Poem: Maenad In Mojave

This poem, which took over a year to craft, recently appeared in Danse Macabre, and is one of my favorites, because of the shamanic theme.

Now I'm off to LAX. I'm terrified!

Owl

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Maenad in Mojave

wearing her tunic of dust,
all questions behave,
no smug elusion
or feints of babbittry.

her fissured lips
kiss rivers of croon
stolen from alkalis
and sold to coyotes
on the wind.

her nostrils brace
for whiffs of succubae:
mescaline, locoweed,
and creosote. she’s tasted
their nipples so many times,

and they, like harridan divas,
have tasted her back,
led her through claws of cholla
unripped.

who hears her howl?
no Satan, Jesus or Lear.
who follows her sidewinder
sanskrit,

troubled as they burn,
deciphering without wanting,
feeling their own sad
sandstone?


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