THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED a write that means a lot to me...................

The Hunter and The Hunted



My skin is different from yours                                               
It glows in moonlight
And burns in noon day brightness;
And yours is brown and burnished and beautiful
(Even to the eyes of the vanquished.)

How many moons I have been enslaved,
I do not know
I am a servant here with gold pierced ears
And I never learned to read the scrolls
Not written on men’s hearts.

Your people take joy
In hunting the proud and free,
Of which I am a daughter
Though underneath the pinpoint of your stare,
I clinch my fists and keep my face downcast.

But in my soul,
I know you know
That I am running free beyond this desert,
Climbing mountains and wading streams
And fleeing from your dark and hungry eyes.

Silken veils and chains of silver,
They cannot make me cower at your feet
The voices of my fathers call out in my dreaming
Warn me of the darkness 
Of your rivers and desires.

And yet, sometimes,
When moonlight falls,
And midnight breezes play their songs,
The harshness of the desert fades
And this cool oasis bids me stay.

But my heart is hard of hearing
And though it sways me,
I will not bend or break my vows
And so I serve you and I curse you
Through many watches of the sun and stars.

You walk alone tonight beside the river
Behind the rushes, I watch you go
Into the trees with their black blankets
You’re just a man, I see, without your armor
How tall, yet small and lonely you seem to me.

Running now with feet of fire,
I hide in shadow as I pursue your presence
Stalking you as you walk in night shade, unaware
Seeking what my soul seeks
With cold, unfeeling steel clutched in my hand.

Hunting you,
I think how good it feels to run,
How sweet the night tastes on my homesick tongue,
How the tyranny of your beautiful people
Has spoiled the ancient purity of mine.

I will show no mercy (for none have you shown me)
Even as I danced for you in firelight,
Fed you from my fingertips in starlight
Toiled for you a thousand dawns of daylight
And never knew the tender touch of love.

Rising with the midnight moon,
A cry of anguish, startling as a storm
Keens and wails and stops me in my tracks,
Shakes me to the core in heart confusion,
Drops me to my knees upon the ground.

You lift your hands to Deity I know not
In a language I have not yet mastered,
And barely understand
Beyond the no’s and yes’s of my slave’s commandments
(For obedience cares not if you comprehend).

In breathless wonderment, we listen,
The Deity, the silent sky and I
To mournful pleas to be released from torment,
From longings of a heart, broken and torn
More puzzling still: My name upon your lips.

I can wait no longer, this I reckon
For soon your weakness will pass
And the man be gone and the tyrant arise
And I will be his slave forever
If freedom is my fortune, I will find it in your death.

Your head turns as I rush at you,
The silver blade gleaming, and a heart that pounds
With blood and fury and a thing so strange
That it trembles my upraised and uncertain hand
Glowing in moonlight as it falls upon your face.

You do not move, I do not move
And time stands still between us
A cry issues from a mouth and I swear I know not whose
The hunter and the hunted, caught in traps that they have laid,
I stand a victor looking down


Into your brown and hopeful eyes.

©by Voo
March 23, 09
2:20 a.m. © 2009
face by Mark

By The Rivers Dark by Leonard Cohen

 the song that inspired this poem............

THE GREEN HILLS

The Green Hills



The green, green hills of Tennessee
Were tall and full of glory
As they always were and ever will be
To a barefoot child who ran there.

The skies were bright blue,
Filled with clouds of white cotton
Floating along lazily in the azure expanse,
In the wrath of a gold, blazing sun.

It was an involuntary journey,
Going back into the past
That had molded and made me
Who I was, who I am.

I didn’t want to be there, like that
A stranger, a visitor coming home from the world
One that had run from those wild, wandering hills
As fast as my young legs could take me.

I didn’t know what to do, where to look
I didn’t know how to feel, how to act
It was as if I walked in a long dreamless dream
Where everything was familiar but foreign.

There was family there
Some that I barely knew,
People who wanted to know and love me
But really, had no idea how.

It was strange
And beyond strange
In that pastoral setting
Such a postcard of a place that never quite was.

It was where I learned about life
And how not to live it
Where I learned how to die
And how to avoid it.

My hometown,
A scene that seems never to change,
Those hills rising high in the mists of the morning
Like castles in a little girl’s mind.

It was there I created a world
That would never be mine
Lying in meadows, fishing in creeks,
Praying into blue skies with my eyes full of tears.

Looking for answers
To a heart full of questions
Wondering how, why and when that the answers would come
Listening for whispers that I’d never hear.

That beautiful place
Was my prison, my dungeon
Jailed in that Eden by the need to control,
The need to suppress and the need to possess.

I was my father’s daughter
But he was hardly "my Daddy"
Just the despot of paradise
And a cloud blocking the sun.

Now,
He still lives where the hills make a hollow
Crippled and bitter, with a heart slowly dying,
Failing from disuse, still congested with scorn.

