Dark Tigers

Birth Moment

2010-01-05T18:57:00.001-05:00

The year is still being born.
No one has yet heard clearly
the first gasped cry.
Who can even tell
what it will be
(not boy or girl
but love or loss)?

Only one thing
can be written in the admissions:
No matter how old
this year may become
it will never see
you running
in wind or sun
or rain
or even snow
to me.

by Bonnie McConnell

Legends, Vol. 1 No. 1, Winter 1972, p. 36

Stop All Sound And Touch

2009-12-30T00:01:00.000-05:00

If you will stand the stronger of us now;
if you will armor well (and better than
my self has done) against the fletched betrayal
of all the senses clamoring for that
they had and learned and grew addicted to
by every pulse desire ignites to flares;

if you will firm your spine with rods of steel;
if you will stay in your far, secret place,
nor ever move toward me, noon or night,
reality or dream; if you will stop
your mouth's remembrance of the syllables
that shape my name, the knowledge in your mind
(deep-etched by long familiarity)
that moves the spinning numbers to reach out
along the endless miles of wire, and ring
the world, like tocsins, in my hidden room --

I say to you, if you will do these things,
will let compassion build a sturdier wall
to hide all sight and stop all sound and touch,
then I may somehow learn that being lost
in alien galaxies of loneliness
can be adjusted to, and breath will lift
my breast, unasked -- and I may live again.

p. 43

No Longer The Chalice

2009-12-25T10:37:00.000-05:00

Hollowed out of my heart,
old, beautiful words like opals,
like shimmering iris lakes,
lie mute, their spectrums lost . . .
Yearning over them, I am no longer young,
struck to elation and tall as spires,
having the blinding joy of harps
arrowing silver music in me. I am
no longer the chalice of white, fragile notes;
nevermore am I able to take verb and noun,
open their many amazements, and own
new worlds chiming opal nebulae!

p. 18

Little To Choose

2009-12-20T01:44:00.000-05:00

Fear makes loneliness
an eternity of spine-ice --

Or is it loneliness
that tendrils out time
in icy hands, creating fear?

There is little to choose
between cause and effect.
Either or both move
like ghoulish terror
through veins
that once reared and ramped
all the lengths and articulations
of singing bones
in a fountaining fire of need,
of need-met.

It is not like that now.

Veins are jagged with crystallized
neverness.

p. 20

The Last Bright Blaze

2009-12-15T01:37:00.000-05:00

Strange how many,
knowing me,
well and daily,
fail to see
what consuming
flame I bear
in my body's
ivory lair.
Strange how many
soon will stand
staring at my
scorch of land
(ash of blazing
self) with awe,
never knowing
what they saw.
Strange how many,
going forth
note the turning
wind is north --
note and never
even guess
why their pulse-warmth
will be less.

p. 31

Boat Adrift

2009-12-10T19:08:00.002-05:00

In the faraway afternoons of mood
while you are attempting to chain
the snarl of beast in your blood,
cramped over the dark waters again --
what does your glazed absorption see
in the slow, deepening underwater mirror?
The pale pearl features staring back at you,
holding you rapt to force you to the clearer
sight you have tried to claw from yourself;
the long, dark ribbons of fernlike hair
moved as by a wind, floating in the gulf
of adamant seas of brain, the opal-bare
indifference of smile, the sinuous ripple
of mooncold flesh, the gemmed and remembering eyes,
the beckoning fingers, languid in the dapple
of current-glint, the surf of drowned sighs?

This is your time. Now there are no more easy
escapes for you. What you look into and through
is I. It will always be I. The world grows hazy
as you topple down to the certain fate you always knew.

by Bonnie McConnell

Legend, Vol. 1 No. 2, Spring 1972, p. 58

The Finality

2009-12-05T01:12:00.000-05:00

I have wept too much --
cancel out my tears.
I can weep no more.
We avoid each touch.

I am spent with all
the emotional fears --
Let the last stone fall.
Slam the wavering door.

