Author: memadtwo

at bay

shadows edge flush along the side
of day, post sentries that abide
within the holes where secrets hide

when sun falls sudden into night
colors retreat to black and white,
orbiting like a satellite,
a rippled undulating tide

unlike a dream which speaks in signs,
eidola plot their own decline–
they vanish in between the lines,
a hushed wake of penumbral glide

Grace at dVerse introduced us to a new poetry form: Zéjel. In my recent cleaning mode, I discovered the strange embroidery pictured above, and decided to compose a verse to accompany it.

I stitched this piece as an assignment for a class I took about 15 years ago–we were trying out new stitches. I can’t remember what inspired this design, nor can I figure out now how I produced some of these stitches. I may have kept notes about it, but I haven’t discovered them yet. But I have many boxes still to go through…

I found this poetic form to be a challenge, and I’m not sure I’m done tweaking what I wrote. But I do think its strangeness is a good match for the art.

now, when

what crowns morn
ing what binds begin
ning connects
endings to
portaled timelessness what re
news continues life

if not birds
if not stars if not
dawn if not
rain wind sky
if not fertile earth turning
into trees—what then?

For earthweal, spending some time with trees. My painting is, once again, inspired by Joan Mitchell’s tree paintings which I return to again and again.

(re) corded

weaving light
waves that cross over
in curved lines,
waves that land
inside the pause of the edge,
waves that linger cusped–

a small piece
of time, and yet it
fills me up–
I balance,
holding on to tides synapsed
between spells and signs

Punu Ngura (Country with trees) 4, 2019 by Peter Mungkuri ...

Peter Mungkuri’s “Country with Trees”, above, is the current Kick-About prompt. The layering of the different elements got me thinking about an idea from Claudia McGill that I had copied and saved which I recently found when sorting out files.

She took a magazine and tore pages partially out to create a new layered collage-like image. I did not have any magazines with trees, but I have lots of surfing magazines I bought on eBay because they are full of images of sea and sky to use in collage. So I layered the ocean.

My poem is a shadorma quadrille for dVerse, using the word provided by Linda, linger.

anomalies

phantasma
goria exposed
by shadows
dissolving
into borrowed wings eclipsed
by casting out light

11 surrealist women artists take centre stage for the ...

I’m behind a few weeks on posting my contributions to the Kick-About, but this is the most recent, a collage inspired by Sheila Legge’s Phantom of Surrealism, above. Masked in roses, she was photographed in a white dress and gloves, surrounded by pigeons in Trafalgar Square, a performance inspired by a painting by Dali.

Woman with a Head of Roses, 1935. By Salvador Dalí ...

I was drawn to the statuesque quality of the photo, particularly given the location, and I can never resist using birds in a collage.

And of course we all don our own masks–some are just more obvious than others.

recalibrations

where is the center?
always moving–
I can’t locate
the pivot

always moving–
the place of stillness,
the pivot
of this labyrinth

stillness
retracing
this labyrinth
emerging

retracing
beginning
emerging
expanding

to begin,
I relocate–
expanding
the center

For Earthweal, where Ingrid asks us to consider our labyrinthine times.

Twenty Years

I had written my own poem earlier in the week, but since the anniversary of 9/11 is on a Saturday, I also consulted the Oracle. We are both feeling the shadows and the ache.

ghosted, these
ruins—shadows left
imprinted
on this day–
each returning resurrects
the ache of absence

beneath blue skies
death shows up
raining red

the day lives raw
our dreams ache
with rust and blood

language is shadowed
as if love
will never be recalled

music whispers
on the wind
through still light

just like that/either way

more
and more
crow-
ded in-
to less and
less—un-
fold-
ed and
folded a-
gain each new day–
do I need
to know
who
I am?
words scatter
like air–
gone,
disa-
ppeared

David at the skeptic’s kaddish introduced me to the waltz wave, an poetry form that asks you to separate the syllables for some of your words. I like to do this, especially in shadorma.

I found it to be a challenge, especially to find the right subject matter for this kind of verse. In the end I wrote two, both of which seemed to go well with an old collage I had done which was based on a painting by Redon.

do
dreams fly
or
tunnel?
flow or stun?
spiral
to
the cen-
ter or spin
out to the far-
thest away?
will they
em-
brace or
turn around?
para-
llel
or de-
part?

For Colleen’s #Tanka Tuesday, poet’s choice.

Also linking to dVerse OLN, hosted by Mish.

Still #2

70 years cranes s

“It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead.”
― Joseph Heller

“And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”
–Kurt Vonnegut

crane 2s

August 6 marks the 76th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, which was followed by the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9—the only time nuclear weapons have been used in war.

Between 130,000 and 230,000 people were killed, mostly civilians.  Many of those who survived the bombing itself were stricken with radiation sickness and died painful and premature deaths.

The story of 12-year-old Sadako Sasaki’s attempt to make 1000 origami cranes after falling ill with leukemia turned the Japanese Crane, long a symbol of immortality, into a symbol of the wish for nuclear disarmament and world peace.

There are currently less than 1800 Japanese cranes surviving in the wild, for the usual human reasons—loss of habitat and food sources, pollution and poisioning, poaching, disease.

And so it goes…

burning floods
birds singing silent
ash and bones

cranes s

For Frank’s haibun prompt at dVerse, August. I’ve written about this in August and used these images several times before.

 This is our cry.
This is our prayer.
Peace in the world.

–inscription on the Children’s Peace Monument in Hiroshima
http://www.nippon.com/en/images/k00009/

crane 5s

Sadako Sasaki was a toddler living in Hiroshima when it was bombed by the United States.  Ten years later she died as a result of leukemia, “the atomic bomb disease.”  If you don’t know the story of Sadako and the 1000 Cranes, you can read about it here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_and_the_Thousand_Paper_Cranes

70 years close up 1s