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