We Are The Pocketwatches

Lemons are growing where the bunnies have been

In the black hole corner of the yard where the dragons crept

Through the fence, then around the cypress trunk,

Then dug the pool – now slumbering beneath it, waiting for the days

Inscribed on the plaster to imprint themselves into the dirt.

There are treasures with ideograms rising sharp

From the undersurfaces, a bowl of moments thick as years

The dragons lick them, dream in flavors of language

While here, the clock spins down, skips seconds

Snags a string in the orchestra’s viola section, a sick twist of time

Dizzy on the tuning.

Sour and then salty and then there’s the oil, the polishing

Cleaning the days from her screens, dusting the seconds from their fingers

All of it falling into the sun, pouring into the root vats below—

Where the rabbits might have gone, quick as myth under the tongue

Once upon a platter, once upon a picnic basket, once upon

An afternoon, plastic tablecloths shredding around the tape

Wind from the shore falling exhausted upon the lowlands onto

Slumbering dragons underneath the buffet table

Constantly smoking the treasure, constantly devouring

Their cotton-tailed dreams.

Sharing with The Sunday Muse, who kindly provided the image...this probably should have made me think of the upcoming year...but 2020 is low-key terrifying me and I'd rather think about lemon trees and rabbits and swimming pools and whether or not it's too damp to go to the park (no, but I've left it till too late in the afternoon) and iced tea...because it's Texas and the cool front won't be here until tomorrow and if I can just hold all of this in my head (along with the adventure story I was brainstorming earlier) those dragons might stay sleeping. At least for a little while. 

-- Chrissa

Christmas Day 2019

There are myths about cars that are haunted
By the bullets and cruelty within;
This rusted car is full of spirit
It flashes wings like the fog, the clouds
Wide as the highway sky.

This morning it sits up on planking
                     In the emptiness of a side yard
And what you can't see in the bright winter sun
Are the sunflower seeds below.

This car remembers how different pain and birth
Anneal
Next summer you'll find every window
Full of yellow and birds
Singing to the baby who's now
Eighty years down the road.

It's Christmas where snow isn't falling
Where sunlight is flooding the plains
Families are remembering their stories
In the wake of the holiday.

Once Upon a Horse

There is winter where the snow is sifted thought

Caught in the instant of forgetting, falling

There is winter where ringing reindeer run

In a myth of jolly light beginning

And there is now, our winter woven between

Running, remembering, and going

I will tell you of the fields, the way they spring,

The way they taste.

You will tell me of the sky, of the pine trees

How they birth shade.

We will tell of the seasons in their roundelay

Dreaming in this chilly glade

Winter is for stories.

And here is an excerpt from this year's Christmas ghost story:

There's a court at the end of the street with all the Christmas lights, a court that was never built out. No houses, no signs of life. No street lights. I don't know what they use it for during the rest of the year, but it allows people looking at Christmas lights to turn around, easy.

It's just dark. And I'm sure there's water just off that downslope. Houston's a swamp and we're not far enough out of the city to be out of the slough. So that's where Remy sees the rabbit. He yells out "Giant rabbit!" as we're turning but I don't see it. He's driving, so he slows down. I get antsy in this area, all the big houses...and we don't know anyone. I tell him to keep driving.

He does. The first time. But we get turned around. There's an inflated snowman and and an inflated Death Star and we laugh about ice and revenge and Remy makes a turn and then--there they are again. We have to make the same circuit. Then we're back in the dark and the rabbit is there again.

This time Remy stops the car. Insists on the rabbit, and on how big it is. How fast it moves.

He shifts the car into park, reaches across and opens my door, which is nearest the curb. He asks me to see if I can get a shot of the giant rabbit with my phone. Maybe it'll hop back now that the car's off. He rolls his eyes when I don't immediately climb out of the car. It would make a good picture, he insists. Like that time we took pictures of the rabbits in the fields by the airport, that one summer we went to a local scifi convention. Remy is convinced that it must be a tame rabbit, probably gets fed by "all the kids in the neighborhood." He imagines that they probably have tea parties in this court in the summer. I assume he associates tea parties with the balconies and columns we've just seen festooned with Christmas lights and inflatables.

I want to get back in the car. It's not a rabbit holiday and it's dark. Dark and chill and, with the car stopped, I can smell the nearby creek. I can also see a slight trail. No rabbit, but I wonder, with all the floods and what not...why a trail?

And that's it for now. Will she follow the trail? What's with the giant vanishing rabbit? Exactly what kind of Instagram story is this going to be? The new year may bring resolution! (wait...was that a joke?)

Hope this finds you at the beginning of a marvelous holiday and that good things are resting on your doorstep, waiting to come in and curl up. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and see you in the new year!!

-- Chrissa

Angels

I've been chasing angels
Whirling, crashing angels
Flying sharp across the ground

I've been chasing angels
Scraping through the grass
Come out, come out, they call

The angels crinkle
Underneath my claws
Still chasing, still flying

And I leap
And I pounce
And I bite

Such a serious looking kitten. :) Sharing today with The Sunday Muse and Poets United. The latter half of this week has found me more or less flat on my back for long stretches as I try to recover from a little bit of impatience earlier in the week (lesson learned--just wait for help, don't lift in annoyance), so this will be short. 

Me, recovering from my own stupidity

Hope your week will be creative and festive! :)

--Chrissa

Pipes

Even here, where memory itself is iced with dust,
Frosted with webs; even here, I am thankful for the pipes
Clean water from wherever it may have run
Underground, creeping and pressing through stone
To fall out here, surprised.
It will be exhausted when it's touched dishes,
Counters, cabinets and this floor
We will both tend toward the cooler tile
Stone enough, I guess.
If the last thing I will be grateful for,
Here, is water...
Filling the baths and the spigots,
The hoses and the plastic pools,
The sprinklers and the showers,
Then I will be clean
And I will be
Thankful

Sharing this week with The Sunday Muse...maybe in honor of the holiday or in honor of no longer having water dripping like madness from the ceiling or just because. Hope this week finds everyone recharged and creative as the new year slips up, party frock ready. :) 

-- Chrissa