Tempests

Having come from the seas of your storms and decades of disquiet, I step, directionless, on an unmoving Earth. Being tooled for havoc, I despair of knowing what might fill this brazen peace, this wild surcease. [Art: The Ship, by Salvador Dali]

Womb

Do not speak of it. Do not see me. Give what you have to give, willing or no, and don’t mind the scars. The remnants of your gown, oft removed, keep us coming back for more. But, in time, you will womb a tree that reaches to Heaven. *** [Art by Zdzislaw Beksinski]

Steadfast

~ Though ugly are those thorny trees with octopussy limbs, —I say they’re Kings of Forestry- conductors of its hymns.~

Jolly Roger

I saw a UFO last night- Looked like a pirate ship. But, soon as I turned on the light, it vanished with a blip. Must’ve seen me- was it shy of being talked about? “Come back!”, I said, to empty sky- My light, I turned it out. [Art by Francisco Fonseca]

A thousand cuts

Forgetting the landscape of shaving, I run the razor sidewise, coaxing a bleed. We have forgotten Corinthian love, or never knew it and wonder if it exists. Wounds, we have, unsalted but unhealed.

A settling day

Meg had put it from her mind for too long. Today was a day of change and of ending. Which way…which way? Long she had walked. The further away she got from grasping hands and tearful faces, the greater grew her resolve. “God, forgive me.” she thought. [Art by Deb Garlick]

Blindness

From birth, his eyes were like baubles of glass—ornamental. Yet, he had been given a second sight like a vast array of solar sails, fanned and latticed- a sure conduit to enduring memory and the airs of the world. He authored colors, and spoke them into life. [Art by Francis Picabia…The Joy in Blindness]

Delinquents

Our innocence lost in slamming doors and thrown crockery, we ran, jacketed, into ready offerings and prurient teachings. My brother, you did not live long enough to forgive the teachers or cry for the warring giants. [Art by Hugo Simberg]

No fool like an old fool

I whistled well when I was young- An artifice of breath and tongue. It ruffled almost everyone, Save you, my funny shadow. I met you in the grocery aisle Unwitting of your secret smile I hummed a tuneful ditty while I squeezed an avocado. Funny- how you had the nerve So forward, and without reserve, […]

Insulation

Joey spoke to himself behind his mask of mute. People didn’t make sense anymore. He was in singsong thoughts, and all that was reaching him was the rising scent of his scrambled eggs and the underwater music of voices. Colored, they were, and in his mind he swam. *** Art: “My friend Pierrot”, by Max […]