Meat

The man who moved into town
three seasons ago
owned a quiet little shop
near Twilight Street and Old Crow

He worked the earliest hour
and the one nearest to dark
waiting for those running late for supper
or following the ones jogging in the park

A clever whisper and a snide hello
into his van, their limp body would go
past Willow Wind Pond
where white spider lilies grow

He was patient with each limb
as pieces slid across his scrapping table
tearing and peeling and striping
collecting the rib and round to label

No newspaper listed
any missing neighbor
no legal authority search
for recognition of his labor

And when folks in town would gather dismay
he would assert with heat
that he was the only one in town
who served fresh meat

Sharing a bit of fright with dVerse Poets on Open Link Night.

Sweetmeat

The smell of sweetmeat
carries a wisp of wind
and a cluster of
swoon swept
strawberry leaves,
to gather underneath
a butternut tree, bringing upon
a  waterlike dream
After the snow
the countess wakes
from her beauty sleep
swallowing slices of
buttermilk cream,
capturing winter glow in
her silver star emollient
smothering layers
of clouds and steam
across her salt scotched skin
Her arteries plump, hungry for
shimmer and gold,
saturated veins carrying impure blood
back to her heart
The reflection in the mirror
speaks rage and rumple
countless hours of
bloodless sleep
For a single stolen moment
of flickering light, she rises
only to fall back into her corpse
melting herself, silver and sugar
beneath the glittering tree, where
the Queen's sweetmeat
gathers hope
to feed her dreamlike sleep

Inspired by Shawna's Flipside Flotsam list
Shared at dVerse Poets Open Link Night

Luna

Half moon,
contrasting bloom
illuminating existence
in all things
the great still light
begins to weep
out of its drowsy sleep

New moon,
where she cradles
in the depth of bloom
between Earth and sun
silent white cinnamon pea
silver star 
scatters gold across the sea

Full moon,
aligned in celestial spirit
her shadowed speck
hidden from sight
a sound out of space
delicate feet, flowering light
the goddess of night


Written for dVerse Poets, where Mary is hosting Poetics on time and phase. 

Rainbow Haile

A special day for
the love-sick bean,

Helena
The shimmer in her heart
is confectionery,

sugar sweet
Her dance today, twice around Apollo's solar flare
Her early presence
illuminated
a crescent moon

on that day,
 the universe passed a secret message to me

a flush of glimmer came through
that wild blue moment

basking in her glistening light

as I caught the stars
at night

Happy Birthday, Haile!

We had four sons before Haile, our only girl. The boys are wonderful, she is definitely dessert. 

Sound

The heart
is a hungry casket
soundless quivering
swallowing and spitting
like the mouth
of the Aegean Sea

In the unlit place
among the ripeness
of fruit trees
I find her looking at me,
wearing bracelets
made by thieves

Out of the gap of night
a phantom crawls near,
amidst reality,
a song is heard
of a world
sound and clear

She puts my fingers against
the red lantern light
a spider sprays silk
sound, doubling in richness
brought through the wind
to the ear that listens

Water lapsing
internal crevasse, vibrations
twine tightly around our cells
afraid to relinquish
the depth beyond
our pillared self

She sits with her fingers
around an empty chalice
I look through the red
and the pink
and the pale, to find
the troubling thing

I watch her
spit her blood, white
into the cup
the sugar at the rim
transcends our shell
back(ward) towards light

Beads spill from her chest
hallowed-out,
whirling in sentiment
a circle, edges
over-sharpening
the chatter of sound

I find the thing
inside her, canker curse
terror scourge and rot
she askes me
to peel it
apart from her heart

Inspired by Shawna's Prompt Words
Sharing at dVerse Poets, Open Link Night

Yet They Drop

Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
Picket of trees whose silhouette is darker
and from all selfsubtracting hugely doom
treasures of reeking innocence are born
Inspect the colder distances, the far
Escape of your whole universe to night;
That watch the moon's blue craters, shadowy crust,
Ballooned in ghostly earnest on your sight
It is your hope that you will know the end
The woods are a well. The stars drop silently.

*Words and evoked images borrowed from Sylvia Plath, e.e. cummings, and Edgar Bowers.

Written for dVerse Poets where Samual Peralta has us mixing others' words with Form For All: Collage and the Art of Cento. Great Fun!

Autumn

A wistful song
for a leaf that begins to shake
against the cold

the light that begins to fade

holding, with thirst, the twilight of day

the bringer of silence
in perfect harmony

as the seasons meet

a hush of air that crawls with scattered leaves

our spirits
in balanced order,
on this night
through a crease in change

Happy Autumn Equinox!

Shared at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, Open Link Monday.

Beauty

Who are we

the ones that fall quietly from the sky

hang from thistle string

in our luxury

know nothing of the havoc 

below the light

Poetry for the Firefly Jar for The Sunday Challenge at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads. 

Apple Eyes

I listened to his story
about the time when
he planted his sight
underneath a locust tree
covered the hole
a feckless cure
his vision, entangling
the roots of the tree
he offered me a view
of rapture and ecstasy
and a pair of stars
to sew into my own
he said that he would hallow it out
and feed me from it
a bowl of fish, evolving
into a flowering moon, he lives without
they told me to flee in haste, to
mistrust his infallible word
his animus, to swallow you blind
I shuttered at the thought of him
losing his ariel mind
I listened to the others
waited too long
his gazing eye
lost to the music inside the sphere
I watered the soil
with my own tears
for the man who was
cast into this world
with apple eyes

Inspired by Shawna's Poetic Words list
Shared at dVerse Poets Open Link Night

Red

In the time of milk shadows
she walks down a crooked lane
spilling
black
block
hearts
from the inner trails of her womb
coughing out a breeze
that was once lost in
the changing of seeds
velvet red girl from woolly moss roots
her cry that seizes to burn
a fist for the free
anarchical in her dreams
up, onto the other side
the calm before the fire
rises
underneath a voluptuous moon
spreading the blooms in breaking through
and I want her fire, too

Written for dVerse Poetic in the exploration of rebellious art. 

