Virginia Eliza

Portrait of Virginia Eliza Poe, painted shortly after her death.

Virginia Eliza

She died so young

and yet she lives,

a dark strawflower
pressed in poems,

paper stronger

than ever she was, than 

mind or flesh of brother, cousin,

spouse and spirit who

wrote her, dreamed her.

She was a child

who never changed

innocent, faithful as leaf

to tree till her autumn came.

Then she bled; all women bleed,

but she from her heart

though they said her lungs,

still her harp rang sweetest
when she came to sing 
farewell in the freezing night.

Her cheap dress hung 
from a nymph's frail frame

yet she was wise and wide with love,

a shield, a guardian host,

a black-eyed garden walled in one;
after, a pale fire burning in the brain

a raven crying forevermore.

She still walks the House

where the Ushers fell,

haunts the dank tarns of Wier

where Psyche failed, not strong enough

to keep him from her dead arms

or sing louder than the memory

of her child's high tenor, 
face ice white, dianthus eyes

brimming with a care

that could find no fault

nor feel a lack

though her brief pained life

was lived in ruin;

it ended, after all, as it began, warm

in the haven of a madman's arms.

June 2012

Acrostic valentine written for her husband when Virginia was 23, 11 months before her death from tuberculosis.

Posted for   Fireblossom Friday   at real toads

Process Notes: Virginia Eliza Clemm was Edgar Allan Poe's first cousin. They met when she was seven, when Poe moved in with her widowed mother, his invalid grandmother and their extended family in Baltimore. There was considerable disparity in their ages; their marriage took place when she was 13 and he 27, but the evidence suggests it was her own choice, that they were a loving, happy and devoted couple. Friends at the time said the Poes were more like sister and brother, and the marriage was not consummated till some years later, though some scholars suggest it was never consummated. Regardless, Poe did his best to support and care for her and her mother throughout their lives.  His work was little respected during his own short lifetime, and the couple lived in grinding poverty on handouts and the pittance he earned as a peripatetic journalist. Virginia Eliza Poe died of tuberculosis in January, 1847 at the age of 24. Much is made of the macabre nature of Poe's genius, and the theme of the 'death of a beautiful woman,' which plays a large role in so much of his prose and poetry. One wonders how much of his finest writing we would have had without Virginia.

Images: public domain, courtesy wikipedia & wikimedia commons

The Message

 The Message

On a windblustered day in a landlocked clime

we walked, the dog and I

the beach of the rainwashed mind,

her smell-prance a dance of anticipation

unquenchable, my drag-walk the sum

of slow disintegration.

Dry air faked the sigh that couples with ocean,

fish-fluid, flying fluent and fulgent

with forgotten emotion.

The flotsam thrown up there was viscid and dark

but in a floating smoked bottle

I found a mark

a notation neither flesh nor sublime

no lovenote, just the tedious plea

to make something mine:
 

If only I could know

what I only see receding.

Knowledge is mean

as alcohol, burning what it cleans

killing what needs to die,

bitter as aloe tasting black, 

soothing on charred hide,

but knowing is the thing we lack

most when we are needing,

only gotten after bleeding.

I looked to the signing to see who divined

this notification pricked out in prime

saw my own name, the only thing mine.

June 2012

Posted for   real toads

Challenge:Ella's Edge

Ellas has asked us to write a poem about "saving one's soul.  A life lesson, a view of your journey..." or a message that might be found in a bottle. 

Image: Miranda, by John William Waterhouse, 1875

Public domain via Wikipaintings.org

Dancing On The Tombs

Dream, M.C. Escher, 1935

Dancing On The Tombs 

By day

she's sane enough

though often the alpha in the herd will lift

a muzzle and sense...something off.

No one wants to come too close

because of the wild so poorly

concealed under the makeup.

Still, by day she's sane enough.

At night, she prowls on Escher stairs

turning back and back among the tombs

dancing to sharps in the Inquisitor's song,

to green voices in trees, nacreous hums in fishscale

clouds skinned over the moon, red yells in demon winds;

her head bobs rhythmically at these, her kin.

She sings to the unquiet dead, adds interrogation

to conversations of chaos, invents answers

too blue to believe, too black to weave

the color she wants. She keeps her ears

out far on their stalks, seeking the Beast

let loose in the moon marbled night.

She has a bed, a sanctum's space, a nun's cell where 

his angelus sounds, yet each night she spins out the

door, dry seed in a whirlwind, clawed half-made from her pod

trying to climb the stars, falling, calling, explaining, wanting

owl hoots for a voice so she can cry without being found.

But by day

she's sane enough.

June 2012

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub 

If you would like to hear the poem read by the author, click below:

Dancing on the tombs by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: Dream, by M.C.Escher, 1935

May be protected by copyright of which no infringement is intended.

via WikiPaintings.org

Shadows

Shadows

Shadows' prism refracting

gives only a black rainbow.

Scar-eyed, dead rocks impacting

make the wink of the moonglow.

Needlepointed charity

echoes in pity's hollow.

Truth devoid of verity

sneaks in where sense can’t follow.

The music of November

frosts on forgotten meadows.

The harpist sings Remember;

rash words no action shadows.

June 2012

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Sunday Mini-Challenge: the Celtic Quatrain

Kerry has chosen a form that may be sheer music in the Gaelic, but in English is truly, as always, challenging in the extreme. Rhyming three syllable words is one thing, but doing it in lines of only seven syllables is quite another. (For a full explanation of the form, follow the link above.) 

Still, this was a very creative exercise for me. Thanks, Kerry.

