Secrets

Secrets

There are things that we kept secret

after the bomb,

when the terrible shaking

in the walls

left with the walls,

when those falling from the towers

dropped like bloody rain

 on streets

cobbled with skulls.

Tangled in the cold

maneuvered moonlight

louvered through a broken

window pane,

globes of frozen being

in the half-light

kept close the face

the  secret soul, the name,

the blame.

The things that we kept secret

were salvation

or damnation,

how we thought we saved ourselves

and why we tried,

how the darkness that we ate

became our master.

The sickness  at the heart 

came when we died.

 
 

~March 2014 

 posted for     real toads

Weekend Mini-Challenge

Kerry O'Connor asks us to complete an enigmatic phrase, and I have done so, without, I hope, revealing any secrets

photo credit: Toni Blay via photopin cc

Numinous

Numinous

The white flower dreamed

and I dreamed with her

a dream unclouded

tight woven, teased out,

tied in intention;

a landscape of alabaster designed

by the dark fingers of sleep;

a dream made to trace

our own face, our place.

I don't remember how

or why or who we were

only that it was most

important 

that we be, that if only

 we moved together, she 

her numinous lumed petals and I

my levers and iron devices, all

all in the right order,

the whole yawing cosmos--

the gasp and sizzle

the drag and fly--

would shudder itself right

and we would have at last

the world that never was.

~March 2014

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Interpretations with Margaret: Flowers

The gifted Margaret Bednar (ArtHappens365) asks us to examine both 'the hidden and obvious' inner world of our favorite flower, about what its meaning to us might be, and explore it in writing. I seem to be still somewhat lost in my Jungian mesh of dreams, but when I looked, I did find a flower or two.

The header is a photo of the plant I love most in my garden, the narcissus Thalia, 'the joyous, the flourishing,' named after the muse of comedy and idyllic poetry, daughter of Zeus and the goddess of memory, Mnemosyne. The lower photo is of our native jimsonweed, whose leaves are poisonous to livestock and whose seeds are hallucinogenic.

Header: Narcissus 'Thalia'

Footer: native wild datura (jimsonweed)

Photos copyright joyannjones 2012-2014

Friday Flash Fiction 55 Farewell Tour

Life is change, and all good things must end, and come again, and all that jive,  but today is a sad day here at Verse Escape as we say goodbye to the G-man 's Friday 55 meme.

Galen Hayes, (Mr KnowItAll) after seven years of kicking ass and taking names, has decided to hand over the Friday funfest to new ownership. I'll let you read the details over at his place. I also encourage you to participate in the farewell tour with a final 55 of your own.

Looking back over my posts, I see that I have written one hundred and thirty four 55 word poems or prose pieces for the Master of 55's, and the one below I just cranked out makes one hundred thirty-five.  

135!!!

Many of those poems would never have been written without that platform, its supportive readers and Galen himself with his always warm praise and hospitality.

Galen's goal has always seemed to be to me to connect and to have fun, some of the best things we can do with the internet. He has not just patiently, but cordially waded through my incomprehensible gibberish and weekly hallucinations and never missed a beat (or a smart-ass remark.) I shall miss this weekly celebration immensely, even though it will continue in a new form elsewhere--it will not be--nor should it be--the same without him.

So tonight, here without further ado is my totally non-hallucinatory tribute to a fine meme, and a finer gentleman. I call it

Ode to the G-Man

Whether it was snow or hailin'

you could always count on Galen.

Every Friday (maybe Thursday)

every week's-end, late or early,

cheerfully he'd read your scribble,

tactfully not call it drivel.

It was real & it was fun

BUT 
tonight the G-Man's done.

Gun that Harley, go take five,

then please
Have a Kick-Ass Life.

~March, 2014

55 lonely teardrops for  the g-man 

:C

Just for fun, here is a link to the very first 55 I ever posted, back in November of 2010, the second month of my first year blogging, called Dental Work--that proved to be quite a prophetic title, eh, G?

The Rocks, The Snake and The Wheel

The Rocks, The Snake And The Wheel

a Jungian Triptych

I.

These rocks are a tension

between earth and sky,

thrown abrupt against

unconscious blue,

an impulse of fire
cooled in the plunge of time.

They spoke a wheel hooped thru

a linked-inkling labyrinth

where bodies are boundaries

of what survives,
a collective of cells primitive as flint,

frail as the ash of last night's fire.

The rocks are mounded as flesh
on a woman's rib, precise as

arrows piercing the deflected sky,

a bow that grows from its string.

First we make a name,

then a story,

then a soul.

II.

Under the spinning

the flight featherless

the long glide down

from the first tree

the dreamt garden

oscillating the golden

penumbra of perception

where Snake found his tongue,

where the fruit grew sweeter

the longer it hung,

something made him wake

to hate the two that were one,

whole and disguised in the body of light,

singing ragged aubades to the forgetting sun.

Something made the snake

bring the black limit, 

the evasion of night

the cryptic jump, 

Desire the fetish,

obsession for Knowing

as if it weren't right.

So the rock split to center, 

one became two  forever.

Go dancer, celebrant,  vessel,

come mender,

scrubwoman, shuffler 

of cards,

losing the shape

and even the name

 in sweat, blood and pain.

III.

Snake's  in the tree,

you can hear him whistle

his whole lithe length in control,

swinging out darkness,

his bite bringing dreams.

There's a dry stiff scale

shed at the crossroads,

a  fang cast like a horseshoe,

its half-circle hollow
for the poison to follow.

There's a trail in the dustworks

of a rabbit-poor summer, a lion

in shadow, a witch in the woods.

There's a snake in the matrix.

You can hear him sighing

where the fruit hangs low

its faint scent a pulse

in the wind at the threshold

of all that will come:

a woman screaming, a baby crying

a man dangling forever

slaved to the wheel.

~March 2014

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Challenge: Get Listed: Mind and Symbol

I have the fun of hosting this word list challenge today, based on words drawn from the first chapter of Man and His Symbols, by C.G. Jung. For full details and all the words, check out the link above to real toads. I have made use of a form introduced to us by Kerry O'Connor called the triptych, which emulates the concept of a triptych in the visual arts, a three-panel painting where each panel forms one third of the picture, exploring different views or details of the same subject.

Top Image: Red Hills, Lake George, by Georgia O'Keefe

May be protected by copyright. Posted under fair use guidelines.

Center Image: The Snake Charmer, 1907, by Henri Rousseau, Public Domain

Footer Image: Adam and Eve, 1533, by Lucas Crannoch The Elder,Public Domain 

All via wikipaintings.org

Into The Everlight

Dear readers, as I mentioned in my Off The Shelf post this month, I am taking one of my periodic  rests from organized blogging, though I will check in from time to time.  I'm leaving you with a short poem until I return on the 26th, then  saturate the internets  and try your patience with daily posts in April. As always, profuse thanks to everyone who reads, and makes this place a regular stop.

Everlight

Last night

I saw the moon

in the everlight

drop the blackbirds' song

like water rolling

off the reaching trees,

unmask her fountain face

open her mouth

and roar the silence

that holds planets--

shattered  hearts of dragons,

 clouds of

stardust whirlpools,

the forgotten boats of gods--

all that dark light

 knows

with spring a-dance behind it,

each spinning clockwork phantom

pinned in  place.

~March 2014

Image: The Starry Night, 1889, Vincent Van Gogh

Public Domain via wikipaintings.org