Yellow Sky in Little Utopia

As the sky moves
flowers lean into the light

He said that once he loved a woman
in all her yellow hair
strangled me in passion free

He placed a string of yellow around my arm
and shared with me his penchant tongue
Our blood will soak into the sand, he cried

He held her smile and her rosy cheeks
and placed them on top of a pillow
wrapped his indulgence around my skin

possibilities slant with the tip of a branch
this mild distraction, quaint memory of Candace
his harmless notes, a mask of menace

The leaves have rearranged in this yellow sky
I move the light, shadows drawn
dark rain leaks from a star

Through winds at night she worshiped me, he tells
leaf-vein and artery loose, he pulls her air tight
Her breath drains free

The salt from her tears swelters in this tireless dream
tangled into the hallows of her withered scream
I know that she has turned yellow like me

Inspired by Shawna's Poetic Words list
Shared at dVerse Poets on Open Link Night

Sun King

In a harmonious mix of voice and spring

to him by whom the clouds linger and strew

spurious wing, where we hear the annual ring

in the womb, our dreams belong to the Sun King

 My littlest bean

wild at play 

on a summer day

 harmony

 and treasure

and the five points of my star

trailing the woods.

Happy Summer!

Written for dVerse Poets where Karin hosts Poetic, as a reflection on Summer.

Sand Dune

Inside a circle of stone, I stood
under a star-studded sky
He held, unshared, the silence in the air
In this old glittering place
in the changing of light
at the edge of the sea
He feeds me strange fruit
picked from a thin case
that widens and swallows in space

He opens his eyes wide
until the roots of his vision are torn
My mouth is full of berries
pulp and juice, leaking out into the sea
The women in the caves are smiling at me
I smell the sour tongue
of the one who is winding my mind
Hissing and sucking, the curve of the water
that pours from the umbilical sea

In the sand dune, he gathers my hand
inching towards the wet skull of low tide
Crying and spreading velvet feathers,
waxwings tangle the thoughts in my head
He soaks my skin in the chalky shore
where white foam scatters
reminding me of birth and the bitter taste
of wishes on a sun swept beach
where night rolls into the sea

Shared at dVerse Poets on Open Link Night

Cherry Blossom Seeds

In the early melody of morning
a string of amethyst ribbons
around the pine fire ring
Birth seeds and a song steals
what the bright bird sees
A cloud passes without delay
silent wounds hover over head

Bits of bad news, stained in paper
cut across a blown sky
in the east, the winter seed blooms
A cold fold of flesh
hangs in glass, bent sideways
retracing the whispers
left behind from rain

A lonely sight settles under a madrona tree
peeling red bark away in thin sheets
leaving silver satin skin
at an infectious height
In the west, cups are filling
with ample water
holding the world clear

I cut a piece of cloth and a shred of hair
place it inside the bowl
where a red rose blooms
Their pain will dry in ice and stone
birth seeds the ones who are left to fly
This night is mine for dance
a smile falls from the sky

Written for Shawna's Poetic Words List
Shared at dVerse Poets on Open Link Night

Butter

I made my way down the steep hill, bare feet above mossy felt, shedding the scales of youthful joy and momentous laughter, knowing each time that  my mother would be pleased. My bangles chiming along the way, doing their own enchanting dance around my slender arms, I would hurry home down the hill.

Aji, my father's mother, filled this jar especially well. She added a few sugary kisses and a bag of lemon drop lollies, the candy she would send me on my way with. Our weekly jar of ghee, butter, my mother would wait for so anxiously. She rarely went up to Aji's house herself, although we lived at the bottom of the hill and she owned the house we lived in. I would imagine that she would much rather keep her distance from Aji, for her moments alone with my grandmother would probably be spent grumbling about my father.

On those mild summer mornings, I was her messenger. Waking up early to the sound of bhajan, Indian chanting, the house slightly stale from a tang of masala and onion, for the evening’s dinner was always curried, I would find my mother dressed in silk, sweeping the back porch. She would ask me to wash up and pick out a dress. I had so many, stitched with lace, soft cotton, and sewn together in her moments just for me. I gathered up the yellow one with a ruffled collar and three white buttons along the chest, a mirage of speckled bangles, I rarely lived without, and I would wander through our house waiting for a jar. My mother would give me an empty one, still oily from last week’s ghee, and I would scurry away, over the hill. In all of my four years of life, this was my one chore. Hardly did I consider it much of a chore, rather a privilege being able to collect my grandmother's treasured butter and delivering it to my mother to simmer and sauté the weeks chicken and lamb and chickpea and potato dinners.

I'd sit at Aji's table next to her handicapped son, my uncle Jai Ram, he was much younger than my father. Not saying much, he would smile at me plenty, I remember the fear in my belly when he would give out a grin. I waited, drinking fresh milk from a small porcelain cup and eating spoonfuls of honey while Aji filled my mother's jar. Down the hill, my mother waited for me, only coming to see Aji when my father allowed.

