Oh My Queen

Oh My Queen

They took you away
in the back of a low car,
then in drafty trains,
you stuffed among them
in the effluvia they left
for you to swallow.

I did nothing then
nor can I do anything
in the time I have
left to me. My God,
I shall dive into the hole
left in my own heart.

‎June ‎18, ‎2011 3:32 PM

Images of The Rape of Persephone by Bernini.

Feather Pitch

All about the words,
you said, flicking your blonde tress.

I shall wander still
among the finches
as they call for sunflowers,
for seeds, the wild swoop
onto one good perch.

You've held out your long finger.
Perhaps they'll light there.

June 15, 2011 8:01 PM

Waking Up Alone

Uluru, or Ayers Rock

In the growing dawn
I'm haunted by dead cold flames.
Gravid stones call out
from my ebbing dream.
I pray my friend comes sooner
than the rising sun.

Oh spin me the yarns
only you can safely twist
off the likes of me.

June 3, 2011 10:44 PM
modified, April 16, 2016

Uluru, or Ayers Rock, is a massive sandstone monolith in the heart of the Northern Territory’s Red Centre desert, 450km from the nearest large town, Alice Springs. It’s sacred to indigenous Australians and believed to be about 700 million years old. It’s within Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, which also encompasses the 36 red-rock domes of the Kata Tjuta (colloquially “The Olgas”) formation.

It's All Blown Up

You gave up, leaving
all defenses in my hands
while the pyroclasts
approach, spewing gas
and glowing things all around.

I'm turning tail too.

So much for your trust,
toots. I'm headed for higher
ground if my hot feet
permit. As for you
guys, I recommend you all
book it, toot damn sweet.

‎April ‎11, ‎2016 2:33 PM

Pyroclasts (or " tephra ') are any volcanic fragments that were hurled through the air by volcanic activity. A pyroclastic eruption is one in which the great majority of activity involves fountaining or explosions.

Book it: Fairly common slang for at least the last sixty years meaning as used here: to get out, run!

Toot-sweet: This word pair is a corruption of the French 'tout de suite', which literally means 'all at once'.

Thus the whole phrase is another way to say, "Run! Right now, Damn it!"

This would seem to be a bit melodramatic to some but I live in the vicinity of Mt. St. Helens and pyroclastic flows were not that far away. When we moved into the house we bought, I had to go on the roof and clean volcanic ash out of the gutters. We were grateful in those days that the weather flow in this area tends to come from the southwest to the northeast, more or less. That's how we missed most of the grit.

At Least You Left A Note

Bang! Big explosion!
Supernova fries my brain
and frags my liver.

Your note has to do
since too much fermentation
has eaten my hope
for it to be worth
even one thin dime.

It was
a poor chance, no doubt,
that drove me to this
pass in the coastal rises
west of the valley
where we used to live.

‎April ‎10, ‎2016 6:53 PM

Disturbing The Dead

-Takashi Murakami
"Gagosian in the Land of the Dead,
Stepping on the Tale of a Rainbow."

Disturbing The Dead

You have asked of me
an utterly frank discourse
about the small ghosts
who clutter my curd.

What am I most afraid of?
you ask, punching holes
in my skin, bloodless
and swollen like insect bites.

Staring you down won't
work. I know because
I tried that aeons before
now in burial
grounds so ancient rhyme
was not yet an invention
and men did not write.

‎April ‎9, ‎2016 11:30 AM

Hoddminir picture stone from Gotland (Sweden)

In Mid-Voyage

In Mid-Voyage

On the far islands
under cirulean skies,
beneath the northern
stars in the later
hours of my dusty chapped heart,
I trudge square onto
the wall of ancient
stones left each on top aligned
with others grinding
beneath summer's wind
storms and rain sheets all sideways
to the lay of souls.
This place fares much worse
in the deep of winter's ice
and its servitude.

‎April ‎8, ‎2016 7:28 PM

While the poem is about a mythical place, perhaps, the two photos are of the Faroe Islands.

Written to the mention of the Faroe Islands in Irene's Red Wolf Journal prompt here.

Ekphrastic Remarks

Rivera Remarks Ekphrastically

Oh Frida, dear, again
you have cut yourself, this time
breast high squarely on
and down your torso,
a rectangular gash we
can see through to one
of all the three breasts
emerging from sand and sea
and rock and so to
the vine and your brow
and your darkness worn like hair
as you lie staring
like a toppled rock
never would but, hey, this is
expressionism, no?

Maybe you're naive
but as you say, you are not
ever surreal.

‎April ‎6, ‎2016 8:28 AM

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, ca. 1930

I Didn't Plan This

Back in the day, I read C.S. Lewis. He wrote among many things, fiction about space travel and fantasy. One of his visions of the world, more than half serious on his part, was that this place we live in is an asylum for sick souls. There is a kind of quarantine and we are here gathered from many other places in the universe as unsettled and unsavory creatures who cannot fit in with the peace and tranquility to be found everywhere else. That vision haunts me. My Poem, "I Didn't Plan This," is written in that spirit.

I Didn't Plan This

And God said, I want!
He said, You! Then I went, Me?
He said not one word
after that, confusing.

But I was there, I was there
when He rolled round stones
from His own eyes, then
rolled His eyes as if troubled
with the way things go.

June 2, 2011 7:43 PM

Feathers In Your Hair - A Magpie Tale

Feathers In Your Hair

Something has happened.
It shows on you like feathers
in your tangled hair.

I wish to devour
your soul salted and peppered,
braised to medium
rare and sliced thin on
a garden salad with lime.

I hope you take this
dream in morning's light
as I fondle you awake
and raise your heart to
full maturity
in the long sweep of all things
possible and true.

‎April ‎3, ‎2016 1:38 PM

Written to Tess Kincaid's Magpie Tale image of this date. Tess counts this one the 311th posting for the writing community she has gathered around her. Because I can compose at the drop of a farthing and am so very fond of Tess (I am you know, dear), and because I approve of her leaving Ohio for Manchester, here is my latest oddity offered up on the altar of Magpie Tales.

The link will carry you through to her site where you can find the list of contributors and join up if you choose to write something. It doesn't have to be a poem. It can be a musing or a story or a tall tale or recount some memory that fits like feathers in your hair. If you point and click on any name you will find what the others wrote.

And Tess, darling, in some other once and future life I hope to ravish you with the devotion of a true knight, should we ever be well placed on the moors under some summer's moon.