The calling

Cut from Paper by Rogan Brown

the paper calls to her
as music
each layer, a minute scale
of spikes & thorns
soft & bending to
her fingers,  each delicate
strand, a white fire 
curving into
her womb, 
river, sun-
she is lost in this 
other world
at night

by day,
she folds the news paper 
its ink staining her gloves
she goes to work
measuring 7.5 hours into a cup
her fingers are fast
tip-tapping numbers 
& each time she crosses a line,
circles a key point,
the paper scratching the heel 
of her palm
is stiff & 
cold 



Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Gabriella ~
Thanks for the visit ~

a light for the tarnished souls

Title & Photography by Brooke Shaden 

Wind, tinder my words

ivory blade, glinting silver

than winter's splintered ice

Sun, flint my shadows

reddening my cheeks to bloom

than spring's first plume

Sky, marshal my feet 

to carve a path sieved  

of autumn's dying leaves

Sea, lighthouse my way, with bird's

eye, I hurdle storms, ignited 

by wildfires of summer nights

Wind, tinder my words

Sun, flint my shadows

Sky, marshal my feet

Sea, lighthouse my way, with bird's

eye, I witness the
beautiful

                        in me -

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight, Hosted by Bjorn Rudberg ~ I took the constanza poetry form and played with the ending ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Night's beauty

Solar Eclipse
Photographer:  Amy Shore

Turn off the city lights
When the sun's belly sinks into the lake
Look skyward to drink the darkest of night

The moon is stitching a mantilla
Each thread emerald-grey, caught in aurora's spray
Turn off the city lights

The black velvet rose among the roses
Blooms, its single eye drowning every starlight
Look skyward to drink the darkest of night

Let the lone black bird
Spin-climb the clouds on south wind's tail
Turn off the city lights

Imagine celestial heaven baring
its purple womb, its milky strands
Look skyward to drink darkest of night

Let it descend, clear as spring
Water, rushing symphony of reverence
Turn off the city lights
Look skyward to drink darkest of night


Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Mary ~  Free verse Villanelle ~

Rust on first day of spring

It was one wet spring
lilac wore me
bluer than I could recall, my knees

jelly-dewed.   Your words were butter
luring me as a bee 
to feast the white tulips. Invisibly  

we silk-spun to lovers
against my family's wishes.   A stone
flowered under my breastbone

and my hands jerked, twisted rubber.
Was it the drugs you were spooning 
me or your coppery lies?   Pruning 

back, I vomit the moon's supper 
burning my stomach & every breath. 
Too late, your poison, a riverbed 

steeped of your true colours covering  
my bones, tarnishing blood  
to iron, rusting my tongue, petrified wood.       

Petrified Wood by Margaret Bednar

Process Notes:  While waiting in the hospital last night, I saw and overheard the drama of this family. The night ended with the very thin daughter being treated for epileptic seizures which the parents blame on her drug addled boyfriend.   

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads ~ Stretching metaphors in a free versed constanza form ~ and Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~ 

Lessons while sitting on my grandma's lap

The Wind by Artist

Gil Bruvel

I let the wind in
                    fluid
             flowing
       A river timeless in repose

It births in me
       undefined words
             ever shifting sands 
         curving balls at the last 

       notes//tide by tide
weaving tendrils 
   yet  
        erasing footprints in a heart/

           beat/I sing with the storm 
              I dance without gravity's shoes
        I unsettle flowers from their seats

I drink the sun 
     as if I am her favored child    
Swaying softly as wheat stalk              
     My spine bends 
         to wind's energy 
                resilient, survivor, ever
                     
         awakening 
                          yellow
                                     bud-



Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Winds of March -  We have a special guest hosting for this prompt, smiles ~ Pub opens at 3pm EST ~ 

