Immigrant

Immigrant

In the year 1900, Chicago was the city with the second highest number of Swedes after Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.~wikipedia

A hundred years ago

he stands on the quay

small in his winter clothes

the boy bruised with

old men’s hopes, starved on

uncles’ dreams, ragdoll boy

who must change everything

blinking into wind freshened

by an icemelt ocean

squinting at tomorrow.
He's tumbled forward,

cheap goods into steerage,

clutching everything there is,
a ticket, his other shirt, a bar of soap;

for wrap a blanket of fog,

for comfort, wet cheeks and his

mother's goodbye on

a rough linen square, tucked in

yesterday morning’s pocket,

too young to know every departure

wears an arrival under it’s coat.
He thought he’d had 

a bellyfull of tongues, 

mumbles of better life,

nonsense new beginnings

until they gave him 
the silence of that deep

blue voicelessness clearer

than any words, whispering
darkness come dripping

by the board bed to
read him to sleep with

leviathan’s salt breath
and disperse the makeshift
ectoplasmic home exhaled
by heart's hard wish.

All his life to come

he would hate the water

that gave the ship its wings, the
feel of slick shoes, 

cheeks wet with tears

long goodbyes and lying

promises blown on white steam from

rough pitcoal to where I stand now,

cheeks wet from my own departures

the only difference between us 

that I am naked 
under my coat.

December 2011

This poem is for my grandfather Ragnar Carlson, who in the early 1900's made the long sea journey to New York City and then by rail to Chicago, from Gothenburg, Sweden, alone at the age of eight. Like many immigrants at that time, he traveled steerage, which was the cheapest accommodation. Below you can see a picture of him and his dog taken a few years after his arrival.

Posted for Real Toads

My dear friend, guide and support through the wilds of the poetry blogosphere, Fireblossom of Shay's Word Garden, is hosting a prompt today at Real Toads on arrivals and departures. Sorry not to use one of your very cool photos, Shay, but this one has been in the works a long time and I'd already illustrated it.

Also posted for  Meeting the Bar:Evoking Emotion  at dVersePoets Pub
Note: I don't do critique, and by participating in this prompt, I am not asking for it, just thought the poem fit the theme. 

Header image: Emigrants on the Wilson Line steamship Ariosto in Gothenburg, Sweden.

Old postcard 
Footer image1: SS Hibernia, Anchor Line, 1868 Nov. 24, foundered 700 miles from the Irish coast as a result of accident to propeller shaft, 78 lives lost
Old engraving Copyright © 2011 Heritage-Ships.
Footer image2: Ragnar & Dog, circa 1920  

Copyright Verse Escape, 2012

Night at the Opera

Night at the Opera (buffa)

a dream sequence

The grand opera begins;

you approach with a smile,

a many wrinkled twinkle

from the plus size aisle.

Your voice and your ardor

flagrantly contest;

a woman's dry as a prune

before her ears get a rest.

In between acts, nothing

happens in this dream

so why do I wake up

always trying to scream?

December 2011

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

A pure fantasy in 55 words with no personal implications, having nothing to do with opera, men, marriage, getting old, weight gain or other nightmares, I assure you.  It's all a metaphor for...something. Poetic device. Really.

...or else it could be I just have weird dreams.

Image: Luigi LaBlanche as Don Pasquale

courtesy wikimedia commons.

Midnight Riff

Midnight Riff

Low low in the midnight

come to dance by the firelight

tune up with that arbitrary grace

substitute sway for that look on your face

in a dark that makes shadow look bright.

Row row over tears

the  reedy boat of sprung years

when the shore disappears into mist

that insists you persist don’t resist 

a distance flung further than fears.

Sole sole is the pathway

burnt bulbs outline the runway

where something much heavier than air

fades away with what made you care;

that departure clocks in the next day.

December 2011

Get back to Gay Cannon's FormForAll  at dVerse on Ballads Carols and Lullabyes here

Image: Moonrise, by George Inness oil on canvas, 1887

By George Inness (Yale University Art Gallery [1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

apologies to his shade for my liberties with it in the footer...

Page from the Emerald Tablet

Page from the Emerald Tablet

I dream of dust

old, dry, glittering

in a glass animal eye

brimmed with rheumy

flecks of other worlds

fields of forgotten flowers

now dessicated mica

life’s shed substance

abraded on the lathe

cut on the ripsaw

sanded smooth.

I sweep up

my dream dust

with the softest

brush of morning,

mindful of each atomically

weighted speck, carry it

across a tightrope 

of my own

cleverly braided skin

teetering, knowing

nothing can fall.

Into the mold it goes,

the crucible over the

flame of loss begins to heat;

the glass tubes

chatter against the

heart’s empty alembic

a hot green boiling

filtering this spagyric mist.

Past present future

uncombine and melt,

float to ash

sulphur salt and mercury

fire earth and water;

take this simple marigold

make it honeysuckle and amber,

labdanum and pearl.

Turn its sallow safron to softened gold

its sharp viridian to the colorless serum

that weeps from a closing wound. Oh,

flush these bitter salts to fragrant musk

and back again to an animate silver,

the radiant water of life.

