Monday, July 28, 2014

Queen of the Stone Age

     Museum by Tess Kincaid

Let us not concoct
healing potions for the dead,
nor invent
new colours
for blind eyes.
     -Hilda Doolittle

I dream
that I am on display
I have no privacy
except inside my own mind.
So I go about building an
inner life of vast spaces
empty of people
with wind and sun and
nightjars
singing me into bed.
Meanwhile
I stare blindly past
the gawking people
past the marble floors
glass doors
past the
streetfuls of cars and crowds,
buildings, bridges
mountain ridges
past the curve of the earth
past Moon, Mars,  Pluto
Milky Way,
out and out,
past a thousand galaxies
through time itself.


Written for Magpie Tales where Tess Kincaid reigns as Queen of the Manor.  Click on the link and join us.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Memory

     Image by Mama Zen

Small beauty
etched in bone,
folded in upon itself,
pressed into place
at the back of your mind.


For Mama Zen and all the toads in the Imaginary Garden.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Pub Pals



        Photo by a random man

Two beautiful women from Wales,
both writers and tellers of tales,
welcomed me to their land
with a hug and a hand,
lots of laughter and love and cocktails!


This is about the "publife and community" for dVerse.  I am much too late to link up there, but you should still go there and check out some great writing.  I had the good fortune to meet up with two writing, cyber-freinds when I travelled to the UK last year.  The amazing Shan Ellis and Julie Watkins are pictured here with me and the non-writing, but still delightful Lori McLaughlin.  And yes, a good time was had by all!

Ripe

     Photo Grocery from Tess Kincaid

At the corner store                          
are piled apples, oranges, potatoes 
and onions enough
to make you cry 
with the cutting of them,
 but that just takes one.
And shoppers touch the fruits
and the vegetables -
I won’t even mention
 the ogling of melons,
or the squeezing of tomatoes;
that is too much
firm fruit for this page.
But there is this concentration
of life, of juices, of vegetable matter,
some of it is still ripening;
and though we cling to life like a peach,
out back, the dumpster
is full of molding pears and cabbages.
My dead grandmother used to say
when you are old
your skin gets rotten like a banana.
We are all
ripening and rotting,
every fruit and vegetable and shopper
reaching for a peach,
every person walking past,
too busy to stop
but not able
to rush, or race-walk, or outrun
their own mortality.
And in the end, we all end.
And it is sad, if the life, or the fruit, or the vegetable
was good at all.
But, despite the dumpster full 
of endings,
the store front 
still draws us in.
We want the fresh fruit,
the sweet bite,
the juices running down our chins.
So savor it,
beginning, middle, end.



This is for Magpie Tales writing group hosted by the talented Tess Kincaid.  Come join us!


Sunday, July 13, 2014

Everyday Love

   Steps by Tess Kincaid

I reach for you like a dish.
You read to me over breakfast
while I pour coffee.
There is a coming
and going sort of rhythm
to us.
We are everyday
spoons and forks
not good silver people.
The stairs leading to our room
are well worn.


This is for the writing group Magpie Tales.  Come join us!

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

In Reverse

    Image from wikipedia.org

The fern frond opens, 
unfurls
to sunlight;
new growth new
life. At the end
of the day it
closes in upon
itself.


Thursday, July 3, 2014

Waiting

Waiting
on the threshold,
promises unbroken,
you and the fresh morning beckon.
I wonder if I can jump the chasm
dark and gaping? A huge first step -
I doubt my legs, my will,
so here I stand,
waiting.