floating and leaving no trace
green green green
let the whole world
be covered in green
let moss cover my skin
an emerald beard
and a fine head of hair
(how i miss my hair)
let me bathe in algae-filled
ponds and be so slick
with mud that the leeches
will look elsewhere for a meal
let flowers fall
from my mouth
and bees circle my head
let hummingbirds
dart in and out of my ears
seeking nectar
and let me green
and let me be watered
and let me sink roots
into the earth
——
newborns, we dusted the earth
off our shoulders
shook it out of our hair
newborns, we were still blind
but we could smell jason
an enemy to cut down
newborns in the bodies of grown men
experts at wielding a sword
experts at cutting down a man
our father was a dragon’s tooth
our mother the dark earth
but neither warned us about treachery
newborns, we huddled together for protection
who knew that duplicitous man
would set us at each other’s throats
newborns, it took but a single rock
tossed in our midst
blind, we died trying to protect one another
——
National Poetry Month
NaPoWriMo Day 21
Minor Character
http://www.napowrimo.net/
one cricket singing
lonely in the sun-baked yard
only mate–cold moon
——
RonovanWrites
Weekly Haiku Poetry Prompt
Challenge #93 Sun&Moon
pitch beak
you descend in rough spirals
alight on branches
walls
sidewalk hopper
shadowing me
yourself a shadow
coal eye
watching me warily
as well you should
dead eater
oil feather
we share names
if not a mother
surely memories
of sky and nest
clever tool maker
i call you brother
——
how to exorcise devils
things you will need:
-holy water or sacramental wine
-communion wafers
-an extra long rosary
-a choir of angels (optional)
offer the allegedly possessed the host
if they only nibble at it or insist
on spray cheese or peanut butter
you know you are dealing with
a high ranking demon
if they are a minor, you can offer
them holy water to choke down
the dry bread, otherwise the wine
have some for yourself
make a double-ended noose
slip one end around your own neck
and one over the possessed victim’s head
stand back to back
count down from 666
run
if the rosary breaks on both necks
you have failed and should start over
if the noose remains intact around either neck
the demon has been expelled
if the noose remains intact around both necks
you are now married
——
mornings filled with the sizzle of bacon
the clang of the cast iron skillet on the stove
and eggs fresh from nests
the coop in the field behind the house
filled with the clucking and cooing of chickens
the eggs not stolen for breakfast
warming in the nest
or hatched into yellow peeplings
when i was four i grabbed a chick
scooped it from the ground
it cheeped in my cupped hands
i knew to be careful but it struggled
and peeped loud enough to alert
its mother who pecked a beak
against my knee
the right height for her anger
i dropped her baby and ran
in the kitchen
someone set me on the counter
while they cleaned my face
and washed my knee
my grandmother’s husband laughed
–no one called him grandpa–
a bear of a man, red-faced and white-haired
with a high-pitched nervous laugh
but a growling, hesitant southern drawl
he said –now you gonna git the chicken pox–
——
i looked for you using the one
fortune-telling tool i knew, gyromancy
i turned and turned until i fell,
sick, to the ground, my head pointed
toward the graveyard
i asked the other ecstatici
if my telling was true
they shrugged–they were always against us
i knew of one dying elder in the village
and offered the service
of salt and bread up on his chest
as he breathed his last
he told me he would answer freely
that i ought not need to eat his sins
that you were now where he would be soon
i heard a leaf fall and on it
your name written in spider silk
a thousand wings beat the air
that night i followed the ignis fatuus
through the cold stones
where fresh turned earth greeted me
——
after dark i sneak out the window
down an old oak that grows
next to my room
i smell apples in the breeze
soon we will all be
filling bushels, dreaming of pie
but tonight, it is still warm
or warm for here
and i button my flannel shirt
this town is filled with smiles
smiles on people
and walls, alleys, the abandoned
warehouse where they used to
ship out gag gifts
that smile has faded now
and i think about leaving
before the harvest
before i’m caught in apple dreams
i look up at the stars
and i only see stars
——
once there was a mirror in eden
but the first victim
of any hard-won self-knowledge
perfect or flawed
is always the reflection
smashed, resurrected
a thousand, tiny, jagged,
puzzle-piece doppelgängers
each an accurate representation
of the human eye
they paint hell a dark, sooty place
it is polished, clean and bright
every surface shines
magic mirrors that only reflect you
impossible to look away from
——
i watch the rat as he eats
the fallen seed the birds have dropped
in this early dusk. this spring
evening as the sun retreats
i have no animosity for the furry mopped
rodent. he’s not stealing from the finches
and the sinking sun makes him a soft thing
who measures his days in inches
——
Words and Feathers 