poetry

The Song of Love 1 and 2

1 Here

a handless glove, a stone
visage.  A blue orb
planted with life.  Dust
seeds blown by
cosmic winds.

Look backward to see
the future.  Ruins
of visions.  Monumental
doors to nowhere.
The detritus of humanity.
Is this all
that we wish
to leave behind?

Canto d amore - Song of love - Giorgio De Chirico - 1914

The Kick-About prompt for this week is de Chirico’s enigmatic painting “The Song of Love”, above. The collage I did evolved from a lot of other ideas, merging with Merril’s quadrille prompt at dVerse to use the word seed, and Brendan’s prompt at earthweal to write Songs of the Earth Shaman.

2  A Meditation or Maybe a Prayer

for those who ask and those
who don’t answer.  For those
who always make way and those
who have never been found.
For what we know and refuse
to acknowledge.  For what
stands in the center of what
we think we believe.  For what
remains when faith has fallen
apart.  For the times that we
begin again and the times
that seem to have no ending.
For what we hold against
others and what we keep
to ourselves.  For the impossible
and the improbable and all
the borders we draw to keep
from finding out.

Listen.  I am
waiting for you
to come home.

I needed to consider this seemingly unsolvable riddle that is human life on earth from more than one side.

centermost

become empty—o
pen yourself until the wind
fills you to zero

draw yourself in circles, hold
your essence out, listening

For the final day of NaPoWriMo, the prompt is to write a poem in the form of a series of directions describing how a person should get to a particular place.

Thanks to Maureen Thorson for once again providing a home for poetry and for all those who read and commented on my efforts this April.

My New Window

My new window looks at rooftops architecture trees
and sky.  My new window opens to the continuous city
work of maintenance and construction going from here
to there and back again the voices of cars and dogs
and humans and birds.  My new window is busy.

After dark my new window sparkles with other windows
imprinted on dark silhouettes.  The night sky changes
color and texture from hour to hour and the full moon
wakes me as it shines its reflected secrets into
my dreaming eyes.  My new window is aware.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write about what you see through a particular window. This one is in the bedroom of my new apartment. I’m so happy I have such a good view of the moon, which has woken me up every clear night for the past week.

How Now

grid flower close up 1s

Why do you ask me where we are? 
I lost my bearings long ago. 
Each day is different, and yet very much
like all that have been or will be, amen.
You ask me for maps, for calculations, but 
why not shower the world with devotion?

~and why should we not sing~

celebrating what is here and now
but also what leaves and then returns? 
Every story continues beyond its ending.
Why not follow it around?
Why not grow wings, meet each day
without imprisoning it in either space or time?

The NaPoWriMo prompt today is to write a poem that poses a series of questions. Since the majority of my poems ask questions, I also incorporated Merril’s dVerse prompt to write a puente.

fitzcarraldo

sky quilt s

fitzcarraldo n. an image that somehow becomes lodged deep in your brain—maybe washed there by a dream, or smuggled inside a book, or planted during a casual conversation—which then grows into a wild and impractical vision that keeps scrambling back and forth in your head like a dog stuck in a car that’s about to arrive home, just itching for a chance to leap headlong into reality.

that tiny room
the one with the steps to the attic
the one with only bed and dresser

nothing more fits
but the window with the tree
and the sky and the birds

I could leap out that window
like Wendy and the Lost Boys
riding the wind to faraway dreams

I could hide under the covers
with a flashlight and a book
a transistor radio playing

Fly Me to the Moon
I could accompany myself
by singing wishes on stars

on a moon that illuminates all
these yearnings pulsing through
the bloodsongs of my heart

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today was to write a poem inspired by an entry from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. What a wonderful dictionary! I will be visiting it again.

My fitzcarraldo is a bit less intense than Herzog’s…

Approaching Beltane

What is?
Why not say blue
mirror, say deep well–
Why not say sun
light, say bright fire?

Dancing circles
into braided beginnings,
the meeting of earth and air

Weaving flowers
to welcome back
the missing and missed

Swallowing the past,
planting the future–
doing and being both—

Balancing the between
to expand
in both directions

What is?
Why not say moment
of birth, say the point when
life begins, say spirit,
breath, embodiment?

What is?
Why not say the pivot
of is and is not?

Sarah has given us the inspiration of Beltrane at earthweal this week. Whatever you choose to write about, remember that this is a celebration, of new life, of love and of the endless bounty of this planet.

sailing on uncharted seas

will those still waters
fail to depart after all?
this center—in my ignorance–
drops me in
amidst a multitude of mirrors–
will I drift away
before even beginning to move
beyond uncertainty?
mind closed,
immobilized by the guilt
of experience, held captive
by that
which always leads back
to this

I used Lucille Clifton’s “blessing the boats” for the Day 5 NaPoWriMo prompt, and decided to revisit the poem for the April 6 dVerse prompt from Jade (Lisa) to choose one of your favorite poems by another poet and flip the meaning on it. I’ve been working on this on and off for awhile–it’s far different than my original attempt, and probably not finished still.

I’ve done similar exercises in the past, but never tried to be so literally opposite. It’s not easy.

centering

I think the Oracle is telling me to slow down, stop trying to do everything all at once. Don’t panic because I can’t even find the box where I packed the scotch tape. Sometimes you just need to take time to breathe.

breathe full deep
climb between
always and after

follow spirit about
let soul in

wander quiet paths

listening to rivers
giving songs
to the wind

In Response to Liu Xia’s poem “Twilight”

I too like the places
where categories are neither
and both—indistinct forms
replace the sharp edges and play
with what is no longer there.

Past and future give way
to presence, and dissolve
who I am—nothing
has yet been decided.

There is no need
to consult time, to hasten
the turning of the wheel–

life pauses–

the landscape seems different,
unattached to words
or specific actions as it
gathers me in, murmuring
my pulse with invisible
currents.

Crow calls to my soul–
a shadow casting deeper
than darkness or light.

The NaPoWriMo prompt for today is to write a poem that responds, in some way, to another. Liu Xia is a Chinese artist, activist and poet. “Twilight” is one of the poems in her book Empty Chairs. Although that particular poem is not available online, you can read some of her other poems here.