Margaret Bednar's (Art Happens 365) artistic eye lights this time on the work of Toril Fisher. All rights to the image above belong to the artist, who has given us her kind permission to reproduce it.
Top Image: Baby Blues, copyright Toril Fisher
Used with permission.
Footer: Wing of a Blue Roller, 1512, Albrecht Durer
Public domain via wikiart.org
The blackbirds increase
while the doves softly dwindle
year by year.
The sea is less a brine
than an acid.
A fatal heat sprouts seeds
remembering
a ten thousand years' gone sun.
The Great Construct is shaking
faltering
transforming
as the plague ship
brings out its black sail.
Change becomes us, as change
becomes stasis, the ever-
fluctuating constant in
an insoluble set.
In the soundless hour
before curry-clouded dawn,
the sky is reshaped
by an unfortunate light.
It seems foolish to write of love
of the past
of the breath that fell
from stars to earth
while we are bound
to an irrational god
who asks us to eat chaos
and shit sanity.
Grapeling (Michael of it could be that) provides us with a list of words that reflect each other in spelling but have no meanings in common, and asks us to use at least two of them or invent a few--I have tried to do both, though I have strayed a bit from the pathway in this, my autobiographical indulgence and not very serious cautionary tale of the Lovely Rita, non-Meter Maid.
optional musical acompaniment
Process Notes(and/or Spoilers): I worked at several diners including the ones named(except for the famed "Pete and Repete's Restaurant" in Purcell) when I first came to Oklahoma in the seventies. From what I can find out on google, they all seem to be defunct. I couldn't stand being constantly hit on under my own name, and stole and wore the name tag Rita, left behind by a less stoic ex-waitress, thus assuming my first pre-Hedgewitchian alias. (And yes, the slogan I wore in a strategic spot on my uniform apron said : 'They're stacked better.' ) My current husband's company did all the plumbing work for the Girlie chain, but we never met until much later, under very different circumstances. But that's another tale.
'poke is short for 'cowpoke' and for those who haven't known the joys of waiting table, 'stiffed' refers to not receiving a tip.
"Black blizzard" is a 30's term for the worst dust storms of that era.
The character Honeybunch Kaminski, by counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb, was one with whom I strongly identified at the time.
Images: courtesy google image search Cup of Joe source Girlie's source No copyright infringement intended--will remove at request of copyright holder.
Karin Gustafson (ManicDDaily) asks us to think about the promise behind the chocolates, broken, or missed, kept or imaginary. This is just something that popped up in my head a few months back, and seems appropriate now, as Carnivale is winding down in Venice
broken bottles, shots at midnight, the clumsy winding
and unpicking of the bandage, the childish rush
to clean the wound,
needle threaded with
a flame
to poke white hot into your swelling
bringing only tainted blood and no relief.
There's no hero dawdling home upon
a handy wine dark wave, no velveteen nurse
to blot the nightsweat from
the page,
no diagnostician or connoisseur of blight
to assure you fatality is a condition
that with proper care and rest
may show improvement.
There's only one who loved you once
and whom you've since
taught better, and no one here at all
to read a letter
never mailed.
~January 2015, rev. February 2015
Process note: I have added the subtitle (from/to self) above to clarify the intent and the point of view, ie, the 'you' here is the writer. I have reached the point where I am through with rewriting and editing this for now, and the poem still apparently doesn't make itself clear. Apologies, and at some point may revisit to do a better job.
Kerry O'Connor (Skylover) asks us to ponder some of the more obscure corners of this thing called love. Or even " to write to the theme: Love Thy Enemy or Love is The Enemy or Love, Despite Your Enemy." This is a poem about love and the inner enemy.
