Cricket

 A bold black cricket came in from the night

with a message wrapped around his leg

I offered him bread, my body, my bed

and an indigo blue Russian egg.

He had only the song that crickets know

taught them by their dying mothers

He played it on the silk and scar of my skin

and told me there would be no others.

My hair is blond, his body was black

and hard as the truth in a mirror

The night was warm, the dawn too quick

and the last time drew one season nearer.

_____

for dverse creepy crawlies. 

PlasticHead

PlasticHead, Our Weeping Lady of Sorrows,

does not see herself in mirrors.

Like a tortoise, drug addict, or victim of a head injury,

her protective helmet lets in nonsense, 

but does not eliminate it.

PlasticHead therefore believes herself a kind of shithead,

her mind a terrarium made of one-way glass.

Her parents hand her texts substantiating this,

wrongheaded maxims, ill-timed remarks and iffy teachings.

Playmates bash her plastic head on the sidewalk.

Enter alcohol, religion, relationships.

Tossed up on the shore of adulthood, 

PlasticHead looks back and sees the smoking pile-up of her various endeavors.

It's all been a lie. 

PlasticHead, manufactured plaything of Heaven,

find angels in the pockets of your apron.

The molded face that took the place of your true visage

was nothing but assigned artifice, fiction, dressage.

PlasticHead reacts with cold anger, freezing herself solid,

thus further and finally shattering the hated doll head.

Her mosquito-pond blood reddens and warms,

evaporating her tears into a silver fog--she breathes herself in,

embraces the Divine like a gator wrestler, 

sleeps well for once,  lives another ten minutes victoriously,

then expires.

PlasticHead, inspirational story to finish the broadcast,

you have no weepy present, no golden future, no awful past.

Be absorbed into the One Mind, The Magnificent Place,

regard in a Mirror of Stars, your true, your perfect, absolutely front-page Face.

_________________

For The Sunday Muse #170, where I am hosting the masked ball.

The Thing I Couldn't Tell You

I wear black gloves, and in my palm
a white candle burns. The priest wears
a black shirt, and offers the wafer
from a silver ciborium lined with gold.

The magpie is a white bird ashed with black.
In its nest, the thieved medals of saints,
and a tryptich taken from my superstitious lips:
Good morning, Captain. Good morning Sir.

I have thick black hair, and on my breath
is the white lie I tell with the tongue
of a sanctus bell. In my palm,
the icon to whom I neither listen nor pay.

So you see, I am damned by the lie
and by the bird who stole my honest word.
My love is white but ashed with black,
stubborn as a mule with thorny roses on her back.
________

for Sunday Muse #99.

From A Shell

From a shell came Divine instruction
insistent as a drowning man's hand,
his ear a barrel of seven-year whiskey.

As his bones grew longer, firmer,
the ground gave way so that he was always at sea,
a perpetual castaway in the solid world.

A woman, his mother,
said his head was in the clouds;
another woman, undressed and unhappy,
said he never heard a word she said.

He hears, but his heart is a barrel of seven-year whisky
a sea within a sea within a man
at the mercy of the Selkies who shed 
their seal-coats at his feet and sing.
______

for Sunday Muse #68.

Hi.

