I went to London with my hound.
She ran away on foggy ground.
I questioned and cried.
Alas, my voice died!
Has her hide
found the pound?
Tag Archives: poem
Household Songs: The Brief and Unremarkable Life of Joseph Clarence Strauss/IX
Coarse cobwebs, cradled in cotton,
divide sunshine and
smiling spies from a rambunctious band of
miniature moppets.
Skin, spinning in the wind,
grazes daffodil silk;
from two callow hearts, sharp auric arrows
are pulled.
Christmas Cinquain
flowers
bandaged in rime
fall on barren bowers
as a chapel bell meekly chimes
the time
Striking Out
Please claim the words that will fix this home.
Please-do it now-before I walk away.
The wolves of December slice silence from my skin
and carry it towards a vast, foreboding sky.
Guttural whimpers herald a welcome separation.
Still, my heart hungers for our flame.
Do you remember lighting that flame?
We were so young and so very far from home.
That day, now stained in memory, was a critical separation.
We loped further and further away
from wisdom until we stopped under a counterfeit sky.
Unlike now, I could not recognize your skin.
Pale as pearl was my once youthful skin.
Yet, beneath your body, I was a garnet flame.
Nothing could stop us…not even the sky.
Here, beside my beloved fig trees, we fashioned a home
and tucked it neatly away
inside a perfect storm of separation.
But within our peaceful tempest sprouted a sinister separation.
Night after night, it gnawed at my amaranthine skin.
Wounds will melt away
with spring’s advent; an all-consuming flame
shall continue to warm your home.
Or, so I was instructed by a cunning sky.
Tonight, I plead with a most impotent sky,
asking for a final stroke of separation
to raze the awful duplicity of our home.
Bleak answers from heaven soak my skin.
They extinguish my wavering flame.
From my side, you step away.
I too, slink silently away,
forsaking the walls and suffocating sky
which fomented our separation.
A few miles down the road a flame
from a streetlamp shines upon my skin.
I seek out a more loving home.
A buoyant flame emerges from separation.
It burns brilliantly, far away from that dilapidated sky.
Only within this skin, am I home.
Cinquain/LVII
pixies
prance ere cockcrow
amidst fine sterling trees,
but, dreams will come when morning’s glow
is known
——
57 is an older cinquain.
Household Songs: The Brief and Unremarkable Life of Joseph Clarence Strauss/VIII
Strutting secretly by my side
in his thick
licorice coat, King had been a most
loyal friend.
But, when summer sang, he
abandoned me at
last—or, was it I who had
abandoned him?
Cinquain/LXXXII
those beets
smell foul, like feet
encased in dirty sheets;
thank you, but I’ll just stick to meat
and wheat!
—–
When I was a little girl, I really disliked beets. Now, I will consume them with pleasure. I suppose that my taste buds had to mature in order to enjoy them.
Is there a traditional Thanksgiving food that you have/had an aversion to? If you eat this food now, what swayed your taste buds into liking it? Merely the passage of time? I would be interested to hear your stories.
Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! I hope that you are able to spend the day with loved ones–whether that means family, friends, or both.
Tritina For a Beloved One
I watch a maddening display of fear.
Small anxious eyes peer out from sallow shades
while trembling at the thought of future change.
We are the children of eternal change
despite a long companionship with fear;
yet, hues of hearts come in uncounted shades.
If we should be reduced to bitter shades
the feats of ancestors, my dear, would change.
Shake off the ruthless mantle of your fear!
Rich shades of fear—stitched into
skin—must change.
Invisible Threads
Ten hearts are hanging,
like an endless interrogation,
bound by passive restraints
under desiccated burgundy
tongues–lukewarm lovers–who
have forgotten ancient names.
Throughout the village, voices rise.
The faithful,
seared into moist pine, eternally,
live with us now.
Forbidden sighs gently graze my mouth.
Into this heart they come.
Jack’s Judgement
I was doltish, I was dumb,
I burned the dermis off my thumb.
—–
It really isn’t a wise idea to jump over candle sticks, now is it?