Telling Stories

Artistic Photography Dreamlike Portrait Photography by Damien Casals

Trust me. We'll be surrounded and you'll be 

enchanted. 

Fairies come out at twilight, 

just before I can see.

Iridescent skin, veiny, mica wings.

More legs than is human.

Vibrating.

Yes, it sounds like a swarm

of bugs. But I'm wiser than you.

Keep your eyes closed.

We'll be across the border;

you'll feel it fall across your face.

I'll keep you safe.

I swallow screams for dinner.

I can see fairies in the dark.

Can you trust an owl?

My eyes are closed and in the silence

I see a flash--the brand of the saute pan 

Suddenly rimmed by soap as I washed it.

My skin itches and I think about glass

cases full of thin ceramic plates, 

designs washed out by white lighting

It used to be shopping malls, then 

Wal-mart, then the grocery stores,

thin dishes in piles, pick your icon.

I can hear them. It grows darker!

Time itches beneath my skin

until a breeze scratches it away.

***

Should you ever trust an owl? They're lovely and they seem...harmless in the daytime. And yet, they trail rumors of goblins and wisdom and necromancy in their silent shadows. Yes, they can see in what passes for darkness on moonless nights...but they don't seem the type to tell all they see, do they?

Sharing with The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United. Wishing everyone a good week! :) 

-- Chrissa

IdiOdyssey

Silver wax forms the only tears the wires know
Technicians leave blobs of it, like cytoplasm,
Within the dark metal boxes in the room beyond.

There’s a wooden chair in this cold room, a scarf

For whatever fickle engineer comes to this glass,

Checking each light, each hum. A nuance of connection.

Worlds shift in that electronic sea; programmers manage

The constant unweaving of those threads, the reweaving

Of these ephemeral ones, while the engineer watches.

Any sign of silver wax at the sharp edges--new shadows

Show where the grief overflows, the traffic snarls, and

Repairs to the seas themselves must be made.

This was inspired by a word list from Wednesday's WordCrafters prompt...I don't remember all the words (some of the ones I do are highlighted above). Pretty sure most of them fell out during a brief editing purge when I transferred this from draft page to blog. The image that popped in from that set was a cold room with a window facing a bank of servers, a single chair for the only person who might enter the room and then, rarely. 

We're all there, right now. In those server seas and hoping that they don't leak unless it's to put out the fire that is silently burning out our spaces and connections. I'm going to go with feeling a little disconnected and, despite my great good fortune of having someone (and canine someones) here in the house with me, I'm feeling little fizzles as threads snap and connections go dark. 

And then, Merlin starts to snore and the darkness fades a little. Nighttime on the lake, rather than empty space. Sending as much as I can outward, hopeful. 

-- Chrissa

Think Sharp, Party Nimbus's

What a party! We're all still sliding out, thoughts slamming into each other--we've been in that spiral for as long as I can remember.  Hey! Hey! More spin!

We dream about it, our heads bumping ceiling, faces iced into cliffs, thoughts zooming through each other. Even you, down there, can seem 'em--but this post-party disorder, the sharp and bright edges, melts. Thoughts drop--damn--not always direct.

I was speeding up, ready to slam into my best friend and I was trying to get that thought right into his head first so we could bunch up on another group...when it slammed into some metal box and I just rained briefly on some tiny pond down there.

Mist! Pun for the win. Pun for the funny...

But all that potential laughter slammed into my ragged self and now I'm gonna bunch spin them all. There's enough heat to twirl us into that line of mush just below the city. We're gonna rain on that traffic. Woo!

This ridiculous bit is dedicated to my mom, who was startled by a nearby transformer that was exploded by a stray thunderbolt, setting part of a fence on fire. Everything turned out okay--the power is back on, the transformer is being thoroughly mitigated, and the fence survived. But that stray bolt...it just tripped a thought. Also, maybe I'm a little jealous of clouds swanning around the Texas coast. ;) 

-- Chrissa 

Afternoon Shower/Gorgon

I'll hang my head 

just beyond the gazebo's edge

Let the rain fill my hair

with the rumors of heat,

the slick twists of the globe

uncoiled.

I'll remember

the hard counter, the frayed towel,

the soft metal curve of the sink;

squirming at shampoo

and angles and 

relaxing.

I'll let rain pour-- 

freed from the deep spigots,

from limestone-rimmed oubliettes

where seas vanished

or stoned themselves

silent.

My throat grows soft with rainwater,

sore and silted with saltwater.

Hair keeps twisting,

whispering.

I will hold myself rigid

I will not let me fall.

Sharing today with The Sunday Muse and Poets and Storytellers United. This past week we found ourselves fortunately out of range of the latest Texas hurricane but sitting on the edge of the rain bands, flicking between newsfeed and radar image, just emphasized the emergency holding pattern that 2020 is turning out to be. At some point, that attentiveness has to relax. When it does, maybe I'll get a few projects finished. Maybe?

Hope your week is going safely & well!

--  Chrissa 

Water Comes a Stain

Water Comes a Stain

I hear it before I see it, lurking,

where I imagine a corner; the sky

deep and dark with all that promises

to come heavily upon us.

It walks lightly over the yard, toward the blue.

Leaves behind the bright--

a wash of daylight backlit by fire

heat and thought and lightning--

clean.

Then, here, spun thoughts gleam,

like reality

or like a paradise of Saturdays

where triumph is clear

and tightly worn as spandex

in a stainless sky.

Sight

I had forgotten we were playing--
A universe rolling us on infinite rules
Watching the swerve and tumble
Blue and black, air and nothing

I feel the velvet and the stab
Edge of the game, board below us
Shock of the piece falling toward
All the breaths in a forest's lung

Singing that gameboard.

I'm flying, that's on my breath
My gasp, my cry, my infinite carol
Knocked against the edgeless glass
Bulging like that first lens

I opened on the first day
Free of floating somewhere
Deeper. Mote in the warp,
Dust in the weft.

Excellent image...mesmerizing. :) Hope you're having a good week!

-- Chrissa

Paradise

I read Inferno (in translation) during college classes
Taken to avoid some entrance exam requirement.
I read Purgatory while studying for my BA.
I never read Paradiso. I only read English.
American English, generic and sit-com; although
Many flavors of slang have threaded into it
Since I was truly fluent.

This summer, I scrape ideas into notebooks,
Dream about dead malls and lost food courts,
Wandering in off-scale hallways, on tile and ice
And carpet. The signs are half-lit but the booths
Mostly empty. Let's tell ghost stories of survival.
Everyone in their sheets.

I think you have to experience it--paradise. Not
Find it lurking in the translated rag and ink and dust
Some poet used to wipe the days from his heart.
We're constantly removing stains, I remember,
From in between the batmen and the wonder
Women; wash the days away, every day is white
Or bright or crisp.

It's too hot to think. Too hot to move.
Everything is caught in the gel, glass dome
Securing us to earth, pressing our dry flesh,
To woven plastic conjured out of nozzles
Like the industrious spider who gave us
Story. We are damp and sticky and unable
To disentangle ourselves.

I never read Paradise.

Apparently, my brain is still ticking over with old ideas or it's trying to get started with revisions but isn't quite there yet. Also, summer is its own swamp of joy. 

-- Chrissa