Wild Goose Scoops Moon

flaw

2011-07-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

Daybreak

lonely speck astride

sunstreaked pane, grows hooves then mane

daybreak clattering

written for Haiku Heights, prompt "flaw"

J'Accuse

Strauss-Kahn hyphenate

J'accuse!!! maid's flaws daily inked,

her name: a soiled sheet

written for Haiku Heights, "flaw"

new moon

2011-07-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

Her steps grow faint away

New moon

Silent blooms, rest in night’s embrace.

pigeons in winter

2011-05-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

Tiny paper cuts

ruffled peony, forest

blooming while we sleep.

When the sky is low

and undecided still

I lift this heart

with its thousand paper cuts,

place it on a weathered sill.

My heart

with its knuckled ridges

and secret ravines

I am feeling glad

about the places

where severed edges meet

and do not close--

With the moonlight pouring through them

my heart becomes

a lantern,

Your words

blow through my hair

nibble at my neck

like pigeons in winter.

This poem was inspired by prompts: One Single Impression "exhibition, Sunday Scribblings "surrender", Carry on Tuesday "After all, tomorrow is another day" and Haiku Heights, "heal".

It begins

2011-04-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

It begins

with a quiver

of thought

so thin

the wind

blows through it

the wind

becomes a word

for “thank you”

and so it spreads

like welcome rain.

if you wait,

they will come:

broomsedge to goldenrod,

sweetgum to winged elm

an epidemic of tall trees,

supple, arriving

on the edge of ice.

I have taken lately to following the slightest sliver of impulse to contact a friend. I want to be promiscuous with these impulses. Risking decorum, defying temperament, I make the call. I have to believe these seeds are as opportunistic as any and will take hold in lava fields, on glacial tills, on craggy hillsides. Around the world, lands which have been laid bare by fires or humans follow a similar pattern of recovery. This pattern is referred to as "natural succession."

Written for OSI, prompt, "epidemic".

Reeds

2011-03-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

Reeds rise
improbable,
vegetable and vein
where the clouds
have fallen
in them
they are
their own
separate island
a swimmer's pate
bobbing
on the chilly bones
of March

hollow reeds
the wind
whistles through them
a thin high song
rising

Written for OSI, "hollow"

pretty girls

2011-03-21T07:32:00.000-07:00

Ooh girl, could you be any prettier
they corner her
in the corridor
between
5th and 6th periods
the pretty girls
in their skinny jeans

I mean, Could you be any prettier
they hiss through perfect teeth
those pretty words
form a fine spray
their tongues
do remarkable things
perform loop de loops
and curlicues
in fancy cursive line

Her normally competent hair
falls damp
across her brow
she hugs her pack
close
and the metal teeth
hold fast
their grooves
thank god
she slips out of her body
her face peeling
in filtered light
a wrapper
with blurry print

Written for OSI prompt, "sarcastic"

wings

2011-03-19T07:57:00.000-07:00

wings, beating the dim
air to froth-- two hummingbirds
sipping at sunrise.

sometimes tickled

2011-02-28T08:57:00.000-08:00

sometimes tickled

sometimes
tickled
from the inside
irresistibly, madly, delicately stroked

a shimmer
of tiny animals
traveling
always traveling
without eyes or teeth
they tunnel
between dreams and bone

and in this
turbid place
a bloom
of sea fans
periwinkle, waving
broken
making fine lace.

Thanks to The Odd Inkwell for her OSI prompt, vellicate--which tickled me to write again.

Snowflakes

2011-02-05T20:58:00.001-08:00

snowflakes have nothing
to prove, they fall endlessly
improving the view

Thanks to Robert for this week's prompt, humility.

18 reasons why

2011-01-07T16:13:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I joined in wordzzle revelry. I truly miss writing, though that part of my life lies fallow. Anyway, this came to me as I was pondering the words for this week. No better way to kick off the new year than with some home grown silliness.! Wish 2011 brings joy, peace, friendship and the unfolding of your deepest desires. Happy New Year to all!

Words for this week’s challenge: celebrate, doctor, shipping, choice, stake, time flies when you're having fun, secrets, disaster, back down, clouds

And for the mini: research, insane, clarity, toy mouse, lottery

18 reasons to celebrate your inner toy mouse

1. saves on shipping costs
2. research is rarely performed on toy mice, so no mice will have been harmed
3. time flies when you’re having fun
4. 7 out of 10 doctors agree
5. your secrets are safe
6. when the clouds gather, you can play inside
7. you never have to restrain those insane impulses to pounce
8. you can always back down by walking away and pretending you weren’t interested
9. it’s cheaper than a lottery ticket
10. your choice of colors and fabrics
11. one side effect of catnip is clarity
12. no batteries or assembly required– a stake in preserving your sanity
13. an essential component to in any disaster preparedness kit
14. Oprah doesn’t have one
15. no overt dangers to internal wiring
16. recall of a compound word for basque pelote is not a prerequisite
17. time flies when you’re having fun
18. your inner toy mouse will not complain if your start repeating yourself

The Apprentice

2010-11-24T18:01:00.000-08:00

Prologue:

there are no recipes

just songs

passed from bird

to bird

thickening

the air...

Sometimes it’s good
to rise with the sun

to be
in that extraordinary
moment
of the not yet dreamed

grouper crowding
with nothing
but the slippery sky
on their backs

carrots glisten,
parsnips drowse
ripe bellies of beets
swell on bleached boards

In the palest
of times
I cradle the blade
sweeping the dark corners
of your mouth
happy to be
a beginner
again

Fancy dresses

2010-11-04T09:43:00.000-07:00

Growing up poor. We bought our everyday clothes at fire sales—literally— rummaging through items stacked high on collapsible tables, choosing by discount, condition and fit. I well remember the aroma of smoke and the feeling of being tucked inside a warm roasted peanut shell.

Our fancy outfits we found on Tremont Avenue, a boulevard festooned year round with Christmas lights waiting for their time to shine. We purchased these frothy delights with crisp bills, passing our dreams softly from palm to palm. We wore our fancy dresses often, celebrating every thing.

Fancy dresses

navy jackets
pilgrims
proofed by fire
heaped on table tops
with grasshopper legs
we thread
the wooden buttons
sideways through loops
to keep the cold out
smelling of roasted peanuts
smoke still rising

fancy dresses
pure spun sugar
funneling late afternoon sun
through softshelled
dreams
We wear them
everywhere
to school plays
recitals
to the RKO
screening of Spartacus
the first day of spring

Written for OSI prompt, "fancy".

A Portable Feast

2010-10-28T00:04:00.000-07:00

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.”
Roger Ebert

"Life is never fair. ... And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not."
Oscar Wilde

“Cooking is maybe the purest expression of love in the sense that you always cook for the other.”
Jacques Pepin

That’s the thing about writing. You can decide how much you are willing to disclose. And Roger Ebert could have easily continued to telegraph his reviews without baring his soul.

When I first saw Roger Ebert’s new face, I was in shock. Since his reviews continued to illuminate the films I watched, I assumed the generous jowly guy giving out the stars had remained the same. What I discovered instead was that cancer had radically altered the topography of his physical body. Radiation left his chin in ruins the blade was unable to restore.

Consequently, he has lost the ability to speak, but not to write. He communicates via a computerized voice system and blue post it notes. He continues to write 5 to 6 cinema reviews per week, and is actively journaling on an award winning blog. Since his diagnosis, more than five hundred thousand words of inner dialogue have poured out of him.

Though he takes his nourishment through a tube, he hasn’t forgotten the joy of food or the camaraderie of eating. His most recent book, "The Pot and How to Use It", is a paean to the communion of breaking bread.

I lost my first husband to melanoma. He died at age 30, after putting up a valiant battle. He wasn’t ready to die. When I read the Esquire article about Ebert’s buoyancy, I began to wonder about the wisdom of “waging war” on disease. For one thing, it distracts us from living. For another, it gives the disease a monster status, which I don’t think is helpful.

