Moon Fluff

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moon Fluff

 

(a 55)

 

 I found the moon last night

thrown down in a puddle,

kissing with clouds, a peppermint undone

fished from your pocket-fluff, 

sticky

but still sugarsweet, 

still shiny

with its two-toned jewel-jazz glaze

like that one clean note you'd hit

in your sax-fiasco blues,

tasting of 

lemon and light and

 cold

December 

rain

in the night. 

 

 

 

December 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Word Garden Word List

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Moon, 1929, © Salvador Dali     Fair Use

 

The Night Circus

 

 

 The Night Circus

 (a 55)

 

 

You told me

my eyes

were lanterns.

 

You stood them

around the bigtop

while you brushed

 

the clouds into my hair,

then on the highwire,

where you washed

 

in the moon;

but the wind came

and took their fire.

 

The night-circus burned.

 My hair flew up

in silver flames

 

of moon-twisted sun,

 

and I ran.

 

 

 March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link Night

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Head in the Clouds, photomanipulation © Thomas Dodd  Fair Use

Paysage Orageux, 1901 photographer unknown  Fair Use

Apple Wine, Bitter Greens

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Wine, Bitter Greens

 

 

 

 

You gave me apple wine and bitter greens

a highwire hawk who'd learned to trick the sky,

a line of lakes where the white moon hid her gleams

in cups of apple wine and bitter greens,

in fantasies, daydreams and guillotines

til we were just a wildfire burning dry

drunk on apple wine and parched of green,

two highwire hawks who thought we'd tricked the sky.

 

 

 

 February 2022

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

 Shay's Word List #13

 

 

and 

 

 

 

dVerse Poets Poetics:

After St. Valentine has left the building

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Evening at Volga, 1888, ©Isaac Levitan    Public Domain

Courting Redtails, 2008 ©Gouldingken     via wikimedia commons     Fair Use

 

The Crow-Mother

 

 

The Crow-Mother

 (a triquain)

 

 

As a child

I knew a crow-woman.

She loved shiny things, breathy south wind

and tall corn, green in the field of desire. She

wore onyx feathers grieving the time

when she had real words, not

just for me, 

but for everyone. She

was friend to doves unable to mourn,

a lover of small clouds which could never give rain,

a mother of all misplaced things: keys

coins and rings, strings, lost girls

life passed by.

December 2021

posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

Note: the triquain is a counted syllable form based on threes. It normally consists of seven lines, each line increasing in syllables by three to twelve, then decreasing again by three to the close. This is a triquain swirl, which is slightly different in containing 13 lines. (3 - 6 - 9 - 12 - 9 - 6 - 3 - 6 - 9 - 12 - 9 - 6 - 3).

 

 

Images: Crow Prince Charming, © Rene Magritte   Fair Use

Crow woman cosplay, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use 

The Rose In The Maze

The Rose In The Maze

From night's peak the color-thieving haze

came blowing down just before the dawn

pulled hissing thru a deep brown camel's eye,

desert's shifting face deskinned and drawn

three thousand miles across the sea to daze

anew the eyes already fey, to grey each face,

salting every indrawn breath with lye,

hiding the rose in the center of the maze.

No different than the incidental drape

of caustic fog upon the casement of the times,

another baffling slap to the heart's blind bird

whose only instinct ever was to fly

uncaged, to make her thousand mile escape,

to give her feathers to the wind to break

or hold, to find somewhere a living branch unburned

and sing to the hidden rose no one can take.

June 2020

posted for

The Sunday Muse

Process note: There is a massive cloud of Saharan dust covering a large portion of the southeastern US and other areas at the moment, causing hazy skies and respiratory problems for some. Here is a link to some info, and pics of how it appears in the Caribbean, from BBC.

Images: White Rose in Pink Smoke, artist unknown, courtesy of Sunday Muse   Fair Use
A stylized textile book covering from the Netherlands, circa 1615-1650, depicting a rose  Fair Use

The Last Afternoon

The Last Afternoon

It was a day where even

the rain holds a grudge.

I'm too dry for rain

to do much good; too old

for paper castles

to wall out

the night coming,

the grey wolf walking.

Only love can do that,

on the last afternoon

when I'll

hold her head
heavy with wolf-dreams

on my knees.

February 2020

a 55 for

The Sunday Muse

(and a reminder that the Friday 55 will be next week)

Image: photo-manipulation © Sarolta Ban    Fair Use

Time The Wind The Fire

Time The Wind The Fire

All night I was

the great heart of the wind

that beat its fever-pulse against the walls.

I was the white rabbit-cloud that streaked

across clipped-lawn stars

nose-twitched over endless indigo

for the wet green of missing spring

til I was taken from the air

betrothed to a wasting fire

burning page after wind-turned page

of my book of flesh unread

...the sound of a child's blocks tumbling

smoking in my throat     bare

wild summer feet pounding down a

hollyhock hedged alley

pink and rose dancers            far above my head

flamenco'd to the sinister

July castanets of bumblebees...

So all the night

of burn, blow and running,

all the fever,

became me

the hedge-wife of time

the wind

the fire,

destroyers 

of the pages

of this crack-skinned volume

all its words

all its summers

all its secrets,

all but the waiting

blankness of

this

last

folded leaf.

~April 2018

for Brendan's Transformations

 Images: Landscape of Ruins and Fire, 1914, Felix Valloton

Untitled image by unknown author,, via internet