forgot to steer
Have left me quite marooned down here.
So, please, good sir, be bold at those Tragic Gates,
So this Siren and her Sailor
Might share their happy fates.