Whether you view an invasive species as the enemy or not, I have come to believe that you must humanize it, embrace it and recognize the ways in which you are the same.

a portable feast

they are cells
that have gone mad
for life
you must know
how
this feels.

a profusion of leaves
scales a wall
each birth
paler
than the
next

blue papillon
casting shadow
on shadows
breaking
open
the sky

Written for OSI prompts, "champion" and "grace".

she is feral

2010-10-10T19:33:00.000-07:00

she is feral

she is smooth

a gem

tearing down love

wild in bloom

rushing home

Written for OSI, "lonely" and Sunday Scribblings, "essential".

all that was

2010-10-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

all that was

all that was
required
has been
fulfilled

that valedictorian moment
delivered neat
in a sweated glass

the sensible career
a ghostly frigate
passing

all that was
borrowed
has been
repaid

the moon
was my purser
your legs sprouted grass

a flock of nameless birds.
backward stroking
oaring deep

Written for OSI prompt, "try".

I am an overachiever. Not by choice, birth order or even temperament. It was a condition of survival.

Nourishment and protection were offered in exchange for a measured amount of success. You would feel it hard on the knuckles when you overstepped that invisible line that kept moving.

For this reason, “try” is a loaded word for me. I struggled with whether or not to publish this piece and once published, to explain it.

Steeping myself in your poems this week, I decided to push my inhibitions aside. As the sky slowly clears, I continue to discover what it means to try life openly and with a new depth of view.

the 31 Balboa

2010-10-01T21:52:00.000-07:00

This is a poem about impermanence, accommodations made gracefully, the tangled beauty that emerges. A large portion was gleaned from early morning trysts with a grove of cypress at Land’s End, San Francisco.
The 31 Balboa is a bus route that threads through numbered avenues--1-48--lost in time and chilly fog. Bait and tackle shops, a 50 year old Japanese ice cream parlor, the eight dollar haircut, bald crushed velveteen seats in the Balboa Theater. The reference to Officer Keller has to do with Sea of Love, Al Pacino’s 1985 comeback about the implacable hunger for connection and implicit perils of opening up.

Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength.
-Ralph W. Sockman

the 31 Balboa

wrapped in
ribbed knit navy
the anonymity
of fog
a wash
in postwar ramblers
thin fading rays
of love

we are all of us
running from
some thing
the tail
of the barchans’
edge
kopeks
break loose
of their pockets
rinsed
of the hands
they have changed

in the rain soaked
breath of morning
we glide in a
slic of dreams
Officer Keller
confessed
to a spree
we all agree
was committed
by somebody else

the distant
click of tile
talking
to formica tops
my one wet eye
ticks off
the stops
numbered
from here
to land’s end

dark eyebrows
embrace
a tenuous sky
crusted arms
deflect
icy winds
the sheared face
of cypress
slopes to the sea
intricate lace
lies below
your gaze.

a wicked good wind

2010-09-19T20:30:00.001-07:00

a wicked good wind
bostok and cappuccino
mornings like this

written for Haiku Heights, "bliss".

Raining Tree Road

2010-08-25T22:50:00.000-07:00

"Even a child with normal feet was in love with the world after he had got a new pair of shoes."
— Flannery O'Connor (Everything That Rises Must Converge)

This past weekend we stayed at a neighbor’s cabin.

It was pure bliss to be out of range of motors and cell phones, breaking news and well intentioned calls. We did not have internet service; I apologize for not visiting. I have read everyone’s poems upon returning and enjoyed them immensely.

There was a crystal clear lake with a pair of resident loons, diving, cavorting, rearing, flapping, walking on water. Their eerie wails and wild tremolos awakened something wild in us. Ruby throated hummingbirds perched on the rims of deep bowls, bulking up for September flight. Capricious skies, a special reserve bottle of wine, Flannery O’Conner and Verlyn Klinenborg, Beethoven’s middle quartets (we always travel with music). We were in good company.

A profusion of images emerged, all clamoring to be seen.

Raining Tree Road

It rained hard
while we slept
in soft beds

soft we sink
into mud and moss
a continuous
mist
surrounds us

coral mushrooms blossom
on crumbing bark
the blackened leaf
curls into itself
like a fist
tender tendrils
pulse
with life
insisting on itself

this is not our world
of gardens
with planned
successions of blooms
the polite clatter of heels
post modern
masterpieces hanging
in dimly lit rooms

overnight
it rained
hard
as we slept
on our soft beds

and when we awoke
nothing was the
same.

Written for OSI, pensive.

Beginning

2010-08-18T07:34:00.001-07:00

Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verde ramas.
Green I love you green. Green Wind. Green branches.
- Federico Garcia Lorca, 1899-1936

What kind of times are they, when
A talk about trees is almost a crime
Because it implies silence about so many horrors?
- Bertolt Brecht, To Those Born Later

A tree does not move unless there is wind.
- Afghan Proverb

An ancient oak tosses her green body. Clouds gather. She breathes her love in halted air. The sky opens. Acorns drop. The larvae of moths live in them. Jays and squirrels collect and cache them. Some are carried in the intestines of animals. Others germinate, becoming the forest’s understory.

A darkened sky: no
time for parables. red oak
sighs, acorns scatter.

written for One Single Impression, beginning
and Haiku Heights, struggle

Connoisseur

2010-08-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

riding the handlebars
I become
a connoisseur
of wind.

Cocoon

2010-08-05T04:01:00.000-07:00

Cocoon

Because the sky is too close
because blood is hot and eyes are pale
because a thrush sings
through all those soldered years

I fall into your folded wings
nestled in thick nap of night

a gull squeals
oaring the deep
dawn blooms behind
your lids
we rest
in
sightless flight.

Love in the time of caterpillars

2010-06-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

Love in the time of caterpillars
with apologies to Gabriel Garcia Marquez

summer confetti
the bodies
of caterpillars
soft with love
are everywhere
laying down
Tabriz runners
striping pavers
rose and indigo,
lavishing rails
with delirious design
calling stones
back to powder.

thresh of screen
covers the news
in stars
they have become lanterns
blinking milky wings
moving in forever light.
I want to go
willing
like this.

for OSI, "love"

What does the oak see

2010-06-02T10:30:00.000-07:00

What does the oak see

What does the oak see
as she bows to the river
rippling with song?

for Haiku Bones, "miracle" and for OSI, "love"

Enigma

2010-05-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

Detail, The Composite Marks of Fascicle 19. Ben Jervin

Sometimes considered an enigma herself, Emily Dickenson gives us a spiritual biography in her poetry.
In her deliberate exfoliation of the quotidian, she grazes the kernel of the unseen. At once personal and universal, brooding and ecstatic, her poems are the product and practice of a lifetime act of love. "My business is to love," she explains. "My business is to sing."

Upon her death, Emily Dickinson's family discovered 40 handbound volumes of nearly 1800 of her poems, or "fascicles" as they are sometimes called. These booklets were made by folding and sewing five or six sheets of stationery paper and copying what seem to be final versions of poems in an order that many critics believe to be more than chronological. The handwritten poems show a variety of dash-like marks of various sizes and directions --some are even vertical!

Here is one I have chosen for this week’s OSI prompt, enigma:

I found the phrase to every thought
I ever had, but one;
And that defies me,--as a hand
Did try to chalk the sun

To races nurtured in the dark;--
How would your own begin?
Can blaze be done in cochineal,
Or noon in mazarin?

Emily Dickenson

And for my 100th post, and in a dry season with my writing, here's a fumbling try to chalk the sun:

Green mango love

Your avid thirst
the nectar
of my knees
we are made
for love

Hummingbird

2010-05-05T23:45:00.001-07:00

Hummingbird

flying backwards bees,

Jacobins, beat triple time

on yesterday’s rim.

Night Rain

2010-04-25T22:33:00.001-07:00

Night Rain

hope’s late blooms, night rain
imperfect, accidental
can silence be new?

For OSI, prompt "fissure" and Haiku Bones, "night rain".

