[x]

GhostYou offer me your ghost-shirt
for warmth, as I stand
in permanent free fall
before the two dippers-

I have no tears with which to weep,
they won't last beyond
the first touch of
thin air in this high place

where trees never grew
or felt the tension of gut sinew
when I lost my eyes
staring into the sun, and

how its dried breath of
ancient rain and elk horn
has left the moon an orphan.

First VoiceThe harvest of your voice
sustains me
even as it ascends in its keening

leaving a bloodied imprint
on a lunar eclipse
seen through finger bones reaching

void of leaves in the throes of winter,
their seamless secrecy
in the bleached scree of ash

drifting into this quarry of a
nameless shieling,
where you are the first voice

from the other world,
the formless breath of wind looking
for a new husk in which to be contained.

Slow Echo"Slow Echo"

A banquet of empty plates,
the bayou pageantry
under a muslin sky
is lulled
towards the lush
patina of time

who's slow echo mutes
the fiasco of its
wing'ed seascape
that lies edge-on
between us,

but is already absorbed
as its
distorted reflections are
fixed on a brooding horizon,
never to set course
or be charted.

learning to swima shudder in me like the rattle
of an abacus, gagging from
the tentacles of recall,

of body parts never used for their
intent and purpose, choking on
the anguish of smoke

meant for the purification,
to shed all I know, in a solitude
I can no longer deny,

throwing my breath, suturing shut
the way back to the last thing
I saw or thought or said-

there are nights when my tongue
becomes a sea cucumber,
and I forget to breathe

when it's time, will I remember
in the ruin of my reflections
that I used to breathe underwater,

to discover that it was always
little else, and do I want to know;

the current takes me where the river bends,
perhaps t

little stirrings II: ritual

a pearlescent sheen of early dawn
echoes across the
summit of my spine

sustained
from where we left off while
honoring me during the ritual

leaving lip rings around my
healings, making them feel
desired by your homage

breaddoctors pure as angels, white as chefs
peruse menus on clipboards,

their exhaustion mouthed in metric
from a graveyard shift cuisine

measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
adhering to rules, to rules, to rules-

hospital smocks' mocking exposure
to cold air and latex

the way fatigue sets in when
bilious walls deaden,

bringing on the drone of
fluorescent blood-suckers

as a hypo plunges deep into
a fat vein, pliant and compliant,

to siphon me through the
emptiness outside the box-

a distant voice is counting backwards...
I smell bread baking

rendercedar smoke spires from off
fossil-strewn horizons,
ruching the length of sky-

dampness persisting more
deeply, never to
fully cure, only to warp

through the lining of
myself, a rubric
keeping this soul imbued

and disrobed, to drift
away from the fires where
all others mull and follow

and gather unaware
in a languishment
to render their tallow

Red QueenI toss and play with the
softness of bluish
that unravels and I chase,

losing itself amongst the
bed clothes where I
burrow and follow

like Alice tumbling
into darkness
through a tunnel endless

leaving bottles in a row
with their red queen
to behead me,

who keep guard on the
nightstand and reflect
in the water glass;

handfuls of nightmare
on an oil-slick rainbow
whose mythic pot recedes

until at last I reach
where I can drink
the shrinking potion.

When

When time was young
and fish were wise,
a little boy would
guard the boats

his people used
for gathering food,
while their gods watched
over them from skies

that used to lie closer
to the water and the earth-
for this was the place
where the wind came to rest

and the sea would caress
the edge of the world,
and bless those who
trusted in the rhythm of

life, until the
cycle of death would
come and set them free-
to watch over

a little boy who
guarded the boats,
when time was young
and fish were wise.

Kannabisyou've drawn me into your purity
corrupting your harbors until
only I remain pure,
a bitter truth in disbelief-

sub-shadows blurring
become intolerant, the more
voracious your midnights
despite the pleasuring reef-

there's always more that must be
said, too numb and never sure,
intoxicating your devotion;
denial of this grief-

to realize all delusions
while waiting for the answers
that you will never know
from the inhalations of my leaf

little stirrings XX: moments

Your chaste sun-tipped fingers,
the blinding of your eyes-
how is it I never knew you before?

