Terra Cotta

Terra Cotta

 "Maybe you'll get a replacement/There's plenty like me to be found
Mongrels who ain't got a penny/Sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground"

~Bernie Taupin/Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road 

Heretic's hand that sings

and  howls

hovering so close above me,

radiant with reflected heat

caught in tangled hair,

give me a last devil's blessing

before the waterfall of dawn

tumbles us apart to drown.

I followed the yellow sun

down a terra cotta road

striped over trembled hills

to four wild umber walls:

the house we once built

where plain clay cupped rosemary,

pooled scarlet poppies
to sentinel the door.

The wind that blew there

was neither desert nor sea

like me

like the green wood

or the cat

that kissed its own paw,

grown horns neath the murmuring tree;

inside there might be

hidden, on fire, all manner of feral feel

that we never knew. I walked on,
the changeling cat looking for you

in my next meal.

~July 2014 

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Challenge: The Yellow Brick Road

Susie Clevenger (Confessions of a Laundry Goddess) gives us three songs having to do with the famous mythic road to Oz and points west as inspiration today. I incline to the one by Elton John, lyrics I'm sure by the incomparable Bernie Taupin.

Images: Tile mosaic, artist unknown, photo only copyright joyannjones 2014
Cat and Bird, by Paul Klee, Public domain via wikiart.org