Alive

Alive

Night is only the medium for a memory;

a kiss, tasting of dust and natron
vanilla and orange

under a dream-sickled moon,

a McLuhanish massage

on the knot in psyche's neck,

hard as the driven bolts that hold
electrified skull to softening body,

or as the hollow calcined cavities

of the mummy who walks.

What love or hate could drag

that storm of bandages and bile

from its turquoise-eyed sarcophagus--

how fond the bonds of loss must fall

on an utterly lost thing,
messages for the reanimated

matter of this memory 

that walks the night on its own business,
 trailing smears of lightning,

 spice, and white unravelings, 
  

on slow parade in the glittering

 black pageant of Hell.

~February 2015

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The Tuesday Platform

Process notes:  Marshall McLuhan was a 20th century communications theory philosopher, predictor of the internet, and coiner of phrases such as  'the global village,' and 'the medium is the message,' the concept of which I have very loosely employed in this poem. Here is his wikpedia bio.

Images are of  (bottom) a poster for the 1932 film The Mummy,
and Boris Karloff, (top) in 1935's  Bride of Frankenstein
Public domain. via wikimedia commons. Manipulated.

Snake Eye

Snake Eye

Your eye, that reptile jewel hung yellow as

a sunken sun, your talk a

cloudy snakeskin strung with pierced pendant hearts--when

it  passed idly over me, measuring

and rejecting

the price of that collecting, you

almost said

 you loved me, but remembered

a lie will cause a reckoning more

 often than it saves one.

~January 2015 

















Optional Musical Accompaniment

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Weekend Challenge: Flash 55 Plus

Kerry once again brings us the 55 meme,  and her optional Plus this time is to write it in the form of a Herrick Stanza (word count 8-6-8-6-2-6-2-5-7-5.) This made for some weird enjambment, but I kind of like it this way.

Image: The Eye of  A Green Tree Python, copyright Joel Satore
Source

Objectivist Free Will Nightmare

Objectivist Free Will Nightmare

Last night I dreamed

Rand Paul walked up to me

as I sat working at my desk,

in his suit and wide red tie,

curly hair oiled

like a delicate machine.

He tipped up my chin, grasped it firmly

and planted a kiss on my lips

while I froze.

"My god," I whispered,

"I've kissed a libertarian."

and sunk my face in my palms.

A wave of shame consumed me,

as I sat deregulated,

more broken than an oil spill;

Mr. Paul smiled a small

controlled happy smile,

and walked on to the next desk.

~ January 2015

Yes, I really dreamed this. Not much of a poem, but it cracked me up, so thought I'd share.


Edit: Forgot to add for those not into U.S. politics, that Rand Paul is a republican-libertarian Senator from Kentucky, and  son of Ron Paul, de facto founder of the Libertarian Party.

Scrimshaw Sonnet

Scrimshaw Sonnet

I am a woman only of earthenware

bare as windy hills if not as pure.

Your every thought to me bore the potter's mark

stark from a god's-eye that's never yet met mine,

fine and barb-hooked as if on a fishing line,

vined in words that pulled like hungry sand.

Bands of ivory cloud meet a starving knife,

life drips enough to wet the driest grave.

Save the lesser light of windflower spring;

bring the lamps of your eyes imagining.

Sing like sheaves of whales under blue-white wool.

Pull from your sleeves the darkness between worlds

curled away in sighs, then suddenly spilled,

filled to the brim before all things are stilled.

~January 2013

slightly revised. 2015 

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The Tuesday Platform

revisiting a poem written two years ago... this is in chained rhyme where the last word of every line rhymes with the first word of the next.

originally posted for   real toads 

Process notes: This is deliberately written in a somewhat non-traditional sonnet form.

scrimshaw  — n
1. the art of decorating or carving shells, ivory, etc, done by sailors as a leisure activity

~World Dictionary


Image credits:

Header image: The Rocks with Oak Tree, Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

Public domain, via wikipaintings.org

Footer image: scrimshaw is awesome, part II, by staveitoff on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons license.

 

The Hourlass Of Crowded Demons

The Hourglass Of Crowded Demons

With every

grain that pits my sleep 

a demon falls, sliding past 

his subatomic twins

down the chute 

of  another

narrowing night

to rattle in a pail of dreams

that rouse themselves and shake,

wet cerberi of dullness or desire

carrying each his bleached 

memory-bone to the fire.

~January 2015

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Kerry's Weekend Mini-Challenge: Word Substitution

Kerry O'Connor (Skylover, Skwriting ) once again picks two titles in her mental shellgame of word substitution, asking us to make something appear where least expected. (In the spirit of the mini-challenge, I have made this one quite mini.)

Apology: I just realized as I was tweaking this I changed the original title which was The Hourglass of Dreaming Demons--sorry Kerry. I did keep the dreaming part, tho.

Images: Top: The Hourglass Nebula, (" MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about 8,000 light-years away, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).) by Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), the WFPC2 science team, and NASA/ESA" ) Source

Bottom: Skull Hourglass, by Brynhilder on deviantArt, shared under a Creative Commons License.