After two seasons of honey and butter breakfasts and my delivery down the hill, we waved goodbye to our island with the hills. That would be the last that I would know of Aji. I like to imagine that she would continue to wake up early those mornings, boiling, watching it foam and sputter, caramelizing and carefully separating; spreading out her glass containers, smelling of nutty butter, cleaning up after Jai Ram.

Years later, my father would occasionally surprise me with a bagful of lemon drops. I couldn't quite taste these without craving honey and the smell of sautéed butter.

Written for dVerse Poets where Brain is helping us share a childhood memory, or other bits of history.

Rakhi

When a silk tread wraps around the moon
sibling love is bound in bandhan
shedding warmth in a lunar breeze
as the air fills with sugar and swoon

Sibling love, bound in bandhan
entwined silk, golden treads adorned by beads
as the air fills with sugar and swoon
their bond growing like weeds

Entwined silk, golden treads adorned by beads
tied to the hands of their brothers
their bond growing like weeds
the height of affection flatters

Tied to the hands of their brothers
shedding warmth in a lunar breeze
the height of affection flatters
silk treads wrap around the moon

Today is the celebration of Raksha Bandhan, falling on the full moon, in the Hindu calendar. This is when a sister denotes her devotion to her brother, who in turn vows to hold her in his protection for a lifetime long. Happy Brother's Day!
Shared at dVerse Poets, thank you Samuel for this challenge in pantoum. 

Dismal Moon

Inside the light of our mind there are trees, old and blue

where a weeping moon climbs slowly from behind the mountain of my eye

In the evening breeze, the dewberry leaves sparkle as dreary stars enter the sky

Worms as loose as pearls circle around the foot of the mind

I walk through rows of malt and weeds, senses rise to a spirituous hist between the trees

Inside the chapel, the bells are filling with blood

A snake holds his weight in the light of the sky

overexposed, red stigmata riding the ripping tide

Salt bleeds through the wounds, the humble structure penetrates loose

I believe in the tenderness of light made by a candle, the silent

and the strange, the face of the effigy raising towards me

Its arms wide open, abhorring the shade of shameless light inside,

not like the one made by the moon 

Inspired by Shawna's Poetic Words list 
Shared at dVerse Poets on Open Link Night

A Cold Kiss

The dust I hold in my hands
spill a ray of light in the dark

I hear the accents which speak
through rain and shine

My heart sways from kindling fire
to a thin cut of ice

How do I stay warm
when the kiss you left behind
turns to snow?

The tone is sweet and still
left to breathe in a sour thrill

Worn out by the way
that you tear me in

Love grows in liquid gloss
Hate heals this blissful loss

I watch my heart drift away
on the lifeless margin of the sparkling sea

Written for dVerse Poets as a contemplation on what is balanced

Northern Lights

Standing in the still

of a thin blue night

Cutting through ancient trees,

a comfort of light

I come across a cluster of life

hidden inside of calla rings

A species of endangered shapes

making chocolate out of ice

Their skin is warm and bare, like us,

yet softer than human wings

Their soil is fertile

until the salt water stings

They run to the pines at night

when fragments of rock empty the sky

Their tear drops fall

I collect them before they turn to shells

They share with me an ocean and cake

and a pint of hazardous rum

I dance with night and the youngest one

She asks me to save her from falling light

I hold her close and whisper through sweet gum

It is the rain in my voice that speaks for me

I feel their hearts, numb and white

An angel kneels to the frozen light

TWW: cut, endanger, hazard

Helena's Cry

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind." -Helena

On my morning walk, I stumbled upon a crow.

Who, in a raspy voice said, "Morning, I've been waiting for you."

I asked him with my brows, why?

"I have something to tell you. To tell Helena, won't you?

That the north wind has taken her Blue Jay away."

The sky that you saw last night was one that made our stars bright.

Snow has settled in,

his breath is numb and his voice is low.

He wants her to know that he had to fly.

The Coniferous branches are weak.

Tell Helena that he hopes she will not cry.

He's taken with him, nuts and grain.

I helped him carry a bit of shrub.

He hopes that she will be a dear and wait for him until next year.

"Won't you assure her of one thing?"

I answered, yes.

"That he will hear her lovesick cries."

And in the spring, he asks that she wait in the woods,

where her home is no longer dark.

Before he left he showed me a potion:

of love, if it is possible.

This part, Helena must not know,

for magic is needed.

When cherries begin to blossom,

perhaps they will elope.

Shared with dVerse Poets on Open Link Night

Uprise

I woke in a field
watching a goat
eat the farmer's hay

A flower sat out all night,
a wrinkled leaf
turning its page at dawn

A parade moves forward
fleeing south through tunnels, free
they burrow underground

Their fate above their heads,
a heart below glimmer
I watch them run and sing a song, free

In the shade, the notes are dull
Evening dusk and morning day
soon, the taste of home will fade

They stand tall on their feet
where land is promised,
indentured spirits melt in the sun

The leaf has veins,
blood and water and spider
I feel them full of rain

The smell of sweat drips from their strength
their homes burned, hope tangled
tarred and feathered

In this field
the sun is warm,
dandelions will flower

A pod of hundreds of seeds
the white are hair,
the brown, seeds in the middle

They hold sails to carry them far
The goats have moved on to grass
I blow the seeds away in the wind

TWW: feel, shade, tangle

Aruna's Eyes

Before my father walked into the light my mother's eyes were the color of a caelum sky. She never saw the vile things he did. His tea, with milk and spice was always ready for him. On days that he spent time with us, she smelled of vanilla and rose. He gave her treasured jewels that she kept in pill boxes. There was always something new for her to wear. She was a tall woman, the length of secrets, her legs slender and always bare of stockings. Her dresses were short: violets, crimson, maroon, thick belts hugged her slim waist. She was henna and onyx. Beautiful and strange. Why would my father lose his way?

