The Burned House

Cosmos 'Sonata White'

The Burned House

When I wasn’t looking, the house burned down,

that tall one on the cliff’s edge that sucked in smoke

and died. It was full of mirrored rooms, that house

I used to own, each one a tank where dreamfish swam in fire,

where light flickered up on scales of copper-gold, now white

lumps of half-burned bone, refleshed with sudden coats of ash.

How were those rooms so full of light transformed to ash?

to flecks scraped from scorched love letters skittering down

the drive, black ink on blue paper burned feathery white?

Our words undressed became a script of smoke,

banded envelopes a fuel for chemical fire

that when my head was turned burned down the house.

Blackened beams, obscene leg-stumps of house       

frame possibilities negated. Nothing made of ash

can be reused. I sift the morsels left uneaten by the fire

that swallowed up the core, the spit-out shingles flying down

in flaps of flame, exhaling heat while carcinogenic smoke      

escaped from window-mouths on wings of restless white.

When it happened I was working soil for the Sonata Whites

but purity failed; so fire’s finger drew a circle round the house:

C. sulphureus instead, petals solar bright, tangerine smoke

drifting against the threshold wild alive, drawing flame from ash,

from rich dead dreamfish char piled in drifts of down;

now where white rebelled I fill my hand with redgold fire.

So I come to the doorway drawn by memory's fire       

to rake through dulled nails and teeth of white

half-melted days, look for the last inhabitants down

beneath the rotten timbers. The ghost-house

trembles, gives up its bones and sleeps in ash.

I pick and fuss at ruins, only to fill my bag with smoke:

photographs once rainbow stained to sepia, smoke-

colored faces turned to relics, eyeholes eaten black by fire

unreal as fingerbones of non-existent saints, grey as ash

and as unlikely to reignite; silver-colored trinkets faded white,

misshapen in the reflux of the firehose, lockets that housed

twists of burn-clipped hair lost in love's long down.

My insurance covers none of this disaster-whitened ash,

a total loss except for cosmos smoke, gold-warm as any fire,
embers at the doorway of the wild that can’t burn down.

 

C. sulphureus

~originally written September 2011, 
ruthlessly revised






 for Brendan's Doors

 Forgive the repost, but my time is not my own these days...

Cosmos is a perennial or half-hardy annual in the aster family, native to Mexico, Arizona, Florida and the southern U.S. down into Central and South America. It grows in both wild and cultivated form. It is heat and drought tolerant and reseeds itself so freely some forms, including C. sulphureus, are considered a weed in some places. Cosmos bipinnatus 'Sonata White" is a pure white hybrid form, bred for the cut flower trade.

Photo: Cosmos bipinnatus "Sonata White" by Julie Anne Workman, Forde Abbey, Somerset, UK
courtesy wikipedia Par Julie Anne Workman (Travail personnel) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Cosmos sulphureus 'Bright Lights' author unknow via internet. Fair use

The Estuary

The Estuary

A sestina

In the dream estuary mud is alive with flamingos' coral flow

their yellow toes buried in the face of the mirrored moon

beaks spooning up warm worms that turn on the ebb

of yesterday to bolts of storm-worked silver

among the reedy songs long rimed with salt

that paint a mime's blank white on the changing river.

Summers' weeds black-lace the ice-pock craters, edge in river,

stubbling down to staggered stems where nothing flows.

Still, here we basin weeds and snow together, sweet and salt

spiraled milky smooth, stranded in a sudden fall of moon;

the coming sea that floods each tarnished top with circled silver

cries before dying in our arms, a white-boned ebb.

We are also in that moment, alien and identical, an ebb's

shoulder from the places where we touched. In the tangled river

language of affinity and loss, you write your silver

runes upon my hair; we hear we've lost enough. We sift the flow

for comely bits of iron comedy, for relics of the servant's sinking moon

trapped in columned hours bleached and bleating in their pillory of salt.

I keep my eye on rock-torn shingle whitened by a sepulcher's salt

wound, you watch the blue horizon stretching from this pebbled ebb

to the birth-blood of a blind thing whelping her litters of moons,

dropped to drift aimlessly off on the tick of the restless river

that I have learned to welcome, flood and flow,

as my inconstant lover, servicing me with lenience and quicksilver.

In the dream estuary, wading a hundred thousand silver

roads that ache with snow, winding fingers through a century of salt

I measure each brackish heartbeat in your flow;

I feel you pulse my throat at my own life's ebb,

a meeting where the ocean loves the river,

a shattered, reshaped promise to the robber moon.

I hold you as the ash tree holds her vain-caged moon,

an empty outline far from rock reality's shot at silver,

yet full of light, a fuzzy gilding on the dimples of the river.

I forget the bitter glint of trickling salt,

the painted mime's black tear on this masque's ebb,

remember only what receives us dreaming as the estuary flows.

