The Brain Expert

The Brain Expert

The brain expert came

when the buzzer stopped ringing.

I watched him pound

my motherboard to dust,

hand-saw through my word-files,

chipping off  lines

with a quick cold-chiseling,

wipe the hard drive stark blank to a giggle-bite,

mechanically masticating
 out

all the memory.

Safe now, he said.

Now no one

can steal

your identity

again.

~October 2013

55 bytes of the non-Apple for      the g-man



Process notes: Most of you know I lost communications with my hard drive about ten days ago, and my old pc had to be put down, which resulted in me losing a great number of my poetry files. This may not seem scary enough for Halloween, but the process of getting rid of the old and on with the new, especially the abysmal Windows 8, was pretty terrifying for a Luddite like me.

My advice--BACK UP YOUR DATA!

HAPPY ALL HALLOWS TO ALL
and may you not be haunted by the ghosts of computers passed.

Hover mouse for top image credit, or click to go to the photographer's flick'r page.

Shared under a creative commons license.

Bottom Image: Devil takes a Head, by Odilon Redon, Public domain, via wikipaintings.org

The Necromancer

The Necromancer

Long hours, back bent aching

I've spent tinkering with the relics.

My eyes water from peering
under yellowing light
for the sweet

outlier, its nyctophillic

touch, the exuberant spark
so well-hid,

the divine animation of

the incurably dead.

But bones are recalcitrant, 

the heartbeat cleaves dry

to its mouth-roof.

The frog won't hop,
the mouse-muscle

shudders, un-alive in the

current's bite. I open the chrysalis

of the ether soaked moth, my last
hope crying to see

I can't make it fly.

I only long to reverse

the order of things, to grasp

even once time ticking in my fist,

twist back its setting, but dead

is forever,

and what's gone down that hole

will never come back.

~October 2013

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Challenge: Out of Standard: To Monster with Love

Isadora Gruye of the Nice Cage blog once more has us looking at things with a different squint, and asks us to write about our monsters with a loving slant. She says "My one rule will be that you choose an iconic monster: by which I mean a monster who is recognizable to more than four people (okay, so I am swinging a bit loose with that definition, but you get the point!)"

.I hope my necromancer, who is of course, just a trope for the Mad Scientist, will meet this requirement.

Image: Astral Person, by Remedios Varo, via wikipaintings.org
This artwork may be protected by copyright. It is posted on the site in accordance with fair use principles.

Offline

Will be offline setting up my new computer for an unknown length of time. If I am not back before Halloween, a most festive Samhain to All.

Peacock Mask

Peacock Mask
(or, Looking Back)

You stood in the center

in your peacock mask

in your turquoise dress

pushed and over-drenched

in the too bright room: 
The cat, you said,

is a reductionist first

but the bird is blue

and small as air.

The cat moves like light

but the bird's not there.
I'm a sugar queen now
beginning to melt.

Your encircled eyes were wild for free,

but you asked to be locked

in someone's vault, and I knew lies

and curls were all you'd got.

Unbuttoning your chest,

you spread ribs and said,

See, here's a jelly bean

red and sweet.

The bird flew hard to bring it to me.
It's watching you

now, the harder you see

the more you look away.

You dropped the mask

when the feathers cried.

I can't save you, green girl.

You'll have to melt

under the door and so away.

The stain and the taste

I expect will stay but I still hear wings.

The blue bird flies.

~October 2013

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Mini-Challenge: Masks
The enigmatic grapeling hosts today with a subject I've always felt drawn to--masks. I once again wrote and formatted this all online, as the browser is the only part of my moribund computer I can use, so please excuse the roughness of what would normally be for me, a draft. I'm afraid it's not very mini either.

Hover mouse for image attribution, or click on pic to go to photographer's flick'r page

shared under a Creative Commons license

BlueBlack Snake Dream

BlueBlack Snake Dream

Blue banded blacksnake,

ouroboros needle

sewing earth to sky

in sea serpent

splashes,

fool, flower and forest

meticulously

quilted

to midnight mourning,

seaming flickering shrouds

for flame-hungry moths.

Blue banded blacksnake,

thread your oblivion,

sew the dream tight

tighter

on my eyes.

Blood-bracelet me

with your blue black coil

here where I sleep

seeing forever.

~October 2013

55 shed sea serpent scales for     the g-man

 Due to computer problems, this has all been done online, composed, illustrated and typed--a first for me. I will visit as I can, but my pc is dying and if I should not show, I will have to owe you one.

