The sum of all the elements
     between Earth and Heaven
     masquerade her fair complexion
          as she stands along the shoreline
     watching birth return to ashes
     and she laughs in resurrection
     'cos she's already been through all that
          as a dark, silent, wandering gypsy
All battles in church's religion
     of men who bleed at altars
     and mistake their collars for saint insignia
All anarchy towards reason
     like the war machine producing contempt
          for all human life and limb
               laying wasted words so ample
               that they drown out birth's existence
Alongside those who take up ignorance
Who dress themselves in new flesh
     and pass up her regards 
     of feminist declaration
Still she holds out her hand
     to a world in reincarnation
          never held down to her options
               -a tongue standing in rebellion
     and on the other side of conquest
     on the other side of judgement
          she has found the water to be sweeter
          for to baptize her conscience
And she prowls with spanish steps


Ethereal creation
that doubts border-bred existence
     marks unheard of relation
          beauty laced - intellectually shadowed
     spun hair of Rembrandt gold
          eyes that keep you from wandering
          with torture crowned frustrations
               in Dante's burning laughter
From lips in figurine curl
to the rapid neckline pulse
the silken curtain before her placid vagina
down to her crescent moon ankles
     This heart that braves in honor
     is prose odyssey in itself
          with breathing shallow'd slow
          under breasts swelled with conviction
     Flesh that knows no boundaries
     except those these lips to offer
     on industrial night in gothic faith
          experimental haunting of salvation
     The somber song of whispers
          she repeats from ancient foldings
     through gentle touch caress
          she bathed in Norse tradition
And she prowls with spanish steps


Two thousand years of wisdom
never falls to modern abstract
     never crucified by the poetic
          never aging to the wicked
     in as such she's torn down the fences
     to see all that hate's created
          and noticed through honest eyelids
          that even darkness corners Heaven
     and she's skipping stones of ATMAN folklore
          off our age of understanding
     to ensure that innocence
          is not plucked from mind or matter
               for the fire in her courage
                    is the bond foundation
                    architect of her nature
     bringing Desert Kings and madmen across her Nile
Yet to know that nothing sacred
ever comes from days in hiding
     eases the tear of thickets 
          from the isles of truth and wonder
With the solstice of her passions
With the Paris of her soul
     she documents the future
          in the golden spring of her eyes
while she prowls with spanish steps




                    .........and into this picture now, poet, I

Please

                              SING FOR ME
                              DANCE FOR ME
                                   SWEET MUSE,
                              INSPIRE ME!

     For time began with us
          and shall end with us


But who were you before storm clouds poisoned my mind
Who were you before sleeplessness stole my judgement
Who were you before I lay shivering with amphetamine
destruction
Where were you before they put a date on my death certificate
Where were you before the faces of Plainsmen women
     withered with insanity
Where were you before I picked up this pen

and where were you before I wore black?


                                             -Dylan Wahl

                                              copyright 1994