Crazy

 

 

 

 

Crazy

 

 

 

The psychiatrist sat
in his belle époque chair,
his beard a quenched fire,
crossed leg a hot wire.

He stared at me fixedly,
flirtatiously, fictively.
I closed my face another notch;
crushed haven on the velvet couch.

The questions were wrong
denser than dusk, older than insects,
each one packed with boxes
full of white mice and foxes.

Can you remember? not Can't you forget?

So much smoke and hot ash;

and after all that, his cigar

was just a cigar.

 

 

 

March 2025 

posted for the Word List

running with the bureaucratic theme this week

at Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image: Woman Leaving The Psychoanalyst, ©Remedios Varo  Fair Use

Aardvark

 

 

 

 Aardvark

 

"..Don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue.

They got some hungry women there and they'll really make a mess out of you..."

~Bob Dylan, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

 

 

 

What were you to me back then,

with your tumbled hair and tequila?

Even Dali had his aardvark, led uncomplaining

 

through the dirty streets of Paris,

a glass-globe feast for insatiable eyes.

Impossible to know

what I was to you.

Your face was hinged,

 

a door at times standing open,

cracked to show the arid

 

arabesques of spiders 

smiling in Poe's palace. Others

locked and bolted, bare and flash

 

as clean brass before it's engraved.

All I remember is you held me

like diamonds worked into your arms' ring

there in the tedium of the shelter

among the do-gooders and the riffraff.

 

The cardboard walls flexed with our love

but when I slipped the rhinestone lead

from your sleek throat

 

you ran

and the streets of Paris

emptied.

~August 2024

 

 

 

 

 

Process note: The photo of Dali shown actually is of he and his pet anteater. Poetic license.

 

 

posted for WG Word List at

Shay's Word Garden

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Dali takes his anteater for a stroll in Paris, 1969    Public Domain

The Smiling Spider, 1887, Odillon Redon, Louvre, Paris    Public Domain

Hungry Ghosts And Thirsty Spirits

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hungry Ghosts And Thirsty Spirits

 

 

 

 

Nine snow-white candles to ward my bed

as the Hunter's Moon glares against my door.

 

Rowan and hyperion at foot and head

but your fetch is strong. I need much more.

Last night I could tell it would need to be fed.

I felt its cold lips that the flames couldn't kill

 

pressed on my skin like a waxen seal,

saw its stubbled neck scrawny, stretched and too real

as thirsting you came, crawling over the sill,

but the gods in their mercy allowed me one grace:

 

to never again have to see your face.

 

 

 

 

October 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

Open Link Weekend at desperate poets

 (inspired by Night of the Desperate Dead)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process note: Rowan and Hyperion(St John's Wort) were said to be protective against evil spirits and witches and were often hung indoors or planted at the doorways of houses:

 

"The European rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) has a long tradition in European mythology and folklore. It was thought to be a magical tree and [to]give protection against malevolent beings.. It was said in England that this was the tree on which the Devil hanged his mother..British folklorists of the Victorian era reported the folk belief in apotropaic powers of the rowan-tree, in particular in the warding off of witches...Sir James Frazer (1890) reported such a tradition in Scotland, where the tree was often planted near a gate or front door. ~wikipedia

 

"The common name St John's wort comes from the fact that its flowers and buds were commonly harvested at the time of the Midsummer festival, which was later Christianized as St John's Feast Day on 24 June. It was believed that harvesting the flower at this time made its healing and magical powers more potent. The herb would be hung on house and stall doors on St John's Feast Day to ward off evil spirits and to safeguard against harm and sickness to people and livestock. ..Because of its supposed potency in warding off spirits, the plant was also known as fuga daemonum (loosely "demon-flight").."~wikipedia

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Title unknown,  ©@coven of ceridwen via internet  Fair Use

La Mort: Mon ironie depasse toutes les autres! 1889 ©Odilon Redon   Public Domain

Dream Of Wyverns

 

 

 

 

 

Dream Of Wyverns

 

 

 

The plane of grief is unrelieved

by fence or furrow, tree or cliff. It

stretches out a flight of new moons,

a river of crow's wings

hiding its eyes.