Thanks for the visit ~

Early March morning

First Sunrise After Daylight Savings
Credit:   Michael Leek of BlogTO

A man with a dark coat waits by station exit, his eyes bright as child holding a red balloon.   His face, oiled by sun, is not stiff starched with indifference of everyday commute. The crowd stretches as elastic bands along train tracks.  I yawn, hearing the cars floating by on the expressway.  I smell coffee, stale bread and dried paint on someone's shoes.  The ads above me, blink in blurry lines. Somewhere, I plant a fist of seeds.

against blue washed sky
moon is a white bud blooming 
        in the melting snow 




Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - A haibun for our new host, Bill Webb~ Thanks for the visit ~

the night

the shadows we follow

by Brooke Shaden

Your hand is heavy, Night, upon my brow
I am flushed with fever, pulse incessant of waves
submitting to shadows like headless wind

The moon is draped in blue ice glace
I am woman, prying open the clam
holding the key pearling the sky bloody red

Exhale the ghost's captive gazes
Exhale anguished lies
Inhale the lover's whispers, Night,
Inhale rain, sultry smoky notes

I turn over to you, these words    
weld them into peridot 
dark olive-green

My mask cannot hide me now
And I come unbidden, birthing 
with mercuric heart-


Title, first line & words inspired by Nobel Prize Wole Soyinka's Night poem. 



Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - We are getting inspired by Wole Soyinka's poems and Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~

Adam & his brother

re(al)creation of Adam by Adam Martikanis

a hand, stitched in gossamer 
waits in the cold darkness
as if a seed, flowed out of dry river
as if a butterfly wing, searching
for wind's breath

the other hand is crimson
wrapped in energy & force-
straining and pulsing like 
welder's fire
silence is not his trademark 
but rapid arc movements 

he lifts his finger 
pointing at his half-dead brother
now drifting wood, chewed 
barren by bleak sky    
a flash of lightning sizzles,
waking up the sleeping hand 

who now grabs a stone  
to make fire & then writes
on palm leaves of his memories 
when he was in the womb, half remembering  
the cord 
there is hunger
as he searches where, how
he came to be 

the taste of fruit remains in his lips
as is the sound of clock
ticking inside the cave of his skin
His chest, clustered of red trees
echoes the same heart beat 
and though he raises both hands to the sky
in longing 

The two palms will never meet
across the universe
blackest of sea
untarnished, a clay ever birthing
cosmic void, expanding 
space
between the stars -


Posted for the D'verse Poets Pub - This is an old but unpublished poem which I have edited to include surprising conceit (pushing metaphors as far as I can) ~  

Thanks for the visit ~

Lighting 1000 candles & more

1000 Candles by William Mackrell

The father saw the body
of his dead son
and told his other sons
not to wipe away the blood
staining his son's face granite-stone
not to change his clothes
soiled by spray of bullets

And so into the streets
they carry his lifeless body 
the crowds pour as wildfire
ignited by sudden fuel-oxygen mix-
there is lust to break bones 
there is passion to avenge his name
words chanting of hate
grow out of their skin pores 
until the sea of faces
becomes tar, earth dripping of blood
field of silent red poppies-

Somewhere in small town 
a woman sits mending shirts 
In solitude, she holds on to a prayer
and then lights a candle
as she goes back to her chores -
paring vegetables, cleaning, repairing things- 
Her hand musses an orphan's hair 
then another
then another
whose faces light up 
like spring buds, dewy with gentlest of rain-


Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Hosted by Abhra Pal ~  A time for light amidst the darkness around us ~

torn from the white sky

                                                           

By Alexis Arnold

white-washed by night
i fall headlong, torn
from the sky

a solitary leaf,
muted white by snowflakes &
icy northern wind

weaving an intricate
dance of death, slow waltz--
parry and thrust--  

until arms become 
stones, white crystallized to stillness- 
the moon, perched 

on window seat,
ghosts under shadows, whiter than white-

you're too late

 
   
Poetry form:  Lune - 3-5-3 word (almost)

Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - 55 white words for Flash 55 Plus
And Poets United