blues transpose
against each other,
broken into
patterns, as
threads barely stitched into air
become one with sky—
a shadow
rests lightly, almost
unnoticed–
awaiting
disturbances in the web–
summoning futures,
the castings
of circumstances–
eyes glinting
like mirrored
kismetic intersections
of orbiting moons
A shadroma quadrille for dVerse, where Merril has given us the word mirror.
how I wish to stay
lost inside the fragments of
this dream—I collect
and bind them as antidote
to despair—is it
a fault to hold on, veil my
true form in a cloak
adorned with gaudy trinkets?–
I glitter like shifting time
For dVerse, where Mish has supplied shift as the quadrille-word.
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.
1
Once upon a time, wonder. Inside narrative, it becomes lost, leaves only invisible tracks. Who will see them, find them, save them? Always a long journey to the center of the spiral.
where
is happily?
nowhere to be
seen–
and after?
suddenly it engulfs
2
Over rainbows, they said, somewhere, lies the road to Nirvana. Don’t be fooled, they said, by the enticing Road to Ruin. But where to begin? Where, even, is the rainbow? I appeal to the mystery hidden inside darkness.
track
my journey
by the moon
Two quadrilles for dVerse, where Merril provided the word track. I was inspired to write these by Lisa at Tao Talk, who used “once upon a time” as the beginning of one of her troikus for her poetry postcards this year. I’ve illustrated the quadrilles with some of my own poetry postcards from 2021, where I printed some of my moon photos and gave them words.
I fold my
questions into cranes
and send them
flying on
the wind—what hands will catch them,
pull them down, greet them,
unjumble
and complete their dreams?
wide, deep, clear,
cast to sky,
they celebrate–streams of stars
danced in waves of moon
A shadorma quadrille for Merril’s prompt of celebration at dVerse. I also used the words she generated from Oracle II. Above is the almost-full moon shining through my window last night.
Waylaid by words
that didn’t seem to
belong to anyone
or anything—animal
vegetable or mineral?
I sang madly,
shamelessly, attempting
to distract myself
with volcanic praise—
What is this blue substance?
I wondered, discreetly
floating beyond all
awareness, and spelling
each watery sound.
Merril’s randomly generated wordlist is entirely to blame for this quadrille containing the word given to us by Sanaa at dVerse, spell.
Sometimes words are just riddles.
moon appears as reflection–
sun mirrored into night
but brighter, closer
and how far is far away?–
forever, sometimes, as if
never were always the answer
to the question of when
third eye digs deeper,
dreamclosing the distance, the interval
between asleep and wings
It was cloudy when the moon was eclipsing last night, but later on it cleared into mist, and woke me up, as it is wont to do–the top photo is how it looked through my bedroom window about 3am. And above is a close up. The mist allowed me to get some detail–when it’s very clear all that shows up in photos is an intense light.
A quadrille using the word sleep for Sarah at dVerse. I’ve borrowed the dual title idea from David at The Skeptic’s Kaddish–I ran across the word avigation (it means aerial navigation) recently, and I’ve been wanting to use it for something ever since.
The moon was misty last week too.
asleep–
shadowed, murmured by songs
that imitate the deep
voices owned by seasons–
transitioning, replete
asleep–
lingering into dawn
as passages repeat
and echoing, are drawn
into themselves, complete
asleep–
between inside upon–
all spaces merge and meet,
all measurements are wrong–
amorphous, bittersweet
A quadrille with the word season for dVerse in the Bob and Wheel form for Muri’s April Scavenger Hunt and NaPoWriMo Day 4.
morningtide chills,
causes the moment
of wakening to linger–
scattering the vestiges
of dreaming into limbo
where am I?
hidden inside
my longing to stay
covered, warm,
release all
obligations
I shiver
wonder whether
I can reject this
habitual rising
for a protracted
pause
They turn the heat off in my building at night and it doesn’t come on again until 6 am. My alarm goes off at 5:30, and these days it’s very tempting to linger for a half hour or more.
A quadrille for dVerse, where Merril has provided the word shiver.
K. 