One Sunday morning

Stitched leaves by Hillary Fayle

Dawn crouches slowly
& strikes each maple leaf
bell-chimed, 
frail as silky web,
each space, silver scar
each word is sepia
knotted by black threads
My fingers slowly unravels
until light
seeps
like tangerine
peeling flame & breath
flamboyant as peacock




Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Avant-Edge- A Sunday Challenge 
& Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~

A state of mind

                               “Dada is a state of mind” Spread from Fluxion Issue 4
                                featuring the work of LA artist and filmmaker Dennis Woodruff.



Just a veil 
windshield on my crown, I
am kissing a place full of mistakes 
you 
dozen steps behind
my butt 
Missing my shoes 
bridal stained,  there it is-
Without spectacular start up
My mind latching
into another 
Must be no justice 
no little teeth 
Wilting //
              Whizzing //
                                 Grinding//
Aboard, I 
navigate
To feathers belching.
Beehives gab like rainy rain.
The flower runs, a noisy car  
Fake summer,
Sway to the
Gown flying, cutting the hands of mannequin;
I am my wreath;
I'm missing legs
& lips 
& street life hell deep from mannequin so blue;
& fire backstabbing walls
& tithe, dis//
                    con//
                            nected thoughts//
The bus on frozen superhighway  
on graffiti mission for miles & miles
Impossible when
the shark reverses like dead sea.
There's no lamp sweeping of years 
Angel i //
               am//be// 
                              not//


Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Dadaism - I wrote randomly and added random poems and placed it in a DADA poem generator.  I edited it for smoother flow.

Picture credit:   here

Fragile

A robin's nest by our entrance walkway

Grace @ Everyday Amazing

Above branches, a robin sits 
On nest of 
twigs
Balancing on slender bough
Swaying with wind & light rain
A single rock 
                       thrown
A single storm
                       brewing
Can hurl the nest on ground below

What kind of faith does the robin have
to sit calmly 
to build a home from twisted twigs
to wait for blue eggs to hatch patiently

I think of my sis-in-law in ICU of Los Angeles hospital
awaiting word on the progress of my brother
In the last week
her world has spun
from sure footing to one of 

                   uncertainty,

                   akin to sea waves rocking the boat

My brother didn't asked why fate has struck him
with a rare disease, why God is testing the mettle of his faith-

In a brief wakefulness, he requested 
for the gregorian chants & latin prayers to play in the room
His fingers tap to the beat, reassured
by his religion, now an unshakeable anchor,     
before slipping once more to the drugs tubing

                  his throat, lungs, veins hooked to machines 

                  murmuring a tide, calming as distant shoreline-
  
Over my kitchen window 
I spy the mother robin's body
protectively covering tiny eggs

                 The sky stirs her wings
                 & orange-painted chest 
                 in contentment
      
                 Where does her faith spring from 
                 
There is no fear in her brown eyes
There is no doubt
that her labor will bear fruits                   

                         

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Kindly say a prayer for the complete healing of my brother, Richard Friend ~  Thank you ~

Inside his damaged heart

lies a ticking clock, 

winding so slow, dawn slumbers

above water's stillness

From my sister's album

Vietnam's national flower, lotus

You sit still, silent as lotus
Listening as frantic heart beats
Wash over you, fold & repeat
Nights are the worse, without notice

Pain strikes from your scarred heart, so blue
It etches your voice so faint, frail 
I hold phone close, deeply inhale 
As you thank me for calling you

Wishing you Happy Father's Day !!!

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Yeats' Octaves
and Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~
First poem - haiku
Second poem - Octave
The basic structure of this 8 line stanza is iambic tetrameter or pentameter (eight or ten syllable lines for those who do not feel comfortable working with meter), with the rhyme scheme:
a b b a c d d c. 

Bokavar, Tales from the story fires

June 1725

What runs in my blood
is deep love for this land with rolling meadows
& soothing river 

It is month of green corn, golden as sun
I remember my mother & grandmother's gnarled hands on soil
seeding and nurturing each corn stalk like precious
bread for tomorrow

I am a grown woman now (14 years old), with a husband
and a new baby
and the most beautiful patch of green corn

I walk back to my small cabin and carry my baby
out in the warm summer sun.

How beautiful he is
suckling my breast as we rest
under the sugar maple tree

I wish him to grow tall and handsome
as his father

I still recall the first time I saw him
Wheat yellow hair 
Eyes so blue as the sky
His skin so fair against my earthly color

His words, so strange to my ears
But his tongue, how swift to learn of my tribe's words
As he bartered fur & tobacco with my brother, Cunnawehala 

Israel, my husband, would be happy to see the baby now
He had gone after the baby's birth
to speak with Governor and that had been a full moon ago

I miss the chatter of neighbors and
spring bread dance with the arrival of baby
to thank the creator for the abundance of corn

A cluster of swans came into view
preening noisily by the meadow, their wings 
immaculate as dancing clouds

River of Swans, I muse
Their cacophony stirs memories of my own family

I long to speak to my grandmother and show her
the beautiful baby and inquire about proper name.

My son will be the first of many blessed children
I will stake our roots

Here, in this isolated meadow 
I am learning patience 
& price of love

June 2014

church bells chime
as i step up subway stairs
pedestrians amble like ants

under cherry tree, i inhale  

river tides, fearless as budding leaf 

Process Notes:   The title is from the book I was looking to buy but it is unavailable.  This is a short blurb:

She was a Shawnee girl who lived beyond white settlement. She fell in love with a Swedish trader named Israel Friend. Together they built a good life in the place known to the Shawnee as the "River of Swans."    Bokavar is the wife of my father's ancestor, Israel Friend (1690-1748).    

