SAMPLE POEMS – The River-Fed Stone <--back to main samples page

A FIRST POETRY READING

Beasts race to life across the walls,
flickering in light. They tell us
how to find them, how to eat them,
how to wear them to live,
drawn on stone from their own blood
and plant pigment. Sha-man pulls spirit
of fanged one from the rock, lifts up
his arms. Sha-dow claws
our eyes wide open.
He speaks in pictures, roams the field,
prances into our hearts. The roar
of the beast rises from my core,
shoots from my mouth,

Shoots from my mouth
in sounds that make
pictures between my eyes
I want to paint on the walls,
where we write our wisdom
for today. For tomorrow. For those
who follow, that they
may know the way
that shoots from Sha-man’s heart—

He holds the bridge to a place
so dark not even the flame-tongues
can reach it. Not even the beasts
who prowl in the dancing light
can touch him now. A place
where Sha-dow disappears, like the beasts
when the walls stop flickering,

the hunt complete, their stories told
through the Sha-man’s eyes,
the roar in my heart.
The roar springs
something out of Sha-dow
never seen before,
never uttered before.
I draw it on dirt.
Sha-man nods, lays down his head.
Sha-dow flees. Circle closes.