Blackbird Raum Witches
“And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,
— you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing,
for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no
center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead”
-Black Elk
In others’ mouths the scraping of rocks, who walk a rope
run along the ground Into the basket
Whither the sky is fatted with ice, come as the earth grows
richer of blood - The doe is in season
We pull our teeth out laying down in easy places we
thicken the air with talk but cover our eyes up with our hands
They’re shooting the wolves from helicopters can you believe that
Out in the wide world the wildest ones are vanishing quickly
Out in the wood a passing of hours, in the jailhouse of limb
a passing of years Into the casket
I will not crouch polluted with law,
no traitor to witch no traitor to wolf
Judas Iscariot
Now the white wool has twisted ‘round the land,
the cowering altar and matricide borne.
The stones they are screaming
I could call them men but they are not
men, faces like blood rags, yet
dressed to the fines.
Chariots surround us
but it won’t be the
witches that are
burning this time