The moon-flecked range of your sound
from deep within caves
reverberates the ribs of shipwrecks.

I tread the curves of night
that wash ashore each hour,
the moments like seaweed in the shallows.

False LightA moon of stark beauty is rising,
whispering to me of you

its strains of quietude and false light
in hues of evening repose.

I wander through a sea of grass
to find the reflecting pool,

the looking glass that sets your image
in a sapphire-studded jewel,

ripples from the falling leaves
lend twinkles to your eyes

that bend the tail of comets
and your mossy hair ablaze.

winter brilliance1
waking    from a    long sleep
a dusting of snow

2
frozen moon--
dogs cruising streets
in a wake of steam

3
bitter cold day,
wind-tossed leaves
becoming snowflakes

4
steam escaping...
when did I take up smoking

5
wind chill   plummets
my hope for spring

6
winter brilliance
the Milky Way
casts a farmer's shadow

7
arctic storm
inverted umbrellas
harvesting snow

8
storm watch at dusk--
north-bound plane
swallowed whole

9
windows
shutting out the chill,
moonlight spills in

10
snow melts--
bones of winter
grin from the grass

clair de luneIn the bitter cold of its white light as
winter approaches, the contemplation of the
moon that clouds your face brings a melancholy,

uncertain as it is embraceable
in the arms of the vision it extends.

And when it's over, lying back quietly listening
to your favorite rendition of Clair de lune,

the moon will return, and you'll draw close
to the warmth of me, and for a while
you won't feel so alone. And neither will I.

Lightthe feeling of
freefalling off the edge
from the test results
on the phone alone-

always knowing that
nothing is certain except
for the bond between
us keeping vigil afar;

he offers to be near
all the same
no matter what that means,
or the sacrifice made-

I'm moved to tears,
how foolish I am
to apologize for the litany
of fears that befall me-

he judges not at all,
yet shames me with
the beauty of his caring,
shushing me when I fret;

I won't look pretty
by the deathwatch light
of a hospital room,
but I'm not there yet;

I'd rather he see me
by the radiance of
a winter's full moon
or a golden afternoon,

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KachinaLining canyon walls are
spirits of ancestors
and the cosmos of their Kachinas.

In the darkness of a new moon
you let me drive your truck
as you call out the way-

Raybans perch on your cropped hair
with speckled hawk feathers
spinning in the wind-

over bridges that span gullies,
riverbeds long parched by
a drought never-ending, since the

memories of our grandfathers
who stomped their feet and
shed their skin when bone whistles blew-

the pickup bounds headlong and you
let out a war whoop while, spiraling
in the moonless sky, bats fly unseen-

headlights over the wash pierce the
swirling dust from the bridge that
straddles f

duetThe earth is not perfect
in its circumference,
it wobbles and shudders
as does its song-

the pitched layers of
atmospheric frequencies
and deep molten throbs.

Each person makes a noise
that drowns out the sound
against a tsunami's push
or the tumbling thunder.

Do they ever know the song
before it's too late, will they
mute themselves long enough
to know the words.

When you and I are together
we quietly hum in hopes of
hearing it in tune,
of being a duet in sync.

When we can't, we touch;
the friction of bodies
becoming tuning forks

vibrating with the tides,
of bird and beast migrating
by the silvery tines of stars
t

the scent of rindwhile segmenting an orange
as I absent mindedly walk the garden

a waxing crescent moon ascends
for the third day in a row

racing the juice
that runs up my arms

my mind unchanging in spite of
the day's unrelenting heat

that has turned into night
and too warm to wear it down

faint light hooks the ends of
my hair at that moment

and how lovely the scent of rind
won't wash off of me for days

Where a Poem Once Was IIit was happening more and more,
when new words would crush my pulp
and scuttle my validations-

the erosion of runoff from your bow echo,
and how my underpinnings would rot free,
washed away as afterthoughts

no longer a land-bound cell,
but disconnected and aloof;
a scavenger bird, a lesser gull

to wave me off by your annoyance
in spite of your need, to take pity
if only you had learned

reduced as I was to accepting scraps;
to forage
only when your back was turned

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Insomnia

by `jade-pandora, Aug 22, 2010, 2:58:12 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

Tell me the name is for a goddess,
capricious and deadly, who
mocks the afflicted in their dreams.

