The Traitor

The Traitor

On  the sixth year's
first morning,

Annika

left the revolution.

She'd lost the means

to pay again the

too salty-sticky

stains' red blackmail;

music stopped playing

in the Enemy's screams,

Commander-cursed snow

blessed her

with blankets for the dead.
Overnight

she became a traitor

for glowworms,

the bourgeois bloom

of  marigolds,

the bark-wag

of dogs.

~July 2013

55 choruses of La Marseillaise for         the g-man

Process notes: This was taken from yet another dream, and bears no relationship to the French Revolution, the October Revolution, John Lennon's Revolution #9, or any specific historical event.

Images: Liberty Leading The People, by Eugene Delacroix, 1890
Glowworm, by Sergey Solomko, 
Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org

Haunted House

Haunted House

Down the basement steps of alone

when the bed began to spin,

things gored in

on the mind left behind

with their horns of tin.

The walls were softly talking,

the dead were walking.

In the attic of glass and bone

the roaches began to roar,

acid pour

brainspangled light too bright

as ceiling flipped  floor;

when the bullet ate the gun

the house came undone.

~October 2012

Posted for   real toads

Sunday Mini-Challenge

Kerry asks us to work with a seven line, counted syllable stanza used by Paul Laurence Dunbar, and with a seasonal theme. For full explanation of the form, see Kerry's excellent exposition at the link above.

 Image: (c) Isadora Gruye, of the Nice Cage blog

Used with permission

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

Ten Years After and The Sentinel

I've written two poems for the complex topic introduced by Mark Kerstetter for today's Poetics prompt at dVerse--the idea of using our words to explore the wounds of tragedy, with the example of that huge and over-riding tragedy that happened ten years ago in New York City in our minds. The first is a triolet that is probably more in tune with Mark's message, and the second a more cynical and political appraisal. It's a very difficult task, I find, to really turn over something fresh after all these years and all the hype and consequences, but the core of pain is always there to explore.

Ten Years After

A triolet

I searched for you I searched for my best

lost where life became dust and smoke.

Bricks burned and fell in a failing test.

I searched for you I searched for my best

in paranoia, noise without rest

where faith was dark, when reasons broke.

I search for you I search for my best

blackened, lost where life turned to smoke.

September 2011

Sentinel

Watching from the waves

waiting for the night

wavering with the wind

winnowing the sight

taller than the microphone tree

the legless sentinel stands elegantly.

Before the staring sun

beneath the secret stars

beside the heart of fear

beyond the insect wars

blind in black infinities

the eyeless sentinel sees degrees.

Playing the patriot’s game

prowling the profiteer’s alleys

punishing sidecrawling cells

purchasing silicon valleys

avarice plays the same skin flute;

The many-tongued sentinel’s mute.

Crying the widow’s tears

consuming the motherless child

culling the careless earth

crowing the caw of the wild

inhaling each exhaled breath,

the apostate sentinel reinvents death.

August 2011,
revised September 10,2011

Posted for   Poetics   at   dVerse Poets Pub

Image: National Park Service: 9-11; Statue of Liberty & World Trade Center
By US National Park Service emloyee (nps.gov) [Public domain], via wikimedia commons

Musical Interlude ~Journey Through Dark Heat~Dylan

I'm too tired to write today, but never too tired to listen to someone else who can do it like this. There are too many lines in here to pick from but I'm going to quote a few--the woman who's "drifting...like a satellite,"  the  "babe in the arms of a woman in a rage," who  "winds back the clock and turns back the page/on a book that  nobody can write.."  and  "..there's a lion in the road/there's a demon escaped..."  not to mention, " there's a white diamond moon on the dark side of this room, and a pathway that leads up to the stars/ if you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, just remind me to show you the scars...."

and finally for all you Gemini's (of whom Dylan is one, of course): "I fought with my twin, that enemy within/ ’Till both of us fell by the way.."

So without further ado :

This is from the 1978 album, Street Legal