Refuge

taking shelter in Absurdity

knowing nothing wanting to know nothing

unbelieving

allowing the story to be told in gross cartoon

                                (wild harp voices lost in the screeling wind)

criticism hidden behind uncomfortable laughter

at the vagaries of hot air balloons

floating above the idiot parade

cords held by those who write apologia

for the horrors of history

no, they will not hear that wild music

skirling among the forests

wildernesses better to remain unexplored

cut down those trees! for therein dwells nightmare!

denude the land and stop those voices

that will only make you cry and fear

and maybe know the truth

of what's been done in your name  

laugh at the cartoon buffoons!

laugh until the door crashes in in the night!

laugh for that baby face down in the sand

that girl child twisted

broken by the side of the road

abandoned with love

by those who must ever move on

laugh for small bits remotely recognizable

as part of a human who was recently loving and laughing

playing games with his friends

with her friends

laugh at the poignant piles of dirty rags

once someone's mother sister daughter aunt

beloved

never to climb again out of that muck

churned up by thousands upon thousands

resolute feet plodding to who knows where

passing yellow light laughing from windows

the bonds still unbroken

the children allowed to remember they're young

the lights of your lanterns are torture

your torch is no beacon to beckon

no more than a moth to a flame

to self immolation

diving into abyss to escape abbatoir

blind drunk with Freedom from all that held us

honoring Place or Homeland

no room no time to bury the dead

my son ran off to join one of the militias

we didn't ask questions; it's safer not to know

he said he could no longer stay to see life blown apart

and not answer

left his brothers in charge, ages 14 and 10

 children with long guns

in the end not proof against death rained from the sky

not proof against mines underfoot

the treasures of our homeland for centuries

millennia!

smashed to dust

bombs and hammers, insurgents and kings

all sides destroying everything in their path

us

our children

schools homes shops, rubble

and the blood of the dead feeds the soil

i would live there

i Would!

in the shadow of the ruins

near the graves of my parents and those of the children

we had time to bury

and my husband not there

taken away by one of the militias

he never came home

those we could gather

sisters brothers in-laws cousins and their children

anyone left alive

some of the elders stayed

not to slow us down

we gathered our things and began this long walk

past your warm butter yellow lit house

and the unknowing laughter within

the welcome stops at the door

when you teach your children of this holocaust

remember these nameless ones passing your gate

o we have names but you will not know them

they are writ in the stars

and will prick your dreams

never let you forget

though ages pass away 

in your absence

in your absence
i haven’t washed the sheets in weeks
scent of your sweat and aftershave still lingers
imprint displaced crumpled space
a strand of hair
imagined warmth still emanates
from you-shaped indentation
even microscopic shreds of skin 
dandruff
the drool stain on the pillowcase
are precious
i lie dead still so not to waken
the dream of me i hope you’re having
wherever you are

The Hermit

                             

                                for J9

36 years before her death

a Legend wrote that she would be 
a Legend

her silent longings plumbed the depths of nothingness

she granted and guaranteed her own Self space & silence

pulling on a disguise of sackcloth, barrier of aloneness

aloof inside the walls

buffered by miles unpeopled

enclosing her sex in ragged wool and wildly hacked hair

delicacy of feature belied by smut & char

her normally pristine love of self subverted by her desire for distance

distance from the welling throngs to welcome inspiration

listening for the words of her Mother on the wind

she wore a mask

no mask to those who knew her only by her voice

she searched beneath her skin and among the molecules of blood

between the interstices of muscle & bone for that connection

felt so strongly

always fleeing like mirage in blazing dusty desert

self knowledge ‘scaping like a footpad in the night, bedecked in soot

need only close the eyes to disappear

rebuked by Dawn she wends her way, eyes crusted with unwonted slumber

her dreams came to fool and cajole

and then to have the very Dawn say it' s all lies!

once more climb on the bus, never meeting any eyes

turned inward; they never heard her anyway

she knew the city was only temporary

her home among the darksome buildings where trees, supplanted

pushed back to mountain fastnesses

called her name in the twilight mornings mist

the city attempted to delude her but, not fooled

she pushed her way past throngs on crowded streets, seeking Light

they let her go, not knowing what they lost in her unheralded passage

the brilliance in her eyes’ enigmatic gaze

she inhabits the souls of street sweepers, window washers

children carrying water buckets or petrol cans, beggars

and market day women down from the hills with their wares

any whose lives are lived at the edge

she could never find her way, if she opened the door to their lives

and their hurts and their passions

her words came out of the ether, her prayers the only conversation

what she was told by the goddess made her electric

made her kin to the pinpoint flaming shards in endless night skies

made her cry out to all creation in ecstatic agony

she tried to die, was unsuccessful

burnt and broken, still pursuing the Mother of her dreams

through every drug and most subversions, cultural explorations

beyond the known boundaries of the universe

she crashed and roared downstream

eyes wide at last  

she walked into the mountain sunset always a stranger

laughter begging entrance, her soul's door flung open

the Goddess of the Night entered on solemn feet

lay down with her and told her

She would be the Light in the interminable darkness

a candle to guide her to the break of day

she lived inside the sea, the sky, was buried in the earth

gave her songs into the air to breathe 

always maintaining her magical identity

the Muse and Muse’s tragic victim

© 2013 pamela twining

Sin-Eater          

**In Welsh & Scots folklore, the sin-eater was called at the death of a family member. He or she was paid a small coin and bread, beer and salt were passed over the corpse, and were  eaten and drunk by the sin-eater, who would say a few words, thus taking on all the sins of the deceased, so the soul would rest and not walk about the earth. The door to the cottage would be left open, so the spirit could fly free. When his purpose was accomplished the people burned the wooden bowl and platter from which he had eaten the food handed across, or placed on the corpse for his consumption. At all other times, the sin-eater was shunned, living alone in remote places, avoided and despised by those who chanced to meet him/her.

