Friday 55 April 13 2018

Welcome, writers. It looks like we have another Friday the Thirteenth to accommodate in our 55 word journey; feel free to play with that concept if you'd like. For those writing 30 poems in 30 days for April, extra welcomes, with all respect.

To recap our mission here for any new aspirants, we come together every Friday to celebrate the legacy of one of the great original bloggers, Galen Hayes, who gave so many support and a laugh hosting this meme of 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less. Link yours in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning, and I will be by to read.

A glance to the poles for my 55 this week:

 Wendigo

Time shrinks

to shadow-smoke.

Forever-winter drowses

a snowdust
dim darkness of white.

Don't wake her.

Her wendigo's eye shut

still hates

 the old rose by the fence,

bleeding life

 at each finger's end.

Her ice-blanket's twist

shudders out 

floods,

dreams of dead fishes

ash from a thousand wildfires.

April

darkens with

the desperation of hummingbirds.

~April 2018

wendigo, also, windigo: (in the folklore of some northern Algonquian peoples) a cannibalistic giant; a person who has been transformed into a monster by the consumption of human flesh.

Some facts from the Norwegian Polar Institute  on how Arctic warming will affect the rest of the globe, including reduced thermohaline circulation and the albedo effect.

Images: The Enigma, 1871, by Gustave Dore 
Dark Roses On Light Background, 1891,Henri Fantin-Latour    
Public domain.  Manipulated.

 

 

Friday 55 April 6 2018

Welcome to the land of 55 words, created by that great-hearted blogger Galen Hayes to make weekends memorable by writing without rules, except for word count of course--that would be 55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, linked in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning. An especial welcome to those brave souls writing 30 poems this month--I salute you, and while I miss being able to participate, I do enjoy reading the results.

Without further ado, my bit of nonsense for this week... 

The Big S'More

Although I remember how

we set fires, gave them

the names of gods,

how love

was a natural disaster,

the only red cross

drawn in blood,

now that I'm a marshmallow

pushed on a stick

licked by a mortal fire

I find I'd rather think

of Monty Python

old songs

puppies

until

the Big S'More.

 ~April 2018

Note: For those unacquainted with this delicacy, read here for all things S'more.

Images via internet, authors unknown, no copyright infringement intended.

Time The Wind The Fire

Time The Wind The Fire

All night I was

the great heart of the wind

that beat its fever-pulse against the walls.

I was the white rabbit-cloud that streaked

across clipped-lawn stars

nose-twitched over endless indigo

for the wet green of missing spring

til I was taken from the air

betrothed to a wasting fire

burning page after wind-turned page

of my book of flesh unread

...the sound of a child's blocks tumbling

smoking in my throat     bare

wild summer feet pounding down a

hollyhock hedged alley

pink and rose dancers            far above my head

flamenco'd to the sinister

July castanets of bumblebees...

So all the night

of burn, blow and running,

all the fever,

became me

the hedge-wife of time

the wind

the fire,

destroyers 

of the pages

of this crack-skinned volume

all its words

all its summers

all its secrets,

all but the waiting

blankness of

this

last

folded leaf.

~April 2018

for Brendan's Transformations

 Images: Landscape of Ruins and Fire, 1914, Felix Valloton

Untitled image by unknown author,, via internet

Friday 55 March 30 2018

Another Friday, another 55 words to chronicle the long march, the wild hunt, the dance of the living and dead. We come to remember a man who had more to give than take from the world of blogging, Galen Hayes, and to explore the meme he brought us as the world turns around us in its ceaseless change. There are no rules, no social obligations, except to write 55 words of prose or poetry--no more, no less, and link them in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning for myself and others to read. Comment moderation is once again on to discourage the trolls, so please be patient.

I dreamed I smelled the sea this week...

Seascape, 3 AM

Landlocked I dream

of the wind that

comes ten-thousand miles

without one human breath,

wind that throws

its sleepless

seasmell in my face,

singing louder than

the giant's roar

of broken time.

 Free as wolves

before the hunter's shot,

alone with the one I've loved

but never had;

my seaweed dreams

blow this life

away.

~March 2018

Optional Instrumental Accompaniment

Image: Seascape, 1879, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir    Public Domain

Sweetener

Sweetener

I.

I put you in my tea

tannic with memories;

stirred, they go down smoother

sipping on your ways.

Put on my plate you make

an evergreen presentation,

dressed in rue and fired clay,

so haute cuisine, salad of baby greens

tossed in hope and fear, before

the soup of dreams.

II.

I put you on the moon

sitting where she bends

your cloven feet a-dangle in 

their blurred and slippery stars.

You ease Orion’s belt, give cloudy listening blinks;

I whisper in your thunder covered ear until

you put me in the storm

flying with wings of rain 

where cold front meets the warm.

III.

I put you in my heart

little shop of horrors

cobweb seeded, only one

flyblown object on display but not

for sale. Pressed against the glass

your firefly face winks in the indigo night

where ribboned time slips tight in a lover's knot

and tea is sweet as your blue sky mouth my love, 

sweeter than floating memories dead in the pot.

March 2012

an old favorite, in Kerry's triptych form, 

 reposted for 

Fireblossom's Poetic Imagery 

Image: Tea Time, © Ellen Wilson of Ella's Edge