Someone Lives In Here

Someone Lives In Here

Every broken
window is a piece of me.
The way you said so
pulled me out of time
and threw me to the dusty
floor of my antic
past, once well swept but
no longer. I don't go there.

In one far corner
a small creature makes
her home. I see her scat here
and here but not there.
I wonder why me?
Why must I do it?
I hear her rustle papers,
an old obsolete
will among them, sure.
Go get the broom, son. Sweep up.
But no. I do not
want to disturb her.

‎August ‎31, ‎2013 11:06 AM

Steady On, Grasshopper

Filled up to my palps
with the sight of bread strung up,
the turnips filleted,
with me crucified
in my rosy fantasy,
I search out the cause,
jumping the world lines,
these parting like smoke before
my thin blonde feelers.
I have no idea
what this all means nor whether
I should worry more
or just fiddle on,
do another new ditty
to thread through the air.

‎August ‎30, ‎2013 10:00 AM

Life Eats Life

There is no way past
the damage, the small scuttling
prey in our local
group of flames which burn,
char the innocence away.

I am stained by stars.

It starts so far back,
so beyond your heart and mine
that we must accept
it as our fate, not
fight it as from hope, but hope
never the damn more
for it, for the love
in it, for the touch of it,
the press and heat that
changes it and us
all forever more. Our joy
is found at the feast.

August 29, 2013 6:21 AM

I Won't Back Down - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Anticipate; Fearless; Serene

I Won't Back Down

I won't make a scene,
not today no matter how
the squirrel scolds me
from the dogwood tree.
You anticipate my play,
expect me to pay
you homage again,
you being all that fearless,
the real hero type.
Me, I am serene
in the infallible stand
I take on this thing,
the frigging rightness
of the hill I must defend
with my gas and guns.

‎August ‎28, ‎2013 9:37 AM

Yet More Pain

No, I do not seek
yet more pain even though it
comes like a John Deere
over the berm to
mow me down. I'm the weedy
verge of the long road
to a destiny
that looms at the horizon
of my love for you.

August 14, 2010 4:34 PM

I add the date of composition to the poem for just this kind of thing. This poem is brand new in that it has never appeared on the blog before but it is over three years old now. If it was ever current emotionally, it is not now. On the other hand it is a Raven's tale. They might be factual. They are often true. Ravens like shiny things.

Raven Talk

Image titled Raven Talk by Vivian C. Olsen

Very few birds want
to speak as we do. Raven
does. I tried to teach
that saucy fellow
and he eyed me with his black
glass orbs as if mad
with a need to strike
so I know I am wrong - not
built to instruct him
though I remain sure
he wants to speak truth to me
and perhaps to you.

August 26, 2013 1:42 PM

Why I Oughta - A Magpie Tale

Image offered by Tess Kincaid as a writing prompt for this week's Magpie Tale.

Passing Place near Sullom Voe, photo by Steven Kelley, who hails from London, born and raised in Scotland.

Wiki says, Sullom Voe is an inlet between North Mainland and Northmavine on Shetland in Scotland. The word Voe is from the Old Norse vagr and denotes a small bay or narrow creek.

The Voe, the longest in Shetland, and partially sheltered by the island of Yell was used as a military airfield during World War II both by the Royal Air Force and the Norwegian Air Force as a location for flying boats. It is now the location of the Sullom Voe oil terminal, run by BP Oil for a consortium of oil companies.

To join with and enjoy this week's Magpie Tales writing group
*click here*

Why I Oughta

So I left it all,
peace, tranquility
and everything
graceful, even wise.
I left it right there, Buster,
right there at the sign
which said, "Passing Place"
and I meant to do it too.
I have something hard
I must do. You know.
It's been coming up for me
awhile now, rising
like tar in the sand.
I just have to get it out.
I've been cleaning my
new Smith and Wesson
with a really high grade oil
and a fine mesh cloth.

