Dry leaves break dusty Autumn
And saltine cracker crushed
Announce her name
A shy stutterer hiccoughs,
A footstep scrapes a gravel path
With the sounding of her name
The baa-ing of sheep,
Bawling of calves,
Wail her name
Irish breezes waft
Over wet sod fields
Hearing her name
A rustle of tulle skirt,
A door latch clicking shut
Speak her name
Prickly, sweet fruit trace
Challenges with a swoop
And loop-de-loop to finish
The singing of her name
#Names #PoeticExercise #Poetry
There is, or was, a voice
At my center,
At least the center of my mind
When I was very little
I thought perhaps
It was my guardian angel
Later, I named it The Observer
Because its messages
Were like a sports announcer
Describing the actions of my life
The Observer never criticized
Though it often warned
Of potential dangers
When The Observer spoke
Silence like a gossamer curtain,
Slipped down to surround me
In the quiet of that moment
I could see almost to forever
And calm settled within my soul
Crises came and went
But at each and every one
The Observer was there
I do not try to understand
To reason to the source
Of this voice
I am simply grateful
If a little unnerved
For its voice is not the voice
I hear when listening
To my own thoughts
Down
Down into the rabbit hole
Searching for the answer
Alice, don’t you know?
You will not find it there.
Step right on through
The glass will part
To let you pass,
But Alice,
Don’t you know?
You cannot find it there.
Poor silly Alice,
Ever facing forward,
You will never find it there.
No, don’t turn around!
Now you’re forward once again,
…And it’s behind.
Through the maze backwards
(That’s a clue)
Now, try again.
Through the maze backwards…
That’s the way.
And…Alice…?
You will find it there.
#LewisCarrollandAlicestories #ThroughtheLookingGlass
#AliceinWonderland
You caught the word
With your mouth
Even as it escaped my lips
Flavored by my breath
You held the taste of it
Upon your tongue
Like a large sweet candy
Allowing it to roll about
Before you swallowed it
Making the word, my breath
And all of me
A part of you forever.
#kiss #love #loveandproposal
Lifted from the tide pool,
Malachite
Lies wet and cool
In my hand
While primordial memory
Flickers in my blood
Quivers across my skin
As I touch Malachite’s cousin,
Serpentine,
Warm and slick in the sun.
Wet tadpole ripples
Ride the heart rhythm
Pulsing in waves.
Lizard sand trails
Scrape scales against flesh.
Sediment silts into the riverbeds
Of my veins.
Cooling magma steams
In my bones.
The geometry of the elements
Spreads through my being
Like building blocks
Stacking one on one
Until I am become one solid again,
Neither rock nor human,
But something in between
I am alone on the beach
with ancient memory.
#geologytrip #evolution #gaia
For all those whose wings
Were clipped early
Before the first test flight
From the nest
Yet who persevered
Though further hampered,
Like the wanton’s bird,
Harnessed and pulled back
From each short venture
Toward freedom—
Brief moments to shine
Even in their shorn glory.
Oh, what we have missed—
The gifts you had to offer,
Even when shunned or hidden,
Still glistened in the shadows
And left paving stones of gold
For those who would see.
For all of you
Who continued to be a wonder
Though denied,
I thank you
And light this torch
In your honor
That we might never forget
And finally appreciate
Your worth
And the potential
In others like yourselves.
May they not be hobbled
In their natural power of flight,
But soar, forever soar.
#preserverance #remembranceandtorch
Shoah is a documentary concerned mainly with the non-Jewish witnesses to anti-semitic persecution under Hitler’s leadership.
Invading their memories
he sought their hell
that he might understand
and make real
a world, a time–gone
but for the remembering.
His words in knife-thrust parries
exposed and subjected all
that he might gouge
their image upon his film.
Till at last
though still a young man,
his eyes became like theirs:
Old eyes
the eyes of the too long living
eyes where the light of life
is pale and far behind.
And his voice became the trailing
whimper as of one lost–
an echo of the voices
he had sealed in documentary.
#Shoah #HolocaustDocumentary
The color spills from the canvas
Into the stark white
tucked-in corner of the great museum.
Buoyed upon this current of color,
and playing within its flow
Comes laughter: joyous and gentle.
Does no one else hear?
This Maypole whirlpool
Of a happy moment
Sweeps me along,
Woos me
In the shoe-shuffling,
Mouth-muffled quiet
Of the great museum
Into laughter of my own.
Visitors’ eye whip-flick in my direction.
I am standing quite still
In a stark white tucked in corner
of this great museum,
Yet I am far away in time and place.
I am with the artist on a very good day,
A day full of laughter, light and color.
The smile on my face lifts like a hot air balloon.
I am completely free and spinning into joy.
#GuggenheimMuseum #ModernArt #AbstractArt
A slender, young girl
Strolls in the sunlight
With her hair perfectly styled
Wearing her high tops
And blue-patterned sundress
With matching mask.
She is the ideal picture
Of the new, young chic.
#COVIDandMandates #VirusandMasks
Written for Ray Bradbury, author of Martians Chronicles,
on the occasion of the first landing on Mars
Once,
past the tomb
of this gray gypsum moon
alien spaceships chased
the craters of the sky
and Mystery wore robes fluorescent green.
Then,
through eons of red sky and earth
breathed the spirit
of the ghost people
who flew the stars
and measured the universe
with candid chasm eyes too true
and whispered songs of sighs
too sorrow-soft for ears to hear
who swift and light
sparked the night of our innocence.
Till
the quests of leaden savage arrows
slashed gossamer shadows
to pierce the night of our dream, and…
a lost ghost people died.
#RayBradburyandMartianChronicles #MartianLanding