Glass Of Darkness

  

 

 

 

Glass Of Darkness

 

 

 

I see the tall glass of darkness

putting out a pot of cinders and ash

where too many cooks have spoiled

the serenade, sweet high song

of sun's guilt evening

to the kicking horse

that must be shot

before it can be free.

 

I sing along, blind in

this bare attic, but every note

that jumps in my throat

lies, dropping bloodless on the

broken map where cities blur

like stars whose cream light curdles

in a dead sky of greysmoke ghosts;

where nothing is ever free.

But I can't stop.

They say every skull will sing

if the wind blows

just right.

January 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images:San Francisco, 1906 post-earthquake © The Atlantic, archives

The Penitent Magdelen ca 1640, Georges De La Tour     Public Domain

 

 

Made In Hell

 

 

 

Made In Hell

 

 

Her face was one-way glass

blank-innocent as a child's mirror,

her baby-blues welling soft,

winking not revealing

the opposite who watched

from the other side. She made her play

in a liar's crimson night where rain

greased the sidewalk smearing neon light

on the moon-hidden passage she shaded in her wait,

cigarette drooping smoke like San Francisco fog

above her golden gate.

 

His eyes matched her lipstick, hard as bathtub gin,

clear and extinguished as only eyes can be

that have seen the life go dead too many times,

suckered by patriotic chords that march

the rotting feet of war with tunes

suitable to aim your bullets by.

All that was over now 

or always here to stay; a grin

is only smoke 

curling in the shadow 

of a tipped fedora's brim.

The kiss was never meant to be a trap,

but it snapped her leg and crippled him for life

neither able to ever run again, tangled in

booze and the dicey bed spread with ice-cold aces

and eights. And when the children came

they never could make the change;

just learned they had to

pretend to be

someone else.

June 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for I Wake Up Screaming

Desperate Noir at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Still from Secret Beyond The Door, 1947 Public Domain 

Manipulated photo dated 3-7-1949 from personal collection ©joyannjones

 

Flambeau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flambeau

(a quadrille)

 

 

I don't want to write poems

fiddle while Rome's monde nouveau

becomes a flambeau.

They're a medicine-show elixir

a too-loose wrapping

on a fountaining vein.

 

But I have nothing else

as Arcadia burns

but this glittering salt

to seed rain

on a grassfire wind.

 

 

 July 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Sacred Glimmers

 

 

 

and

 

 

 

dVerse Poets

Quadrille #156

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arcadia is a region in Greece, historically designated as the home of the god Pan, and synonymous with an unspoiled, pastoral wilderness. (Many towns across the world have been named after this spot, usually--tho not intentionally--ironically. I live not far from Arcadia, Oklahoma, a self-conscious tourist trap on Route 66 near an eponymous manmade lake. So far, it has not burned down.)

 

 

 

Images: Torch, 2008, © Wu Guanzhong    Fair Use

Media photo of grassfire, Beaver County, Oklahoma 2022   via internet  Fair Use

 

The Day Before Gone

 

The Day Before Gone

 

It was the day before gone.
The strophe began on

 a sun weak with fever,

a sky of grey primer 

because plague hit the painters

 before they managed the blue. 

 

The tepid air was fragrant with 

malfeasance, but the dumbshow

never paused.

It was noon on the sea of shadows.

All through the potential zeros

bug-scudding over the whine-

dark waves ran a shiver, a dread,

the sodden fog of the sailor

at the rocks too busy with rum

 and scrimshaw to have bothered

with learning to swim.

 

The sirens and the kraken laughed

in antiphons, tatting the antistrophe

 from the rust-wire wreckage.

It was the hour before the reckoning

but the only text on the wall read

"It can't happen here."

Pulpits burned, preachers prowled

like panthers

among the singed dollar bills.

 

Locusts

ate the hedge funds. Vultures ate

the venture capitalists, and

politicians ate the vultures

til the darkness seethed 

with undigested bones.

Then finally

over the feeble,

failure-fumed pandemonium

Dawn came with her

exterminator's smile.

December 2021

posted for 

Shay's Word List

Images: Both Untitled, by Zdizlaw Beksinski, copyright held by The Histoical Musem in Sanok Poland

Fair Use

The Moon Nurse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Moon Nurse

 

 

Someone must guard the moon

deep in the Dreamer's long shatter.

Someone must keep clear her pathway

mirror'd on the wavering water.

 

Someone must nurse the moon

when the red plague slips in without trace.

While Time ticks to its last empty hour

let my hands refresh her pale face,

wash it with rosemary's greening,

herb airless void with white smoke

between her and the storm oncoming

where light itself is revoked.

