In Time Of Eclipse

In Time Of Eclipse

Down among the dead things

her candled light is dragged

but not blown out;

fire that serves 

burns longer 

kinder

than the eclipse's flare that puts out sight.

She's with the tilting stars, flying,

and our loss, and our gain;

a bird with purple down

flying, flying,

 turning the eye from 

this brief blacking of the sun

that belts the world.

for Heather Heyer

~August 2017

Heather Heyer was murdered in an act of domestic terrorism in Charlottesville, Va. on August 12, 2017. Her favorite color was purple. 

Much of the middle United States will experience a rare total solar eclipse on Monday, August 21.

Images: Heather in a glass heart, via pinterest

Darkness, Flash

Darkness, Flash

Darkness

and a flash;

you turn my poppies blue.

Red is your color

and so I cannot choose it.

The screaming void

paints your face.

Heat and ruin

are your playmates,

death your paymaster.

Don't think you enter unopposed,

disguised, pretending to light

with only darkness

and a flash

for eyes.

~August 2017

Images: Torchlit parade thru the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, on the night of Hitler's ascension to chancellor, January 30, 1933,  pubic domain

Torchlit parade through the streets of Charlottesville, Va, during the 8th month of the Trump presidency, August 11, 2017(cnn) 

Calico Dream

Calico Dream

Calico ghost

cowgirl on the whirlwind,

drinks dusty nectar

from the thimble of

a wildflower's face,

dances on a wagon wheel

across a wicked wasteland,

eyes on the blue mountains

and the swallow's last home.

Her well-wound heart

chimes soft as a pocket watch

under cool cotton covers.

She washes in sunsplash

and curls up contented 

to whisper when the coyote howls.

She's nothing but a promise

guarding the river

that sinners can't cross.

Calico girl

sings me at sunset

a tune from the Territory

a chant from the Tribes

beaded with pollen hot from the prairie,

keeping her hands clean, hiding

the hunted, defying the flag.

She follows the trail

no murderer can see.

~August 2017

posted for Izy's Unseen

( nothing more unseen than a cowgirl in a dream)

Images: Cowgirls, public domain
via wikimedia commons

Gypsy Shipwreck

Gypsy Shipwreck

The starved gypsy moon

caravans out of sight

feeding all she has stolen

to the heart of the night.

The bell-jangled tracing

of her white legs' skip

to the violin's sobbing

going down like a ship

 grinds me for music 

that growls like a dog,

 while all hands are lost 

in the gunpowder fog.

~August 2017

a 55 for Kerry's Flash Plus

Images (Swept Away, Summer Breeze) by Erte  via wikiart.org    Fair use.

Mandala Of The Catacomb

Mandala Of The Catacomb

When I could

no longer remember

the yellow eye of the sphinx, the

sea by blue moon, autumn

light on the mandala rose,

a great dryness came;

a cup of dust

too sickly to swallow.

It brought a living change

that paced me day to day,

my thief-companion,

rogue of a thousand fingers

reaching always into my net

for the day's catch,

cleaning my pocket

of each dulled coin

to leave me at last
like everything else

alone on the edge of a pulling abyss,
bleached bare as a fallen skull in a

lightless catacomb, forgotten behind

its earth-blocked arch;

down and round

with the ghost of the sound

of your traveler's laugh

when I was a doorway

to the endless road.

~August 2017

Images:

Skull, 1917, M. C. Escher

Thérèse Duncan -The Parthenon, 1921, Edward Steichen

Public domain

mandala:

1.Oriental Art. a schematized representation of the cosmos, chiefly characterized by a concentric configuration of geometric shapes, each of which contains an image of a deity or an attribute of a deity.

2.(in Jungian psychology) a symbol representing the effort to reunify the self. ~dictionary.com