Pedernal

(Source: New Mexico Museum of Art

                                      He waits, wooing,
                                      Whispering words of
                                      Love and longing.
                                      Paint me, paint me
                                      Purple with passion.
                                      Caress me with
                                      Strokes of seduction.
                                      Make love to me
                                      Again and again, and
                                      I will be yours.


“It’s my private mountain. It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.” ~ Georgia O’Keefe

***

Written for dVerse Poet's Pub. The prompt today is "Sentiments of the Southwest." One of my favorite places in the southwest is Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico. I am in good company. Georgia O'Keefe fell in love with it too, and settled in Abiquiu after her husband Alfred Stieglitz died. While there, she painted Pedernal over and over until she made it hers. Her ashes are scattered at its base.

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Apocalyse

(Artist: Mauricio García Vega; Source: WikiMedia Commons)

Noisy images, 

           crowding,
                    shoving,
                             splashing
                                     life script
                                             onto the page...

Scenes of cities never visited,
        memories of days more real than those lived,
                 screeching, blaring, thumping street songs
                          filling the mind, spilling words by the hundreds,
                                   day after day, never pausing,
                                            until, one day, they do.

The end?

***

Abhra at dVerse Poet's Pub asks us to 'fess up to being a secret admirer of a poet who inspires us.

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Renaissance

The announcement reads, “Friends and family are invited to a celebration of Dave’s life.” His was a life worth celebrating. It is his early death that they mourn.

Echoes of his laughter are caught like dust motes in the kaleidoscope of winter sunbeams slanting through stained glass windows and warming those crowded into the little chapel. One by one, they step to the altar, cast off their wrappings of grief, and share the memories of his escapades they carry within. When the last laugh fades, his son and his family stand and move to the large marble font at the rear of the nave. The minister annoints his grandchild, and Dave’s spirit is reborn.

petals drop, decay

fertilizing future life

winter unto spring

***

Photographer Susan Judd is sharing some of her lovely photographs at dVerse Poets Pub as inspiration for Haibun Monday: Beauty in Decay. For those of you (like me) unfamiliar with haibun, it is a Japanese form of poetry that combines prose with haiku.

Faerie Four Step

(Artist :William Blake.c.1786)

In her dream, they hold their ball 

Answering the night minstrel’s call 

Gossamer gowns glitter, all a-twirl 

Faeries emerge to play. 

 ‘Round her pillow they come to meet 

Tripping lightly, fleet of feet 

Swinging and swaying to the beat 

They twist the night away.

***

It's been a long time since I paid a visit to dVerse Poets Pub. Stopping by last night, I was greeted by Grace with a challenge: write a Quadrille using the word "twist" somewhere within its 44 words. I don't know a Quadrille from a Texas Two Step, but it caught my fancy, so...

New Year's Resolution

Schlummernde Frau

by Johann Baptist Reiter (1849)(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

 

minutes past midnight,

she yawns, and her eyes open.

the muse is awake.

 

I’m still stiff with sleep,

she says, don’t expect too much,

a few words at best.

 

with months of silence,

few words are better than none.

make them good ones, please.

 

ah, no, she responds,

that’s entirely up to you.

you must wake up too.

 

 

 



The Road

Bruno. C. / Art Photos / CC BY 

Skinny legs pumping, Amelia

Rode up covered in dust. 

I worry ‘bout this child. 

I’s her mama. That’s what we do.

Her eyes gentled me. "Mama,

This just the beginnin' of the road."

Written for Trifextra: Week Fifty-One at Trifectra. The challenge: write exactly 33 words using one of the three pictures provided. I chose this haunting portrait.
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The Man in the Wood

Are you real?

I glance your way

And catch you

Staring back

With an intensity

That scares me,

And makes me want

To beg your pardon.

Grace

My fall from grace was 
unexpected.It hurt like the 
devil; I can tell you that.

With the flick of a finger

and careless aim, you sent me

flying from the promised land

like an inconvenient crumb

sullying the surface of your life.

Through no fault of my own,

penance paid or so it seemed,

redemption came today.

Angels sang and golden

rays shone from the heavens

as, with nary a trumpet, the 
pearly gates cracked open 
with the dawn. Hallelujah.

Once again, I was saved.

Or was it doomed? Because 
then I discovered you wanted  
something. Figures.

***

Linked at dVerse Poets Pub.

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Self-Portrait

big feet, big butt,

bigger mouth, 

that's what he said.

that's OK, I told him.

I've got a good under-

standing, a well-seated

position, and the ability

to make my opinion heard.

*** 

Linked to dVerse Poets Pub

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The Toy Box

(Source: MorgueFile Free Photo)

a far way back and too long ago

I remember a time when

you were totally there

life was a toy box

filled with 

fun

today

you’re just 

there. time passes

unaware. life continues

but the toys and games are 

gone and the box stands bereft


***

Linked to dVerse Poets Pub 

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A Place

(Photo by Danny Ouellet

Source:  Stockvault)

There's a place at edge of light

Where thin the line 'tween day and night

Where nightmares wait just out of sight

And sunshine turns to dark.

There's a place in black of night

Where safety fades, replaced with fright

Where nightmares come with dad's goodnight

And childhood life departs.