Euridyce

2010-04-21T21:50:00.000-07:00

I sing to the sun in the sky
I sing to the sun rising high
Carnival time is here
magical time of year
and as the time draws near
dreams fill my heart

I'll sing while he plays his guitar
I'll sing as the night wakes the dawn
will love come my way
on this magical day
and will love stay in my heart

"Carnival", originally titled Manha de Carnaval, from the 1959 film Black Orpheus

Ever tell a story so many times it becomes the defining version?

Sometimes playing at parts that haven't solidified as habits can be an act of discovery. Here I have deliberately chosen to speak in Orpheus' voice and find my "self" unglued from temporal and gender moorings.

Sometimes it takes an epic journey to dislodge the masks--or even to notice their existence. What is this life but a rosary inviting us to stretch beyond the comfort zone of who we believe ourselves to be?

Euridyce!
a moment
ago
you were
safe
in my arms
now
all that remains
are
feathers and dust.

They say
you danced
with another
through tall grass
I glimpse your joy
(I am glad
for you,
Euridice)

Did I tell you
my bees
are dying?
I doubt
you are the one
to save them
Euridyce.

I am nobody special
I cannot walk on water
so wade
in dark shiny pools
sometimes
disappearing
for days.

I tried to follow
Euridyce
but blundered
into stony lands
crossed rivers
with sightless
feet
tasted
the frosted breath
of
fear.

I tell you
this is more
than I bargained for
when I fell in love
with a simple
country girl

Euridyce
My faces
slide
past each other
Euridyce
ringing
in my fossa
Euridyce
singing
in my eyes
is there any room
for cool mist or roam
between
your skin and mine?

Hunt

2010-04-21T15:59:00.000-07:00

Hunt

I didn’t ask first
candid capture, no harm done
you might disagree.

For Haiku Bones, prompt "hunt".
I realize that I love taking candid shots of people but don't feel as comfortable when the lens is pointed at me.

Spring rites

2010-04-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

Spring rites

treading dawn, moist earth
breathes-sycamore smiles, morels
where are you hiding?

field guides dog eared bulge
conspicuous foragers
a broken twig speaks

For Haiku Bones, prompt "hunt".

Hollow reed singing

2010-04-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

hollow reed singing
humdrum commute enlivened
daji embouchure

(A second offering for bamboo prompt. Inspired by memories of subway mind shifting thanks to forest song.)

Bamboo

2010-04-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

Bamboo

They wait
sometimes 130 years
to flower together

Two leaves

2010-04-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

Two leaves

two leaves
in a chase
a quiet corridor
crackling
with laughter

Interview

2010-03-30T20:09:00.000-07:00

Thank you Beth, for the prompt,” avatar”.
The Sanskrit noun avatāra is derived from the verbal root tṝ "to cross over", joined with the prefix ava "off , away , down".

Interview

“If you could be any animal
what would you be?”

I thought about it
carefully considered
my options
I knew
the right answer
knew
what she wanted me to say:
"lion"

knew
if I said lion
it would be a shoe in

I spoke plainly
through my throat:
”dolphin"

she looked injured,
why a dolphin?

water,
I said.

Murmur

2010-03-15T08:33:00.001-07:00

Murmur

speckled trout murmur
below blue ice
still in a dream

Comma

2010-03-10T00:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Nathalie for this week's prompt, hesitation.

"Three things are good in little measure and evil in large: yeast, salt and hesitation."
-The Talmud

"I use my single windup, my double windup, my triple windup, my hesitation windup, my no windup. I also use my step-n-pitch-it, my submariner, my sidearmer, and my bat dodger. Man's got to do what he's got to do."
-Satchel Paige

Commas

she woke
to find herself
covered in commas

she felt accidental:
a prairie ransomed
to ameloid sprawl

reasonable doubts
sprouted
like freckles
on a fair day

a mother’s regular
hemstitch
whined

the little red book
preached
purity

she remembered
the night
she threw the moon out
she shook
like a cat
loose of bother

a laugh
took hold
in her withers
shaking like a sheet,
a freshly laundered sheet.

Pandora's Jar

2010-02-21T21:52:00.000-08:00

I am so very pleased to be able to participate in this week’s landmark 100th wordzzle challenge.
It was the clever and inspired word play and camaraderie at Raven’s Nest that helped me to overcome my inhibitions and begin blogging. The first piece I ever published was here.
A family medical emergency has made it difficult to come up with an offering utilizing this week’s words. I had written a story that didn’t get posted last week. Raven has been gracious enough to invite me to share it past its due date.
Congratulations to Raven, and to all the wordzzlers whose imaginations traverse the daunting gaggle of words each week. Condolences to family, friends and the online writing community for the passing of Dr. John.

10-word challenge: thermometer, Pandora, vivid, langourous, Saturday, pancreas, apple dumplings, watch tower, lichen, sparrow

mini: rigid, spiritual, ribbon, web cam, vitamins

To all my children,
Everything is contained in this jar.
It is all here for you, for the dreaming.

infinite love and blessings,
Pandora

The jar had inhabited the shelf. No one knew how long. It remained largely unnoticed. Fiesta plates—tangerine, peacock, cobalt-- dazzled breezy weekenders. Matte green vases were snapped up by rigid traditionalists praying for Rockwood.

On a slow Thursday afternoon, a woman with soft Italian gloves coaxed the jar forward. Her fingers absently pried the cap while her eyes scoured the shop for hidden treasures. The jar made up its own mind, remaining crusty and inscrutable. The following Saturday, a bookish couple crept about the periphery, sniffing at the cluttered isles. The woman, wan and hollow, lifted the jar from its perch and peered into it, as if demanding irrefutable proof for the Goldman conjecture. Brackish water sloshing against thick optical walls was all the reward she received for her efforts.

With the economic thermometer plummeting, a once steady stream of tourists had thinned to a narrow ribbon. But the Watch Tower Mercantile and Ephemera was still standing. It had survived the vagaries of fortune for the past 150 years.

There was nothing for Therese to do but get into her Honda coupe and drive. She took the coastal route, the fog curling damply around her.

She had searched in vain for some explanation, and wound up blaming herself for early frost. After all, it had happened the day she returned from visiting with family; her brother had surprised her with a webcam to document the blessed event. Why oh why had she taken that plane trip? It was reckless! She was certain it had been the low air pressure in the cabin…there were those studies with flight attendants. Or maybe it was the mail order vitamins, that vigorous swim, the emotions stirred up by the Sidney Lumet film. There was no solace, spiritual or human to be found in these days. She continued to withdraw, until she found herself on the other side of emptiness.

Therese had been alone with her thoughts for nearly two hours. Weary of driving, she signaled her intent to exit. The highway spilled onto a tidy downtown district. She parked at 2nd and Main and wrapped her sweater snuggly around her. Things felt slightly unreal, as if she were watching another girl wandering the quiet streets. She drifted past Flora’ Buttercup Café, Tally’s Corner Diner Bar and Grill, Mad Hatter Books and Tipple’s Inn.

Something about the windows reflecting on the weathered sign motioned her closer. The implausible toss of words shivered the air. How we plant our hearts and souls into the starched mercantile durability of it all, and then watch as our bodies evaporate into trails of smoke.

The door swung open easily. Things seemed to be resting. A sudden cold blast dislodged the Calico. The clear sweet tone of the door harp ushered her into the idle warmth.

Therese decided to stay. She felt comfortable in this colloidal world where cherished belongings awaited new life. A late ray of afternoon sun softened the features of the cavernous room, caressing the naked grain of a massive sideboard, glinting off of a solitary metal rim.

As Therese approached the jar, she felt something loosen inside. She swallowed and a storm gathered in her eyes. Her fingers sorted through her emotions. She brushed the surface layer of dust off the jar. It sparkled with a light of its own. The tears came freely.

