The Notion Of You

 

I loved you

and that has left me

a sister of a dead order. 

I carry in asters

gone from purple to brown

to lay on the altar

but can't set them down.

Faith is a funny thing and I carry a cross

though the texts are tainted,

the deity lost.

St. Catherine of Alexandria

was nourished by milk from doves--

not by the relics and bones

of the notion of you, that I loved.

I am of the order, but not the abbess

at whose jeweled theca ghosts bow--

I carry my head like the body and bread

of the Chosen One loved by you now. 

______

for Dverse Meeting The Bar "Conceit"

Wild Garlic

 

wild garlic grows

between our teeth, those fallen stones

from the ruined church of our mouths.

wild garlic roots

are round and thin,

a lie we wear as shoes.

we waver, tall and gaudy,

our white flowers like lace,

seeding every time we prate our nonsense

no more significant than

the markings of wandering dogs.

we are legion, the first to appear in Spring,

a disease of the soil,

dying even as we conquer everything

even the air

with false plenty,

and the thoughtless vanity of pretty parasites.

______

image: The Muse Inspiring The Poet by Henri Rousseau

for dverse OLN

The List

Get on the list.
You can't do that unless you're on the list.
Tell me your hopes, desires, etc.
Then let me check them against the list.

Once upon a time, there was a list.
Through all the ages,
through every epoch and century,
the list endures.

Behold a lamb, stumbling through the verdant fields of April,
aware only of its mother's calm presence,
the sun warming its back,
and the list.

Those not on the list will be stopped,
tuned up,
seized and thrown from moving vehicles into ditches
where they may contemplate the majesty of the list.

In the Great Hall of the List,
a lamb clatters aimlessly across the marble floor.
Where is its mother?
Where are the dewy clover stalks, 
the fragrant dawn-lit pasture,
the benevolent black-and-white dog, the lamb's guard and guide?

The list is silent.
You should be, too, except to sing its praises.
_____

for The Sunday Muse #101 and for day 6 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

Rumors Of Wars

image by Rebecca Sygnus

We were foreigners bloomed in exotic soil,
a kind of invasive pet.

Wherever we went, we had nothing,
and so performed and begged and stole,
spreading our arms in sheepish apology as our bellies growled.

We wore the emblems and baubles of our homeland,
as meaningless as gum wrappers here.
We were restless,
resentful,
thrilled to be free of all that constrained us at home.

None of us were ever going to wear
those conical hats
or our men grow those little goatees threaded gray with eastern wisdom.

Someone called my name, in accusation or greeting
and I looked up to see only my familiar ceiling.
There was no "we", no scraping sharp-edged survival,
and so I rose, fetched the morning paper from the step,

And searched through every page, as if for crumbs
to feed the thing I had felt
in the life I never lived at all
with the imagined companions upon whom there was no reporting

Though I missed them with a ferocity that held on for hours
like a dying foxhole brother.
_________

For Sunday Muse #77, from a wild and intense dream I had before waking this morning. Why I should dream of being part of a lost military expedition in Indochina is beyond me, but there it is. 

Robed Figures

image by mc__monster

Robed figures contemplate light and shadow,
involving themselves in the night's business.

Luminous bird, floating crescent moon
contain an offered curriculum
as momentary as new love.

It is in this milieu that I come seeking you,
long after any chance of discovery.

I call, I offer songs on silver plates
while disembodied watchmen persuade ashes to assume form
and name themselves, becoming hosts

For all that cannot touch, cannot hope
nor do anything but write night poems on water-paper
and eat stars to stun themselves beyond all curiosity.
_______

for Toads Art FLASH.