As the light dyed 
kaleidoscopes of colors ‘cross her face, 
her amethyst eyes beheld the look of
wonder that he chased
and as her wonder curtsied,
she dipped fingers in his wine
and out of blood, in afterglow
he bit her wrists and thighs
so that she smiled
into his bones,
a fragment girl grown bold, 
so kisses from her lips to his
would conquer souls so cold
and with his fingertips he brushed 
her skin 
like voltaic feathers
his fire coursing from veins of blue blood
that she severed
with her intent
her brow like silk 
against his calloused palm
whispering her secrets 
as she coaxed his dreams along
and as she writhed, her eyes alit
in ruby crimson swirls
and as he stroked her mindscape
he then bit the sky-named girl
and from the skye fell
teardrops
that would drench him to the bone
filled him with their conflictions, 
with a soul he’d never known
and as she laughed, 
cheeks stained with tears,
she asked him “Do we dare?”
“Yes!” he replied, 
as lightning flashed, 
reflecting back his stare
and so the waltz crashed, thunderous
as he took her by the waist
to dance 
across a happenstance
around that haunted place
for wild things
like she and he
were never meant to dance
to be that close, for fallen souls
aren’t meant to fall entranced
never meant to magnify 
each dirty word and deed
nor see the hungry children of Adam and of Eve
careless gods were meant to feed
never meant to conquer complex thoughts
of Woman to a Man
nor seek Understanding
that was folly, not the plan
but gods are moody at their best,
their humor dark and bent
so they began a danse macabre
like devils, heaven-sent,
and as the lost amassed
to watch 
the fires from their spark
unheard became the sound of worlds 
colliding
in the dark…

********************************************************************************************

Copyright 2012 by Victoria Selene Skye-Deme and Bard Constantine

Image: Dance of Life by Edvard Munch

When I am old

it will be okay for me to talk to old man snake

out in the sun

up the spine of Canyon de Chelly

I will be beveled like stained glass

with sunshine in my veins

and sand underneath my fingernails

Old man snake could care less about my french manicure

so I’ll leave that for the you with Ming

at the Oriental market

where manicures are only ten dollars

between noon and one pm

When I have the luxury of being gray

and bent over the mesa in my many skirts

it will be okay for me to be crazy

and tell the stories

about the rattler who fell in love with me

when I was a young woman

He was old and lonely

tired of coiling around rocks

and I came with bruises on my lips

and cherries in my little apron

our from the hogan

where eagle sat drying his drunken youth into an aging man’s 

dying liver

Jack Daniels dripping down his fingertips

with my blood

Old Man Rattler loved my youth

he came to eat the cherries from my palm

and pull me into the shadow of his rock from the burning Arizona 

sun

he coiled me into his dreams

shifting me across a thousand miles of sand and mesas on sleek

belly

and scales

he kissed me a thousand times

deep inside my heart from the cold desert night

we watched the stars

and he dreamed of being human again

and knocking the hell out of the jackal for this bad joke of a forked 

tongue

and unhinged jaw

and I dreamed myself into the stars

out of the blood taste in my mouth

and the bruised taste on my soul

When I am an old woman

it will be okay for me to talk to rattlesnakes

and to find the rock

in canyon De Chelly

for my bones

but for now

I cannot talk to snakes

and my manicure must be perfect

and my hair must hide the silk strand of white at the temples

with gold

But one day I will be old

and I will be happy

in my big skirts

and my wrinkled skin

rattling bones

*********************************************************************************************

Copyright 2012 by Victoria Selene Skye-Deme; Images: The Nude Snake Charmer by Paul Desiré Trouillebert circa 1880; Detail of Snake Women by Boris Vallejo.

She engendered a quantum leap of thought 
entangled in a prismatic locomotion forward
she had meant to do nothing more
than dream the afternoon away in a briar patch 
became instead ethereal property by chance
between the mind of a man and a piece of glass
divided in a chemical downpour
a pulse of energy
she separated
became dual hope in the split 
linked to a crystal doppelganger 
their palms described in a press against the membrane 
of twin stars
spatially separated
inside a partitioned crystal ball;
space convulsed
matter shifted
under a universal microscope 

“She is the ultimate definition of the EPR paradox.”
said the pointed little man in a gray coat
he thumbed an ancient papyrus
interconnecting
uncertain correlations
between the view of the alabaster specimen
and her smoky twin
displaced outside a nucleus
that could not quite be defined as matter
yet was

The modern day mythic speculation
spun an indeterminate spiral
from its helix
but only in theory
until the white queen leaned in and gave it a spin
with her sweet breath
in a single state
doubling it
into myriad sighs

She came together at the apex
a fragment
a gorgeous postulation in feathers
to be measured
and correlated
for opposites and similarities
the gulf between the two
irrelevant as the pearls that fell from a strand
dived through sea foam
to become
notes
in a world drowned in blues
and trillions of thoughts bumping the waves

“If you can for a moment look at her as a theory, the hidden variables may be inclined
to disengage from her secret myth existence and give themselves a moment to breathe, to amuse and inspire.”
said the man in the tan coat;
the audience pressed their foreheads
against the glass
into a hypersonic whisper
as the dualities smiled and decided to give them a show
and began to communicate with one another