The proprietor gazed across the counter in a curiously familiar way.” “I’d forgotten this was still here.” she mused. “There was no price.” Therese stumbled. “It’s just an old jar,” the woman countered. “Maybe you can find a sunny window. If you wouldn’t mind waiting, I’ll check to see if there is any record.” She swiveled on her chair and tipped towards a bulky drawer. Blunted fingers worried through a thick file, producing an unmarked faded envelope.

Outside, it was beginning to rain. Therese opted for the inland route.

She loved the jar for its age and its heft. Upon awakening, she would gently open it and wait.

Today it was the steam rising from a stack of apple dumplings, transporting her vividly back to those languorous summer mornings on Nana’s porch. Apple dumplings, piping hot, drenched in cinnamon syrup, enough to tax the most durable pancreas. She inhaled the sticky perfume, took her first luscious bite, reveling in the sappy trickle navigating the slope of her chin. The morning was thick with sparrows which she chased narrowly out of trees till the sky was filled with them. The fluorescent green lichens spreading like a luxurious carpet over the ancient oak.

Each day was a delicately wrapped gift. Candied orange peel, Oaxacan chocolate. Astor Piazolla, crepiscule. New songs starting to form .

Winter Dreams

2010-02-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

Winter Dreams

she set sail
on a single silver blade
across a frozen lake
wheeling
on soft rime
koi, soft bellied
dreaming
below
etched into brightness
long strands
holding a bouquet of balloons

absinthe limbs

2010-02-06T00:14:00.000-08:00

Week 98 of Raven’s wordzzle challenge!

This week's words were: treasure chest, idiom, pantry, crippled, baying wolf, wind chill, time, angel, salamander, laundry list
and for the mini: risque, radish, ring tone, ravishing, ruler

Absinthe limbs

Because she was orphaned
she adopted language as mother,
a treasure chest of homonyms.
she was not crippled or foundry
whenever the wind chill plunged
she dipped into her pantry
of ready idiom:
the baying wolf
slaying the angel of time;
the young salamander’s
absent limbs.
a laundry list
of risqué ring tones;
blistering radishes --
early candidates
ravishing any visored ruler.

Lipstick

2010-02-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

This piece is inspired by Cecelia, my mother in law, who continues to amaze and enliven everyone she touches. Even as traces of her memory evaporate, her essence continues to delight.

Many in the blogging community are familiar with our family’s ongoing encounter with Alzheimers. Cecilia is now in a facility close to home where she is safe and well cared for. When we were preparing her new room, I went back to find her lipstick. I knew she would be looking for it. No matter how she is feeling, Cecilia always puts her best face forward.

Her indomitable spirit refuses to be circumscribed by circumstance, odds, “professional” advice or her adult children. She rises to every moment and meets it with dignity, intelligence, love and humor. In her own words, she “outfoxes” us. She is one of those rare souls who truly acts "as if", and in so doing, " becomes", blowing the curve of despair.

Lipstick

she reaches for her lipstick
the light is dim
her lips even the color
a poem
she knows
by memory

she is
blowing the curve
one
day
at a time

Detroit Beet

2010-01-28T16:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jeeves of Silence is Poetic for this week's prompt, sunny days.

We haven’t had many sunny days. It’s January in Minnesota. But winter is rich with gifts.

Detroit Beet

Color has to be imported
in the middle of January
crows speak for us,
telling our fears
to thickening shadows
burly barristers
filing for damages.

Yellow has to be imported
in the middle of January
We linger
over Manila mangos
imagining
fleshy pulp
caught in our teeth

Green has to be imported
in the middle of January
to get anything
but a grainy
monochrome
you must conjure
dusty grapes
from Argentina
or douse yourself
in badjnak festivity

Orange has to be imported
in the middle of January…
or so I thought
Have you ever
tasted
a golden beet
in the dead of winter
carmelized
til her sweetness
sings?

overwintering
soft bodies
we live on dreams
in the hollows
of Northern red oak

Detroit beet
blooms,
taproot
searching
a thousand suns
white blindness
falling around her.

In my old bedroom

2010-01-18T17:23:00.001-08:00

Thanks to The Dark Lord, who brings us "chaos" this week at One Single Impression.

Sorry I haven’t been by to visit this past week. We had an out of town guest staying with us and I haven’t had an opportunity to keep up. Looking forward to sampling various flavors of chaos flowing from your pens.

“The past is never dead, it is not even past.” William Faulkner

This poem is about incest: metallic taste of fear, retinal sear, a child frozen in time.

In my old bedroom
you come and go
as you please

oiled skin of night
glistens
just outside
the window
sleek finned cars
transport lives
unimaginable

headlights skitter
up the walls
green like lizards
calling no attention
to themselves

I lie very still
trying to make sense of
cracks in the ceiling
long after you are gone.

Ubuntu

2010-01-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

Ubuntu

"Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". Ubuntu also means "I am what I am because of who we all are".

It is difficult to comprehend the degree of suffering and the scope of loss the Haitian people are experiencing. In the unfathomable devastation of the earthquake’s wake, let us do is everything we can do to help in the relief and rescue efforts.

Haiti: How to Help
If you're looking to donate to emergency assistance in Haiti, these organizations are among the most effective:

Doctors Without Borders, which already had teams working on medical projects in Haiti at the time of the earthquake, has treated hundreds of injured people and is working to get more staff into the country. Doctors are setting up medical facilities in tents, since their own buildings have been severely damaged.

Partners in Health, an aid organization that "is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone," is working to coordinate 120 doctors and 500 nurses on the ground in Haiti, evaluating how best to respond to the crisis. PIH's flagship project is based in Haiti, and it's where the organization's broadest range of resources are located. Donations "will go directly to our relief efforts on the ground, which currently involve organizing the logistics to get the medical staff and supplies needed for setting up field hospital sites in Port-au-Prince where we can triage patients, provide emergency care, and send those who need surgery or more complex treatment to our functioning hospitals and surgical facilities," according to the organization's development coordinator. Updated information can be found here.

Oxfam dispatched a team of specialists to Haiti, and is working to send badly needed medical supplies. The organization is concentrating on water and sanitation, to prevent the outbreak of waterborne diseases in the wake of the crisis. You can read about that work here. Oxfam's humanitarian coordinator in Port-au-Prince said, "Our immediate priorities will be providing safe water and shelter material for the people who have lost their homes. Many people have lost their homes and were sleeping out in the open last night. There has been no rain yet, but there was rain earlier in the week and if it comes again it will make the situation much worse for all those made homeless by this quake.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, just a starting place for organizations that have a reliable and established helping presence in Haiti. If you have any information on ways to support relief efforts, please feel free to share here.

It is also time to begin to reflect on Haiti’s history and the relationships that have contributed to its extreme poverty and fragility. What makes Haiti so different from its Caribbean neighbors who enjoy a relative level of comfort and insulation against crisis?

In 1804, the imported African slaves that were brought to work the island revolted against their colonial rulers and established the first free black state in the modern world. Haiti also is the first independent nation in Latin America and the only nation born of a slave rebellion.

In 1825, after encountering a decade of fierce resistance, France recognized the independence of the new republic in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs as indemnity for profits lost from the slave trade. Reparations have been exacted ever since: from invasion and occupation--to deforestation and exploitation of natural resources--to neoliberal policies that have flooded the country with cheap agricultural surplus and forced its people into urban sweatshops—to the deliberate undermining of its political stability by the abduction of its democratically elected leaders. These historical relationships at least in part help to inform the vulnerability that exacerbated the impact of natural disaster.

In the spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation , let us embrace the spirit of community, solidarity, and generosity to rebuild Haiti in its own image.

Sherpa

2010-01-14T15:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kuyerjudd of My Heart up Close for this week's prompt, indurated.

After drinking for so long from an ancestral pool of tears, one becomes lost. Find a safe place with a clear stream. Listen to the sound. If it pleases you drink slowly, so as not to become intoxicated. Drink. Drought is not an option.

Sherpa, Daughter
Carrying your satchels
this far
I pause to
taste my own weathered grief
through a soda straw.

Wings

2010-01-04T17:28:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Sherri of Sweetest in the Gale for this week's prompt, wings.