Her eyes found a way to see only what she wanted to know. Only what was undisturbed, newly born, not yet tarnished.

He would only stay for a few days at a time. His work was important, my mother would say. And in his absence she would play her violin. I'd listen to her, playing to the wind, spying on her from a window bench in an upstairs room. She kept her distance from me during this time. She roamed our house alone, those days when I lived with a ghost. I was left to care for myself. My clothes didn't get washed but I would cook my own meals. I learned to bake, scones and muffins for dinner, hoping that the scents would awaken my mother. Outside, under a trellis, crawling with stars from jasmine and anise, I would find her sitting for hours. When my father was away she didn't eat. She would make bouquets, ornamenting her empty space, her violin never leaving her shoulder, bottles of Bordeaux, Massandra, and Montrachet she emptied.

My father had another life. It wasn't as though I didn't know this. She forced me to believe that he had troubles, ones that he needed to figure out in his own space. My mother fooled herself, she decided that I was naive.

There was an autumn morning when the world was turning orange and the winged things were taking flight. I woke up early knowing that my father had left in the middle of the night. I found a stack of boxes sitting on our kitchenette table. Gorgeous hat boxes, I know they held things that made women beautiful, perfumed scarves, mohair and muslin.

I played in the garden till noon that day. When my mother decided to wake she came to visit me. She walked towards me softly, her feet bare, her presence unexpected. Across from me she hugged herself, draped in a cream colored robe. Her skin was starchy and pale and she smelled of grapes and sickness. She explained to me that my father was gone. She told me that he had taken his life or so, that his troubles had taken him. She said that he suffered deep inside of his head. My mother stood across from me that day, her cheeks salty and smeared with blush, and covered me with her lie. She said that he faded into the light, this is what she said. I knew it was a lie; he decided to stay in that other world that he lived in, leaving my mother and her blueish eyes, colorless and faint. Leaving her to fill her boxes with shame.

For dVerse Poets, happy anniversary, on Open Link Night. Cheers!

Petals

"These days are like blank paper, slowly being drawn on."
-Sahaj Jahson

Down at the bottom of the ocean
I write them down
streaming loose, a spill of silver

With my wild eye
the colors begin to change
tethered and chained, unleash

Tearing off sweet petals,
licking love from warm places
inside the womb, full of words

As we write
our lives will change,
the earnest of our hearts

Liquid cream with
honeyed milk,
my mouth begins to water

In the middle of night
I wake in fever, biting these words,
petals pressed into paper

Burn our mouth
ban from speech
I live my life on wings

In the light of oeuvre, poetic or prose
we write them down
and make things right

I place a star on top of a tree
an island in the sun,
the sky begins to glow

* Sahaj is my eight year old and the quote is a reference to art and our summer. 
Written for dVerse Poets, Ars Poetica-Poems about Poetry

Weathered Wing

Empyrean and earthy,

along morning's earliest peak

The water, steadily, falling

The only way I would find her,

in trance, listening to an early bird calling

She lived her nights in a hallowed out tree,

feasting on bugs, feathers, and feet

Today, she offered me a different treat,

a handful of berries:

sugar pear, saskatoons, elder, globular in shape

They were sweet and smelled of September sun

I wanted to tell her how beautiful she had become,

but her skin had started falling off,

revealing brushed flesh and swollen vessels

I rubbed my fingers along her back,

her spine ached and curled underneath her gown,

as old as the decades that had long passed

She coughed and hissed,

spraying out a mirage of seeds and blood

My time with her was short now,

as Earth searched for its coldest hour,

beckoning frigide seasons filled with powder,

swallowing her breath,

stale and sour

And on the darkest hour,

when Anubis comes back to wash away all that is fertile,

the soles of her feet, I'd watch

sink into bearing soil

Her arms, reaching out

holding on, as the rest of her flesh,

ripe and bittersweet,

would silently fall

And Earth,

closing its mouth, once again,

on all that has lived

long enough

For the celebration over at dVerse Poets on Open Link Night. Congratulations on the year, glad I've found you guys! Cheers!

Moonshine and Rain

Inside of a bubble
the air is thin and clean

After the rain
I walk along the edge of the sea
under the globe which holds our light
no one found, but moth and mite
trapped in warm blood
I sit alone
a cup full of honey and spirits in my hand
I take a sip, to forget that I drink
I pull the moon down, close to my chest
white heat, warm as wool
My shadow takes a seat
We sit in sand and laughter, make merry,
before this spring night fades away
For the ones who have washed forward,
drowned to storm and stone,
I drink with the moon and my form
We make a promise,
sun showers and sweet dew-
the ones we break and burn
My shadow stands,
a molten mist,
scatters into the sea
The moon walks home
I wait for the next rain

Written for dverse Poets and Sunday Scribblings

Queen Anne

A pear is rich and ripe and smells of yellow
the flavor of babies breath
From loose strings, things will grow

We laugh at the root of blood

Queen Anne, sewn up in lace

She remembers feeding us plum, while

she slept with Sweet William

eating snowberries off of his tongue

We dance around a cornflower ring

spitting out lotus petals, unity in her writhe

She sits in the middle, a mouth stuffed with livid earth

We force her to listen to our screams

Those moonless nights, we walked on stolen toes

Her buffering mouth, no apology rose

She gave us her eyes to borrow for a day, once

Our pendant pupils in transition lens:

silk and fruit, boundless as the sea

our hearts, draping over the moon.

