Epithalamium

Today each streak of sunshine is a gift
of gold, a wedding band uniting sun
with earth, a lonely bride too long adrift
in veils of gray. She sheds them now, to run
into her bridegroom's gleaming arms. She's spangled
with the drying dew and robed in ferns,
her emerald elflocks heavy-leafed and tangled
as the hair of any bride who burns
with sleepless nights.
Oh, flesh of earth and water
wedded to a soul of sky and fire,
son of Eve or ancient Adam's daughter:
love awaits behind the sun and higher.
Terra greeting Sol cannot shine bright
as human souls embraced by Allah's light.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Slingback Noir

She kicked her sandals off
(I don't remember the name of the movie)
and slid one stockinged foot
(Do women wear those nylons any more?)
up behind her other calf
(I think it was a French film)
and it made a whispering sound
(I didn't understand what she whispered)
all along her long, long legs
(there were subtitles but I forget them)
and she beckoned to the hero
(thirteen-year-olds weren't supposed to be at the drive-in)
and said: "Come here,
I'll show you something you'll never forget."
(I've never forgotten.)

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales; also for Big Tent's aphrodisiac prompt
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Downhill Novice

3 Word Wednesday: Abandon. Gradual. Precise.

abandoning fear
she picks up speed gradually
precise tracks criss-cross

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

God Knows Troubles

I went to the mountain for to calm my fears
and the mountain was crying in rainbow tears
and it said "I've got troubles of my own, God knows
I've got troubles of my own."

I went to the ocean for to wash my hands
and the ocean was lying on the burning sands
and it said "I've got troubles of my own, God knows
I've got troubles of my own."

I went to the forest for to seek some shade
and the trees they were dying of the timber trade
and they said "I've got troubles of my own, God knows
I've got troubles of my own."

I went to the rocks and I climbed the hills
and the stone at my feet said to me "As God wills
I'll hear your troubles with my own, God knows
I've got troubles of my own."

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

On the Knees of Giants

When I was young, there were certain people who were the intellectual landmarks by whom I steered. Stephen Jay Gould. Rachel Carson. Isaac Asimov. Martin Gardner. Gardner was the last, and he just passed away.

I was raised on the knees of giants. Now I have to stand on my own two feet.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Once a Fisherman

And he thinks of the days when the fish were real
struggling in the net, then fading
on the drying sand. He remembers the clean salt smell
and silver scales clinging to his hands.

He remembers taking them from a sack
one at a time, dried and stiff with salt. Handing them
to hungry people in that famine time.
That day he pulled in a net heavy with hearts.

He rubs his fingertips together, feeling
for the slime on fish bellies, the grit of desert sand
or the tautness of salt. There's nothing now
but calluses from pulling nets

and the memory of miracles.

--image from Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Books Should Be

“A book should be an axe to break the frozen sea within us.” – Kafka

Well, that's ambitious,
to think pack ice would yield
to a little chopping with a hatchet. Why not say:
a book should be the Gulf Stream
a book should be global warming
a book should be an icebreaker with bows of steel
wrapped in colored cardboard?

Or should a book be a pod of harbor seals
running silent under the ice of your soul
occasionally pausing to chew an inconspicuous breathing hole?
Or a bear, half-snow and half-aquatic
prowling the arctic-scape as if it owned the place?

A book might be a williwaw throwing clouds
of frozen snow the size of mountains into
a blue-ice sky the size of continents,
or the aurora, sunless rainbow reflected
in a thousand mirrors of shattered ice
or in a pool of fresh water on the surface of a frozen fjord.
A book could be a rowdy quarreling flock of arctic terns
coming home from three years at sea.

They came, sober-plumaged and gaudy
came to perch on every swaying branch
in the jungles of my heart. See me now
bringing you dropped feathers by the handful.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Fear of Change

3 Word Wednesday: Dread. Grasp. Pacify.

pacifier grasped
with full force of infant dread
another diaper change

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

This is for Susan Palwick, and it will make more sense if you read the challenge first.

