Labyrinth

 

 

 Labyrinth

 

I played in the field of the minotaur's horn.

The rose trees stretched for twenty miles.

His black eye blinked

my slow heart's beat. I danced all day where

the elephant's hip burned blue in the shade,

where I glimpsed the escape the animals made

before the age had been born.

 

The green grey moor 

was soft as a sponge 

on my cheeks where tears

disappeared in the mist.

I wondered if we'd ever kissed

in the halls behind the labyrinth's door

where the beasts blew their breath on the shadow play.

I saw them come at the end of the day

with all to give and nothing to say. 

Their souls each put in a hazelnut

that sank in ripples of earth's wet heart

covered in time from fire and flood,

from our hands that pull the world apart,

that turn his field from grass to chalk

where roses blow for twenty miles

and the animals at last

have begun to talk.

August 2021

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Minotaur Caressing A Sleeping Woman, 1933, © Pablo Picasso  Fair Use

Swans Reflecting Elephants, 1937 © Salvador Dali  Fair Use

Windfall

 

 Windfall

 

 

 

Fill my glass

and let it be. The night 

moves over the unsodded graves

unquiet between

the roadhouse and road,

seventeen mounds

to home seven sins,

my vanities' bones,

my castaway loves, my old

car-killed cats.

 

Fill my glass

and let it come

at the end of the sky

when the broad brass sun

sets aslant on black apples

wind threw to ground, on

the last summer moths fluttering down,

warming them ripe for the locust's hall

with autumn's endings

packing the rows.

 

Fill my glass;

half empty is full. Let it be

as I drowse on the lawn,

sweet shattered moths and

brown thrushes for company, my

sore eyes wrapped with

a bandage of stars, peace

spilling into the void

where understanding

has flown.

 

 

 

 

 

August 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Apples, Jug, Irridescent Glass, © Paul Gauguin  Public Domain Manipulated.

Night Hill  © Andrea Kowch All Rights Reserved   Fair Use

Photograph of cat and wineglass from Sunday Muse, artist unknown. Fair Use

 

Blue Drown

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Drown

 

 

I've been too long

in the blue drown

to feel again now

 

too long under

the mirrorglass glowmoon

that tides me apart

to answer your voice

 

too many waves

with their concrete hands

on my throat

their sucking salt drench

in my eyes and mouth

to ask who's to blame.

 

There's no pain left

on this sand 

swirled trashed beach

where I've come to meet

 

the last falling star,

the hungry crabs.

 

 

 

 

July 2021 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Open Link Night at

d'Verse Poets Pub

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Looking For Crabs Among The Rocks, 1905 © Joaquin Sorolla  Public Domain

Two Crabs, 1889  © Vincent Van Gogh       Public Domain

I have manipulated both images.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Accordion Man

 

 

 

 The Accordion Man

He stands in my head

where the music once lived

like a tongue in a bell

when the ringer is dead,

corroding a little bit more every day.

He came down from the crossroads

with a small spotted dog.

He plays in my ear

til my dreams turn to fog.

The dog wags its tail and then runs away.

His shoes are like blimps.

His face is like claws;

his hands push the buttons

that work the bonesaws,

to slice out a song no one wants him to play.

He won't ever go.

I know that by now.

He plays in my head

and it chirps like a crow

his accordion clatter of skulls on a tray.

He chants all my names. He adds seventy to nine;

but the worst is

his eyes

are sadder than mine.

I could watch them all day.

~August 2021

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image © Guido Vedovato   Fair Use