Sea Shanty

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sea Shanty

 

 

Once I thought I had pain for my oceanliner, but

it was a clipper ship, a visitor skimming

the shallows of easy tears, creaking

in every board its promise of moonlight drowning

the dark-kissing sea in silver flakes,

of fools' journey's-end a Crusoe'd sort of shipwreck

where everything needed is salvageable,

of undiscovered places to find but never know.

But that of course was not pain.

Pain is an ocean

without any ship, flowerless and vast,

no islands of palms and coconuts

no brown eyes dancing

from the landward side of the reef

to blunt

the sharp-split wreckage of spars and bones,

no Man Friday

to carry my white man's burden for me,

to feed me 

on conch meat and keep me alive

with all the driftwood exotica of empire.

 

There is only

the cold that pierces too deep

before it numbs, the struggling silence

 

that floats the water

that slides through my hands

and the

 

constant 

unbearable fear

of breathing it in.

December 2024

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Word Garden Word List at

Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Sea Spray, 1908, pen & ink watercolor, ©Harold Sohlberg   Fair Use

Untitled, ©Zdzislaw Beksinki      Fair Use

 

August in America 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

August in America 2022

 

 

August is

a box of eyes

closed

pretending there is no

stab of light

a beach of scalded feet

of knees scraped raw on underwater sand

bleeding a string of dead flowers

and too many ants.

May sang once I remember

November wailed but August

holds a hot hand

over summer's mouth stifling sweat-damp

nights of thirst with silent fever 

like a rash

of rumors

 hallucinations of

drowning rain.

No one wants August

to do anything but leave

even if it means red winter

but it stays

only peeling like old paint

spreading like the sour smell

of smoke

in a burned house

backbuilt from blood and sickness

where even the ants

die by fire.

 

 

August 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets Poetics:

Sometimes August isn't Recognized

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: The Enchanted Beach, 1950 © Salvador Dali   Fair Use

Ants © Dunja Zubak via satchiart.com   All Rights Reserved   Fair Use

Empty

 

 

 

 

 "Hell is empty and all the Devils are here." ~William Shakespeare

 

Empty

(a 55)

 

The door to

the henhouse is

always unlocked

for inside there are

only wind eggs.

 

The Fall 

is a tryptich:

blackness, dead hearts,

disingenuous calculations. At

the apex

of chaos we have our

decumbiture, 

no thaumaturgy created

cures corrupted

senescence.

Don't

 turn the key

to lock in nothing; 

just open the door

for the foxes.

 

 

 

November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On November 19th, 2021, Kyle Rittenhouse, 18, was acquitted of 5 counts of homicide for the August 25th 2020 murders of two men and the attempted murder of a third. The men were protesting the shooting of a black man, Jacob Blake, by a white police officer in Wisconsin. The jury ruled that Rittenhouse, who crossed state lines with an assault weapon to "protect property" not belonging to him, acted in self-defense.

 

 

 

wind egg: an unimpregnated, yolkless, or imperfect egg ...an egg with a soft noncalcareous shell

decumbiture:1 obsolete : confinement to a sickbed. 2a : the time of taking to one's bed from sickness. b : a horoscope of such a decumbiture.

thaumaturgy:: the performance of miracles

~Merriam Webster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Photo of Door, title and author unknown, Fair Use via Sunday Muse

The Fox: Fair Game, © Alexander Pope  Public Domain

Flash Friday Fiction 55 March 2020

Welcome, friends and writers. The world around us is in turmoil, and has never needed more the medicine of the artist's eye. As long as it is possible, I will host this meme on the last Friday of every month, an opportunity to both attempt the feat of a kick-ass weekend and to share a poem, piece of prose-poetry or flash fiction on any subject; in fact, whatever. Vent, wail, prognosticate or simply let your muse run loose, so long as it's in the form of 55 words, no more, no less. 

If you are among those attempting a poem a day in April, let me know in the comments if you would like to see the 55 up every Friday in April, and I will oblige.


The prompt will be live from Friday at 12:00 AM til Sunday at 4:00 PM. 

This is an informal sort of place, so there's no Mr Linky. Just copy and paste a link to your 55 in the comments.

 ~*~

My 55:

Missed Universe

Hell runs a mean pageant,

contestants centerfolded.

Breaths bubbled forward

in hope without reason

multiply oblivion.

Gathering masses

parade the ramp

sucking in air from each other's

 taint; rapture revolves

 in the devil-red tent.

May their last 

wheeze please Him

in His burning sty

where the rich always live

and the poor always die.

March 2020

Images: The Lantern Bearers, Maxfield Parrish Public Domain
Manipulated photo of Miss Universe winners via internet. Fair Use.

Gypsy Shipwreck

Gypsy Shipwreck

The starved gypsy moon

caravans out of sight

feeding all she has stolen

to the heart of the night.

The bell-jangled tracing

of her white legs' skip

to the violin's sobbing

going down like a ship

 grinds me for music 

that growls like a dog,

 while all hands are lost 

in the gunpowder fog.

~August 2017

a 55 for Kerry's Flash Plus

Images (Swept Away, Summer Breeze) by Erte  via wikiart.org    Fair use.

Milkweed

Milkweed

Open the gates

of your lips and let me

pass, even as

you ripen mine

to that soft splitting

by your tongue.

Trade me your hands

for this furious waste,

breathe thaw on

the frozen plates

that slide and grind

our ties unbound.

Cast each threadbare

husk of garment down

upon the changing earth

so we may turn, turn

from dead to worse

to life again,

popping like milkweed

on the wind, red blood

to white spires, tassels and

catkins of old desires;

asterisks

and afterthoughts,

argonauts, two

fools of wide waters

floating the blue storm

through clouded pillars

over the shoals

of a thousand suns.

~May 2017

 Images: Milkweed, author unknown, fair use via internet

The Argo, by Lorenzo Costa: 1st third of 16th century via wikimedia commons