Movement Skinward

My skin does not walk under starlight
It runs and writhes and floats and flies

Magic and ink
I wonder if they’ve ever been separate
Why else do you need ink
If not to sign the universe
In a spot where you can access it anytime
Look at the wall and remember
That brief flash of understanding
That moment when it all came together

People inked beasts on cave walls in France
In some when we can only conjure
I’ve got to wonder—
Was it out of reverence? Remembrance?
Greater minds claim it was form of Voodoo
They captured the strength in ink
To capture the bull between stony spears and blood
And so fill their bellies

Tonight I’m hungry
I haven’t seen a star in months
I’ve lost my frame of reference
My skin sits silent waiting for some magic to move me

Energy and ambition ferment explosively
Magic and ink
The movement of life under my skin
Breaks free in a moment
freezing on my surface the stigmata of passion
I envision beasts and butterflies and horses
Black on black in proud cipher

Magic and Inky twining snakes, burst from beneath
My skin in bulging cords of muscle and tendon
To make my skin a little more comfortable to live in

Inked Beasts belly-full,
drawn on this cave of my skin
Magicked there to show possession—
A fiction I'm pursuing
On horses through the valley of her back
On gossamer wings between her thighs
And stuck to the tips of these beasts' horns
Gored through her navel
I consume visually while they feed.

Magic and ink
Which way to go
If I'm still looking for the strength of a bull
How far have I come from Lascaux?
I won't deny the magic in the ink
Because it has secrets I can't know till we live in the same cave—
In the same skin

Magic and ink
Her hands busy all day reverently holding smoke
She rests the incense in an ashtray-shaped censer and performs the rites
Paints me magic
Channels the running, writhing, floating and flying
into direction for my skin

Spring 2005