Night Light

Night Light

Sign of the night when the lights emerge
Trading day shadow for white diode blush;
Even in the stillness the dill head bobs,
Dancing to a felt but unheard tune.
I'm going to stand toe to blade at concrete's edge
Where the yard lies invisible beyond the gazebo
Memory like a breeze under the humidity,
Lifting nothing but hairs at your ankles and wrist.
Dive into the past with the drop of an eyelid,
Bend of the neck. The day has left its dark square
To be buffed by the night lights and the moths.

The Vestibule Before the Door

Painting by Surrealist Artist Alexandra Dillon

I guess what they wanted was Bluebeard, the lurid and the louche
Where the omens were wicked and the whispers slithering;
Marriage like a scoop for the dirt of life swept up by silk.

They barely look at the vow--don't think I can't see what
I can't say.

And they want strength because they come to me ask for it,
For the courage to Not Open the Door, because he's here,
Already in the house, already telling them the kind of stories
About how power is beautiful and how they like to stand in the ocean
And let the waves hit them, right? Between the legs, right?
That's why there is only the hand, with the vow, and the eye here,
In this not-yet-forbidden vestibule.

Because I liked power, too, didn't I?

You can't say what sacred layers the vow will set its edge against.
You can't say what witness will be borne to how they twist them.

Will you stand there and tell my story? Of pirates and weddings . . .

But the ring was only mine from a line of blindness
And what I swore was that I would never look away;
If I could only wear the comfort, I'd be the honest one.
And I am. Sharp and aware and wedded to the long view,
Lies becoming stories, forgotten but smooth, and power?
It rolls madly over and leaves something shiny behind.
Could be blood. Could be diamonds. Could be you.

So...witness. Speech. Silence. Comfort. The edge of the cliff or the knife or the line. Or the edge of the storm. We're fortunate in that another early hurricane will be missing our city, although it will pass through other damaged cities and flood other previously drowned communities. There is only the exhaustion of catching one's breath, holding it, and then waiting for another wave to come. Sharing with The Sunday Muse and with Poets and Storytellers United and hoping that everyone finds a place to rest and catch their breath in the coming week. 

--  Chrissa

Pressure Wave

Today's prompt was "Flaming June" -- being inspired by the heat of summer or Frederic Leighton's painting (below).

Bring the thick and sleepy air close to your throat
Tuck it beneath your head, the beginning of heat;
I will remind you when to wake by the darkness
Chilling your toes, the cloud-woven coolness.

What the heat singes bronze and melts golden,
Our dragon's breath dream of days pouring from
My furnace into fondant-solid calendar squares
Sweet on your tongue? This is the heat-shimmer.

Where the sky lays bare, blue nude to the sun
Find your own shade, your own shifting coverlet
Where the shadows are restless as you are
Dreaming of the streets drowning summer traffic.


Down where the blind goblins watch the world
Drink itself burning beneath the sea
I'm waiting for you to remember the summer
Flaming above and below.

And because we were also talking about anger and I've been thinking about the ways that I tend to feel like it's an inappropriate emotion to express (generally...there was a lot of girls-shouldn't-be-loud when I was growing up)...I've been daydreaming about my own rude, loud, and ridiculous garage band. :) Because who doesn't sometimes want to yell at strangers for hours on end? Totally healthy impulse.  

Angry Onion Eyes (both the lead single and my imaginary screamo band)

You must have been kept in a
ROOT CELLAR
Make your mind go blank and your
TONGUE SOUR

You must have been found in a
ROOT CELLAR
Dry layers concentrating on their
BITTER

You must have been raised in a
ROOT CELLAR
Make my eyes go acid and my cheeks
REDDER

Gonna leave you there in your
ROOT CELLAR
Shriveling down back into dark
MATTER

Miss you guys. And am hoping the weather stops throwing tantrums on Wednesdays. Perhaps it needs to join a band?

-- Chrissa

Departure and Arrival

"Rocket" by Brad Phillips

Still called 'em tin cans when we found 'em

Gleaming in the grass, sly as the future, hot & bright.

We brought the aluminum home, crushed it

Traded it in just like those half-wild people

Who lived on grasslands in the far stellar reaches

Of the theater along with the lizards and moths

And daydreamed about survival.

City lights and stars, pop that shoots you

On a sugar and sentiment montage into the night;

I've told everyone about all that crashes

So fast solid ground liquefies and leaps 

With burning film reminding us light is bleach

Dreams are cleaned by waking thought

And all rubble falls just like arrival.

We called 'em dreams when we found 'em...

Don't give me dimes, give me fireworks

There's no river like the horizon.

Sharing this morning with The Sunday Muse and with Poets and Storytellers United. I've reached that stage of staying-at-home-as-a-lifestyle-choice where attempting to edit a short story ends in me Godzilla-stomping-without-the-suit through the house and growling. And then deciding to make a quarantine diary instead. Which led to me realizing why I was stomping around the house and looking for model cities to devour--months have gone by. And a story begun in March is bumping gently against the edge of June while my brain struggles to catch up, still somewhere in the middle of April. 

Hoping your week has been calmer and that this finds us all on the edge of a better week. :) 

-- Chrissa

OTC Butterflies

Windy moments where you swallow the breeze

Quick, like diving,

Yesterdays ballooning inside you; the places

Oh, the places you went.

Gone, then, the cupcake shops and restaurants

Quick as shadows

Where footsteps speak memories of  your space

Within crowds

Swallow the daylight, take it against this,

A prophylactic 

That reminds you that places end, doors lock,

Glass gives back sky.

So, yeah...here is the butterfly pill poem. 

-- Chrissa

Look Out! the Window

It's another chance to go to Oz but I don't have the fare.
Whatever coin it takes, the wind just shoves the patio furniture
Across the concrete, beneath the grill, into the yard
Where it would be an emerald jungle except for the always-organized
Ants.
They don't have time for the fantasy and they don't care
For this explanation of the flooding, that there are doors that open
With a twist and if you have the bravery to run right
Into the storm so that it wrings the sunlight out of you, brighter.

Inspired by the wild weather yesterday and by Carrie's Wednesday WordCrafters prompt (either look at the window where you are OR a photo of a woman taking a pill containing butterflies). Maybe tomorrow I'll tackle the pill full of butterflies? 

-- Chrissa

When the Blossoms Open

"Snow White & Rose Red" art by Kerry Darlington

When the blossoms open, everyone falls to her knees

Briar forests breathe a subtle poison dream--

Sleep in the waves of sunlight like a sea-drowned skull

Wind curls fairy knots alike in hair and fur

While the bees and the dragonflies and the butterflies

Drift above you, as fae and fish alike 

Dream of salmon leaping upon plates of poetry, honey

Skirls from the fairies' wands like enameling;

Dream of men shifting fur to leather, their kisses cast  

Careless to the forest floor, where you rest

While water rises to run drowning into other valleys

Crowned with damp petals and fairies

Greetings and salutations, hope that this finds you well and welcome to the Moon Pool. :) It's full summer here (also, first mosquitoes of the season--ick) and so one feels lightly poached after an hour of reading or writing outside and conjuring up dreams of fairy tale forests and fall (cool and dark, like a mantra). Love the image chosen by the Sunday Muse and sharing with both the Muse and Poets and Storytellers United. Happy poetry day! 

-- Chrissa