I might endure more graciously
if only this were a dream. It is
she who tosses fireballs of light

pulsating, flashing bright
and going dim in the blackness
behind these herniated eyes,

to devour while I hear the sustained
pitch of a sonic scream through
the static frequency of night air--

the peel and cry of her harpies
smelling of singed hair and brains--
the fever and sound rips through veins

cauterizing shut the window for sleep,
leaving the frantic staccato
of a heart in flight, as I whisper
Goddess, why spare me the night.

Insomniaby `jade-pandora

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Free Verse

7/20/11: Featured here, too, wow! [link]

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~Sigma-Echo-Seven Oct 21, 2012 Hobbyist Writer

Intriguing imagery sets up a captivating character in this Goddess, from the very outset of the poem. Well done!

`jade-pandora Oct 22, 2012

Gosh I really appreciate your thoughts of this poem, so much - thank you, and for faving it as well!

~VicariouSoul Sep 22, 2012 Professional Writer

Quite possibly one of my favorite works I've read from you thus far, and not because I can really relate (I don't suffer from Insomnia) but because of how wisely and so well you make enjambments. Your ideas cascade down the poem nicely as free-verse should. This is coming from someone who doesn't take a liking to free-verse quite possibly because a great many don't know how to do it right.

Very few on here do it well, and especially the poet Rumi found here [link] who is the master of masters of the free-verse. His work is still read today some 800 years later, still understandable today (translated in all languages).

Anyway, I decided to accept this in the Group and hope to see what you come up with next. I have also added this to my Favorites.

Siryan

`jade-pandora Sep 29, 2012

Thank you so very much, Siryan, for giving generously of your time to write such insightful thoughts to me.

I appreciate more than you know your observations in spite of how you normally feel about this style/form of poetry. I never received much in the way of schooling when it came to writing poetry, so your words are as gold to me.

By the way, I am familiar with Rumi, thanks to a book I have entitled "The Essential Rumi" (translations by Coleman Barks), and I quite agree. Thank you for the link as well, in case others seeing your comment become curious and want to use it too.

~VicariouSoul Sep 29, 2012 Professional Writer

You're very welcome. And yeah, that's the thing about Rumi's work. The quality of it differs depending on who is/who did the translating. I find the site I referred you to be the best translating I've seen thus far, although I haven't read works by Rumi translated by Coleman Barks. I'll have to check his translations out.

You have a good taste I see in Literature. Impressive. Keep on learning from the masters.

Siryan

`jade-pandora Sep 30, 2012

In honor of our mutual respect & appreciation of Rumi's work, I opened the book I have as I mentioned, picked a stanza from a poem I chose at random called, "Locked Out Of Life":

How long will you beg from others,
when there are things born of you
that emperors want?

Having shared that, I just now noticed your signature, and it saddens me deeply. Good night.

~VicariouSoul Oct 3, 2012 Professional Writer

Pardon the late reply. And sorry, yeah, I believe that some law/rules must apply for a poem to be a poem so as to not sound like full-fledged prose. By this I mean lines that are well over 10 words long each and look like a paragraph, not stanzas. That's the kind of free-verse I don't like because today's poets have taken the free in free-verse and blew it out of proportion. Old free-verse like Rumi's is an exception because while he followed no specific meter, rhyme, etc. it always has an elegance to it that defines it as poetry.

Nothing good can be said for most of today's free-verse.

~Simplistic-Illusions Jul 23, 2011 Hobbyist Photographer

Insomnia seems to be a theme lately...and She's come to visit me. Lovely write, Jade.

`jade-pandora Jul 24, 2011

Thank you, Sarah. I'm glad you are inspired by the poem in spite of the goddess's visits.

~Simplistic-Illusions Jul 25, 2011 Hobbyist Photographer

You're very welcome, but thank you.

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