Wind Chant

Wind Chant

The wind slaps the cedars

and pushes the pines.

Earth rocks restless horses

in a field that's not mine.

The sky runs on cloud-juice

and blue-bottle wine,

while stars fall for nothing,

Moon sits on her hair,
grass has gone dappled
as a piebald mare;

the wind strips the blackjacks,

saying
Let them wear air.

~February 2014

55 windy wisps of plain jane doggerel for    the g-man

The Polar Sucktex gave us some freakish winds to keep the earthquakes company today.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Photos: Wind in the Pines, Blackjack Striptease, both copyright joyannjones 2014
All Rights Reserved.

Starfall

Starfall

At the end of shared hours

when Orion comes down

different, half-human

dancing on stick legs

shaking that starry ass

wrapped in tigerbones rattling

and his buskins on fire,

when dust wind strips the juniper and

 ice roofs her sloe-eyed collection,

 when teeth tease at cardboard,

when giants below

once contained stir and wake,

pound the fragile ceiling

till dry-sucked stones shake,

then I step out with you here

in the chaos men make, where

our dance is illegal, semi-ruined as Orion

our possibilities too tight

our red shoes on fire,

while the plague ship sinks last

while the rough beast drinks chance.

In the deep doubt of sleep

it's dance, drop or cry

and we

are too young to die

too old to weep.

~February 2014

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Get Listed

Kenia Cris has chosen a science fiction focus for her word list prompt, and has used words from the Philip K Dick novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (loosely reincarnated in the movie Bladerunner,) which portrays a bleak, dystopian future that seems more likely and less sci-fi with every passing year. I have borrowed thirteen or so of these words here; for the full list see the Toads link above.

Process note: The Eastern Red Cedar(Juniperus virginiana) has berries that are blue-black in winter, like the berries of the blackthorn known as sloe. On stanza two: We have had drought, extreme cold, and ice storms here this winter, and  100-plus earthquakes and tremors in the last few days. Dry-sucked refers to the process of fracking.

Top Image: Untitled,1978,  by Zdislav Beksinksi via wikipaintings.org

May be protected by copyright. Posted here under fair use guidelines.

Footer: Study for the Spanish Dance, 1879, by John Singer Sargent

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org

Morning Light

Morning Light

A Quatern

You are morning of my last day
the saw sun that cuts through the bars
the smell of earth as frost lifts
the runes and stars on my back

dripping off the indigo night.

You are morning of my last day;
a thunder that promises rain,
a place where the outside comes in,

where blue sky of invisible moon
blankets a raised lacework of scars.

On the morning of my last day
you're a rose wind with too much to say,

my foxfire harp in the dawn, 
the tectonic bend at the end;
how I'll never know where you are

like the morning of my last day.

~February 2014

 posted for     real toads

Sunday  Form Challenge: The Quatern

Kerry O'Connor once again presents us with a fascinating form to explore: the quatern. She informs us: 'A Quatern is a sixteen line French form composed of four quatrains. It is similar to the Kyrielle, which repeats line 4 as a refrain throughout the poem. However, with the Quatern, the refrain is in a different place in each quatrain....' For full details, see the link above. After much experiment, I chose not to rhyme this one, except coincidentally . There is also one line with nine syllables--you will just have to shoot me.

Top Image: Cape Cod Morning, 1950, by Edward Hopper

Footer: Early Morning, 1942, by Rene Magritte

May be protected by copyright~posted under fair use guidelines.

Broken Glass

Broken Glass

In the stained glass woods
colors fly, cricketsong falls
into the well that has no bottom. 

Life is light poured small
till form forks heavy-footed.

Wind-flown through the ripening

acid of air, bees of bright gold

halt and falter.
Things of the black wing

know without being told

to gather.

Birds of harlequin feather,

fins of the blue wash

hit the cliff's edge together.

Stained glass breaks

in the sudden
shatter-clashing of bones.

What can't live without plunder

eats the world and itself,
discussing the corpse asunder.

This wind murders rice.

The weak will die twice

in the knowing wealth wastes;
bees will make honey
or husks from what they taste.

~February 2014

posted for    real toads

Interpretations with Margaret: The Art of Toril Fisher

The artist's eye of Margaret Bednar focuses us on the graceful artwork of Toril Fisher, of  Second Cloud on the Left Farm., who is "..currently working on a series of paintings rehabilitating old beehive lids she found in the woods. Her hope is that by placing images of our relationship to nature on the homes which housed these vital and beautiful creatures, she might begin a conversation...[on]... the beauty and interconnectedness of all living creatures..." For more information on this artist and the challenge, see the Real Toads link above.

Process Notes: This poem covers several themes. I have written about Colony Collapse Disorder before, but only recently heard about the ongoing  acidification of our oceans  due to CO2, which among other factors, including accelerating climate change, may possibly threaten a  sixth mass extinction of species. You can read about all these frightening concepts in detail at the links.

Artwork: Kaleidoscope Creek, copyright Toril Fisher
Used with permission.

Century

Century

A hundred years ago

you came to undo my buttons

throw my calico skirt, my muslin shift

over the moon, unpeeled teal eyes to

lay me down in piney night,
exhaled a smoke ring sigh to drift

around me, knotted tight

in deep green black.

Now I spit this centenary curse:

that we ever came back

to the skins we couldn't shed

on that cabin floor,

from murmuring boards so old

they glowed snake blue, luminous

as the windfall shapes we wore,

dropped apples of a slanting  

summergone sun. I walked

like a freckled young lioness

before she learns her scarlet roar,

my mane of stars 
shook out on the jade inflow;

who could know I'd die there under the gun

a hundred years ago?

~January 2013

posted for    real toads

Open Link Monday

This poem appears, along with 35 additional poems of mine, in our new book, 

Three Note Howl:The Wild Hunt,

 which I am flogging here only once, I promise.

 All the poems in this book were meticulously gathered, transcribed and  

appeared like magic on Amazon 

due totally to the industry, persistence and generosity of Shay Simmons,(Fireblossom) who dragged me kicking and screaming once again into the world of published material, and who has graciously allowed both the talented Mama Zen and myself to share space with 64 of her own brilliant poems.

 Thank you, Shay, thanks to Kerry O'Connor and  all the Real Toads, and to everyone who reads and comments here for the impetus to continue writing,  and to  all who were so encouraging and supportive of our first effort.

Header: Cabin Under the Trees, Paul Gauguin, 1892

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org

Footer: Jungle with Lion, Henri Rousseau, 1910

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org