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Poetics - Family HiSTORY  - Growing up in the Philippines, I have a very unusual surname, Friend. I already knew my grand father is half-American.

In tracing my father's roots, I read that my ancestor came from Sweden,  Nicolas "Nils" Larsson.  He came to America in 1648, to trade tobacco and fur with native Indians.   The locals liked him and treated him as "blood brother" and called him "Frande" (meaning kinsman in Swedish).     Under English rule, his adoptive surname was anglicized to Friend. 

Israel Friend, the grandson of Nicolas "Nils" Larsson Friend, was also an Indian fur trader and interpreter, like his father Anders and grandfather Nils.   According to the Friend oral tradition, he married the daughter of an Indian Chief, Bokavar.   The Friends were Christian (Lutherans) and Bokavar, though a native American, also had an english name, Sarah.

The Israel F. Friend house was built in 1737 and is located near Bakerton,

West Virginia (USA) .The land was a gift to Israel from the Indian Chiefs of the Five

Nations with an addition of a regal grant from the Governor of Virginia.

Picture credit:   here

Dancing the rites of spring

Uprising

Violets are growing in my stomach

 "hip bump",
my dance instructor tells us-

I imagine myself a river
swooshing swiveling under golden sun

My legs are still droopy, filled with white 
pollen & tangled cello strings

I glide with the soul music
My cheeks flush with red coral reef 

"step back"
his feet guides us through dance steps-

My bones are watery
gorging on heat of drums, lost in sounds

I whirl 
without safety pins
without a jar of tokens 

my rib cage pink
with old ruffled lace & frothy skirt

"sway, sway",
he shouts above the din, his hips a flag waving-

And I do
with all the fervor of spring's electric dance



Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Sunday's mini-challenge, where I am hosting ~
Shared with Poets United

For the past month, I've been taking dancing lessons (line dancing, samba, etc) every Thursday 7-9 pm ~  Its been fun though the ladies are now persuading me to go dancing every Saturday night  ~  I prefer my laptop & reading poems for company, smiles ~  

Seeding the sky with rosemary

the idea grows on him:
these tiny fan-like leaves
are more bewitching than palest of flower 
crowns & wild red roses

imagine what the garden will look like -

dill, parsley, cilantro, rosemary
rising like foam
needles & stems billowing the grass
with fragrance of sea & mountains 

his dirt-stained hands plant fragile roots - 

tomato-spiced sauce
cracked-seeds flavoring
wine-drizzled broth mixed with vegetables 

anything is possible with herbs, he tells me

As I scribble words,
I imagine them growing sturdy
& fat as yukon gold potatoes.

This is stage of the herbs at our backyard.

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - My chef son just planted some herbs beside my roses & perennial blooms ~  He wanted to uproot my flowers for his herbs but I told him not to touch the red roses ~

Picture credit:   here

The art of the broken things

Today, I am a sharp point in middle
of everything -

flower beds
that need mending,

crowd with paperwork on table.
My hands are brittle dry

when a bowl crashes
on wooden floor, a blind spot

when you are driving the car
& don't check rear & side view mirrors.

What do you do?

You pour your paint
as you would

water delicate buds, 
giving everything that you have-

I trace the jagged lines
How beautiful they surge, 

gold-veins tracing 

sun's amber  

falls on cracks & ravines-

healing, i become more than beautiful 

Credit:   Colossal

Kintsugi (or kintsukuroi) is a Japanese method for repairing broken ceramics with a special lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. The philosophy behind the technique is to recognize the history of the object and to visibly incorporate the repair into the new piece instead of disguising it. The process usually results in something more beautiful than the original.

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

If you come across the Messiah

Courthouse across Toronto City Hall

Squatting on busy street corner
Eyes luminous as grey clouds 
Ask him what is he doing here ? 
After all
When the last of lashes ended
When the last of thorns struck 
His sacrifice 
is laid above the glass ceiling
Every Sunday mass 
When chapel doors open to everyone

But here in train pack or city swarming 
of people of every skin color & hair
Would I know you?   
Would you be the one standing with a bullhorn
and a street placard, 
Repent!
Or giving out flyers to pedestrians ?
Or playing an old rusty guitar to faceless throng?

Are you the old man muttering to himself
Frail as fractured mirror, hair in disarray?
Or blind young man with a beautiful golden dog?
In the sudden warmth of morning sun
I see shadows hovering, ambivalent of dove's return.

Sliding between 
moderation and free will
I touch my mother's blessed rosary & water
Perhaps I am saved by her faithful prayers.
She tells me a faith healer has eased my father's pains. 
As I pass by

a man with vitiligo, huddled beside a dirty plate,
a woman with empty street cart shouting-
Any old shoes !  Any old clothes!

Beggar, 
If you come across the Messiah, please let me know.  


Process Notes:I have used the following words from the list provided by Anthony Desmond: Luminous, Glass, Door, Plate, Vitiligo, Messiah, Warmth, Shadow.   

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

What the spring flowers ate

Grace@ Everyday Amazing

Not half-baked crumbs but bird seeds
scattered by squirrels & robins

Rain trails soaking ground
green & lush

Once more, earth is red
wine as pink-blushed faces appear

We own the wild fields & all 
the mornings
misty & pale
Or golden as russet trees

I hear their rowdy chatter, tumult
of awakening, tea-leaves
I pour on small cups to welcome them 

Heat arrives in waves
The blossoming is profuse, a murmuring 

We run in meadows 
barefoot
& the afternoon
sparkles warm as honey
  
My belly is filled with oats & butter-
flies, I am lifted, 

carefree lass
straining to flower's every word

before the dying 
sun


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Play It Again & Kerry's Pathetic Fallacy
and Poets United  -  Happy weekend ~