Firefall

 

 

 

 

Firefall

 

 

 Lightning falls tonight

along the border of change.

Summer made a brass mirror

hot as Hell's floor to flare

the prairie grass to fire. 

Now her demon child

walks the storm.

We built a tall white tower

a colossus to catch the wind

for us to eat. With a flick of

staggered shot the lightning felled it

melting it

like an interrupted dream.

And so it was

when you and I

met to hold the lightning

in our palms, flaring in

a mutual fire, to give back

the reflection of love

from eyes of brass. Too much

heat cracks the shell.

Too much

of the electric touch

and towers melt,

lightning falls singing

a crackling song that says:

no one can own me

only the end I bring them.

 

 

August 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's weekly challenge:

Lightning Falls 

 

 (with apologies to Brendon 

for shamelessly using his theme title)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: Last night we got one of those wild storms that pop up along an advancing front. Most of it missed us here at my location, saving some very welcome thunder and rain, but parts of the state got flooding downpours, downburst winds up to 75 mph, and a lot of lightning, a bolt of which melted this wind turbine in Custer County and set it on fire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Volcano and lightning, author unknown, via the internet. Fair Use

Burning Wind Turbine, Custer County, courtesy of Oklahoma News 9 Weather, Fair Use 

Fool's Box

Fool's Box

From its box of cloud

the lightning howled

to find the trap

of the fool's grey walls,

crack'd them with a fitful fire,

rocked the cradle hard and higher.

Wild, wild, it played within

the morephemes of his box of skin;

burning hot as rain was cold,

too bright to lose, too quick to hold;

 til, sun-collapsed and blue air-bled,

it left him with a pen instead.

~April 2017

for      Brendan's Fools

(a tongue in cheek take for the theme of  April's 30/30)

Images: Untitled, © Zdizlaw Beksinski Fair use via wikiart.org

Ghost In The Machine

Man Leaning On A Parapet~Georges Seurat

Ghost In The Machine

 “The best portion of a good man's life: 

his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love.”

~William Wordsworth

When the morning's a veil of grey

and the gold is still a closed fist,

the sighing comes over the fields

spilled in a tickling mist

from a silver pail of silence

before the anxious birds

begin their nervy chorus,

before the softshell world

uncracks itself before us.

That's when you seem to turn,

breath of lilacs panting

just behind my ear,

whispers in an old planting;

all you were and weren't

a music changed to noise,

all your fading fragrance

feeding till it cloys.

So shade, take coffee with me here

where the night and light collide,

and tell me what became of

the man who could be kind. 

~April 2013 , lightly revised, January 2014

posted for   real toads

Open Link Monday

This was originally written for a challenge Kerry gave us last April:to take one of three quotes from poet William Wordsworth as our jumping off point. It's a favorite of mine, so I dusted it off for another trip around the block.

The Unlikely Summer

The Unlikely Summer

It was

an unusual summer.

The heat left town, embarrassed

after a bad opening night.

Sparrows and hummingbirds broke

union rules and danced in the same line-up,

decorating spotlight sunflowers like seeds of glass.

At night, significant rabbits with pocketwatches

came to the back door in top hat and tails, asking

the way to wonderland, but time jumped

upstream wild and fast as salmon in a silver river

and they were ~ always ~ late.

I dialed the broken wheel on the landline

till my digits calloused, to speak long distance to

the empty place where you had been ~  always ~

I got the machine ~ always ~ noncommittally polite

and willing to take a message, but

I knew I'd never hear back, even though

every flower in my garden bloomed

out loud for you in that

unusual summer

where secret thunder on the east

met the lightning climbing out of bowls

of blue cloud, hollow, vast and tortured with swell.

Everything rained and turned to tatters.

I opened my heart to the storm

and it came in,
like Jesus filling a canvas tent,

and the blur and the flicker

fell into my fingers until I became

~all ways ~
dangerous, until

I wasn't safe for birds or rabbits, until

I could touch nothing
alive,

nothing at all.

~July 2013

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Friday Night Raw

Corey Rowley (Herotomost) asks us to dig deep into our toolbox as writers and use technique, different devices and styles to engage the reader, to access and convey the intensity of our emotions. He also mentions some bat guano. I think I got that part down. 



This is also posted for my friend Karin Gustafson's prompt 'a body or bodies of water,' at      
dverse poets 

(She said a rain drop was acceptable, so...)

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Images from Fick'r Creative Commons. Hover mouse for attribution, or click on pic to go to the photographer's flick'r page.

Rain In The Night

Rain In The Night

I hear it raining, raining tonight

or is it the singing of water

that everything empty be filled,

effulgent, if only with tears?

High up comes the shadowy spinner

to wind up the wandering flood,

to weave away yesterday's orphans;

I hear it raining, raining tonight.

A storm sent to midwife disaster

turns the howl of the wind in its womb,

brings wildfire and blood to the birthing

or is it the singing of water

dropping in petticoats of ash

dappling the mirror faced border?