When the stone's hard blow
adds the final bruise
to my livid heart,
I will stand, and go

in a strange, wild pride;
for I do not choose
that you see, inside,
how a death can start.

p. 32

Struck Bells

2009-11-30T11:30:00.002-05:00

I have forgotten them all.
Every city along whose streets
we walked, shoulder-pressed and glad,
every small slumberous town
with faint, few sleepy lights,
every hallowed room-for-a-night
that circled us in private edens --
all are as sun-shattered dreams.

(Genuflection to my all-merciful God!)

I could go anywhere, now,
head up, unafraid of haunted corners.
I could stride elegantly through tree-arched parkways,
half-whistling a once-cherished air.
I could sleep soundly in any bed,
cupped in a dreamless non-caring.
I could come slowly, languorously awake
to the fountain-throated meadowlark.

(Prayer of gratitude to the Compassionate Lord!)

Now I can make my songs
in what moment's way I choose,
nor bring them in uncertain hands
to spread before your critical eyes
whose merest scorn can crisp them black
and make my sternest effort seem the gaggling of a fool.
I need account to none save myself
when my runes spell out new names.

(Bending of candle-flame head to My Redeemer!)

I have forgotten them all,
all the taboos and the wanton freedoms,
all the torching lessons that shook awake my innocence,
all the small intimacies in the sorcery of your hands,
all the winds blowing wild through my hair
on all the journeys of laughter and of hush --
I have forgotten them . . .
I AM LYING IN MY CLENCHED TEETH !

(Beating of my breast -- "Through my most grievous fault . . . !"

p. 37

None So Blind

2009-11-25T00:30:00.000-05:00

Ravelled, crooked, dark,
as cold as the grimed snow
lying in used and dirty
pilings in the gutters of his life,
he bears his own shadow;
eternal incubus
deep in himself, undivided twin.

When he lopes from all light,
always the inside blackness runs
relentless as his intimate blood,
demon and dread, inescapable.
More cannot be done t scalpel
curse of dark and violence
cleanly from his skeleton,
opening the festering to winds
new and purifying and healing.

Non-desire for all help
exists as a snarling entity --
Loosen the prayer-cords from his breath-space,
let him bear his own furious cancer.

p. 48

After the Fact

2009-11-20T02:22:00.000-05:00

My hair is drenched and heavy
with the icy cataract of knowledge:
no more can I carry my head high,
free and strong in the certainty
of my being desired,
sought-for as sunwarmth,
needed as green, clean air
and the morning phrase of birds.
I stand in the cold downpour
of your casual contempt,
and my flesh draws taut
while the blood runs like chilly needles
in and through, holding me together
by red stitches of pride.

p. 33

Note Left On The Door

2009-11-15T00:38:00.002-05:00

Are you watching? See!
I am going away from here --
the door's lock will be shattered.

I will not turn to look back.
You may come arrogantly again
into the rooms and spaces we filled.

Everything will be almost the same.
A few items will be gone --
toys, several books, my typewriter --

Nothing you will need or miss.
There will be food and drink,
though not the nectar and ambrosia

such as we first tasted unsurprised.
There will be music we sang and memorized,
and paintings you boasted about once.

Oh, yes, one other thing, not looked for --
There will be a long slow ribbon
playing back to your startled ears my unbreakable love.

p. 49

And Still You Cling

2009-11-10T01:00:00.000-05:00

Moonsongs I made you,
from lightning and rain;
and small laughing stanzas
shaped out of pain.

Fountains I gave you,
from deserts of stone;
and windbells and chiming,
from dark fears alone.

Birdflutes I sent you,
from threatening air;
and blossoming lyrics,
that stripped my strength bare.

What more is wanted,
that you be made glad?
What is there left me
that you have not had?

p. 33

Taught of the Bitter Tears

2009-11-05T01:16:00.000-05:00

In the helplessness of love
we hear the loved one weep,
and our need to be enough
to quiet tears is deep.
But tears are harsh and salt
and sometimes love must stand
mute, in anguished default,
when even the touch of hand
does not bring the comfort sought --
The loved one who weeps must go
the dark way, alone, and taught
of the bitter tears, to know.

p. 32

And Is This Answer?

