Poem: Advice for a friend

When the losses drift and pile into freezing banks, dance. Remember your essential nature that pushes always, like that first bold crocus, through the rime. You were always a dancer: …

Song: The Ethos

My Kwannon project this summer involves creating ethereal soundscapes for my Avalonian poems, which delve into the definition of spiritual community and spiritual work. It’s different from my usual approach, …

Poem: The Ethos

Oh sister, when the fruit drops from the stem do you snatch it for yourself? Does the moon refuse to rise from the dark well of her waning and thus …

Poem: Privilege

Do you understand? We are all the May Queen, the most beautiful of girls, the egg coveted by kings and serpents, by brothers who will spar until time draws out …

Poem: Now they’re snatching protesters off the streets

When that van pulls up and the men pop out draped in all the colors of the desert I will fight not gracefully, with appropriate distancing and well-honed technique a …

Song: The Order

I asked Shoshen to come up with the percussion part for this sound meditation, and he did a stellar job — even hanging part of his setup off a bicycle. …

Poem: The Order

We start with the violet sky as the light sinks beyond the rim, when the last withered leaves fall to the newly barren earth, when the moon begins to diminish. …

Poem: The Sight

Brew it with the vervain, the purple-flowered nepenthe. Add a silver coin, a shining disc of moonstone. Either will do. Unsheath your intent. Gather the moon’s light, the stones, the …

Song: The Sight

My latest Avalon poem set to music. (You’ll get the lyrics tomorrow.) This soundscape features the Finnish kantele, a steel tongue drum, frame drum and the weedwhacker bass, an instrument …

Song: The Nine

Like my other recent songs, “The Nine” is an ambient piece that puts one of my Avalon poems into a mystical soundscape. None of the drones are synthesizers; they are …