beside the curtain's slow,

white, wind-suspended

flapping.  It is between

and in:  between my arms

and the cold slap of the pool:

in the stars and my arms,

moving.  I want to say

no more than I know, in words

exact and plain, so

immediate that they smell

of desert wind, chilled

skin, sopped hair,

hot walls, power

in the world between things

like the wind:  traced

between us in compulsions

and repulsions, as the wind's

portrayed by lines its motion

draws with sails, or wears

in things that stand.  Power

is in the world with the wind.

Lion

i.

There is a force at large in the streets of my head

at first I rode it like a pony

I showed it like a horse, but

now I recognize the stride of the lion

on great pads in the spacious

avenues of the mind, that

frightened me as a child

     the roar, the giant purr

     that rock me

     gold eyes that know lies

     invisible fine whiskers feeling out

     smelling out truth

     heart that beats out distances

     haunches that wait long

     breath of power that takes my breath away

the lion loose in the streets of my head

free to approach the backs of the eyes and gaze

suddenly jars the heart to her blunt beat

dazzles the seeking eye with her hot stare

     lion man, friend of the great-eyed lions

     tell me how to be alone in these wide streets

     gazing with these

     gold eyes

ii.

     Silence the roar?

     still the leap?

     leash the goldeyed

     lion tight?

keepers of lions on leashes are wakeful always

to the pull at the wrist; the scope of the keeper

is the length of the leash, though the lion doze

     the lion in strength may wait

     resting and keep her speed

     the watcher's pace

     slows

escape in the eye of the lion eternally real

maintains the vigilant jailer under siege

     become the cage

                                             Continue   Stream of Fire

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