2009-10-30T01:40:00.000-04:00

In the levee nights of wind
and dark blown stars
companioning the far dream-moon,
your feet pressed achingly down
over the moist, still earth,
what has the surging bitter-sweet hunger
shaped to your won vision,
echoing the opal-sheened face
the moon turned to summon your eyes?

In the meadowland range,
high with thrusting trees and hills,
wind-harped with silver starnotes,
your throbbing length flung deeply
into the curve of earth's breast,
what was the stretching cry of longing
built into a life's prayer of need,
arrowing up and up to infinities beyond infinity,
searching out the source of all answer?

In the smoke-thick dimnesses
raucous with stumbling words slurred by other hungers,
heavy with tainted air and thought,
your restless runaway flesh pent by thirst
into the prison of counterfeit laughter,
what was the sudden wrenching scream
clawing outward from your tamped-down hidden heart,
loping over immeasurable space to a cleaner haven,
holding the pedestaled image of desire?

In the brooding chill of morning,
hushed hours away from the blessing of light,
in a world containing you -- alone --
your body hunched and huddled into smallness
upon the cold stair of lonely yearning,
what was the amulet of strung phrases,
the moonword of far remembrance,
repeated endlessly to span the mist-breathed night
and -- oh, God! -- reach the named and known?

p. 38

Whose Core is Words

2009-10-25T20:04:00.000-04:00

Ther are more words in me than I dare use.
They clang and cry and crash against the cell
of my taut flesh. Much cooler lips accuse
my mind that claws them loose and tries to tell
their caves and chasms, cliff and crags, of being
verbose for phrasing's sake alone. I burn
with subtle passion for their instant freeing --
being both cell and prisoner, how do I learn
to tamp them down, to grow more terse, to chill
the first of every seeding at its birth?
I have not learned! I doubt I ever will!
Grow wider, skies! Make ready, richened earth!

Portrait

2009-10-20T00:43:00.000-04:00

Rain in a platinum world of pooled stars.
Always the soft, sweet clean scent of rain,
lying, like perfumed hands against a face
poignant with aching dreams and with the pain
heavy upon the unquiet, savage heart . . .
East wind tossing the glistening branches of thornapple.
Down on the red ripening clusters, rain falling --
Weather unpredictable, but misty with silver;
and, always, the haunting voice in the heart calling . . .
Rain! Say, "Rain!", and I say it, and touch
dewy lashes that lift to unveil my eyes that wait.
Maybe this rain, chiming down on rivering snow,
chiming on leaves, he will come -- and it wont' be too late!
Come in the silver atmosphere of rain, my lover!
Over our hearts the rain trails an intimate hand.
Now in the rainlight come -- I am ripe with love
no one but you and the fertile rain could understand.
Everywhere the rain touches me, you have touched me . . .
Let it be now, in rain, that your hand refinds
lost wonders, bursting stars of rainglory in our minds!

p. 51

Mine Eyes Have Seen

2009-10-15T00:10:00.000-04:00

Curdled sky drew a tease of dark
over the half-roused trees
in the sullen silence of the back path.
Hurried by the iced hand of night
and the too-weightless garment of haste,
I would have missed them entirely --
the two heart-lurching silhouettes --
but as I sped around dark's angle of stone,
my impatient foot nudged a clatter of pebble
and the small staccato sent its message into stilled air.
Above my head, almost invisible in crossed branches,
an anger of wings flicked and one branch dipped:
two crested heads! Cardinals! Come to the thorn tree
and, by their own sorcery, making my stubborn eyes
see, even in the undersea dark, the glint of scarlet!
Spiked to the pavement, I stood and closed the valves
on all sound of breath -- movement stopped.
We regarded each other, messengers and recipient,
soberly and with all official respect.
It has been an eon since they were dispatched before . . .
In my dancing marrow, I believe
they have missed my acknowledgement
as deeply as I have missed their annunciation,
brought on the arcane orders of love.