 

In the distance wyverns pace, their

asp-tongues a piercing, their growl-song sharp

as a whispering sting

poisoning dark.

 

To walk this plain

you must step over bones,

speak the language of ravens,

earn the kisses of crows

 

see the colors like bats

flat and profound

forever dependent on wavering sound

as it pours from the red well,

a bucket of misses splashing cold drown.

 

Everything here is

a secret of night. Black

angels drop like char on the snow

in peace as they fall

on the crow's nest below.

 

 

June 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Open Link #8 at desperate poets

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images are taken from the internet, artists unknown.  Fair Use 

Chimera

 

 

Chimera

When I left all I asked was peace 

of the starry void, that

every shrewish hope be finally silent 

yet after me you sent one white bird

only marsh cloud singing,

too soft, too frail to fly far.

I dreamed of you last night--

did you call me?

No, it was just my broken eyes

wanting to see the old calligraphy

strong and alive on the blank page but

that will never be again.

You were dream's pale clerk

troubled, frowning at the paper

on which many things were written

none of them my name.

I stood by your shoulder;

you turned, walking through me.

Waking, I couldn't say which,

you or I, was the ghost.

The gift of sleep

is taken back and I sit staring

at the wrinkled day, at walls falling

in this helpless place of the dead

where I've washed up,

already chewed by the chimera

stung by the manticore,

wondering what white wings will come

out of the siren darkness, 

what ghost bird is left.

 

 

June 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for earthweal's

Open Link Weekend #143

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image: Chimera, by Gustave Moreau, 1884, watercolor

Public domain, via wikipaintings.org 

Cryptid

 

source

Cryptid

Was it your lover

you saw in the dream,

a spirit bear on fire,

or perhaps

the chupacabra, a steam

 given off/

absorbed  by

too-hot night?

Some cryptid regardless,

a cambion that comes

when eyelids fall down

before the stare of stars

dropped silent with a burn

from black sky

as morning turns to face you

cobra-hooded.

Fragments of him

of you

litter the lawn.

Meteorite dust

hangs in the air;

the smell of old longings

seeps from the roses

powdery as the skin's

 memory of a hand

that still feels,

of lips that know words

are the dark subsidence

 

down which you will tumble

to the place of live shadows

where two become one.

Posted for earthweal's

Open Link #141

~September 2014

 

 

 A little something for All Hallows, originally posted at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Little God

 

 

 

 

The Little God

 

 

 

 On,

into the soft-gelled 

distance of a gentled day

after dreams of storm and blood

where war gods walk the night

 

opening every door

eating whom they will.

But it was you, belly-up

who turned the knives

to scraping in my brain,

 

your suffering

that is an offering;

a worship

I can't watch

to a little god

 

who cuts up hearts

to sew his cap 

and boots

and the black mask

that shades

 

his razor smile,

your ever-burning

icon.

 

May 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for earthweal's

Open Link Weekend

 

 

 

 

 

also using words from qbit's list

derived form the poetry of Anna Ahkmatova

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personal note: I've been having a dead spot, but I miss reading everyone's writing and will be around soon to catch up. Thanks to all of you whose support keeps me putting pen to paper.

 

 

Images: Gentled Day, ©joyannjones, 2016

The Return of the Flame, © Rene Magritte, 1943     Fair Use

Ave Atque Vale

 

 

 

Ave Atque Vale

 

 

 

 

Though

they make

your eyes shine

your hand reach out

not even these dreams can make you love me.

 

It's cruel time breaks like glass but crueler still

to see you smile

as if you

want me

still.

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets: Meeting the Bar

Numbering Ten (Tetrachtys)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Hands, © Eugeny Kozhevnikov   Fair Use

Vistation, photomanipulation © joyannjones

The Night Call

 

 

The Night Call

 

 

 

The woods are dark

and important with green, restless

with a pushing wind bruising the white

 petals of the moonflowers against

 

the walls of this house I never enter

that stands at the edge of the dream. I'm

not here to come in from the green dark alive

with a canticle of constellations and the wind strumming

 

 soft in the moon-colored strings of my hair but

sometimes I watch the wisp of a dead bishop

rigid in the doorway holding the lantern high

questioning the heretic hours, the faceless rain,

 

the expanse teeming with life between us

that answers in crickets and owl song

and the giving language of pines

he will never be able to speak.

