Seven of Cups

Seven of Cups

I thought I’d become

a seer of truths said

sister to larks

keeper of secrets;

instead,

  sneaker of regrets 

tarot cardsharper‘s mark

bested in bargains

somersaulting a fool's grin

because I look back 

and see I was wrong,

 not about the song

the number

the lost hour or place,

 name with the face 

where I left the keys

not about what

to call the mockingbird

or the tune on the breeze

suspended chords half heard

nor arpeggios light plays

of the color blue tipping

waterfall yesterdays

rippling 

eyes suddenly green

but 

about

everything.

April 2012

My seventh poem for the eighth day of April, National Poetry Month. Maybe by the end of the month I'll have caught up.

Process Notes: For more detail on the tarot, you can read the wiki on the Seven of Cups here, 

and the Fool here.

Header Image: Seven of Cups, 1909 Rider-Waite Tarot, public domain in the US via wikimedia commons

Footer Image: The Fool, 1909Rider Waite Tarot, public domain in the US via wikimedia commons

Lover's Moon

Lover’s Moon

 

A paper star falling in garden'd night

blown free as detritus, broke-petal'd loon

ground into spring's carpet, too small for sight

I'm coaxed by a merciful crescent moon.

Some say she’s a woman, lying and fair

an inconstant firefly gone too soon

roulette wheel of faces under her hair

while mercy shines down from my lady moon.

Some say he’s a man, full of wink and grin

his face made from craters bleary, jejune

one side too bright and the other too dim

while mercy shines from the man in the moon.

And what do I say, the empty wrapper

the grey punctured leaf, the rosethorn buffoon?

I say each one sees the face he’s after

while mercy shines down from the crescent moon.

 April 2012


Posted for   real toads

Kerry's Sunday Challenge: the Kyrielle
(or alternately a musical, bookshelf art inspired write;see link)
Kerry defines the form: 

"The name kyrielle derives from the Kýrie, which is part of many Christian liturgies. It is a French rhyming form that originated in troubadour poetry and is written in quatrains, in which each quatrain contains a repeating line as a refrain (usually appearing as the last line of each stanza). Originally, the phrase "Lord, have mercy", or a variant on it, was used as a refrain." 

You can read more at the link above. I've used the abaB, cbcB etc rhyme scheme, and altered the syllable count to ten, because I missed the part that said it was eight. *blush*


And as always, for fun, and for those who prefer free verse, here is the unpacked, chaotic original from which I drew the form version:

Lover's Moon

Sitting in the night garden

just another wind blown

bit of detritus, petal, old leaf

shredded paper rapper

ground into spring’s carpet,

I’m coaxed by the crescent moon.

Some say she’s a woman

because she changes herself

day by day, making an endless

circle of faces, the full heavy orb

of ivory breast, the curve of hunter’s bow,

the veiled and disappeared mystery,

ever fading, returning,

inconstant and a lie.

Or some say the moon is a man

full of wink and grin

one side always bright, absorbing

the energy of something bigger

the other always cold, turned away.

What do I say, 

bit of trodden compost 

blown in the night wind? 

I say

the moon is a rock mirror

distant surface reflecting,

watching 
over every lover

who’s lost.

March 2012

Image:  Thorns, © joy ann jones 2012

What's Here

What’s Here

What’s really here in this sky

besides the opaque mask on possibility

where three birds call and fly

counterpoint to emptiness of eye?

What’s really here in this wood

besides the spines the brambles

the dark night rambles off a cliff

hiding under shadow's sly leaved hood?

What’s really here behind those

headlights turned on me

besides a need to kiss the lens

and ever always be

brighter better, going on 

to something with more glitter?

Don’t write that one line letter

because I don’t want to know.

April 2012

Posted for    Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

Brian is hosting at the pub today, and has snagged photographer Tracey Grumbach of Nine Acres Design to share her work with us.

Image by Tracey Grumbach
Used with permission

Coffee With The Incubus

Coffee With The Incubus

(Incubus V)

Though more often cruel, silent inscrutable and hot,

the incubus has his tender moments

intimate, revealing, when he forgets

how he got his tail

and for whom he split his foot.

Then he sighs in deep indigo

like any lover, and lets me stroke his suede skin.

His scaled fingers catch and pull in my hair

but he puffs smokerings thru thin lips 

and frees them with a circle of loosening steam.

Closest when the darkness is complete,

when the sun has yet 

to kick the moon from his bed

and all of us are locked and loaded,

he tells me things that 

were never in the contract

knows I won’t repeat them

except to ring the fey bells

of faerie back under the smooth curl

ram curved above his scarlet ear.

His voice is heated air under the hiss, 

the random honesty of coffee splashing

into the cup, well creamed and sugared

drunk fragrant at the birdsong hour when

dark and light at last kiss goodbye.

 

Soaked as a biscotti dipped and nibbled

dunked in black heat, I know

I was formed for pleasure

to be crisp and never fall apart,

but sometimes all that

dissolving

wet sweetness leaves me

crumbling on the lip.

