Turtle Mountain Picnic

A collaborative poem generated by myself and Christopher Luna, at the OSPA picnic yesterday, in response to a writing exercise provided by Steve and Constance...

My God showed them off at the Creation Derby
as if they were angels,
lifting up the sky
to reveal giraffes
with beehive hairdos
I remember feeling short
and secretly wishing I'd hidden
from sight:
a beautiful parrot flew
just below my chin.

My lover showed them off at Dubuque
as if they were racehorses,
lifting up tired, broken legs
to reveal shattered skulls bedecked
with black diamonds.
I remember feeling nothing
and secretly wishing I'd escaped
from Turtle Mountain:

In a desperate
bid for significance
we had the bright idea
to tie the animals
back legs together,
black diamonds bound to
beehive hairdos
hobbled under a high yellow sky
while the peak of Turtle Mountain exploded
with the wings of thousands of parrots.

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White Walls

White walls against dark green shade,
branch bending over wrought-iron rails
frame figures in imagined parade.

House hidden in deep forest glade,
whispering secrets, old retold tales
from white walls against dark green shade

what hands built you, what footsteps made
these steps of slate, the twining trails
that frame figures in imagined parade?

They left long ago, but memories stayed
embedded along with the deep-driven nails
in the white walls against dark green shade--

supporting portraits in the wide-arched arcade,
gallery of ghosts in paint-traced details,
framed figures in imagined parades.

Ivory embroidery on emerald brocade,
jade ocean graced by far-racing sails,
white walls against dark green shade
framing figures in imagined parade.

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
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Green Acorns

scattered on the sidewalk
early harbingers of autumn
scarred by squirrel teeth.

Unripe fruit is bitter,
curses the branch that let it fall too soon
to lie rotting in the rain.

No green stem sprouts from
the unready seed, but this poem
curls up like a brown leaf.

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Just Because It's Right

3 Word Wednesday: Abstain. Halo. Prayer. A good set of words for Ramadan.

make daily prayers
abstain from food and drink
expect no halo

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Nail Song

I grabbed me a nail and I set it on the wood
and the nail said "Lord, this had better be good
Lord, this had better be good."

I picked up the hammer and I went to hit the nail
and the nail said "Lord, I would rather be in jail
Lord, I would rather be in jail."

I swung the hammer down and I hit it on the head
and the nail cried "Lord, I would rather I was dead
Lord, I would rather I was dead!"

I pounded that nail and I hammered it deep
and the nail said "Lord, I wish you would let me sleep
Lord, I think I'm going to sleep."

The storm rolled in and it blew all night
and the nails said "Lord, but we're holding on tight
Lord, but we're holding on tight!"

The sun came out, it was hot all day
and the nails said "Lord, for a little bit of shade
Lord, for a little bit of shade."

Yes, the man with the hammer thinks he's the boss
but it's nails that held the thief on the cross,
it's nails that held the thief on the cross.

--for Big Tent's prompt about something you did with your hands.
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Online and upcoming

qarrtsiluni has posted "A Date with Ben Franklin" and the next issue of Barefoot Muse, which should be up by the end of the month, will include "Up"-- both accompanied by sound files.

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Deep-Dish Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

She put the deep-dish
pineapple upside-down cake
in to bake; went to blow-dry her hair
and moisten her skin.
Outside in the summer heat
water streamed from a hose
into pots full of silk plants.
Then she got in her car
reset the odometer to all zeroes
and drove off leaving the cake to scorch
the pots to overflow
the blow-dryer to burn the house down.

--for Big Tent's wordle prompt.
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Deathwatch Beetle

Your elbows are thick with rust
and stiff, as if you'd been
a tennis pro for way too long.

Every night when people are asleep
you can hear the creaks and groans
of all the joints in your body

and weird gurgles in the pipes. Sometimes
banging. The furnace still works
but the radiators leak

and don't heat up the way they used to.
Pressure fluctuates and there are
random surges of hot and cold water.

Visible rust and hidden corrosion,
flow constricted, backing up in eddies
and the furnace ticking over in the basement—

sound they used to call
the deathwatch beetle.


--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
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Massacre at Gothregor

If you've never read any of the Kencyr books by Pat Hodgell, you're missing a real treat. Also, this poem won't make a whole lot of sense to you.