Emma’s birds

Paper cranes
tumble
moss green,
lavender, peach
a child’s spring
tender and
itinerant
tucked
in the creases

We savor
all they carry
elongate the moment
before the unfailing return
of blinding snow
as night thickens
and she beats her wings
senseless
against the pane.

As Cecelia’s Alzheimer's advances,
all that remains is each shining moment.

Light without body

2010-01-04T12:40:00.000-08:00

Haiku Bones: "Electrifying"

Secure every lock
Light without body, Issa
disturbs cold night air

2009-12-31T08:58:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Tammie Lee of Spirit Helpers for this week's prompt, wanderlust.
To all who gather at OSI: May your year be filled with reflections of light, laughter and friendship and may love be born in every new moment.

Wanderlust

There was a child
who was so hungry
for words
that she gobbled
phone books whole

her mother
did not know
what to do with her
They tried vitamins
filled her shoes with gravel
chanted the names of the dead
still she found her passport
though it was not easy
to break the seal

she dove beneath
the curled lip of fear
slept under many skies
dipped her feet
in cold racing streams
sending a shiver
to the parts of her
longing to be held

she looked up
and saw
geese carrying snow
under their wings
the wind passed through her
She felt warm
It was good

tonight she sleeps
in plain pajamas
beneath a dotted moon
watching birds chase gravity
wondering
How many eyes
are painted
on their wings?

2009-12-28T08:22:00.000-08:00

Haiku Bones: regret

i sleep into day
trying too hard to repair
impossible dreams

the peel of night waits
fragrant, beneath your window
why bang empty pots?

s and h green stamps
yellowed pages, book half full
red tipped match same drawer

a rush of sparrows
such sudden beauty disturbs
childhood symmetry

2009-12-22T07:59:00.000-08:00

Haiku Bones: Fleeting

poached pears moscata
you reach across the table
which birthday was it?

Wings

2009-12-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

The photograph was taken in the chamber of Newgrange, Ireland by Fran Caffrey. on December 21st, 2003.

SUNLIGHT ENTERS THE NEWGRANGE CHAMBER
At dawn on Winter Solstice every year, just after 9am, the sun begins to rise across the Boyne Valley from Newgrange, Ireland over a hill known locally as Red Mountain. The dramatic event lasts for 17 minutes at dawn from the 19th to the 23rd of December. Given the right weather conditions, the event is spectacular.

At four and a half minutes past nine, the light from the rising sun strikes the front of Newgrange and enters into the passage through the roofbox which was specially designed to capture the rays of the sun.

For the following seventeen minutes, the beam of light stretches into the passage of Newgrange and on into the central chamber, where, in Neolithic times, it illuminated the rear stone of the central recess of the chamber. With simple stone technology, a significant astronomical event and a special time in the annual cycle was captured in a most astonishing way.

Wings

Come!
make drums of your soles
crack open your head
leave all you have worried at the gate
every thing you cannot live without.
visit terraced footings
tread points of roughness
scream closely held fears
into luminous darkness

For this is no fleeting station
but a repeat destination
a cloudless sky
curved and acrobatic
A featherless dance
five days without name
a time of empty form.

light a dark candle
at the furred edge of doubt
your breath
is my trail to you.

Winter solstice profoundly challenges our tolerance for paradox. Mary Oliver is the best companion I know to share the longest night. Solstice blessings! May the first rays of morning find a soft glow in your heart.

Starlings in Winter
by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

"Starlings in Winter" by Mary Oliver, from Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays.

Red

2009-12-13T09:05:00.000-08:00

Thank you Bobbie of Constant Current for this week's prompt, spider webs.

Red

From a crevice
in the molding
a tiny spider
smiled
like the sun

sometimes
she slept
or kept to herself
and we understood
we were alone

Then we would soap
each other’s hair
til it stood in peaks
and clap
the rippled flanks
til the dark
echoed
through them

when we were
comfortable
with each other
she padded
onto the soap dish
a tinkling arpeggio
of legs
we held our breath
so as not
to
disturb
a
thing

One day
red was gone
the months
trailed
each other
only the web remained
collapsing
into itself
like
a storm

Migration

2009-11-28T21:20:00.000-08:00

Migration

a folded atlas
a peregrine gaze
they are coming from summer
and traveling to summer
press dreams
like flowers
they shoulder
into distances
powered by the fat back
of summer

Silver Needle

2009-11-24T06:39:00.001-08:00

This week's prompt is creative from Mindful Mimi.

"Creation, we are taught is not an act that happened once upon a time, once and for ever. The act of bringing the world into existence is a continuous process.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel

Silver Needle*

Crossing
the middle bridge
stockings
get caught
in rough planks
by the time
I arrive,
the water
has been resting
coddled buds
float
tiny hairs
uncoil

sit, drink
these
are the
best hours

*Silver Needle - White tea is the least processed form of tea, made from handpicked silver buds and young leaves which are steamed and dried in open air. Silver Needle (Baihao Yinzhen) is the rarest of all varieties, picked in springtime in the Fujian Mountains of China. When the buds are steeped, they yield a light and subtle sweetness.. Successive infusions release subtle qualities of the tea‘s delicate fragrance.

“I make writing as much a part of my life as I do eating or listening to music.”
Maya Angelou

Many writers have a ritual, which serves as an induction, a falling into the deep. For example, Maya Angelou wakes at five in the morning and checks into a hotel room. All pictures are removed from the walls so that there is no visual distraction. She writes on legal pads while resting on the bed with only a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards, Roget’s Thesaurus and a Bible. She leaves by early afternoon, usually with ten to twelve pages of manuscript. Ms. Angelou reflects that she uses this process to “enchant” herself.
This poem is both about crossing the waters and steeping in that place of enchantment.

starter culture

2009-11-18T04:14:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Gautami Tripathy of Rooted for this week's prompt, reincarnation.

starter culture

she called it sour milk
placed a heavy rimmed
glass of lucidity
on the radiator
little did I know
it was a starter culture

From a childhood memory of my mother making what she called “sour milk“. A type of yogurt. Once you have the starter culture, it lives forever…or as long as you keep it going. I see this as a metaphor for infusing “culture” or essence, into life with consciousness and purpose.

Uxmal

2009-11-02T17:56:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Nathalie of Spaced Law for this week's prompt, shift in time.

Uxmal
thrice built
groans
beneath the weight
of the living

bulky tourists
exact one more stamp
proof positive
here was maize
daily ground,
rattles shook
at a darkened sky
daughters summered
in cool grottos
fools stuttered riddles
clear as day
royalty strode across
quarried stone

This fugitive hour
I visit the ruins of your hair,
the child in your brow
I roam where your dreams are pastured
fingers spread wide
for night to pour through

how many cities
am I standing on?

the softest footprint

2009-10-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Thanks to Leo at Figments of Imagination for this week's prompt, elusive. Please visit all the fine poets at One Single Impression.

the softest footprint
disturbs the ants busy
laying down new scents

Survivaball

2009-10-27T18:21:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my last post, some comic relief from the Yes Men and a wonderful slide show of the worldwide response to the 350 campaign.

Survivaball, the only rational response to abrupt climate change

The 350 campaign has been wildly successful in raising awareness and commitment to a sustainable future.

http://www.350.org/350-action-gallery

350

2009-10-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

"Climate change is a reality. Life depends on a sustainable environment. With no world, there can only be nothing--no birds, no animals, no trees, no us. That’s why getting involved in 350.org is so important - it's an effective way to take action to turn around the climate crisis."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Maldives under water cabinet

On the dying coral reefs of the Maldives, the government's entire cabinet dons scuba gear and holds an official underwater meeting to pass a 350 resolution to send to the Copenhagen summit.

Seven weeks before the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference, the group 350.org is organizing an International Climate Action Day. More than 4,500 events are scheduled to take place in 170 nations on Saturday, October 24.
“350.org” is named after what scientists have identified as a sustainable target for carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, 350 parts per million–we are currently at 390 parts per million.

