my eyes are open windows
uncurtained
painting naked beams
across the ceiling
shot from unshaded bulbs
impossible to dream
inside that brilliance
& if I close my lids
the heat
thrown off by this
spontaneous internal combustion
will fuse them closed
locking light in
She squats, entombed already
inside that burka,
gray linen worn as the stones
and soil beneath her flat sandals
stares into the treeline, past it
her end playing out
away from that greenness
and silent, meeting it
but she is not stone
nor is he, not yet,
not completely,
because she flinches
and his hand shakes
as he aims and misses twice
her head up, not bowing
before four more shots
send this woman
who allegedly fell already
lower, the way flesh falls
when it no longer fights
inevitable things
like gravity.
Long listen, but so worth it!
Joy Harjo has released four CDs, and won a Native American Music Award for Best Female Artist of the Year for her album, Winding Through the Milky Way.
View caption Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie
this floating
largeness
of mind
when he fades
he falls
gently
rocked by
currents
to rest on
an unquiet floor
murmuring news
of flesh to fill
these many mouths
bloomed out of famine
who swim to his feast of bones
lasting decades
there is no alternate ending
where instead of
offering up our palms
in a mudra of helplessness
or surrender
we get the love back
watching you piece
this broken us
together, like a jigsaw
but with sharp edges
and pieces missing
in the middle
is unnecessary bleeding
there is nothing
to fight for, or prove
we have both lost
Those 2 first women
Eve and Pandora
if they had met
after the fruit was bitten
and the jar opened
what would they say
to each other
sisters in shame
betrayed by inner natures
so similar
one engineered from dust and water
and the other a rib
Eve, with her bitten fruit
tasted death, suffering,
but also knowing
and Pandora
loosed all evil
into the world
but kept hope;
she earned no curse
and passed none
to her daughters–
not so, our Eve
but why is trouble
laid on female heads
and blame
when, without balanced willingness
to sample temptation
or peek inside something sealed
we would be without hope
and ignorant of it
not mind over matter
that mind mastering flesh
that is subject to it anyway
with its quiet cravings
but mind over mind
in a wrestling match
limbic system shouting over
the reasonable cortex
its wants
and self
jumping between poles
of craving and reason
attempting balance
on steep slopes
and slipping on substance
shaped to trip and bruise
the best intentions
Susan Daniels Poetry 