The Knight of Faith

I met a dead man today.
He told me a story about
love and the individual and I said,
I know that story.
I held up my face to him like a mirror,
showed him his messed-up hair and he said,
What's your story? and I said,
I don't know yet but I hope,
I hope it's as good as yours.

Tanka

On the gravel road,
I thought if I went barefoot,
my feet would callous.
I felt them grow uglier
but stay still tender and bleed.

Still

I am a beacon,
writing my rage on the sky,
and I am a still,
freezing in the mountain sunshine,
converting fury to tears.

Saugeen

In the yellow field of rapeseed,
I left my lungs
breathing, wet and greedy, in the sun;
and pale-barked trees whose names nobody seemed to know
stood like gateposts, letting all things in.
At the bottom of the slope, the shallow, broad river
lay belly-up to dare the clouds,
and I immersed myself in its thin, brown water,
left my eyes to float on its surface.

When I go home, I will be broad and brown like sunshine,
and missing pieces, empty with happiness.
This clean-through, never-washed country grows, self-driven;
my fingers and toes stick to it,
burs in its hair.

This is what could have been,
what still can be.
And if I swallowed all the river,
it might be sweet; it might go down
like medicine, make me choke and vomit.
But I will never know, because
I cannot drink--my belly
is already full.

Sonnet LXXXVI

I captured Senex, and I stabbed his heart;
I drove my kitchen knife into his chest.
He isn't dead, but I don't care: the rest
of Regnum Animæ will come apart;
it now belongs to me and by my art
will grow again. And Senex who distressed
Amatus and Licentia is pressed
and pinned to Earth, imprisoned at the start.

Puer Æternus, come at once to me:
put careless feet where I say you must stand.
I want to kiss you where the man can see
and paint his blood upon you with my hand,
to smear it on your cheeks, to show I'm free
to own, to take, to cherish, to command.

Sonnet LXXXV

Anteros answered me:
he poured his weight upon the scales that Aphrodite holds,
and I am rising up;
the world unfolds beneath my long trajectory,
my straight approach to orbit, almost,
to create an arc, horizon-passing;
and the golds that streak the sky are weightless metals,
molds that form my path,
that buoy and elate.

But her he slammed into the iron Earth,
and heavier than osmium she falls,
still lustrous, always lustrous,
but too hard and brittle, useless,
stripped of any worth for molder, forger, god or woman;
crawls in filth
--yet is too precious to discard.

Credo

The past does not exist.
There is only now.

Today I am born, fully formed
like Athena, my spear
already in my hand.

I have no need of any shield, for I am
immortal,
and all my wounds will heal,
clean as morning.

I have nothing to defend.
All things are new to me.
The ancient infrastructure of lies piled on lies
has crumbled into dust.

Here is my starting point:
which doors have been closed to me
and which stand open
has yet to be discovered.

I embrace all people as strangers;
no one has touched me before today.

I expect nothing, and therefore,
I cannot fail.

I am Parthenos,
Atrytone,
Glaukopis,
Promachus,

she
who fights
in front.