Purple Lines

The Mag               (The Promenade, 1918, by Marc Chagall )

 

                               
                                                          PURPLE LINES

There are days when

all I want to be

is the sky surrounded by the sea.

There are days when

all I want to be

is a dancing wind above a tree.

There are days when

all I want to be

is a lavender song floating free.

There are days when

all I want to be

is a purple line of poetry.

 

Smoke Screen

The Mag 174

 

 

                            Stanley Kubrick, for Look Magazine, 1949.
   

Smoke Screen

 

Fortune flashed in his hair,

in the dark of his eyes.

Summer skimmed the surface

of her thoughts.

She wondered what it would be like

to dance in his wind.

The stars drew his name

in clusters of burning points.

She wished on them.

She battled the air for knowledge.

She burned incense.

She dreamed of orange blossom

and spices on the altar of his being,

And she played the part of everyone

but herself.
 

Door as Diary

Magpie

                                      

                                                         DOOR AS DIARY

A door as diary

Locking out the world

Inviting longings loose

Upon its panels.

A door as place

Where keyhole dreams

In patterns amplifying

What eyes can’t see.

A door as barter

Beckoning to open

The woman who

Writes her words.

Raspberry Songs

                                                   RASPBERRY SONGS - Magpie Tales

I sip raspberry wine

Exhale rose-tinted songs

 Eliminate words

Add new endings

Pause notes

Fill in the glistening

Heady spaces

With juicy self singing

Winged raspberry tongue.

 

Magpie Tales: The Lost Skaters' Sonnet

The Lost Skater's Sonnet

There is none more elusive than pale hued
January. Lost skaters' kin. None more
Beautiful. The wool and fur do sustain
Their silver wings over ice-blue domain.
These winter flights are such rare surprises
Of maiden joy, we feel them speak again.
They do not know they are graced to fashion
Voices from sepia and blood, to sing
That thin place in air, muted lyric’s length.
Half ghost, ephemeral spell we recall
Past music of such ethereal strength.
Our later time on earth does lend enthrall
To magic echoes, poised reliquary
Trio of recollected January.


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Magpie: Greening

Greening

The empty spaces

Wear a green

Mist as thin as a

Hummingbird’s wings.

I stoop in verdant garb

Shaped for bones

Far more elegant

Than mine,

Placing pieces

Of greening shapes

Imperfectly.

Still, poetry doesn’t

Make substance

Of devotion

Without a flaw

In the dance.

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Secret Colours

Magpie 91
Secret Colours

In lavender mist where shadows creep
A young girl's dreams green and weep.
Her yearning glances can't fill the chairs
with flesh and purple and curtain prayers.
But hope cannot be contained, so
ashen grey sings a rose red glow.
Immortality, a summer blue
enrobes her heart with silver dew.
And faintly golden chairs now gleam
for passion in rainbow buds unseen.

Moore's Symphony

Hear the wind blowing through the trees.
It dances scarlet graves of leaves.
Spectral orchestra, communes under direction
Of the equal conductor, section by section.

The slabs and headstones all in place
Perched, high and low, named, face to face.
Each one solos its finite story
Long, short or middling inventory.

The symphony plays its stony dirge,
And bone sounds carry and converge,
As blades of grass in supplication
listen to Moore's ghostly ovation.

(Magpie Tales #90)

Verismo

A living tree is taken so I may give birth
to words on paper, and yet today
I see only Rorschach splattering ink on the wall.

"I see a sleepless angel"...
"I see a clumsy lover"...
"I see a girl crying in a Rowan tree"...
"I see Mary calling out for grace".

but my fingers are still.

Magpie Tales: The Piano Teacher's House

The Piano Teacher’s House

Floors of hardwood, high ceilings,
white curtains, candlesticks on the
brick hearth, clock ticking in dark
wood. Glass bowl of seashells.
No shouting here. No stale beer smell.

She waits for her turn making
up stories for the pictures
lining the room. Babies in white
dresses, men in uniforms,
women in plumes and velvet.

The green house with the piano
converts black insects into
music. She plays them into
gilt-edged pages of incense
breathing secret beauty.

Too soon, in the car, sitting
next to her father, not talking,
eyes closed, trying to keep
the piano teacher’s house
humming inside her.


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Magpie Tales: Icons of Dust

Icons of Dust

When I am alone

The world shoves poetry

Into my brain.

It germinates in earth

And sky and trees

And snow glistening

In morning light.

Brick walls and birds

Cello music and

Gnarled hands.

I name it

Give it story

Fill my language with gold.

And the presence inside

All things muses on beauty

As brick becomes an

Icon of red dust

Coating my eyelids

And choking my voice

With song.

(Go here for more Magpie Tales. It's worth the flight!)

Magpie Tales: Snow Dreams in Red

Snow Dreams in Red

A dreaming ashen stillness falls upon
The frozen breathless path, the sapless woods,
The winter of my brother’s death. An etude
Full of young men’s voices calling, his wan,
A hush above the rest. Fleshy heart gone.
The snow so bright, I weep. Weary to rest
My own scarlet vesture beneath my breast.
Strewn with arrows memory hastens on
To pierce far beyond the hard icy rim.
His bright Robin hair shines into the grey
Of sombre wind-rent flakes, that gather grim
Around the dying portals of the day.
The snow so red, I bleed. His tawny lore
Dressed in white, his voice sings evermore.

(This sonnet is dedicated to the memory of my beloved red-headed brother, Jason, 1975 - 2003.)

Primordial Symphony

Today I turned 54. What better way to celebrate, than to do something I have never done before ... share one of my poems in a public forum! Thus, I have joined the orchestra in this week's Magpie Tales.

Primordial Symphony

A scuff of deer tracks,

crows feet

against my eyes

a symphony of wind song

Breathy sighs

And whispers,

Eternal murmuring;

Shadows,

roots and boughs,

lime filigree of light

my feet release the

ancient

song of cedar;

A plethora of

twisted wood

against tide

and mountains

frozen

to flight;

If these pieces

of music

predict any arrangement

it is that

all resting places

shall be

movable;

And for now

I am simply here

breathing air

needing no

rigid reason

for life but my

bones.