3 fibonacci poems

My BFF Hedgewitch has decreed that we write Fibonacci poems, and so, naturally, I have applied myself to doing exactly that. Here are three: the first one is a reverse Fibonacci by syllable count, the second is by word count, and the third is a mirror Fibonacci by word count.

THE TERRIBLE HOUSEFLY

Behold, the terrible housefly--
followers crowd its
compound eye;
maggot
turned
Caesar.

COUNTRY CLUB CHRIST

Wonder
Bread
must contain
a tame god
bleeding a very thin wine
building bland believers twelve ways, Sundays before noon.

21

September
Gina,
do you
remember orange evening
in my little garage apartment
hardly big enough for birds, or a bed?

You were 36 and settled as high summer;
outside my windows, the moon
was your twin--
brightly lit,
silently
knowing.

_______

 

hook echo

Close your eyes.
Let me come to you as an odd storm,
one that places the soft-stunned bird
back upon her branch, feathers floating from the ground
to take their places in sequence along her wing.

Let the lost home rise up again,
the lamp righted and lit.
Dream and imagine your heart, unbroken.
________

________

for Artistic Interpretations with Margaret at Real Toads.

And a 55 for the super fab G Man. 

Tranquility Base

Here is the place. 
The perfect place
for us to abandon ourselves completely.
At last, we can do anything, 
and blame a lunacy so compelling
that no one will tell us, lemon-faced, that we should have known better.

If I could see your eyes,
if your thick visor did not simply reflect my face back at me,
I would know that you agree.
If I bash my lips at your hidden ones in what must seem a frenzy of desire,
my only wish is simply to obliterate my returned image;
meteors have pocked this place similarly,
and perish spectacularly.

Darling, unscrew your cumbersome white gloves.
How foolish they seem in a world made entirely of dust!
Were you expecting more, somehow, my pet?
Did the distant sun or the blue earth render you wistful,
yearning for hotter or cooler worlds
peopled by beautiful deities and not just me, 
fumbling like a spastic?

Let's resolve to surrender to what is, my lamb,
no matter how featureless and grim that may be.
We can undress each other and gasp for breath,
agreeing to pretend that it is because of excitement over each other
and that our bursting lungs and 
exploding hearts
are due to love and not just tiresome symptoms of violent expiry.

In the end it will be all right.
If we squint, the gravity and gravitas that encumbers others
will release us as if we were as blameless as a baby's soap bubbles.
We will rise,
renewed,
seeming to wave to non-existent crowds of our lessers,
departing for our next empty rendezvous,
lighter than forgiven murderers unstrapped from the table, finding grace.
_______

for Izy's Out of Standard challenge

 

in water

I was soaking
~in water~
I must have fallen asleep
to my slowed breathing;
my slowed heartbeat;
I must have started to dream.

There was a field, a clutch of trees.
There was a retrograde moon, pale white in the morning sky.
There were stately grackles,
noisy starlings,
and a single cardinal on a mulberry branch that bobbed slightly 
under his tiny weight.

I was dreaming that I was
~in water~
I must have submerged into the pool of myself,
because then there were your slender fingers,
your hand
wet to the wrist,
stirring me and holding my heart as I spread and rippled.
__________

 

 

Concerto for two trumpets in C

While Vivaldi played,
we said unflattering things about my ex-girlfriend from earlier that year.
There are kinder creatures living under rocks,
so if we talked her down
she deserved it and a ticket out of town.

"Did she make you come?" you wanted to know,
ever the ethereal philospher,
like Vivaldi, priest and composer--
and I told you no, no she did not.

Vivaldi was born in Venice,
borne by water and the Divine spark,
but you, 
you are as Turkish as a crescent moon and star.
The English tucked their tails and fled Gallipoli
because they saw you foretold.

When I talk this way, you roll your eyes.
You say,
"Not everyone thinks I'm as wonderful as you do, Shay."
Fools. I can't account for them,
and anyway,
you look so smug even as you deny.

I am as slow as the four seasons,
inhabited by movements and tempos beyond even my own reach.
There are rigged carnival games easier to solve than I am,
and besides,
I have always been more fascinated by the sorceress's candles
than by common fireworks.

You level a look at me, dark-eyed and not bothered
with Christian ceremony or habitual reserve.
"Come here," you say, not harshly, not sweetly.
"Now."
Venice is known for festivals and lights, as well as its canals--
sometimes a new arrival takes the old city as a challenge,
taking her time,
finding her own way,
walking on water as Vivaldi plays.
_______

for Marian's challenge at Real Toads.

 




 

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!
 

Chanson

The thing about the thing
we shot down from the roof,
was that the curve of the earth
matched the curve of its tooth.

From the head we made dog food.
From the hooves we made glue.
We took the bile and the backbone,
and from those we made you.

The heart hissed.
The hands curled.
The eyes were all milky,
sightless and pearled.

The brain rotted.
The ribs rang.
And the skull?

The skull sang.
___________

for Kerry's challenge at Real Toads