The Mimosa Effect 2

6.22.10

the slow morning climbs sleepily
out of the low clouds
and the mist hanging
weightless above
the dark waters

waves chuckle
against the rocks
gossiping
about the sea

–

tumble of mossy rocks
through dappled shade

tall sun-clad spires
of pink and purple foxglove
dappled too,
like prized fairground ponies

faery houses made
of twigs and bark
lovingly arranged
by the slender fingers
of three giggling girls

comfortable stone paths
nestled in soft springy loam
inviting dalliances
with green shadows

–

6.23.10

by the water’s edge
crabs amble through
swaying seaweed forests
over barnacle stippled rocks
purple starfish
crammed into craggy cracks
hiding from the mid-day sun
live starfish are not brittle
but full and taut
like a bunched muscle
still-damp arms glistening
they do not stir at my touch

shells here,
just under the water at low tide,
are not empty, but full
of little bodies, with startled
grasping legs
that scuttle away and down
into depths I cannot reach

later, looking up
through oak branches
at the pale blue sky
the sun peeking out
from behind the leaves’
scalloped edges
small insects float,
white and gold against the blue
like flecks of dandelion pollen
everywhere the air
is full of bird song
and the distant whine and chug
of outboard motors

–

shells in the forest

at first you don’t realize
what they are
chalky white smudges
on the cave floor
bending down you see
a thick layer of oyster shells
most ground to fine dust by now
some still whole
this is where the women
and children hid
while the men fought
before roads, or pathways

slumbering behemoths
left by ancient glaciers
the stones at the foot
of the land-whale cliff
lean against each other
as if they fell asleep
while wrestling
beneath them, a cool hollow
you could hide a dozen here,
maybe twenty
huddled together
cracking open the shells
and eating the soft,
slick innards raw

there is a path here now
people build mountain bike ramps
foolish, ridiculous things
straddling the boulders
wood tied together
like part of some old prospecting town

no longer hidden
but still mysterious
even knowing
shells on the forest floor

- T.H.

i.
in December comes the monsoon
black rain runs over
the concrete ground
finding no purchase
no place to sink into

this is a dangerous time
to wander unprotected

hatless, coatless and barefoot
we run through
the midnight torrent
leaving no footprints
no sign of our passage
the rain washes all away
even the memory
of summers, the dry sting
of dust and yellowed grass
whispering along
the cracked clay
the same clay that built us
(or that we were fashioned from
no one quite remembers)

this is how December ends:
in a blinding whiteness
or a lullaby of tears

ii.
burn after reading
stamped in red
on a plain brown envelope
scrawled in borrowed ink
on a paper napkin
written in lipstick
on the vulnerable skin
of an exposed wrist

you must take this knowledge
into your heart and soul
into the bones of you
so you can never forget
then cast away
these ephemeral scraps
these temporary tattoos
these fragile imaginings

ignore the sirens
whispering in your ear
the scratching at the door
the howling in the wind
as you stand watching it burn
the edges curling,
falling to black ash

only remember this,
this one small thing:
everything ends; everything begins

- T.H.
Possibly not the most upbeat start to the new year, I know. Blame the lack of sunshine.

written on posts, on rails and stairs; written in chalk, on walls and sidewalks, in old bricked up alleyways, on boarded up windows; written on napkins, old cardboard boxes, in the margins of fliers on hat brims and T-shirts; drawn on sneakers, casts and mirrors; written in lipstick and magic marker, crayon and finger-paint; written in wet sand, in mud and fresh clay; written with sticks, fingers and toes; written with pen knives, etched with keys and dried out pen nibs; written on skin, in henna and ink; written on fabric, with wax on silk; carved into stone, wood and bone; written with beet juice, vegetable dye, spilled coffee, melted chocolate; written on fogged up windows, dusty furniture, and dirty car doors; written with pebbles, twigs and leaves; written in whipped cream and mashed potatoes; stamped into freshly fallen snow; written with sparklers, words on the air; written on fingernails, with nail polish and Sharpies, white-out and paint; written anywhere, everywhere, with everything and anything words covering the world

picture by aniefann

More on this past week’s Saturday Scribes Themes:

