you fling the blooms, graceful– hands filled with abundance, harvest untroubled by time’s immanent decay,
the cost of seeds waxing– each life encircled by its opposite—how all language breaks in to tears—
but dance!– the seasons are not closed—the same sun that sets early now will grow, expand, greet sky open
again, in tangible contrast to our useless attempts to resist, turn back clocks, challenge the tides
My response to Merril’s autumn ekphrastic prompt at dVerse. I chose the above image, Child Dancing With Chrysanthemum Branch. Chrysanthemums are the birth flower of November, symbolizing both long life and mourning or grief. I’ve used Jane’s Oracle 2 words as inspiration.
I did not realize until after I wrote the poem and was searching for appropriate images how well it fit this response to Nick Cave’s soundsuits that I did for a recent Kick-About prompt.
The soundsuits created by Nick Cave, the artist, are totally different than the songs created by Nick Cave, the musician.
bombs are cold explosions of bitterness sucking the warmth out of what remains of possibility
bombs are greedy machines, meant only to destroy, burn any seeds, annihilate life
bombs are hungry voracious conduits for our worst impulses eating our souls from the inside out
A quadrille for dVerse, where Lisa has given us the word warm. In 2014 I did a series called “What Is It Good For?” on memadtwo. There were, as always, many conflicts in the news. Hearing this song from Buddy and Julie Miller this morning, it reminded me of the art from those posts.
It also made me think again of how cold this winter will be for the Ukrainians and so many others the world over. How short our attention span. How little we have learned.
What IS it good for–the guns, the bombs, the dying? We know the answer.
My message from the Oracle this morning. The first word she gave me was “animal” but it seems she meant their presence to be inferred by the Badger form.
ask the long always for sanctuary—beneath seasons of riversong here follows deep between
why and how to listen when moonspirit is about– wandering ancient light through forested earthshine
The art is from the archives–one of many mandalas I did for Sue Vincent’s prompts.
halfway is never fixed– merging not in a line, but positioned between– too brief to be resolved
the madness of fate– consummation and release, sweeping life away
Another collage inspired by Elisa Ang’s painting, paired with the Badger and Kick-About poem, above, and my Pure Haiku Volcano contribution which you can read here.
what season is this? dark, enigmatic, grown wild– spilling from our eyes
don’t weep– rings encircle us inside life’s limits– we must learn to accept the turning of the tides
Elisa Ang provided the artistic inspiration, above, for my series of volcano poems appearing this week at Pure Haiku. Serendipitously, the Kick-About recently hosted a prompt based on Turner’s painting of Mt. Vesuvius, for which I made a series of collages and wrote a cadralor of volcano-themed poems titled “In Search of Venus”. And Jane’s Oracle 2 words provided further inspiration for me to write five Badger poems to go with the volcano theme.
You can read my poem at Pure Haiku here. Thanks, as always, to Freya Pickard for her continued support of my work.
old news now– drowned out by the latest atrocities
“Ukrainian Figurines” by Kirill Shevchenko (Groder) Image by Кирилл Шевченко from Pixabay
David, at The Skeptic’s Kaddish, supplied the above photo for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday this week. I recently ran across a “42” poem I had written and the form seemed just right for this prompt. The situation in Ukraine is full of questions with no easy answers.
I did these collages in my early days of blogging, when Marcy Erb and I did a number of poetry and art collaborations. The poetic excerpt that inspired this work was from Frederick Turner.
On the Death of an Infant
Latecomer, first to go, Like the small arctic flower Between the snow and snow, The fragrance of an hour.
Frederick Turner (b. 1943)
Every day new things demand our attention–but let us not forget the people of Ukraine.