I ripped off the title from a novel by the late, great Roger Zelazny and Robert Sheckley. If you're going to steal, steal from the best.

******************************

Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming

"Bah!" said the alchemist, slamming the door to his lab. The miniature stuffed crocodile hanging from the ceiling revolved lazily on its string.

Crouched on the open windowsill, she listened. The old man's footsteps receded down the stairs, his querulous grumble trailing behind. "Francis Bacon had a brazen head. It foretold the fates of empires. I have to settle for plastic, and the bloody thing won't talk about anything but clothes..."

She slipped down to the floor, agile as a squirrel. A pink plastic squirrel. Her high heels tapped unevenly against the warped attic floorboards. Two white mice watched impassively from a wire cage on a shelf.

Barbie hauled herself up a trailing dust-sheet and crept across the table. "Ken! Speak to me, Ken!"

The plastic head turned on its plinth. "Next season's silhouette is... edgy, hyper-realistic, no-frills... High-concept, high-tech colors..."

"Oh, shut up," sighed Barbie. She had to concede the alchemist had a point. Ken was a shallow, babbling fashion groupie, always had been: she'd gone through changes over the years, more than most people would give her credit for, but Ken stayed just the same.

Still, she wasn't going to leave him stuck on a plinth.

"Don't touch the head," muttered a voice overhead. Startled, Barbie looked up. The crocodile squinted glassily down at her. "He'th left thpellth on it, you know."

"I have to," said Barbie. "I have to get him out of here."

"You'll thet off the alarmth."

"Is that all?"

The crocodile shrugged, undulating all the way to the tip of its tail. Dust and a few loose scales drifted down, glinting in the Nevada sunshine. "He'th an alchemitht. He'th full of thurpritheth. What do you think?"

"I float pretty well, actually. I'm hollow," said Barbie.

"Oh, a huldre-woman? Where'th your tail?"

"I beg your—" began Barbie indignantly, but she was interrupted by the sound she'd been dreading: footsteps on the stairs.

Barbie grabbed Ken's head off the plinth and sprinted across the table toward the window. As the door swung open, she broad-jumped to the sill and tumbled forward into the open air. Surely the dry ground below would shatter her plastic limbs—but—she grabbed a thread at her left shoulder and yanked.

Glossy, hot-pink fabric blossomed from her shoulders, revealing itself as one of her innumerable prom dresses, cut and reshaped into an improvised parachute pack. Barbie hit the ground, staggered, but stayed on her feet. G. I. Joe jogged over to join her. "Did you get him?"

Breathless, Barbie held up her prize. From the window above, they heard a shout of rage. Joe grabbed Barbie's free hand. "Run."

Down the hiking path they sprinted, weaving in and out among stones and brush. All too soon, they could hear the alchemist's feet thudding after them. Barbie gasped, "Should we?"

Joe pulled her to a stop. "Yes. Now."

Barbie set down the head, which muttered "Natural fibers are out," and joined hands with Joe. They stood facing each other for a moment. Then Joe inhaled deeply, and Barbie exhaled. She shrank. He grew.

Barbie, now miniature in size, dropped to the ground. She hated being this small. She hugged the Ken head for reassurance as Joe—now about knee-high to an adult—levelled his rifle up the path.

Shots echoed around the rugged hills, followed by a scream of mortal anguish. "TAKE THAT!" shouted Joe. "AND THAT AND THAT! This is for Ken! This is for the Raggedys! This is for Papa Smurf!"

Silence fell.

Joe reached down and took Barbie's hand. The moment he touched her, she rocketed upward. And so did he.

A moment later, they stood staring at each other from a height neither had ever experienced before. Barbie touched her chest cautiously, feeling her skin give under fingers. "I... I feel really strange."

"Me too." Joe looked down. "That's not... us, is it?" There was a pair of tiny plastic figures on the ground, next to the head.

"Not exthactly," said a voice from up the trail. Joe and Barbie snapped to the alert. The crocodile slithered toward them.

"It's okay," said Barbie. "He's friendly... I guess. What happened?"

