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

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

Things That Stay Behind

 

 

 

 

 

 

Things That Stay Behind

(A 55)

 

 

Things that stay

behind memory's cold coals:

 

child's slipping skates

clipped with a key,

grandfather's rough-work hand

velvet on cottonpuff cheeks;

the margin of wild

the great lake stole from concrete,

that wish washed blue home where

only gulls screamed;

how suddenly it came, the frayed

squall of your kiss

at high water

washing childhood away.

 

 

 

 

 

November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets

Poetics: Ekphrasis, Fay Collins,

a talent taken too soon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Sunset Squalls at Connemara, © Fay Collins  Fair Use

Vintage roller skates, Photo by Sam Figueroa via Flickr Creative Commons  Fair Use

 

Empty

 

 

 

 

 "Hell is empty and all the Devils are here." ~William Shakespeare

 

Empty

(a 55)

 

The door to

the henhouse is

always unlocked

for inside there are

only wind eggs.

 

The Fall 

is a tryptich:

blackness, dead hearts,

disingenuous calculations. At

the apex

of chaos we have our

decumbiture, 

no thaumaturgy created

cures corrupted

senescence.

Don't

 turn the key

to lock in nothing; 

just open the door

for the foxes.

 

 

 

November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On November 19th, 2021, Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, was acquitted of 5 counts of homicide for the August 25th 2020 murders of two men and the attempted murder of a third. The men were protesting the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer in Wisconsin. The jury ruled that Rittenhouse, who crossed state lines with an assault weapon to "protect property" not belonging to him, acted in self-defense.

 

 

 

wind egg: an unimpregnated, yolkless, or imperfect egg ...an egg with a soft noncalcareous shell

decumbiture:1 obsolete : confinement to a sickbed. 2a : the time of taking to one's bed from sickness. b : a horoscope of such a decumbiture.

thaumaturgy:: the performance of miracles

~Merriam Webster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Photo of Door, title and author unknown, Fair Use via Sunday Muse

The Fox: Fair Game, © Alexander Pope  Public Domain

Cabin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cabin

 

 

 

The war was lost, the way

worse. I felt

the tired mare sigh

a heart-green path to

my old lover, the oldest lost

 and brown-eyed truth,

 a place to fold us

peel to apple,

bird to song.

 

I rearranged his

forest home as if

it were mine

 

and so it was

the old mare sighed.

 

 

 

 November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This poem has been edited since first posted.

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Illustration for "Vasilisa the Beautiful." 1900,  © Ivan Bilibin  Public Domain

Peasant Girl Near A Cabin, 1895, © Camille Corot   Public Domain

 

 

Floaters

 

 

 

 

 

 

Floaters

 

 

 

My eyes have

made small islands in their sea

that float between me

and what I want to be there,

all desired clear

but now obscured,

invisible for what they are,

and never heard.

Palm trees instead of paragraphs,

not faces, forms, but homemade rafts

drifting across a wavy film, not words,

but blind reality.

 

 November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Meeting the Bar

at dVerse Poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Clouds In Finland, 1908 © Konrad Kryzanowski,  Public Domain

Boat, c.1918 © Salvador Dali   Public Domain

Friday Flash Fiction 55 for February, 2020

Welcome to this month's edition of the Friday 55, where the only rule is to write a poem, piece of prose, prose-poetry, or flash fiction on any subject, in 55 words, no more no less. This is a writer's challenge that begins at midnight on Thursday and is live through 4:00 PM Sunday, CST. No Mr. Linky here, so just copy and paste your link in the comments, and I will be by to read what you have written.

Comment moderation is off but the blog author reserves the right to delete entries or comments at her discretion.

~*~

Here is my own offering:

Pain

Pain

is the coyote

that follows the wolf.

Bones are enough

from another dog's kill.

While the brain locks in shock,

pain eats its fill.

When

the gash has

been made, the organ 

worked loose, then there 

comes the howling hour,

the pull and crunch of coyote's jaws;
pain's tongue-lolling grin
outside death's den-door.

February 2020

Disclaimer: Coyotes are a misunderstood animal, and no animus is meant against them here. They have an important place in the myths and lore of many cultures, as well as the ecosystem, and a right to their lives and habitats. I ask coyote's spirit to excuse the poetic license I have exercised in choosing him for my metaphor.

Image of coyote howling with full moon,  2011, ©hardcoreturkhunter, via internet   Fair Use