G.o.dIVA

Lingerie, black pumps a navel creamy enough to drown a kitten-- the clothes a.s.semble in microwave fashion --crackle of fire-- the silver pants zoom across legs with curves so caress bound a formula racing driver might tumble.

As eyes rise in jade lantern face & hair is brushed with all sheen aside, the lady is more than a G.o.diva or Goldwyn-Mayer cinematic production, this oasis of sparks, twin peaks of McKinley-Matterhorn fame, her calendar of words pulling Oil of Olay & perfumed honey thru each studied remark.

PELeE

The night before ...

sultry Martinique, a tortoise sh.e.l.l cat climbed, lap to pipe, amid curbs of orange smoke.

2 Mount Pelee, a smoking hard hat with the candle-wax of longing gutting in paraffin for 30,000 souls sent to the Crematorium her harbour hissing lava foam; even coffee beans fused into other metal bits, a danse macabre twittering machine, (nature au contraire), tortoise sh.e.l.l improviso with splotched colours weaving dawn's light & feline crouching.

3 --the curl of her island's paws lanced in heat, brief wisps tugging Pelee's synopsis (dark & smouldering), with cat eyes glowing up the mountain dark into vegetative whiskers.

4 Pull of my pipe full leap of centuries before the bite of the stem dumped fire again

PELeE: MAY 8, 1902

With the smile of morning in her purse, the dark laughter of her cat napping in the crevice, half-alert, Martinique (angelique) on padded paws climbs from night.

I saw her hair-brush the lava to warm the bay, crinkle little St. Pierre jammed into one parking lot, volcanic embrace.

In the little museum --the holocaust cenotaph-- Nature pared essentials to the bone, a cauldron of smoke peers from old photographs to cement (danse macabre) bric a brac ivy/stone and coffee beans wedded in grandeur fission-fusion-froideur resembling ma.s.ses of bees, grotesqueries & beards upstaging even Miro & the distant surrealists; where reality masked vampire fiction to roll sulphuric heat toward belches of St. Pierre's prison.

And Cygnet (his name close in French to "Swan"

leg-irons) (subterranean chamberling peeking out), undaunted solitary survivor-- the bars on his charnel house were the fingers of G.o.d pointing the way free.

ELECTRA

Fantasy, Capri. The edge of a pillow.

Certain words--murmur, seash.e.l.ls.

A face beckoning thru time, lacy windows with purple shades simultaneously drawn.

Tears of gold. Love signs, gla.s.s of champagne.

A tree of hemlock nearby. A delightful print tablecloth that signals the breeze. The courtier in fancy dress. Twin bottles of vintage wine abreast rider and horse.

Potables. A blue eggsh.e.l.l. The sun stirring Virginia Creeper that moves in unison with the wind.

Electra and electricity, the current that prods the mind.

SIDEWAY LOOK

It's snowing and all I can think of are leaves to wrap your memory, leaves pungent as tea, green curls alive with the promise of fire, shutes like fingers to play a tap on your skin.

The snow is wet like your eyes at parting, cold as the promise of a winter dawn wet again as city-streets I must tread to make a living, the flask of wine pressed to my lips.

On the winter landscape all I see is the ghost white of sheets, our sheets wrapped to keep breath warm the log cannisters of our bed a heady raft upon which to travel to burn up an ocean of delight.

LOLITA GARDENS

A man weeps at your ankles, climbs the stairs to peek-a-boo panties, with finger clasps, a Rapunzel lowering your hair, the long-matted braids a skilful weaver turns to gold.

An ivy forest in a castle impregnated with doors, the prince overhears the code "let down your hair" and, with perilous grasp, mounts the stirrup wall, foot to clasp, searching cloud grey & storm blasts for billowy mists green within this empress queen.

Walking plasticine ledge in the shower with a mermaid soaping her perfumed treasure trove, at an intersection within that woman, her tulip trees explode-- faeryland syrupy, tasting of apricot and sugar cane; a swallow parting indigo sky.

UNPAGINATED

Orchestrating violins thru whisky sky clouds slide like billiard b.a.l.l.s a Jackie Gleason-Fats Domino ricochet off greener velvet; my pheasant escaping snow.

Jack Ketch the hangman in brilliant plumage, a touch of Borgia in long, murderous hands.

The light of Capone in steeple-dark eyes running like a haunted ship around the white, facial disc.

Offset. Bold type.

I see you through pages of my history book only you're unpaginated.

Unclench the fist, watch for effervescent islets, erotic mounds of Venus or protuberances called Marquesas off my left hand.

Omens are the cloth of dreams, scissors used to open sky.

Work out cosmic debts-- figure stone footprints on Hollywood Blvd.

en route to Tijuana for a start; I should have been Buddha incarnate or curator at the Hermitage, wild shaman for the Arapaho not a cocoa b.u.t.ter salesman from New Jersey, nagging soda-jerk in L.A.

'bout the time of Marilyn Monroe's quick magic.

The Almighty unpacking orange crates, sending Florida cold unravelling karmic debt, bra.s.s studs in your eye mowing suckers with your scythe; Birthpath urge, Father Time, de-gutting chickens at Pleasure Farms looking to Hindoos for clues (placing roaches on a lucky few.)

This hurdle over stones cra.s.s fort.i.tude ensemble, strange melange spewing nails, elbows round thin pain gutter cathedral looming into view where there is more viscera than mirth before ripples of enchantment cause vibrations at four and the phrenology of universal measure is a moon ribcage in light --gazelle of trees a dinosaur in height.

SEQUIN

A youthful bandit this forest-- faltering eyelids in mud troughs & puddles like brisk lies woven thru deception.

Stealing autumn into its colours, leaves in birchbark rustle a full mauraud stealth across every breeze.