My poem, “Small Bites,” is up in the most recent issue of Anti-Heroin Chic. My thanks to EIC James Diaz for accepting this poem, and for his consistently beautiful journal. The first anniversary of my mom’s death is in a little over a week. She died from Covid. Please get vaccinated when you can and continue to wear a mask.
You can read my poem here.
I’m linking this to dVerse, Open Link Night.
This is Day 2 of Paul Brooke’s Special January Ekphrastic Challenge. If you click the link, you can see all the art and responses.
Responding to Der Tod ist ein Dandy auf einem Pferd Marcel Herms
And CO 8 by Christine O’Connor
Death Blooms
Death wanders and hovers–
in plagues, pounces; with demagogues
and flag-waving fools, dives. He prances
through porticos, and capers in life’s collage—
see there, the dark spaces among the blooms?
Some toss fireworks,
others lay flowers–
the dead stay dead.
I’m linking this to the dVerse Open Link night, too.
Yesterday did not dawn. It oozed grey with an oppressive silence, punctuated by thunder. There was a tornado warning in effect for the afternoon. Then, the storm clouds cleared, and the sun shimmered on the trees as we drove to the animal hospital to say goodbye to our cat Mickey. From the window of the little exam room we could hear birds singing. Maybe Mickey heard them, too, but I know he heard our voices and felt us petting him. He purred before he went to sleep, never to wake.
Today, dawn came. I walked, watching the sun rise and listening to the birds–and the world seemed a little less broken.
white cat paw clouds drift
slumbering in the sunshine—
trees drop pink teardrops
Mickey’s quirkiness matched his one blue eye and one yellow eye and his long legs. He loved chasing his orange ball. He hid from strangers and growled at some people, but he loved to sit with us at night and get neck rubs. We miss him.
JMW Turner, “Norham Castle Sunrise
“A few stars glimmered through the morn,
And down the thorn the dews were streaming.”
–Francis Ledwidge, “The Dead Kings”
Always the clouds come, drifting
colored in the hazy shades of after
though stars glimmer through, sifting
light diffused from ancient gas and matter,
colored in the hazy shades of after
time moves on, translucent or opaque—
light diffused from ancient gas and matter,
and so, we ache.
Time moves on. Translucent or opaque,
our thoughts grow dim and dark
and so, we ache—
forgetting glory, gone the spark,
our thoughts grow dim and dark
with spite, thinking of past wrongs,
forgetting glory. Gone the spark
of dead kings and their songs.
With spite, thinking of past wrongs,
we dream in owl-feathered night
of dead kings and their songs,
and wait for lark-trilled light.
We dream in owl-feathered night,
though stars glimmer through, sifting–
and wait for lark-trilled light,
but always the clouds come, drifting.
The prompt for Day 5 of NaPoWriMo was way too busy and complicated for me, as it involved “twenty different projects” to include in one poem. Instead, I went to the Oracle again for a start, then wrote a pantoum for Jane Dougherty’s Pictures and Poetry challenge based on the lines from Francis Ledwidge’s “The Dead Kings” and the Turner painting above.
Content With My Delusions, Jacqueline Hurlbert,
Only I could see him,
my dark friend, slim
with rabbit ears
and glowing eyes—
so kind, so wise.
He comforted me
I spoke to him alone–see
no one else believed in him,
but friends we were and are–
and from me he never strayed far.
I gave him a gift, a striped shirt,
and he said, sorry, don’t be hurt–
but I’ve got to go away for now.
somehow, remember us, don’t fuss–
this is only a phase, it’s ever thus.
(Count the days. Discuss.)
Today is my ninetieth birthday,
and I think I feel his glowing gaze
from somewhere in the night.
He’s come for me, my old dark friend—
Hello, good-bye, this is my end.
(We begin again.)
Today on dVerse, Linda has asked us to write poems based on the work of artist Jackie Hurlbert. Her Web site can be found here.
When we were both younger.
“Here is a thing my heart wishes the world had more of:
I heard it in the air of one night when I listened
To a mother singing softly to a child restless and angry in the darkness.”
–Carl Sandburg, from “Poems done on a Late Night Car”
“And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
From, Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night”
Beneath the beauty–
pink, red, yellow-petaled–
nectar flows,
pollen-dusted bees
hover, their buzz
a soothing lullaby–
the sound of if, is, was,
and will be
Enter a caption
What will be?
From my mother’s body,
I came,
my earliest memory, her
(she was beautiful)
shushing me,
telling me not to wake my sister
My sister and I played,
sang the songs of Broadway
and our lives,
nonsense words became family slang
over the dinner table—
the sound of family dinners,
and playing the dictionary game.
From my body,
my daughters came.