p. 53

What Hidden Shelter

2009-10-10T00:05:00.002-04:00

Richly, some room holds you --
although the room itself is squalid,
lessened by seedy transients,
permitted no beauty, until now,
holding you, it shelters a world.
Even its dark dinginess is altered,
drawn out of its barren existence,
warmed inward to where you lie --
asleep? Restless and brooding? Remembering?
Regretting other places, fusions of love?
Down the bare, uncarpeted corridors
many feet move heavily, lurching, stumbling,
carrying other men to rooms as faceless,
characterless, uncaring, unbeautiful.
Only the single room shutting the wind away from you,
none other, is rich beyond riches tonight.
Not so, this clean-walled, soft-lamped room of mine --
Everywhere my memory turns,
longing assails it and I am a prisoner,
lost in the one-time eden from which you removed your richness.

p. 42

Other Season

2009-10-05T04:57:00.001-04:00

This is the other season --
I approve of it.
It is a cool closing of green silence
in slow fathoms
over the shattered brain.
This is the strange season,
alien and beautiful,
when the mind slides down
into coral depths
and tempos of silver gills,
loved by old centuries.
This is the small season
that has one entrance only,
whose sun-starred door,
once passed through,
glimmers slowly into forever
and the exhausted water-treader
leans wholly into it at last.

p. 58

Shrill Calliope

2009-09-30T11:50:00.000-04:00

Ah, very little daughter,
do you remember well
that day that was all laughter --
until the carousel?

You never could explain them,
your sudden, frightened tears.
You had no words for reasons,
who had so little years --

Not even now, my small one,
could you name the reason:
your whole short life a carousel,
and always the wrong season.

p. 39

Take It Away

2009-09-25T02:42:00.002-04:00

The shrunken stone face
lies mute on the altar of mahogany.
It stares out of hard eyes
at my vulnerable hypnoticism.
God knows what that granite expression,
that heavy grim mouth,
those unblinking eyes of coldness
hides of what my face betrays.
And, as to that, God knows --
(how could a face of stone know!) --
what it searches, or if it even sees
my sudden chill of flesh.

God also knows what guilt
lies in me for the probe of eyes.

Legend, Vol. 3 No. 1, Winter 1974, p. 37

2009-09-20T01:05:00.000-04:00

Bonnie Elizabeth Kerr ca. 1921

Bonnie was born 90 years ago today in Detroit, Michigan.

On Newer Roads

2009-09-15T00:52:00.000-04:00

You had done better
if you had placed
some manner of protective screening
across the blazing lamp
of your desire.

You had done better
if you had closed off
all entrances to the flame
and the shouting glory
of your body.

You had done better
if you had followed
the magnet of moongirldream
along other darknesses
than my need.
But you set high your torch,
you opened wide your mysteries,
you scented the night with fire --
I crawl agonizingly slow, now,
for my frail innocent wings are stubs of char.

p. 50

Encore, No

2009-09-10T20:54:00.002-04:00

What troubles you so dark,
what ravels you so deep,
has stripped your ribbing stark
and gnashes in your sleep.

What grinds the knotted fist
again, again, again,
behind your eyes, can twist
your reel of drunken brain.

You hunger for your lost,
you thirst for brooding caves --
you curse the heavy cost
the answered praying craves.

Then are you also dumb
and blind, who cannot see
as easy as you come,
so easy you go free?

The bitter air that breathes
in you is yours. Leave. Fly!
Your blade my blood unsheathes --
you shall not see me die!

Word

2009-09-05T01:57:00.000-04:00

There is a thing that all my bones believe --
it is as real to me as every bone:
taut, in a ring of snarling beasts of prey,
far off, a man stands maddened and alone.

Weaponless, I will journey down the dark,
carrying him the green and silver word --
I will not speak it here. It is for him.
The beasts will lie down at his feet when he has heard.

p. 21