‎August ‎25, ‎2013 8:26 AM

Game Face

I am seldom sure
of my place or direction.
I play my cards close
and so secretive
that I don't know what the rules
might be nor who else
plays, but I guess dogs
are my partners at this game
like that old picture
or maybe they're some
other wilder stake holders
trying to remind
me of my musky
roots, my vestigial tail,
my full moon concert.
Check raise, my one chance
to win at these table stakes -
but too many tells.

‎August ‎24, ‎2013 10:53 AM

The Grumichama

Why do we do it?

Here I am again sitting
at the board, my left
eye watering, blind
except for smeared out side light
but me tapping out
letters and phrases
as if that matters to me,
to anyone else.

I just read some guy
writing of his childhood friend
and an exotic
Brazilian fruit tree
I had to look up to know.
They hung cardboard stars.
they cut from a box.

Meanwhile it rained some last night
and that broke the heat.

‎August ‎23, ‎2013 9:23 AM

This poem is a spin-off of "Making Stars With Jacob Lawrence", written by Myronn Hardy

The Grumichama is a fruit tree that grows native to southern coastal Brazil. It has been imported to various locations world wide but with spotty success as it seems to be picky about where it lives. For example, the tree does all right in some Florida locations but not others and better, it seems, around Palm Springs in California. The fruit is edible and quite tasty, but the sepals and the size and number of the seeds detract from the experience. There are two varieties, the more common red fleshed fruit variety and the less common white fleshed fruit variety. The fruit is reported to taste rather like the true sweet cherry but with a touch of aromatic resin added in. In Hawaii, where the Grumichama grows well, the fruit is eaten out of hand when ripe and made into pies and jellies when a bit greener.

So say the botanists at Perdue University, a research university in Lafayette, Indiana, flagship of the six university Perdue system.

The Incident

The Incident, I

Tripped at the edge, fell
into the cavern beneath,
sliding past the mud
and further than that,
tumbled past your old ashes
and mine. We once loved
in all that time, time,
shivery mounds of long time
full of drudge and fear
and beauty and hope,
that too in great sloping piles.
Drifts pack the small hole
leading out of here.
This means I must dig my way
or wither and fade.

‎August ‎22, ‎2013 8:38 AM

Paranoia - 3 Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Distinct; Irrational; Sullen

Paranoia

In distinct packets
of coded information
your message has come
down to me like hail
on the irrational thatch
of my local digs.

I know I've gone batshit.

The sullen sun of August
has driven me out
and I dig holes, search
for bugs in the wattle walls,
sure the agency
has bad intentions
and will meet them by skinning
me past endurance.

‎August ‎21, ‎2013 9:30 AM

Salmon Run

If I was a fish
I would paint my skin with sky
and mountains and bears,
with slippery rocks
and shiny things so brightly
wrought that I would fade
behind my own work,
the tatoos of my journey
to the spawning grounds
and beyond them to
heaven.

August 20, 2013 9:24 AM

Looking For The Edge

This is Victoria Falls. Wiki says: Victoria Falls (or Mosi-oa-Tunya, or Tokaleya Tonga: the Smoke that Thunders) is a waterfall in southern Africa on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The man stands on an edge that holds back a swimming hole where one can safely bathe close to the edge. Images of people in various poses are often taken right here.

Looking For The Edge

That's the moment, the instant
I am looking for-
The time just before
it all collapses into
normal business,
stuff as freaking usual
(so we say it, drowned
as we are in dream)-
I am looking for
the crack in things, finely wrought
by the voice of God
whispering nothing
in any particular
and touching the world
so, to make us go.

Yes, that's really really it.
I've been there before
but just that one time.

August 19, 2013 8:40 AM

The Queen Encounters Herself - A Magpie Tale

Elena Kalis has created high art, using her camera to explore feminine themes and how water may affect them in a variety of clever ways. The fluidity of her images is all her own as is the bright light and the clarity of the sea and pools she has found in her island of Bahama neighborhood and other locations. The photo chosen by Tess Kincaid for this week's writing prompt is a very good example of Elena's work. Facebook "Elena Kalis Underwater Photography" or visit Elena's main page.

