Blue (all I want)

I’ve been to sea before
I’ve been to sky between
I’ve gathered gifts of air
the road under my skin

I’ve asked the why and where
the where of going round
the why of what I seek
the where of why I’m bound

I’m bound to sail away
my mind tells me to roam
but anchors pull my heart
and sing my wandering home

I’ll sing a lullaby
of needle under skin
the waves will help me fly
the spiral shell within

I had been working on this collage, so the dVerse prompt for a song spurred me to finish it.  In our mid-teens, my best friend Alfie and I would play our guitars with the radio on and write our own songs for hours, either at her house or mine, but I haven’t written any lyrics since then.  Where are all those songs now?–I don’t know, although I do strangely remember one, a love song I wrote for her when she had a crush on a boy she met over one summer.

And Joni…this song (and album) are just about perfect.  Always lodged in my brain.

Alfie and Joni:

Here is a shell for you
Inside you’ll hear a sigh
A foggy lullaby
There is your song from me

Patchwork#2

A husband’s work shirt. A daughter’s favorite dress.  A coat worn first by cousins.  The curtains that once caught the air in the kitchen window.

Convergence of scraps
patching together stories
raveled by the past

Lines do not seek verticals or horizontals. Edges founder in imprecision.  Colors speak loudly and urgently.

Each stitch conjures a voice, face,
gesture—a way of being

A bed now comforted with reflection and dreams.

 

I’ve tried another haibun for Colleen’s weekly poetry challenge.  The collage is a piece I found in my old portfolio, dated 1979.  I think it was inspired by seeing the Gee’s Bend quilts.

August 2017

particles playing
a confusion of wavelengths
sun water air light

Haiku for Colleen’s weekly prompt.  Summer is winding down.

 

Mask

In the intersection between
earth and air—in the space between
coming and going, was and to be—

The other side is inverted
consumed created inserted—
energy takes form—threshold, key–

Opposites crushed in collusion–
time transfigured by illusion—
door opening to nobody.

Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above, was the inspiration for my poem and art.  I painted the fire, then cut it into squares, rearranged it, and stitched it together.  The poetry form is nove otto.

I don’t know why, but this photo reminded me of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.  Is that his hat burning…?

 

 

 

Headline Haiku: in which endings are both lost and multipled (War is Not Healthy #3)

Silence weeps
and eyes refuse sight.
No questions
can be posed,
nor answers given. Light is
erased. Dust and blood.

The news we see now is overwhelmed with US–our own politics are so chaotic and overwhelming that what is going on in the rest of the world seems almost to have disappeared.  This Headline Haiku was done by me months ago, from what seems to have been a different lifetime of everyday concerns and headlines.

But people are still dying in, and fleeing from, Syria.  And the world still seems paralyzed in response.

My two previously posted Headline Haikus about Syria are currently appearing in the exhibit “We the People: Political Art in an Age of Discord” at the Barrett Art Center, in Poughkeepsie, NY.  All the work in the show is posted online here; Trump is definitely there, but not always front and center.

Out of sight
eyes and ears closing
refugees
out of mind
desperate lost abandoned
Is this will divine?

Politics is local, but we are connected in humanity and survival with all the peoples of the world.  We should not forget that.

 

July 2016

May your seas harbor
a transparent clarity
that mirrors your heart.

A grid and haiku for summer and July, using Colleen’s prompts for the week.

Shadows #5 and #22

5
Angels are
not shadows.  Angels
are vessels,
complex fire
of holy return–lucent
keepers of to be.

22
Dream shadows
into matter.  Breathe
awe into
emptiness,
growing large.  Embrace each cell,
illuminated.

My response to Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above.  I have been working on a series of shadow-themed shadorma poems (a form I really like and use a lot), and many of them would have served Sue’s photo well.  They are still all in process, but these two may be closer to complete than most.

And in another bit of WordPress crosscurrenting, read Jennifer Knoblock’s wonderful poem “contemplation 9: you stumble”, posted yesterday.

I photographed my stitched paper/collage taped on the window, so the light would shine through the holes I made in the spiral.  Below, how it looks without the sun behind it.

“Both light and shadow are the dance of love.”
–Rumi

Threaded

On its way
from crimson to blue,
violet bleeds
dusk–verses
threaded through the deep silence
of retreating skies.

Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, below, was the inspiration for my embroidered watercolor and poem.

The land and air have morphed into water I think….

Sky Dancing

like calligraphy
skywriting black against blue
clouds and trees dancing

Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above, gave me a chance to try an idea I’ve been thinking about for awhile.  A few years ago I did a cross-stitch poem on paper, and I was intrigued by the pattern that appeared on the back.  This seemed the perfect opportunity to see what would happen if I tried it over some watercolor collaged together.

I think I may have overdone it with the stitching, but I can always pull some out; the holes in the paper will make a subtle and interesting pattern too.  I’ll look at it for awhile and think about it.

Here’s the poem side, with part of the haiku and some patterns (I wanted to try those out as well).

 

If It’s Magic

I did this little magician stitched collage for Rochester Contemporary Art Center’s (RoCo) 6 x 6 fundraiser.  I can’t remember where I first heard about it, but I’ve been sending them a piece of art to sell for a few years.  The opening is tonight, so if you are in the neighborhood…

magic growls liquid
breezes haunted by secrets
foolish wild wet stars

night is bleeding vast desire
day embraces naked sky

The Magnetic Oracle made me think of Stevie Wonder today.

If it’s magic
Then why can’t it be everlasting
Like the sun that always shines
Like the poets in this rhyme
Like the galaxies in time
….
It holds the key to every heart
Throughout the universe
It fills you up without a bite
And quenches every thirst