The Necromancer

The Necromancer

Long hours, back bent aching

I've spent tinkering with the relics.

My eyes water from peering
under yellowing light
for the sweet

outlier, its nyctophillic

touch, the exuberant spark
so well-hid,

the divine animation of

the incurably dead.

But bones are recalcitrant, 

the heartbeat cleaves dry

to its mouth-roof.

The frog won't hop,
the mouse-muscle

shudders, un-alive in the

current's bite. I open the chrysalis

of the ether soaked moth, my last
hope crying to see

I can't make it fly.

I only long to reverse

the order of things, to grasp

even once time ticking in my fist,

twist back its setting, but dead

is forever,

and what's gone down that hole

will never come back.

~October 2013

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Challenge: Out of Standard: To Monster with Love

Isadora Gruye of the Nice Cage blog once more has us looking at things with a different squint, and asks us to write about our monsters with a loving slant. She says "My one rule will be that you choose an iconic monster: by which I mean a monster who is recognizable to more than four people (okay, so I am swinging a bit loose with that definition, but you get the point!)"

.I hope my necromancer, who is of course, just a trope for the Mad Scientist, will meet this requirement.

Image: Astral Person, by Remedios Varo, via wikipaintings.org
This artwork may be protected by copyright. It is posted on the site in accordance with fair use principles.

This

This

What's more of me than this,

what 's left of me but age,

blue lines on white page

pushing blank to bloom?

No one will know me

better than paper,

paper that grows me
its wishes of vapor.

There's no trusting what's

made from skin and desire;

there's no fear very real

for paper but fire.

~March 2013

Images:Blue Amaryllis,  Amaryllis, © joyannjones

Widow's Walk

Widow's Walk

or, Bring Me Brains for Christmas

Intellect's a tongue-tied bystander

when instinct

commandeers the sprung ship,

rigs a shredded sail.

 

Thought's a pacing widow

looking out to sea,

a singularity

emotion devours.

The mind's a dolphin thrashing, snagged

in the reaction net; let some kind

clever hand untangle her, before

she's sliced for the silver can.

~December 2012

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Challenge: Words Count with Mama Zen

The inimitable Mama Zen asks us to state our dearest Christmas wish in 50 words or less. Christmas is a time when my emotions often get the better of me, so I am echoing the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz: "If I only had a brain..."  Santa?? Igor???

Header Image: Woman by the Sea, by Pierre de Chavanne

Public Domain via wikipaintings.org

Footer: Photo copyright Octavia Aberto,  National Geographic Photo Contest 2012

All Rights Reserved