All the nights she's held watch above me

by the bed where sleep loses its way,

the silver songs she's sung me

put a debt on me I must repay.

They say she poisons the fallen

who ravage across the wide earth,

or stare in electrical cages

where madness has gone to give birth

 

 but those 

she brings whole through the hunter's dark

burn tonight her evanescent spark.

November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Poetics

at dVerse Poet's

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: this poem has been revised a dozen times since posting, and I'm still not happy with it. It didn't rhyme at all at first, and now it rhymes too much. I blame Poe, whom I've been rereading WAY too much lately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: ©Dmitry Brodetsky  All Rights Reserved   Fair Use

Author and title unknown, via internet      Fair Use 

 

Flash Friday Fiction 55 March 2020

Welcome, friends and writers. The world around us is in turmoil, and has never needed more the medicine of the artist's eye. As long as it is possible, I will host this meme on the last Friday of every month, an opportunity to both attempt the feat of a kick-ass weekend and to share a poem, piece of prose-poetry or flash fiction on any subject; in fact, whatever. Vent, wail, prognosticate or simply let your muse run loose, so long as it's in the form of 55 words, no more, no less. 

If you are among those attempting a poem a day in April, let me know in the comments if you would like to see the 55 up every Friday in April, and I will oblige.


The prompt will be live from Friday at 12:00 AM til Sunday at 4:00 PM. 

This is an informal sort of place, so there's no Mr Linky. Just copy and paste a link to your 55 in the comments.

 ~*~

My 55:

Missed Universe

Hell runs a mean pageant,

contestants centerfolded.

Breaths bubbled forward

in hope without reason

multiply oblivion.

Gathering masses

parade the ramp

sucking in air from each other's

 taint; rapture revolves

 in the devil-red tent.

May their last 

wheeze please Him

in His burning sty

where the rich always live

and the poor always die.

March 2020

Images: The Lantern Bearers, Maxfield Parrish Public Domain
Manipulated photo of Miss Universe winners via internet. Fair Use.

Friday 55 April 6 2018

Welcome to the land of 55 words, created by that great-hearted blogger Galen Hayes to make weekends memorable by writing without rules, except for word count of course--that would be 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, linked in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning. An especial welcome to those brave souls writing 30 poems this month--I salute you, and while I miss being able to participate, I do enjoy reading the results.

Without further ado, my bit of nonsense for this week... 

The Big S'More

Although I remember how

we set fires, gave them

the names of gods,

how love

was a natural disaster,

the only red cross

drawn in blood,

now that I'm a marshmallow

pushed on a stick

licked by a mortal fire

I find I'd rather think

of Monty Python

old songs

puppies

until

the Big S'More.

 ~April 2018

Note: For those unacquainted with this delicacy, read here for all things S'more.

Images via internet, authors unknown, no copyright infringement intended.

Friday 55 Comprehensive Holiday Edition

It's that season, dear readers, when everybody is rushing and pressed for time, so I am offering poetic dispensation to any and all of you who may not have the leisure or the inspiration to construct a 55 for the next few weeks. As always there are no rules other than the word count, so please feel free to participate or not as you see fit, and please bear with me as well, as I may not always be available or online myself.

That said, this single post will remain active for Friday December 22nd 2017, Friday December 29th, and Friday January 5th 2018 with comment moderation off so everyone can come by when they can--be patient however, since as I said above, I will not always be around, especially the week following  New Year's Day.

That said, a very happy Yule season to all, and a deep thanks to all of you who make this Friday journey so memorable. Have a kickass holiday, and let's all hope for at least a saner New Year.

I have written two 55's for this combined edition...

Ruins

"...I have let time pass, which..helps more than reasoning.”

~Queen Elizabeth I

I.

I wake in the night

thinking of ruins;

not the makers

but their leavings: fort,

church, graveyard,

house, each

with no tomorrow of its own, yet

a casket full

of glass for magpies,

scroungers' stones,

writers' plots,

lovers' verses, shadow beds

for weary ghosts

and so must be content

to watch the walls fall down.

 

II.

These rainy ruins

where ravens ride wrinkled sky

where nightfall black-backs silver-mirror moons

however weak you are,

you can stroll forever, 

muscular past for a walking-stick,

hear a hundred private jokes

the ghosts still tell/will tell

to you or the next one

for nothing's

as constant as a ghost

or more hopeful

than a ruin.

~December 2017

Optional Folky Musical Accompaniment

Images: Carpathian castle ruins, author unknown, via internet. Fair use.

Hope From The Ruins, ©Joshua Smith,  All Rights Reserved. Fair use.