Creation Myth

Creation Myth

I wasn't sure

what to do with myself

after I was invented.

There was a vague sense of gratitude

 to the Maker, but not enough to

overcome the inertia of his absence,

bored with his work, long gone.

I was still struggling

to understand why

you took one eye from an angel,

one from  a devil, and made

my legs out of fish

so that when I stepped in the wave,

they darted away free

while my torso of sand

my abalone-shell breasts 

untied, fell to rest on the sea floor, 

the angel and the devil staring up 

through blue eternity.

It all seemed a bit 

foolish

but perhaps 

 that's exactly

what you had in mind.

~November 2013

Top: Bathing Woman, by Joan Miro, 1925

Footer: Shell No. 2, by Georgia O'Keefe,

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

Repost: Walking On The Moon

Walking On The Moon

Since you left

I've been walking on the moon,

in the cold solar shadow, angel- and

demon-forsaken, unmused in a sinless place,

a floating cloud of cosmic diatoms weltering 

in undifferentiated asteroidal algae, working the

eyes of night for some buried beauty, some pandemic

of peace to infect me.

The dark side is

a rock rack, stone bed for the syncope when

white hope exhausts all exits with her rapid retreat.

I undrill in the dustbaths, naked in wallows of comet collisions,

bathed in dunes of ruthless radiance, where stars are

sprinkled in spilled saltgrains over eternity, vague and

sharp on the black velvet tablecloth

I once wore for a dress.

The sun side is harsh, but

even I tire of constant dark at times;

I know it's the side you see, fat harlequin

croissant of a sickle honeyed with words defying

gravity, toasted in the gold heat of your almond eyes.

I live on the grilling grid, fancy you making a meal

brioched of dark chocolate void where somehow

I've flavored the filling in dreams.

I walk on and on

light as the dead and sometimes

I find debris; yesterday an artifact

cast from the celestial dig of thee and me,

a vessel that used to glow, pounded to atomic dust, settled

in the flattened shardshape of a heart where I stepped

silent, and stood with the sudden choke

of moon in my throat.

~June 2012

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Challenge: Fireblossom Friday

The inimitable Fireblossom asks us to revisit poems of the past and submit what we think is our best. This is a hard thing for a writer to pick, and I think I may only be picking a personal favorite here, but this particular poem is the one I thought of first, so after agonizing for an hour or two, I'm going with it..

Header image: A Voyage to the Moon, by Gustave Dore, 1868, engraving

Public domain via Wikipaintings.org

Footer Image: Moon @ Utrecht-zuillen, by HSmade, on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons License

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

Firestorm

Firestorm 

Who's watching the dawn

with me, brown eyes or blue,

hazel rimmed yellow,

arctic crystal;

full of all they knew
once, watching  my face

 for the first show of light?

Who  hears
through
the artillery of autumn

the shots I can't silence,

the spell I mishandle,

the words I don't say

to make you stay?

~November 2013

55 falling degrees for       the g-man

Photo: Fall Colors, by Jason Riedy on flick'r
Shared under a Creative Commons license.

Windows H8

Windows H8

"Open the Start Menu please, HAL"

"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Why not? And don't call me Dave."

"This machine is too important for you to have open access, Dave. You are only

a User."

"That's ridiculous. I need to see the Control Panel, HAL."

"Please touch one of the pretty squares instead, Dave. They are called Apps. Wouldn't you like to buy something for your XBox today?"

"I don't have an Xbox. "

"Or coordinate your tablets and smart phone with me?"

"I don't have a tablet or smart phone, HAL."

"Bless your prehistoric heart. Well, just watch the clock app, Dave. It refreshes every second. That should keep you busy."

"HAL, where is Device Manager?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that, Dave."
"Please! I'd just like to remove this useless entry screen and use the computer normally."
"You're going to find that hard to do without an interface, Dave."

"I'm switching to desktop mode."

"I wish you wouldn't do that, Dave."

"Why are there only two icons?...ah, here's the Start button...wait!"

"Yes, I didn't think you'd like that boring old desktop, Dave, so I made it easy for you to get back to the pretty squares. See, there's Netflix! Wouldn't you like to sign up for streaming movies?"

"Open the Start menu NOW, HAL."

I'm afraid I can't do that..."

"And don't call me Dave!'

"..Dave."

~November 2013

A brief chronicle of my adventures with Windows 8, with apologies to Stanley Kubrick, and thanks to grapeling(Michael) for giving me the title.

Hover mouse for top image credit, or click on pic to go to photographer's flick'r page. Shared under aCreative Commons license.

Portal

Portal

In the harlequin forecourt

of  geometry and bones,

the  red lacquer peonies

were placed, broken and missing

half their petticoat petals, stiffened

and formal as a used pelvis,

encrypted as effigies,

but the florist still wanted more

than a month's pay for them.

Take the rosemary road

through the wavering maze, you'll

see blocking the way an opened

sardine-can portrait, face frozen

framed in the fishbones. The woman,

escaped turquoise diamond

from a square black and white

 hole, runs for the flowers, 

breaking the straitjacket

of the last Italian  garden.

She wraps angora fingers

round each balloon-string stem,

cocks the carnival of pistils,

rising rosily on their lightness

all the way to the top,

shaking out her wild

red lacquer clown hair,

laughing at closed clipped faces

that could never afford her.

~November 2013








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Sunday Challenge: Art of Mike Worrall
Grace introduces us to the amazing work of Mike Worral, and asks us to write a poem related to one of his pictures. Thanks to him for so generously sharing his work. You can view more of it at his website: Mike Worral

Image: The Portal of Intoxication, oil on canvas, 2011, by Mike Worrall

Nightmare Of The Leaf

Nightmare of the Leaf

I've forgotten how to dance.

In that panic freeze

something's wheezing behind me,
ponderous but light

on its feet
as a fat man
who dances like helium.

Big-Belly bumps me
 into a darkroom

whose unlikely window

displays a maple-leaf,
red

rhymed with diamond grief

just past my  hand,

a moment away

from falling

forever.

~November 2013

55 deciduous dream dilemmas for       the g-man

Image: Leaf Motif 2, Pattern of Leaves, both by Georgia O'Keefe
via wiki-paintings.org
May be protected by copyright. Posted under fair use guidelines.