 "Magic Mirror, if we only could / see ourselves as others would." --Leon Russell


Hi.
I tried to call you last night.
I tried twice more but you never picked up.
Where were you?
Oh. Who did you go with? 
Yes, I know her parents. She smokes, doesn't she?
I'm just saying.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Don't get upset like you do, please.
Yes I know she's 21.
No, she can't be 37? 
Okay. I guess that's right, you kids are the same age. Time flies!
Well, you'll always be kids to me.
So...
Did you get the recipes I sent you?
Some coupons, too.
Did you go to that job fair I told you about?
I thought it would be good for--
Oh.
But you don't want to do that for the rest of your life, do you?
It's not really going to take you anywhere.
You could do--
Pardon? You did? That's wonderful. How much of a raise was it?
Well, excuse me. I'll never ask anything again.
So...
Any men in your life?
Hello?
Yes, but I thought that might have changed.
Oh yes, her.
Uh-huh.
But why were you so upset? It was only another woman. 
I just worry about you.
If you'd lose a little weight, and dress a little more--
What?
Well, I'm sorry you heard it like that.
You've always been too sensitive. 
Your brother isn't that way at all!
Always do what?
Don't be that way. I'm trying to help you.
Why take everything I say as criticism?
Don't raise your voice, please. 
I never said that.
I don't remember saying that.
I just want you to be happy.
Well I'm sorry if you misunderstood what I was saying.
You know how you confuse things sometimes, just like your father.
Well, your friends don't say these things to you because they don't love you like I do.
Have you thought any more about becoming a Lutheran?
I only thought--
Well, when we went to church with your brother and Debbie, you said--
Oh. 
I thought you did express an interest. 
He'd be glad to talk to you about--
All right! I just wish you had something solid in your life, that's all.
I worry.
So...
What have you been up to?
An award, how nice. Is there any payment for that, or...
Oh, I see. 
Well, that's a nice hobby I suppose. Nothing I would ever think to do, of course.
Yes. Yes, but...
I just think that if you spent that time in a more--
Well, because I'm your mother. I care about you. I worry.
At your door? Right now? It's rather late.
All right, I'll call you tomorrow then. 
You won't?
How about Wednesday? Any room in your schedule then? Ha ha.
Well, they'll wait, won't they?
You're just like your father, always running off someplace but never getting anywhere.
All right, yes, better go see who's at the door, my goodness.
Be careful.
Love you.
Bye.
_______

for Out Of Standard at Real Toads.

Image: The Broken Mirror Effect by croissance at deviant art.

Blogger won't let me add a video, so here is a link to Leon Russell's "Magic Mirror." 

Blackbird Garden

In the blackbird garden--
my creation,
with every delight for agelaius phoenicius--
the sunken reed marsh,
the pretty stone fountain, 
and the many hanging feeders filled with sunflowers--

we sat relaxing as the red wings called.
The ground ivy was thick around our green Adirondack chairs.
I need one place, you know,
in this world to feel safe and at peace.
You were so calm, so matter-of-fact,
and the thing you mentioned so trivial,
I wondered why you were shitting me about it.

Nothing changed.
The sun stayed stuck in the sky, behind the branches of the mulberry,
but I felt a shiver as a red wing landed near the ground cover.
It has always been a little buggy there in summer,
but we have citronella
and the blackbirds--
so pretty, so much my beloved favorites,

but from another, smaller perspective (as I imagine),
huge, sudden, and completely terrifying.
_________
 
 
 

The Resurrection of The Fly

When the funnel came twisting down out of the anvil cloud,
I saw it first in the middle pane of the window,
then the one on the lower left, as well.

A dead fly hung suspended where the the twister hit the earth,
remaining motionless, as it had for weeks,
while roofs and SUVs circled, suddenly airborne.

I rang the bell, and if it was only the tiny ornamental servant's bell,
at least I tried. "Get to safety," I thought as loudly as I could,
then sat down to wait.

My children all live elsewhere, I already took in the mail,
and covering the garden flowers would do little good,
even if the afternoon weren't mostly gone.

It's gotten too dark to read; besides, the power is out.
I will just calmly watch the resurrection of the fly,
shaking in his cobweb, brother to the brick wall, sister to the semi, the silo, 
and the cement overpass where idiots huddle 
only to be swept out and away, having ignored my warnings.
_______

for Karin's mini-challenge at Real Toads: for whom the bell tolls.

While Pouring Coffee

I am ten crows, twenty-three starlings,
one tree, a world of racket, every dusk that ever was.

I am a holy heart four angels defend,
other times I am nothing but flesh and fingertips.

There are four seasons, three necessities,
two sides to the moon.

The window has eight panes;
I am in them all.
_______

A double 55 for Real Toads. 55 words, and the numbers in the poem add up to 55.
 

All Revealed

Florists
often sing each to each
from beach and gondola
and also from pier and bay.

Water, they know, is essential to soul,
and no drop can exist removed and solo.
Like floral film-makers, they study p.o.v.,
framing, lighting and, in every arrangement, fragrance and hue.
What results is a visual sweetness.

Florists wait until the optimum moment to speak,
as if words were buds blessed in shades of crimson, saffron and blue.
From pool and bowl and vase they call,
vining and trailing over container and wall,
as simple as sparrows, and as mysterious as Anasazi.
________

for Hedge's challenge at Real Toads, featuring the art of Odilon Redon. At top, find his painting "Flowers."