Ganth Grey Lord Gerraint's heir
grim he went riding from Gothregor.
High in the White Hills harm awaited
the hard-handed lord and the host he summoned.
Trace now the tangled cause of this trouble:
if I tell this tale tears will follow.

Kinzi Keen-eyed Knorth high lady
stood long listening alone on the rampart.
Walls guarded women whose men were away
fighting in far-distant lands earning the fees
that kept Knorth fed. Kinzi acceded,
knowing stern need and never complaining.
Lacking steel and strong arms she trusted in stone.
As well be warded by wind and air.

Night fell. No warning named any threat
creeping and gliding through gloomy Gothregor.
Assassins, unseen but for sheen of bared knives
cut throats in corridors quiet as caresses.
Bashtiri breath-stealers' blades drank deep
bloodying maiden breasts to dark death-banners.

No hoydens, Highborn women are hobbled,
knees knotted tightly in narrow skirts.
Fleeing was futile and they could not fight:
no freedom for limbs fettered by fear
still paying the price for Gerridon's pride.
No Senethar, sisters to save your lives.

Down in a dark hall desperate footsteps
seek out the safety of shadows and silence.
Beautiful Aerulan Brenwyr's beloved
clutches a child's hand white-cheeked with fear.
Above, at the doorway already cold
Kinzi lies killed among pools of crimson.

Sweet pale blooms promise protection
concealment and comfort for cold Tieri.
A woven hanging hides her behind it,
moon-garden entrance guarded by grace.
Aerulan invites assassins to her arms:
her death distracts them from Tieri's trail.

Cut down like corn the women of Knorth.
Ashes blew black from blazing pyres.
Knorth's men, maddened made for the hills
drinking full deep of destruction's draught.
Under her home's halls Tieri lay hidden
last Knorth woman left all alone.

Ambush scattered the host for slaughter.
Grey Lord Ganth heir of Gerraint
never returned from wrathful riding,
grasped exile gladly never guessing
his sister lived last and alone
prey for the prowler out of the deep past.

Formidable foes (female or male)
bought the Bashtiri, blades for hire,
to kill the Knorth. Unanswered questions
haunt the wide halls of the High Lord's home:
Who kens old quarrels that cost us Kinzi?
Who now will whisper a name to the wind?






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Leveraged Buyout

3 Word Wednesday: Joke. Leverage. Remedy

remedy for debt:
try to leverage a buyout
it's a bitter joke

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Candles for Ramadan

I lit a candle under the new moon and was proud
of how bright it burned. The full moon
swallowed my tiny flame without a trace.


Even the hawkmoths
who haunted my window with such passion
in dark nights, abandoned my candle
for sky-borne glory.

The moon at the end of the month grows thin
devouring its own light. Forsaken moths wander the air
searching for the silver dust of midmonth.

Ramadan burns flesh as flame burns wax. Souls
circle the candles of the Nights of Power
on private miraj.

New moon leaves us famished for brilliance
that swallows our souls as the moon
swallows my candle.


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My new socks

Susan sent me the most awesome pair of socks.
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Water

Water, one cup
sluiced around the roots of a drying plant
or down a thirsty throat.

Water, one river
melt-fed from snows that will be gone
by the end of the century.

Water, one delta
diked and drained and filled to feed
the appetites of cities.

Water, one ocean
slicked with giant gyres of garbage
threaded with black oil and red tides.

Water, one planet
miraculous blue jewel set in the black
vast and waterless sky.

Water, one drop.

image courtesy of Magpie Tales
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"Call me Ishmael"

We'd been at sea for far too long.
I don't mean the ocean—the corrosive
fluid of a man's obsession
was what upheld the Pequod's keel.
We were adrift, out of sight
of all landmarks, home and family,
history, religion, any sense
of our own lives' geography or heading.

We were like drowning men or captives.
Some acquiesced. Some were unwilling.
Some swallowed the fanatic's dose.
Your age would call our ship
a floating Jonestown. Each man aboard
was marked for death, corpses adrift
in a wooden coffin.

All round us whale-spouts arose
like sheaves of sprouting wheat
we said. What did we know of wheat?
A landsman's image mouthed by sailors
sinking in unadmitted desperation. The sun
blazed down on trackless liquid wastes.
Nothing lay ahead except the deadly reckoning
wrapped in a milk-white hide
like hull-breaking rocks in fog or surf.

Call me Ishmael, miraculously delivered
by no virtue, but by design: one should be left
to tell this tale.

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