We hung Sweet William from licorice rows

He bleeds from the tip of his nose

We laugh at the root of majesty

Our silver Queen, the bud of our dreams

If I were to give you twilight by summer
would you catch the tears of winter for me?


Written for Three Word Wednesday: buffer, transition, unity

Dance in Air

I count and wait as they dance on:


After the flake and the flurry
there is something left behind
in her eyes, a powered sky

Our wings mix with colors
where the snow bleeds red
in my hands, a pocket of time

A night between thin air
Her song, danser dans l'air
in my heart, blood stains blue

Earth empties its waste
I count and wait
in her scent, love holds true

The darling buds of May
a moon beginning to wane
in my dream, I dance with you


Inspired by Marian at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads where she shares her admiration for The Jayhawks.
Shared at Sunday Scribblings, my form of 'stretch' is to dance. 

Morning Steal

A dust of snow melts in red
Dust I catch in waves, my letters
of skin, my morning steal, head peel
Snow eats, worn through the mist in.
Melts through cell, seed, kiss helps me
in hearts he lays, heal this color
Red layer moves still, night source real.


Written for dVerse Poets where Samuel Peralta asks that we write a Square Poem today. 

Wind Chips

In the garden where I played in the early days, an abandoned well sat in the corner with an empty spring. When we moved into the house, my father had promised my mother that he would cover it. Soon after the move his fate fell ill and we were forced to say goodbye to him. My mother abandoned us for the sitting room on the second floor on the east wing. At his wake, in the traditional way inside of our home, I held my sister's hand, beeswax melting our pain, we watched our mother place her heart onto his chest, pulverizing, particles of light bleeding into his pith.

My sister and I tended to the garden where seeds were sown. A wild brush of ivy began to cover the well. We played there everyday, but I was the only one to hear the ring. I clipped away at the corners of the ivy every time the chime rang. By morning, a new cluster crept and covered the hole.

I hurried out to the garden at twilight, watching the columbine drink the rain. I waited to hear the ring. It slid into my ears, taunting, tickling my drum. After supper for endless nights, I set the dishes and spent the last hour sitting on the benches in the garden. Flipping pages of Frances Burnett, I tried not to listen. Hampered by wonder, I watched pebbled stones fall into the hole.

The silhouette at the bottom spoke in a cold whisper. She said that she wished to touch my hair. She said that she had a bell, one that was heard only by the most fortunate ear. I told her that I had listened for weeks. She said that she knew and that she could not be without my tangled hair. She asked that I lean in, for her voice was too harsh to do more than whisper. I leaned my head in and my lungs filled with myrrh and spearmint and pepper.  She reached out a hand. The tips of her fingers were purple and pale. I didn't hesitate. I felt a loss of wind as I entered the tunnel. My head hollowed and her face nestled into my hair as she pulled me, still and swift, underneath the water.

TWW: hamper, pulverize, taunt

The Doors of Perception

In the breath of music
this memory lies:

A quarter cafe
south of Nantes
belle ville française
my heart left open in opium eyes

A face, white washed
rolling papers
She asked me to try
the voice on the radio replied

The time when age fell astray
we dye the days in purple haze
she tore a hole through my skin
a pool of rain poured in

From raspberry lips,
a psychedelic smile
I take the trip
where honey drips
The weight of my world
I place on her whole,
yellows and blues, in my mind, true
In this whim of evolution the angelfish swim

I wake in her yogic mist, in the morning
we walk to the market holding roses
I say goodbye to my sweetest tooth
absinthe left in my lungs

Beneath the billow, a pixie cries
I wake the sound, taste the sky
Again, I hope to see the shell
of her doll's eyes


Listening to The Doors and playing with Shawna's words from Midweek Melting and Monday Melting at Rosemary Mint. Adore. 

Gold

A recent resort, not so far away from home.

Falling into a lucid picture

at King's Beach, North Lake Tahoe,

where I think we found gold.

Morning view at our door

 Synchronized, the oldest two

Dancing in the clouds

a snow-capped view

laughter as my company

The millions who've seen

the wash, undo

 Trampoline play in the belly of the blue

 Wandering into

the light of morning dew

tracing liquid hue, 

a taste of frothy air
inside, an angel's view

Shadow of Hope

When a revolution was fresh, life was good

From a royal bloodline, it's nobility of Italy, a commander was born

It has been repeated that Bonaparte was 

the greatest military commander of all time

His coup d'état, the 18th of Brumaire, 

led to French Consulate, and on to Emperor

His campaigns, so victorious

Would he have ever dreamed, two hundred years later,

military academies would study his tactics all throughout the world?

Bonaparte, the Emperor

With a Grande Armée, their faith so religiously placed upon him

He who spent his youthfulness hating a country he would one day rule

A barbarous Corsican, stories would say

He would eventually conquer his conqueror

and he would have his good day

An idealistic revolutionary

He vowed that Corsica would be part of Revolutionary France

Exiled, a mountain man for days, his own people chasing him out

He became a refugee, banished from the land of his birth

Little did France know, what rebel their beloved Emperor would be

When he was twenty-six he wrote, "The enemy attacked us. 

We killed a great many of them. Now all is quiet... I could not be happier."

And on he would reign

With a guerrilla in Spain, Napoleon would shake

Bonaparte would soon make his most fatal mistake

An invasion of Russia, would leave the French hegemony in Europe,

bitter and weak

Crossing the river, Neman, half a million men strong,

the Grande Armée marched through western Russia

The fate of the war, decided on the Moscow front

Napoleon's army, frailed

Russians, settled and scorched-earth

The largest and bloodiest single action of the Napoleon Wars

While he was left with no more men waiting to refill his loses, 

Russia rained with millions

With Russia replenished, someone else lived this good life

Napoleon was forced to retreat the same way he had come to 

Moscow, emptied

And riddled with death

When Tolstoy wrote, soon after, "..one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it.

