Although the wind...

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.

Izumi Shikibu
translated by Jane Hirshfield

MIDSUMMER By Sydney King Russell

I keep flashing back to the poems I read, memorized and loved in jr. high school that began my poetry journey.  And as I was hunting down this gem, I found a sneaky little bitch who'd totally plagiarized it and signed her name to it.  It should be a felony to rip off another's poems.  

I'm reading a good summer tome, "The Little Paris Bookshop" by Nina George.  "The main character, Monsieur Perdu, calls himself a literary apothecary.  From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life..."  ~from the book jacket.

My dream life used to be living on a boat on any river, anywhere. But to do it and SELL BOOKS!!! Wow!  The great thing I discovered is that several people actually do sell books from their barges on the Thames. 

Love & Blessings,

Marion

"Who can tell the dancer from the dance?" ~Yeats

MIDSUMMER

By Sydney King Russell

You loved me for a little,
Who could not love me long;
You gave me wings of gladness
And lent my spirit song.

You loved me for an hour
But only with your eyes;
Your lips I could not capture
By storm or by surprise.

Your mouth that I remember
With rush of sudden pain
As one remembers starlight
Or roses after rain . . .

Out of a world of laughter
Suddenly I am sad. . . .
Day and night it haunts me,
The kiss I never had.

Ipomoea or The Art of Clinging By Marion

Ipomoea or The Art of Clinging

By Marion

No one is free.

Freedom is an illusion.

Your room is not there.

Nobody cares.

the ipomoea instinctively 

reaches up to the sky

clinging to whatever's near

Nothing thrives in

total isolation.

There is no detachment

in nature.

notknowing is

nopain

up, up, up...

ignorance truly is bliss.

What was once green,

vibrant & juicy

is now dried up, brown

& useless....useless!!!!

even a poet's gypsy soul

can be bound & knotted,

wither & die in isolation---

why? death always wins...

  

We're all alone.

you'll wane, too

I'm warning you...

forget you ever knew

the meaning of succulent

wild lust/love/life...

the ipomoea won't grow

in a void:

water, dirt, love,

bees & moths,

warm sunshine...

for such it pines...

You won't even look back

fondly (at all!)

at all that 

steamy, poetry-inspiring 

hormonal, mind-bending sex.

don't laugh, it ain't a hex I'm cooking

I'm warning you that

this, too, shall pass.

One day'll be your last

& you won't know.

YOUR BODY WILL BETRAY YOU.

It's a ticking clock & 

will stop & won't be

right twice a day, ever again.

Put it on the calendar.

The end is near (in more ways than one)---

The ipomoea, after thousands of 

fragrant flowers,

one night

fails to bloom (bleed)---no foreshadowing,

no premonitions, 

it's just gone.

Gone...

8/3/15

The Best Thing About August Is September

August has crept in on the heels of July's magnificent full Blue Moon wearing as little as possible.  Must be the heat. I place containers of water all around the yard to grow some mosquitoes for the many dragonflies.  It's been a dry Summer.  Even the tap water comes out of the faucet steaming hot and undrinkable. Walking down my concrete driveway to the mailbox barefooted burns the soles of my feet and I recall barefoot childhood summers walking on hot dirt/sand and never even blinking.  (The title is quite tongue-in-cheek.  August is lush, colorful, fecund, nostalgic, & wildly generous.)

             A gorgeous dragonfly on a dying Sunflower stalk. We communed, eye to eye.

                           Same dragonfly perched on a piece of dried bamboo.

Sweet blue dragonflies

always bringing me

pieces of sky---

~Marion, 8/2/15

                                        Wild flowers growing across the street.

                               Glorious Morning Glory with her Godlight glowing...

                        Heat-resistant hot pink Periwinkles.  They thrive, even in August.

            Zinnias, the ten cent package of flower seeds that never, ever fail to bloom.

     Okay, another Clematis (passionflower).

  My Toad who grew up on my patio & brought her baby to live here. I keep them watered. :-)

         An abandoned Bluebird nest we found. I think House Sparrows ran them off. :-(

                           My Garden spider.

                                  Catfish :-)

[Buffalo Bill 's] by e. e. cummings

Buffalo Bill ’s

defunct

               who used to

               ride a watersmooth-silver

                                                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                                                                     Jesus

he was a handsome man 

                                                  and what i want to know is

how do you like your blue-eyed boy

Mister Death

----------------
I discovered this poem when I was 14 years old in jr. high school & instantly began a life-long love affair with e. e. cummings.

It's brutally hot & dry here in the swamp.  When I water my plants, dragonflies come & drink right out of the hose!! I'm looking forward to the 2nd full moon (Blue Moon) this month in a few days.

Dreaming of Autumn,
Marion

                                                         One of my dragonfly friends.

