The White House

 

 

 

 

The White House

 

 

Fall is sky

of milk and water, of

sand and blood, a field of ev'ry fruit

and folly, gathered around the slant white house that

rocked its boards like a boat and took in

the moon's footloose orphans.

The white house 

grew a child;

it seemed safe there by the

warm muddy lake,rough beach of red dirt,

trees bent over brown water by the weight of locusts'

spell chanting out the night, the old gods'

didgeridoo. There were

always dogs

 

in the yard,

toys on the floor, music

in the hall, food in the kitchen, bells

of laughter rung on blue sheets, your bright virgin eyes

umber as winter oak, wild as wine,

alight in the white house.

Now the child

 

is grown, you

are gone, and nothing is

safe. The white house, drifting in its trees

by the clouded lake, is a slow rocking boat un-

manned but full; October's hand turns wind

 to firelight for moon's

last orphan.

September 2021

 

 

posted for 

The Sunday Muse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Process Note: This poem is written in the triquain form, consisting  of seven line stanzas with lines of 3,6,9,12,9,6,and 3 syllables respectively.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Old house, author unknown, via Sunday Muse  Fair Use

Autumn Day circa 1986,  © joyannjones 

 

All The Things That Kill

Linen towel with drawn threadwork accented with embroidery in stem and satin stitch

  

All The Things That Kill

All the things that kill

are beautiful tonight

sleek with purpose

come to end promises

sworn in diamond dust;

the poison drop, the  quick

metal bee, the slick sharp edge;

all beauty's finality shining

under a flawless moon.

In my sleep I hear

the spell of no more

lifting the weight of life

beautifully

boiling the clinging

off into black:

Let us unpick
the pulled-thread smockery;
return us the
whole cloth we were.

Let the light bend

beautifully

into our blinking eyes

blinded by tiny needles'

broderie-anglaise tasked

to make order out of holes,

whitework fine-stitched over

vacant years by galled fingers 

in candled rooms 

too dark to see,

so at last we

are no longer terrified

by the corpse march

of  dawn after dawn

where we imagine

the uncaring dead

dance around us

potent,  grasping,

more alive

than our own blood.

~November 2013

 

broderie-anglaise detail, Broken Vows by Philip Hermogenes Calderon

Process notes: I mention in this poem three types of embroidery, described here:
"Whitework embroidery refers to any embroidery technique in which the stitching is the same color as the foundation fabric (traditionally white linen). Styles of whitework embroidery include most drawn thread work, [as well as] broderie anglaise...[which is] is a whitework needlework technique incorporating features of embroidery, cutwork and needle lace that became associated with England, due to its popularity there in the 19th century." via wikipedia

posted for     real toads

Kerry's Wednesday Challenge: Black and White

Kerry O'Connor asks us to think of the composition methods in black and white photography, and transmute them to a poem. I attempted to work with some of the concepts she presented, including high-key and low-key images, and her key words of" contrast, tone, mood, atmosphere, focal point, highlight, patterns, textures."

Images public domain via wikimedia commons