An induced collision moved her to separate her layers
give birth to her hidden self
as the area decayed around them
they had no choice but to relink in a brand new way
on a brand new day
that sent the branch of quantum physics
into a tizzy

Relativistically speaking
space and time are the best joke ever played on man
reasonable modicums of perception are rarely spicy enough
for such a sharp species
ambiguous states spun through the nucleus of a gem like atom
will rarely bring about a validation of theorems
inside the generic realms of physics;
to be in this predicament
the woman had to shed her ego
and step out of her cell
into a metaphysical bath
take the quantum leap of division
to allow them to observe her distinct value
squared

The wave guided the duality
the duality gave function to the wave
which collapsed against the side of a tank
in a controlled experiment that was anything but controlled
as the speed of light bent
brought about a perplexing state of being

The woman had unintentionally stepped on the ultimate thorn
in a briar patch out of a creation myth steeped in a chemical dream
of the quantum entanglement theory ;
she looked at her reflection
except it wasn’t a reflection
at all


Schrödinger shrugged out of his string coat
smiled from a pleat of a lotus
and let the cat out of the box

**********************************************************************************************

Copyright 2012 by Victoria Selene Skye-Deme; Painting: CamCreativeArt.Uk.com

*This poem was written after I challenged Selene to interpret the physics theory of quantum entanglement, in which a particle is split into two separate particles that, contrary to the laws of physics, appear able to interact at the speed of light.  The two particles always have opposite properties.  For instance, if one spins clockwise, the other will instantly start spinning counterclockwise.

Sad carapace
I am peeling you off 
Following
Soft shell crabs
Into the joyous sea!

Copyright 2012 by Victoria Selene Skye-Deme; Image: Mackenzie on Tumblr.

If you scratch at the surface

with the tip of your fingernail

it will become clear

start to rise to the surface

all the fumes and grime

festering below ground level

where eyes don’t dare to go

rather they languish on

the smooth rocks and green grass

Not many want to see

what lurks - there

the monsters of the mind

have grown strong roots

gnaw away at the very

blood and sinew of your soul

But scratch we must

face it we must

or we become its slave

a living ghost of

scattered memories

Honey tea will not

soothe away this truth

Herbal potions and cremes

cannot hide the scent

environed in the feverish skin

of the beast who burns

a path up and on

toward the innocents

who refused to look

turned their pale backs

ignored the bloody marks

covering their mortal bones

creating a world of illusion

where no harm could visit

if they just keep looking

away and out

instead of in and down

Copyright 2012 by Michelle Kennedy.  Image: Open Wide by Jon Beinart

Tsi ge yu i

I promised you a keepsake
scented with my hair
lemongrass and mint
for when the distance
between us became
more than just miles
when your fingers could
no longer reach to
stroke my inner
thoughts and caress
my face and tap into
my creative mind when
I would be cold bones
in a bed of earth

I promised you this
knowing it was sooner
than later my turn
to lay still under the oak
on the mountain where
my grandparents waited
for my untimely arrival
My big heart could not
wage a victorious war
against fate and her demands

I promised my eternal love
but you wanted something
substantive and solid
Corporal sense was real
but you could not hold it
you could not smell it
you could not close your eyes
imagine me laying in your arms

So I made you a medicine bag
filled with my charms
symbols of who I was
scent, touch, words
to wear against your skin
to remember me when
I was no longer here to help
heal your wounded spirit

Earth teach me acceptance ~ as the leaves that die each fall.
Earth teach me renewal ~ as the seed that rises in the spring.

(Part of an Ute Prayer)

***************************************************************************************************

Copyright 2012 by Michelle Kennedy.

Painting:  Forgotten Dancer, NativeTalismanArt

I hunt on the edge of Eden

where the sharp sky and rough rock

meet green meadows and wildflowers

alive and breathing in natural harmony

My gleaming rib a bow

the sinew of my ancestors

the string upon which

I place my steel arrow

I am woman and guardian

of this blood stained valley

It is not four legged creatures

or the winged beauties above me

who I arm myself against

No

My prey are the humans

who pillage and leave their trail

of blood soaking into

the mountains and grass

desecrating the very land

they claim as their own

I am the earth shadow against the sun

standing tall and resolute

I wait, watch, protect

Copyright 2012 by Michelle Kennedy.  Stock Image from Google.

When my fingers trace

your most delicate arch

run gingerly and freely

over every curve and valley

This is where I find peace..”

He whispered each word

as if it were his last

as if his bones

were being left

white and vulnerable

in the heat of the desert

as if his heart was

left to languish in the midday

exposed in a sharpened sky

I felt each letter etched

into my spine as I inched

closer to his craving

I wanted to smell his hunger

taste his aching thirst

move him to the edge

where the sun kisses the earth

“You know where to find me

here in the soft spaces of the air

there in the quiet place in your mind

wherever you are, I am there”

Selah.

************************************************************************************************

Copyright 2012 by Michelle Kennedy. Photo: Stock Image, Arches National Park

For my son