The Sorceress

The Sorceress

You were more to me once

than the meal the moon-mad maenad makes,

more than the jewels burning cold on my breast

strung blue-banded on the skin of snakes,

when I laid you out there in the poppy field

in the shape of a star,

in the shape of a wheel

on which we could travel far.

I cared more for you then

than the hummingbird could

for its whip-wire tongue

that loves out in a flash the lily-juice,

than the dead hawk's hen in her nesting roost,
brooding unfed, for life in the shell

till it comes true
for that's her ward,

the yoke of the spell:

to love too much,

to love too well

so when the egg cracks

and the heart goes to hell,

she's grown wind in the feather

for the endless hunt, 

for the sky as brother.

~July 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Finding the Poetic Voice

Kerry O'Connor (Skylover, Skywriting) asks us to consider the true melody of one's poetic voice, of how, when, why one addresses the reader, the self, the other, in verse. Fascinating, and truly challenging, reaching for that, though I'm not sure how successfully, here. Thank you, Kerry.

Note: I am not at my best, healthwise atm, but will do my best to visit as I can.

Images: The Magic Circle, 1896, by John William Waterhouse
News, 1906, by Mikalojus Ciurlonis

Public domain via wikiart.org

Cotton

Cotton

You rolled me up to store

in a tender corner, cleaned linen-white

to wipe a glass delirium full

of Friday's crumpled cotton night.

Outside the walls grew red

with curious oleander,

sun's slow summer urge 

to break the blizzard's back,

still I spread soft,

your burden and your bundle,

your thinking pile of rags

that sometimes brayed

the shrill laugh of Coyote in moonlight's shade

striping blue my fabric face

so briskly shaken into folds

yet at your sudden touch, so smooth and plain.

When the snapping slice of scissors came

to cut the muslin muzzle and cotton chains,

I knew I'd never be that soft, that clean again.

~July 2014 

posted for    real toads

Challenge: Play it Again

Margaret Bednar(Art Happens 365) has again chosen three Toads memes for us to revisit. I usually try to pick one I haven't done, but this time I went back to grapeling's first word list to borrow some inspiration. You can find my earlier poem for it here.

Image: Solarization, 1931, by Man Ray
Fair Use via wikiart.org

Cloudy, With Serpents

Cloudy. With Serpents

You moved thin hands across me,

clouds writing over the sky,

thread-fingers ice-cold, shy,

drifting from March to June.

When night's shoulder

darkened earth-rim blue,

you left your markless mark, wrote  

 your vapor signature, a nacreous tattoo

of dragon coils, drake's cirriform breath

masking a naked rune:

your  sailor's heart, caught

in a different  moon. 

~June 2014 

55 snake-shaped  clouds of polar ice crystals for the ghosts

and

real toads

Images: Nacreous Clouds over the NASA Radome, McMurdo Station, Antarctica, by Alan Light

Shared under a Creative Commons license

Snakes, 1969, by M.C. Escher, via wikiart.org

May be protected by copyright, shared under fair use guidelines

Five Charms

by  lolamouse or babymouse 2014

Five Charms

Five charms I picked up

from the dimestore dust,

all silver and blue and black in my hand:

A vase, an acorn, a button of fire,

two eyeballs with a look of command.

I strung them up quick

on a spaghetti string, tied as

tight as a tattoo on my wrist

but the vase tipped over and spilled its blood,

the acorn poked, the button burned

and the eyeballs saw more than they should.

So beware of the luck

that you find in the dirt.

Some things should be left,

some things charm up hurt.

~April 2014

posted for     real toads

 Challenge: Whozits and Whatzits

Lolamouse (Mouse Droppings)  has given us some truly unique photos of various arcane and odd ..stuff..taken at a shop she visited  on a trip to Portland, Oregon with her daughter. Bizarre as it may sound, I had already had the dream (including the eyeballs) that sparked this poem and written  a few lines of it down--I couldn't ask for a better pic to have enabled its completion. Thanks, LM!

Image by lolamouse or babymouse.

Used with permission.