Process notes: I dreamed of this snake very vividly last night (--yes, I know, Freud, etc, but not exactly that way, I think--) and was amazed to find today that it was real, as I had no idea there actually was such a thing. It is called Lauticauda laticaudata, the blue-banded sea krait, and is native to the Indian Ocean, as well as around Taiwan, the Andaman Islands and other places. 

 Ouroboros: per wikipedia: "The Ouroboros or Uroboros...(..tail-devouring snake) is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. [It] often symbolized self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself...[or] which operates in cycles that begin anew as soon as they end"

Photo: By Andrepiazza (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Repost: Puzzle in the Language of Flowers

Puzzle in the Language of Flowers

(translation below)

I dump the puzzle box

out on the ground

each piece becomes a

flower in yesterday’s bouquet,

bone of the skeleton to come.

I cup concave paper polygons

knobbed cardboard segments

that seem to be part of an eyelash,

but are really sprigs of acacia

lacy as midnight's winking, biting as memory’s stems,

then a misshapen lump of astringent

yellow sun, the witch hazel beginning.

That obstinate wedge of inverted azure sky

must be the muted trumpet of a

morning glory, heavenly blue still.

There, an end piece,

frame that hangs the whole,

surprises the hand by jumping up

a striped carnation pinwheeled 

with monotonous grief

 

that makes me recoil

throwing it

far across the muddy ground,

lost on the moss where it

comes to rest just bones, 

tiny, articulated phalanges,

the frontal and parietal

temporal, occipital, mandible

white as frost; out of the cardboard jaw

perhaps you see a few daisies growing

among the marigolds, rosemary and rue

there for a century’s moment till

the next wildfire passes through.

~October 2011

revised October 2013

Process Notes:

acacia = secret love

witch hazel=magic spell

morning glory=love in vain

striped carnation=refusal

marigold=pain and grief 

rosemary=remembrance

rue=regret     

daisy=innocence, simplicity, cheer, true love 

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Kerry's Wednesday Challenge: The Language of Flowers

Please forgive the repost, dear toads and readers. I am still able to get online for short times, but am unable to upload or access anything on my hard drive. The temptation to respond was too great, however, so I just raided my online photo storage for an old pic and cut and pasted this piece for Kerry's wonderful prompt. I'm not able to do much writing atm, but I felt that this one suited the challenge, and it's been out of circulation a long time.  I will visit back as I can. Thanks for reading.

Photo: Heirloom rose 'The Fairy' growing wild on the old barn (c) joyannjones 2010 

Hallows Moon

Hallows Moon

The hallows moon was orange,

a popcorn ball surprise

floating in blue cider

with dawn hard in her eyes.

The clouds were secret-keepers

that knit up all the spaces

with merle-snarled fishscale detail,

chainmail veils for silent creepers

come on the comet's tail,

fat things with bony faces

waiting

watching 

from the fence rail.

~October, 2013

55 things that might go bump in the night for       the g-man 

Late but here, my insomniac's take on the full halloween moon above the haunted cowyard this morning.

Process notes: merle, or blue merle, is a bluish grey color, often used to describe the speckled coats of collies or other dogs.

Image: Me and the Moon, by Arthur Dove, 1937

May be under copyright. All copyright belongs to the copyright holder.

via wikipaintings.org

Sleighride

Sleighride

When the night was dark as a burnt-down barn

and the young moon hung her sawblade overhead

we stood together lost in the ringing bell, letting the lies line up

like sleeping lemmings where the ocean kissed the cliff.

Under the mince of stars, in the salt-pillared  cathedral,

harsh darkness saw our fingers arch in a mockery of prayer

never real until the sacrificial smoke, the cinder-heart slowburning

at the altar of remorse, the drowning man's communion of vanity and shame.

From the manger where the newborn thing is safe to cry, the blessing

comes still bleeding as each flimflammed shoddy spear begins to break

in the lunatic captain's hand; on the last Nantucket sleigh ride

scarred whales may live to fight again, and killers die.

~October 2013

 

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Fireblossom Friday: Redemption

Never one to shy from the larger elements at play in our world, the inimitable Fireblossom has chosen redemption as her challenge today. Specifically, she wants us to write about 'renewal and hope.' Not my strong suit, but I did my best.

Process Notes:  from Wiktionary.org: Nantucket sleigh ride: (idiomatic) An obsolete and dangerous method of whale hunting in which a small boat manned by rowers and a harpooner, or a series of small boats tied together, would be attached to a whale by means of a harpoon and would then be towed by the creature at high speed across the water's surface, until the whale eventually became exhausted [*or broke free.] *bracketed addition mine






Images: Top: An engraving from "The cruise of the Cachalot"
Footer: 1902 illustration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick via wikimedia commons