Sleepsong Of The Poppies

(c) Vandy Massey

Sleepsong Of The Poppies

Claret red 

poppies

heart painted deep

with crosscut black

standing like Kalypso

on the edge of sleep

calling Odysseus back

to a dryer wine

than the wine dark sea,

a warmer bed;

like him I'd choose

to sail instead

if I were free

as you are red

tho no lover prays

for my blue-knotted hand

to bridle the wave,

no mind contrives

to remain unbound,

still I come

in the slow
weaving of lives

to the white 

stone walls 

of home.

~March 2014

posted for   real toads

Weekend Challenge: The Art of Vandy Massey 

Grace, of everyday amazing, introduces us to the watercolor art of   Vandy Massey. Her painting, Sunshine On The Field, used above, can be viewed here on her Pinterest page 

You can see more of her work at her prints and artwork store on Redbubble and on her blog 

Image: Sunshine On The Field, by Vandy Massey

Used with permission. 

Slipping The Leash

Slipping The Leash

Lost in the cold

with the moon breathing down

my neck, the blanket of silence

is rumpled by

dogs sleep-hunting in the hall,

running, woofing,

in a place more real

 than kibble and collar.

Wide awake 

in fragmented dark,

I'm longing
to slip the leash

and howl,

but sleep's a fable 

I won't

hear tonight.

~March 2014

55 soft twitches and woofs for      the g-man

(And this also is the poem I owed Mama Zen : insomnia, in less than 60 words.)

Image: A Sketch of My Hound Kuttie, 1885, by William Merritt Chase

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org

Sting

Sting

I never knew I slept 

because so many times 

I don't, with the rocks

hot hard icy, but

I woke to find

you'd left in the night

and taken the water.

I put a stone in my mouth

at noon, when my lips

had already split,

when I had no more spit,

when my tongue swelled
 fat-

 tight to palate

as mackerel in a can,

but it wasn't much good,

and the cowskull hat

left behind by the dead

I thought might shade my head

only put the red bite

of ants in my hair.

So I spat out the stone,

lay down with the scorpions,

waiting waking

for the long

cold night,

for the black starcrash

of sleep that comes

after

the sting.

~November 2013,

revised March 2014

posted for    real toads

Words Count With Mama Zen: Challenge: Insomnia

Be sure to check out Mama Zen's interview with Oklahoma's current Poet Laureate, Nathan Brown, at the link above.
EDIT:The challenge asks for a poem in 60 words or less--I completely missed that line, and apologize to everyone, especially Mama Zen, for blowing the guidelines so thoroughly.

Images:Top: Scorpion Glow, by Howard Dickins on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons License

Footer: From The far Away Near, 1938, Georgia O'Keefe

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

Blue Beads

Blue Beads

On the nightstand

a string of blue beads--

my spectacle leash, lazy

lanyard of the lenses now

an arabesque abstraction arcing

in its fall, Picasso-blue shadowed sinew

curled like a snake of glass, its antic form

elastic, never quick but still skin-warm.

I wore blue beads once,

blue beads I strung myself,

cobalt, cornflower, azure as a fjord,
seed beads from machines, trade beads,
flamework beads all berried on a cord.

Each globe or tube felt like a cerule bit

of some far kindred lake-blue kelpie's spit.

I wore blue beads once

I strung myself, around my throat;

I took a needle up and ran it through

each heart-tunnel. Each centered hollowness

opened to the string to kill its separateness.

I joined them piece by piece to make one thing,

one winding measured entity of blue.

I wore blue beads once

across my cooling breast, shortly after

the work of forming the heart was done.

Their order mocked its pinkly freckled white

and mimicked its blue veins, its baby sun

all lampwork  and capillaried lace,

each rivulet seeking, hot and uncongealed,

a cracked vessel that had never been annealed.

~March 2014

posted for     real toads

Open link Monday

Process notes: Flamework is another name for lampwork, a technique by which the designs on some glass beads are produced. Annealing is the process of cooling down formed glass gradually to resolve internal stresses so the piece will have structural integrity and endure.

Photo: Blue Beads, copyright joyannjones 2014
All Rights Reserved.

Winter Fog

"The mind-is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind-
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.”
~Robert Frost

Winter Fog

A Roundel

The fog came slow pretending

very softly it was snow,

all white and never-ending.

The fog came slow.

All the things I didn't know

were lost in undefending

silhouetted frozen glow;

their beacon was a friending,

a breath of blue to blow
scope, light and comprehending.       

Still, fog was never snow.

~March 2014 

posted for    real toads

Challenge: A Birthday In March: Robert Frost

Images: Top: Winter Fog, 1895, by Arkhip Kuindzhi

Public Domain via wikipainting.org

Footer: Snow, 1936, by M.C.Escher

This artwork may be protected by copyright. It is posted on the site in accordance with fair use principles. via wikipaintings.org