Pyrénées unbound

Another version of the Magritte ekphrastic poem for dverse. An ottavo rima.

Pyrénées unbound

Mountains have no roots, their sleep no dreams,
no limits to ambition’s flight, no sky
binds up their clouded heads in misty streams,
as silver-sleek as salmon. Eagles fly
beneath their feet that tread where no light gleams.
In lava veins of fire-blood run dry
as desert dust, the salamanders roar,
their flames a scarlet wave where cold fish soar.

These eyrie-airy, shale-grey flinted slopes,
bare as bones picked clean, a world askew,
tied to the coping of the sky by feathered ropes,
hover weightless where no kestrel ever flew.
A dwelling squats, claw-spread and high as hopes,
stone tossed on stone, a Babel in the blue
of oceans, where grey-scaled fishes sing
the wind, the world unmoored, a broken wing.

Under the skin

For dverse.

Under the skin

Sharp is the air on December mornings,
as thorns on a rose in the cold autumn rain,
as knives in a kitchen where no-one is waiting,
the taste of pressed lemons, a broken-heart pain,
but sharper than all was your last ringing cry—

Goodbye.

A vain hope

For dverse. Well, we got Echo and Narcissus again.

A vain hope

He lounges by the pool in the golden dawn,
where hare and fawn drink and dream-like days unspool.

She calls, but her tongue is tied, he doesn’t hear,
her pleading is unclear. When purple evening falls,

he drains his cup, sighs his name. Golden Echo cries,
Narcissus! Eyes brim when he at last looks up.

The serpent speaks

For dverse. The ‘young and green’ prompt for me led straight to Cleopatra. Here’s a golden shovel quoting from Act One, Scene Five.

The serpent speaks

This piece of my
world, shooting now, summer salad-
fresh these lengthening days,
changed its stark face when
frost no longer crisped the grass. I
count rosetted orchids, where once was
cold-seared brown, now green,
a thrusting, budding bed in
place of still-as-death. Spring’s judgement
on the fading winter cold—
banishment, until the year turns in
its course and cools our hot green blood.

Looking back

For the dverse quadrille prompt.

Looking back

Mornings of white frost-fur, crisp spring, I long
for summer birdsong, bee-hum, the years lost,

never healed of childhood’s cloud gazing,
in meadows, cow grazing, of memory’s fields.

In an idyll of dreamland my sleeping self walks,
where the griffon stalks, I slumber still,

A walk

For dverse.

A walk

I went down to the lake,
following black wings,
bough-skimming.

On the dark path beneath the trees,
I followed clawed prints,
dug deep, down to the water.

No enchanted garden this,
no blackbird singing
in the bramble brake,

but blood shed in wet mud
where rain quenched
the dragon-bird’s fire.

Haibun for the snow moon

Second haibun of the day for dverse.

The snow moon shone full two nights ago, when the sky was spring-clear. After two days of rain and heavy cloud, no moonlight falls on these meadows, or on the pools of standing water that spread and join in lakes where last years dead stalks stand mournful as shipwrecks. No snow fell here to reflect the light in the sky, but the water waits patiently for the next clear night to fill with moon-silver.

Spring nights, dark
as an empty well, loud
with running water.

Death in winter

An alliterative poem for dverse.

Death in winter

White is the winter, its winding-sheet pale
As the face of the famished, stark-frozen in death.
And the carrion crow, with its coarse raucous voice
Calls down from the darkness, storm-dogged and ill-omened,
This world is for warriors, not the weak and despairing,
But your spears and your swords, though you swear by their keenness,
Are no help when Hel summons, and you hear Garmr snarl.

Suicide is painless

A found poem for dverse. I’m not a Nirvana fan and all I know about Kurt Cobain is that he’s dead. The very short poem that came out of all the lines below seems appropriate though.

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I’ve been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
I’ve been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak
And the animals I’ve trapped have all become my pets
And I’m living off of grass, and the drippings from my ceiling
It’s OK to eat fish ’cause they don’t have any feelings

Look on the bright side, suicide
Lost eyesight, I’m on your side
Angel left wing, right wing, broken wing
Lack of iron, I’m not sleeping

Suicide is painless

Eyes locked into black
trapped and feeling lost
I’m left broken
not sleeping..

Spring-burst

A 44-word toddaid for dverse’s quadrille prompt.

Spring-burst

Senses fill with spring, budding green, blue-washed sky,
A rill of song, a finch-red eye, a golden wing,

bee-drummed scent of woodbine sweet, honey-rich,
a hazel switch, and catkins silken pelt.

Bird-trilled, paint-splashed, bee-drunk, sun-gold you,
add sky-hue blue, one touch, spring’s canvas filled.