Ballad Of The Earwig

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ballad Of The Earwig

(a 55)

 

He was the earwig come up through the drain,

she the rosebud ruined in rain,

 

she the actress losing her looks,

he, strutting hero of unreadable books;

 

they a brainstorm dying in rage,

they, two monkeys shaking a cage.

 

I am the pony who runs with the storm,

you, blue fire that burns without warmth. 

 

 

April 2025 

 

 

 

 

posted for Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Earwig, metal sculpture, artist unknown. via internet   Fair Use

Blue Fire Wallpaper, artist unknown, via internet,   Fair Use

Judas Hand

 

 

 

 

Judas Hand

( a 55)

 

March howls its broken promise

to erase the extra decades in your bones;

 

you're spent in bed still feeling

the burn that made the ash.

 

The ghostwind cuts

your lips with a dead man's kiss.

 

You forget hummingbirds are coming

like children cured by the sea

 

and wish you'd never bet

on that judas hand.

 

 

 

 

March 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for the Word Garden Word List 

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes: a poker hand of black aces and eights with a card in the hole is called a dead man's hand, after the hand held by Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot in the back of the head in Deadwood, Dakota Territory 1876. It's also known as the judas hand. Alternatively, a judas hand can be three tens, representing the thirty pieces of silver Judas Iscariot received for betraying Jesus Christ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Landscape in Stormy Weather 1885 ©Vincent Van Gogh  Public Domain

Display in Deadwood, South Dakota with the dead man's hand (here given as A♠ A♣ 8♠ 8♣ 9♦) Vidor at English Wikipedia.Public Domain

Fairy Tale Of The Moth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Fairy Tale Of The Moth

(a 55)

 

 

 

In the Amazon there's a moth
who lives by drinking the night-tears
of sleeping birds.

By day she's folded asleep
in deep green chambers where purple frogs
sweat pearls of poison.

If she dreams, it's only by accident.
At dawn the birds fly up, eyes
open for song, tears given

without intent or knowledge
as I give mine, silver life
to the mouths of memories.

 

March, 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted for WGWL at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: Gorgone macarea is the moth referred to here, one of several species of Lepidoptera who pratice lachryphagy for survival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image credits: Blue Morpho Butterfly, 1865 © Martin Johnson Heade 

Great Peacock Moth, 1889 © Vincent Van Gogh 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Silver Song

 

 

 

 

 The Silver Song

(a 55)

I don't remember when

the Black Fear came; it seems

it's always been here, a broken

rotted smell under the floor,

invisible but disruptive

as catching on fire.

Bright-piercing in the night-oak,

a bird too small to see

sings quicksilver notes.

 

Which more unexpected,

that it sings at all,

or that I hearing it

rejoice?

September 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Fireblossom's Desperately Different (the unexpected)

at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Untitled (Blurred Figure) ©Zdzisław Beksiński   Fair Use

Blue Tit, ©Karl Martens  Fair Use

 

The Hell War

 

 

 

 

 

The Hell War

 

 

Hades crowns the flight

of dirty falcons

with scarlet galaxies

spilled by hell's black tusk

 

above cities cracked,

 broken-backed

in that glittering metaverse

where truth wobbles itself

 

into lies, idiots become geniuses

and poets wolves,

their meat

the bleeding revolution.

In the shadows, all that's left

of softness

rocks the experimental child

who cannot cry.

March 2023 ~ a 55

 

 

 

posted for

Word Garden Word List

Images: Untitled (Hell Tower,)  © Zdzisław Beksiński  Fair Use

The Molars of Leviathan, © Wayne Douglas Barlowe  Fair Use

Fantômes de Versailles

 

 

 

 

Fantômes de Versailles

(a 55) 

 

 Ghosts go hungry

at Versailles. 'Let them

eat cake,' the custodian mumbles.

Marie-Antoinette tries to bake

but flour falls through her fingers

dust to milky dust.

Marie starts the minuet.

Diamonds drop off the

Shepherdess like old flesh.

'Les riches, she murmurs,

are not quitters.'

In the Labyrinthe,

fables dehydrate.

The custodian

watches World Cup.

 

 

 

November 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a little historical nonsense

 posted for

Word Garden Word List:Ghost Eaters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes: Marie-Antoinette and her waiting women often dressed as Shepherdesses and played at being country peasants in the elaborate gardens of Versailles. 

 

Regarding the Labryrinthe, or Bosquet de la Reine at Versailles: 

"In 1665, André Le Nôtre planned a hedge maze of unadorned paths in an area south of the Latona Fountain near the Orangerie.. In 1669, Charles Perrault – author of the Mother Goose Tales – advised Louis XIV to remodel the Labyrinthe in such a way as to serve the Dauphin's education..Le Nôtre redesigned the Labyrinthe to feature thirty-nine fountains that depicted stories from Aesop's Fables..accompanied by a plaque on which the fable was printed..in verse..; from these plaques, Louis XIV's son learned to read..[C]ompleted in 1677, the Labyrinthe contained thirty-nine fountains with 333 painted metal animal sculptures. The water for the elaborate waterworks was conveyed from the Seine..[and used by].. fourteen water-wheels driving 253 pumps.. Citing repair and maintenance costs, Louis XVI ordered the Labyrinthe demolished in 1778. In its place, an arboretum of exotic trees was planted as an English-styled garden. Rechristened Bosquet de la Reine, it would be in this part of the garden that an episode of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which compromised Marie-Antoinette, transpired in 1785..."~wikipedia

 

France is defending champion for the 2022 World Cup. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images:  L'Entrée du bosquet du Labyrinthe, © Jean Cotelle le Jeune (1642-1708) Public Domain

Marie-Antoinette Queen of France 1775 ©Jean Baptiste Gautier Dagoty

The Scarecrow's Sister

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scarecrow's Sister

(a 55)

 

 

The scarecrow's sister

feels the breath of November

scans the valentine of Winter

sees her brother surrender

his Eden again to Martinmas weather,

mocked in a cornfield

crestfallen with crows.

