Gemini

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Gemini

Antidote to evil is the peace in sleep

that comes when all hope of it is gone.

That resolution of night into light,

the bawdy eye of a grackle

in its ungainly dull body 

glittering

perpetuation.

Surrender to destruction

makes impermanence eternal.

Life many formed and changeful

mounts a fluid resistance,

saying the yes now that will later be no.

You like a burning under the moon,

freezing the sun,

a bonfire burned down

to banked coals of life,

translucent in the fitful frost of death.

Servant tool or instrument of neither,

only the twinned image of a dual contradiction.

September 1988,  
Revised  2010~2012

posted for   real toads

OpenLinkMonday

Had another repost up, but after seeing the Gemini theme at real toads, decided to go with this one in honor of all my Gemini cohorts there. 

Image: (c)  Dean Bertoncelj 

 All Rights Reserved

His Commercial Site

Mirror

Mirror

The soul within, smooth, reflective curve

glossy with the sheen of old smokes;

Something about the light, he said

There is a wild piece of it in the dark.

It winks in the corner of the mirror,

an absent flame, the memory of a flame

whiskered by the haze.

Reaching out to touch it you feel

first the illusion, then the fingertips finally

the smooth cold feel of the mirror

asking which is real.

It’s over, the light show,

Peace and love 

take your pick which is

only a curve reflecting forward,

which some piece of light

kindling the backward glancing eye

January 1988

slightly revised August 2011 

Image: Mirror in your eyes by ~h318 (Harshita) on deviantArt
Shared under a Creative Commons 3.0 No-Derivatives License

Three Flowers

Photo by Fee Easton

Three Flowers

In the clearing two horses endlessly cable

the moon, white shadows blown

before a hooked wind on a black plaster sky.

A flying worm lights its brief light;

a little boy tries to wear it on his shirt.

In the forest bare twigs chatter against

the bony branches shaking wet snow

down upon the field rat’s muzzle

stopped ten steps from life under the

white owl’s eye.

Two sparrows splash in the birdbath.

The sun is a haze through green locust leaves;
 in the clearing a winding horn finally
blows to summon the storm-dispersed hunt.

In the boneyard by day and by night

three flowers bloom red:

poppies named
Yesterday’s,

Today’s,

 Tomorrow’s Fight

to forget

the thing that lies buried here.

August 1988, revised November 2010

 

photo by joy ann jones  2010

Posted for OneShootSunday  at the inimitable OneStopPoetry

Header photo used with permission

At Teotihuacan

At Teotihuacan

Dipping in and out of sleep

like a duck grazing under ruffled water,

nodding back and forth

in the space between two worlds.

A line beneath two dots is the number seven;

a wall of stone skulls records the passing of years.

Down twining runs of brick the effluvium of a great city

circles outward and away.

Snakes and feathers

are beauty and eternity.

Circles are mountains, and

the serpent’s head may speak

when the fires burn again.

A square headed figure like a bench

holds in thick fingers

a bowl for the god to drink

a sip of blood.

Skulls ridiculous and grave,

skulls to make Hamlet think again,

skulls mounted on rods

for storage.
Skulls crushed and painstakingly reassembled

for our edification.

All empty bottles, bent cans,

rotting in the great temporal gutter.

The gods are not upright

but crouched like stumps,

fat half-melted beings immutable and complex,

full of killing detail and dangerous eyes.

One can offend them merely by living,

leaving only one recourse.

January, 1988

Teotihuacan "..is an enormous archaeological site in the Basin of Mexico, just 30 miles northeast of Mexico City, containing some of the largest pyramidal structures built in the pre-Columbian Americas. Apart from the pyramidal structures, Teotihuacan is also known for its large residential complexes, the Avenue of the Dead, and numerous colorful, well-preserved murals..The city is thought to have been established around 100 BC and...may have lasted until sometime between the 7th and 8th centuries AD. At its zenith, perhaps in the first half of the 1st millennium AD, Teotihuacan was the largest city in the pre-Columbian Americas. At this time it may have had more than 200,000 inhabitants, placing it among the largest cities of the world in this period..."~wikipedia

Header photo: Pyramid of the Moon at Teotihuacan, Mexico, 
By Gorgo  [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons