As I Said

As I said

in confidence

as i said 

from a holy book

as i said

at the emegence

as I said 

but could not look

These are the days of the Autumn's fall

These are the days of lead.

As i said

when we heard the trumpet sound

as i said

as i held your hand

as i said

as we knelt to kiss the ground

of this long-abandoned land

These are the days of the flying bird

These are the days of gold.

As i said

in bent and rusty words

as i said

with fingers crossed

as i said

to saints and conjurers

as i said

when  all was lost

These are the days of the swollen bud

and the bloom of scarlet red. 

_______

I dreamed this poem last night, or the main part of it anyway. 

Shared with The Sunday Muse #242. 

For Su Griffin

 There was a woman in love with fog

and the harbor knew her name.

Su of the basket heart,

Su of the darning needle nights.

Su out of breath, or holding it, just the same.

When you're a woman at odds with time,

every second slows the heartbeat.

Woman of the breakwater bones.

Woman in the crowd, alone.

Woman who folds her heart, folds the dough, folds the sheet.

There was a woman in love with fog

and the harbor knew her name.

_______

for The Sunday Muse #198. 

Part of the following song says (In Spanish):

Because after this life 

There is no other opportunity

How much love arrives like this, it arrives like this

Emblem & Anthem

The streets are full of emblem and anthem.
The sky is gray and slack as a dead man's face.
Megaphones are a needle in the brain
delivering seizure and sanctimony.
Behold our enemies, the ghost and pipsqueak
Writ Large, melting eyes to roiling goo.
All hail our emblem and anthem,
jingoist putrefaction turned glittering bauble.
_______

A Friday 55 for our Witchy hostess.

Sky, Earth, Sky

sky,
earth, sky,
never try
piloting prop
when you're sad and high.
last night i dreamed that i
cleared my head, got out of bed,
and walked down the wing to kiss you.
never take random pills with warm wine--
sky, earth, sky, fall, roll, rise, you, us, i.
______

an Etheree for Play It Again, Toads.

Evolution

Others have come out of the sea, you know;
Venus and I decided enough was enough,
and who knows what all those fish and turtles and whatnot were doing,
how much of their little calling cards were mixing with the water.

You'd leave too, if you had an ounce of sense.

So anyway, a seaside town was kind of inevitable;
all there is is sailors, with their endless uniforms to be kept clean,
expecting you to wait for them, staring out of the window like a dork.
Not me, sister.

The moon pulls the tides,
the waves wash the beach--
and all the while the sirens sing
out of reach, out of reach.

I don't do requests. It's "As Time Goes By" or nothing.
Venus and I share a place in town, behind the take-out restaurant.
She walks around naked all afternoon,
then gets dressed at dusk, revving up her bike and taking off.

Me, I lock myself up in the darkroom with my pictures of people, blooms and bugs.

Sometimes I'm asked whether I miss the ocean,
but it hasn't gone anywhere; I'm not in it, that's all,
and I doubt it has ever missed me, not the way it should.
I'll call my book "Wet Foot, Dry Foot" in honor of my migratory nature.

Could you love a girl like me, do you think?
Check out these legs, I'm not a mermaid,
but when I close my eyes sometimes the world seems to sway,
as if it were made of palm trees and breeze.

The moon pulls the tides,
the waves make their soothing susurrant sound--
bold star bright, shy star behind
white on blue in the night, like clouds.
______

Fabulous photograph by Cloudia Charters and used with permission.