Not Yet, Ariel

The ocean was hungry and the land thirsty
What happened next--the fish know, I presume
They know enough to keep me sitting in a glass bowl
In front of a window made of chromatophores
I don't know whose cells or whose brain still dreams
Of windows or why my wrist stings when the day
Changes.

I can look up into the night water, always dark
A slow murmur as the top leaks air into the planets
Whose stomachs glitter in the shallow black.
The window changes and the fabric falls
I close my eyes, feel my throat flex--fish fly
I tell myself. They always have. The thick air
Shivers.

Sharing today with The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United. The image above was shared by The Muse and it made me slightly sad, as everything seems to, lately. I'm finding it hard to read books where people gather in universities (re-reading Sayers); where things like going to a restaurant is taken for granted. Melodrama skates over a sliver of grief and trips over anger, draining so fast into sorrow that you're dragged for a breathless minute down. That isn't what I want to bring out of this, however. I'm working on a fairy tale inspired by all the time I've been spending in my backyard...I'm hoping it's the rich and strange thing that rises to the surface (or glitters from the seabed) when it's finished. Thanks for reading and may your week rise on hope.

--  Chrissa

The road is failing, wearing away. Warm enough now
After the cold water filled the empty spaces, lurking near the clay
Slowly saturating the dead roots paved over, too hot to dream
What the grasses looked like.
But I am warm enough to dream them high and golden
Fur of the sun king rising from his land, his body hot, dusty
With all the tributary seeds, tangling himself and the clay
In an afternoon sprawl, reborn.

Shallow As A Puddle

There's a lens there; it could have been just the flash of a Cheetos bag

Except that was in the park, in daylight, almost four years ago

One end open, screaming.

We elected him, America. Just lying there, on the brown pine needles

One open end, screaming.

I guess this America--fixed in the silver black--wouldn't flinch

Wouldn't guess that we'd eventually find a way to make that 

Self-portrait into a selfie, a moment flattened into putty,

Shallow as a puddle; has to be seen, has to be liked

You can't just ignore it. Screaming.

There you go. 

You can't even congratulate art on its gutter perch--

It's just going to lie there, flat, sticky, and empty of context.

You could read the name of the photographer

But there's that damn screaming, echoing,

Like the florescent lights which should be halogen

But this isn't a &$%*ing gallery. 

It's just a phone, probably. 

Just the box that holds the screaming.

Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!

There's the orange flash of a logo.

There are no crumbs inside.

Sharing with The Sunday Muse. Sorry about the language. Have I reached a limit? Yeah, so, so much. 

-- Chrissa

Come Under the Lemons

Come, under the lemons, where the rabbit
Left all the days to give rise to this tree.
We'll find the place to slip through sunlight,
Through clay, through wire.
Memory is a rabbit hole, watch your ankles--
Joy comes like a front in the morning
Turning the air into water and wind
Lifting and washing us.
Come, under the lemons, where the rabbit
Left us bitter and sweet and sun-yellow
Rising from the thick coastal mud, dark
And light, blooming.

Thankful for our small, mostly furry, family and for a community of poets this morning.  Sharing with The Sunday Muse and  Poets and Storytellers United. The amaryllis made it in time for the holiday! :) 

-- Chrissa

Wisteria, Weeds, and Roses

Photography by Anatasiya Dobrovolskaya click HERE for Website

They bloom in the order of seasons

Wisteria, Weeds, and Roses

Drawing all the small things

Bees, Lizards, and Sparrows

Spread the fields with fire and fruit

Wisteria are bees' vintage

 weaving  the woods' communion

Weeds are quick, thorough--

Mythic and common song

Rose leans close, 

stroking the house, blocking the gate

If the question is Should you run?

A better one is

To where?

Sharing with Poets and Storytellers United and thanks to The Sunday Muse for the photo inspiration (above). As a side note, just as I'm becoming overwhelmed with the bad-but-nebulous-everything-is-wrong, Arthur steps in to remind me that there are those close at hand (puppies with nervous stomachs, for instance) who need my focus. It doesn't help, necessarily...but after cleaning up the floor and making sure he's okay (seriously, does anyone know how to settle border collie stomachs?), I'm at least confident that specific areas are sanitized. And that one minor emergency has passed. (Do foxes have nervous stomachs? They kind of levitate like collies.) I know we're all waiting for the world to return. 

Additional side note:  We don't have sheep. We have a tiny backyard in suburban Texas...so the closest we come are squirrels, stray cats, and the occasional large moth. The chihuahuas next door. (Arthur would love to start his own chihuahua circus. If I ever write a children's book...)

Hope this finds everyone well and sorted and safe. 

-- Chrissa

All the Tears Run Downhill

We've spent nights in the nests of the birds
Palms to the rough weave, searching for softness,
Feeling for feathers.
We've climbed down from mountains, oaks
With the cold dawn stretching our shadows
Back into night.
Now, alone, we walk the grasses to edges;
Come in the moonlight to the water, any water
Pull feather to bone.
We will drink the sorrow of the kingdom
Like wine, like blood, through pinion straws,
Through joy's uplift.

We will lighten their dreams.
We will sip away their anchors.
We will sigh them upward.

Empty Covers

Yesterday, I chewed the covers for the novel
For my imaginary novel like crackers

While watching the moths splash against the siding

I can almost see through the worn paper, coverless,

Pages foxed soft, denned on the shelf

Sleeping.

I won't write it at the coffee shop that has closed,

Ideas flashing clear as the windows, dark as unlaid ink.

When I started to watch for the new edges
Curling against the emptiness where the future
Always fails, its jetpacks and fins sharp in the dark,
They weren't words anymore. They were seeds,
Maybe...dustcloths, boxes.
Reading.