Red-Winged Blackbird

Red-winged blackbird,

wearing your mantilla,

the low branches of the young mulberry trees

are your church steps

and the breeze is bells for your wedding.

Dear blackbird,

how I long to watch you braid your hair 

into feathers for this glorious day.

Demure blackbird,

give your mantilla to a sister or an aunt.

Tonight they all will envy you

as your dainty shoes as small as rosary beads are shed--

 you'll go barefoot on the mulberry trees

swaying sweet for a warm moon

like a rung chime.

 

Wolf Pack

Where is my child?
Out there, in clockthick air, the icy air.
Where is my mind?
Unspooled to find him, find him in the icy air.

Who forgot the door, the open door?
How soon the night thorn, blood scent, pack with golden eyes?
I forgot the door, the night door;
forgot to call my child, my child with golden eyes.

Where is my body, my body like a bell?
Calling mouths of night thorn, offered as a trade.
I ring under the open door,
To bring the pack my way.

Where is my child?
What fog made me forget?
He runs alone, just flesh and bone,
warm-blooded testament.

Here they are, the thorn sharp pack
to watch me fail and fall;
Why don't they strike, why don't they kill?
Why don't they move at all?

Where is my child? His devil sire
assures me he is dead.
But starlings in his tongue take flight
and leave him mute instead. 

Who forgot the door, the open door?
Who sees what clockthick time becomes?
Where is my child? Out there with them--
in icy air he runs.
_______

for Brendan's "A Little Night Music" at Toads.  

Notes: Recently I had a dream that I had left a door open at night which I should have closed. I realized my boy was outside somewhere and that a pack of wolves and wild dogs which had been waiting and watching, would now have their way. I cast my mind out to find him, but couldn't. So I went to try to shut the door but the pack was already inside. I backpedaled and fell, expecting to be torn to shreds, but the pack just watched me. My ex smiled in a mocking way and told me my boy was already dead, but I didn't believe it. And then I knew--far from being dead, he was out there, vibrantly alive and running with the pack.

Loves Me / Loves Me Not

 I must now consider, I suppose,
that I have failed again
to do the right thing,
to puzzle out what's expected of me.

I didn't make your bed
deep enough, it seems;
and it's like you said...
before your head full of leaves
and purple-ebony hand on the grass.
Will I always fail you?
or can I fix us, at last?

My mind is a little spider on the edge of a cup
filled with blue rain where in awful dreams I scramble, 
all eight legs feeling in the air. 
You rose, didn't you, to exchange our different slumbers?
You came to me, down the path, softly disintegrating
though my anguish never does.
I breathe for both of us the smoky air of loss.

I have fallen short again, like a sky never holding sun rise,
a pale after-image, watery, foul,
not worthy of this place where grackles strut like Aztec kings.
I have brought the orchid, and the lily
to place in your eyes to disguise my ugliness with lovely visions.
Forgive me for what I have done, and how I have failed.
I am barefoot, like a twin
and will wait here--the least I can do--
making of your rags and sinews my costume of chains and rings.
_______

For Get Listed at Real Toads. I have used all twenty words.

 

tricube screwage

fiery hot
scalding love
what's it like?

Durga's tiger
stops for lunch
(villagers).

melty eyes
boil my heart
o m g

torrid kiss
from my doll
do me Ken!

for fuck's sake
stop writing.
I'll pay you.
_____

tricubes.

The Cleric Crow

art by Toril Fisher

Crow, with your blackberry voice,
your hand-feet praying to grass blades
and sunflower stalks,

Come to my violin-framed bed of soft Gypsy songs.
Dolorous crow, in my elbow crook,
barter with corn kernels
for my robe spun from comb and tears.

Crow, with your harsh voice,
I must remember;
I cannot forget.
My skin hums with wings and stingers.
Your skin blooms with smoke and stars.

Crow, small priest of the northern window,
I have done so much
accumulating only to trinkets and sighs.

Take them, give them to the mourning dove.
I am useless but yours;
Distinguish me, by your bright vision, from pavement, 
from waste.

Crow, with your amorous voice
made from cat-tail and winding vine,
I must remember;
I cannot forget.
Make me your bauble,
give me to God
high in the branches of the swaying locust.
________
 
 linked HERE.
 

In The Gardens Of Răscumpărare

I searched for my love

in the shadow of a sycamore.

In my hands--

dust.

On my body--

ash from a Gypsy fire.

I searched for my love

in the railings and rectangles

of city buildings.

In my hands--

broken glass.

On my body--

words from a howling wind.

I found my love

in the hanging gardens of Răscumpărare.

In my hands--

her hair.

On my body--

salvation, her lips, and a thousand birds. 

_______ 

In The House Of Never

What to do with the girl?

The girl who appears not to listen?

What to do with walls?

Which have sprung while we were sleeping?

What to do with morning? Afternoon?

Parceled into minutes by panes of glass?

What to do with the floor?

Made of tired ships which rolled and died here?

What letters to leave?

What regrets to horn out of our shoes?

How to make signal flags?
From the lace of our sleeves?

How to reach the girl?

How to make tickets from bobby pins?

How to leaven the air with sirens' songs?

How to wave from the dock that does not exist?

How to knot an apron, a halyard, a kite's tail?

For the girl who appears not to listen?

______ 

for Sunday Muse #12.

"Barcarole For Bathtub"

The following is a selection from Miss MacF-P's collection "Poesy In Pastels."

Barcarole for bathtub;
glub-de-glub-glub!
A perfect place to place my posterior.

"Neath the the window!
'Neath the glass!
An arboreal assignation for my ass.

Knock knock!
Who can it be?
A husband, a child, or some vagabond
needing to pee?

Here, with ferns and candles
and easily accessible senior assistance handles,
I sit and sing
(my words taking wonderfully to wing!)
my Barcarole For Bathtub
sung
by me
to
my knee.
_____

for Camera FLASH! at Real Toads.

Note: Millicent MacFarquhar-Pellington's masterpiece "Barcarole For Bathtub" was published by Snoot & Sons in 1923 as the centerpiece of her fifth collection "Poesy In Pastels." Millicent's first four volumes--including the celebrated "Mongoose Sonnets" sold more than 3 million copies and have been translated into German, French, Urdu and Icelandic. A two-time winner of the Blemish Prize For Literature, Ms. MacFarquhar-Pellington remains beloved today, twenty years after her passing from combination skin in 1998.

 

 

I Spoke Worlds

I spoke worlds,

but found myself a stranger in them all.

Each was beautiful,

but in each it was always night.

I sang stars,

one more distant than the next.

On each it was blindingly bright,

but time and silence drove them mad.

A man came to me and said,

"You are lovely but no one can see you."

A woman came to me who could,

but she constantly mistook me for herself.

I chanted children

who were mine but not mine.

Each carried a candle,

my body the wax they were made from.

I spoke worlds,

and all they were was lonely.

I sang stars,

separated by all that I feared and hated and could not forgive.

A man came to me and said,

"Stop talking."

My Lord, I thought,

and opened to him like a magnificent chasm. 

_______