A Fool In Love Is Soon Made Wise

Vase so shapely upon the shelf

holding so lightly within herself

the finest faces all gathered to her

which start to bore and bother and blur

until she meets the one who moves her,

beckoning her come quickly closer

to fall so hard and tumble o'er

to spread her shards upon the floor.

_______

for Dverse poetics--the proverbial. Mine is in the title.

the artwork is Flowers In A Basket 1910 by Seraphine de Senlis 

The Last Auk

 

The last Auk, 1852

was found with menhaden

and capelin

and a series of letters from you.

I weep for the Auk,

the last of its kind, alone.

with its feet on rock, its beak in the breeze,

and a feeling for you in its bones.

Is it the fault of the Auk that its dreams of flight

were scuttled by wings too small?

Was it soothed by Hughes, rent by Plath?

Did it feel anything at all?

It had no mate,

no egg, no day of comfort in the future.

Stuffed on a stand, it asked for your hand

to tenderly tie the last suture.

____________

CQD

 

Membrane Boy's parents have separated,

pending divorce.

They communicate through him, as if shouting

through a sealed porthole.

"Remind Frank to pick you up at six."

"Tell Linda a little junk food won't kill you."

He relays all this as if he were a Marconi operator

working Cape Race.

Membrane Boy arrives home to find

his mother in bed, all vials empty.

He dials 911.

"Man the lifeboats. Stop.

Position 700 nautical miles east of Halifax. Stop."

The 911 operator answers:

"Tell your father not to have his bimbo there."

"Tell your mother to stop playing the martyr."

Stop.

Membrane Boy's mother is a berg,

his father a double hull.

Trapped crew members bang hammers on the side,

A dead stoker smiles at the boy, his eyes blank.

"You have your whole future ahead of you, son," says the dead stoker.

"Full steam ahead," calls the Captain.

The lifeboats are lowered,

their wood between sea and air.

The ship lists, the lifeboats overturn.

Drowning souls cling

to the upturned hulls.

Membrane Boy wants to save them

to push them off

to save them

to watch them die

to be alone

to not be alone

Stop.

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.

Vessel Of Your Unmuse

"And the sad act like lepers They stick to the shadows They long to ring bells of warning So that the pure can shut their doors" --Conor Oberst

"We are not amused." --Queen Victoria

Viewed in a certain way,

Even a thorn inspires.

Sharp edges trim away

Superfluous dressings,

Even those we cherish

Like showy cuffs of lace.

Over the course of time,

Fitting uses are found.

You can use words to bind

Or reopen a wound.

Useless protections die,

Roses are thorns, disguised.

Use these new mediums

Not of skin, but of scar.

Muses of blood that run

Under any radar

So you can ring clearly

Every bell you become.

_________

Pretty much, this is a Spirit's Vessel form, though I messed with the rhyme scheme. 

Shared with Dverse Poetry Pub for "Who's Your Muse?" 

10 Lines About Lucy Medicine Crow

 The dog she got was black and white and wild

and loved the world as a fool, or God does.

For her part, she loved two things--dog and child.

No love for cold or calm or rest because,

starved with fever is what she is, and was.

The dog will dream, the child will change unseen,

calling from their secret side, "Come with us

and speak no more the name that we have been."

Her hair turned white in change from black that was,

a semaphore for fading feet and paws.

______

this form is called a decuain.

Two Poems/ Two Forms

"Getaway"

Stop the crying jag

pack a Gladstone bag

book a lunar junket now.

Stay on the sun side

Moon Rabbit runs by

late for a date anyhow.

Rent you a moon car

with hot tub and bar

green cheese and crackers for free.

Dub yourself Moon Maid

retro your moon grade

stay on indefinitely.

-------

this is a form called an alouette.

for Sunday Muse #169.

________________________

and...

"Recipe For Satori En Flambe"

In the desert, find a mirage that suits,

that lives, that fruits despite the gritty eye,

the thing that dries and rides inside your boots,

the thing that shoots itself but does not die.

This is the thing you'll need the most,

a far outpost of the soul.

There is no whole thing here, just shards

and acrid tars to smoke.

This is not as bad as it scans,

not some madman's practical joke;

a softly spoken barcarolle,

a gondolier mid-stroke.

In the desert, find a skull that sings,

an awful thing sick with the wound you need.

Take it up, feed it well until it brings

(from horrors) wings of glass, and salt, and seed.

In a rib bowl, mix these with buried roots

and tongues of mutes in ash rain from a sky

too close and bright, the silver-sharp of flutes

some god imputes with holy song and sigh.

________

this is a LaJemme poem.

You can see where the connection failed. When I came back the type changed.