City of Crows

 

In the city of crows

in the time of autumn,

over the rainy streets the trees

bend and hover like dying grandmothers.

I have been down these streets

on evenings when I did not want to keep living,

and they gave me their susurrations as a balm. 

In the city of crows,

a small village where

everyone in the world lives,

I met a woman who was two shadows,

one behind the other but it was a third who spoke.

I saw only one shadow, heard only the words I already knew.

Now there is no woman, and I know less than when I began.

In the city of crows,

by the canal where the

coins turn to fish of white, gold, and black,

my blood turned to cold water, stopping my heart.

An old acquaintance brought a loaf of bread to my side,

still warm from my own oven or so they said. They hit my heart

with the fist that had held the loaf, and I lived again but in their debt.

In the city of crows,

there is no newspaper, 

and the devices there die

each year when dusk paints the days.

If you want to see me, listen for weeping

in the forest of shadows, where night and leaves fall alike.

I am there, reciting this poem in a second language made of regret,

shame, love, hope, and death. My body is a wick, time the wax,

and the crows the scattering sly-eyed ash.

______

for Desperate Poets. 

The Landlord of the Moon

 

The landlord of the moon 

likes a little respect with her coffee,

a rose on her pillow 

                                  and all the rest.

She knows she's not loved 

but that's not the point hardly.

She keeps rum on her wrist

                                                and salt on her breast.

It's nothing personal.

No weary argument moves her much,

and it's best to remember

                                             her bird can't sing

except when it's raining

inside suitcases, outside train stations, and such.

Better bow to the east

                                        and kiss the ring.

Still, the landlord of the moon

falters while the factory turns 

and the sun, her master

                                          lounges and leans,

casual and careless

mocking her with jazz hands and money to burn

til she lays, each noon

                                        her heart at his feet.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List #7 (Langston Hughes)                                       

and your bird can sing ^^

Emmeline, In November

 

Emmeline, darkling darling of November

wears russet and red and the rain at dawn.

Her summer-gone ways turn miser to spender,

Emmeline, darkling darling of November.

Her cucks in the churchyard rotting, remember

the rose and her wrist that dropped it down.

Emmeline, darkling darling of November

wears russet and red and the rain at dawn.

__________

this is a triolet poem. 

the image is French language singer Mylene Farmer.

I have written about Emmeline before.

"Emmeline By Evening"

and "Emmeline By Wolf Light"

Confession

There is a man in the foam of a wave
and he watches for spirits
who can never be saved
I leave him a loaf on the edge of my skin
though he knows by the Moon
he can never come in.

The reeds are rotten with whispering wrecks
that cradle the sailors
who've broken their necks
in lonely dawn when the candle is gone
they sing to me softly
their odd borrowed song

To search for the man in the foam of a wave
who constantly calls me
by another love's name
and in his pocket he carries a spoon
to measure my sorrow
by the phase of the Moon.

Come Winter, come Summer, come judgement, come Fall,
come whispering spirits,
come nothing at all,
I'll take off my clothes and my garland of snow
and call him to come
where he already goes.
____

Fox Hurries On Alone

Fox hurries on alone,
wearing a night coat made of indigo memories.
She is solitary and keeps out of sight,
but the moon that finds me, finds her, and says no word.

Here, the lizard on his rock,
head cocked to hear the mandolin the grocer plays
when the lock is on the door
and the bottles hung on yews gather spirits from his tunes.

A desert bird speaks your poems
along the edges of a sunset, and once again 
I hold my breath to hear them
as the fountain with its coins lulls the fox with Spanish songs.
________

for Play It Again at Toads.

I chose Susie's Amber Tamblyn prompt from 2016.

In A Land Of Birds, And Night

In a land as close as birds to the branch
and as far as the moon from the window,
I came to do the one thing I must do, and that is

to kiss your hair because it is the night wind
and to kiss your lips which are the river beneath the night wind,
and to be inside your arms like a lost star.

In a land where to look at birds is to fall,
and falling, to make them seem to shift and fly,
it is really us who move, who fall, who flock and who have no language, 

but yet, in wind and darkness, entwine and sing.
 

Denim and Linen

Beneath my bracelets,
my blood moving.

On my fingers this morning,
just one ring.

Denim and linen
softly familiar.

Lie on your back--
I will be white and blue of cloud and sky.

What did you do with your life, they'll say.

I wore bracelets,
rings,
denim and linen--

I lived.
I breathed. 

For you.
_____

a 55. Visit the G Man for more.

blue cat II

I should have known I was asleep
when the sky turned over and the clouds shook
like bedding in the morning--

everything fell--
sighs, promises,
blood, silences--
a rain best understood by skin and sense.

The blue cat came, speaking notions in my head
about you, Saturn, stars;
scattered across the courtyard
as I slept.
________

This is a companion piece to "Blue Cat" from 2008.

It is also a 55 for the fabulous G Man!
 

Marry the Moon

I'm keen to marry the moon--
she has my heart--
I have my dress--
all the crows in captivity stacked up in the west.

What am I supposed to do
with that golden bitch the sun?
She preen--
she pose--
she think she better than everyone.

I made a deal with the dark.
I said, "bring my baby here,
when she a sliver before she grows.
I'll bootleg you the stars
and nobody needs to know."

I'm keen to marry the moon
with her down-low ways and hyena laugh--
she has my heart--
I have my dress--
now all I need--
her ask, my yes.
__________
 

Caroline

Caroline's feet are black on the bottom from going barefoot.
She doesn't attend teas.
Her old handbags moulder on a shelf in the closet,
pretty and delicate and all in a row as if they were empty birds.

Caroline loves cheetahs,
and watches every nature show that she can find.
Once, she painted their characteristic black tear tracks across her face,
and was pleased how they looked with her spiky yellow-orange hair.

Caroline's married love calls,
and with every word she hears, it is like flying
loose-backed and sweet-quick across the savannah.
She pours out her heart as if a dry season were coming
and she might not get another chance.

Later, after sunset,
blue and sinking,
she goes out walking with no shoes
across the tall wild grass behind her little one bedroom house.

Caroline thinks of the cheetahs all evening
as she writes her poems by silence and lamplight.
They are so gorgeously gifted--
she envies them so much it becomes an ache,
and she wonders how they know not to spend themselves
on hoof or heartbeat
they can never catch.

By midnight,
she feels stupidly human and separate from her beloved cats
as she lies on her back near the tiny window fan,
overheated,
hungry,
and as still as a stone.
_________

for Fireblossom Friday: "Loss"