Ghost In Mirrorlight

Ghost In Mirrorlight

The moon poured only ghosts of mirrorlight

but thick and rich as the cream of your summer skin

that blinked pale against the cooling coffee-black night

when the wind was just a comfortable autumn beast,

shaggy with the flurry of falling leaves

and not the winter-bitter glistening back of sleet.

You had no cold love, served without a sauce

nor lukewarm, listening merciless as drought, only

a love that never thinks of loss

to  give to me, and all of it was mine,

the kisses on each inch, the ones that traced

each rise of breath, each shadow in my eye,

from the first that falls upon the cornerstone

to the last

that travels inward to the bone.

My inheritance of teeth, my broken stars

you covered in the heart's deep underground

where I discovered that escape erases scars,

that a lifelong thirst required only tea

made too hot and fragrant for regret,

which you and luck had kindly brought for me

in a tortoiseshell cup

some child had left behind

when love was a shrine.

 March 2020

posted for Kerry's 

March Word List Challenge 

Images: Teatro de Sombras,As Cinco Estações, (Shadow Theater, Five Stages) 1976 ©Lourdes Castro    Fair Use

The Terre-Cuite Tea Set, 1910 ©Childe Hassam   Public Domain

Sweetener

Sweetener

I.

I put you in my tea

tannic with memories;

stirred, they go down smoother

sipping on your ways.

Put on my plate you make

an evergreen presentation,

dressed in rue and fired clay,

so haute cuisine, salad of baby greens

tossed in hope and fear, before

the soup of dreams.

II.

I put you on the moon

sitting where she bends

your cloven feet a-dangle in 

their blurred and slippery stars.

You ease Orion’s belt, give cloudy listening blinks;

I whisper in your thunder covered ear until

you put me in the storm

flying with wings of rain 

where cold front meets the warm.

III.

I put you in my heart

little shop of horrors

cobweb seeded, only one

flyblown object on display but not

for sale. Pressed against the glass

your firefly face winks in the indigo night

where ribboned time slips tight in a lover's knot

and tea is sweet as your blue sky mouth my love, 

sweeter than floating memories dead in the pot.

March 2012

an old favorite, in Kerry's triptych form, 

 reposted for 

Fireblossom's Poetic Imagery 

Image: Tea Time, © Ellen Wilson of Ella's Edge

Love Charm

Love Charm

Love is a charm;

a foamy morning philtered

in dark rich tea

or coffee on the tongue,

a need that is a pleasure

that is a habit; a luxury, necessity

to make life awake a possibility.

Love is a charm wound up

with eyes unblinded; I love you

in your presence

or your absence

because you are the soil of what I am,

to seed each evening with these antiphons

to flower stones or miracles on our bones.

I love you, charmed or no,

even so and even though
you've done your best to go;
pain runs like colors in the sun,

but love can only stay behind;

a candle calling out upon a table,

a night-bird or a rain-smell on the wind,

a medicine that brews itself again.

~Nov, 2014, rev April 2015

posted for

National Poetry Month with Magaly Guerrero

Poetry For The Blood, Flesh, Bone And Spirit

Today, Magaly wants us to sing about the healing of the flesh and of the spirit:

"Our poems should read like a relaxation chant; every line should unwind us to the bone."

 
antiphon:noun; 1. a verse or song to be chanted or sung in response. 2. Ecclesiastical. a psalm, hymn, or prayer sung in alternate parts. ~dictionary.com







Images:
Still Life with Drawing Board, Pipe,Onions and Sealing Wax, 1889, by Vincent Van Gogh
Old Woman with a Candle,  17th Century, by Gerrit Dou
Public domain via wikiart.org 

Medicine For Melancholy

Eugeny Kozhevnikov

Medicine for Melancholy

With these drops

I absolve you of blame.

Taste---I've spent weeks
straining the river

mixing  honey and rue

steeping laudenum 

cinnamon,

to hide the strength

to cover the bite

of salt and
broken stars.

I'm the intruder
the stranger on the flow

harmless or dangerous

as you, let in from the trenches

in a downhill moment

of melancholy truth;

you should do as I say.

Taste---nobody cares

what we do here

splashing like dolphins
in the dark of a dream.

~November 2013

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Get Listed with Ed Pilolla

Ed Pilolla, one of the most ingenuous, genuine, and gifted young poets in the blogosphere, provides us with a list of words today having to do with rivers and love. For a complete recap of the words, see above link. Thanks, Ed--this poem was only an embryo before your suggestions.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Eugeny Kozhevnikov, via Mindtripworld2  on facebook

Circe Speaks

Circe Speaks

After twenty-six cups of wine

a warrior turns into a swine.

They called it witch's sorcery, poison lore;

but really, all I ever did was pour

~August 2012

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub 
A short one, to make up for all the long ones, and double shots lately. I *have* included an extra, completely optional poem, for those who care to go there, though.

 ~*~

Circe Speaks also appears at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads today, as part of a personal challenge writing exercise on bad girls and the bad, bad things they do.  Since Toad-in-Chief Kerry O'Connor has suggested it, if interested you can read my sonnet inspired by Lady Caroline Lamb which also appears there below:

Caro's Sonnet

I saw your midnight eyes fix on me, love

without a speck of kindness in their glow.

I should not have loved this long, to see you prove   

my point: 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know,'

but your spoken candle threw a luring light,

the moth soul shattered its shell of silent doubt.

Then thirst and scorn gave in to lover's night

till the moth was dead, the candle guttered out.

It seemed well worth it, all the things I lost,

my place, my peace, my sanity at last

to chase your lies and never count the cost,

to drink your hate, for love emptied too fast.

The dust of that scarlet poppy fills my cup;

now all that's left me is to drink it up.

~August 2012

Header Image: Circe Invidiosa, by John Wiliam Waterhouse, 1892

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org
Footer Image, Portrait of Lady Caroline Lamb, by Sir Thomas Lawrence
Public Domain, via wikimedia commons