Image: Shadows.Moonlit Night. Isaac Levitan, 1885, watercolor

Public domain, via Wikipaintings.org

Chimera

Chimera

When I left all I asked was peace 

of the starry void, that

every shrewish hope be finally silent 

yet after me you sent one white bird

only marsh cloud singing,

too soft, too frail to fly far.

I dreamed of you last night--

did you call me?

No, it was just my broken eyes

wanting to see the old calligraphy

strong and alive on the blank page but

that will never be again.

You were dream's pale clerk

troubled, frowning at the paper

on which many things were written

none of them my name.

I stood by your shoulder;

you turned, walking through me.

Waking, I couldn't say

if you or I was the ghost.

The gift of sleep

is taken back and I sit staring

at the perforated day, at walls falling

in this helpless place of the dead

where I've washed up

already chewed by the chimera

stung by the manticore,

wondering what white wings will come

out of the siren darkness, 

what ghost bird is left.

June 2012

Posted for   Poetics   at dverse poets pub

Karin Gustafson is hosting today and asks us to voyage away from the known and explore the theme of exile. 

If you would like to hear the poem read by the author, click below:

Chimera by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: Chimera, by Gustave Moreau, 1884, watercolor

Public domain, via wikipaintings.org

The Absence Of The Bee

The Absence of the Bee

A Triversen

The bees have gone away;

the heavy absence of their humming

matches the blossoms' wither.

On shrinking stems

flowers petal-fall closed parasols

and pink petticoats peel away.

Black beetles are blind

to orange-anthered hats,

preferring unseemly chewing.

The attention deficits

of waggish bustling wasps

and dizzy moths puzzle pollination.

The tickling of an occasional ant

wandering from his pheromone trail

can't trump a bee's tumble.

The silence of life

without bees

is intense.

June 2012

Posted for   FormForAll   at dVerse Poets Pub

Prompt: Triversen

For a complete and proper explanation of this simple and eloquent form, see the article Gay Cannon has written for this prompt at the pub, and catch some poetry by Wallace Stevens at the same time.Win-win situation.

Process notes: The metaphor used in this poem is that of Colony Collapse Disorder, a term applied to the mysterious disappearance of worker honey bees which disrupts agricultural crop pollination and causes bee colonies to fail. We are experiencing a high incidence of this throughout the United States right now. No one is quite sure why, but disease, parasites and genetically engineered crops containing pesticide seem to be the dominant factors.

Image: Photo manipulation of the herb borage,  a bee attractant.

© joy ann jones 2012

Toxic Waste

Toxic Waste

I'm floating dirty bombed in a mermaid sea

flotsam'd with promises broken unspoken, ducking

the twin-eyed turrets swiveling sweetly

siamesed from the face of the Ace of Storms.

My brain beneath its sponge infection

recalls the first inflection of those liquid fingers

so lyric on shifting skins; impossible to know

they'd stiffen on the chain of gold, pull, snap the thin

links, all destroyed but the red line left cutting my throat;

yet I sing on in a song that cannot stop.

So many clouds on the cards,

bleeding so close, spitting their pretense

of earth-splitting power, then racked by

the trump of the sun, useless to shorten

my half-life or untie a single atom; even you  

the last worst hurricane of a terrible season,

only swamp with your dissipating ebb

leftovers of fission pooled on the reactor floor

in a lake of toxic effluent as

dangerous to use as it is to jettison.

Don't think you can dump it

in those pitiful hollow drums,

sink the poison weight forever beneath

the dark of that Mariana trench which is

your everliving night. It is not there where

no light comes, but in the air beside you,
the black water beneath you,

released by rust, glowing with death

come to finish what you started

when the soft sickness began.

June 2012

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub
I'm hosting tonight at the pub and hope you'll come join us. The doors opened at 3:00 PM EST and will stay wide, barring a thunderstorm, till Wednesday midnight. 

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, click below:

Toxic Waste by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Header Image: US Nuclear Waste Stored Uncapped Underwater, by Blatant World.com on flick'r

Footer image: 11.055SkullValley 019, by Rylan S L, on flick'r

The Pixie

The Pixie

On the mound she danced in the 

moon's music turning; 

she spoke to the poor soul

lost in the gloom:

Come put lady slippers on my flying feet

fit my fringe of fingers in foxglove bells.

Skirt me with the trumpet of a

a honeysuckle bud and for a hat,

the fresh green acorn shell 

to cover and cradle my pale wee head.

See the blue lines designing my skin

that tie me tight to the lost limestone leys,

let your eyes wander their knotted tattoo. 

Get you drunk on the dew that pearls on the web

my cunning sister weaves for

the broodlings that gnaw in her womb.

Maylight shows a woman's face, moonlight a thing more cruel. 

Wind your white fingers down my slim stem 

and see which might be real.

Beneath the furled fiddlehead, feel the skull smile.

Beneath petal flesh, a hollow bone, beneath sudden stardrops

see the red, beneath the barefoot dance feel cold stained stone.

Come close love and put the lady slippers round

my quick curving toes till the moon won't spark, 

watch me dance all night, come watch, come bleed 

on the grey still mound while the weavers feed.

June 2012

Posted for   real toads

Sunday Challenge:Photography of Hannah Gosselin

Audio:

The Pixie by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Process Note:Hannah's beautiful photographs of these woodland plants seem very fairylike to me, and inspired me to go back to take another look at an earlier piece, called Under the Purple Leaf.

 This poem is its sequel.

Both photos © Hannah Gosselin

Used with permission.