Imperatives

Marilyn Buck

[This poem is read on the CD by Mariann Wizard. MP3 of this poem]

Bring me out
mine the wild abandon
that was mine
once
when I was seventeen
a young wraith in black
bells ringing in flight
wrapped around a young man's back
on a BMW that wound up mountains
to a naked lunch
on ice-planted crags
pounded by the Pacific

once
when I was thirty
entrancing from clandestine
curtained brilliance
a subversive siren in a sea
of easily parted waves of dark-eyed lovers

awaken passion one more time
I am in danger!
the zodiac abandons me
to land-locked shadows
they smother me flat
I cannot breathe without
the vivid rainbow edge

find me
free me from pale dry days
of drab restraint

                                                                      October 1997


poems © the authors
compilation © The Freedom Archives