There's a place above the deep

Where ere I jump, I stand and weep

And pray the lord my soul to keep

From this body torn apart.

There's a place where nightmares dwell

Where witches cackle and conjure spells

Where demons dance, escaped from hell

And hate pervades the heart.

***

Linked at d'Verse Poets Pub
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Breakfast Under the Tum-Tum Tree

  Illustration from The Jabberwocky

by Lewis Carroll 1871

(Source: WikiMedia Commons)

‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves did…

Oh, crap, who am I kidding?

‘Twasn’t brillig at all, not

on this very un-frabjous day, and

there is not one freaking slithy tove in sight.

Instead what's here is this giant bandersnatch

who galumphed in from the wabe

with no interest at all in the gyre and gimble

and one hell of a frumious appetite.

You thought the Jabberwock was bad?

Oh, man, you have no idea. The only uffish thought

this Bandersnatch has is – one two! one-two! – how to

ruin my day and steal my callooh, callay away.

Not today, big boy. I’m going back to bed.

***

Linked to dVerse Poets Pub.
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Sunday Lunch

It Must Be Time For Lunch Now, 1979, by Francesca Woodman
Source Mag 137

Skewered, bound tight

and slowly turned over

a hot fire until quite done,

my tender heart is crusted

in dread. I know my fate, after all.

After I’ve been sliced and served,

you will greedily devour me,

taking your fill, then toss

the leftovers out with

Monday’s garbage.

***

Written for Mag 137.

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The Puppet

.

Sometimes he's subtle

Except when he's not

He lifts a finger

And she dances a jig

Keeping time to his tune

Wondering what’s come over her

***

***

Written for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads where Mama Zen asks us to write a poem in twenty-five words or less, using a "power image," one we return to over and over.

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The Vitriolic Vagina

Photo By Jaime Clark

Your point made;

You want control. Well,

Sorry, pal,

Not this gal;

Have control issues myself.

So just fu… kiss off.

*** 

This was written for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads (IGWRT). Sunday’s challenge was to write a shadorma, using one of several excellent extreme close-up photographs posted on IGWRT. Another new poetic form for me, a shadorma is an unrhymed, six-line poem with a syllabic rhyme scheme of 3-5-3-3-7-5 syllables per line.

A Metaphorical ¡Olé!

(Painting: Untitled by Raoul Dufy) 

After shoving everyday clutter beneath the bed,

stashing laundry in the closet behind the stair,

leaving Mexican take-out menus to stew in a pan,

she carefully slipped into a cool scented bath and

away from her boring reality she swam.

In the glow of a festive flickering candle and 

the frosty margarita she held in her hand,

she rode sweet salty waves to exotic far lands

where laughter played like a boistrous band

and humdrum one-notes could ne'er be found.

***

Linked in at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
and dVerse Poets Pub

The Flight of the Valkyrie

As we reached the bridge that foggy night,

A mournful gull cried out across the bight.

And when you paused and turned to look,

I saw my chance; a good push was all it took.      

And over you went, like a harpy taking flight.

I won’t shed a single tear as I stand and watch you go.

This happy smile upon my face is all I have to show.

All these years, you’ve made my life a painful living hell.

So long, you wretched hag. Goodbye and fare thee well.

You’ll soon be singing halleluiah with the choir down below.

Under Windsor Bridge, 1912, by Adolphe Valette

***

Linked to The Mag 131.

Boomers

Picture, if you will, house

after house after house of the

post-war American dream, not

Levittown, but close enough, and not

geographically, because this was Houston, 

which was as far from New York as this
neighborhood is from anyone’s

notion of today’s American dream.

See them, these near identical houses

filled with near-identical families?

Watch the Chevvies and Fords carry dads

out of their driveways at 7:42AM each day

while moms prod their two-point-five kids

to “hurry, or you’ll miss the bus” before they sit

and plan their near-identical days of cooking,

cleaning, and coffee with Carol next door.

We didn't know it then, of course, but we were

to become famous, we 2.5 kids in those houses.

We were the post-war population explosion,

the near-identical babies whose arrival would be

felt from Madison Heights to Madison Avenue.

Back then, we knew only the joy of slipping 

through the dusk, hiding and seeking with our pals,
just waiting to claim our piece of the dream with a  

Boom!

***

Written for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, where the prompt was "neighborhood."

Her Royal Highness

She walks with pride much like a lynx

Who knows she's more than just a cat.

When your eyes meet, she seems to wink

And seems to say "Yeah, I'm all that,

Quite clearly an aristocrat."

And in your heart, you know it's true.

This is no ordinary cat...

She is all that, and much more too.

The challenge today at dVerse Poets Pub is to write a "huitain." This is a poetic form of eight lines consisting of eight or ten syllables each, with a rhyme scheme of a,b,a,b,b,c,b,c.

When I sat down to give it a go, my muse took the form of the princess pictured above, who directed my efforts from her rightful place on my lap.

Détente

Soon enough. 

Overhead

stitching the sky in black lace

circling beady eyes on the prize

dipping darting fighting each other off

each intent on scoring the best morsels

salivating...

Below

battered and weakened by a string

of dark days hanging heavy

by a thread woven of pain

unable to move without a stumble

persevering...

Just not now.

***

Linked at dVerse Poets Pub