Night Scene

Night Scene

Night came and gave day

the color of water;

mothwing grey, contrarian light

reversing the mirror,

drowning sight

in sky fragments;

dropped ravens falling

or shadow's pollen.

Boughs smudged black

shake down clarity

 small as a pea, rarely seen

as  the pleasure

that comes without pain.

Night picks its soft measure

through blue rain

to me.

~May 2014

55 shadows of night for the ghost of the g-man and

 real toads

Weekend Mini-Challenge: Flash Fiction 55

The Imaginary Garden now hosts G-Man's former Friday 55 on the first weekend of every month. Yes, that would be this one. I'm stepping in for Mama Zen today as host, so please come join us with a 55 of your own.

Photo: Darkwood, copyright joyannjones, 2011-2014

Seedpod

Seedpod

All your cars had names. You could have

called me a knotted whip, waiting

off the Sulphur exit for Argon to pull up, 

blue-green sides mottled with Dallas dust.   

When you showed, we were

strangers till we forgot how

lame things went, laughing around

the farm pond in native tongues. 

You gave me the seedpod of a water-lily,

catacomb of caves on a stick

rattling full with brown-eyed pearls.

They watched me from a vase for twenty years.

 

The day was hot as rooftar in the pot,

the wet air a greasy mop

as we deployed, Argon starting

with reluctance--all your cars

started with reluctance--

disapproving of me there 

in her too small seat.

We drove and talked the sun 

up the noon sky, down its back 

in trickles of salt, sat on rocks 

that felt like clouds by Turner Falls,

talking by touch, by feel, 

by nerve and luck, 

words splashed on dry fields  

dust before and after,

your ribs under the blowing shirt

white as nightlights in the dusk.

Midnight in the tent 

I didn't know how I 

could ever let you go back.

I cursed

what made me fall like water, 

pour out suddenly yes forever, 

cursed what made you fly so high,

the wind that fills the windsock and blows on.

And so, I never found that place again

a quarter mile from the Sulphur on-ramp in the morning,

empty in a nameless car as a lily pod

whose pearls dropped in the mud.

~May 2014

posted for    real toads

Out of Standard: The Poem is a Curse

Isadora Gruye  (The Nice Cage) asks us to write a poem involving a curse. I think. That's what I did, anyway.

Images: Water Lily Seed Pod, Bobbye Wolfe

via Pinterist

Windsock via google image search, author unknown.

Stone Ghost

Stone Ghost

A Terzanelle (of sorts)

for RCC

There was a ghost then

who seemed to touch my face

who smiled without the words again,

black horses in a broken race.

He thought he was alive;

I thought he touched my face.

I only counted up to five

fingers of flesh and air;

He thought I was alive

when we walked handfast there

above a sea of dust,

soft dolls of flesh and air,

the sharp cliffs shadowed rust

as sun bleached caryatid hair

waved white in a sea of dust,

snagged on the moon's rocking chair.

There was another ghost then,

with a sun blind caryatid stare,

no smile, only words to make it end.

~May 2014

posted for      real toads

Challenge: Play it Again

Margaret Bednar(Art Happens365) once again asks us to pull a challenge from the abundant archives at the Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. I have chosen Kerry's most recent form challenge, the terzanelle, but with apologies, because, as usual, I've not attempted pentameter, or even a ten-syllable line count, and taken a few liberties as well in slightly altering the refrain lines.

Photo: Caryatid, via wikimedia commons

Summer Surrender Spell

Summer Surrender Spell

In through the shutters, out through the blinds--

the mind hangs on to the thing that chimes
--dark or tattered, dispelled of charms

in through the lashes, out through the tines.

Summer ploughs under

the pewter of winter

myrtle hair unbraids and tangles

like sweat in july rivers its trickles

one line at a time

down the neck of an alabaster

waiting disaster, crumpling, crushing

a blouse of pink crepe

too film-thin for farmwork

too real for mistakes.

Over and over she pours out the kettle,

green fire floating on milky murk.

The upside-down

unlabeled bottle of birth

splashes stars on the time-dry dust at her feet

falling lost on the wildfire wind in her face

while the sun burns up what the rain tries to make--

the singer sings on the chime of the song--forever and gone
with what comes along when the moon goes home.

~May 2014

Process Note: Dashes in homage to the mistress of slant rhyme, Emily Dickinson.

posted for    

Meeting the Bar at dVerse Poets, 

where Karin Gustafson (ManicdDaily) asks us to experiment with slant rhyme, 

and for real toads, 

 where Kerry O'Connor(Skylover, Skywriting) advocates the use of a literary(and visual arts) convention called Pathetic Fallacy. Not sure if I have done that, or just some extended personification in this metaphorical ramble. 

Optional Musical Accompaniment

(including early historical use of the word 'groovy')

Image: rose pinwheel, copyright joyannjones, 2014

Breaktime

Taking a blogging break, friends and readers. April burned me out in the writing department, and this is a very hectic month at Castle Hedgewitch. We are finishing up our planting and mulching, installing soaker hoses in preparation for what looks like it's going to be another record-busting summer of heat and drought, and building a chicken coop for our baby chicks, who are now a month old and need to go outside VERY SOON. We also have a new fence being put up where we had the neighbor's shed collapse in high winds and destroy our old one, which requires some brush clearing and ground leveling, and are re-siding our disintegrating barn, one side at a time. All this is a lot of fun, really, and I'm enjoying it, but it doesn't leave me much energy for blogging. I will still try to visit as I can and not be too much of a stranger, but I will be mostly offline untill all these projects are done.

Thanks to all of you who make this blog so rewarding, who give me so much support and incentive to write, and without whom my life would be less. 

See you soon.

Tree Of Shadows

Tree Of Shadows

I dreamed we lived

in a tree of shadows, growing

leaves that were eyes

bugs that were leaves

of birds

or water

and each leaf was perfect

{as each smile was perfect

from you, my love.)

The eyes crawled, the insects

fluttered like lashes.

The leaves blurred, cooed,

curled around us,

the fingers of a god,

winged as an angel.

How did they become

fluff withering, 

and withered

fall?

The hand of god 

dropped me, a seed

a feather

twirling 

from the highest branch,

a parasol of pulse and cry

blown on a wind dark

as heart's secret

(a bloodshadow heart, my love)

and laughter came

from where you watched,

your eye inside the twigs.

~May 2014

posted for     real toads

Fireblossom Friday

Challenge: Seraphine Louis

That indefatigable cultural explorer, Fireblossom, (Shay's Word Garden) has chosen the art of "naive" painter Seraphine Louis for us to write to today.  Louis began as a housecleaner, had a brief flaring career as a painter, then ended her days in a lunatic asylum's mass grave. This is what I got from reading her story and looking at her paintings. Full details (and lots more paintings) at the toads link above.

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:

tree of shadows by Hedgewitch O'theWilds

Image: Unknown Title, by Seraphine Louis

Public domain via wikipaintings.org