Global Warming: A primer

The primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming is carbon dioxide. The U.S. is responsible for 25% of the carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.
Since 1990, yearly emissions of carbon dioxide have gone up by about 6 billion metric tons worldwide, that's more than a 20% increase. Almost all of that increase is due to human activities.
Carbon dioxide takes 100 years to disperse in the atmosphere, meaning that even if emissions are stopped today, we will still feel the effects for years to come.
During the 20th century alone, the average surface temperature of the world has increased by 1.2 to 1.4°F.
The eight warmest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with the warmest year being 2005.
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment has concluded that in the past 50 years, the average temperatures of Alaska, eastern Russia and western Canada have increased as much 7°F. This rise is almost twice the global average.
Glaciers worldwide lost an average of about 5 feet of ice in 2006, compared to just 1 foot of ice lost in 2005. Melting glaciers are a major factor in sea-level rise around the world
Sea levels have risen between 4-8 inches worldwide during the last century, and experts predict they could rise as much 2 feet in the next 100 years.
The World Health Organization blames 150,000 deaths per year on the effects of global warming including extreme weather, drought, heat waves, decreased food production and the increased spread of diseases like malaria.
At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, migrating north to escape rising temperatures.
Coral reefs are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature. Scientists say if current CO2 emission trends continue, the world's coral reefs could be virtually destroyed by 2050.

from dosomething.org

"A crisis, they say, is a terrible thing to waste. And there is more than one crisis. First, is the crisis in our climate--we must figure out how to get CO2 down to 350 ppm in a matter of years. Second, is the crisis in our way of life. In the developed world, people suffer from anxiety and depression in epidemic proportions. In the developing world, over one billion people have no access to clean drinking water. We must do better. We have a chance to find an improved way of life, both for ourselves and for our planet. Let's take it."
Colin Beavan, aka "No Impact Man," is an author, and most recently, a film star of the brand-new movie "No Impact Man." The film, and book of the same title, tells the story of his bold experiment to live in New York City making no net negative environmental impact.

An island nation with a 4000 year old culture is searching for a place to relocate. Adelaide, Australia may soon be out of drinking water. Dengue fever is spiking for the first time in 80 years causing the worst viral epidemic in recorded history.

Is it already too late? We cannot reverse what has already happened. But we can put a stop gap on any further damage. We must act quickly and deliberately if we want to make a difference.

"We need to stop taking carbon out of the ground and putting it into the air. Above all, that means we need to stop burning so much coal—and start using solar and wind energy and other such sources of renewable energy –while ensuring the Global South a fair chance to develop. If we do, then the earth’s soils and forests will slowly cycle some of that extra carbon out of the atmosphere, and eventually CO2 concentrations will return to a safe level. By decreasing use of other fossil fuels, and improving agricultural and forestry practices around the world, scientists believe we could get back to 350 by mid-century. But the longer we remain in the danger zone—above 350—the more likely that we will see disastrous and irreversible climate impacts. "
from 350.org website

We have everything we need to preserve life on earth…everything, that is, except political will.

As Al Gore said, the truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat implies would shuffle the economic deck, harming powerful vested interests even as it creates new opportunities. The titans of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now to defend the status quo.

The U.S. which accounts for 4% of the world’s population and 25% of its emissions is one of the most intransigent parties at the table. Without comprehensive climate change legislation, progress at Copenhagen will be limited. This is the reason to bring pressure on policy makers to pass climate change legislation now. Next week the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold three days of hearings to discuss the climate change bill proposed by Senators Barbara Boxer and John Kerry. If you are a U.S. citizen, please urge your representatives to support the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733).

There have been some hopeful signs recently. On October 10, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., co-authored an op-ed with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in The New York Times calling for action on legislation. In doing so, he broke ranks with top Republicans who are calling the bill
“a national energy tax.”

"Our partnership represents a fresh attempt to find consensus that adheres to our core principles and leads to both a climate change solution and energy independence. It begins now, not months from now -- with a road to 60 votes in the Senate," they wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11kerrygraham.htm

We may not have Exxon’s fiscal clout. However, not to be underestimated is the critical mass of a burgeoning movement that crosses all kinds of borders. Then again, the looming specter of extinction is a pretty compelling motivator in its own right.

As a new dawn sweeps across the globe, people will be gathering everywhere to make an impassioned stand to preserve and protect life on our beloved planet. Take hope and join in as we learn to transform our relationships to the earth and to each other, from domination to cooperation, from isolation to community.

You can watch videos and photos of people coming together in common cause.

http://www.350.org/350-action-gallery

green rain

2009-10-17T19:07:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Tea leaves ‘n Honey for the suggestion of conquer. It is a word that has many connotations. I have responded to one that called to me and am curious to discover yours.

Green Rain

the final rapping
on the pane
is never as bad
as what we hide
inside green rain
on tears
and more

To My Web Family

2009-10-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

Dear Web Family,

We have been in the midst of a family crisis for the past 6+ weeks. Please be patient with me if I do not visit or am slow to respond to your thoughtful comments. Know that I do read them when I can and they bring much comfort. Where ever you may be, I hope that you are enjoying the seasons unfolding.

Much love,
Anna

Arcturus

2009-10-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Joseph Harker of Naming Constellations for this week's prompt, talisman.

Arcturus

thoughts dart
senseless
‘neath foamy krill
lidded whys
trawl
unwitnessed
neither heads nor tails

I am a red star
fading
take my years
I am jasper
in your palm

Happy Birthday John Prine

2009-10-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

No, I haven’t been tagged. And yes, I’m doing this meme of my own choosing.

In my virtual meanderings, I spotted this meme on Poetikat’s site.

I enjoyed what she did with it and filed it away as a form that could be fun to play with.

So tonight, as a tribute to John Prine, on his 63rd birthday, I offer a potpourri of songs, sorted through the filter of My Life According to John Prine:

1. Are you a male or female? - Donald and Lydia

2. Describe yourself: - Illegal Smile

3. How do you feel? – We Could

4. Describe where you currently live: - Other Side of Town

5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go? – Lake Marie

6.Your favorite form of transportation: - Morning Train

7. Your best friend is: - Far from me

8.Your favorite color is: - Blue Umbrella

9. What's the weather like? - Humidity Built the Snowman

10. Favorite time of day: - A Crooked Piece of Time

11. If your life was a TV show, what would it be called? – Linda Goes to Mars

12. What is life to you? – In Spite of Ourselves

13 Your relationships: - I Know One

14. Your fear: - being Pretty Good

15. What is the best advice you have to give? – Fish and Whistle

16. If you could change your name, you would change it to: -- ‘Til a Tear Becomes a Rose

17. Thought for the day: - Let’s Invite Them Over

18. How I would like to die: - Killing the Blues

19. My soul's present condition: - Often is a Word I Seldom Use

20. My motto: - All the Best

John Prine was born in Maywood, Illinois 63 years ago today. He worked at the post office in his hometown. On the side, he began playing in coffee shops in the evenings. One day, the film critic Roget Ebert went to see a movie that he didn't like very much. He left the theater early and headed down the street to get a beer instead. He happened to go to the bar where Prine was filling in with background music. And so instead of writing a movie review that week, Ebert wrote a review called "Singing Mailman Delivers the Message,". Suddenly John Prine had a full house every time he played. This is where it all started.

John Prine’s star shone brightly as he began to expose his gift to the world.

His songs are about the things that each day holds and gives up. He writes in effortless verse that brims with wit, observation and unabashed love.

They made love in the mountains, they made love in the streams,
They made love in the valleys, they made love in their dreams.
But when they were finished there was nothing to say,
'Cause mostly they made love from ten miles away.
from Donald and Lydia

And the gold rolled through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains,
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose,
While the kids ran around wearin' other peoples' clothes...
from Sam Stone

When John Prine sings about love lost, your heart breaks alongside his. In listening to Sam Stone’s story, you cannot help but realize that wars do not end on the battlefield.
Simply put, John Prine can make you feel as though you’ve lived a whole lifetime in 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

Please feel free to post your own My Life According to (fill in your favorite songwriter) and please let us know where we can find your impressions.
Here are the guidelines:

1) Answer the questions as well as you can, but using only song names from one artist.
2) Try not to repeat a song title.