Sin-Eater          5/15/15

we come into this world

eyes still misted with the Wisdom from the other side of the veil

gaze with infinite compassion, no judgement, whole acceptance

the milk of our best moments pours into that new awareness

and the mists thicken

suffocating the memory of Oneness overlaying from here

modeling humanity

to there

thread tenuous

small spurts of lightning

Zip! under the radar

Zap! the vestigial organ

vast preknowledge encapsulated in remembrance

never lost

the soul a fly on your lips

ephemeral

half seen, sticky

from visiting the honey jar

fortified for the Journey

in-breath and out take on concrete

harden the briefly osmotic skin

permeable still to the voice of deep space

stars, planets so far away they are only rumours

brush the veil aside and enter what’s known as Reality

the connection to the veiled world makes sin-eaters of poets

condemned to gather the sorrows, petty angers

sins of omission

commission

jealousies

murderous thoughts

killing actions

condemned to recreate recreate recreate without end

the deeper remembrances of the womb pave the road to that other world

beyond and back again

some of the same ecstasy spilling over into normal potluck

in the universe of flaming sons and daughters

sacrificed to the post Enlightenment backslide

tick tock tick tock tick tock

footsteps at the roach end of the night

soot-blackened buildings lean close in

watchful

ruined morning

fumes of dead streetlight auras follow the lost ones

home to their cribs pads hustles

a few hours sweaty sleep on gritty sheets

or no sheets

drag stained ratty comforter close to ward off the nightmare of daylight

ordinary life impossible for the nightwalkers

stories fit only for the ears of rebels and madmen

like Cassandra

like the Christ

like Malcolm or Lamumba or Peltier

or who knows what nameless female locked away

discredited

assassinated

the earth trembles

and the mouth of the mother opens to swallow her children

morning dawns unknowing

desolation waste and wreckage all around

when the fog has melted rigid edges of shared experience

dreams melt with the mist

buried for another day

until the dirt maw shall claim

the unresisting

break bread and lick salt from the wounds!

a palm crossed with silver       

and I will take from you darkness

that threatens to devour the pristine temple of spirit

who would be a sin-eater, a poet , a visionary

disdained though they’re the Record of us all

internalized with bread and beer and salt and cries

in the depths of loss?

a last supper for

shrunken starving bellies abject in fear & loathing

seeking, always craving Love & Light

who would willingly quaff this drink

only to be driven out to the edges of the void

no honour?

break bread! drink the iniquities of this gone life

imbibed with draughts of beer

washed down so he or she can rest, but never you!

the poetry of their billion seconds now the songs for your tongue

and for all the world

                but who will hear or remember?

without the shadow, all is blindness; without the truth, everything is a lie

when night winds brush the veils aside

divine insomniacs sit with dead heroes and avatars

and listen

tell us again why we do this

tell us again why we’re here

echoes and echoes in firmament, no answer

no sound save the sin-eater’s timeless wail

                benediction of a broken heart

© 2015 pamela twining

dressing for dinner

i touch perfume to my wrists
my throat, the nape of my neck
and dream of your lips

brushing o so lightly behind my ear

as you breathe me in

i braid my hair 
and think of loosening it
to flow over you,

teasing your nipples into peaks,

tangling round the base of the fountain

when i sip

i put on make up
and imagine taking it off
to come to you
as new as morning,
don my loveliest dress
and envision you pushing it up
above my waist
while i wrap my legs around you
and pull you in

i feel your hands 
and your lips
along all my neural pathways
lighting me up
like a starry sky

i shall wear diamonds tonight

i sold your car today

                                                               
                                                                              Janine Pommy Vega 1942-2010
as i slough off another piece of you
i still sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
walk journeys my legs have never traveled
on the wings of your tales
deep in the jungles, high in rock-strewn wildernesses tapping
into the rhythms and bowels of the fertile Mother
her vast wastelands throb of waterfall and avalanche
clear purity of uncharted Nowhere
Amazon basin to Sagamatha’s unconquered heights
too hungry for words
and words are all existence, no digital flatness                                          
words are flesh and winds have teeth
to tear from you everything familiar
-- which was the point –

where are the Loves? the forgotten children?
placentas of the Word giving birth to meaning
future artisans molding the clay of our belonging
from the flesh of our words

possessions once so dear to you
only dear to me now because of you
and every hour every day a little more
another bit
floats out of reach
your face, the feel of your skin against mine
found now mostly in dreams
sometimes all i want to do is sleep
have you come again to fill my days and nights
with the small pains and pleasures that we were
and know for once the essence of you
so deeply hidden in the Wanting
life attachments and detachments wrestled screaming
to earth in marching meditations
      climbing
            reaching
for a heaven unattainable until the ashes spread
and sink again into the body of the Mother
you always sought
offered in a blinding jewel to the chariot of the dawn

i ache with the loss of you
whose heart was never mine
whose spirit dodged and danced among the aromatic green
the Orinoco fronds and heavy air so wet and fragrant
you could drink it
who scaled unnumbered heights
stone fingertips piercing through the bellies of clouds
making no obeisance to the sky
their craggy fingers grasping Light
a scissor slicing deep into the vitals
hot nutrients for those seeds
those words
that flesh

i lost another piece of you today
but still i sometimes wear your skin
see through your eyes
taste your words in my mouth
and kiss them forward



© 2013 pamela twining