The Show Must Go On

The Show Must Go On

Not a line is left

of this player's love,
no drunkard's laugh

not a scene or shape

to shift

or spark to lift.

When you've pulled 
the punctured heart,

when my motley mask dries,

another fool will come to wear it

another curtain rise, another starlet bare it

to the house, and overplay the part.

~August 2012

A little drama with 55 bells, and motley

for    the g-man 

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Jester Mask White and Gold, by royblumenthal  on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons License

Skyfall

Skyfall

High on the wire I watch the dove

pleat her feet to sit on the sky.

Balanced on faith or skill, she cannot fall.

Deep in winter I'm wrapped in fall;

in summer, the spring nests of doves.

On earth I see fire, in water sky

where lovers rose on waves, blue sky

so thick before the faith met fall

and lost the certainty of doves.

Doves swim the deep sea sky; we only fall.

~August 2012

Posted for    FormForAll  at dVerse Poets Pub

Samuel Peralta hosts today's form session at the pub ,on the tritina. The tritina is a shorter variation of the sestina, and Samuel explains it all better than I can at the link above.

Header image: Mourning Doves, by Seabarium on flick'r

Footer image:  Flight, by EssjayNZ,  on flick'r

Shared under a Creative Commons License.

Incubus: Finale

Incubus: Finale

(Incubus VII)

The incubus struggles

with depression,

reluctantly fulfilling

the contract,

turning his bitches 
over to

Beelzebub.

He broods.

All

that brimstone

acrobatic 
badass act

for 
nothing.

~August 2012

Posted for   real toads

Challenge: Words Count with Mama Zen 

Mama Zen asks us to write, in 25 words or less, something using a trademark symbol, something used in our own, or in another poet's work so often as to be identified with the writer. I now have seven poems in my Incubus series, counting this one which, at least for the moment, is the last, so hopefully I've hit the mark. If you'd like to check out the others, click HERE.

Image: Death of a Whore, by Heironymous Bosch, circa 1485

Public Domain, via Wikipaintings.org

Quills

Quills

Living with her

was like living with roaches,

flimsy, easy to kill but never
really dead, always stutter running

always more hidden than shown

always a scuttling when the switch flipped,

impossible to hold accountable.

In a hard country, the dog chased

the porcupine

catching a hundred razor

barbed quills in his face every time.

Every time, they'd cut and pull them while he cried, 
saying, he's learned now, 

he won't do it again.

Before the blood was dulled dry, he'd be up

hunting, disfigured nose twitching, bantam
brain eclipsed, swollen with the useless rage
of the violated; just so, the child came back at her 
teeth bared, howling outside the den, nose down

for the yelling, the curse, the barbs in its

face, a hundred times.

In the rank stillness Mama Roach
drops her eggcase on the drainboard
casual as shedding a dirty thong.

Mating. Eating. Her own survival
absorbs her, and there will be more
eggs, many more. It's nothing
personal.

~August 2012

Posted for   OpenLinkNight   at dVerse Poets Pub
 I'll be hosting tonight at the pub, so come join us. Doors open at 3:00 PM EST and link-in is live through tomorrow midnight.

If you would like to hear the poem read by the author, click below:

quills by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Header photo: Porcupine quills, by lamiot 
from Stekelvarken.JPG (Image:Stekelvarken.JPG) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Two Shadormas

Kerry O'Connor of Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads, presents a twin challenge this Sunday, both form and photographic, and in that spirit, I've written two poems inspired by two of her daughter, Jaime Clark's delicate, 'extreme close up' examples of macro photography:

Spindle

Struggling

on a spindle's point

the heart bird's

blood whispers

out blown like a misty rain

turning her last song.

Drops

Bright needles

move from sky to ground

threaded light

binds the twins 

ever unlike but the same

together with drops

~August 2012 

Posted for   real toads

Sunday Mini-Challenge: Shadorma/Macro Photography

Images by Jaime Clark

Used with permission.