It is early, 
          in the middle of the morning. 
The yellow globes dance polkas as easily as waltzes, 
moons of paper around wire twirling in the cold air blowing 
          through the café door 
to concatenating ringing spoons and glasses clinking, murmuring 
          of patrons sipping 
          coffees at their boards. 
 Across the street eight blackbirds huddle on high wires, 
and a crow or raven saunters on the roof edge of a pigeon 
          windowed building.  A shock of brilliant sunlight, 
a sudden turquoise sky, and the rain clouds turn to tatters. 
                    At the seizure of the light stung mind 
                        space tells time to shut the eye. 
SP Mackin 

Try to coddle the nerve into fruition. 
Breathe upon the fire behind the eyes 
to know the pleasure that is a temptation. 

A flash reveals a possible condition, 
as does the sibilant heat of sighs 
trying to coddle the nerve into fruition. 

Youth exists for possible coition: 
to find desire; fever, verse and lies; 
to know the pleasure that is a temptation. 

And desire is the mother of invention. 
How many nights are lit by lovers cries 
trying to coddle a nerve into fruition? 

Emotion is the child of an occasion. 
When tweaked we burn cerise as a sunrise 
to know the pleasure that is a temptation. 

The body exists for its own delectation, 
a pleasure not a pleasure. Be not wise. 
Try to coddle the nerve into fruition 
and know the pleasure that is a temptation. 

SP Mackin

As eagles pluck 
the living flesh 
from my wretched, 
writhing side, 

as tail slaps, 
as my gills gape 
to suck the 
insubstantial air, 

as I am here, 
to come and die 
and carcass litter 
the pebbly pool, 

I am the truth 
who was the food 
of wisdom eaten 
by Finn McCool. 

SP Mackin

Before bloody dawn, when it is cold, before 
the fiery fist, the shadows upon the desert 
will betray depths that sunrise will conceal. 
There are dark scars upon the mystic sands. 
A dune is round like the hip of a woman 
supine.  The serous sands sink and strain 
onto the flinty desert, like the sharp ribs 
of the sick or hungry, or the desert saint. 
Isabelle Eberhardt had hips like the dunes, 
ribs like the desert, and scars, hidden under 
Sufi cloth.  Bedouin knew her as Si Mahmoud. 
In Algeria, sick and seeking secret peace 
inside a mud hut and a pipe of kief, 
she died in a flash flood while fast asleep. 

SP Mackin 

By the knotting of a vein 
some old Jinn has a grip on me. 
The water nature of the blood 
heeds the pulse of Earth and gravity. 
Drink me, drink me, goddess Kali! 
Where does all the blood go?  Tell me! 
Who is it swims in that hot pool? 
Somewhere a cleft and thorny tree 
weeps red tears, for Dante knew it. 
And sometimes it’s hard not to grieve 
when the true owl takes the rat. 

SP Mackin

(At the Marin County Folk Festival, Summer 1976, 
or it could have been '75. Hell, I don't remember. 
I was stoned.) 

Two hundred hippies square danced 
in a clearing in the pines, 
underneath a dull gray sky,
big breasted girls in peasant dresses 
and tall, muscled boys in overalls. 
It was the time of "Get back to the land!" 
And four grizzled cow freaks 
stood in the middle of the stage 
scratching at their instruments 
with all the sincerity they could. 
Everyone was a dowsy dowin'. 
Everyone was an alleman leftin'. 
Soon the sun broke through the clouds, 
and the birds were singing in the trees. 
And it was then that onto the stage walks 
R. Crumb & the Cheap Suit Serenaders, 
with banjos, dobros, mouth harps, fiddles, 
washboards, whistles and musical saws. 
On my Persian Rug 
I will fly far away 
To the land of my dreams... 
And how the hippies danced 
and how the hippies cheered. 
"I see we have some Neal More 
fans here today," Crumb sneered 
out of the side of his mouth. 
And a giant of a man, 
in a cheap yellow suit 
two sizes too small, with 
real mud caked on old work boots, 
squatted on a tiny chair 
and played a beautiful Hawaiian melody 
on an ancient ukulele, 
played with a little whiskered man 
picking on a mandolin. 
On and on they played and played: 
I'm singing in the bathtub 
ragtime tunes and hillbilly corn,
Happy once again 
classics from before the second world war, 
Watching all my troubles 
Go swimming down the drain
fine fiddles flying, dobros whining, 
virtuoso mouth harp, and, my favorite, 
a duet on those musical saws. 
And all the while Crumb was wry 
As you though he would be. 
And how the hippies danced, 
and how the hippies cheered. 
After they'd left the stage 
an elderly black man in a cowboy hat 
wearing the whitest shirt you have ever seen 
(the crease on his sleeve was so damned sharp 
it'd cut your eye just to look at it), 
sat with a shiny National Guitar 
on a cane chair in the middle of the stage. 
And he started stompin' his foot 
and moanin' to us the real blues, 
Met the devil at the crossroad 
Lightnin' flashed and the rain come down 
Met the devil at the crossroad
Thunder crashed and the rain came down 
The devil he was dry as dust 
Me, I thought I'se goin' to drown 
Met the devil down at the crossroad 
Made a deal so I could play 
Met the devil at the crossroad 
We made a deal so I could play 
He said "Forget 'bout praying son,
Cuz' today your judgment day"
This is when I wandered off, 
Walked among the happy hippie throng. 
I went to look for Mr. Natural 
and Flakey Foont. 
I'm sure that you remember them.
But to my complete surprise, 
I couldn't find them anywhere. 

SP Mackin

The Agenbite of Inwit is 
the rat toothed gnawing of regret. 
On broken glass the shadows pass, 
their backs rubbed raw on intellect. 
Hell is the unnumbered press 
that passes the infernal gate. 
And there one crushed by loneliness 
upon his face bewails his fate. 
For wit assumed a greater place 
in his life than the passionate, 
and now he finds that love is grace 
and wit is but its instrument. 
It's love and not the fear of death 
that frees your soul to know its breadth. 

SP Mackin

At the corner of Stanyan and Frederick the flawless
still of the abysmal night was rent
by a bus that drowned also the secret echoes
of belly slaps and squeaks and sobs, a come chant.
The tall apartment building upon Stanyan
was haunted by the song of their coition
that winter night she called. He was surprised
for when she opened the door she wore no clothes.
And they made love upon the floor before
the mantel said to have clippered round the Horn.
They needed no blankets then to keep them warm
for passion filled their veins and they were mad.
It was delicious, beautiful and sad
when they were young, in love, on Stanyan St.