Harpies

For my birds of a feather

And so we lived and loved

As brazen harpies

Mad on salt water

In a bed by the sea

We were blemished, blissful

And absurdly free

Rambling poetic nonsense

As the sun melted into the sky

We don’t need your fickle beauty

We weave seaweed through our hair

And paint our faces with mud

A gnashing of teeth

A rustle of feathers

We delight in discord

By the gathering gold of the day

We clamber over mangrove roots

Thick, tangled and bulbous

Collecting shells and urchins

Like seagulls we scavenge

For the curious and the beautiful

But when the night turns raven black

We dance

In a whirl of dervish glee

Bare breasted and full bellied

Making mockery of the usual

Oh my Aello, my raging storm

You quite intoxicate me

With your resplendence, strange

And your convulsions, most peculiar

I seek the satiation of your caprices

We are chimeral creatures of chaos

Fearsomely beautiful

Beloved of the velvet sea

Wild women

We are wild women

Hot blooded, winged and limber

We pound the damp soil with our fists like drums

And sing out our pleasures to the night

We delight

In the strange shapes we make with our bodies

Unclothing each other

And laughing, shrieking to the open sky

A heightening of desires most base

An unhindered pursuit

Of our wicked yearnings

Spread your feathered limbs

Distort your face

Tilt your head back

And howl

As the stars burn bearing rapturous witness

To our sacred ritual

Of amorous theft

There is dirt under our nails

And teeth marks on our skin

And we are breathless with life