MY PEEPS: I've recently had issues with my comment section due to harassment by 'anonymous', but I think I've got it worked out. If you tried to comment in the past few weeks and couldn't, I sincerely apologize because I love your input. Sorry for the word verification, but it's the only way to stop the spamming/harassment!  xo

A Few Words For The Visitor In The Parlor by Olena K. Davis

A Few Words For the Visitor in the Parlor

By Olena Kalytiak Davis

Every time you wish the sky was something happening to your heart, you lose twice.

Mother kept sending me back to the kiosk. Where they wrapped the paper in fish. Pivovarov and the other artists, they were worried. The blood was Ukrainian and it was all over the place. Go and wash your face. No, no one said anything about auto-workers. I am simply saying to you what my mother said. I am simply saying what Pivovarov painted: Go and wash your face. People are coming soon. It is not good for them to see you looking like this.

I slept the afternoon, but you know what Breton says: I was not in the mood for visitors. Picture yourself inside that word. And yes, my house is a word, but my words, aren’t they words also? Today, the sky just wouldn’t happen. Today, I was blind sided. Neither pain, nor its powdered absence. Like most days, I became the kitchen sill. I’m simply saying what I always say: what is lace-winged cannot be strong.

My wedding dress hangs at the end of things. It’s the kind of thing you think while sitting on someone else’s couch. There is something elegant implied by length. Or: So this is a living room, what was I thinking. Grass stains where the peach-colored silk drank in the ground. But when I get home the urge to clean immediately leaves me. Alone, I can only think of visiting those plain and exotic places. Oh, my cloud covered heart.

She was a branch covered in hoarfrost. I must forgive myself. Something clings to the whore’s hem. Dear visitor: you divide your age in two then square it by a dying mother. I am always gathering her up in my arms. Believe me, you never forget someone that thin. You start remembering the way that summer lay differently on top of that year. The hood burns you. I tried driving as gently as I could, but you know, the road had last winter inside it, the winter before. That drive was painful, just look at her face. You remember because someone starts talking about time. Someone says time, time is like water. Someone says: There was once a living room made entirely of death.

Today, the sky was white. And the ground was white, too. Yet, I could tell them apart. They were that easy to distinguish.

From: "And Her Soul Out of Nothing" by Olena Kalytiak Davis

The Garden By Moonlight By Amy Lowell

        Moonflower at Sunset, July 2015

       Sky-Wonder During A Magical Sunshower

        Rain-wet Zinnias After Sun-Shower

          Passionflowers After Watering

~~~~~~~~~~~

THE GARDEN BY MOONLIGHT

By Amy Lowell

A black cat among roses, 

Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon, 

The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. 

The garden is very still,   

It is dazed with moonlight, 

Contented with perfume, 

Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies. 

Firefly lights open and vanish   

High as the tip buds of the golden glow 

Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet. 

Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises, 

Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.   

Only the little faces of the ladies’ delight are alert and staring, 

Only the cat, padding between the roses, 

Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern 

As water is broken by the falling of a leaf. 

Then you come, 

And you are quiet like the garden, 

And white like the alyssum flowers,   

And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies. 

Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies? 

They knew my mother, 

But who belonging to me will they know 

When I am gone.

Hurricane Child, A Mam Poem By Marion

                                         Hurricane Audrey

HURRICANE CHILD, A MAM POEM

By Marion

I were born a hurricane child

strong 'n furious, dark 'n wild.

Come here ass first, bloody & gleamin'

not cryin' but laughin'; Mam were screamin'.

Windows imploded, spewin' glass,

wind was howlin', (it wouldn't last).

Rain was peltin' like fallin' knives

cuttin' out ditches & stealin' lives.

My face were masked with a glistenin' caul,

Mam's was faded a peculiar pall

She be a special one, the midwife said---

Shut yore hole, cried Mam from the bed,

Ain't no gift, it's a burdensome curse

a'knowin' most things & havin' no thirst

fer mystery. Havin' the sight can be a fright

and thieve the best years from yore life!

And a'top all this the moon she's full

so my babe here daily will feel her pull.

She'll be called crazy, lunatic, insane

oftener than folks say her given name.

Hurricane Audrey, she blowed outside

a whippin' & a shriekin'---were we safe inside?

The floor were sparklin' with glass & rain

& I were birthed in the Hurricane's pain...

Advice

"If a woman wants to be a poet,

she must dwell in the house of the Tomato." ~ Erica Jong

Ocean By Olav H. Hauge

Ocean 

by Olav H. Hauge

This is the ocean.

Vast and gray,

gravity itself.

Yet just as the mind

in solitary moments

suddenly opens

its shifting reflections

to secret depths---

so the ocean

one blue morning

can open itself

to sky and solitude.

See, the ocean gleams,

I, too, have stars

and blue depths.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Don't Come to Me With the Entire Truth

by Olav H. Hauge

Don't come to me with the entire truth.

Don't bring the ocean if I feel thirsty,

nor heaven if I ask for light;

but bring a hint, some dew, a particle,

as birds carry drops away from a lake,

and the wind a grain of salt.

From: "The Dream We Carry" Selected and Last Poems of Olav H. Hauge

Translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin