Flying

Flying

Stars are hung

so mute, 

a dazzle-gloss of pearls

mistletoed on slippery branches,

clustered as the gaudy callicarpa.

To catch the laughter

of a single one

is footling as

a grab for just one raindrop.

I see nothing. 

Keyholes don't

when old gods stoop and squint

 a wavering richness,

titan eyes teared in light's life-juices;

I see myself,

the nothing, hollowed

gap that sets the key,

void upon the edge:

the dryer the husk,

the less pull on the wing.

Callicarpa americana   google image search

~September 2015 

posted for    real toads

Words Count

Top: Untitled, by Jean Cocteau, fair use via wikiart.org

Persistence of Notion

Persistence of Notion

It's a long walk

away from yourself

from your carefully assembled

hands and feet

from your chalkboard smile

into the heat

where things form and break

in the suncradle crucible

rocking, melting

joining of grains, of drops

shifting towards

then away

from themselves.

It's a long trip

away from the past

walking shapeless sand

with sacked shell-shatter to carry.

When it's finally laid down

spilled out, you can't stop

looking back at the pieces

pulling together,

pulsing, alive,

waiting

to regrow smile

and feet

and follow you.

~May/June 2014

posted for    real toads

Sunday Challenge: Avant-edge

Kerry O'Connor gives us the ultimate avant-garde challenge--to write as if there were no challenge at all. So, I've fished this one, written on a whim, out of the cauldron and revised it today.

Image: Shell and Rocks Arrangement, 1931, by Edward Weston (photo)

May be protected by copyright. Posted under fair use guidelines via wikiart.org

Herpetology

Herpetology

I drew you in a dream

little lizard, whiptail,

slickfoot, drew you laboring

last night in the moonmelt,

or were you drawing me?

I looked away from

your slipping green tongue

to read a brokeback page or two

in the hymnal of change,

to mark an angle, sip

a shot of Job's comfort--

and so quick

so quick you put on

your dragon face, stood your

spikes of emerald scales

up like piano keys, made

zeppelin steampuffs for breath,

each thought a fat fly

from your eye to mine; then

you brought your friends 

to climb my spine,

turn the screw, dance a reel,

slither a toast;

I know I drew a ghost

and not eight dragons,

so perhaps it's you

who's painted me 
so sudden 
and so small.

~January 2013

posted for   real toads

Sunday Mini-Challenge: Ekphrasis

Kerry has picked the inimitable Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher for us to work from, to try to 'speak out' in words one of his works. This is a rather well-known one I've always liked, called Reptiles

Image: Reptiles, Colour, 1943, by M.C. Escher
via wikipaintings.org
All copyright belongs to the copyright holders.

The Dominance of Grey

The Dominance of Grey

 A villanelle

The grey veil she wore ate up all the years.
It licked at her grimaces, nibbled her smile.
It didn't pull off, only washed off with tears.

At night she’d spit into its fine woven fears,
proudly wear it next day to hide naked denial
that just like the veil ate the flesh off the years.

The veil grew a voice and it talked in her mirrors.
It held her more closely than husband or child.
It didn’t pull off and she needed more tears.

What once would dissolve it now reversed the sheer
wisps to dark masking stiffened with bile;
the grey veil she wore grew fat on the years

as she aged, a blown eggshell, flat eyes, lips and ears,
her features erased like an asphalted mile.
It didn’t pull off and she had no more tears.

No  salt left to wash her old face back with tears.
No mind left to fight for her long-eaten smile.
The grey veil she wore  ate up all the years
It didn’t pull off, only drank all the tears.

December 2011

Thanks to Karin Gustafson at ManicDDaily for getting my villanelle juices flowing. Also dedicated to every Mommie Dearest.Grey will eat you, you know.

The Futility of Argument

Et quid amabo nisi quod aenigma est?("What shall I love if not the enigma?")

~ inscribed by Giorgio de Chirico on his self-portrait in 1911

The Futility of Argument

The light bent

as I drank it

from my

sieved sleeve

shadow draped  

behind the broken stump.

I stared at

the capsuling bananas

until the young owl

became bored.

Why is it

he asked

you see an enigma

where I see

a banana?

Why is it

I asked

I see the green soil

the purple wind

the tall blue shadow

that bisects the forest

day and death 

multiplicity 

singularity

the monkeys' dogfaced

upside down masks

dripping snarls and chatter

where you see

a banana?

I’m not convinced

by anything

a woman with no head

can see said he, 
revolving his small skull

like a turban vent as
he boarded the train

And I likewise

by no argument

advanced by a rationalist
talking owl.

August 2011

Posted for   Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

Today's host is Mark Kerstetter, and he is featuring the life and works of pre-Surrealist painter Giorgio de Chirico

Caveat: I'm always intrigued by and appreciative of surrealism, but I would never say it's anything in my normal style. I do my poor best at it here, however, if nothing else definitely experiencing 'the uncertainty of the poet.'  I've chosen to interpret the small brown figure next to the statue as an owl, though it may be a loaf of bread for all I know.

Image: The Uncertainty of the Poet, by Giorgio de Chirico, 1913, oil on canvas

courtesy Friends of Art