Walking Summer

 

 

 

 

Walking Summer

I've been here before

too long ago, too short a time--

encircled by this walking summer, 

where song is never done, where walls

are built from air and touch, where invisible

love strolls in, the unexpected fragrance

of mimosa thrown like gauze across her face,

pollened with invincible yesterdays,

intricate and insubstantial as

the manual labor of a rose.

I know this place

so clean, so far, so obvious--

this moving room where nothing

was ever allowed to stay, yet a

wayward welcome whistles in the

nag of wind that blows my steps this way

to thin path's end, where sun is made

and broken in a day,

a dropped brick like me, once high,

ruined in a cobble of clouds.

These skewered eyes

so still, so heart's-desired when

I stole them from the chimera,

open starry wide at last
to blink up the mist, the mazed

particulate of missing pieces that

mortar so well with tears the

pressed-together whole, and I 

wonder if there soon could be 

a granting of what's needful;

for I only hope to find the lost--

the tilted corners of a child's smile

the absence of regret, the whim

of walking summer that clings

like mimosa gauze to

the shifting faces of my ghosts.

~November 2015

posted for desperate poets

(" finding comfort in the beauty around us, whether it is as vast as the sky or as small as a dew-covered spider-web, on a cornstalk by the back fence in the early morning.")

Photos:  Mimosa, © joyannjones 2014 

Rosa 'Nearly Wild,' © joyannjones 2015

Lady Of Dead Leaves

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lady Of Dead Leaves

 

 

 

Beneath a dead leaf my love lies hidden

with a rose pearl and a starling's feather

where the dark forest unties Her ribbons

 

where night rides as black as robber's leather

with a bagful of moon's most starving hours

in a forest where leaves are falling forever,

 

whose balefires paint meteoric showers,

whose pale sprites teach old lovers to dance

and sew up their wounds with threads of flowers.

 

For grape never saw the wine She decants,

a vintage that ripens with dissolution

aged in a song, sealed with ash and chance.

 

Under the starlight's silver infusion

asleep as a bee in the fading thunder,

 which is volition and which illusion

 

when all that's left of life is to wonder

or lift the leaf that love is under.

 

 

 

October 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal

where I am pleased to host this week's challenge,

First Poems: Door to the Wilder Eye

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Fairy Dance, © Arthur Rackham    Public Domain

Spring Beauty © Andrew Wyeth         Fair Use

The Night Dancers

 

 

The Night Dancers

 (a 55)

 

The song dreaming night

  is a film over the world

hiding a thousand dancers

painted with

the blood of the moon.

 

They hum

as they spin, but

I never hear them speak.

Dawn's claw-hammer

beats them to dust

 

leaving a flicker

of chamomile and orange,

 ghost breath of a

performance

seen best

 

through

mist-green glass.

 

 

 

 

January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Blond Nude With Orange,Blue Couch, 1925 © John French Sloan   Fair Use

Glasses, author unknown, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use 

Friday 55 Halloween Edition

Welcome, dear friends and readers to our last 55 for the month of lonesome October. Soon the veil will be as thin as it gets; perhaps something will whisper to you across it. Or perhaps another voice is calling you to write. As always, we gather here to remember the G-man, stretch our writing muscles and enjoy ourselves. There are no rules, except that your contribution must consist of 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less. Comment moderation is on, but I check often, so leave your link in the comments below from Friday through Sunday, and I will be around to see what you have built.

Now, let the shadows dance..

 Penumbra

Fallen angels must dance just so, quick feet

on the chest of October night,

three umbrae darkening, together alone;

maiden, mother and golem crone.

Maiden's house is burnt to the ground.

Mother's been drained like a drunkard's flask.

And mad as the moon is the golem's widow,

stark in the hedgerows of the Veil-keeper's riddle.

 ~October 2017

Header image via internet. Author unknown. Fair use.

Footer image: Jack,  ©joyannjones 2017  Pumpkin carved by my son.

Night Ride

Night Ride

Don't let go the mane of the mare,

the mercury mare married to night.

Look down, love, at her wild eye-white,

turn your face to her cinnamon stare,

the jeweler's work deep-set in her skull

bridging abyss, canceling null.

Don't draw back from her wire-harsh hair;

she's your only way in, only way out,

my Dancer on memory, Rider of doubt.    

Fill your eyes with her fine Arab air; 

the delicate leg, the hooves henna-bright

pacing the years from sundown to light.

You know she'll toss you, but not just where--

which rippled well, which beckoned bend.

Only let go where the fall never ends.

Lay your hand on the mane of the mare,

bury your face in her cinnamon stare.

Comb the wind from her wire-harsh hair,
fill your cup with her fine Arab air;

you know she'll toss you, but you don't know where.

~March 2015

 

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Play it Again with Margaret

The discerning eye of Margaret Bednar (ArtHappens365) once again winnows out three selections from the plethora of past Garden challenges . I have chosen to try my hand at one of Kerry O'Connor's form challenges, The Constanza, explained with all Kerry's usual clarity HERE.  
Caveat: I have not, however, stayed completely faithful to it.

Images: Bathing Horses, by Volodymyr Orlovsky    public domain via wikiart.org

Rearing Horse, by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503   public domain via wikiart.org

  

Into The Everlight

Dear readers, as I mentioned in my Off The Shelf post this month, I am taking one of my periodic  rests from organized blogging, though I will check in from time to time.  I'm leaving you with a short poem until I return on the 26th, then  saturate the internets  and try your patience with daily posts in April. As always, profuse thanks to everyone who reads, and makes this place a regular stop.

Everlight

Last night

I saw the moon

in the everlight

drop the blackbirds' song

like water rolling

off the reaching trees,

unmask her fountain face

open her mouth

and roar the silence

that holds planets--

shattered  hearts of dragons,

 clouds of

stardust whirlpools,

the forgotten boats of gods--

all that dark light

 knows

with spring a-dance behind it,

each spinning clockwork phantom

pinned in  place.

~March 2014

Image: The Starry Night, 1889, Vincent Van Gogh

Public Domain via wikipaintings.org