Tag Archives: Charms

written while considering a photograph of a poet

in that she kneels
by the hawthorne in spring, leaning in
to absorb the blossoms
-their balm and velvet-
in silent acquiescence.

her own shoots and sprays
grow inward
and she seeks a dovetail,
tallied to share her joy and rage,

and calm the gathering in her soul.

******************************
I happened upon a photograph of Sylvia Plath as a teenager, sitting by a flowering bush, and began to consider a poem. I rather like this, it is very uncomplicated – but foreboding in a way. She was a brilliant poet. Thanks for visiting.

Cups

I seek a magnum for my words
to hold and season, spoon and stir
a cup to ferment, provocate
to frenzy – undeterred.

Then sometimes I just need a plot
to plant and tend, to give a shot
No rubs and snags, organic-like
a garden – not a lot.

Yet, in this morning comes a zone
where dreams are sparse and I’m alone.
My words seem languished – decomposed
to less than I condone.

I place them in a tumbler, red
with pangs and fancy, joy and dread
then agitate to swirl and sway
these aches- the ones unread.

I seek a chalice clear, a sprite
to hold my poetry in sight
to mesmerize and -yes- atone
for tarnished silver blight.

Lucent

The underbrush, dingy and hewn
beneath a stack
of loose forest-

what we gathered in late afternoon
while the sun hung orange under red smears of
a deepening blue.

Sparks drifted and cackled
into something conjured-
wafted from burning sticks,

and we watched them woo
with embers, now
in a conflagration
alive and luring the night air.

It was a synonymous path.

.

celestial

In her imaginary distraction,
everything
stops as she looks around.
She selects a turn,
the one of coloring
and innuendo-
a highlighter pink
in the field of grey-
intimate overtones
of a sacred familiar-
and she pursues it.
She captures the banded words,
a gathering of flowers
to fill her hands
and draw in close,
holding her breath,
when exhalation
means
absolution.

flashback

just because
a spark burst
in sun-ly ways-
an excimer flare-
a dazzle- beware
the aftermath
of this exclaimated
instant-
when the airs
are gone – vaporizing
and in the moment,
extemporizing-
a crumbly proclivity
appears and departs
in a fluted nigh,
and we are left with
a notion-
nary embers or sighs.

*************
I do enjoy the sounds of words. Also, I enjoy the freedom, as a poet, to create a “word” where none exists -if it suits my purpose for conveying a mood or contributing to a sound collage. This poem, I think, does both. Thanks for reading.

onliest

A red door
with plate glass casements ’round
enclosing a deepened vestibule-
and shadows on white walls are bound.

bold-faced clouds that billow
into thunderstorms on Sundays-
woodland sunflowers that line
shadowed waterfront lanes.

alone under
a darkened rift of stars –
in wonder of their stillness,
yet know not what they are

it is the wind that blows from the shore
out to sea.

it is the light that steals from obscurity

it is the embrace of an onliest thing

it is the sum of these
that sways me on a quiet string.

Ceding

To write of writing seems so trite
and through this morning all alight,
composing and constructing rime
I seemed to focus all my time
on something sonorous and sleek
and this I cared to form and tweak.

Yet, I could not stay the sounds,
the ones that crack, the ones that round,
the ones that exhale in the wind,
the ones that rest and feed and sin.
I could not break them -though so eager-
then left for you, my reckless reader-

Something in the writing here
with devotion to the ear,
in the hopes that when you read
the music, timbre’d whole will cede
and capture from its hiding place
a flush – a sweltering embrace.

Whether

calling amid the
intermittent drops
that fall and soak the ground
or
seeing entangled
clouds appear
with the morning light.
not
just as a backdrop
of weather,
but a welcoming
posture
I see coming
into view
awaiting entrance,
her subtle hand
on glass.

Absorbed

She normally works at night, she said, and closes up the store,
so she wondered why the song was loud out on the floor.

She counted charms with her right hand,
starting with the pearl bezel setting,
then ended with the angel’s wing and then

lithely wrapped the package in gold paper (the end a cleft)
a mirror bearing her reflection from the left.

Her lively figure evidenced, she smiled a coquettish smile,
demonstrable, even with her speaking
it was a pleasure to meet me (for that little while).

Incantations

With an undulation,
waving her hand on the wind
rushing past,

it is an enchantment.

Her fingers implore the unveiling world
in a rush of
trees and rocks and hills
and acres and acres of wheat,
traveling through time.

And in her mirror,
the horizon slips back
into a crouching
somnolescence,
a dutiful servant
after submitting to her charms.