He comes the other way, a belly of puffing in his mouth. A child’s floral sun hat rests on his bald head and he carries an oven rack that swings with his stride. My mind dandles oddities knowing he’s done my work for me. dVerse Quadrille "work" hosted by msjadeli
Category: poetry
#Petite Pen #Twiglet
Ron Hicks Unwanted our child my belly and you list losses... tears of griffins couldn’t salt my heart like your face now blank as the steel sky oh grant me some bloody sun Written for K. Hartless' Petite Pen Ekphrasis - Ron Hicks' artwork and Misky's Twiglet #283 (steel sky)
News
Dear Blogger Friends, Today I received word that Picaro Press (an offshoot of Ginninderra Press in South Australia) have agreed to publish a chapbook of 24 of my poems. It is themed around my year of cancer treatment and the loss of my friend to cancer. I am so excited that they have agreed to … Continue reading News
Turn to where the moon is smiling…
Regard the sliver moon: she cloaks herself in royal purple and smiles to the east, and so we must look that way too, for romance and secret notes and the unhurried chivalry of a rising sun. Listen to the colours of wakening, their flesh, their breath... And pen those words: Love and wilt and the … Continue reading Turn to where the moon is smiling…
Ikebana Writing
After Misky's post: 29.1.22: I've Been Thinking In the morning still the quiet stamp of rain and chickens crooning. I take out my fiction examine the creases in half one way and then flip i chew my bottom lip afraid of tearing... such fragile invention but this morning there's a feeling that Icarus' flight might … Continue reading Ikebana Writing
Still Life with Night Sky
(i) the moon with patina of mushroom skin premieres in a stodgy sky she’s shrouded in the feathers of candles’ breezy death. (ii) imagine if one galaxy were a grapefruit: dimpled skin and the mirrored arching through soft amber caverns what colour is the sun? (iii) a pomegranate between the flesh-white stars disguises itself as … Continue reading Still Life with Night Sky
Sky Ink
Some say we’re all star dust and I get it now, how we’re set by the exquisite geometry of constellations Flowers built around the houses of exacting pentagons or an eagle's flight feathers their sprayed precision, the acute explosion of wattle blossom tendrils, or my own hand, its splayed fingers and the triangles between. Water's … Continue reading Sky Ink
Frog Wisdom
I want to know if frogs (between small throat booms and balloon eye blinks) plait star beams with reed blades making mattresses for their frothy spawn. Or perhaps, their sixth sense skin demands shiny nova caresses ... shouldn’t we all? A masseuse for our dreaming. The background to this post is long and complicated. It … Continue reading Frog Wisdom
Sunday with Dogs
Three men in baseball caps on Sunday’s oval: this sublime morning (like Vivaldi’s violins) elongates their shadow legs while the leashes of the three small dogs tangle calves in random wind until grown men must hop and wobble. Spring’s tickling breeze, its infinite busy fingers, plucks browned blossoms and drops them butterfly flitting to ground … Continue reading Sunday with Dogs
Campsis Radicans
(the best place for a bee) a cathedral the ceiling incandescent tangerine webbed with translucent veins in liminal reds and oranges this cocooning space clad coolly in rubber-like sheaths opening full impetuous lips to the tossing blue here the bee's humble palace Reposted from January 12, 2021 for Miz Quickly's "Best Place" Prompt
Nature’s Art
Regard today’s plumage pigeon grey and unleashing iridescent swabs of cats-eye yellow and powder rain’s dry sweep. Behold the choral flowers singing sky echoes: magnolia goblets gulping sunset purple and photinia clouds, their beached wave like storm impending, recasting battered light. Beneath the elm tree unclung butterfly clusters swarm to earth, a coloured shadow, and … Continue reading Nature’s Art
Conversation
she said: "journalism is an omlette broken eggs and the mothering dreams of cows" "social media fry-up" he objected graphite eyes among candles "truth is cartilage the bend makes us beautiful" merlot flame in glasses glowed his stone her fire and the blackening between Written for De Jackson's dVerse Quadrille Monday #137 - "Stone"
Abstraction #Miz Quickly
Written for Miz Quickly's October 3 Prompt (Sadistic Laughter from the Rabbit) composition 1 this door, with nose and eyes slams silently, and her the letterbox with silent space for communication; her need drips off him, the puddle staining the carpet around his chair composition 2 banana slices in her breakfast the round soft shock … Continue reading Abstraction #Miz Quickly
Papadam Moon
Like the moon how its blushless circle turns sun’s dread glare back in silver wonder… so watch the papadam grow proud against slam fisted heat. Written for msjadeli's dVerse Open Link Night #293 prompt. (Belated) Edited 3/10/21
The Place We Live
The sun sits in leaky splendour; watermelon juice staining this upholstery this smog brown décor this Faberge sunset this velveteen smoke haze. A cloying choice but here we all sit in our plush living room our shrine of consecrated ignorance and listen to the clock and the crackle roar of our future. Written for Misky's … Continue reading The Place We Live
Sassy
From this paddock (which peters out in trackless bush) I can see my grandma’s pool gleaming pink as the nonchalant blood-let sky Around me, adults murmur theories “She might’ve gone off to die” Blackberries: their Tally-Ho tangle, this rolling hedge - a menacing dark secured beneath. And I peer in, looking for that different brushed … Continue reading Sassy
Spark Blindness
Written for Frank's Haibun Monday at dVerse - topic: Writer's Block Sometimes an idea flares in the brain – spontaneous combustion – and it’s big and bright and I bask in its wonderful glow. But when that’s used up, it’s easy to think that every idea will be like that – intense and consuming, shimmering … Continue reading Spark Blindness
Who Hears the Crying?
