fair maiden

both knees are bloody
my heart is rendered silent;
steal me from here, love.

left: indecision
right: wounded choices i have made;
steal me from here, love.

muscles pulled weeping
eyes swollen, tears overflow ears;
steal me from here, love.

what's saddest of all?
there is no hero for me;
i'm left to drift, love.

i was in someone's basement. it was filled with sealed cardboard boxes, scattered everywhere, no clear path through the jumble. other people were with me, carrying flashlights to light our way through the dark. we were looking for someone or something. there was a sense of urgency. i was talking to one of my companions, and i became aware of the fact she was a cop. we were talking about christianity in hushed tones.

"all cops are holy," she said.

"not all," i argued. "and what do you call an unholy cop?"

she shone the flashlight in my eyes and said, "a traitor."

something about being blinded by the light's glare, and the tone of her voice, and our setting, frightened me beyond measure. i tried to wake myself up. then i was awake, but completely unable to move, open my eyes, or make a sound.

suddenly, a roaring din crushed my ears. it sounded like thousands and thousands of women's voices, all screaming and crying at once, crashing and bruising against one another, shaking every last fibre of my soul. one of them grabbed my spirit, and started violently shaking it around in my body. "helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehel

pmehelpmehelpme!" she screamed. i saw blinding light and a white face with hollow eyes, the mouth contorted in pain. i still could not move or open my eyes or make a sound. i felt my breathing become torn and jagged in my chest. i started to panic. then the noise subsided. i relaxed for a moment, thinking i would be able to roll over, to open my eyes and see the calm darkness of my room again, to touch my sleeping man. but still my body would not move. everything was silent.

then she grabbed me again and started shaking my spirit. the din rose up in a terrible chorus, like a ravaging ocean of horror. i felt my soul being knocked around inside my body. her voice was even more urgent, and again, her deathmask flashed in and out of my vision, and she cried again, "helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpme!" this time it didn't stop of it's own accord. i tried to move, to call out for leon to stop this awful experience, but i could only succeed in making short, violent bursts of air jerk from between my lips. her screaming, the shaking, the blinding visions and the sense of terror all made me feel as though i was going to be pulled from my body and flung into the tide of whatever horror she was drowning in. "HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME!"

leons hand stroked my back, and silence fell around me.

i opened my eyes slowly, and rolled onto my back.

"what did you dream about?" he asked me, "you were breathing very fast, and you made a small moaning sound."

"they came back," i said, sadly. "they came back and wouldn't let me leave them."

lupercalia

lupercus called on the goat
he rose from a fire of blood and skin
"laugh, boys," they cried,
wiping alabaster clean,
"and choose the name of the girl!"
faunus hung back from the feast
he rose from the soil of lust and birth
"open yourselves, girls," they cried,
gently prodding thighs,
"and from maiden to mother you'll go!"
claudius raged from his throne
he rose on a mantle of char and war
"avoid the union, citizens," he cried,
suiting them in armour,
"for battle is no place for the lovesick!"
valentine sneaked from the heather
he rose on the love and chastity of christ
"pure is matrimony, children," he cried,
marrying them all in shadow,
"your heart will be hardy with family!"
but claudius struck valentine down
and his heart pumped blood on the flowers
lupercus and faunus trembled in fear
watching their time so fade
but love never stopped beating it's goatskin drum
love never stopped drawing a crowd
the lotto has ended, the names are all picked
and scattered over this valentine's shroud.

bio-dad

we were visiting leon's parents. it was the day before we had to go home, to make sure liam got back to school on time. leon dropped a bomb on me by telling me that he was going to stay on an extra two weeks while i took the kids home alone. it is a long drive, and two weeks is a long time to parent alone. i was furious. i demanded that he come back with us. he refused. i became certain that he was intending to cheat on me with a girl from the town. i tried to keep my calm while we talked but my inlaws were obviously on his side and treated me as though i were being completely unreasonable. in a fury, i stormed out of the house and began walking through the quiet streets of the small town, muttering to myself.

it was twilight, the sky was light blue and pink. as i walked, i slowly became aware of other people walking quietly along the streets with me. they were all dressed in strange suits and costumes; most of them had a santa-theme or easter bunny-theme, or sometimes a combination of the two. i asked a young man in a pink santa suit what was going on, and he told me it was the night of an annual festival, a sort of combination of pagan holidays, where you knocked on neighbour's doors and if your costume pleased them, they would give you gifts.

"but not candy," he said. "real gifts."

i was amazed. i asked how i could get a costume, too, and he pulled a pair of plush bunny ears from his bag and gave them to me. "these will have to do, though i doubt you'll get much from anyone."

i picked the first house i came to after donning the ears. it was an old brownstone with a big front porch. the front door was mostly bleary coloured glass, and i could see lights on inside. i knocked.

my biological father, looking not a day older than he was when he left us, answered the door. i was shocked, disbelieving. i didn't know what to say; but i could see he recognized me, too. "hello there," he said quietly.

"hello," i replied.

he handed me a yellow bag, made of filmy plastic. i opened it up and slipped a book out of it. it was a thick, worn out paperback, with a creamy white cover, decorated with beautiful line drawings of naked women. i opened the book up as he watched me. pages were falling out in clumps, but i became aware of the fact that this was a very valuable old book, one that had been out of print for decades. i flipped through the tattered pages, carefully, reading the words, and coming to understand that this book was a secret teaching of women's rites and powers. stunned by his awesome generosity, i looked up at him again.

"thank you," i said.

"you're welcome," he replied, and the tone of his voice implied that he had been waiting my whole life to give this to me. to see me again. how he had known i would appear on his door this night, i had no idea.

i nodded and turned and walked off the porch as he shut the door behind me. i stuffed the book back into it's bag, stuffed the bag inside my jacket, on my heart-side, and walked further up the street as the sky darkened further. my head was racing. i couldn't decide what to do next. the plush bunny ears were sliding off my head; an ill-fit. i stopped at the top of a low, sloping hill, lit a cigarette, and watched as the rest of the silent, surreal trick-or-treaters moved from house to house, knocking on doors and giving whispered thanks to their neighbours. i wondered if they were recieving gifts like mine from people they had questions about, their whole lives.

i realized it had gotten quite late and that i needed to get back to my inlaws, so i turned around and walked back from where i had come. i passed my biological father's house, hunched over, cigarette dangling from my lips, and he glanced up just as i walked by. i could see him sitting in a dimly lit room, at an empty dining room table. we looked at each other as i walked past, but made no motions. i turned my head, and went on.

brown eyed man

he come steppin, shady-foot and sharp
optic nerve hangin from an angle off the stars
he come walkin, feather-finger and sneak
past all the frontline "D" fences i can strewed 'round my bare racks
so he come lookin, all flightless and debeaked
check me out when i go bloody-foot down
he come seein across vista and view
he got a good eyeball though i didn't flick open all the lights
he think he gots something, a jewel or a rock
it could fit in my mouth if i wasn't full of cotton bats
he think he gots a joy gem he can shove all down in me
but olafactory and taste, i don't let nothin fill me when i'm full
tell him he gotta get lost. just tell him he gotta go
his choco-macular orb and empty thoughts
make a dark world slow.