"That alchemitht? He wath a real magithian. When you killed him, hith magic kind of... thpilled out. You two are real now. I'm alive again." It craned its neck, looking around at the desert landscape. "For what it'th worth."

"Uh..." said Joe. "I guess we can help you find water. You'll have to stay away from humans..."

"No worrieth. Thorry it didn't work for your friend."

Barbie looked down at the Ken head. "Well, it wouldn't have done him any good to come to life as just a head. I mean, then he'd have been dead. For real, dead. That's right, isn't it? We can die now?"

"Yeah, I guess," said Joe. "But hey. We can live." He grinned at her, and she felt a curious thudding behind her breastbone. I have a heart, she thought. How weird.

Joe bent down and picked up the tiny doll of himself. "Guess I'll keep this for a souvenir. Want yours?"

"Nah," said Barbie.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

A Glitch in the Fashion Works

She fondles her bamboo-patterned purse
and looks in Nordstrom's window
at summer styles. Brief is in.

Caparisons of crumple-proof rayon
are out. She doffs her raincoat
capitulating to the needs of the moment.

The silver-fleshed mannequin—
head canted at an anatomically unlikely angle—
(a glitch in the display-designing software?)

stares sapiently into the rain. Her mouth
tastes of it: tincture of futility.

--for Big Tent's Wordle prompt
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Songs in the Key

I walked by the ocean and it sang to me
surf-songs set in the key of sea.
I walked through the world and it sang to me
life-songs set in the key of be.
The cell-door opened and it sang to me
a creaking hinge in the key of free.
The wind in the forest, it sang to me
a growth song set in the key of tree.
I walked in love and it sang to me
a ballad set in the key of we.
I wrote me a prayer and I sang it: See
a love-song set in the key of Thee.

--for Writer's Island: the key
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Penelope and The Lyric

Thrilled to find that The Lyric has selected "Penelope" as the winner of the 2009 Carpenter Prize!

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Intersections

Intersections, a poetry and math blog, has a post up featuring a poem from this blog about Benoit Mandelbrot. Thanks, JoAnne!

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Don't Hear Much Any More

These are words I don't hear much any more:
taratibu. Adj., tidy; adv., slowly,
a single word teaches that "haste makes waste".
Pole pole, adv., slowly, cousin to
pole, sorry; mpole, a quiet person or a poor person
impoverished perhaps by voicelessness.

Mwembe, a mango tree; embe, one mango,
part of the whole. Miembe, a shady grove
as cool and breezy as a house.

Maji, gushing from a brass tap
in the blazing sunshine; maji maji
warcry of a magical rebellion
meant to turn hot lead to harmless water.
Blood, damu, flowed instead.

It's been a long time since I was addressed
as mzungu (foreigner, European, colonialist)
or ndugu (sibling, comrade, relative)
or mgeni (stranger, guest).

--for Big Tent's prompt on unusual language.
You can find more complete definitions for the above words at the Kamusi Project.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Low Earth Orbit

3 Word Wednesday: Fear. Ignore. Weightless.

ignore falling fears
orbit weightlessly above
brilliant blue orb

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Dormancy

A king stands carved in stern basalt
robed in purple lupine and gold balsamroot
crowned with a victor's wreath
of iridescent tree swallows—
bearded with ice, weeping
nameless winter streams. Lichen
grows like greenish stubble
across his cheeks. The lids of his eyes
are feathered with eagle's nests.

This is a land that was striped with bolts
of fire and buried knee-deep in soot
and ash, that fought for breath
under his hand. Years followed
while the king stood sleeping.
Life came slowly back to the stricken
forests and the turbid, troubled
rivers. They say a volcano never dies,
only rests.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Jonah

Was Jonah in the belly of the beast
a refugee, a parasite, or prey?
We've always thought him just a whale's feast,
poor Jonah. In the belly of the beast
the gravid weight of prophecy increased
until it vomited the stowaway.
For Jonah found the belly of the beast
both refuge, and a sight to make him pray.

for Writer's Island: stowaway.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

At Twilight, on the Morrison Bridge

I see it open,
the metal roadbed rising like the wings
of a butterfly at rest.
And I see that it is striped,
longitudinally striped in the most delicate colors
of which steel is capable.
Even the yellow lane markers are attenuated
like rays of sun through the heavy overcast
I know so well.

