In The Tank

 

(SCROLL DOWN FOR THE 55)

 

 

 

 

 

In The Tank

 

 

 

In the tank, watching

the last foam ascend,

no rockets from

this wet womb, nothing

left but the sinking

still

the spirit seed

warm-curled in rainsilk, is

a spark self-shielded,

a voice unheeded

untrained but turning, a

desire piercing

paper-dead husk

with green.

The birth cord was tangled,

the roots softly angled,

a woven squared circle

of sticky heartweb.

There in that secret

float of penumbra

I felt you move.

I felt myself

blowing, unwrapped and golden,

in the tears of the sun.

 

 November 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Artist and title unknown, manipulated,  via internet, Fair Use

Seedling  ©2017, joyannjones

 

 

Flash Friday 55 Thanksgiving Edition 2020

 

 

 

 Welcome all, to the Thanksgiving edition of the Friday 55. This year has seen so much turmoil, death, despair and anxiety that pulling anything up from a well of gratitude can be difficult, but there are indeed things to be thankful for, like those we love, the hope for change and renewal we have under a new administration, or like this gathering of writers remembering our history, our craft and an absent friend, the G-Man, who originated this meme and never lost his sense of humor or support for others in his quest for a kickass weekend for all. 

Thank you, Galen.

 

 

 

As always, this isn't a prompt about anything in particular, even gratitude. It's the 55. That is, 55 words of your choice on any subject, in any form, so long as the total comes to 55, no more no less.

Link your result in the comments below and I will be by to see what you have written.

 

Because of the holiday, the prompt will be extended from Thursday at midnight all weekend through Monday at noon.

~*~
Here is my 55:

 

 

 Over The Wind

I threw my leg over

the back of the wind,

or was it the mare

 

who gallops my sleep

your face

bounced in her bag,

 

leaves on her eyes

storms in her tail,

a jagged nightbird

 

with razorglass song,

dragon-winged

by a child's sleeping breath?

 

And I the rider

faded as fable,

lightning passing by.

 

 

 

 November2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Vintage postcard, manipulated  Fair Use

Photograph of Galen Hayes, source unknown  Fair Use

Donnerstag,  artist unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Dragon Awakens,   © Theodore Severin Kittelsen  Fair Use

 

End Times Redux

 

 

 

 

End Times Redux

 

 

There's always been

only one end

to a skull run against

a wall of stone,

always a single truth against

 an outnumbering of fools,

 

always ears stopped to

the pulse-drum beating fear,

the microphone vomiting

all the glory lies. Reason's light

is not blown out no matter

how many choose to sit in darkness.

It's always been coming again,

this over-heat in the system;

where the sovereign goes mad

bashing skulls

in Punch and Judy shows,

stuffed with his own sawdust failures.

 

Our love is the ink with which

over and over

we scrawl these wartime sagas,

the spilled blood 

from which the Resistance

 always rises.

 

 

 

November 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for the inimitable Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: top, author unknown, via internet, Fair Use

Bottom: image 1:Ditto;Allegedly the last picture of Adolf Hitler before he committed suicide. Hitler (right) and his adjutant Julius Schaub looking at the ruins of the Reich chancellery, April 28, 1945.

Image 2: Trump returning to White House after election projected for Biden. ©AP Fair Use

Mooncandle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mooncandle

 

 

I put my candle in a jar

when all the songs were sung

to send across the raving sea

to the lost land of the young.

 

I watched its flame-eye shake and spill

across the mad night sky

til frozen waves and silver snakes

knew more of it than I.

 

Light and dark were dancing.

Beach and tide were dancing.

Man and beast were dancing.

Together---

away---

one covered the other

like a morality play.

 

But a spark from the mind

the heart's testing tide

keep a candle alive,

cover wrong with right,

 

burn a flame as bright

as the white moon's sail

untangling herself

from night's matted tail. 

 

 

 

 

November 8, 2020

posted for 

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process notes: Land of The Young: "In Irish mythology Tír na nÓg ; Land of the Young) or Tír na hÓige (Land of Youth) is one of the names for the Celtic Otherworld... [it]is depicted as an island paradise and supernatural realm of everlasting youth, beauty, health, abundance and joy"~ wikipedia

Morality play: "an allegorical drama popular in Europe especially during the 15th and 16th centuries, in which the characters personify moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in which moral lessons are taught."~Brittanica

 

Images: via internet. Artist unknown      Fair Use 

Celebration in Detroit Michigan after 2020 election, via Getty Images  Fair Use

 

 

 

 

Flash Friday 55 Halloween Edition 2020

 

 

 Welcome all, to the All Hallows' edition of the Friday 55. In a year where almost every day has felt like Halloween, it may be hard to get into the spirit of this ancient celebration of the thinning of the veil between the quick and the dead. It may be too tragic to think of all those who were here and now are gone in this year of plague rampant and its utter chaos, with a dubious future ahead.

 

Nonetheless, this exercise continues, and let the 55 chips fall where they may, as we remember happier if not scarier times, and the originator of this meme, Galen Hayes, by attempting to have a writer's kickass weekend to a radioactive Jack-O-Lantern's glow.

 

The rules remain the same. Write a poem, piece of prose poetry or flash fiction in exactly 55 words, no more, no less, and post your link in the comments below. I will be by to read whatever has haunted you this week.

The meme will be live from Thursday at the Witching Hour til Sunday at 4 pm.

 

 

~ * ~

 

Here is my 55. We have had a historic and crippling ice storm here, and the ghosts of my trees are with me in this piece.

 

 

 

 

 Icestorm

 

 

 

 

 I woke in the dryads' dying hours

to the champagne-crack of their maple towers

falling; ice-winds honed a banshee tune,

a butcher's knife to carve the pumpkin moon. 

1000 suns of supple leaf expire

when winter kicks down summer's flimsy door;

a protean shift from sheeted ice to fire

to dryads' ash on Halloween's dancing-floor.

 

 

 

October 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images: The Woodland Dryad, © Jesse T. Banfield, 1913 via wikimedia commons Fair Use

Redbud ruins, October 2020 ice storm, © joyannjones