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I.
After four hundred years,
Don Quixote is tired
of tilting at windmills
disguised as the giants of Empire
in the name of a woman
who can't remember
she ever dreamed
that she knew
that he existed.
Riding out with a broken lance
across a barren land,
blood seeping from the cracks in the ground.
Dulcinea,
woman of a thousand faces,
calling out behind your masks,
from that dark watery place
before memory,
before naming
with an emptiness that cries to be filled
with a fullness that cries to be born
I summon you now,
take on your flesh
and stand before me
to answer for all
you set in motion.
II.
Sure, I may be the coy-dog
half-breed bastard
who passed well enough
to be let in by the fire
until I kept everyone awake
all night with my howling
and got thrown out into the snow.
But it was you who
sang from just beyond
the western horizon,
stirring something inside me that
remembered my wildness,
it was you whose scent blew in on the wind,
it was you who skattered bones on the ground
and marked the trunk of the oldest oak
with the blood of your estrus,
it was you who slipped in through the window
while I was sleeping,
left toothmarks on my shoulder
don't you remember my heart beating like a bodhran?
don't you remember the whiskey on my lips?
don't you remember the changes in the moonlight?
don't you remember?
don't you remember?
don't you remember?
III.
Dirt road on a moonless night
blue lights behind you
sound of pistols cocking.
Don't tell me it isn't
time yet
when you're already dying
from the poisons
in the air
and the soil
and the water.
Don't tell me that wasn't you
dancing by the fire
with a garland of skulls
around your neck.
Don't tell me this isn't
what we called down
when we fucked 'til dawn
the night the bombs began to fall
and you let out blood-curdling
wails of rage
when you came
and chanted the names of
Morrigan,
Inananna
Bean-Sidhe,
Kali.
Don't tell me
this isn't what you signed up for
when you've got a lighter in your pocket
and a gallon of gasoline in your trunk . .
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