Advice From The Fortune Teller

 

 

 

Advice From The Fortune Teller

 

 

"Look up to jump," the gypsy calls.

"It's how you fly instead of fall.

It's a long way down, that last bump,

so fly your eyes like starlings brawl.

That's how you miss the awkward thump,"

the gypsy calls."Look up to jump."

She's jumped before. I try to trust

my heavy wings of wax and rust,

the sky my boat, the wind my oar,

my feathers eyes above earth's crust

cast floating up and sent to soar.

I try to trust. She's jumped before.

But then I see she smiles and smiles

at birds stitched high on cloudy miles

at knifing rocks that slice the sea,

carving waves like bladed turnstiles.

"Just look up and finally be free."

She smiles and smiles, but then I see.

February 2022

posted for dVerse Poets

Poetry Form: Sparrowlet

(for a complete description of this quirky little form, see above, where Grace is hosting)

Images ; The Fortune Tellar, 1933, © Brassai   Fair Use

Floating Woman, photomanipulation © Phillip Igumnov  Fair Use

Friday 55 March 9 2018

Welcome to this week's 55, an exercise, a journey, a discipline, a memory of a meme originated by a genial and giving man named Galen Hayes, and carried on by my inadequate self, and all of you who come to read or to play. As always, no rules except that your contribution be 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, linked in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning. I look forward to reading what you have to offer.

My 55 this week is just a singsong mess that I couldn't dislodge...

Heaven's Door

Heaven's door stands open.

Peter knows I won't stay--all my angels have wings

just to fly away.

My darling dreams he's a fever

too hot for decay. My flowers open in darkness

and uncolor the day.

I'm a stone rolled downhill

for the unquieted grave--only angels have wings

so they can fly away.

~March 2018

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Images: Open Door On A Garden, 1934, by Konstantin Somov   
Public Domain (Manipulated)

Open Darkness, ©joyannjones 2018

Friday 55 December 15 2017

Another Friday swings us around to the writing table where 55 words make up a meal. This time of year I always find complicated; the social pressures, the meretricious and constant blare of exploitative advertisement, and various reefs and shoals of real life often combine to annul the festive, let alone that anticipatory sense of joy the holidays once may have brought to us as children. Nevertheless, it is a rich time, and I hope we can bring some of its fruits to our Friday cornucopia.

The rules remain the same--no rules, except to write 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, and link in the comments below between Friday and Sunday. Many thanks to Galen Hayes for making this meme the pleasure it is, and a holiday toast to absent friends, in his honor.

The spirits here are not in a particularly seasonal mood...

 The Crow Shaman

The crow-shaman

knows the bones,

knows the fighting dance

where flesh is sweetest;

how to open secret doors

to rich warm ruby

meals beneath tough skin;

how something small, something shiny

can be stolen and made magic

even without hands.

Each death, each face,

each twilight rise

beneath his night-wide wings

he owns forever.

~December 2017

 Factoid: Crows remember and recognize individual human faces.

 Image via internet, author unknown.  Fair use.

The Winter Cabin

by Jenny Leslie

The Winter Cabin

Ghosts on the floor,

crumpled at the fortieth failure,

tousled and tossed down to

decorate dead December.

They're waiting unread

in the winter cabin

where the plague has been

and gone;

only goodbye

left of all their words;

only a snow-flaked feather

remembers the bluebirds

too small to save the world.

~December 2016

posted for  real toads

A Snow Birthed Tale in 13 lines

for my friend Magaly

Thanks to Jenny Leslie for the kind use of her image.

Wing Of A Moth

Wing of a Moth

Your kiss

hangs like a moth's wing
on the wet cheek of night,

a flight interrupted, a life

separated from its whole.

It knows

all the tyranny of gravity,

this caress you cloak in air;

the past is loudest when it whispers,
aching where it smiles.

Miles after dreams

I walk soar swim,

miasma'd in a sigh, stumbled

at a stile thrown across the

pasture-path 

where pink-nosed ruminants pull

and chew your weedy lies, sluice

them stomach to stomach

til they drop to show
the truth they always were.

Bright bell of the sun,

ghost of a moth's night shadow,
wild bloom and weed

flower, fly and ring;

between we two wings
let us have lift once again.

 ~June 2016

posted for    real toads

Challenge:Weeds

Moth  © Amelia Fletcher, via internet

Weeds and Flowers, by John Henry Twachtman public domain

The Bluebird

The Bluebird

In yesterdays of peppermint 

and temps perdu, you lived with me in

the longhouse, grasshopper thin from fiddling, 

a silversmith of backspin. You carved me

a primitive bluebird

put it rounded in my hand

sitting drawn down

on its toes, fledge-etched in cerulean

soap-smooth, autumn-colored circles

at its too-wise eyes.

You smiled when it stirred,
flipped up

a stopsignal tailfeather,

gaped its open throat

for a worm-friend mother.

I set it among the other birds;

no thing of mine, your gift

but wild its own.

Oracle crows, inquisitor cardinals,

insipid chickens pecked it--

but the bluebird rose in

flutterform arpeggios,

and flew

not to me,

not to you.

~April 2016

posted for      real toads

Kerry's Get Listed: Compound Words

(I have used some from the lists and made up others.)

temps perdu: Fr. for wasted time, lost time

Image:  L'oiseau bleu, 1968, Marc Chagall, via wikiart.org