collage

Remembering 2022

This house has
time–
it wanted mountains,
morning songs, shadows,
happy screams.

We are all sailing
another grey sky,
clinging to tattered
margins.  Move, expand–
you can hear the universe–

Sing.  Ask the wind
if the moon cried
when the universe was young.

Laura at dVerse asked us to take the first lines of the first poems we published each month in 2022 and make a new poem. Three of mine were haibuns, so I used the first line of the haiku part. I’ve also included art from some of those posts. If it sounds Oracle-like, several of the poems were from that source. She always bleeds into the rest of my writing as well.

Asylum
gifts
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Living  
Conjunction
Beach Haiku 2022
this long night
Darkness Darkness
The Gravity of Home
Year of the Tiger
multitudes of changing colour, condensed motion, thoughts full
to sail or to swim
be the asking

embraced

I decided to do something a little different with Jane’s Random Word List this week–I cut out all the words and combined them with a few from my own collage box oracle on a painted postcard, as I like to do (but haven’t done often enough lately). The image was inspired by Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday prompt, the photo by her friend, Terri Webster Schrandt, below.

gentle
vagabond friend–
the countryside extends
great distances—opens
time to welcome
you home

My Dream About Dogs

The dogs were here first.
You think you own them, but no–
they lead, you follow.

Other dogs, other
people, entangled within
a rocky landscape.

It’s always winter.
You must work hard, struggle
to get anywhere.

Where is it?  You no
longer even think you know–
the pull of the leash.

You’re cold and you need to feel–
breath shortens—leaves misty trail.

Ingrid at dVerse asked us to write a poem inspired by a dream, and Sarah’s W3 prompt asked for a poem of 14 lines or less about dreams.

I remembered these sketches I did of a dog–I think it was from a photo Nina sent me of one of her dogs, but I’m not totally certain–and found them in an old sketchbook from the early 1980s. The collage is from one of Jane’s prompts I did in 2016.

I often dream of dogs–I’ve lived with them, but never owned one. Clearly they have a secure place in my mind.

wingspirit

“Away, come away:
Empty your heart of its mortal dream.”
–W.B. Yeats

I circled around with the Oracle this morning, rearranging the words, paring them down, but ending up with the same message I began with. When looking for images, I thought right away of the birdlings, and these collages I did for one of Jane’s Yeats prompts way back in 2017 seemed to fit perfectly, along with the quote from Yeats.

I’m trying very hard to ignore how our government is selling its soul for the trappings of power. How long until we listen to the universe, and remember who we should be?

to belong to blue
open sky music
into wingspirit

full of soundlight
listen together
with the universe

as every voice
remembers its song
and soars

the turning of the year

I visited the Oracle the last two Saturdays as well, but just printed them out and put them aside. After I printed out today’s message I looked at the other two, and was surprised (although I shouldn’t have been) that they overlapped and repeated themselves.

Because of the word “fiddle”, which always reminds me of Chagall, I looked for the collage I had done long ago for one of Jane’s prompts with a Chagall painting. Although it doesn’t have a fiddle, it has the moon, and fits well with the day, New Year’s Eve.

Here’s the moon yesterday, afternoon over Central Park, and at night out my window.

It’s always a good time make some art with the birdlings.

12/17 the secret between if and why 

behold deeply
listen

the spirit of the wind
follows
a riverpath of everafter

be
who you are inside
always

the ancient wild world
covered
with birdsong and treelight

12/24 windswept

amid oceans
of life born from this
universe–
sailing skies
of color–remembering
how always just is

12/31 the turning of the year

beneath dream fiddles whisper
the cries of shadows–
a blue language of faraway
moonships, swimming through watermusic
that we can almost recall

sing with the wind
and be who you are

all before us

The Oracle made me work a bit today. She did make me think of this little book I’ve been making from a catalog I received in the mail. You can make poetry from anything, even blurbs written to sell you things.

if we
listened as if
we could remember the
voices of angels in
side trees of stars–
what then?

would we
hear the heart of
the universe open
our breath, awakening
the foolchild to
being?

I’m going to be taking a bit of a break until the end of the year as I have piles of things I need to attend to. I’ll try to visit the Oracle as usual though.

Vacated

I’ve forgotten yesterday by the time today approaches.  The past is a dream I can no longer access—an afterthought, insubstantial—something I once acquired and then quickly lost.

But my hands remain busy, continually shuffling the cards. Each time I turn them over I see nothing–both sides are empty.  No surprise.  They have been empty for a long time now. 

The hours chase me unguided through tunnels of almost and maybe, seizing and destoying probably until it’s anyone’s guess.  My mind has become an imperfect mixture of what I can’t recall and what I don’t want to remember.

The wind tells me stories, invites me to become a passenger inside its song, cut loose from any need to reconstruct the places I have been, the ones that once contained my life.  I am weightless, free.  In the tender gray I swim undisturbed.

The prosery prompt at dVerse, chosen by Lisa, is from Celia Dropkin’s “In Sullivan County”.

In the tender gray,
I swim undisturbed.

I’ve also used Jane’s Oracle 2 words as inspiration.

flower of november

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.

frozen

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.

Volcano 4

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.