Poem at “Formidable Woman”
My thanks to editor d. ellis phelps for her lovely post about Laura Nyro that includes words from, and a link to, my poem “Gonna Take a Miracle (for Laura Nyro)”. You can find it here.
Turning
Demented, unwanted, our dances are old–
we do not fear the dark.
We cast into circles, the moon for to hold–
demented, unwanted, our dances are old.
Our revenants echo as mountains unfold–
like orbiting stars, their shadows embark.
Demented, unwanted, our dances are old–
we do not fear the dark.
Inspired by Sue Vincent’s prompt photo, above, and also a conversation I had with a friend about a movie she had seen about Africa’s witch camps.
I did two different collage interpretations.
The poem is a triolet. I’m still caught in repetition and rhyme.
Societies all over the world attempt to contain and isolate the difficult and problematic, the despairing, the abandoned, the female, the elderly, the ill, children, anyone inconvenient–there are witch camps everywhere if you care to look.
From One to the Next
Like a murmuring moon,
my lunation turns and repeats,
always unfinished.
As indistinct as air–
unbroken darkness veiled
in expanding light.
Before and after become lost–
the shifting rhymes
remain untamed.
The edge waxes and wanes.
The colors blend and unrainbow–
silent, dazzled, unforeseen.
A quadrille for dVerse (murmur), which also includes this week’s words from the Secret Keeper. It was also inspired by Frank Tassone’s hazy moon challenge, although I’m not sure these verses meet any real criteria for haiku.
With the Moon on my Wings
The past holds the door with the moon on my wings
between now and before with the moon on my wings.
I look to the tree with the moon on my wings
for the power of three with the moon on my wings.
The threshold unfolding with the moon on my wings,
releasing and holding with the moon on my wings.
I look to the earth with the moon on my wings
for death and rebirth with the moon on my wings.
What will be has an end with the moon on my wings
that will fade and begin with the moon on my wings.
I look to the stones with the moon on my wings
to honor the bones with the moon on my wings.
Water that flows with the moon on my wings,
stillness that grows with the moon on my wings.
I look to the air with the moon on my wings
for what is not there with the moon on my wings.
On the spiral is spun with the moon on my wings
what belongs to no one with the moon on my wings.
I create and I heal with the moon on my wings,
I hide and reveal with the moon on my wings.
Do you know me by name with the moon on my wings?
I begin and remain with the moon on my wings.
My response to Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above. I used the ghazal form, which was a dVerse prompt last week. I had many false starts, which is why I missed the cut off to post it there. I just couldn’t find a rhythm.
The poem I ended up with sounded eerily familiar to me–like I had done something similar before. And I had–one of Jane Dougherty’s poetry prompts, for a ghazal, resulted in almost exactly the same format, and was also based in myth. “Mother of Winds”–you can see it here.
Wolf Dream
My dream is singing
my dream is death rising
My dream calls spirits
my dream frees ghosts that are me
My dream is all eyes
my dream is everywhere here
Trust the keeper
trust the howling caught inside
trust the chaos and the night
I know some cultures have 13 names for the moon year, but I’m going with this being the Blue Wolf Moon. Hopefully, a harbinger of better times for all–
Exposed
Paul Simon said that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor. Whose floor is the sky? Does it open at night to spill the dance of the stars, the sailing of the moon, into our earth-bound feet?
Moving toward eclipse–
double reckoning of light
bearing winter’s tides.
My windows become eyes to let the nightshine in.
Could I resist the dVerse winter moon haibun prompt?
This was my best photo of the first New Year’s Moon (that’s a rubber band that was on the floor…how did that happen?).
WolfMoon
WolfMoon–
shapeshifting, orbed–
hunting, calling, longing,
gathering beginnings and ends–
howling.
I haven’t tried a cinquain for Colleen’s Poetry Challenge yet, but it seemed to fit the beautiful full moon of the New Year. I often find strict rules help in focusing my thoughts, and that was definitely the case here.
And no, you haven’t seen the last of that moon in my art and words…
Fly Me to the Moon
the textbook opens to page 13 (for Laura Nyro)
If you could
learn to be lucky–
if you could
hitch pathways
to stars–would the road go on
infinitely, light?
Bottoms fall
out and down with luck,
mirroring
in reverse
the patterns so recently
aligned in those stars.
Why not drink
of sweet blind dumb luck?
Tempt fate to
work its will?
Why not open the gates to
floods of temptation?
Floating boats
on darkened rivers,
out of hands
to lend—out
of sight the treasure map–
out of luck the tide.
The birdlings are back…in this case, it’s serendipity. “The Song Is…” blog has published several of my works inspired by Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell (the Joni piece appeared here already). The above poem appears on the blog with a different piece of artwork, but this one was also done for the Laura Nyro theme.
And to prove how much I have always liked and used the shadorma form…also serendipitously for along the interstice and Shadorma November…
Moonlight (after Edvard Munch)
‘The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,’ —W.B. Yeats
I went to see the Edvard Munch show at the Met Breuer and I was really pleased to see “Moonlight”, which Jane Dougherty used for a prompt in 2016 (Jane’s prompts stay with me), and which I had done a collage and a poem for. I could not get a good photo of the full painting because of all the people looking at it, but it has lots of dimension and subtle color changes that you can’t see in the online reproduction below.
When I went back to look at my original collage, I had used a section of the painting only as inspiration…I remembered the large face. And once again, the poem is not that different from the one the Magnetic Oracle gifted me with…there seems to be a pattern here.
winding beneath the
tangles of neural pathways
I follow myself,
moonlit shadows reflecting
mirages deep, heavy, dark
I was also thinking about a question Crow at Words and Feathers asked in a recent poem: what sound does a shadow make? Since I’m always talking about shadows, I’m sure I’ll revisit the idea again.
The pounding
of blood the whisper
of shadow
the stillness
of reflected light—dreams sail
bare beneath dark moons
I reworked the original collage a few times, and I’m sure I’ll do the same for the one I did today…it needs to sit for awhile first, but I’m definitely not satisfied with it. At least the Oracle is being cooperative with Shadorma November.
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