The Keeper's Dream

The Keeper's Dream

Wild darkness grows tame lightning

blue light from wrinkled hands;

 St Elmo's fire, stormscream, water

pushed into a weapon,

air's hysterics

my mates in this dark place.  

From the dead sailor's dream I know

your cry, snaking

up the spiral spine of things,

to warn the time is here

when even fishes will need wings.

~December 2019

For Kerry's Art FLASH 55 at real toads

A quick and dirty 55--forgive if my tools are still a bit rusty--with thanks to Kerry for all the glories, past and present, of The Imaginary Garden, and to the G-Man for the form which never fails.

Images: Pharos and Pacifico Oracle cards, © Kerry O'Connor
Attribution Link

Goodbye

goodbye sweet singer and teller of truths

Stone Ghost

Stone Ghost

A Terzanelle (of sorts)

for RCC

There was a ghost then

who seemed to touch my face

who smiled without the words again,

black horses in a broken race.

He thought he was alive;

I thought he touched my face.

I only counted up to five

fingers of flesh and air;

He thought I was alive

when we walked handfast there

above a sea of dust,

soft dolls of flesh and air,

the sharp cliffs shadowed rust

as sun bleached caryatid hair

waved white in a sea of dust,

snagged on the moon's rocking chair.

There was another ghost then,

with a sun blind caryatid stare,

no smile, only words to make it end.

~May 2014

posted for      real toads

Challenge: Play it Again

Margaret Bednar(Art Happens365) once again asks us to pull a challenge from the abundant archives at the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. I have chosen Kerry's most recent form challenge, the terzanelle, but with apologies, because, as usual, I've not attempted pentameter, or even a ten-syllable line count, and taken a few liberties as well in slightly altering the refrain lines.

Photo: Caryatid, via wikimedia commons

Friday Flash Fiction 55 Farewell Tour

Life is change, and all good things must end, and come again, and all that jive,  but today is a sad day here at Verse Escape as we say goodbye to the G-man 's Friday 55 meme.

Galen Hayes, (Mr KnowItAll) after seven years of kicking ass and taking names, has decided to hand over the Friday funfest to new ownership. I'll let you read the details over at his place. I also encourage you to participate in the farewell tour with a final 55 of your own.

Looking back over my posts, I see that I have written one hundred and thirty four 55 word poems or prose pieces for the Master of 55's, and the one below I just cranked out makes one hundred thirty-five.  

135!!!

Many of those poems would never have been written without that platform, its supportive readers and Galen himself with his always warm praise and hospitality.

Galen's goal has always seemed to be to me to connect and to have fun, some of the best things we can do with the internet. He has not just patiently, but cordially waded through my incomprehensible gibberish and weekly hallucinations and never missed a beat (or a smart-ass remark.) I shall miss this weekly celebration immensely, even though it will continue in a new form elsewhere--it will not be--nor should it be--the same without him.

So tonight, here without further ado is my totally non-hallucinatory tribute to a fine meme, and a finer gentleman. I call it

Ode to the G-Man

Whether it was snow or hailin'

you could always count on Galen.

Every Friday (maybe Thursday)

every week's-end, late or early,

cheerfully he'd read your scribble,

tactfully not call it drivel.

It was real & it was fun

BUT 
tonight the G-Man's done.

Gun that Harley, go take five,

then please
Have a Kick-Ass Life.

~March, 2014

55 lonely teardrops for  the g-man 

:C

Just for fun, here is a link to the very first 55 I ever posted, back in November of 2010, the second month of my first year blogging, called Dental Work--that proved to be quite a prophetic title, eh, G?

Turn Turn Turn

A seeker, a weaver
a student and master
voice of the worker,
never a doubter, forever
a singer. No one had to ask
which side you were on.

~January 2014

posted for    real toads

Challenge: Words Count with Mama Zen

The ever terse Mama Zen challenges us to write something suitable for twitter in 140 characters or less; I don't have much interest in twitter these days, but wanted to remember a great man, and no words of mine can ever beat his, so the fewer the better.

 Pete Seeger passed yesterday at the age of 94. Thank you, Pete, for outliving McCarthy's blacklist, for all the great songs that others made famous, for your own light which always shone bright for the working man, and for Everyman.

Image: Pete Seeger at age 88 photographed on 6-16-07 at the Clearwater Festival 2007 by Anthony Pepitone, via wikimedia commons

Shared under a Creative Commons License.

Pretext

Pretext

Liriope played a wind-doll's calliope

under a blackbrowed sky.

A vinca minor chased Ursa Major

where the melting butters fly.

Passiflora stigmata tapped out her sonata

on clouds dusted with ebony flies.

Red amaranthus and blue agapanthus

ate old Agamemnon's dark eyes.

And all of this is truer, love, than

the lie you made goodbye.

~February 2013

55 mixed metaphors for   the g-man

If you'd like to hear the poem read to get the names straight, please click below:


Pretext by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Process notes: For those who care about minutia, liriope is a common grassy groundcover in the southern US, also called lilyturf or monkey grass. Vinca minor (or periwinkle) is a vining ground cover with small leaves and blue flowers. Ursa Major, or the Great Bear, is a constellation.  The genus Passiflora, though it includes over 500 species, does not actually have one called stigmata. That was just me making things up. Its common name is however Passionflower, because it's many unusual flowering parts are said to tell the story of the passion of Christ, including its 3 prominent stigmas representing the three nails used in the crucifixion.  

Amaranthus is a large old-fashioned annual with pendulous reddish-purple flower bracts, known also as Love Lies Bleeding, and agapanthus is a mostly tropical bulb with blue globe-shaped blooms on long stalks, also called Lily of the Nile. In Greek myth, Agamemnon was a Mycenaean king who, among other things, commanded the Greeks in the Trojan War.

All images from flick'r and shared under a Creative Commons License
~mouse-over for attribution.

Incubus: Finale

Incubus: Finale

(Incubus VII)

The incubus struggles

with depression,

reluctantly fulfilling

the contract,

turning his bitches 
over to

Beelzebub.

He broods.

All

that brimstone

acrobatic 
badass act

for 
nothing.

~August 2012

Posted for   real toads

Challenge: Words Count with Mama Zen 

Mama Zen asks us to write, in 25 words or less, something using a trademark symbol, something used in our own, or in another poet's work so often as to be identified with the writer. I now have seven poems in my Incubus series, counting this one which, at least for the moment, is the last, so hopefully I've hit the mark. If you'd like to check out the others, click HERE.

Image: Death of a Whore, by Heironymous Bosch, circa 1485

Public Domain, via Wikipaintings.org