Fantasia of the Flutterwings

Circle Limit IV, M.C. Escher

Fantasia of the Flutterwings

In the fiesta 

of the Dead's day

where the flutterwings live

where the spidersnakes slide,

the sun 

only comes after

the orgasm of rain, his

grunts quickly stifled, his teeth polite;

but the capes of the shadowtrees

mate simultaneous,

 reticulated, wet,

their love dries slowly

as the dayflower opens

the caramel sky.

Blushed with cerise

the other cheek turns,

the flutterwings burn 

till the last of the night,

the lust of the rain

brings their time.

~June 2013

Flying Fox, Vincent Van Gogh, 1886

Image by M.C. Escher may be protected by copyright. All copyright belongs to the copyright holders.

Image by Vincent Van Gogh, public domain via wikipaintings.org

Informing The Wind

Informing The Wind

Show that black face of daggers,

say 'Everything

everything can be taken,'

before we grow too used to kindness

before we think our plastic baskets

were meant to hold the world.

Take the bricks and boards we push up,
our antnest parades, parapets and pillars.

Shake them like a blanket

into holes, tumbled holes, full of

the nothing that

we really are.

Blow out every tiny act

that marks our place, break it in scarlet,

fly it away with your empyreal breath,

consumed and exhaled in a cloning of dust;

then perhaps the time will come

when we are able to believe

we have no dominion over

anything we see.

~June 2013

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Open Link Monday

Image: via flick'r creative commons

Tornado in mature stage of development. Photo #3 of a series of classic photographs of this tornado. Oklahoma, Enid. June 5, 1966.

Photographer: Leo Ainsworth.
Credit: NOAA Photo Library, NOAA Central Library; OAR/ERL/National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL)

Cowboy Song

Cowboy Song

The fire's burned low and the coffee's all gone,

the biscuits are dry and the stars pushing dawn.

I lay on my back in this cold desert waste

wondering why every star has your face.

The cattle are restless when the wind's out of tune.

Clouds tug up their bandana and cover the moon.

It's a bandit's mask, and the eyeholes are black

with emptiness cold as a shot in the back.

The fire's burned out, and the cook's waking up

to make coffee so bitter it might break the cup.

I'm still laying here and I still feel the same,

wondering why every cloud has your name.

~June 2013

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Challenge: Cowboy Poetry with Margaret

The multi-talented Margaret Bednar has brought together two perfect ingredients, cowboy poetry, and the photography of Merri Melde (@ The Equestrian Vagabond.) Thanks, Merri, for letting us work from your striking photography.

Though  I grew up in Chicago, forty years here in the Dustbowl have left me pretty Okyfied. And like the song says, my heroes have always been cowboys. I've borrowed the cadence and a phrase or two for this very derivative poem of mine from an old Utah Phillips song,  about an old chuckwagon cook('the old woman,' a term of affectionate derision for a cowboy who can't cowboy any more, but can't leave the trail, either, so stays on to cook for the hands) on the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail, named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, which I first heard in the No Exit Cafe in Chicago, sung by folksinger Art Thieme.

Here it is, sung by one of the great American cowboys, Chris LeDoux:

Since we're doing cowboy songs, here's another one Artie used to sing, by Cisco Houston, who often sang  beside Woody Guthrie, back before they put the country in western, then took it out again. It sounds rather dated now, but that's part of its charm (for me, anyway.) I think both these songs are better cowboy poetry than my effort, which is definitely 'Lite!'--but I did want to play with this challenge of Margaret's and the  photos by Merri.

"As he fell his hand was grabbin for the gun he'd get too late/with the notches on it showin' like the vagaries of fate..."

Images  © Merri Melde

Used with permission

Dreaming of Light Equipment

Dreaming of Light Equipment

The best sex

I never had

was in the little room behind the

redneck bar.

You left the greenhouse early.

You said Charles could do your work,

your feral smile crouched in the

shadow of your black beard.

Under the faux-chenille covers

our bodies barely touched

as you put

the machine in gear.

I was bracing for your

spring-loaded kiss

when the boy came in

with his little dog,

opened the window through

fluttering american flag curtains

and sat on the sill, talking and looking

feverishly for the clown car's coming.

We couldn't make him leave.

The father, in  brown-pintoed apron, sidled

through the door that wouldn't lock and said

since the cops had done the bust

the boy had lost control.

It took hours to get rid of them.

I checked--the door still wouldn't lock. 

I flipped a living mobious strip

of light switches,

watched one bulb

die as the other came on--

a  machinegun monotony of annoyance.

I couldn't find the plug to pull

on the radio--talk radio--and the

woman's vulpine voice victimed

on and on--

but your body, Mike

was more beautiful than a silver trout

in a midnight blue creek,

I do remember that

shining with white inviolate light

in the uncontrollable night.

I wore a flowered halter--

you stood behind me in the mirror

and slipped it off,

your hands as smooth on the straps 

as on the levers of your skid loader

where you routinely would drop

a dozen pallets on a pile

as uniform, as aligned

as a stack of pringles in a virgin tube

Every so often as

you measured my length against yours,

hydraulic waves would flutter my lids

and my eyes roll back involuntarily,

an ecstatic irritant because

I badly wanted to see how it was done.

O Mike, if I'd only known

how smooth, how hot your skin, how deep

the sanctuary

under the camouflage, the

erasure of your work clothes--

I would never have

married that loser.

~June 2013

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Image: Castle of Pallets, by Marc Samson, on flick'r

The Flaneur

The Flaneur

I do no work, I stroll,

I smoke,

they call me mad;

I  choose

to be deaf.

For  words

I dig a suitable grave,

to  speech I prefer

a lunch of flowers.

You saw all this

with your monocular

vision, beautiful prey,

 yet your heart

 is my lemming.

There's nothing

 to be done

about that.

~June 2013

55 idle smoke-rings for    the g-man

also posted for    real toads

Challenge: Out of Standard with Izy

Film School Drop Out Edition

The always unexpected Isadora Gruye has a Leos Carax film clip up at the above link--her challenge was to write to it. Not sure that I grasped anything essential about it, but this is what came from the experience of watching it..

Process notes:  flaneur : "loafer, idler," 1854, from Fr. flâneur, from flâner "to stroll, loaf, saunter," probably from a Scand. source (cf. Norw. flana, flanta "to gad about").

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper 


Image: Self-Portait with a Sunflower, Anthony Van Dyk, 1632
Public Domain

Travels With John Barleycorn

Travels With John Barleycorn

A Nonsense Song

We took a trip

around the Horn

with Sweet Mary Jane

and John Barleycorn.

Some got sleep

and some got rest;

we found out who

could dance the best

under the table

and over the bed

in gold bright dark

in slippers of lead,

with arms upflung

with hair swung low,

sliding where only

the lost ones go,

with stars in our bellies,

too new to mourn

Sweet Mary Jane

and John Barleycorn.

~May 2013

 posted for   the 100th Open Link Night    at dVerse Poets
Congratulations to the Pub, and all her Patrons and Staff, past and present.

"...oh my my, oh hell yes/ you got to put on that party dress.."

Optional Musical Accompaniment

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