for Ken
The burn pile is full of branches
You wrested from a neglected arbor.
They will light the November sky
When we find the perfect chilly night. Continue reading “Nuisance”
Tag: love
The Second Isolde
I hired the best musicians to beautify the background
through dinner meals or as we sat at the fire,
and I played the violin, taught by a traveling magician.
I learned the songs of my people and of his also.
I had a voice the animals in the field would stop to hear.
I bathed in herbs the magician gave me and smoothed
my arms and legs with perfumed oils that came Continue reading “The Second Isolde”
Igraine’s Letter
It is not a chaste kiss
One wants from another
Who is the focus of drowning
Desire
It is not that
Merlin: a life of magic with no love
–only obsession at the end
yet
His empathy for Uther
His empathy toward passion
Propelled enchantment. Continue reading “Igraine’s Letter”
Percival
“ . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . one night my vow
Burnt me within, so that I rose and fled,
But wail’d and wept, and hated mine own self,
And even the holy quest, and all but her;
Then after I was join’d with Galahad
Cared not for her nor anything upon earth.” –Percivale, Idylls of the King
All but her
Not for her Continue reading “Percival”
Windmill Water
I carry a glass bottle of water from home
When I go out. My well water is better than bottled,
Better than anything of purchase. After leaving
The Great Salt Plains, apocalyptic desert
Of salt and crystal, my bottle was empty. Continue reading “Windmill Water”
The Meaning of Grasp
The debris of white paint flecks in the golden hair
Of your arms is the garbage of love and light
–garbage whose original meaning was a “handful,”
A “grasp.” So I will grasp your arm, your hand,
Your chest, your body, and decorate myself
With your leavings, with your day’s work, and
Fill the nighttime world with the rubbish of worth.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 