We buried my brother beneath that green earth,
Buried someone so gentle
And someone who was good
In the place of a man who could never show love.

There was a peace there
In the arms of the forests
It crept in with the terror
And the fear of the unknown.

It tried to comfort me, tried to hold me
But I couldn’t see it through my tears
Now, maybe I can feel it’s touch
Now that I’m far away.

I laid my brother’s funeral rose
Against my mother’s tombstone
Her sisters sang, (the two that’s left)
Old hymns from yesterday.

It was surreal, like life and death
And sadly bittersweet
Like a photograph you have to take
But you never want to see.

What is it about going home
That makes you feel so old?
Makes you remember your every thought
And relive your every dream?

There were some mysteries solved
But I left with different questions
So many scars were opened up
That I thought had long been healed.

How can ugliness live in a place of such beauty?
Innocence die, in the face of disdain?
I do not understand, Lord, I do not understand!
Shouldn’t there be answers now, shouldn’t there be love?

I feel like such a child again
A new-born child sent back in time
To the place that formed this wounded woman,
Birthed poems of joy and dark despair.

I don’t know how to write of this
Mere words somehow cannot convey
The pictures painted on my mind,
The flood that’s raging through my soul.

Those green, green hills of Tennessee
My hell, my heaven, my childhood home
Faded now with sunset in the rear view mirror
And I’ve never felt so all alone.

©By Voo Shining Stone
August 28, 2011
the occasion of my
brother Mike's death

LIKE A BLUE CORN MORNING

like a blue corn morning

dancing, he comes

like a blue corn morning

sunbeamed eyes

and hair as black as jet

but he hasn't found me yet.

I whisper behind my hand

like a child at game

hiding in 

the wild flower's shadow

while he calls my name.

I know he loves me

he just doesn't know it

but when that secret 

falls from his heart

his eyes can't help but show it.

watch him walk

like a warrior born again

smiling as he looks 

for me

and reaches for my hand.

blue corn morning

with feathers in my hair

he stops halfway

to paradise

and I meet him there.

*thanks Perry Joe for your photo above*

Moon Dancer by Mark Hicks

*Written by Voo Shining Stone*

© by Voo

Jan 13, 08

12:12 a.m.

NO MIRAGE, THE PAINTER

No Mirage, The Painter

BRIGHT AS SUNSHINE

IN EYES AS BLUE AS SKY

SWIFTLY, SWEETLY

PAINTING LOVE

ON A CANVAS SUCH AS I.

CRISP AS AUTUMN

AND TASTING FRESH AS SNOW

RENEWING, WOOING

A BROKEN HEART

TO FOLLOW WHERE YOU GO.

AND TENTATIVE YET BOLDLY

I REACH A TREMBLING HAND

CROSS THROUGH SPACE

TO TOUCH YOUR FACE

LIKE A SCULPTURE IN THE SAND.

BUT NO MIRAGE, THE PAINTER

THERE STANDING BEFORE ME

YOUR LOVE CANNOT BE SWEPT AWAY

NOR CARRIED OUT TO SEA.

SO SOLID STANDS THE CASTLE

SO STURDY IS THE FRAME

THAT HOLDS THE PAINTING

THAT COMES TO LIFE

WHEN YOU SAY MY NAME.

©BY VOO

SEPT 27, 2006

11:35 P.M. 

Have I Told You Lately by Van Morrison

HURRY SUNDOWN

Hurry, Sundown




Nothing in the past
Can prepare you for the present
Nothing in the day
Can prepare you for the night
Not when it is filled with glory
And the promise of a thousand fires.

Sunset comes
And the day pales
Like a rock beside a diamond
Like a star beside a sun
Like a stream beside an ocean.

Fire in all it's forms is beautiful
Fire in all it's beauty hides a terror 
For nothing is more terrifying than beauty
When it is used to hurt and not to heal.

There came a time
When lightining struck a tree
And fire was born
In a world that still revolves
Around the greatest fire of all.

Staring into the west, I think
No human could paint that,
No man could compose that,
No weapon could destroy that.

See how the fire of sky
Meets the fire of sea
Runs through the desert like a river
And turns the ordinary into the mystic.

If I could stand here forever,
I would.
If I would turn into spirit,
I could.

But sunsets flicker like dying candles
And lose themselves in blue shades and black
Give the eye of flesh a glimpse of heaven
And are gone before you've seen what you have seen.

When night falls like a dark blanket,
My heart feels cheated
For I was made for sun and shine
And flame and flash and magic.

Hurry sundown
Can't you hear me calling?
Bring out the fire
Can you not see I'm cold?

Tomorrow comes too slowly
Ends, too slowly
I sleepwalk through the day, with hurried patience
Waiting for the show within the West.

Hurry, sundown
I need your fire.

©By Voo
April 20, 09
11:30 p.m.