Between the weeds and snow, flow the moon and go;

the blend and ebb of silver sing together. Neither sweet nor

salt, sea nor river, yet two are one at last and changed forever.

~February 2015




linked to      real toads

The Tuesday Platform

"estuary: that part of the mouth or lower course of a river in which the river's current meets the sea's tide." ~dictionary.com

Photo: Allegheny River, Winter
copyright Diana Lee Matisz 2015

Used with her generous permission. Thank you, Diana!

You can find more of Diana's exquisite work on her Instagram page, here, and more about her, with links to all her blogs and her Red Bubble store, on her About Me page.

Hedgerider's Lament~Part IV

The Hedgerider's Lament
Part IV: Samhain Sestina

The harvest grain is thin and sere, the barren cattle half dead

with want of it, shadows not meat hung on their poking bones.

The starving rat is under the straw. Two dogs meet it in the night;

one barks, the other silent grabs its neck and shakes out red.

The hollowed return hungry from the wars where they were lost,
trading bedlam's bright blood for pandemonium's gaudy hour.

Senses shun the hedgerow's bloom, calcified grey in a headstoned hour:

sandburr, bullnettle, goathead, thorns all sharper the longer they’re dead.

The crouched purple aster's maze unpurls to pad them in a battle lost

to puncturing, blue eyed tears disjected over the tracing of summer’s bones.

None can say who'll see the winter out or even one more sunset’s red

downbedded on the grass, when the sun’s head is spiked this night,

a jack o lantern by bonfires built to feed, to frighten night,

to burn the past and with its heat push back the cold coming hour.

Slaughter’s remains make spirit suppers, as hopes and sins flare red.

Bring out the warding masks, for we’re face to face with all our dead

searching in the circling, finding framed in flame the bloody bones

of that which dies for us; flowers, lovers, friendships,years and memories lost.

Every other fire now lies dead upon the hearth, heat and virtue lost

to be made anew. I tend the futile telling in the ghostdance parade of night

peeling the apples, watching the crows, rolling the knucklebones

to say how the favors will fall, what black or golden hour

stand bare, danced out before us on this night owned by the dead

and only borrowed, where every fortune told is washed in red.

All things in the flames fly up; the shadow finds us still in that red-

drench bath. Balefires burn high against the sum of all that’s lost;

I feel you push on the thinning skin with that crowd of grinning dead,

your barkbrown eyes black pits in a skull that prisons night.

I set candles in the west window at the witchwind's darkest hour

to burn, to beckon, and to grieve your moving bones.

So many times I’ve called but never do any tumbled bones

cross over, though your table’s set with summer wine red

in the cup, ringed with daisies. I’ve sat through the last ashen hour

playing your blue tune, danced an old dance over what can’t be lost.

From the corner a mummied cricket rubs its broken legs all night

in a threnody to send you back to the thankless work of being dead.

What is it you have to tell across the void in this hour of the lost?

Your disappearing bones are a scrawled sign, blood ink of deepest red

glowing against the scroll of night, read only by the dead.

 October 2011



Posted for    OpenLinkNIght   at dVerse Poets Pub

You can find the earlier poems in the Lament series, Parts I-III  here

Process Notes: Samhain (pronounced sau-win) is a Gaelic harvest festival and festival of the dead originating in pre-Christian Ireland, associated with the last harvest, the end of summer and the Celtic New Year, the slaughtering of livestock for winter, bonfires(balefires) both of purification and where the bones of the slaughtered cattle were burned, 'guising' in masks and costumes to mingle safely among the dead, who are said to be at their closest to the living world at this time, and divination for the upcoming year. It was and in some places still is celebrated on the last day of October and first of November, and is considered the progenitor of our present day Halloween.

The Burned House

Cosmos 'Sonata White'

The Burned House

A Sestina

When I wasn’t looking, the house burned down,

the one standing on the cliff’s edge that just sucked in the smoke

and died. It was tall and full of mirrored rooms, that house

I used to own, each one a tank in which some dreamfish swam in fire,

where liquid light flickered on scales of gold and copper, now white

lumps of half-burned bone, refleshed with sudden coats of ash.

How were these soul aquaria so full of life transformed to ash?

to flecks crisped from scorched love letters blown down

the drive, black ink bleeding on blue paper burned feathery white?

Your words to me, mine to you, became a script of smoke

ribboning envelopes all set alight to fuel this chemical fire

that when my head was turned burned down the house.

Blackened beams are everywhere, obscene stumps of house       

frame arching possibilities negated. Nothing made of ash

can be reused. I turn over scant remains uneaten by the fire

that swallowed up the core and spit out shingles, flying down

in flaps of flame, exhaling heat while carcinogenic smoke      

billowed from gapped window mouths in plumes of restless white.

