This is a post I took from my old blog. It was originally posted March 4/08:
These poems were inspired by song titles from Joni Mitchell’s Hejira album. The poems are also based on the songs themselves.
Coyote
While the sun rises,
Coyote beauty,
Our paths,
They will not cross or touch.
You will lick the body dry
But never touch the throbbing heart,
Coyote beauty.
When they are kicking divine
To the music of night,
You, coyote beauty,
Will be my love,
Rape my anger,
Tear me free of will,
Trap me to the highway leaving.
And you, coyote beauty,
Jumping for the moon
While taking flight in field,
Chasing prey, you pray
For solace in the fray.
You, coyote beauty,
Burning in your seat,
Watch as I take flight,
Running to the highway leaving,
Your prey, your wish divine,
Your prisoner in the night.
Amelia
The lust of flight,
Of heavens reaching
The desert dance,
Like music stretched
From strings divine.
The machine of flight, surreal,
Amelia, images through time,
To trap you there, in romance,
Make of you my wings.
Oh, Amelia, my Nirvana,
You shake with wisdom,
Draw from your hair, my wings.
You, with your Icarus wings,
promising to lift you higher,
With arms to keep you
Floating, lingering in the clouds, Amelia.
Motels, dust and wanderlust,
They’ll never keep me down,
But false alarms and ringing dreams
Of Amelia taking flight,
They’ll stop me of my wings,
And make me sing, instead,
Of Amelia taking flight.
Strange Boy
The awkward dance
of boy to man,
the need, the want,
crazy shake of weaving
backwards in time
playing, the child man song.
I begged him, with a scold,
To take a deeper hold
To life less wild and crazy.
But he slowly took me under,
Swayed me with his love,
And clatter,
Sucked me to his shores
With his special lunar laughter.
I gave him of my body,
Forgave his boyish ways, strange boy,
And in the cellar, I sang his charms,
Strange boy, he made me wonder,
Piano love, we made,
Slender limbs entwined,
He took me in his dance.
Furry Sings the Blues
With his leg beside him,
Dancing in the corner quiet,
Furry, intoxicated, wanders,
sings gummy blues in wonder,
and Ginny can’t dance,
can’t sing or sigh,
she’s there beside him,
cosmic Ginny, with her laughter,
mercy washing over
a bed bound Furry.
The scratch of words,
from Furry’s wounded lungs,
alert the sparkling wonder
in the dancing Ginny,
as words rebound,
and blues are sung
and soaked in morning light.
And a leg in the corner,
made to prop the Furry beast,
it taps a tortured tune
of Tennessee,
a Memphis night of long ago,
when Furry danced
a throbbing beat
to Ginny’s mercy
new and meek.
Black Crow
Sky emissary shivers,
shakes, black wings whisper,
attracted to all things shiny,
he swoops the neon sky,
I am one with the black,
traveling always,
searching homeward,
mingling in the black.
Illuminated,
I am the sleek silk
of wings made to glisten,
collecting shiny things
for my everything journey.
And I am up all night,
like the black bird shining,
my soul burdened downward,
but lifting in the wind,
I can see the black thing singing
in the spirit of its flight,
oh, blue sky dreamer,
I’m connecting with your light.
Refuge of the Road
He took me by the body,
shook the new sky free,
his spirit, echo of my echo,
illuminated me.
Yet I left him
and his echo
for a journey to divine,
awoke in stranger places
than a dreamer cares to dream.
I took a refuge in my leaving,
winding down the ancient roads,
sucked the wind
in lungs made real
by the burn of afterglow.
And in the forest,
meek and frazzled,
I ran against my will,
fought to find an echo
of the echo of my self.
With the moon in clouds
and an archipelago
of gods seen canting,
I whispered to my sorrow,
my friend in spirit lost,
I’m lost
and heading westward,
seeking refuge in the road.
Blue Hotel Room
Like a ghost inside the blue,
I’m lost inside of me,
tumbling in turmoil,
fractured by the sea.
And the rain,
it’s been drowning me,
one swallow at a time.
Will you let me call you,
and suck from you your joy,
when madness like this blueness
eats inside of me?
I need you on Ganesha,
prancing through the sky,
think of me when I’m leaving,
and when I’m bleeding blue.
Will you love me when I leave
this stinking blue hotel?
Tell me now, my lover,
what’s left inside of me
inside this blue hotel room
remembering your plea.
KEVIN CRAIG 