Posts for June 25, 2017 (page 4)

Near the border of falling she recalls
the man’s burning question, the imbroglio  

She’s a firefly, little and light as a pin
lost in the wind lashing like the man’s voice  

Wings knitted with the weight of want
Her own illumination twins the stars  

in this unfinished world
divided by grace and ruin                                    

~ Found poem composed/modified from words in the poem “Woman Clothed in the Sun, Illuminated in the Saint-Sever Beatus” by Carol Ann Davies

THE WINDOW

I am blind to the depths
of time and space,
until the earth spins me away
from the sun’s bright rays
to a crisp, clear autumn night
far from the hum of city lights,

then a window opens
through which I can see
a sky full of stars and galaxies
    –far off ships sailing
           on a boundless sea…

What does it mean when rain
Falls from a mostly blue sky?
A tree perhaps reserved last 
Night’s rain, to drop a reminder now. 
Yet that is too easy an answer. 
An omen of good harvests perhaps,
Or warning of coming drought when
Rain from anywhere is denied. 
Or something deeper, more telling
Than this faltering pen can find.
 
Digging down I remember a smile 
Given by a stranger on a bus in
Answer to tears traced down my cheeks. 
Another totem was the day an unearned
Letter grade passed me to Brit Lit II. 
There to find deep questions posed
By Masters with much to teach this 
Mountain girl who knew so well
There was much she did not know. 

The housekeeper at Fairfield Inn
swims in her hair.
She pulls it back in a plastic clip
and walks home by the river on
Friday nights to watch the fireworks.
Her mother kicked her out of the house
when she was just 18.
She didn’t have no degree!
Shoot, she couldn’t sew a button
on a shoe if she had to!
A leftover cinnamon bread
waits in a styrofoam box.
Her hair grows as she talks.
She walked into a place one day
and had her hair cut off at her back.
She just got tired of folding herself up
so she could rest on a couch.
Back when her hair caught her ankles,
her son would have graduated high school
if it took him every bit of 51 years!
These days, he lays floor in New Mexico,
had to hire 2 more guys to keep up!
The housekeeper at Fairfield Inn
swims in her hair
The tail swings back and forth
in ticks and tocks.
She marks her time in locks.

The mother bends over, presses
cheek to cheek, softly strokes

the shaved head.  Eyes closed,
only love now: pure white,

inexhaustible light infusion
until a nurse gently pulls her away.

Sudden raw panic
as her teen-aged daughter is wheeled

down the long, cold corridor.

An eye for an eye a tooth
for a tooth til everybody’s
walkin round toothless
and blind we’ll get there
soon enough on our own
and there are much
better deals to be made.

Hundreds of hours spent 
sittin in the dentist’s chair
suckin down tankfuls
of  pleasurable insight
complementin my soul’s
other supplements
fillings crowns root canals 
sometimes extractions some
people giggle some people
sleep but there’s a Sweet Spot
just this side of Full Stop
where you can get off
and walk around
in between the seconds
 liftin up the veil to see
how things really are
where the music’s deflated
and you learn how to listen 
to Talking Heads in braille.

The Universe is Consciousness
in all its many forms always
makin deals with Itself when
Odin traded one of his eyes
for Wisdom he thought it was
 a pretty good deal all I’m sayin
is it’s amazin what a few crumbs
of calcium can get ya.

Against a background of a large blue curtain
washed clean by the night’s rain,
an enormous, clumsy Saint Bernard,
a fleecy Siberian husky,
a disheveled poodle,
a white well-feathered Retriever
and some toy-dog puppy
run playfully  –  
chasing each other,
hiding,
reappearing again –   

the clouds this morning.  

                                   Zlatna Kostova

beneath your saffron
i surface / a beanstalk from
a handful of cowries.

in morn, hold this harp;
this gold vein, a string of pearls…
the giant hungers.

eat the pie and the plates…
swallow plum & swollen pit…
this prelusive fable.

gander me / the sun,
fire in the down of you
with luminous end.