Lightning Tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Lightning Tree

When I was a child

pewterblue eyes round

as green walnuts, yellow pigtails

pulled tight in shredded rubber bands

I breathed up a world where I

lived in the storm, thunderheads panting like

mastiffs, tongues lolled over the lake, wind

secret as the monster under the bed

smiling, lightning fairy-dancing

into a forest 

of wild branches;

I didn't blink for the peace of it

covering the screaming, the blows,

cleaning my face

 

of a toy's tears. 

I breathed it in, petrichor

and the smell of power,

a brew of walking cobwebs

that piggy-backed me away,

a broken-eyed Dorothy doll

searching for Oz.

 

When I asked you to

kiss me like rain, you took me

up high on the lightning tree.

You had a web there, gunmetal strong

and sticky with grief. On the 

edge of those sudden wires,

one foot already caught

 

you don't even know you're dead.

When you fight

to run with one eye blind, 

and feel the tremble

coming closer

 

you learn everything

you lost

 

  all

you never had

 

 and that you 

can never trust

a storm.

 

 

 

~July 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Note: Comment moderation has been turned on. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Images: Lightning in West Texas © Ryan Smith Photography   Fair Use

Broken doll, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use

 

Storm Rocket

Storm Rocket

The big storm comes, rattles

the latch of night, batters twilight

with its troll voice and god hands,

throws soil from a thousand raped fields

at my face, dry earth's stripped debris,

melted smell of dirt-charged void

electric as the ghost of your lips in the dark.

I'd wear it like a rocket, follow it, fly with it

to that other land where wheat sings to

the living earth, lightning is a dreamer's

 dance and storms sigh down

a cobweb of emerald rain;

but seventy years of hot wind

have made me small as dust,

a pygmy trapped in

this unbreakable

walnut-shell

of pain.

May 2020

posted for The Sunday Muse

Images: Sky in Saskatchewan, author unknown, via internet  Fair Use

Rocket, by Brad Phillips   Fair Use

The Keeper's Dream

The Keeper's Dream

Wild darkness grows tame lightning

blue light from wrinkled hands;

 St Elmo's fire, stormscream, water

pushed into a weapon,

air's hysterics

my mates in this dark place.  

From the dead sailor's dream I know

your cry, snaking

up the spiral spine of things,

to warn the time is here

when even fishes will need wings.

~December 2019

For Kerry's Art FLASH 55 at real toads

A quick and dirty 55--forgive if my tools are still a bit rusty--with thanks to Kerry for all the glories, past and present, of The Imaginary Garden, and to the G-Man for the form which never fails.

Images: Pharos and Pacifico Oracle cards, © Kerry O'Connor
Attribution Link

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 December 8 2017

Welcome, fellow travelers. Another Friday finds us collected here to assemble our jigsaw thoughts into our own 55 word puzzles, and to remember Galen Hayes, the originator of this meme. There are no rules, strings or obligations, except that you write a piece of prose or poetry in 55 words--no more, nor less-- and post a link in the comments below between Friday morning and Sunday afternoon. Comment moderation is off now as I am so often out of pocket these days, but I still wield the ban-hammer and will delete any trollish appearances.

So, this week, winter came...

First Day Of Winter

I woke to a turquoise sky

with nothing in her pockets; no sun,

no moon, no scrap

of smoke or cloud. 

Day was missing,

night had wandered off.

My mind was all she had, sister

twinned to her blank eternity,

summer's embers 
ashed to blue clinker

without a tear to soften us

until the rain.

~December 2017

 

Image: Roman Nose Park, Turquoise Sky, 11-29-2014, ©joyannjones  Manipulated.