The Oracle is Abstruse

she says that they are secrets, each to the other

Not only was the Oracle exceptionally cryptic this morning, I was uncertain how to punctuate her message.

how is never?        how is never
like a star,               like a star?
its life is finite

no she said
that cannot be

but who is this voice?     but who is this voice
and why?                          and why
are the words broken?

I wait this one out

as if the night
could bring me
its open secrets

The birdlings are always welcome, day or night.

As Echoes

My nights are glimmers, like the stars
I almost see behind the haze
of misted air—reflected dark–
a shadow of what?  I cannot say

for certain what bewitched my mind
and held it captive in the sky
outside my window—its edges shine
like invisible wings that silent, fly

between the fragments of absent dreams,
beyond the capacity of words–
I sail on sheet-tossed restless seas
awaiting dawn–the songs of birds

Laura at dVerse asked us to write an alternate rhyme poem–3 stanzas of 4 lines each–borrowing alternate rhyme pairs from a published poem and using them in the order in which they appeared in the original poem. A cursory look provided no inspiration from other poets, so I looked at the sonnets I had written and found three that were appropriately rhymed.

I chose the first 12 lines from my sonnet “Purple Dreams”–itself inspired by the song lyrics of Prince–because how could I resist a final word list that began with stars and ended in birds?

that which is not

night has no dimension, open
to every wandering
mirage–
walls dissolve between now and then–
time sails a yondering
montage

~How~

is it possible to exit
when there’s nowhere to go?–
formless
narratives engulf you, cosmic
tides that whisper: hello–
join us

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to “pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it”. I chose “Who Is”, here

The collages above were first published in The Time Issue of the journal Feral last April.

Day 30. I made it.

Eat Me

1
Our relationship with food
is complicated–

calories, allergies,
chemistry, biology

Food never comes to our table
without context—

farm, factory,
consumption, waste

Food once grew itself–
humans gathered—

fruit, tubers,
grain, seeds

2
Do you know your food?
Haven’t we met?

earth, air,
fire, water

Can you name what it contains?
Read my label.

flavored and colored fruit pieces
treated with sodium sulfite to promote color retention

Can you point me out in a crowd?
Do you recognize me?

carrot, apple
corn, sunflower seed

Eat Me.

I didn’t really understand the NaPoWriMo prompt, but my poem has two parts and the food talks.

It also gave me an opportunity to resurrect some old drawings that prove I once knew how to draw still life. What do you think Aletha?

Can you guess what I made after I drew the second one?