Sisters, they played,
sang songs of Broadway
and their lives
nonsense words became family slang
over the dinner table—
the sound of family dinners,
and playing Scattergories.
They look alike,
(but they don’t)
anyone can tell they’re sisters,
the way they talk and gesture–
we look alike
(but we don’t)
anyone can tell I’m their mother,
it’s in the blood,
our souls
from bodies, the blood of
grey and green-eyed ancestors
generations stretching far back
to first hearts beating
and blood flowing
women, men,
loving, hating,
beautiful and ugly bodies
crawling, walking–
in the cold May rain
we go to see my mom
no longer young
with body failing
and mind not as sharp
(not as it was, not as she was)
but heart beating
and blood flowing,
we make her laugh
she’s in the hospital
(first docile, now demanding)
it’s the anniversary of my dad’s death
hearts beating
and hearts not beating
once my father raged,
against the dying of the light
till he raged, no more,
body and soul both gone.
I don’t believe in ghosts
and spirits
(But I do.)
There are things in the air
we can’t see, can’t hear
the songs of stars and bees,
the humming of the moon.
Can two people share the same dream?
The woman asks in the movie—
because it happens to her and a man,
It happened to me, once long ago,
to my daughter and me
a dream forgotten now– except
“someone played a flute,”
we both say, when I mention it—
years later.
Things unexplainable,
things I hear in the air,
that I wish we had more of,
I remember singing to my babies
My mom’s cousin says,
“people remember
the songs they heard
when they were children.”
Perhaps there are things
in the air–
If we stop and listen,
the sound of stars and bees,
the humming of the moon.
Yesterday was Mother’s Day, here in the U.S. My mom has been in the hospital for the past several days. My father died on May 11, 1998. I remember going to the hospital on Mother’s Day, for what would be his last night.
My husband and I watched a Hungarian movie, On Bodies and Souls on Netflix. In it, a man and a woman share the same dream every night. (Warning: there are scenes at the beginning in a meat-packing plant, but keep watching past that.) It also features a beautiful Laura Marling song.
The rose once technicolor bright
now sepia-toned, left, an oversight
to blend into the background.
And she, nearly devoid of color
doesn’t see it, everything now duller,
except when in her dreams.
Her frail body, a slight bump beneath
the blankets, but her mind unleashed
flits between sleep and waking–
she sees a vision of their summer home
the cottage colored sand and sea foam
and brightened by its rose garden,
and always scented by the sea.
But here and now, she
hears the ocean, waves lapping,
slapping the rhythm of the tide,
calling her—to slide
into her memories–
or no, a harbinger it seems
of what is next, not dreams.
Her sun is setting,
and now the room glows
a well-loved voice she knew and knows
says, “Come, Love. I’ve been waiting.
Sarah at dVerse has been pondering the word “harbinger,” and asks us to do the same in a poem. Lately my poems want to be stories, and my stories want to be poems. Perhaps this is a harbinger of something yet unknown (to me). 🙂
From the forest
languid language soars.
You watch the rain beating
on rocks,
say my skin smells of dreams
and water runs fast beneath my feet.
A ship screams at the lake,
“who is driving death?”
And I cry,
aching if and why.
Henri Rousseau, “Le Rêve,” (The Dream), [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
I haven’t consulted The Oracle in a couple of weeks. She gave me this bit of surrealism. It fits my mood.
“I took a nap and wept for no reason”
~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason
My sisters and I
sat at my father’s deathbed
he, though unconscious, raged–
we held a vigil through the night,
waiting for the dawn,
and light
to see him released,
the raging ceased.
I napped then
for days it seemed
dreaming
I heard his voice,
crying when
I realized
it wasn’t real,
but love
disguised.
This poem is for Day 13 of Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, using Jim Harrison’s poetry for inspiration. I guess this is an early Father’s Day poem.
“Her nights are full of the red teeth of death”
–Jim Harrison, “Life,” Dead Men’s Float
Blue is the color of sky and sea,
green are the blades of grass in spring
when the world is born again, and new
shoots raise their heads to the golden sun
whose chariot flies till day is done.
But no less vital is the color red
that drips at birth and stops when we’re dead.
The color that men fear to see
afraid of its power—or destiny.
For though Death may arrive gentle and pale,
her teeth are like spikes, or the sharpest nails.
When she comes for you in the dark of night
she’ll smile–as if to say it’s all right,
but her teeth are scarlet within her grin,
and life is soon gone—after she slowly leans in.
Apparently, Death is a vampire. Who knew? Mysterious messages and some truths come from Jilly’s 28 Days of Unreason, based on the poetry of Jim Harrison. This is Day 6.
It is also the anniversary of D Day, June 6, 1944, and the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 6, 1968. I suppose blood and death is on my mind.
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