Tears Of The Moon

 

 

 

Tears Of The Moon

"La mar no tiene naranjas, ni Sevilla tiene amor..."

(The sea has no oranges, nor Seville any love...)

from Adelina de Paseo, by Federico Garcia Lorca

I.

The sea is made

from the tears of the moon.

They fall like meteorites

to build the splash of azure rivers.

They fall like rocks

the air has set on fire in

a coliseum of dust, an iron mist

burning with the blue taste of salt.

The sea is cold, incalculable

as the heart of my beloved,

changeful, infinite, self-satisfied

and blind. This is why

the moon cries. She knows she lays

her silver face for nothing

across the drenched toss of the

erasing waves. The sea

is too busy,

tonight, and every night.

II.

The sea has far to travel

to kiss the dun lips of Spain, to fondle 

Gibraltar like a primitive doll,

to curl the sand under

on the Costa del Sol,

guitaring sweet lovesongs

to women with eyes like summer figs

who walk with the chiming of rice in the wind

whose hips round as oranges

call night after night

for the men who don't come; nuns

of blue rivers, learning to understand

the tears of the moon

that drip from the lids of

an extinguished rock, while on the

ruined plains of a waterless country

an old woman reads Lorca at midnight,

with the tears of the moon on her cheeks.

~January 2020

originally posted for earthweal

Open Link

 

 

 

 

reposted for Desperate Crossings at

desperate poets

Images: Orange Trees on the Road to Seville, 1903 © Joaquin Sorolla Public Domain

The Font, 1930 © Salvador Dali Public Domain

Winter's Ship

 

 

 

 

 

 

Winter's Ship

 (a 55)

 

 Oaks on the hillside

know wind's desire

fear nothing but fire

become ships in harbor

to ride the waves' wire.

 

In winter without color

midnights without number

sun  cold as axe-snarl

even passion must freeze

or build a way out.

Wind-eater, wave-runner

dragon-faced prowler

king's-welcome coffin;

last home like her first,

the earth roots remember.

 

 

 

December 2021

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets Poetics:

Passions Stamped on Lifeless Things

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Historical Note: "The Gokstad ship is a 9th-century Viking ship found in a burial mound at Gokstad ..Vestfold, Norway It is the largest preserved Viking ship in Norway. It is also the largest Viking ship ever found...During the excavations, a human skeleton was found in a bed inside a timber-built burial chamber. The skeleton was that of a man aged approximately forty to fifty years old, of powerful build..; his identity is unknown. The bones of twelve horses, six dogs, and one peacock were found laid out around the man's body.." ~wikiedia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Gokstadskipet, Vikingskipmuseet, Oslo, 2005, Karamell, shared under a Creative Commons License via wikimedia commons

Danish Winter Landscape, detail, 1838 © Johan Christian Dahl

Tears Of The Moon

Tears Of The Moon

"La mar no tiene naranjas, ni Sevilla tiene amor..."

(The sea has no oranges, nor Seville any love...)

from Adelina de Paseo, by Federico Garcia Lorca

I.

The sea is made

from the tears of the moon.

They fall like meteorites

to build the splash of azure rivers.

They fall like rocks

the air has set on fire in

a coliseum of dust, an iron mist

burning with the blue taste of salt.

The sea is cold, incalculable

as the heart of my beloved,

changeful, infinite, self-satisfied

and blind. This is why

the moon cries. She knows she lays

her silver face for nothing

across the drenched toss of the

erasing waves. The sea

is too busy,

tonight, and every night.

II.

The sea has far to travel

to kiss the dun lips of Spain, to fondle 

Gibraltar like a primitive doll,

to curl the sand under

on the Costa del Sol,

guitaring sweet lovesongs

to women with eyes like summer figs

who walk with the chiming of rice in the wind

whose hips round as oranges

call night after night

for the men who don't come; nuns

of blue rivers, learning to understand

the tears of the moon

that drip from the lids of

an extinguished rock, while on the

ruined plains of a waterless country

an old woman reads Lorca at midnight,

with the tears of the moon on her cheeks.

~January 2020

posted for earthweal

Open Link

Images: Orange Trees on the Road to Seville, 1903 © Joaquin Sorolla Public Domain

The Font, 1930 © Salvador Dali Public Domain

 

Longship

Longship

A dream that runs

like a deer in a wolfpack:

men cluster round me,

coyotes by streetlight,

streams of bright coins

pour from their mouths.

They dig  up the world-tree;

I steal it back, water its

 hole big as the moon.

It bobs like a bottle:

dead wood floating

goes to make a live longship.

~April 2017

for Flash 55 Plus

Images: Yggdrasil, Longboat with lightning, authors unknown, via google image search

Scrimshaw Sonnet

Scrimshaw Sonnet

I am a woman only of earthenware

bare as windy hills if not as pure.

Your every thought to me bore the potter's mark

stark from a god's-eye that's never yet met mine,

fine and barb-hooked as if on a fishing line,

vined in words that pulled like hungry sand.

Bands of ivory cloud meet a starving knife,

life drips enough to wet the driest grave.

Save the lesser light of windflower spring;

bring the lamps of your eyes imagining.

Sing like sheaves of whales under blue-white wool.

Pull from your sleeves the darkness between worlds

curled away in sighs, then suddenly spilled,

filled to the brim before all things are stilled.

~January 2013

slightly revised. 2015 

posted for    real toads 

The Tuesday Platform

revisiting a poem written two years ago... this is in chained rhyme where the last word of every line rhymes with the first word of the next.

originally posted for   real toads 

Process notes: This is deliberately written in a somewhat non-traditional sonnet form.

scrimshaw  — n
1. the art of decorating or carving shells, ivory, etc, done by sailors as a leisure activity

~World Dictionary


Image credits:

Header image: The Rocks with Oak Tree, Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Public domain, via wikipaintings.org

Footer image: scrimshaw is awesome, part II, by staveitoff on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons license.