SAMPLE POEMS – Coyotes in Broad Daylight <--back to main samples page

STONES & BLOOD
The stones in this castle
drip the blood of seasoned wine,
a downpour exposing scents
of a past when I, a monk,
poured my blood onto pallets
and painted frescoes on these walls.
I squeezed every drop out of the brush,
walked down into the cellar
(where I am having baked fish and bread tonight)
and stomped grapes into stone
until the blood seeped
from my sandaled feet:
The scent is burrowed in my cells.

Down in the south, root stock – 
a farmer threshes and bleeds in the hills,
feeding children, breeding calves,
sunrise-to-sunset the only rhythm
he cares about.
The clock ticks onward, drips away centuries
until another farmer wipes bloody leathered hands
on his soiled pants one last time,
walks off the wrinkled earth,
rounds up his family,
boards a ship and sets sail
for the land

where, in some future night,

An olive-blooded woman
will guide her man
into a rapturous cross-hatched storm,
her desire unbridled , bleeding,
opening up ancient walls
so the root stock can drip again:

The blood of stones in the castle
blooms inside mother’s womb.

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