The Spider Captain

The Spider Captain

An old stuffed dog

and a long legged spider

a bed like a boat

and a web in the corner

a neon nightlight

from the downstairs sign

stiff faded curtains with red designs

to cover the moon;

too many children, not enough rooms.

A place on the couch

that hides a bed

a long legged spider

to cover your head

to rock you to sleep

while the bed-boat sails where

there's a whole new place

you didn't know was there

with 

a purple bracelet and knots in your hair

for Mother to comb out

and make you cry.

On his way to work,

the spider kisses her goodbye.

~February 2017

Looking beyond the obvious

for Fireblossom Friday

at real toads

Image: The Big Spider's Diamonds,  by Edmond Dulac

Fair use via wikiart.org

Glow

Glow

Ruby glow of a living heart,

light bleeding oceans in the dark,

me hellfire low and hot as spark,

proud of Cain's jagged mark

for all the murder left behind--

never you but just the glow

how I wished that it was mine--

how I tried to call it close

from the place where it was lost.

How you loved to make me scream.

I told no one ever then;

people hate to hear your dreams.

Such things all pass to cold

and in the dark I see no glow

around the pixelled ending fuzz.

There's no crying need to chase 

for the thing that lays me waste,  for

filaments of  was, for rubies in the maze.

No, it's the pushing, tedious circuit

nagging, whining me to work it

that's relentlessly replaced it;

and my pleasure is to shirk it.

My secret's not to face it,

to flinch, to hide in smoke,

faded sequins and repose

till it slips away undone

till someone else must take it up--

but so seldom shirking works,

and secret loves despited

go mostly unrequited.

~July 2016

 posted for     real toads

Challenge:Fireblossom Friday

Images: A warmth, A lightness, A glow, and then, 1968 by Sam Gilliam

Fair use via wikiart.org

The Nap, 1877, by Gustave Caillebotte

Public domain via wikiart.org

The Bastard

"Hey babe, what's in your eyes?
I saw them flashing like airplane lights.
...What's that laughing in your smile?

...If that's your love, just leave me blind..."
~Jagger-Richards, You Got The Silver



The Bastard

It wasn't enough

performing for the

shell-game professors

and small-time grocers

you called family.

O no.

It wasn't enough

to scrub your drawers,

peel your cow's-tongue,

wait graveyard tables

to feed the child.

O no,

you had to call me

'an authoress.'

A bastard could never

belong in your world

unless it was you.

 ~June 2016

posted for real toads

Flash 55 Plus

Image: Tables for Ladies, 1930, by Edward Hopper  Fair use via wikiart.org

Folly Of The Tulip

Folly Of The Tulip

In his first life,

he studied hard

these things: loving, giving

and forgiving, but

failed his ordination, and burned

the useless parchment of his notes.

In his second life, he found

a way to turn a flower to

a  florin, to a hundred thousand,

to raise gold from the dead dirt

and push the rumor of its breath

around the world.

He sold miracles in tulips 

before the big panic; dreams in
a single bright-flamed bulb,

its colors broken, at a price
that beggared any skill in

a workman's hands,

until the bust turned gold

to empty air, blown

to hell on the bloody

plague-ship's sails

and every coin was scattered

burned and blackened.

Feverish, he thought--

before the bright flames ate all thought--
the night wind brought

the smell of burning parchment
as the candle flickered out.

~April 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: The Folly

It's my privilege to host today's challenge, which was to write a poem inspired by the concept of the architectural feature known as a Folly, among other things. 
(For full details see the link above.) 
I chose to write to an historical parallel of J. Whitaker Wright's scams, the Dutch Tulip Mania of the 17th Century, the very first 'economic bubble' off which insubstantial and irrational fortunes were made and lost by market manipulation. It's possible it was, most appropriately, ended by  an outbreak of the Black Death.

Process notes: a 'broken' or 'flamed' tulip is one which has been infected with a (harmless) mosaic virus which produces streaks of two separate colors in the petals. These tulips today are usually called 'Rembrandt' tulips, to disassociate them from their rather dark history.

For those interested in more detail on Tulip Mania, see wikipedia.

Images: Semper-Augustus Tulip, artist unknown, 'famous for being the most expensive tulip sold during tulipomania,' Netherlands 17th century.

Flora's Wagon of Fools, by Hendrik Pot, 1640 "Allegory of the Tulip Mania. The goddess of flowers is riding along with three drinking and money weighing men and two women on a car. Weavers from Haarlem have thrown away their equipment and are following the car. The destiny of the car is shown in the background: it will disappear in the sea." ~wikimedia commons

Public domain