June 2019

summer sky sings
away shadow music
into gardens of sealight–
daydreams shining beneath
an enormous jeweled sun

The Oracle gave me a sunny day.  I needed it.

 

are we not what we are

The deities do not really know
me, nor I them.
I understand not their reasoning.
I do not bow down
to their invisible forces.
My days do not depend on
meeting their needs–
they do not guide me
or light my path.

Chance made me,
chance and circumstances
beyond their control.

I do not look like them,
nor do I follow
their arbitrary whims.
Who I am is a mystery–
mine, not theirs.
When I cease to be
I will become
part of the mystery too.

I will not join them
or serve them
or sing their praises.

I will sing the songs
of my people speaking
in the voices
of the ebb and flow
of our existence,
our beginnings and our ends.

The universe will continue
with or without me, or us,
or those calculations some may choose
to rest their hopes upon.

Sorrow will someday
fill me, like waters burning
inside a vast light–
I will lie naked and alone,
bones joined
to the many paths
my feet have trodden.

And yet joy
and yet laughter
and yet wonder
and the magic of the night sky.
And yet the wings of birds
and the shells
that come from the sea.

We are all this
and more,
already rooted and found.
We belong to what nurtures life–
the earth, the moon, the sun–
the elemental dust
given us by the stars.

A (late) response to the Myths of the Mirror May Speculative Fiction prompt, below.  I kind of went off on a tangent with both the collage and words, but I started with Diana’s image.

skeleton

This house is
painted with blackness
until it
deconstructs
form, kills all architecture–
it lives deep below

what cannot
be seen what hides be-
neath skin what
holds nothing–
this house is not afraid–
it contains no heart

When it breathes
in, it drains out—it
knows all of
those sorrows
without names—it stands until
it falls down inside

what follows
you around—what can’t
be placed in
any land-
scape—what remains unmoved where
you least expect it

For Sue Vincent’s photo prompt, above.

 

 

the apple was already eaten

The human body is composed of 206 bones. But sometimes bones fuse, and the body contains less.

One in 200 humans has 13 ribs, but not all of these humans are identical in gender to Eve.

Bones are light.

Flesh lies heavy, uneasy, impermanent. Flesh apologizes for itself, asks to be concealed.

To be light.

anima opens,
immense—like Pandora’s box,
inside singing out

The Poetics theme proposed by Anmol at dVerse is Myths and Legends.  My collage is based on an Alice Neel painting called Symbols,  which I have always found intriguing  and was lucky enough to see in an exhibit in March.  That’s my photo of it above.

I’ve done a collage based on the painting before–the one, above, done in 2010, was a much more literal interpretation.

 

 

 

 

Child of the Universe

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was looking for surrealistic imagery in a poem.  I’m not sure this exactly fits, since it’s mostly image, but the collage box Oracle tends to brevity in its words.

She
started a ritual–
the answer
on fire,
the seeds realized
as dark matter

I also have a poem, “Numerology”, which is somewhat surrealistic, posted this month at Visual Verse.  You can read it here.

This collage was inspired by Paul Klee’s angel series.

 

On Seeing Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights”

OK
well
so
it’s like
you know
so
like totally
too too much

Like basically
really
intense
like
OMG!
seriously
like
insane

I mean
like
you know
actually
so
like
really really

Literally

I mean

Like
just wow!
wow!!

You know?

Right?

NaPoWriMo wants us to write a poem today incorporating everyday speech.  This is a bit tongue in cheek, but, like, actually, people so really do talk like this.

I did my collage based on a section of Bosch’s painting, above, a while ago, and have been waiting for the right words to go with it.  And the original work of art is in fact actually iconic and seriously like:
just wow!

For real.

 

Lucky 5-7-5

dealing out cards–fate
drawn like caution thrown to wind–
wild, blind–flying free

I really tried to do a list poem for the NaPoWriMo prompt.  I like the idea.  But after several hours, this is the result.

Ishtar

What is revealed
between
the mysterious symbols
of naked dreams?

Edges
walking on air

Small wonders
formed
of transparent
whispers

The perfect vanishing point

NaPoWriMo wants a narrative today.  This is about as close as I can get (which is pretty far away).  Words courtesy of the collage box Oracle.

Ishtar is one of those love/war/fertility/justice goddesses…an expression of duality and conflicting desires.  But she is definitely about women’s empowerment.

And she managed to visit the Underworld and get back to the upper world again–with a little help and by sacrificing her husband (in some versions of the story justified, in some not so much)–so is also a goddess of the between, the transitional.

And of course she also has associations with the moon and the stars and creatures with wings.

 

Out of the Clouds (Things in my Tarot Card)

My Ace of Cups overflows,
drifting like flowers
on the sea.

I drink from it
knowing that nothing
is certain.

Will liquid become air?
Will my hands become feathers
that become wings?

To the moon, perhaps–
in parallel, we translate ourselves
as everything changes.

For the NaPoWriMo prompt, a sort-of-a-list of things, in the form of a quadrille about an Ace for dVerse.

 

We are doing nothing,

and yet we
shout, we run through skies
like fire.  Where
do we live?
Our voices surround the trees,
our dances timeless.

We are deep,
endless, uncontained,
always and
everywhere.
We entwine with movements, with
stillness, with the air,

like leaves
that grow green and then
release themselves,
singing in
the wind.  We fall apart and
return completed.

We have no
surfaces, no years
to count or
give away.
We laugh like creatures with wings
scattering clear light.

Our form is
unmeasured.  We speak
in no know
tongue.  Alive,
we need no reason.  No one
can tell you our names.

NaPoWriMo has asked us to spread joy today.