 

December 2011

Posted for    Open Link Night    at dVerse Poets Pub

Process Notes: (Almost as long as the poem!) from wikipedia: “The Emerald Tablet, also known as Smaragdine Table, Tabula Smaragdina, or The Secret of Hermes, is a text purporting to reveal the secret of the primordial substance and its transmutations. It claims to be the work of Hermes Trismegistus ("Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"), a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth…” It contains the famously ambiguous phrase, in Isaac Newton’s translation:“That which is below is like that which is above that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing.”

 ~The word spagyric is derived from the Greek  Spao, to tear open, + ageiro, to collect and can be synonymous with alchemy, but in more modern usage refers to an herbal medicine distilled from calcined ashes.
~In the language of flowers, the marigold symbolizes grief and loss, honeysuckle, devoted affection and love.

~Labdanum is a product of the rockrose used in the perfume industry to simulate the odor of musk found in ambergris, which in turn is used to simulate the fragrance of burned amber. 

~‘Aqua vitea,’ the water of life, was a strong concoction of alcoholic spirits often prepared by alchemists in their experiments in distillation, but also had a spiritual significance as the redemptive waters of baptism and faith.

Our Rose

Figured it was about time for some comic relief at Castle Hedgewitch.

NOTE: Images of Mary Millar removed due to constant search engine activity. Sorry if they were used inappropriately.

Our Rose

Our Rose
painted snowflake

waits in vain

for a telephone call

from Mr. Pratt or Mr. Blackstone

or someone named Nigel

whom she met last night at the pub,

to whom she gave her trainwreck self

in wild abandon in the back of a Vauxhall

after lights out.

Our Rose
aging elfgirl

has two married sisters;

one lives in a social tilt awhirl

off its tracks in her own brain,

the other in a series of chocolate boxes

and bodice rippers next to 
a sardonic bone idle man

amused by a broken TV.

Our Rose
fading pubsprite
in a rational moment

gives up men

swine that they are

and weighs her choices:

Back to virginity

or get her to a nunnery.

She has another fag 
and considers

the Vicar.

Oh, Rose, our Rose

you’re already a woman of the cloth

black lace and miniskirt though it be;

already a  bride of the lord,

just not of this
particular pale
and mingy one.

December 2011

 Mary Millar (1936-1998) 

played Rose, in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances

To see Rose in full form, view her in these video clips*:

Rose holds forth on the topic of men as swine, 
starting at 1:58 in, till about 3:07

Rose decides to be a nun, and takes a pill for it; 4:56-finish:







"..there's only the dog paying any attention..." 

Note: The dog in this video is NOT my Schnuskie, Chinook, though the resemblance is striking.

*This poem will probably make a lot more sense, and also be a lot funnier, to those who take a minute or two to watch the designated parts of the videos .Apologies for not being able to get just the clips of Rose--Hyacinth is rather a turnoff. 

posted at  real toads

Cameo

Cameo

Not much

was asked and not much

was given. All that was taken

forever

gone still returns in dreams slowly

seeping  up, filling empty 

spaces.

December 2011

Posted for     Sunday Mini-Challenge   at Real Toads

Kerry's challenge today is the cameo form: "The Cameo is a purely syllabic form consisting of six lines with the following syllable count: 2, 5, 8, 3, 8, 7, 2.  It is English in origin and is well-suited to a brief portrait in words, or character-based piece."

Image: White Gold & Blue Agate Mother & Child Rhombus Cameo 

via google image search

 originating retail site

Master of the Mystic Arts

Master of the Mystic Arts

Let love fall

wind-broken runner

X-man in Darwinia
if love has made you too human.

The sea will burn, 

a fire on the deep

blackening Aquaman

to a french fry, snakes devour you,

mountains fly

before you see another

mutant like me.

Save your bolts

hydrophobic tail-chaser

Dr. Strange in a stranger's land.

When the green lantern burns out,

reason won’t save you

just madden the hulk given

a brain despising its pelt

begging to be skinned.

I wore that shell in my cell

for ten years and a day

waiting for a hero

till I learned just how

to play with

the isotopes, and

kicked down

the door myself.

Now my hands 

shoot the lightning

I have my own costume

and wings 

you’ll only see

disappearing.

December 2011 

Posted for   Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

 Claudia hosts today, and she's asked us to relive our comic-reading days for inspiration. Dr Strange was always my favorite, though in this tale I'm not very kind to him. Come join us. Link is live till Sunday midnight.

Mea Culpa

Mea Culpa

Miserere nobis mea culpa
my own most grievous fault

The bell tolls on disregarding

what new blows what shattered

earholes what new thing it kills

with every nod and chime.

The dog is pariah, skinny ribs

too plain beneath piebald fur,

the pony foundered

headed for

glue.

The show is over; No,

no! Not even

time for one more trick…

but don’t tell the young
ones.

Let them believe

when they go down to

kneel with Trismegistus

and swear the broken oath.

December 2011

Image: Hermes mercurius trismegistus siena cathedral,

Public domain via wikimedia commons

Optional New Age-y Accompaniment