I hope this inspires you to share some of your favorite songs. And wherever you may be, I hope this finds you well and with music in your heart.

falling leaves

2009-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

I have missed wordzzles, playing with the words and reading everyone’s quirky and inspired stories. To say life has been crazy busy would be an understatement. Last night, I took a look at next week’s words, and decided to jump in with both feet now. I must admit to feeling a bit rusty. Anyway, here’s my offering. Hello to all the wordzzle Houdinis. Hope all is well with you.

This Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: Tibetan sky, symbols, won’t you come home Bill Baily, shadow figures, brain cortex, practice makes perfect, life, start of school, lavender, chow down

And for the mini: mental hospital, falling leaves, apple cider, packing crates, clues

It was that time of year where everything from the mullet to the grasshopper was peaking. A full flush fanned the table. The ripened tassels swilled in the hills. Priscilla was afraid that all this brilliance would crest too soon, disappear without a trace. This damned season which caused her clouded blood to slow.

This was the 20th anniversary of the “unraveling‘’ which had landed her in the Oak Hills Mental Hospital. It was painful to think about. For so many years the memory of it had dwelled in her marrow, rebuffed. And the hooded dread had swelled and had its way.

With the start of school, she was hopeful again. Life was full of symbols. The falling leaves carnelian under a wide Tibetan sky.

Priscilla stared at the packing crates stacked in a self satisfied configuration in the SW corner of the room. They stared back at her. Filled to the brim with keepsakes not worth keeping. Spiral journals penned in lavender ink. It was the close of her 19th summer and she was tired of tracking down clues. Shadow figures lurked on every corner. Paul’s unsandeled feet portended death. The Phrygian caws were a certain sign. And the jam between her toes was full of mold.

She sat at the piano, fingering chords that filtered through her brain cortex like shadowed figures. Won’t you come home Bill Baily. Won’t you come home? She wanted to hear the refrain again. Practice makes perfect. She cupped the mulled apple cider closer. Then chuckled to herself, reinforcing the comfort that flooded. The falling leaves were at once beautiful in their covenant. Soon she would chow down blissfully on butternut soup. And open her books.

These were the burning times!

Fog

2009-09-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Sweetest in the Gale for this week's prompt, fog.

fog

mornings
heavy and damp
hang
as doppelgangers

I have been
here before
afraid
at times like this
the tired air
must be plucked
tenderly

Romance

2009-09-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Geraldine of My Poetic Path for this week's prompt,”romance”.
Please visit all the poets at One Single Impression to sample this week’s offerings.

Romance

-noun
the thrill of being dislodged

-verb
to court and to woo

(personal derivative meaning)

a lovely stranger
in the wings
shakes loose
a talus
of regret and old English

Summer’s End

A Temporary Blindness

this!
a temporary blindness
overtakes you
and you wonder
out loud
how can liquid particles
exhaled in this way
later return
so sweetly as rain.

Green

even the most
seasoned
among us
become unhinged
in the presence of
excrescent splendor

the hours turn green
all the waiting is done
we wrap our legs gladly
around the plump stalk
of summer
exhaling pleasure.

Tall Grass

Sonny’s long sleeved manicure
of summer’s overgrowth
tries in vain
to bring
the neighborhood back.

Mahogany

a fugitive sound
hurries by
on padded feet

Chinese checkers

words
bashful and unrehearsed
queen each other

syllogism is comfort
in dark corners

One leaf knowing

2009-08-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

One leaf knowing
it starts
at the crown
with only
one leaf
knowing

soon the shoulders
catch on
and the whole
body
of rings
shakes
in quiet ecstasy

Black Bark
a nomadic kiss
makes waves
of consonants
and sets
black bark
to chattering

I am a spotted fawn
whose folded legs
fall into
prayer.

I am a turkey
drunk with rain
crossing the road
with lips parted.

Terpsichore

2009-08-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Sweetest in the Gale for this week's prompt, ocean. Please visit those who were inspired to weave words out of the mist at One single Impression.

“Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing never happened, it is still conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never.”

Franz Kafka

Terpsichore

I am
drunk on her song:
breasts
bob like gulls
silver bream
angle in conference
carmine lips
part before leaving

bird woman!
who can resist
your sibilant guile
in a blind sun,
in windless calm?

one day I grow weary
of asylum
stick my thumb out
in spoken mist
a rusty trawler
lists his load
“Can you play anything?”
he asks.
“I can whistle.”

We motor
through midnight
lightning
chasing dawn

I arrive altogether empty
of souvenirs
Crusted with pink salt.

First Rays

2009-08-02T05:06:00.001-07:00

Thank you Christine of Quiet Paths for this week’s prompt, windows. Please go now and drink in the light of words.

morning stroll in old San Juan, Puerto Rico, spring 2007

The Dancer

schefflera
coaxes her green body
through rigors
in a blinded room
becoming crooked
for light

The Dormer

white moths flicker
silky, translucent
moving seamlessly
through the hours

loss floats
in aspic
and gravity
is negotiable

First Rays

Easing
the louvers:
a host of
top stitched shadows
breaks loose
of promise
and tumbles
into morning

Stone fruit

2009-07-26T05:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Geraldine of Poetic Paths for this week’s prompt, fragrance. Be sure to spend time at all the poets’ roosts, drinking in their words.

Stone fruit

You have heard
about such things
happening
shamans, midwives
reaching in with the blades
of their hands
pulling up
tumors
the size of pomelos

one day it came to her
clearly
as she was shelling peas
now that the flesh
was falling away
and the lining
of what had defined her
was shaved to its pith.

(just how unbound
she was. )

she reached into her belly
and pulled out a stone
still warm
wrapped it in parchment
and buried it like
the dead sea scrolls

a girl
coarse plaited hair
and anthracite eyes
toes dug into the slope of summer
spied it among the seaweed
at neap tide

restless fingers traced the grooves
awakening
the fragrance of apricot,
cypress,
Darjeeling tea
it was then
that she caught
a first glimpse of
frangipane
on the mountain top.

Again

2009-07-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Christine of Quiet Paths for the prompt inner voice. Please visit all the wonderful poets who participated this week at http://onesingleimpression.blogspot.com/

"Truly to sing, that is a different breath."
Rainer Maria Rilke

Again

when he was a fish
a brass trio, a second line
followed him
his ears grew faster
than the rest of him
like big shells
to scoop the brilliance
into his navel

when he was a boy
he travelled in music
like a marsupial
drawing warmth from memory
baby teeth shone like sharks
At dinner hour
Reuben’s charts
spilled from his fingers.

When I met the boy
he kept his drum set
in the basement
we talked about music
all the time
we listened to Monk
and Hillary Hahn
it was lonely then

One day
he called me down
his sticks beat time
in the cool damp
bronze trophies bragged
Zappa’s blessing
framed him
it was then
that I first knew
that I loved him.

Last night the boy dreamed
he was playing piano
but strangely
4 keys as wide as tree trunks
an upright
with the body of a tiger in repose
each of them sang
for him

at the end of the hall
in the last room
was a long bleached bone
he didn’t know how to make it speak
he was afraid
he began to run his fingers
along it spine
music poured out
like water

I told the boy I loved him.
Again.

Coracole

2009-07-12T18:28:00.000-07:00

Thank you Jim for the prompt "thinking."

This poem was in part inspired by the brilliant screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and borrows imagery from the film Being John Malkovich.

Coracole

quills
brush against
the soft body
of the tenant
who makes herself
small for your inquiry.

one day
all the whys
fall out of their follicles
you notice
that you relish the pauses
even more than listening.

Arriving naked and wet
fully out of your mind
on a terraced median
of the NJ turnpike
sniffing for truffles
in native grasses.