Tho his overcoat's empty

as her sentimental replay

of Romeo reborn,

she knows Spring will raise him

high on his stick

alive in the corn.

September, 2022

posted for

Word Garden Word List

and

earthweal's 

Open Link # 137

Images: In The Fields, Evening  © Jules Breton circa 1900   Public Domain

Pumpkinhead--Self Portrait © Jamie Wyeth, 1972  Fair Use

The Feather Seed

 

 

 

 

 The Feather Seed

(a 55)

There was a feather;

it grew from my eye until

it was my eye.

There was a word.

It grew from my quill until

it was a wing.

There was a seed;

it grew from the soil of

every word decaying, until

it was a tree where 

quilled birds sang

like candles in the dark.

August 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for 

The Sunday Muse

hosted by Carrie Thackery Van Horn

and 

 

 

Sherry Marr's 

Rewilding challenge at earthweal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes Of A Sailor

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes Of A Sailor

(a 55)

 

 My eyes grow rheumy

swimming in moonblur

but witnessing still

light's cut, color's fill,

shadow's indigo blot.

Light the blade, color the cloth,

blue shadow stitching together what's lost.

Old cells' ramparts

falling unfixed; 

wind pulls their dust,

time washes waves

over mitochondrial graves,

but memory sails its unsinkable boat

holding afloat

my far-sighted ghost.

 

 

July 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link #129

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Boatman, and Boat of the Mermaid, © Sabin Balasa  Fair Use

Crow Call

 

 

 

 

Crow Call

(a 55)

 

We always wear black

the crows and I,

call our skies

with a half-born crack,

shadow nests where our treasures lie,

 eat skeleton suppers with glass-star eyes.

 

Never look back.

Never look back

 

at bones we've picked

bleaching dry,

at red we've beaked

with black tails high,

dead in the darkwood

with summer's sigh.

June 2022

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poet's Pub

Open Link

Images: Satellite 2014 ©Bryan Holland, via internet, Fair Use

Antlers, author unknown, via internet, Fair Use

 

Three Tigers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Three Tigers

(a 55)

Three tigers by the sea

waiting for my company,

frightened by the gunner's moon;

three tigers hungry soon.

Three tigers in the millet;

artist, lover and a poet

find their game, make it run,

eat the work when they have done.

Two wet tigers in the storm;

 I laugh and keep the good one warm.

 

 

 

 

 April 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link Night

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images: Dream Caused By The Flight Of A Bee Around A Pomegranate A Second Before Awakening,1941, ©Salvador Dali  Fair Use

Tiger In A Tropical Storm-Surprised, 1891, ©Henri Rousseau  Fair Use

 

The Night Circus

 

 

 The Night Circus

 (a 55)

 

 

You told me

my eyes

were lanterns.

 

You stood them

around the bigtop

while you brushed

 

the clouds into my hair,

then on the highwire,

where you washed

 

in the moon;

but the wind came

and took their fire.

 

The night-circus burned.

 My hair flew up

in silver flames

 

of moon-twisted sun,

 

and I ran.

 

 

 March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link Night

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Head in the Clouds, photomanipulation © Thomas Dodd  Fair Use

Paysage Orageux, 1901 photographer unknown  Fair Use

The Edifying Tale Of Braxis The Barbarian

 

 

 

 

The Edifying Tale Of Braxis The Barbarian

(a 55)

 

 

Braxis the bold barbarian,

librarian

of axe and bone,

traveled alone.

 

He slayed them all as he mauled Gaul

leaving a pall

of smoke and blood.

(Brax was no good.)

 

Then Fate had him camp in a cave

containing Dave,

barbarous fare

for Dave the Bear. 

 

 January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

A minute poem for

dVerse Poets: Poetry Form

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Word count for the 55 includes the title. Total nonsense, I'm afraid.

 

 

 

 

 

 Image: DnD 5E barbarian sketch, artist unknown, via SkullsplitterDice.com Fair Use

Zebras

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Zebras

(A 55)

 

Remember

when we were two

trout climbing Sahara sand,

two flamingos wading snow,

two zebras

grazing rock, stalked

by an avalanche of clocks

worse than any lion.

Remember

our nights stitched from

oak's blood and violins

torn from the big cat's teeth.

Come home again

before the door breaks,

before memory's last meal

is gone.

 

 

January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link Night

 

 

using words from

Shay's Word List #9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Sleeping Zebra, 1959 © Carel Willink  Fair Use

Plant Archetecture, 1962 © Remedios Varo