poetry

(con)verged

the tear
in the chronology
gets larger and frays
into an edgeless rift–
it weighs nothing
this breathing out
this feather
that has lost its wing

we follow the circle
around the burning bush
the light too intense
to hold our gaze—
who is this transparent
being that takes hands
 and pulls them into patterns
made whole by what lies

beyond envisioning–
we blur like dervishes
tangled in life’s netting
until our falling and rising
are indistinguishable
until the center is outside
any definition of ourselves
until the hidden reveals

the opening in our eyes–
every nerve becomes
a soundless song
a complete chord
that pauses in nexus–
source proof reason
meaningless irreversible
stilled

For earthweal A Midsummer Night’s Dreamtime.

and linking to dVerse OLN hosted by Bjorn

Ocular

I am still waiting for clarity–
sometimes I think about
the things I can’t see
and I wonder how
to place them inside my mind–

Out of the dark and still
I am dreaming of colors
liquid currents of sound
moving in all directions
between the gaps–

Do our visions swim
cataracted with refractions–
flooding the invisible
barriers of the portals
into our eyes?

As I told Phil, this week’s Kick-About prompt, fundus photography, was made for my watercolor mandalas. First, photographing the inner eye naturally makes for roundness, and the liquid state calls for watercolor to represent it.

I did 4 watercolors and embroidered on 2 of them. If I exaggerated the colors a bit, well, my eye often does the same.

Midway

If I approach before, must I retreat after?  The mirror is always turning.  The reflection reverts, echos, remembers, forgets.  Meets itself, coming and going.  Centered, stilled.

on the cusp
earth bows to the sun
abiding

Perhaps the sudden and expanded silence is what heals, releases the mind from meaning.  Can words ever really stand in for what they are not?

Without time, I can relocate who I am.  I reach for next, but I don’t understand until later how very far it is from now.

widdershins
the circle dances
into fire

Frank at dVerse has us thinking about the Solstice.

And my title has me thinking about Joni.

More art from the archives.

Poem up at Visual Verse

in between
simultaneous
transition

My poem “To Cleave” has been posted at Visual Verse. As I’ve done in the past, I’ve written a greatly distilled version, above. You can read the original poem here.

The art is my ink and neocolor interpretation of Tanya Layko’s prompt photo. I’ve been trying to do more work in my sketchbook, inspired by the journals of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. I got the book “Raggin’ On”, based on an exhibition of her work, out of the library. I knew her textile work, but not her drawing and painting. She often draws freely in ink, and then paints or draws or writes over and around the drawings just as freely. What I learned most from her work was not to labor too much, to get the essence down without trying too hard. Robinson had a full and interesting life.

Above is the original drawing I did, and below is Layko’s photo.

path of souls

I just learned last night of the death in November of Sharon Mann, a wonderful artist and bright spirit, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2019.

You can find her magical art and words here.

black dreams beat away sleep
with raw beauty beyond recall

what language uses shadows

to whisper why to ask
the moonlight to show who

sings the lost wind soaring
through the still blue time
of aftering

ancient history

just fragments
reduced to a series of numbers–
take a photo to remember,
to contain the unknowable

reduced to a series of numbers,
ink on paper,
blurred now, salty–

take a photo to remember
the spirits now dispersed,
unable to find a vessel

to contain the unknowable–
all the infinite subtractions–
what remains has no name

A trimeric poem for Grace at dVerse. It’s very like a pantoum I think, so of course I like it.

I did this torn painting 6 years ago ago for a post mourning the fact that governments all over the world were destroying ancient art if they did not like the culture or religion it belonged to. Like the earth’s resources, once it’s gone it can never be replaced.

scattered dreams

sleepless I
reach deep skyward, wish
ing for wings
to appear–
my hand pauses, empty, catch
ing only moonlight

Colleen chose me to provide this week’s #TankaTuesday image, and I sent one of my artworks, above. I always enjoy reading what others see in what I’ve created. I haven’t done a shadorma in awhile.

I went back to the original post with this image, which was in 2016, to see what I had written (a san san based also on another poem), and used it as a starting point for what I wrote.

moonshot

focus on the wheel–
bright star calls for the moonshot
embellished with birds

Sanaa at dVerse introduced us to minimalist photography and Glenn A. Buttkus’s site “South Sound Minimalist Photos.” She offered 12 photos to choose to respond to, and I chose the one below.

I couldn’t resist consulting with the collage box oracle, and creating a piece of junk mail art on the back of one of the hundreds of flyers I’ve received in the mail for the NYC primary for mayor. I hope you don’t mind my loose interpretation Glenn!

You can see see more of Glenn’s wonderful photos here.

POPO 2020 part 3

rooted red
the colors spill out
confettied
above ground
dancing towards the sun singing
a chorus of blooms

Last year I participated in POPO the August POetry POstcard Fest–where the challenge is to send a different postcard with a poem you’ve composed for each day in August, 31 in all. I meant to post 2 cards every few weeks and finish up just before POPO 2021. But in my usual fashion, I’m only now posting the third pair.

I decided to do shadormas, as they would fit easily on the back of a postcard, and to connect them through repeating part of the last line of each poem to the first line of the poem for the next day. The last line of the poem from day 4 was “visible, rooted”

a chorus
of absurdity
reaches for
the empty
mind to fill it with visions
of nothing at all

I did not have a theme for the actual postcards I made in 2020, but this year I’m going to continue with the moon photos I did for the Kick-About. You don’t need to make or alter your own postcards, though–at least one I received last year was just a post office postcard with a poem on it. Or you can just buy 3l postcards and write a poem on the front or back or both.

A number of people last year expressed interest in participating this year, so here’s the link if you want to sign up. It’s not only a fun creative challenge, but you end up with 31 interesting postcard poems from all over the United States and the world. Twenty days until registration closes.

https://popo.cards/

And here’s my original post with a photo of some of the postcards I received. They actually trickled in for several months afterwards.