Let the dead bury the dead, but while I'm alive, I must live and be happy.”

He would write of Napoleon's war and his peace.

For Fireblossom Friday at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Star

There is a waxy glow
where the air burns blue
A breeze, blowing in fragments of dreams

I reach for the hand covered in sap
Her name is Anise, a head full of felted knots
She carries a jar filled with star light and the sound between the trees

On a blanket we stretch our hearts open
our vision, mixing up the sky
Pieces of harmony sticking to our skin

She tells me of the time
when the world will cover in glass
of the cold blown wind

In her palm, she holds a little girl
struggling in the dark with an open umbrella
the kind of rain that whispers in some other world

From an Empress tree, I pick a heart-shaped leaf, place it in her palm
The little girl takes a seat, we sprinkle in carnation pink, light leniency,
camellia white, Anise lifts the fog

I hold her hand in the skim of the glow
Where apricots melt into plums
I kiss the tongue of love

Chief

In this life, love is my temple
the strange, the strong, the free
souls entwine, in the eye of the trinity

Filling our basket with five babies
in a world
where the ocean moves slow

This is the one we share in:
One life, one love, I and I
these feet that walk above the sea

I vow to take this hand
a promise beyond the end
Death will do nothing part

I place a mala in your hair
petals at your feet, durdum in hand
With you in this place, our tribe, I love

While the rest of the world sleeps
the father of my children
is still, the man of my dreams

*mala-spiritual beads used for chanting/reciting mantras
*durdum-drum used in prayer/spiritual sound

Nisse's Necklace

I drove home that morning
in which hour
the air was old and used
The stars and the night, left in my hair
taking the weight of Lucifer home, desperate to lose his smell

I do it so well
Where I lay down
they may live over and over again
I think of the trumpet pitchers
swaying tall in the wind, where the river pours into Hell

Luring by sight
a mask made of mud and mold
lungs filled with fever
a clear moon clinging invisible air, hanging from lights
This is where the devil holds on tight

The thoughts in the dark, murmuring deep
Rich in sand and slut and sleep
Empty eyes, lucid dreams, painted women
sprite and strumpet, staining what is white
This is the sight that asks nothing of life

I drove home, losing the night
minced clouds in my fingers
catching pieces of trailing sea
rubbing out the moment when I ate men
swelling their skin and setting cells free

Morning Light

Copy Right © 2012 Hannah Gosselin ~ Open Palms

Copy Right © 2012 Hannah Gosselin ~ Proud Poppy

We are as the morning sun

Light

with passion

sometimes wanting

the weight of the sea

When the trident shines

our music plays itself

His arms are open

Light

Into the depth beyond colors and creed

A moment in dance never forgotten

with another memory

Poseidon leaves, Artemis called upon to ease the pain

in Light

the sea will claim

Where blame lays

a strain of paper poppies

loose and liquid

in our wanting with capsule eyes

Light

A field holds weight, the sea is never the same

Copy Right © 2012 Hannah Gosselin ~ Pier Post Persisting 

Copy Right © 2012 Hannah Gosselin ~ Stumbling for Forget-Me-Nots

Written for The Sunday Challenge at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads~featuring inspiring words and images of Hannah Gosselin. 
Linked to One Single Impression: wanting. 

Cake on the Moon

In the middle of the night,
when my brother would howl in fits of laughter
I would carry a candle into his room.

His eyes lay dead
his mouth curled open, pink and red.
Some nights, his face would melt and his hair turned gray.

In the mornings, I would ask my mother,
"At that hour of night, what does he see?"
She resigned my worry, "He is eating cake on the moon, my dear."

Each evening, I followed his fit,
holding a beam over his head.
His laughter frozen, his tongue long and loose.

Every night, his sheets were damp,
his hand held still.
In my ears, his titter turned to a hollowed scream.

On the sixth night, his skin covered in miry film
his room, a bulk of heathered mist.
What would I see if I stayed through the night? 


At his feet, I slipped into sleep
My eyes glued shut,
my mouth began a howl in laughter.

From the corner, something came
I could hear my brother, still,
his weeping laughter.

In the morning
patches of skin had fallen from my feet,
teeth and hair were scattered around his room.

My mother asked why I stayed in his bed.
"He was lonely Mother,
so he took me to the moon."

Milk

Inside a pouch in my heart
I carry a thing
Do you remember the night?

The first star, awake
above our heads
Reaching up to touch

collecting dust in our hands
Do you remember,
when you peeled apart my skin?