I.

my words are…

guerilla soldiers
planting trees in no man’s land

   kites made of paper
   held together by elastic bands & scotch tape
   flung from the top of a cliff
   gliding towards the rapids

cowboy coffee, thick & black
bubbling in a steel pot
over a desert campfire

   a herd of wild horses
   running through a canyon
   dust & pebbles flying

paint flung on a canvas
in the dark, eyes shut
while the discordant wailing
of King Crimson fills the air

   a matte black Chevy
   flying down the highway in the rain
   past the sign that reads:
   “road closed: no exit”

II.

my thoughts are…

lost in the wilderness
with only a pen-knife
a ball of string
and a half-full book of matches

   an endless symphony
   played by a thousand-piece orchestra
   using improvised instruments
   built out of found objects
   that is somehow, magically,
   always in tune

a massive warehouse
stacked to the rafters
with one-of-a-kind antiques
faded paintings by the masters
machines that nobody knows how to use
trinkets, novelty items, & old-fashioned toys
next to baffling hi-tech alien devices
fragments of crashed space ships
birds’ nests, seashells, shiny rocks,
shark’s teeth, arrowheads and sea glass
and every wall, a window a hundred feet high
looking out on a different world
in a different season

III.

need arises for…

an end to cruelty
a quiet place to think
a song to sing that never grows old
good coffee in a porcelain mug
birds singing after the rain stops
good shoes that never wear out
art like nothing you’ve ever seen
music like nothing you’ve ever heard
an end to greed
more trees
an ocean view
bare feet in the sand
a cool mountain stream
spring peepers at night
white-tailed deer in the mist
a moose eating water weeds
mice in the brush pile
a big fire on a cold evening
marshmallows on sticks
nearly melted chocolate
ice cream on your chin
a rootbeer foam moustache
children giggling at their own jokes
roses in bloom
a good idea at the right time
comfortable chairs
someone to hold hands with
a watch that never runs down
a crazy invention that works despite itself
false dawn in winter
looking down at clouds from a mountain top
swimming in clear, clean water
things that are easy to fix
bright light in a dark room
a soft bed to sleep in
a long, hot shower
running that doesn’t hurt your knees
a nigh-indestructible bike chain
being able to say what’s really on your mind
an end to war
careening down a snowy hill on an old wooden toboggan
a hat that keeps your ears warm
a cool breeze to blow the heat away
warm socks in January
grape & cherry popsicles
sweet watermelon with big black seeds
rolling in the grass with a friendly dog
unexpected kindness
peace

Saturday Scribes themes for the week of July 4th ‘09:
  My words are…
  My thoughts are…
  My pen is… [see “they say the pen's the key”]
  Need arises for… [also see “need arises for a rest”]

need arises
  for a rest
   from uncertainty
we hand suspended
  in cloudy water
   gulping at the surface
     knowing
      one can’t escape
      through solid glass
    (no matter how hard
    you throw yourself
  against the sides)
the roof of the sky
  is heavy
   holding us down
   holding us in
in this place
  we need
   wings of steel
    sharpened to
     a razor’s edge
     in order to break free
we need
  to believe
    that a flexible heart
     an unbreakable soul
   will keep us alive
  long enough to see
the towers fall

- T.H.  (for Saturday Scribes)

they say the pen’s the key
  although what lock
   it fits into
   is never clear

my pen is two bent wires
  teasing free the catch
my pen is nimble fingers
  brushing exposed wires together
   to make a spark
my pen is a credit card sliding
  between door jam and deadbolt
my pen is a thief in the night
  who leaves more than he steals

my pen is a bootleg album
 recorded on the road
  at some backwoods festival
   where it rained all weekend
   where we swam
    naked at night
    and woke at dawn
   to the sound
 of birds singing
and wind in the trees 

my words
 are the footprints
  left in the mud
  the patterns traced in
  burnt camp-fire circles
  ashes still smouldering
 that may someday
  (if the wind is right)
   set the whole forest ablaze.

