Friday 55 September 29 2017

Welcome, fellow travelers, to this weekly journey of 55 verbal steps which can lead to any destination. Times seem only to get crazier and more disjointed around us, so perhaps walking this path through the wilderness with the muse can bring some comfort, or at least a means to express how we feel, or maybe just the knowledge we're not alone. The rules are simple--this is a writing prompt which asks you to put your thoughts in 55 words of poetry or prose, no more no less. Leave a link to the result in the comments section, and I will be by to see what has been born. The keynote here is having some no-strings fun, but of course you may be as serious or unserious as you like. (The history of the what and why behind this meme and the G-man who began it (and to whom I tip my inadequate witchy hat) can be found here.) As always, comment moderation is on to keep the  trolls and suchlike under their bridges.

So let's get the show on the road:

Amethyst Circle 

I remember your hands

building the rain that is wrapped in morning

soft as grey feathers

not yet reshaped with the chill

that changes its nature,

not yet hard white knives

that open the veins

of fall's leavings

to rime and shrivel,

but alive, wild and strong

as the pushing seed

that cracks the stone.

~September 2017

Postscript: The title says 'Friday" but of course the 55 always stays up through the weekend to accommodate anyone dropping by.

Images: Fairy Circle, 1895, by  Carlton Alfred Grant, Public domain  (Manipulated)

Silver Maple Seedling in Chimney Bricks, ©joyannjones 2013

Friday 55 September 22 2017

Welcome again to the Friday journey, where everything we desire to say attempts to erupt in exactly 55 words. This concentrated elixir can pour out in any form--free verse, formed poetry, prose fiction or non-fiction, so long as the vessel is 55 words--no more, no less. Post a link to your own message in a bottle in the comments and I will be by to see what you have concocted. We carry on this meme for our own enrichment,and in memory of a blogger named Galen Hayes, the G-Man, who started this particular ball rolling in a way no one will ever duplicate. (You can read more about that here.)

Comment moderation is on to discourage the trolls and the unserious, and the 55, as always, will be open all weekend to allow full time for the creative juices to flow.

Meanwhile, let's get down to business:

Cracking

I noticed today

a crack in the world

where chaos bleeds out

a mislaid horror

fresh from remission;

the dreamer's last surprise

for some things must die

when every glass breaks,

every child's mistake

throws the best away:

your rainwater eyes

hair full of darkness

navy-blue night's luminous arc,

book-breathing walls, shelved larks

sanctuary.

~September 2017

Process notes: I don't think anyone could have gone through this last month without feeling the breath of chaos released--this poem is an amalgam of  many past and current disasters, personal, political and planetary, and disasters to come.

Image: Larson C Ice Rift crack, prior to calving Iceberg A-68, via internet. Fair use
(If you'd like to know more about the recent activity at the Larson C ice rift in Antarctica and its newly calved mammoth iceberg, you can read about that at these links, as well as  here.)

Malefica

Malefica

Of course, your worships! Of course

I'll tell you everything.

Just take the pins away.

I don't grieve for what he took,

the soul from me like a pinching shoe,

so why should you?

He started small, being just an imp;

to suckle me up like chokevine

on the corn was his main aim

and so he twined, he capered, growing greater--

so droll, good sirs, and stroked--o yes

he stroked, but always without respite

he talked, his wheedling voice alone

in the mother-pit of all silence.

He brought forth secrets from my womb;

the malice in history's whispers

the true seraphim in Eden

and Lucifer's ten thousand sweet names;

how to rot and how to blight

how to pox the peach-pink skin and turn

the plump cheek hollow.

Surely you understand! I've always

been  fond of learning, good sirs. I only wished

to improve myself. Do not! Please, 

don't pull me from the sky;

for Hel is winter deep 

and fire is no girl's friend.

 ~September 2017

for Fireblossom's   Distorted Lens

Note: I have flagrantly conflated pagan Norse Hel, a land of infinite cold and the dead, with both burning at the stake and Christian Hellfire, because witchcraft is often tied to the survival of paganism in medieval Europe, but mostly, because I can.

Images: Hexenschlaff (Witches' Sleep) 1889, by Albert von Keller   Public domain.
Los Caprichos(The Follies:Beautiful Master) by Francisco Goya   Public domain

Conclave of Imps

Conclave Of Imps

The palms lose their balance

boiled in a cast-iron sky that

rattles its lid in a steam-engine wind.

I walk  here alone, far from the wet-country

bitter with night coffee and gypsy bad dreams.

Dreams start so well--full-skirted, dancing

with warm wine, soft whispers and wanting--

to end as a moonscape of concrete and slag,

a juice of war enriched with uranium,

goose-stepping soldiers and killing machines.

Why does reality invade me like a border state

occupy my  ears with its sugar-rush newscasts

besiege me with idiots and their paper tiger words?

Instead of a candle we get thermonuclear glow,

smothering wildfires, powerless streets.

Instead of sweet reason, a conclave of imps.

~September 2017

posted for Brendan's   Juice

Images: Melancholy Atomic, 1945, © Salvador Dali   Fair Use
Palm Tree in Hurricane Irma, via internet.  Public domain