Angel Wings

 

My child, you are the wind beneath my wings,

she whispered into me, every night of every day

in any way she could.  Then drank my blood 

into her heart and as she sent me off to school

she pinned her name into my hood.

 

My mother bird with whiskey breath, 

you built your nest a brilliant cage, you are my song

my sheer delight, my shining every thing. 

Dear angel wings snipped off at night in drunken love 

and blacked out sight until it was unto itself,  

the only hopeless road to bed.

 

Tired puppet strings of mother’s frock darned away, 

turning the lock a cage adorned with silken thread 

in effervescent lipstick red.  Forgot to look around my cell, 

a head transfixed unto thine eyes that spoke and stroked 

and fed and poked.  Behold this sorcery of smoke, 

a captivated dance of hope, declaring forth the beating 

drum of tainted empty hopeless love. 

 

Fly my child, an opened door.  Misguided wanderer 

wanting more.  Thin wisps of feathers fell away, 

a shrunken ghost I soared and swayed 

into the gaping mouths of hell, my beak a screech 

of silent cries.  I cocked my head and spied the lies.

 

Oh Father dawning truth foretold, a tale of stolen youth 

adorned in secret lullabies and shame, mocked me, 

locked me down in pain.  Oh sing divine maidens

written in fables, of prayers at the table knitting sad angels 

in demon dresses and clown caresses 

hidden beneath a mask of skin, this mastery 

of perfect sin. 

 

Creator of all, excise our wings and drink our souls,

to emerge amidst thine earthly smoke with eyes adimmed 

and hearts so still.  In cradled arms unto his lap he taketh in 

all carnal sin until we hear the angel song, rejoicing forth, 

Whence we belong ?  

 

A foregone mockery of scrolls unravelling this masterpiece 

untold.  A game of angst or a witches dance, a portrait of shame 

or a sage’s embrace all to be held in his darshan of faith.

On bended knees we rise forth to gaze in wonder 

at His unseen face and surrender our wings 

to this maya of unspeakable Grace.