TALES FROM EARTH

These words beached themselves on the shore of my lips
Drawn long like the final note of a performance
These words befriended the madman inside of me, the same lunatic who writhes at the banquet table of life
Doesn’t use his mouth to speak or eat, Doesn’t understand he’s already free
Pulls his hair out and gnashes his teeth, making believe
Making believe he’s a prisoner of what he sees
It’s easy for you
There isn’t a madman loose up there
Or maybe there is and you are too afraid to name him, for the way you’ll be looked and laughed at

It’s okay
Take my hand
Take your breath
We can - together, each tame our madmen or decide - for ourselves, to evict them altogether
All together

- Nira. C. Me.

Fearing Paris

by Marsha Truman Cooper

Suppose that what you fear

could be trapped

and held in Paris.

Then you would have

the courage to go

everywhere in the world.

All the directions of the compass

open to you,

except the degrees east or west

of true north

that lead to Paris.

Still, you wouldn’t dare

put your toes

smack dab on the city limit line.

You’re not really willing

to stand on a mountainside,

miles away,

and watch the Paris lights

come up at night.

Just to be on the safe side

you decide to stay completely

out of France.

But then the danger

seems too close

even to those boundaries,

and you feel

the timid part of you

covering the whole globe again.

You need the kind of friend

who learns your secret

and says,

“See Paris First.”

Up late nights, missing the micro-phone,
me the ET calling home,
not earth, not this flooded stone,
when I call home I mean the old abode, the slow drone of feedback leaking out of amps stacked on pallet flats,
basements cracked and heavy under the weight of Promised Land giants strumming fruit from their guitars, beating milk &honey from them drums
Up late nights, missing the micro-phone,
me the ET calling home, not this flooded stone, I mean the old abode, the song’s have all gone cold,
my eyes still close and hold words and things I didn’t mean to sing but had to,
because those words hold too,
they ring true for me for them for you
we’re not the only one of anything we’re only One - we’re every thing
Up late nights, missing the micro-phone,
me the ET calling home, not earth, not this flooded stone,
I’m calling home, the old abode

I am a discovery of witches
The warmth of other suns
A pursuit of past longings renewed
Times threads unfurled, a hope once hurled
Into a brewpot of legends, yarns unspun, hero’s story unsung
I am continually chasing that reverie
Walking that tightrope, too young to fear
too old to care
I’d give you my wings if I thought they’d help at all
Once freed,
I’d still find you there, cowering in corners grasping at wisps of her conjured keepsake lie boxes
If I had to lay here
Spinning time and stepping foot once into that man’s heart before freezing in fear of I don’t quite know
I’d scoop my own guts out, splay them on the table and read their runes
Shake the bones and write down the music they’d sing to me in return, their once tempestuous tune
I’d scoop my own soul out
Toss it in the Rhine, cast those pearls to the fish, the swine, the wine, the him that wasn’t mine
If I’d promise to forget the world, and what we’re told
I’d still always hold out hope wherever I’d go
For the atmosphere
For the broken people
For the salve of forgetting
For me
For you
For going back to the part that started it all, and for doing what I should have done
Anything else but this

only the King’s dreamers may live on

only the sparrow sings that fateful song

only i see that everyone already knows and everyone already grows in the direction of sunlight

in the direction of the four drops to immortality

time is a thread, that waits for us - as long as it takes the light to start pouring through the wounds

the god-form to emerge, suckling

i laid my head on the hands of this King and pled for my people

feel again

love for the sake of love

for the fate above

this flesh, weighted and heavy - ties me low to the earth

the last time it was you, walking on the sky

reminding me

she came to the desert to find herself

to quiet her thundering mind

the lines in her palms made storytellers of time

she is a joseph dreamer

she left her shell in zagora

brought back only spirit

and a handful of tumbled letters and sand, stardust

and the light of man

They dance a snake from 

falling trees

they dance

a tribe

a drum

wanting the ego or the trance

the start or the chance

they dance

a snake from falling trees

they dance

a tribe 

a drum

wanting the ego or the trance

the start or 

a chance