Leaving blue, open air
turning my heart to red
filling the sack, made of skin

Inside the pouch, you left a thing
a cluster of dust, star light, a voice in the rain
a memory made in milk

Where the moon is melting
the sun will carry on
and sing

Imperial Stone

I spent early evenings in the fields
with mothers, my own, and those
who were painted in frosted glass

Daughters, hunched between the rows
a litter of pauper sheep
worn, wooded toes

trailing tales of vine and grape
a hue of women, hollow eyes, baked and stained
his story told

Ninette was her own
she fed on his ruin:
'We march on Moscow', flurry firn, his error

'We send more', she flung handfuls of sweetened pebbles into the air
The taste in my mouth
thick and sour

Our brothers and fathers
yet to come home
And those who were buried, turned to fish under the snow

Our trust, he ate, and swallowed whole
His vindication:
The creeping plant in Burgundy, turning to black, peppered and old

Before him, there was a King who borrowed our souls
What was left, we sold to him, he used us to color the North in blood
A jingle still rings of children who are made of stone and snow

Our soul society

I sat inside
a narrow line, filling with thin air
A flooding pool
inside my sour lung
Unfolding a page to write

the last letter home
What I might say:
To my mother, who sleeps
inside of piano plates
'Forgive my silver tongue'

My brother, whose northern light shines clear
'I ask that you follow
the road who has not sought one
Shallow the hole
where society has won'

My walls confined
Aurelian, lost of gild and gold
Ghost in a world
who litters in pine and cream, hanker and lust
Through knots in rope, I swallow my soul


Words selected by Shawna at rosemary mint for Monday Melting
Also linked to the Poetry Pantry @ Poets United

Sleep in amore

Inside her tomb, softly fixed
When days of strange laid to rest
her pillowy mouth, splitting
to taste its drifting wind

Her being, forlorn
spent inside of shadows
drawing up in this hole, licking
a taste of shutter beyond sleep

At her shoulder, a biting breath
one who perished within the hour
Feeding her songs
of clustered blood and binding wind

Their union, softly fixed
In this hole, where beetles feed, on bodied tissue and drying meat
enamored, in love
a fancied taste in blinking sleep

A Blog Award

I recently received a lovely little acknowledgement from two wonderful blogger friends who feel that my space here is creative. The Kreativ Blogger Award was passed along to me by Jen at Crafting Magic, a YA fantasy author who fills her space with book reviews, her experience teaching, beautiful travel photos, and her lovely words and by Danielle at Sweet Tea Reads who shares with us her fiction, her sweet recipes, and her furry friends. Thanks so much!

The rules of accepting this award are as follows:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you!

2. Share ten little known things about yourself.

3. Nominate six other bloggers for the award and inform them of their win... Fun!


So, here are my ten:
1. I was born on an island and I don't know how to swim.

2. My mother accompanied me when I asked to get my first tattoo, a spiritual symbol of sound.

3. I chose to eat vegetarian at age seventeen and then vegan, which I couldn't stick with, I need real cheese.

4. Wind chimes are both comforting and creepy.

5. Nothing more terrifying to me than a snake.

6. After high school, I made coffee for doctors.

7. I met my husband and married before finishing college.

8. I treasure my collection of comic books.

9. My favorite movies are the ones that steal your calm and stick to your nerves.

10. I write best when Earth is slightly damp.

And, here is the best part, choosing six blogger I love to visit with:
Tricia at the thing with feathers - There isn't a single thing that she couldn't turn into beauty.

Jae at Jae Rose - Where a collection of words force you into places that are often hard to touch.

Debra at DREAM WEAVER - She asks that we consider the important things.

Diana at BABYBEARSHOP confectionery - Her ambition, beautiful and her world, green and organic.

Sreeja at writing on just to write... - Her words are colorful and full of question.

Shawna at rosemary mint -  A gorgeous place for words. She suggests word prompts, for example, giving a list and asking you to do things such as: "Rub the words between your fingers, and see which ones leave a mark on your skin. Then use them to write a poem." Adore.

To Jen and Danielle, merci merci!      

Sullen Smoke

Lain in sinking rest
beneath rain on a wrinkled roof
I was told,
the teeth in Hell are clean.

A novice wife, whose home was lost
to blinking moth
and other winged things,
of failing vein.

In her scarf I wrapped relish and flesh
wiping her seared spot, of passion and mirth
His tongue incapable of licking clean,
left inside her spleen.


Written for Three Word Wednesday. 

Sunday Scribblings: In the Beginning

Fiji, an ocean ago
The river and laundry outside
and enormous rocks
Chasing my mother
baskets tucked under her arms
My bangles, dancing along my arms
Little red scooter
wooden and worn
Coconut milk early in the morning
Warm rain
lizards slithering in rich hue
teensy-weensy frogs
Earth is a spell in green
Chutney and pickle
onion and pepper
My kaleidoscopic world
Nani and the ghee, my grandmother and the sacred butter
My mother, taller than trees
willowy and wise
A fusion of clove
cardamom
camphor
Her hair, onyx. Endless
Her eyes, tired and stone...

Sweet sixteen, an ocean away from home
sloshed and stoned
Goodbye daddy
California, alone
Summer in the valley
relentless heat
Stale and sugar plump
My mother, strange and far
Bittersweet
Friendship and solace
Midnight movies on the Old Sac lawn
Mushrooms and ice-cream and voices
A sodden song
A river so long
Trips and talks and a decade to treasure
Water, a wave, and the wash...

Acceptance
trail
renewal
A new shore, North Beach
more enormous rocks

Speckle of Air

Standing in the shadow
of a soaring Paper Birch,
its deciduous wings
freckled with snow,
a little girl cries
I find her straying
her lips are smothered in glue,
the life in her eyes tremble
Behind the closed door
the color is blue
I want to keep her voice
and speak to her of beautiful things
Light has left the sky
my throat swallows my words
I rest my hand on her velvet hair
With scattered wings
I draw a castle in the air
I dampen her mouth with
spit and snow
Her life is cold
and her body is bruised
I tell her a story
where the moon is white
and little people are safe to dance
in the middle of night
Her breath has softened
her heart is slow
The snow fades
from freckle to foe
On her plastic skin
I lay a kiss
The petals in my journal
begin to crack and dry