 

None of these will tell the secret; that I'm here,

 that I'll never come in

to the house filled with traps,

whose convenience of hot and cold

 

running happiness has leaked

out in sickly anger, leaving that stink

of broken love that clings

to a dead wisp calling,

 

calling me back to black dreams

I'll never share again.

I'm already gone in the breathy night,

into the green dark, alive.

 

 February 2022

posted for earthweal's

Wild Mind

 

Photos © joyannjones 2-27-2014, manipulated

 

The Feral Baby

 

 

 

 

The Feral Baby

 

 

In the dark 

before breakfast I dreamed

that the baby fell on its head. It wasn't

my fault. It just climbed up my shoulder

and jumped. I only borrowed it

because you made me. It wasn't mine.

I am not one for babies.

Nevertheless,

it cried, so I put it in my purse

for the gypsy. She offered to give it a casserole.

  (Or was that use it in a casserole?) I said,

"It doesn't like my purse, but it wouldn't like a

casserole any better." I'm not one for babies,

but I know that much.

 

Finally 

I took it back to you 

at the urban university lab. You put

 a ribbon on it, called it Jean, kissed it.

 It was fine then. I was tempted to

sneak it back to its mother, but

you'd turned her into a starling.

 

And that's how

she came to be my child. 

I'm not one for babies

until they learn how

to fly.

 

 

 

 January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for 

Shay's Word List #9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: No babies were harmed in the production of this poem.

 

 

 

 

Images: Creeping baby doll, 1871   Public Domain

Starling Murmuration © Menno Shaefer    Fair Use

The Night Dancers

 

 

The Night Dancers

 (a 55)

 

The song dreaming night

  is a film over the world

hiding a thousand dancers

painted with

the blood of the moon.

 

They hum

as they spin, but

I never hear them speak.

Dawn's claw-hammer

beats them to dust

 

leaving a flicker

of chamomile and orange,

 ghost breath of a

performance

seen best

 

through

mist-green glass.

 

 

 

 

January 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Blond Nude With Orange,Blue Couch, 1925 © John French Sloan   Fair Use

Glasses, author unknown, via Sunday Muse   Fair Use 

Cabin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Cabin

 

 

 

The war was lost, the way

worse. I felt

the tired mare sigh

a heart-green path to

my old lover, the oldest lost

 and brown-eyed truth,

 a place to fold us

peel to apple,

bird to song.

 

I rearranged his

forest home as if

it were mine

 

and so it was

the old mare sighed.

 

 

 

 November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This poem has been edited since first posted.

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Illustration for "Vasilisa the Beautiful." 1900,  © Ivan Bilibin  Public Domain

Peasant Girl Near A Cabin, 1895, © Camille Corot   Public Domain

 

 

Three Wheels

 

 

 

 

 

Three Wheels

 

 

 

I dream the ghost;

an old woman who sits staring,

tendril-wrapped in the cold wet

wood with her soft face

washed away.

 

I dream the ritual;

an old woman who pedals

fast, pedals frantic, hunched

simian over three thin wheels

meant for a child.

I see the flooding quarry

and what they dig there that

 must not be found. The old woman

pedals madly, seeing all that goes

around and round.

I dream the Völva;

a grey woman who throws back

her unmade face and howls in runes,

traveling Time with red eyes

she calls from night.

I hear the pack's full cry loping

as one; to rend, to tear, to save

the secret moon before

she can be dug

from the water and sold.

 

 

October 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for Fireblossom

at The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

I have written this roughly in the cadralor form, tho I have taken a few liberties with it. 

 

 

 

Process Note: Völva: "A Völva is a female Shaman in Old Norse culture, religion, and mythology..A Völva practiced three different kinds of indigenous magic within Old Norse society: Seiðr, or shamanic ritual, was the ceremonial weaving of a new or different future..Spá, or prophecy, was the art of foreseeing the fates that were being continuously woven into existence by the Norns.. Galdr, or incantation, was the art of singing or chanting for the purposes of changing or influencing an outcome..." ~Shieldmaiden's Sanctum

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images, both via internet, attribution unknown.   Fair Use.