Still Life w/ Cryptids

 

The fox with a layer in its mouth explained:

it is merely a totem,

a representation

or avatar,

but the hen's red throat 

called bullshit

as it died.

The women with stones in their pockets

were made lonely by the waters of the river.

They sang, their heavy diver's helmets ringing

with rare harmonics

hailed by critics

panned by pop fans

and made more difficult to understand

the further from the surface they sank.

Everyone said it would be the moon,

but it was the sun who went mad,

incinerating gardens in an afternoon.

Cosplay Aztecs

held up hearts

in their palms.

Please join us for the afterglow

with refreshments and a swag bag.

Everyone thought that the baby's first word

would be "Mama", but it was "Dada." 

Tristan Tzara's disciple Marcel Duchamp

 presented the child as a readymade

with orange tail

and silver helmet,

an artless objet d'art he named L.H.O.O.Q.

with enigmatic smile + mustache. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go. 

Music: DJ Dero The Horn (El Tren) Batucada'n Bass Mix

Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go

 

Hello my little Sunday drivers, and welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! Our source this week is Rand Richard Cooper's collection of interconnected short stories entitled The Last To Go: A Family Chronicle. It came out in 1988. I read it then and have never forgotten it. 

I feel that Rand Richards Cooper is a supremely skilled and marvelously observant writer, but somehow it seems that he did not receive the attention he should have IMO. I am to blame myself, as I never pursued any of his other books, most of which are now out of print. I did find one of them at Thriftbooks.com while preparing this List, though, and ordered it.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and then sit back for a nice family dinner. Or not. (You can always substitute in the family pets instead and stay home with them!)

And now, your List:

always

angles

bump

colored

expected

expression

flashlight

gardens

hiding

inkwell

jealous

layer

lighted

limped

older

pockets

sang

totem

winter

wrong 

 

Mistral

 

In Spring the madding winds arrive

and leave the winter to its dreams

of fools such as my love and I.

In your eyes Provence does lie--

false Spring is never what it seems

when Mistral sings the lullaby. 

The ring is left to rust and die

by drowning pool or icy stream

while scudding clouds above it fly.

Your wind has temper come alive

to kill the bud or turn the cream

and howl unchecked to Italy.

So comes the Mistral, mad with spring

My love, destroying everything.

_______

for Dverse Meeting the Bar "Wild Wind."

The mistral is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. It produces sustained winds averaging 31 miles an hour.

It is said that madness occurs particularly often in the Spring. I believe it.

Clover Flowers

 

I have a memory of a clover field--

white flowers in the warm June green

like spilled sugar on a farm wife's sleeve.

I have a memory of a spring lamb--

carried to the shed as the ewe screams

under a summer sky blank as muslin.

In the farm house, an old couch.

a television, and a sturdy oak table.

There is a savory aroma and mint jelly

set out with the white china plates.

My memories mix like a bowl of vegetables,

gravy on the tablecloth, blood on the ax.

I don't like to remember,

even in summer, on a bright afternoon.

_______

for What's Going On? "Memory"

Music: Cat Stevens Into White

My Despair

—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,

the single secret will still be man  --e.e. cummings

I spoke to my despair

in a voice that October

wears around its injured throat

on a chain of dripping water.

Because the nights are too long,

I sew their darkness into a jacket

and on the sleeves are

embroidered golden snakes.

I sit at a table made of the world

with legs of heirloom iron and wind.

Young men run past, shouting

and dragging morning to her grave.

In evening, I speak to the cardinal

who comes to my window like a Gypsy.

I say, the dawn is still in love with you

but a snake strikes the cardinal

from my sleeves

and my despair.

______________

for Dverse Poetics "Reflections" The image by Andrew Ridley and the quote by e.e. cummings are required. 

Don't forget that Word Garden Word List remains active through Saturday. 

Word Garden Word List--Joy School

 

Elizabeth Berg

Hello everyone and welcome to the Word List on its new day, Sunday. Originally, I did not choose Sunday because I didn't want to compete with Carrie's Sunday Muse, but that's not an issue now, so here we go. 

This week our source is Elizabeth Berg's 1997 novel Joy School. I have read seven of her novels and liked them all, but this one is my special favorite. Some novelists are all over the map, one stunning read, one awful one, and one in between, rinse, repeat. (Anne Tyler, I'm looking at you.) Elizabeth Berg, though, is money. She always delivers a wise, entertaining, heart-tugging story. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then go skating or something! This List remains active through Saturday. 

And now, your List:

automatic

book

brains

cookbook

dismal

evaporated

exact

fix

iceberg

luxury

museum

narrow

newspaper

punch

skate

spray

unfolding

vase

whole

witch

Pomegranate & Oleander

 

I traveled through an arid land

where pomegranate trees bent like new widows

to find myself in a room with white stucco walls,

an almond in batter, with oleanders in a vase. 

Scarlet oleanders, delicate and bright, fragile

pages of dawn in a book of finite days.

The windows are narrow and look out on the bay

blue with white edges, sewn for a tide that never stays.

White boats like a spray of Nerium oleander

on a blue-edged plate set in a shifting hutch,

or whites of eyes from evaporated dreams

of a lover on an iceberg, things slowly lost and such.

I traveled through an arid land

a museum of what not to become,

born from a pomegranate seed,

fed on oleander, a gull duty-married to a setting sun.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Joy School.