Douenic

Tales of talipes
Dancer's back-leaping in shade
Of silk-cotton trees

Opportune

Half-full and gaping,
Empty-full of promises,
Thirsty and drinking.

Lupine

Canine cravings creep
Through pine-trails, leaping vines
Climbing flyward yapping
At the moon-lit night sky
Letting the by-gone of twilight
Be silenced
In worship to Norse
God’s twin-dogged dialect, driving
Dusk and dawn behind barking, and paws’
Bounding at midnight
To Seneca songs
Impounded
Lungs and bone-cage where dogs
Were held, where hounds are fed breath,
And moonlight was sung, to become

To hunt, for Hecate
Survive and stain-
Scarlet the skies, and rain-storm
Born-to-stalk, watchdog, made-secure
High place of Greek gods,
Olympus,
Where ground was cloud for
Heaven
With effeminate-crown of silver-
Crested spear cross-bowing to an altar,
Mourning
Prayer like incense had longed
For Heirs to Artemis, to huntress’
Tumbling of age and mustard
Seeds sprouting that took mountain below
Us Sun-Daughters of Eve and soil-skinned
Mothers toiling at mills and milk tins
In land infested by white face and windmills
Of English, twang and tea leaves
And son-shepherds afield, tending their sheep

These, nights are lazy-rundowns
Of cots and little ones
Tucked-in
Blanket of fable flung
From maiden’s tongue-
Hinge on bedtime, where tale came alive
In legacy, legend of chasing
Little boy who cried
Wolf
And aftermath of countryside crook;

This paedophile,
Pounced on little girls
Turned, red coats of child-
Hooded dreams in disguise of
Grannies, embroidery, sly
And wide-eyed trickery
And I, turn pages in wonder
How wandering ladies made
Tupperware laughter leap bounds
Inside bellies of toddlers
In pre-schooled, moral and textbook
Definitions
Of hounds’ black-beard and feared
Menace of fur-coat and
Staunch breath-howl as he
Bellowed
Then broke before brick-house of swine
Letting in,
Letting laughter resound
From sulphur-bind sheets, as brown
As teak-table tops, and what
Tupperware feel would make
Napping in nurseries so pleasant
That dreams are dragged-over
Historical delusions;

It takes
Back tumbling of age and mustard
Seed back to Greek and brush-mountain melodies
Of growing back to Seneca songs
Into humming, and humbling of kayote key
Notes of learning to read between
Yapping at the moonlight
To know, this canine.