Written for Three Word Wednesday

A to Z Challenge: Reflections

This was my first year aboard the A to Z Challenge and it was electric. With more than 17,000 participates, I never imagined this experience to be intimate. I was wrong. I wasn't able to visit as many blogs as I hoped, but the circle that I was able to create holds warm hearts and essential thoughts.
When I started blogging, it was a journal that no one needed to see. Something I would organize and print one day and share with the family. I added love on my children's birthdays, photos of gardens and crocheted things, and words that sounded like poetry when I wrote them down.
When people started to view, I wanted to share more. I continued to write in the sky. There was a loose connection for quite some time. Then I added my blog to the A to Z sign up list and watched it float away into a mess of names, feeling blind on stage. Soon enough, a lovely string of conversations developed and I quickly found my place.
Thank you to Arlee Bird for creating such a fun challenge, and all of the hosts, who accept the challenge as well, and the participants who keep the inspiration alive. I've met a wonderful group of people here who I hope to keep in touch with throughout the year. Next year, a definite engagement with A to Z again!

Not so lost in the stars anymore, this place is more intrinsic. 

Thanks A to Z!

Sunday Scribblings: Wild

I remember a night,

waking up in the middle

A deer stood at the foot of my bed

Her eyes were white

and her mouth, spoiled with red

She asked me to come with her

I stepped out of my gown,

my skin was cellophane, lucid like glass

I slipped into the night with her

Beneath a sky where stars are strung in lace,

we ran through the night

Hours held together by invisible string,

bare underneath a Blue moon

She fed me a feast,

Lavadora,

Honeysuckle,

wet roses,

basil with licorice tips

The meadow was ours

We covered ourselves in mint

The water was full of jewels

We swam in its belly

and drank from its mouth

She touched my skin

I woke in the morning

when Snow in the Summers

sparkles with dew

In my room

the air was still melting

My hair was covered in mint

I chewed the petals in my mouth

Sweet Tooth

This morning, he hiked across the wooded bridge,
along the blackberry path,
just the same.
The night had been enough.
It gave a generous moon,
moments of lust and love.
His heart was not the same.
This morning, the world washed away,
penalized by urge.
His age empty,
his moral lost.
He wandered to the edge,
the cliff hung over,
pointing out in blame
to the world who bellows below.
A row of silence slurred,
his memory went first.
His heart was split and speared,
he wanted to give it away.
He slipped out of wardrobe,
his bare toes slide into earth.
The sun walked over the moon,
his hunger, the craving, his excessive desire
rolled neatly into dust.
The part of him
that swims inside of himself
fell asleep in Hell.
This morning, above a world
where cheap perfume is sold,
he gave his insatiable eye away
and laid himself to rest.


For a place that is new to me, Three Word Wednesday.

Sunday Scribblings: Storm and A to Z: Zombies

The last letter for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.
                                   and
This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is storm.

Z is for Zombies

     I watched Derry drag the body across the field, his fingers gripped onto the cuff of its pant legs. 

     "Why are you touching it?" I whispered, chocking on my own question.

     "Help me!"

     "We've killed it already. What are you doing?" I pleaded.

     "It's the smell." I watched him pull out the ax from his hip. He tugged at the dead mans arm then laid the weapon across his wrist, copping through the entire bone.

     He throw the severed hand towards me. Without intention, I caught it. I kept the vomit in my mouth.

     "Smear the blood on your clothes. Don't get any on your skin," he ordered.

     I clasped the fingers into my own palm. What was left of this life dripped onto the earth at my feet. 

     "Don't waste it. Spread it onto yourself". He stabbed at the stomach and pulled out enough to cover himself with. "We know that they are not the most clever creatures, right? Yet, I've never seen them mistake one of us for them nor one of them for us. I've been trying to figure out what it is that helps them tell us apart. It's the smell, I know it is." He covered his arms in liquid and string.
     "I..I don't know..."
     "I'm not saying that they are as keen as hounds of blood, but it has to do with the stench, I'm sure of that."  At arms length, he cut of the other side for me.
     I couldn't control my stomach any longer. I hurled my insides out and rubbed old flesh across my clothes. I wasn't dead yet and I didn't want to be one of them, so I would hold my breath while I covered myself in their stench. "I hope this works."
     "You and me both."
     We cut across the field and followed the main road that led into town. The ammunition store wouldn't be far, but the streets would be crawling with them.
     "Are you ready for this?" Derry asked as we entered their world.
     "I don't know."
     A stream of harsh clouds had followed us in. "No. It can't rain now." In all of my hurling discontent, I hadn't considered this.
     "Here's one of them. Roy, move slowly. Make a moaning sound as you move past him."
     I staggered past the dead man. He stared at me, his face empty of its nose. He groaned and carried on past me. My heart rolled out of my shoes.
     "It's working. This is going to be fine. Through the alley way and over to Mill Street."
     "Derry, we need to move faster. Let's get the guns we need and make it back across before the rain." I started to run, until the end of the alley way, and then, again, we became dead  with them.
     We walked side-by-side with them. Pieces of cloth, bone, and body lingered along the street. The store was in sight. We broke through the glass and crawled in. They heard.
     "We need to hurry."
     I had never seen so many guns in my entire life. "What do we get?"
     "Everything. And extra ammo."
     We filled our bags and listened as their swaying steps became closer. With our loot, we rushed to the door. They were there with their hearts hungry. Derry opened the door. We glided past them and the rain fell. I whimpered.
     "Keep moving." Beyond the flesh, I could smell Derry's fear.
     We moved and the storm moved and their eyes moved along with us. We ran and they poured out of each alley. Their arms reaching out in front of them, calling out to us, desperately hoping to make us into one of them.