The Wandering Eye

The Wandering Eye

I made you

from a map, a hawk and a flower.

I thought you

clockwork-canny, full of power,

a road-veined eye for

spying the highway hours;

a bird, a map,

a flower meant to be

a fragrance and a passage 

 seeking sea.

But so far away

you flew there could never be

a coming back

despite the lies, despite the slick pretense,

so to see you now

as a morph'd and piddling glance

on a burning

globe of constant transience

is only another

blink of blight and fear.

You tell me this

is the you who's real and clear;

fine words from one

who's broken every mirror. 

August 2020, 

(with fragments from March 2014)

posted for

The Sunday Muse

Images:Still Life with Spherical Mirror, 1934 © M.C. Escher   Fair Use
footer, artist and title unknown,  Fair Use

Disconnect

Dear readers, I am disconnecting from the blog world for a bit. My internet connection has become horribly unpredictable and unreliable, but more than that, I find my brain just unable to cope with the discipline of writing and reading on any kind of regular basis.

For those of you who don't know, my husband is fighting lung cancer, and the sand goes very quickly through the hourglass right now. I feel that I need to be with him, directing my energies his way while I can.

I apologize for abandoning the 55 for awhile, but I will no doubt be back at some point. Till then, thank you all for the support and the input you have so generously given me over the years.

Friday 55 May 25 2018

Welcome to another careen of words, carousel of craft, caravan of form and fuss--the G-man's meme, originated by a host remembered for bringing laughter and support, the flash fiction 55. As usual, there are no rules except the word count, 55 of them, no more, no less, poetry or prose, satire, lyric, or narrative, whatever brings a gloss to your ink. Link your effort in the comments below between Friday and Saturday at midnight, and I will be by to see what you have come up with. Please bear with me as I will be off in chaos country much of the time.

My 55 this week....

Absence and Dismay

By nightlight

your face withdrawn

paler than pillows

than appleblossom

warmed open

blurring for the bee

stilled in the comb.

Here, darkening

red spit of annihilation,

black ash of the curse,

 joker's smile

on mimewhite skin,

thin snow of an off-year

over the stubborn skull

and a nightbird to

sing to us

whatever is left.

~May 2018

Images: Detail, Apple Tree In Blossom, Gustave Caillebotte, 1885, Public Domain
Night, c. 1953 ©Marc Chagall, Fair Use

Friday 55 May 11 2018

Welcome once again to the Friday forum, where we fight to fashion 55 words of prose or poetry, no more no less, in memory of the G-man, whose meme this is, and whose humanity and hosting skills I will never equal. Link your effort in the comments below between Friday and Saturday midnight, and I will be by to see what this week has brought forth in your fertile little mental workshops.

So, without further ado, let's begin...

 Caravan

You always come

with summer

heat's blue anvil, the drought,

still

night's insect pulse,

its glittering

banquet of stars; they seem

to pull your wagonload of wax dolls

and cheap mirrors like

gypsies' mismatched ponies,

with all your disarray of wares

spread like a fortune-teller's promise

on the frayed brown velvet   

wilderness

of your eyes.

~May 2018

Images: Encampment of Gypsies with Caravans, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh      Public domain.
The Fortune Teller, 1933, (Georges) Brassai     Fair use.

Friday 55 March 30 2018

Another Friday, another 55 words to chronicle the long march, the wild hunt, the dance of the living and dead. We come to remember a man who had more to give than take from the world of blogging, Galen Hayes, and to explore the meme he brought us as the world turns around us in its ceaseless change. There are no rules, no social obligations, except to write 55 words of prose or poetry--no more, no less, and link them in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning for myself and others to read. Comment moderation is once again on to discourage the trolls, so please be patient.

I dreamed I smelled the sea this week...

Seascape, 3 AM

Landlocked I dream

of the wind that

comes ten-thousand miles

without one human breath,

wind that throws

its sleepless

seasmell in my face,

singing louder than

the giant's roar

of broken time.

 Free as wolves

before the hunter's shot,

alone with the one I've loved

but never had;

my seaweed dreams

blow this life

away.

~March 2018

Optional Instrumental Accompaniment

Image: Seascape, 1879, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir    Public Domain

Friday 55 February 8 2018

In all the usual goings on I somehow lost track of the days of the week, and so this presentation of the 55 is a bit mangled. But the rhyme and reason remain the same--55 words of prose or poetry, no more, no less, and no rules except to follow the gone but never forgotten G-man's precept to have a kickass weekend whenever possible. If you have risen to the challenge this week, leave a link in the comments below between Friday and Sunday morning, and I will be by to see the result.

I myself have had no time, muse, or space to write, so I cobbled something up from old notebooks, old times, and a challenge at  Real Toads   from 55er and poet extraordinaire, Susie Clevinger, on the celebrated stairway to heaven.

Goodnight On The Stairs

White moonflower,

grapefruit and dust

scent the cast-off shirt-tails 

of my sleepless love.

Mauve wallflower

jasper and rust

open up the dusk,

confound the cognoscenti,

quiet the bridling bears.

We've come

to unwrap antique bedsprings

climb poppy-petaled stairs

( tho the Dispossessor

waits to take his cut )

for the kissing sanctuary

of  goodnight, eyes shut.

  

 ~February 2018

Images: Flowers on the Stairs, by Stefan Kuchian    Public Domain

Kiss of the Sea, ©Octavio Ocampo   Fair Use