March/April 2012

Part of the Incubus series

Image: Cup of Coffee After Dunking and Eating a Biscotti. by sameold 2010  on flick'r 

Shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License

Letters

Letters

I sent a letter

written in sand

colors aglow.

I don’t know

what it said

but it was true.

 I sent a letter

written in salt

dug deep as it requires,

white as my desires.

I sent a letter

written in light

that burned as

each page turned

till there was 

no more night.

April 2012

Another hedgewitchian dream message 

in 55 incomprehensible pieces, 

for the G-Man 

Image: Sand Painting--Mandala, by Henry Law on flick'r
Caption: "This was done by Tibetan monks in Brighton then destroyed to show the impermanence of everything."

Shared under a Creative Commons 2.0 Generic License

SpaceTime Maternal

Space Time Maternal

She watches, cat-eyed, resting each palm

upon a lioness, hawk upon her shoulder

bridge between the worlds, guardian

of the dead, mother of the unknown.

She gives; sky rain, cloud 

and corn, laughing children,

the woman within who beckons,

the women without who tend,

her milk, her blood, her spirit, her infinite time.

She asks little—a stronger arm, a tribute of flowers

a kiss of music, a few

words burned on her blue flame.

There is life behind her dancing

and so the harvest comes.

She stands guard over the people

gazing across burnt centuries

encircled by fearing forms

far futured from her

but her children still and sees

the endless games of self

rolling inward, a diseased ocean

poisoning itself beneath a dead moon

digging and lying for what they can rape

the strong arm only raised to grab,

the quick spurt of seed,

the slow goodbye.

There is soul behind her working

and so the sun still rises.

She gives much, but to serve her

they must give more, 
abandon the illusion

that there are women other than she

purpose other than hers

plans that can counter her

divine chaos.

But those who give nothing

gain nothing

from the pride they keep.

There is mind behind her movement

and so the claw comes down.

They fight with a cold flame

the darkness of their own making

the darkness beyond any making

and when the fear is great

call on her even when her name

has been forgotten.

From between her thighs she answers them

with life ongoing, ever constant, 

mice in the shadows, hawk on

the wing, making the circle

until the time she

is abandoned.

There is death behind betrayal

and so the earth goes dry.

February/April 2012

Posted for    real toads

Kerry's Challenge:The Oral Tradition 

Process Notes: I've interpreted Kerry's challenge rather liberally, and my poem assumes that an oral tradition back into antiquity is speaking in continuum to modern ears.I've blended various aspects of three goddesses at least in this, the Native American World Mother of the Inca, primarily a fertility goddess,  and the Anatolian Mother Goddess figure found at archaeological excavations at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia,Turkey, a Neolithic settlement dating from 7500 BC about whom nothing is really known, but thought to possibly be an ancestress of Cybele, Greek and then Roman mother goddess,fond of all things and places wild, who among other attributes, had both a eunuch consort(Attis) and eunuch priesthood.

Header Image: Pachamama By Quechua Culture [Public domain], 

via Wikimedia Commons

Footer Image: seated Female Figure,Ankara Museum By User:Roweromaniak (Archiwum "Roweromaniaka wielkopolskiego" No_B19-36) 
via Wikimedia Commons

Compassion

Compassion

We live in a blessed age

where monsters are god and god a monster

to teach us the small surrenders

where we battle

in between.

When god is Love

Merciful and Compassionate

 then we,

omnivorous insects that we are,

eat hate for bread and mate with death.

From monsters sometimes

we learn

compassion.

April 2012

Posted for   Open Link Night   at dVerse Poets Pub

The inspiration for this poem is drawn from past and current events.

Image: 12th-century icon of Archangel Gabriel from Novgorod, called "Golden-Locked Angel", currently exhibited in the State Russian Museum Sankt Petersburg,

Tempera on wood,  public domain

via wikimedia commons

Off the Shelf Archive~March

The month has flown by, and it's now April, so more than time for a change on the Off the Shelf Page. With the death of Adrienne Rich this past week, it's occurred to me how seldom I've featured female poets as a monthly selection, so this time I'm going for some short poems by Emily Dickinson. I often feel that Dickinson did better in her own style what so many contemporary writers try to do with their westernized haiku. She knew how to express depth,layers, nuances, all sorts of complexities, with a minimal amount of words that never  feels skimped.

These poems have been archived for the month of April, here on the

Off the Shelf Page

while the March selection, Ghazal of Unforeseen Love, by Federico Garcia Lorca, appears below:

~*~

Ghazel of Unforeseen Love

No one could percieve the perfume

of the dark magnolia of your womb

No one knew you made martyr

a hummingbird of love between your teeth.

A thousand persian ponies were falling asleep

in the plaza with the moonlight from your forehead,

while I held fast for four nights

around your waist, enemy of snows.

Between chalk and jasmines, your look

was a pale branch of seed.

I searched, to give you, through my breast

the letters of ivory that say always,

always,always, garden of my agony,

your body fleeing forever,

the blood of your veins in my mouth,

your mouth now without light for my death.

by Federico Garcia Lorca

from  Divan del Tamarit, 1936

Photo: Magnolia soulangiana 'Jane', by joy ann jones

© joy ann jones 2010