Driving or walking across the bridge,
you would never see these stripes. By daylight,
you would not see the horizontal six-point star
of razor-edged girders spread beneath your feet.
Only at twilight, stopped in traffic and looking up
might you see these things appear
rising from the gap.

The bells have stopped ringing.
The giant metal wings are folding like a moth's.
I drive east, darkward
over the now nonexistent gap. I carry on my retinas
the afterimage of a thing
I have never seen before.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Lorca

On my back the heat of pockmarked adobe.
Before me, rifles stare with black pupilless eyes.
At my feet the trench exhales dirt smell.
Beyond are scarlet anemones.

In six minutes they will fire
and we will fall like blossoms
before scythes at harvest.
In five minutes they will fire
and we will fall forward into darkness.
The thirsty earth will crimson with blood.

You will never find my bones.
By spring I will have risen like a whirlwind of dust.
By spring I will have risen like a field of anemones.
You will not find me in this mass grave.

In four minutes they will fire
and set me free.
Three minutes more of Lorca,
then an eternity of anemones.


--for Big Tent's first prompt: Persona poem.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Untitled Country

Scot Siegel's new online journal, Untitled Country Review, just launched its first issue. Hop on over and check it out (poem from this blog on last page).

Scot's taking submissions for the summer issue through July 15.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Where It Comes From

Poems are music.
You think that music comes
from the skin. It comes
from the hollow
inside the drum, inside the cello
inside the cells of the heart.
Every void is full of echoes
of God's voice, unmasked
by solid substance.

Poems are echoes
of emptiness singing praise
in a silent room.

Inspired by a prompt on Poetic Asides: Why you started writing poetry.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

April as a Wordle

For the heck of it, I pasted the text of all the poems I wrote in April into Wordle...



(click on the image)
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Pitcher Plant

3 Word Wednesday: Escape. Hum. Vibrant.

trapped bees hum wildly
vibrant, desperate and doomed
there is no escape

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Message Without a Bottle

The bottle was empty,
there was no folded paper
or leaf with letters cleverly pricked into it
stuffed inside. There was no label
no DRINK ME tag, no emblem
cast into the colorless glass.

But the wind across the neck
whispered loud as breeze in a grove of palms
that covers an entire continent: Remember
and using the thick base of the bottle as a lens
I set fire to an old fallen treetrunk
and the blaze was visible for miles

and in the morning the same not-letters
spelled out the Names of God on a lateen sail
standing in to shore.

A big welcome back to Writer's Island.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

NaPoWriMo post-mortem

So April is past, and with it some of the goals I set for the month. To wit:

I wrote and posted an average of more than 1 poem per day. That's average. I've always figured the poem-a-day rule should be interpreted in that light. Let me freely admit that I did some jiggery-pokery with the post dates to make the post per day.

I wrote to more than half of Read Write Poem's final series of prompts, qualifying me for inclusion in their anthology. I've sent in the submission.

I completed the Madoc suite. Here's the really cool part: I sent the link to Neil Gaiman, and asked for his permission to get the suite published as a chapbook. He has very graciously agreed. So my next goal is going to be to try to find a publisher for that set of poems: it will probably be titled "Ideas in Abundance", maybe subtitled something like "The Madness of Richard Madoc", or some other reference to the origins thereof.

If I can't find a publisher for the Madoc suite (it is rather a niche-market thing), I'll self-publish it and flog it to the comic stores in this town. First step should probably be to investigate some of the SF-oriented poetry websites.

Looking over the Madoc suite, I'm pleased with how most of the poems came out. They're a bit darker than most of my writing, and a surprising number of them turned out to have to do with sex. (Or lack of it, in "Vampires Don't Dance.") I really like that tesseract poem: designing it made my head hurt, but it proved surprisingly easy to write once I figured out what I was doing.

Onward...

Collection available! Knocking from Inside