This is my response to the visual writing prompt at Magpie Tales. You can read the responses of other writers at Magpie 35.
Compost
It is the season’s leavings
that root me to this spaded place —
bent twigs, loosed leaves,
the year’s used ends and endings
storm-swept in sheltered corners.
Barren fields and desert reaches
free the weed to tumble in its time,
but the clutter of the season’s leavings
frees the roots from hidden seeds
of other spaces, other times.
This is my response to the MagpieTales #34 visual writing prompt. Go to the link to get to the responses of other writers.
Artifact
There once was a point
to this old lantern
that now only reflects
what light slips through
somber drawn drapes
Once it had a purpose in
repelling night’s dark hand.
Its flickerings lit dim stairwells,
dispelled the haunts of nightmares,
revealed vague truths hidden
within shadowy eyes.
Useless in lonely oblivion,
it waits for storms
that devour the sky
and send the world
into frightful corners
of unexpected night.
I almost missed this Magpie Tales #33 visual writing prompt, but better late than never.
(As usual, you can read other submissions at the link above.)
A Sense of Scent
She thought she was done with him,
but one night the moon rose
clear and full-faced,
and an early autumn wind
swept the scent of lavender
through her open window.
Some times are harder than others
to sit silent,
hands clenched against
the lure of the pen,
mouth set against
the call of the phone,
thinking to oneself
that some things are better
left to silence,
to the slow decay of time,
the turning of moons
and lavender seasons.
But even in the darkest of corners
some things refuse to die –
some small husk still
riddled with seeds,
some insistent root
defying the dust,
some dormant dream
of a riotous clash of hearts,
clutch of minds,
dance of hands that
hope and hold and, too soon,
let go.
She thought she was done with him,
except his voice
still pulls at her belly
like the insistent tides of the moon.
So when he calls
from places lush
with a thousand thriving things,
she sends him dewy lavender
wrapped in familiar black lace,
because, they say,
The sense of smell
is the most visceral,
holding even the darkening
memory of the dying.
This is my response to this Magpie Tales #31 visual writing prompt:
what we see
is a reflection
of who we are
distorted still
by slight perspective
and the play of light
on glass darkly
Go to the site to see the responses of others.
It’s been a long while since I’ve published any of my poetry. It’s been a long time since I’ve written any poetry.
Early last spring I ran across a request for submissions from the Ballard Street Poetry Journal, and I took a chance and submitted one, which was published in the current Summer 2010 issue.
I find the poetry in many journals rather inaccessible, either for reasons of language or subject. But I loved all of the poems in the Ballard Street Poetry Journal. Here’s mine, which appears on Page 21:
The Gravity of Gardens
They gave me a garden the size of a grave,
so I filled it with raucous reminders of sense:
riots of marigold, lavender, sage
rosemary, basil dianthus, rue.
And waving madly above them all
spears of brazen Jerusalem artichoke
that perplexing garden gypsy
that blossoms and burrows,
grows up to nine feet tall, and
in the harsh summer storm
dances her defiance
to the grim arrogance
of gravity.
I need to plant that garden again.
My response to the Magpie Tales 27 prompt. Link to the responses of others from here.
old connections rusted
tight against intrusion,
inseparable
like old friends
forged by history
The following is my response to this Magpie Tales #26 visual prompt. More responses can be found here.
crawl deep among
dewy vines
breathe old earth
each morning after mist
melts to shadow
The following is a piece I wrote in response to this Magpie Tales #19 visual prompt. More responses can be found here.
Sometimes the softest silk,
the smoothest grain,
hide danger, sharp,
compelling beyond trust.
Beware of costly knives
riddled with history.
The book, which contains free verse and reprints of prayers and bits of prose, features lots of Corita’s collage art, which contains lots of cut-up words from ads and headlines, sometimes reconfigured, sometimes not.
The description above is from a post on the site from which I won the book — Killing the Buddha. It’s a site that I find always stimulating.
I never win anything. I mean it. I think that this is the first thing I every won. Well, I came in second in a Swing Dance contest once. Even got a trophy. Usually I don’t even make an effort to enter any kind of contest. Never play the lottery. Because I never win anything.
But this time I did. And I did because I remember the 60s. I didn’t remember Sister Corita, who created the book, published in 1967. But I did remember the Berrigan Brothers, and I remembered that Daniel Berrigan was a Jesuit.
I recently read online somewhere (can’t find it again) that the story was that Daniel Berrigan kept a photo of Sister Corita in his shower with a note that said “no one should shower alone.”
Thinking of Berrigan, I am remembering another activist ex-priest who was a good friend at one point in my life. He has grown immensely as an artist in those past 25 years, although he was good even back then. His paintings, as he is, are larger than life. I just love his new stuff.
I have been fortunate in my life to have had some closeness with some truly unique men, who have inspired me and moved on and left me with the kinds of memories that will keep me smiling someday as I retire to a rocking chair in the sun.
(And I’ve been just as fortunate to continue to have a group of close women friends whose constancy and candor, humor and heart, help to keep me smiling — well, most of the time.)
So, now I wait for my prize, a book by a creative woman, to arrive.
It’s a good day.
Lesson In A Language I Can’t Speak Yet
by Rita Gabis, from The Wild Field;Alice James Books, 1994
The jellyfish lies naked on the sand,
a circle I can see through to the bright harvest
of stones. On one side of it is white foam,
on the other black seagrass.
A gold line of sunlight circles the bay.
I don’t know how the life of a jellyfish begins,
I don’t know where its sex is,
or why the circle is its shape among
all the shapes in the world. The flesh-colored
armor of crabs dries on wet sand.
The snail retreats when I touch it.
The footprints I leave here are full of the vanished
weight of the body.
The heart of the jellyfish is clear,
I was born deaf to the sounds it makes, its cells that shine
next to the rough arms of the starfish,
the starfish that can regenerate
its severed limbs. I have entered
another country, where lost parts of myself re-form;
hatred from the same salty center as love,
desire that had been torn from me.
I have to be open to powers
I know nothing about.
Identity in small things,
the jellyfish that smells like the sea,
the sea that touches all corners of the earth at once,
holes in the sand where mussels breathe.