3rd House Journal

Viewfinder

Through a viewfinder
so much sea
it pools behind my eyes,
seasons my lips.

The kaleidoscope turns:
your hand touches
and drops, touches
and drops. My eyes
constrict, held tight
by the reptile
in my skull.

We are in the eye
of the storm, here
it’s crystal blue:
sea, sky, iris
bounded by
1000 lashes.

---

Bridge Out

Inspired by last night's rain...

Bridge Out

Between wiper beats, a sign:

Bridge Out – again

the righteous path denied.

Errant, left to bushwhack

past the tried and washed out,

I drive in a blinding torrent,

maddeningly wayward,

white picket fenced out:

No Access.

But later, in the expansive

gap between clouds, a light:

a common moon, the wide sky.

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Deliquesce

Hey all, my poem "Deliquesce" was posted today at the new group creative blog, qarrtsiluni*. There's some great writing and art published on the site, so I'm quite honored to be included. Go check out the creative work there - and if (or more likely, when!) you get inspired by it, submit something of your own. This month's theme is "Change and Continuity."

*The word qarrtsiluni comes from an Alaskan Inuit word for sitting together in the darkness, waiting for something to burst.

Update: Also go see the drawing by Anonymous inspired by "Deliquesce"!

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Además: I decided that since this post and the poem posted at qarrtsiluni have gone into the archives, I may as well cut and paste a copy of the poem in here for my own archives:

Deliquesce

In time I will soften

like old mushrooms –

deliquesce

cell by cell

plexus defenseless

bulwarks dissolved

into moat. I will

not will, won’t

quarrel with the moon

nor damn the tides.

I’ll acquiesce –

unmasked essence

afloat and rudderless.

Let the meltoff decide

on whose sands I maroon

or drift on alone

and after, evanesce.

Author's note: deliquesce was the Word of the Day on September 20, 2005.

In time I will soften

like old mushrooms –

deliquesce

cell by cell

plexus defenseless

bulwarks dissolved

into moat. I will

not will, won’t

quarrel with the moon

nor damn the tides.

I’ll acquiesce –

unmasked essence

afloat and rudderless.

Let the meltoff decide

on whose sands I maroon

or drift on alone

and after, evanesce.

Author's note: deliquesce was the Word of the Day on September 20, 2005.

Prayer to my back

Mysterious

blind backside

I know your

sigh

pulled contrapuntally

thrummed Cajun washboard

I

lie against

your chaise lounge

vertebral

flotation device

sometime libidinal mooring

crustaceous

shell over

creamy craving center.

Mend

oh mend

your off-kilter spring

anneal

heal, resume

our sacral dance.

---

Where I'm From

Seems this was a meme awhile back. I found one on Mary's new blog, and she pointed me in the direction of Fragments from Floyd where Fred has a link in his sidebar to everything you want to know about Where I'm From. But without further ado, here's mine:

Where I'm From

I am from cups and saucers,
Toni perms and pink gingham.
I am from the barn-red Cape on the corner,
from hopscotch and jump rope.
I am from the weeping willow,
the crabapple and the lilacs.
I am from Easter egg hunts
and hidden tensions,
from Alice and Antonina,
Grammy and Bubby.
I am from Irish humor and Polish picnics,
lace curtain class and peasant crass,
tea with milk and whiskey highballs.
From too big for your britches
and enough blue sky to patch a man’s pants.
I am from plaid uniforms,
dark confessionals, the quiet
communing amplitude of empty pews.
I am from granite, from deep snow,
from a half-a-peck of Mac apples.
I am from an educated spinster
and an illiterate orphan,
from their sharp-tongued daughter
and her taciturn husband.
I am from home movies,
deckle-edged stills of exuberant cousins,
and sepia-toned ancestors
in the promise of their youth.

---

Two kayaks

Two
kayaks chase,
tack, sidle up

bow
to stern
to bump gunwales

swaying
from cockpits
bent over coamings

reaching
to rock
in willing waves.

---

Update: fyi - this poem is written in the hay(na)ku form developed by Eileen Tabios and which I discovered through some wonderful hay(na)ku written by Ernesto Priego.

Red Umbrella

Bright spot of shade
sanguine against the blue -
What does it hide?

My mother licks her dripping cone
blissfully oblivious.
Soon she'll be whisked
from her beloved shores
carried away
as under a red balloon
kicking wildly, angry as Mars.

Meanwhile I veil myself
in vacant smiles
hold my breath, submersed
in blue, cold as Sedna
beneath an upended
red canoe.

---

Many thanks to Peter at Slow Reads for including this poem and photo in his August Digest. I am greatly honored.

The Opening

Yesterday I knew
the stones had fallen
the guards fled

I heard echoes -
birds fluttering
down empty halls

I could leave
at any time
and still I stayed

Not for safety
my forehead
cooling on the rough rock

No, I wanted to savor
the light coming in
through the opening
in the crumbled wall.

---

The Atrium

The atrium

heart's chamber

hothouse and glasshouse

nestles two

no-longer-seedlings

sleeping

altering

on its altar

as auricles

listen and divine

the cipher of rain

the flight patterns

of his breath

the venous transport

of her blood

from root

to new green leaf.

---

All Night Rain

Asleep in a treehouse;
Pattering rains
Kiss them with leafy shadows.

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