To join with and enjoy this week's Magpie Tales writing group
*click here*

The Queen Encounters Herself

When you met yourself
face to face, you fell apart
like phantoms do.
No matter you flew
at the time, confounding us,
an ascending sign
of your excellence,
no matter all your magic.
What mattered, the cry
pulled out of your frame
at seeing yourself shiver
apart, vaporize
like water sucked up
by some dry Saharan air,
us quaking below.

‎August ‎18, ‎2013 9:10 AM

Follow Me

Some far love song calls
to me like a small bird calls
from the wire outside
my kitchen window
and me, I must hesitate
before I answer
before I dare you
to follow me down into
the one sweet love back
in the old shadows
of shared memories.

August 14, 2010 4:15 PM

Oh Well

The Amber Dragon's Hoard

Check out the work of Phil McDarby, an Irish artist in mixed media. *click here* This photoshop production is a fine example of what an artist can do in attending to details and trusting that the wholeness of things will shine through. Notice on the far right, an ant is taking a berry from the Amber Dragon's hoard.

I came here questing
after the way of all things
as if I could hold
all that all at once.
All, all, all as if that was
a real word about
this world and me lord
instead of the come and go
of things as they are
and me another
bozo and on the short bus
at that. What a chump.

Still, there is something
grand in the persistent hunt
for the dragon's hoard.

‎August ‎16, ‎2013 9:36 AM

Moving On

I drove home today
from your funeral past fields
of scattered horses
who, turning away,
grazed alone after the heat
of some argument
they had.

I felt that.

One eyed me briefly. The shine
of it signaled me
to stay on my side
of the fence. The argument
continued, it seemed.
Meanwhile, at our pond
the duck line scattered. The lead
duck dove under for
her lunch. The others
followed in their own sweet time.
I stumbled on the stairs.

‎August ‎15, ‎2013 10:13 AM

Old Habits - Three Word Wednesday

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*
This week's words:

Distraught; Habitual; Regulate

Old Habits

I had a lover
just like you once. I'm distraught
about it, of course.
My habitual
moments of temper swamp me
just like all the times
she massaged my eyes,
she crooning to regulate
the weight of my dreams,
as if that was right
to do, but I ran from her:
Eventually
I will run from you.

August 14, 2013 6:41 AM

Here's The Situation

"Into the Swimming Pool (Ins Schwimmbad)", Max Liebermann, 1878

Brothers under skin
seeking the truth in far worlds
and near, in deep dives
into warm lagoons
and on the hot sands of time's
atolls, reaching truth
in certain moments
remembered or dreamt, even
demanded, wrestled
out of the next now
and the next, and then lying
back to glance sidelong
hoping someone's close
by, watching.

August 14, 2010 3:47 PM

I feel that if I am genuinely grown up, I no longer seek to show off for my mother's approval (Hey Mom! Look at me!) Unfortunately, I still look around for her, perhaps in your eyes, my darling. My Mom died in 2001 nearing eighty.

Living The Dream - A Magpie Tale

Marcelle Lender Doing The Bolero In Chilperic

Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

Offered by Tess Kincaid as a writing prompt for Mag 181

To join with and enjoy this week's Magpie Tales writing group
*click here*

Living The Dream

Your drafty garret -
dust in the air sings in light
but causes my nose
to swell, then sneeze
out knots of musty old grit.
Confusion thrown to
the currents - eddys
in all four blood stained corners
testify to work
and more work, struggle
and ever more damn struggle
while on the canvas
oh so slow the dance
begins to appear outside
my eyes, my dry hands
and the heat throbs in
the red cracks that craze my past
while I draw you there.

‎August ‎11, ‎2013 8:01 AM