Posts for June 24, 2020 (page 5)

The Kentucky campfire spirits
emerged
while the cold crept into
and out of
my fridge.

County lines convert to conversation.
Clips later, clicks orbit.

I tap. I send. I ask how they are.
“Some cold” is all the galaxy asks for.

Here, the kitchen cold
done took command:
endless growls within
my fridge. Done

froze my cheeses

the cherries

the rice-cabbage-radish-mint-chickpea salad

the smoked salmon

the unopened hummus.

Not the ciders, of course.
Or thankfully, the package of abundant bacon.

New territory. Am I installed,
ready to answer the call?
I promised to learn how to turn the cool loose.
I tell the galaxy I am curious:
what’s at the heart of elemental vortexes?
I wonder which is easier to contain:
fires or frigidaires.

At my table, the fridge shut off and quiet,
the temperature tamed but unright and unlucky,
I drank inadvertent iced coffee.

LARKSPUR
(for Grey)

He holds the words in his hand.
Letter by letter he forms 
them into coherent language,
           readable sentences,
           paragraphs and
           pages.

He taps the lead images
gently with his mallet
giving them exact space and
            reason.

He stands over them
looking down
with loving eye
measuring, by vision,
             he next line…
imagining the entire page.
His hands smooth the paper.
he knows the texture
           the smell…
he knows because
it is his art
           his expertise
                 his life.

It is there, at the press,
where he creates the words of a lifetime,
the books we cherish
             the relics of literature.
He holds the words in his hands and t
the hope of reason           
              for all the world to read.

Tony Sexton

Sometimes
I make
a
mistake
that helps
me
realize
that the
negative thoughts 
I have 
about
myself
are true.

The leaves have turned
Often since I left the garden  

His absence held me
Too long to that land  

I remained a bottomless well
A foot stuck in concrete  

Until the delicious moon
Told me a secret one night  

And I rolled off the mountain
Like a rabid pebble  

My journal with its slobbering    
Testimony followed me to this city  

Where I sit at a polished wood desk
And try to write the rigid skyline  

So foreign from my familiar pen
Of bendy willow and rebellious hills  

Daily sirens now intrusive as a fly
In the next room who eventually  

Finds an open window
And goes about its business  

Car horns, some drunken couple in the street
The background music of my new night life  

No more the questing owl
Or tree frog serenade  

No distant coyote heralding kits
Or corn stalks wrestling the wind  

No man coming along the river trail
Smiling with fish in hand  

During the dark drug of sleep
The mind forgets such folly  

But in the ramp of dream
The whippoorwill calls me  

To the edge
Of almost there          

Sweet Carolina on the fence
Humming ruby throat
Nuthatch scritch and scratch
Patient Swallow keeps watch
My bird takes her song from all of them
to create her identity. 

When you first told me you loved me, I held my breath
I came into the light and bared my scars
I told you that some had come from the barbed words of other people
I had let their claws sink into me and rip away pieces of me
Other scars had come at the hands of past lovers
Seeking to own me, to break me down into the person that they thought I should be
But other scars had come from me
From seeking atonement for sins I thought I had committed
From emotions that couldn’t be spoken aloud, so instead appeared on my flesh
I showed you the fires I had walked through because I wanted this love to be the final one

And I can still feel your words on my heart as you told me you love me, scars and all

i was at the stoplight
biting the inside of my cheek.
i didn’t know why I was crying,
but the bag of mini oreos and dead
weight in my chest
seemed a good enough reason.
maybe i finally realized 
how sad i was. 

(after The Sun by Edward Munch)

the sun is a light bulb in my eye,
a searing incandescent idea
leaping over the edge of the world
with a feather cocked
at a rakish angle above one ear,
both smart and sassy  

http://adelekenny.blogspot.com/2020/06/prompt-355-painting-to-poem.html

A lone dragonfly flutters over
the porch railing before
landing a brief moment
a fleeting respite in her journey
with such an industrious agenda,
hovering above the world,
what does she hope to accomplish?

write down
beautiful 
for a colorful
world picture