The lightning-struck bodies on fire

let everything empty be filled

thinking that which is broken and battered

can be smoothed into glimmering bits

shining rounded and faithfully polished,

if only by infinite tears.

~February 2013

posted for   real toads

Sunday Mini-Challenge
I'm hosting today, for the second  and final part of my chained rhyme extravaganza. This time we're doing cascades. A cascade is a poem where each line of the first stanza serves in sequence as the last line of the following stanzas. For the full lowdown, follow the link above, to real toads.

Photos shared courtesy of Flick'r Creative Commons
Mouse-over for attribution, or click picture to go to the photographer's page.

Windblown

Tornado Alley is expected to be a busy place for the wind today, so the odds are I'll be offline--we had the sirens wake us last night at 3:00 AM, for a twister that passed a mile to our north-northeast, and people south of us were not so fortunate, where an F2 hit in the middle of another town (sending thoughts and concern your way, those who live there.)

Still, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, and all is well here at Castle Hedgewitch as of now, but today is supposed to be worse than yesterday once all the factors wake up and come together later this afternoon. Therefor I'm posting my poem for the day early, as should it start seriously storming, the PC will be turned off. 

Never a dull moment, folks. This is one I've had in the files, and worked up a bit for this particular theme.

Windblown

Climb the long hill

up from the cradle

hear the mockingbird

play out his fraud, the

idiot squirrel savant clattering speech

to put the mushrooms and acorns to sleep.

Fly the long wind

that blows through the years

needled with pine and regret

making clouds mountains, pretzeling trees, 

and tired grow wings that wear it from birth

above the hard calling spin of the earth.

Ride the long wave

that comes in the night

sorcerer’s hand disappearing sleep.

Wrap up in the foam and dig in the sand

try to breathe try to float, try turning to rise

from the pull, heart full of what reason denies.

Take the long chance; today is tomorrow.

Live in the wind where love crushes sorrow.

February/April 2012

Image: Windblown, © joy ann jones 2012

Salamander

Salamander

It’s easy to say

lick me as deeply as these flames cling

to what they devour

crawl on fire across the dry

husks of tenderness, rustle and spark
in my bed of shed skins

and watch me be consumed

but this is a country of cold

of ashes, where the green moon

looks down with basilisk eyes

to this polar waste where
nothing can burn

except the heart

skewered for the auto da fe,

up in vanity’s smoke

crackling and spitting its fat

into the roasting flames,

built to fuel a heat that mocks

the end of fire.

So bring your napalm skin

let me be the burning ballroom

where the salamanders dance

and I'll give you spark for spark

flame for flame

before the cold dawn

blows us out.

January 2012

Process notes: In medieval and occult lore, the salamander was thought to belong to, if not actually be, the element of fire. From wikipedia:"Leonardo da Vinci wrote the following on the salamander: 'This has no digestive organs, and gets no food but from the fire, in which it constantly renews its scaly skin...'  Later, Paracelsus suggested that the salamander was the elemental of fire..."

Footer Image: Pinup Model: Erika the Texas Timebomb(in 55 Thunderbird), by christopherallisonphotography.com, on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 Non-Commercial License 

Servant's Dream

Servant's Dream

'his heart was in the Union and his soul was reaching out for the servant's dream...'

~Willis Alan Ramsey

He dreams the servant’s dream

who finds no master;

back strong to work, hands

 that reach to make 
and tend

unfilled.

She dreams the mother’s dream

who has no child; arms that

crook to cradle, to caress,

 voice that longs

to lullaby,

unwombed.

I dream the lover’s dream

who finds no love.

the spirit thirst to drink

 the cup, the heart 

 that pours to fill it,

unopened.

I  wait to dream the servant

and the mother and the lover

come together, dream that

hands soul heart and

voice someday rest 
complete, work
 done.

August 2011

'..And in between the tunes his friends would ask him
where he'd be when the the morning came
he said through his grin, I put my thumb in the wind,
 I'm off down the road again.
Just a boy from Oklahoma on an endless one night stand
wanderin' ramblin' driftin' with the midnight sand.
He played the blues and the ballads and all that comes between
his heart was in the Union and his soul was reaching out for the servant's dream.

..the ramblin man's riz and the Kingdom's his...

just a boy from Oklahoma

on an endless one night stand...'

Image: Boys From Oklahoma Say Goodbye, 1977, by joy ann jones

September Storm

September Storm

Lightning’s not like clouds

full of castles and horses

elephants and eagles;

it’s all skinny fishbones

fish hooks and the

skeletons of dragons

lich lightlines walking and 

no pouffe at all.

So with you light of my heart

just a lightning strike against a
shuttered lid,

so with me just a bunch of

dried rosemary

twigging in the wind, so with
love just a rack of bones to pick
of what once was,

a september 
storm
electric sweet still

sighing, sensed, scented 
on memory's nightblue fingers.

September 2011