Here Be Dragons

2009-07-10T17:15:00.000-07:00

Wow! Week 71 of Raven’s wordzzle challenge. Please join in the pleasure of spinning yarns on the virtual wordzzle porch with 15 daunting new words.

Here Be Dragons

This Week's Ten Word Challenge will be: sober, spoilage, knight, laugh and the world laughs with you, peak, blueberries, owl, drugstore, lampshade, keyboard

The mini challenge: economy, Michael Jackson, ladder, clue, structure

I recognize that people have very strong feelings about Michael Jackson. My sense of kinship and empathy spring from a common experience of having one’s childhood taken. Of course, my stage is much smaller, but one never outgrows the pain and sense of violation.

Michael Jackson. His tragic death shocked me and came as no surprise. Fragile and complicated, at once Norma Desmond and Laura Wingfield, he embodied the paradox we live.

mini:

Michael Jackson had no economy of scale. He gave himself away, then tried to recoup his losses at Sotheby’s.

A thoroughbred, drilled to perfection and trained to please, he had no clue how to live in the world. And so the performer retreated to a fairy land of chutes and ladders. And cool everglades. Giraffes and tigers loped the wild with no structure or stricture.

But it was not to be. Haunted by his demons and hounded by a relentless artistic drive, the boy prince could not rest or live in the wild.

ten word:

This Week's Ten Word Challenge is: sober, spoilage, knight, laugh and the world laughs with you, peak, blueberries, owl, drugstore, lampshade, keyboard

When he was at the peak of summer

and felt the thrill of blueberries running down his chin,

when he was dead sober and crashing the apartheid of MTV,

he slept ‘neath the shadow of a lampshade as any boy would;

No need for deadly nightshade or drugstore remedies.

One day the fog rolled in and the keyboard fell badly out of tune. The knight in epaulets surveyed his kingdom and saw the spoilage of the vine.

He called a meeting of trusted advisors and received false council. Laugh and the world laughs with you. He knew better than this. He knew this was no laughing matter. He would call the drugstore and the owl would be a silent witness to dreamless sleep.

James Baldwin made a prophetic statement about this possibility in his 1985 essay “Here Be Dragons.”

“The Michael Jackson cacophony is fascinating in that it is not about Jackson at all. I hope he has the good sense to know it and the good fortune to snatch his life out of the jaws of a carnivorous success. He will not swiftly be forgiven for having turned so many tables, for he damn sure grabbed the brass ring,… money, success and despair–to all of which may now be added the bitter need to find a head on which to place the crown of Miss America.

Freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated–in the main, abominably–because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep within us, our most profound terrors and desires.”

In a world that demands
pick old or young, black or white, woman or man
Michael Jackson was a border crosser

He was controversial, enigmatic and strange. Aren’t we all?

He made us happy with his brilliance and profoundly uncomfortable with his troubles.

Now he belongs to eternity and we are the custodians of the legacy of his music and the reshaping our ethnic geography.

Whose Hands Are These?

2009-07-05T09:36:00.001-07:00

"The stranger" is this week's prompt, courtesy of Beth Patterson.. Thank you, Beth and all who spin words into beauty out of the great silence at One Single Impression.

This poem is for Cecilia, my mother in law, braver than any person I know. How does she do it, daily face these terrible losses with the innocence and clarity of a child? Cecilia was diagnosed with Alzheimer's seven years ago. It is my honor and deep joy to be by her side as she navigates uncharted waters by the sextant of stars.

prologue:
I was his student
it was raining
he drove me home
but we got lost in time.

Whose hands are these?

whose hands are these ?
so coarsely veined
fingers floating on a lost melody
“you were only coming through in with”
I see her leaving
and can only imagine
she dives into curls of smoke
surfing the ruins
searching the word for absence
she returns with a handful of gravel
shiny schist broken from a great mountain
as we sit I can see
each breath a separate pearl
on the fluttering wings of the moment.

Aside from myself, there are no signs of me.

Miss Monks

2009-07-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

A tribute to my 7th grade chemistry teacher on the fourth of July.

supernova explosion

Room 102, 7th period

Miss Monks
spinster of combustibles
Bunsen and beaker
bare roots exposed
igniting wonder

the “small cloud” of Andromeda
burst into brilliance
in room 102
the perplexity
of life endured
in inner ring suburbs:
unstable configurations
irresistible attractions
couplings we never dreamed of
no travelling show this
but a daily
initiation
into covalent mystery.

Rain

2009-06-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Thank you to Just Writing Words for the suggestion of Blue Rain. Please visit One Single Impression to read some inspired writing.

Tall Grass, a painting by Nadine McHenry, Artist

Blue rain

maybe it will rain
and the crickets
anarchists as they are
will wind time backwards
on a broken spring.

I'll Be There

2009-06-27T06:13:00.000-07:00

child stars
live in a hollow
of the giving tree
forever ours.

Ben, you're always running here and there
You feel you're not wanted anywhere
If you ever look behind
And don't like what you find
There's one thing you should know
You've got a place to go
(you've got a place to go)

"Ben" written by Michael Jackson is about a rat named Ben!!

the sacrifice of Isaac

the serial surgeries
the lurid allegations
we ate it up
like birthday cake
we blew out the candles
didn’t we?

The Lord of the Dance

Now you have all of the Pleiades
and the shelter of the ages
dance for joy!

At the time of his death, Michael Jackson was rehearsing hard for what was to be his greatest comeback. He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena.

Lord of dance, beautiful dreamer, you gave everything everything you had.

You must be so tired.

RIP

You and I must make a pact, we must bring salvation back
Where there is love

I’ll be there

(Just look over your shoulder, honey)

Assimilation

2009-06-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the prompt of Assimilation from Rooted. Please visit One Single Impression for all the singular impressions.

The image of folding egg whites came to me as a memory. My mother loved to bake. I would watch as she ritualistically blended the ingredients together. The purpose of folding the frothy egg whites into the sturdy batter is to retain the air you have beaten into the egg whites. This makes your recipe light and fluffy.

My dad was given a new name when he crossed the border. He was thrilled. He wanted desperately to blend in. He never did. What he kept was beautiful.

Folding in egg whites

Select very fresh eggs

let them rest

at room temperature

Make sure your bowl

is clean and dry

Separate the yolk

carefully

do not discard

as you can use

for mayonnaise

or custard at a later time

be sure not

to allow any yellow flecks

or shell pieces

to infiltrate

this takes practice

in Julia’s kitchen

the very best chefs

can strain

the white

through

their fingers!

beat the whites

until they form

soft peaks

transfer

one third of the

whipped egg white

into the prepared batter

and mix it in

this will make it easier

for the rest

of the egg whites

to be absorbed

(Remember

to always fold the lighter ingredient

into the heavier ingredient.)

tilt the bowl

toward you

using a spatula

or flat wooden spoon

gently turn half the mixture

over onto the other half

continue to do this

until the whites are incorporated

into the batter

Resume

2009-06-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

Week 68 of Raven’s Wordzzle Challenge!!! Please visit Raven’s Nest to join in the delight.

The words for this week's ten word challenge were: sow, close, console, lives, minute, polish, bass, pussy, complex, resume

For the mini challenge: bow, sewer, house, import, intern

My mega offering:

Resume

To whom it may concern:

having lived many lives

it’s hard to know what to highlight

tell you what,

I’ll open up my house

to you and the intern

we can sit by the console,

drink in the deep bass

of Jacqueline’s bow

quivering on the bridge.

Maybe it will rain

and drops will glide

along the beveled glass

we are at the crossroads

two pussy cats in residence

Gwendolyn, the philosopher

runs perpendicular to convention

Achat’s insistent brush strokes

course parallel to desire

I’ll serve eau de ville

with a squeeze of lemon.

the sewer is sound

and imports

spring fed water.

Evelyn has sowed seeds in close rows

the basil is thriving

in the undiluted minutes

I warn you

nothing is polished

but everything is plenty

and we can reduce the complex

to a slow simmer.

References upon request