- T.H.  (for Saturday Scribes)

Still writing, just took a little break from blogging.  Editing going apace; will go more apace once the latest spring bug has stopped trying to lay seige to my immune system.

we are all
so fragile
and yet
we go about
our lives as if
we were made of
much sturdier stuff
in the pantry
the delicate china cups
and the fluted
crystal wine glasses
waltz madly
as if they were
unbreakable
despite the forest
of shards that
tells us otherwise
we carve our hearts
on silver platters
feed the still
beating pieces
to waiting mouths
blinded by faith
that someone else
will do the same for us
and no one
will go hungry

——-

did you know
that enough hands clapping
sounds like a waterfall
that a thousand people singing
will always be in tune
that sometimes
it’s impossible to tell
if the tears
in the back of my throat
are for joy, or sadness,
or merely just
another symptom

-T.H.

ancient matters

elephant cousins
creating bastions
in the damp loam
weaving shrouds
to cover their dead
slide themselves through
the ebb and flow
of the long grass
they can be silent
when they choose to be
respect for the ancestors
no misconceptions here
only history

——

prophet

the bees are gathering
in the honey kitchen 
up on the roof
the buzzing hum of it
fills her ears like sand
she shudders in her sleep
dreams of drowning in sweetness

meanwhile, in Elysium,
snow-covered streets
claim the ocean floor
a submerged amber flash

they are coming
cutting through snowdrifts
scattering nests and tiny bones

pink skeins twine
around her outstretched fingers
cognizant only
of what the future holds
the present forgotten
subsumed
in the elephant’s graveyard

some say she waits for
the end of the world
but I know she waits only
for you

- T.H.

The final two for April, using a prompt from PoeFusion.   I took my seed words from this month’s National Geographic and a couple of fridge magnets. 

Thanks to ReadWritePoem for helping to keep the momentum going.  A month immersed in poetry was just what I needed.  May will see a return to prose for me, with a focus on novel editing, both of which will hopefully be suffused with a re-awakened poetic sensibility – or at the very least, a renewed appreciation for the beauty of language.  Reading other people’s poetry has also been a great way to spend some of those little crumbs of spare time each day.  If you get the chance, I highly recommend it.  Especially if words have become dull, heavy things of late - I guarantee it will breathe life back into them again.

…think I can?

write with the TV on have a day without pain lose my
most painful memories (should be) doing what I can
I’m going to get to be okay with
losing people is all it’s cracked up to be
if people will stop hating each other anything can
keep going on like this only skin deep
we’ll take much more of this (it will)
keep doing this right now keep going
can’t sit here much longer
accept the inevitable change everything but
it might kill to live the death of irony stay funny
forever what people are thinking things I secretly
want what I really need writing about beauty is
what I can’t do going anywhere interesting
sleep before midnight tonight do this any more
we need we can people will ever
be what they are

- T.H. 

For the RWP prompt “I don’t think I can…”.  The idea was to start writing a list where every entry began with “I don’t think I can..”.  (Naturally mine immediately strayed into a myriad variations: “I don’t think I’ll ever/people will/we can/it will/this is…” ).  Then you take away the “I don’t think I can” part of each line, and start messing with the words that are left over.  This is one of the quasi-poetic results.  Fun with word clouds can be had at www.wordle.net

I’ll paint a picture
of a girl named Eve
hair like strawberries
eyes like the sea
She walks through doors
without opening
  (she knows
   where the tigers are)
goes from here to there
without travelling
  (she says life’s too short
   for traffic lights)
I’ll sing a story
of a girl named Eve
hair like autumn leaves
eyes like a summer breeze
She swims in the ocean
without needing to breathe
  (she likes to go deep
   where the light can’t go)
she coasts uphill
without pedalling
  (she tells me it’s easy
   she’s such a tease)
I’ll write a song someday
of a girl named Eve
hair like a memory
eyes like a dream
the little girl
who walks through walls
  (there she goes
   again)

-T.H.

Café writing #3, for NaPoWriMo. One of the phrases (coasting uphill) made it into 2 out of the 5 poems written in this particular café writing session. The other poem is here. Inspired by one of the main characters in my current novel-in-progress.