Oleander in August

Oleander, by Petteri Sulonen

Oleander in August

Exploded cherries splattered sweet

on  extruded green tongues, pliant arms

swing the eye up to wheel along the

frame, stepping the smooth white wall

where oleander splays. Cascades of

chewed resilience buttoned into heat

fasten the jacket of summer

tight at the neck of July.

Worn ragged now in the sun’s

diamond gaze, drying stamens

scratch a calligraphy of mortality

burnt and faded on a rocky wind,

yet evergreen fingers of leathery

chartreuse still push a stubborn grace

past spent verbena, dry lemongrass, replacing

each crinkled tissue beauty as it fades.

So put your April budding on

an August face; don’t leave me alone

stripped barren in this fool’s summer

dying of the cold.

August 2011

 Posted for  Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

Victoria Ceretto-Slotto uses her hands-on background in the visual arts to provide us with this week's prompt: creating texture in a poem similar to the way artists create it in paintings. I've tried to do this here in both visual image, and with the sounds of the words. Come join us.

Photo: Oleander, by my friend Petteri Sulonen, used with his kind permission. 

Thanks, Petteri. 

Gypsy

Gypsy

I’m closing down the Muse Factory.

Blue collar Aphrodite

is on strike.

The college boys,

they’re all the same.

Walk on the wild side,

then walk away.

That 7:00 AM bell,

that assembly line,

that Monday morning hell,

just ain’t for you.

Sail on, my little honey bee, sail on,

but you wear that blue shirt long enough

the color gets into your skin.

It’s a recession, you know;

people are getting laid off, not laid.

Providing poetry porn for the masses
is a low end

low paid low down job.

I’d rather be a highwayman:

Stand and Deliver.

Identity theft,
poetry default swaps

have left me broke.

Cupid and Psyche best

get ready for

the Big D;

you can talk about it on Nancy Grace,

but I won't be tuning in

because we’re in for a double dip,

and I for one

am running away with

the gypsies.

August 2011

Friday Flash 55 ~ Data Storage

Data Storage 

 

I need a box for my brain

because I’m taking it out

and storing it.

I’m through with it

constantly 

 bossing me,

asking questions

but never

knowing the answers,

making me sad

for no reason,

happy for

reasons 

I will later regret.

It’s better

out there

in the garage

in a box.

August 2011 

Posted for    Friday Flash 55  at the G-man's

Image: courtesy google image search

originating site

Odin's day Night

Odin’s day Night

I wrap a poor turn 

of grizzled hope

around the moon

so frayed

I wrap it in the too 
opulent velvet 
of a voice

so dark

singing the

old

sagas of inamoratas

journeys' endings

baldur's fall

monks' canted fragments

figments of

gods and demons

queens and fools

past and future

love and death

The night sky is freckled

with perseid’s white splash,

droplets of star burning

strained through the alembic

of a staring nullity

defining my preterition,

sizzling like the rasp

of some old god’s laugh

rough from a silence

passing paleology.

How their light runs

fleet suns of Perseus

skittering across

night’s spread table

a howl on the ripped nail

of moon splintering

on Odin’s day

night is remote

as the face behind 

a blue electric vow, 

close as

the corvine quark

tumbling sable japes.

That laughter in the air, 

yelling from the beaks of crows   

falls high above 

beyond the circling light;

how the void must ring with it

time out of mind

IN PERPETUUM.

August 2011

Kindness on the Potomac

Kindness on the Potomac

Dedicated to The Ruling Class*

The snow rides a black wind, it impartially freezes

kills back flower faces to skull sockets of seed

starves the world’s belly, blunts the high sun

yet it’s kindness itself next to you.

The fur culling hawk wind-dances the thermals

balled eye in gilt swivel beaming out death,

piercing the long distance to one beating heart

soon killed and consumed, yet it’s kinder than you.

The greed dappled locusts in brown thrashing turmoil

fantastically replicated, fall from  burnt sky

devour green grain, beat stripped stems to dustmotes

then dine on their brothers, yet they’re kinder than you.

The sybarite housecat, with no hammer of hunger

in play lets the mouse run then absently strikes,

since it can, makes the weak thing a wee broken pulp.

No kindness here, but still kinder than you.

All these have no choice. They live blind a brief breathing

where the matrix is master, murder life’s instinct,

play hunger’s practice, survival sole mandate.

For you, it’s all fool’s gold to pay for your toys.

I’ve seen how you smile. May it rot to a bone rictus

in an unquiet grave, where all of your eloquence

ennui’s the worms. That blessed silence dark and forever,

would be the beginning of kindness from you.

August 2011

Posted for  OpenLinkNight  at dVerse Poet's Pub

Come join us to share some of the best poetry on the web.

*excepting from this tirade Rep. Bernie Sanders(I) of Vermont and possibly three or four other elected officials to whom it doesn't apply 

Musical Interlude ~Emmy Lou

Some musical comfort food for my dear friend Fireblossom--she gets to hear all my most favoritest Emmy Lou Harris songs! 

The first Emmy Lou I ever heard, on a friend's record player, a million years ago:

This one's seen me through many a dark night:

And last, one that gets inside your head and won't let go, like a train whistle on a lonely night:

What? Not very cheery, you say?? Well crap. My next sage recommendation is to wrap your own favorites around your head, and go spit in the eye of whatever you feel most richly deserves it.

Best thoughts your way, FB

Dog Days

Dog Days

The black dog’s a prowler

always pacing the fenceline.

She can jump like a deer, 

but not quite this high.

Still, she hooks her nails

in the chain link, grunting,

leverages her eighty pounds,

dusty fur, hard animal muscle,

inch by inch over the rail

only to see the world's broken;

too hot, too exhausting, 

too stone dry and dead.

I find her asleep in a dirt wallow

in the barn shadow,

toes twitching in a wild run, 
dreaming better freedom.

August 2011

Photo: Chinook on the fence, by joy ann jones  

Neon Run

Neon Run

Turquoise tourmaline tangerine sky,

neon run through the alley

run for some sanctuary. No matter,

what’s behind will run faster.

Snow blown drifts, tinted air brush of filth

white fade to black, dogs add yellow, green vomits

from drunks. No thing falls unspoiled

and rises clean here. Don’t fall.

Noise shatters glass broken noise endless,

clamor yelling curses machinery screams.

Even the air makes red pulsing howling

wind growls in summer, draws blood in the snow.

Out on the lake's the sweet safety of empty,

tossing vaults of cold cobalt vast as that country

where you’ll never go. Watch whisperwhite foam

washtease a promise that dwindles away.

Shrink the self smaller, mouse small, or a pea.

Hide avoid run and the blows sometimes miss,

but words are barbed arrows handfletched for maiming

that always fly true so fly faster fly through

concrete mud and brick sharp falling down rubble

rot kicked to the curb, trash blown down the street.

The bums beg for change from a child

who has nothing, under the bloodshot

tourmaline tangerine sky.

August 2011

Posted for   Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

Claudia hosts this week's challenge, and her prompt today is Going Urban: to write a poem about a city real or imaginary. Mine is about the city where I was raised, Chicago, Illinois