When a million stars take leave from night duty and arrange themselves on Earth's blackened boughs then you know that tree cries are heard all across this universe we perceive as barren. But tomorrow, when we stand dressed in smoke, completely lost in its ebb and rolling, our asphyxiated wails will vanish quick as bio-luminescence … Continue reading Who Hears the Crying?
On the Road to Wolfe Creek Crater
Here now sketched dark against camellia pink a washboard sky we settle into this dry creek groove flames tick and fizzle around lamb chops bums sunk in canvas foot fired and smoke eyed review the day's Boab sightings milk bottle trunks, branches in a ghost’s wail and you peeling potatoes at the border - Fruit … Continue reading On the Road to Wolfe Creek Crater
Float
on this tide (between my brows) in the quiet creak of waves a cat floats rump scooped in base-to-base voluptuous cello mellow tones barley ripe and ticking shshshshsh says the sand black-hearted sassafras this elegant shore knots of dark & light her hair against its flank
Docetaxel Dream
(Docetaxel is a chemotherapy drug) a long puddle a dragon’s mercurial tail rippled scales in the hammock of a silver curb two sheens in matching curve and then athletic legs, cast thick and strong a sheath of skirt the shifting lavenders of reflective steel. one great kick titanium arcs measuring purple the drugs' metallic sweep … Continue reading Docetaxel Dream
Seasons
borrowing some language from "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll Wheel on, Earth! This grinning orbit, lopsided axle bolted to time’s effortless wheeze - each season, a childhood of delicate unfurling. A quarter is in the rest of shadows ..digging holes for themselves; uncleaving from the brunt of sun’s inevitable eye. But sleep must crash open. Winter’s … Continue reading Seasons
Leaving Clover #Novelinee
I’ve never found a four-leaf clover yet to wave around as evidence of luck; that’s not to say I feel at all bereft. Still, in patches, my hopeful eyes gets stuck. When hairy clouds leave dandruff on clover it glitters – zirconia - but soft and round. The leaves bedazzle - dainty flakes all over … Continue reading Leaving Clover #Novelinee
Lockdown Moods
Me & My Lid On some days in my Lockdown exercise hour the sun has poured its soothing ink quietly like warm milk between still trees and the roads have lain empty as snakeskin between closed houses. And even the birds seemed awed by the largeness of silence. But other days, the madding wind flips … Continue reading Lockdown Moods
Remembering Lorraine
in this moment between me and Lorraine’s pink camellia Spring is perfect its face made up debutante fine coming out for the bee season hear the buzz in wattle’s chandeliers I buzz too on steroid’s limb dandled like a madman’s puppet me in autumn’s crazed falling: lost foliage and wanting sleep the camellia and I … Continue reading Remembering Lorraine
Locked in…
deep scuba sweep - generous void of undersea gloom down to strangled kelp and coral beaks’ nip. a clam’s stiff lips womp and steal my heart, blows hollow bubbles prismatic nothing ballooning in organ's place. meanwhile in sequestered dark, unforgiving ridges beat at my blood Written for dVerse's Quadrille Prompt "Heart"
Summer Dawn
deep ocean eye-tonic green the sip of mandibles lilly leaf cups dew paused a transparent dawn song of summer every vein supposes goodness forgiveness wave’s caress swish of coast a beetle’s wing Written for Miz Quickly - August 20. Used one photo (below) and two words: good & coast You will have to excuse my … Continue reading Summer Dawn
Truth
Soldiers (and not only you) they may lie before you die they may lie again when your speechless body is in earth's pouch the close, dark hug of it... your life given for a cause... not yours. Lies are the wounds in all our histories suppurating as tiny texts in little known museums or finding … Continue reading Truth
Miz Quickly Aug 17
(Photo Prompt + Twiglet) Photo from Miz Quickly This track in sinuous green parallels the river’s rush and the runner with embered cheeks, heaves breath through singed lungs. Stars burn in the sun-touched water
Homage to a Notebook of Poems I collected 20 years ago
I found a notebook from which trumpet song tanned my skin and let me breathe deep the golden sense of persimmons their voices (those poets) never wrinkle, even as pages yellow and my knuckles collect scars. echoes preserved in paper cathedrals splicing the all and nothing of experience poetry our human whale-song *Copyright abigfatcanofworms