When it happened I was working a new bed for the Sonata White

cosmos, but purity failed; fire’s finger drew a circle round the house

of C. sulphureus instead, yellow petals aster bright, tangerine smoke

drifted against the lintel wild alive, drawing all being from that ash

rich compost of dreamfish dying in char as the building came down;

now where the white rebelled I fill my hand with redgold fire.

So I come to the doorway drawn by the long gone glow of fire       

to rake through the dulled nails and teeth of white

half-melted yesterdays, look for the last inhabitants down

beneath the rotten timbers where the dead house

trembles, gives up its bones and sleeps in ash.

I pick and fuss at the ruins, filling my bag with smoke:

photographs once kodachrome stained to sepia,  smoke

colored faces turned to relics, eyeholes eaten black by fire

unreal as the fingerbone of a non-existent saint, grey as ash

and as unlikely to reignite; trinkets charred to white

misshapen in the reflux of the firehose, lockets that house

a tarnished twist of burnt hair muddied by walls long fallen down.

My insurance covers none of this lost substance, now white ash,

a total loss except for cosmos smoke, gold-warm as any fire,

banked embers over the open house of the wild that can’t burn down.

~September 2011

Posted for   FormForAll   at dVerse Poets Pub

Cosmos is a perennial or half-hardy annual in the aster family, native to Mexico, Arizona, Florida and the southern U.S. down into Central and South America. It grows in both wild and cultivated form. It is heat and drought tolerant and reseeds itself so freely some forms, including C. sulphureus, are considered a weed in some places. Cosmos bipinnatus 'Sonata White" is a pure white hybrid form, bred for the cut flower trade.

Photo: Cosmos bipinnatus "Sonata White" by Julie Anne Workman, Forde Abbey, Somerset, UK
courtesy wikipedia Par Julie Anne Workman (Travail personnel) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Hedgerider's Lament Repost

This a repost for Form for All  at DVerse Poets Pub

The topic today is the sestina, and Matt Quinn of Poemblaze blog  is hosting. Thanks to him, and to Gay Cannon for bringing us the chance to explore a challenging but rewarding form.

Hedgerider's Lament~Part II can be found here
Hedgerider's Lament~Part III can be found here

The Hedgerider's Lament

Part I: Yule Sestina

It’s the time when amber green light soaks the sponge of mist,

dripping softly where worlds rub shoulders in vast night,

dreaming in the nest where brown eggs shift and crackle in the air,

where I’m looking, looking, hearing soundless bells in the blue.

The grass bends, the sparrows talk, and magic guards this place

as I edge myself along the walls of the razorleafed hedgerow.

I see them all, patient, living, bent to purpose in the hedgerow

waiting where the edges are sharp, or under the amber green mist.

Horehound lolls silver tongues, mint droops, amanita puts in place

red spotted chairs for sprites and roofs for toadlings. Shadow night

hides monkshood in its cobalt cap, telling me something fatally blue,

and ladyslippers wait for mousewomen where foxgloves dot the air.

My skull is a tangling rootball of hair and bone and air.

My skin is ambergreen bark against the razorleaves of the hedgerow.

My eyes are storm clouds flickering outwards, grey and blue.

My rabbit nose is twitching, pink in the dripping mist,

breathing in and out, sifting and shaking the smells from the night,

passing hands above the edges, feeling leaves for the right place.

I see a medicine fire drifting the air with grey, burning in the place

where a fallen piece of star has struck a match against hard air,

making sage smoke and sweetgrass smolder in the night,

like tobacco in the pipes of gnomes carousing in the hedgerow.

Other nights I lift a glass, beg them wash their beards in mist

but tonight I cannot stop to joke for the place is near, so cold and blue.

I can hear the worlds go sloshing in their shells, spinning in the blue

almost touching, noses pushing membranes towards the place

where the new year sleeps in the old year's arms, damp with mist

and the quick bear the dead upon their backs, howling thru air

sharp silenced by what dwells just past the hedgerow

because the time is not quite yet, though it nears in the shortening night.

                    

Day has sighed and gone, spent from matching itself to night

so perfectly. My hair jigs up in Tesla’s dance, jumping white & blue.

I feel them creeping, riding the top of the razored hedgerow

where it's thin as my skin. Now all but my hair is frozen in place.

Burnt tumbled smells, the soft horse muzzle of the night air

nudges them at me, while at last the steelsharp leaves begin to mist.

                         

Now I can see you blur and move, in mist waves of ribboned night.

I reach out to the air. There where the thorns have turned  blue

is the place I can pull you from your lost world, thru the hedgerow.

 ~December 2010

If this seems familiar it's because all three of these sestinas were originally

Posted for One Shot Wednesday at the inimitable One Stop Poetry

With thanks to Rabbit
The first of what will hopefully be four sestinas loosely based on the neopagan festival days of Yule, Candlemas, Beltane and Samhain.