The Science Of Forgetting

The Science of Forgetting

is a difficult discipline.

A woman may study it for years

and get no further along

than misplacing last week's tears.

Deconstructing a memory

is an engineer's fright.

Remove two weight-bearing

steel eye beams' sight

and the roof falls in, with

plaster dust in lungs smelling

thick as yesterday's loving;

a month, a year, a decade swelling

up later, liquid in feverish coughs.

Touch only the tip of the cornerstone---

the burnt bridge flies back

 from the black Unknown

so that ghosts cross it easily,

notes play, that particular song;

and it's all to live over again,

over again, all wrong.

The science of forgetting

should instead be our religion

where faith can clean the memory,

and  forgiveness our decisions.

~November 2013

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A Birthday in December: Christina Rossetti

Kerry presents us with a challenge to write to the poetry of British Victorian poet Christina Rossetti, a personal favorite of mine. I was unable to come up with a sonnet or roundel, but did manage some rhyming.

Images: The Gate of Memory, and Golden Head, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Public Domain via wikipaintings.org

Repost: Gratitude

Gratitude

is a kind of ash

that blows in volcano wind,

falling opal featherscales hissed

off by firesnakes that coil

their islands in the sea,

all we have left perhaps

of rocky miles of ore and gold

stacked heavy in earth's shadowbox

melting in pressured flux

spit out to lift a mountain

from the core. 

~November 2012

Revisiting the sentiment for Thanksgiving 2013

 

55 serpent feathers for   the g-man

Happy Thanksgiving to All 

Header Image: Mayon Volcano, Philippines, by Alan Flowers, on flick'r

Shared under a creative commons license

Footer Image: rendering of Yaxchilan Feathered Serpent Diety, byEl Commandante

public domain, via wikimedia commons 

All The Things That Kill

Linen towel with drawn threadwork accented with embroidery in stem and satin stitch

  

All The Things That Kill

All the things that kill

are beautiful tonight

sleek with purpose

come to end promises

sworn in diamond dust;

the poison drop, the  quick

metal bee, the slick sharp edge;

all beauty's finality shining

under a flawless moon.

In my sleep I hear

the spell of no more

lifting the weight of life

beautifully

boiling the clinging

off into black:

Let us unpick
the pulled-thread smockery;
return us the
whole cloth we were.

Let the light bend

beautifully

into our blinking eyes

blinded by tiny needles'

broderie-anglaise tasked

to make order out of holes,

whitework fine-stitched over

vacant years by galled fingers 

in candled rooms 

too dark to see,

so at last we

are no longer terrified

by the corpse march

of  dawn after dawn

where we imagine

the uncaring dead

dance around us

potent,  grasping,

more alive

than our own blood.

~November 2013

 

broderie-anglaise detail, Broken Vows by Philip Hermogenes Calderon

Process notes: I mention in this poem three types of embroidery, described here:
"Whitework embroidery refers to any embroidery technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric (traditionally white linen). Styles of whitework embroidery include most drawn thread work, [as well as] broderie anglaise...[which is] is a whitework needlework technique incorporating features of embroidery, cutwork and needle lace that became associated with England, due to its popularity there in the 19th century." via wikipedia

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Kerry's Wednesday Challenge: Black and White

Kerry O'Connor asks us to think of the composition methods in black and white photography, and transmute them to a poem. I attempted to work with some of the concepts she presented, including high-key and low-key images, and her key words of" contrast, tone, mood, atmosphere, focal point, highlight, patterns, textures."

Images public domain via wikimedia commons

Brujería

Brujería

I think of you, Tomás

with your witchhazel tongue,

your feet like lost white sheep,

your flyaway mane long and

straight as the fault line

between sense and sensuality--it trips me

like that first stone free kiss

to know you must be--if you still be

at all--old now, reshaped and redefined

as a bare bristlecone pine;

a white-haired brujo with dark

natron eyes, a weather-wrecked scarecrow

whose snake-veined hands still

curl their long musician's fingers
in supple knuckled knots;

you should be a sight to frighten

the plump señoritas your

wicked smile has fetched

but instead I hear them

laughing like pigeons in your bed.

Our glances cross

in the night world--Ay si, mi amor,

it's good to be

a  witch.

~November 2013

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Open Link Monday

Process Notes: "Brujería is the Spanish word for witchcraft....Both men and women can be witches, brujos and brujas respectively."~wikipedia





Top image: La mirada del "tío Brujo" by Mila-san, shared under a Creative Commons license
via wikimedia.com 

Bottom image: Tracht des Zauberers, des "brujos", beim bolivianischen Tanz Tobas by Awayumania
Public Domain via wikimedia.com I have manipulated this image. You can view the original here. 

The Fall Garden

 

The Fall Garden

The lily has folded

her summer-gold hands

now as the storm slides

whispers from trees

in amber reluctance,

 vermillion release.

The womb of the lily

is growing her embryo

in white wooly root-wrap,

unworried by snow.

In the Fall garden,

Death's treaty is negotiated;

a sleep of the senses

for a winter of dreams.

~November 2013

55 buried bulblets for     the g-man

My back has decided to object to the frenzy of fall clean-up chores I have imposed on it, so bear with me if I don't return visits till I emerge from my meds in a more conscious condition. 

Image: Lily, by Leonardo da Vinci, c.1480

Public Domain, via wikipaintings.org

Creation Myth

Creation Myth

I wasn't sure

what to do with myself

after I was invented.

There was a vague sense of gratitude

 to the Maker, but not enough to

overcome the inertia of his absence,

bored with his work, long gone.

I was still struggling

to understand why

you took one eye from an angel,

one from  a devil, and made

my legs out of fish

so that when I stepped in the wave,

they darted away free

while my torso of sand

my abalone-shell breasts 

untied, fell to rest on the sea floor, 

the angel and the devil staring up 

through blue eternity.

It all seemed a bit 

foolish

but perhaps 

 that's exactly

what you had in mind.

~November 2013

Top: Bathing Woman, by Joan Miro, 1925

Footer: Shell No. 2, by Georgia O'Keefe,

May be protected by copyright. Posted under fair use guidelines, via wikipaintings.org