"You're not the same as you were before," he said. You were much more... muchier... you've lost your muchness,"

The Mad Hatter - Alice in Wonderland

Abyss

If a good love poem requires a little darkness,
how far down can I go? Thousands of feet?
The coelacanth is near, but it's too easy—
the metaphor nettable and clear, the lost
link found, the beginnings of our own bones
in its pelvic fins—and I want to write about love
with depth to hold the unverifiable, the oarfish
that survives with half its body gone.
I want it to hold the giant squid no one has seen
alive, strong enough to scar sperm whales;
sailors have claimed its tentacles unfurl
from the night's water, taking down their mates.
But can such poems survive these confused witnesses?
Can they handle the scanty evidence that surfaces:
the mottled sick and dead, the night-feeding
viperfish impaling victims with fangs
at high speed, its first vertebra designed
to absorb the shock? And how much horror
can this poem sustain before you forbid me to say
some call this love, the hagfish that bores
into the unsuspecting body, rasping
its flesh from inside out? Am I making you
uncomfortable? The pressure at these depths
could crush a golf ball. Are you cold?
Or is it enough to be awed by the blue-
green photophores of the lantern fish, the brief
and brilliant light displays? What the lights say:
I want you. Not so close. I am moonlight;
I am not here. I would eat you raw—
tell me if you want me to stop.


Katrina Vandenberg

Bad Girl Singing - Mark Jarman

Bad Girl Singing

She took her roommate's cash,
walked out of a supermarché
without paying, lost her passport,
lifted another girl's and stole her boyfriend,
ditched class to see a boules tournament,
persuaded others to ditch with her,
so they could buy her lunch,
got sick drunk on Sundays,
arrested, threatened with deportation,
and finally, finally after her parents
were contacted in the States
and arrangements made to fly her home,
she went on our little tour
of historic sites and even there
pulled a typical stunt, distracting
everyone from the guide's good English.
Separated from our group, she stood
in the apse of the ancient church behind the altar,
singing with a voice that glowed
and brightened in the candlelit space.
She sang through her trouble and our trouble,
her lies and laziness, license and dishonesty,
our disapproval and distaste.
Unearthly at first but transmuting
the stoniness of the air, the flints
of stained-glass light, the chill,
her singing, like a lover's warmth,
entered our bodies and made us
recognize our desire was being offered back.
She sang her rejection of our rejection.
And we stood miracle-stricken, shame-blinded,
renewed by failure more than triumph.
No one excused her. She would have to leave.
But we yielded to her song.

MARK JARMAN

Flower

for my Grandmother - Irene Salay - 1917-2012

The garden gate is open - she halfway

across a ploughed field.
A man approaches, felt hat in hand
in his other, a brim of colour.

Movement slow, each step a memory
ageless, familiar.  Afloat
her voice, first bird of morning -

her smile wide
blue September sky;
dusk settles, pilgrim to land.

57 Shades of Orange

The Archer

Her eyes two slits, precise as arrow loops, turned parallel to earth and sky. The plain wide, horizon stretched elastic as the linen string pulled taut against her chest, her limbs as narrow as the precious longbow made of yew back to belly, sapwood to heart chin cupped as soft as Cupid’s iron adorned with Quail fletch bound with sinew as if to bone, ivory thumb-ring wrapped against pain of draw. She stands erect, width of foot to width of shoulder, left side to his, three fingers poised as if to pluck a delicate harp. She stands unconscious, blind to sight– there is no noise, save for sudden movement of their hidden song, warm tongue of fleshy pull whoosh of flight, an earthly thud. Her form collapsed around itself recoiled in the torment of her mark. Two bodies fall together,  soft as purple clovers  swathed black fields.

Sit down, says generous life, and stay awhile!
although it's irony that sets the table
and puts the meager food on broken dishes,
pours out the rancid wine, and walks away.

  - Robert Creeley
-excerpt from A Generous Life

Frightening Stuff

http://nplusonemag.com/leave-your-cellphone-at-home

Yum!

Oh oh... I've found a use for my plethora of garden tomatoes.....

Makes 1 drink

• 4 cherry tomatoes
• 3-4 fresh basil leaves, torn
• 1 lemon wedge
• 1 pinch sea salt
• ice
• 1 1/2 ounce gin
• basil sprig, for garnish

1. Muddle the whole cherry tomatoes, basil leaves, lemon juice from the lemon wedge, and pinch of sea salt in a shaker. (If you don't have a muddler, the handle of a wooden spoon works just fine.) Muddle until you get a good amount of juice from the tomatoes.
2. Add ice, and shake well. Strain through a fine sieve into a lowball cocktail glass.
3. Add gin, a little ice, and stir. Garnish with basil sprig, and enjoy!

The Bird Tree

In Spain, the birds arrived before dusk
to densify the solitary cedar
with their pre-coniferous apartment chatter.

Worlds and years away birds arrive 
before dusk, to fill the boughs
of my neighbor’s twin pines.

I wonder why they gather?
What is it they have to say?
They must know more than I.

They have taught me well to not heed
the selfish drone of men or women
to spend my time poeticizing

about the chatter of birds 
as they arrive one at a time
to let us know they’re home.

Autumn Lament

Every September I begin a poem this way:

The tree-tops are liquid gold

the sun is flying high, 

but not here, it is setting  long over 

stubbly fields.  The geese are calling

to the sky again.

I am caught in the perpetual motion

of life, seasons and words.   But who 

out there cares?  What significance 

do tree-tops hold, no matter the colour?

What does the sun care that it rises, sets

navigates a path? 

My cat’s claws are stuck 

in the screen door again - 

a clear sign the season is changing.  

Her claws don’t appear

anywhere near the screen door

between May and now.

And again, here am I

.

Princess Kiki

step forward

The Meantime

It's easy to overjoy a window with brilliant flowers 

but what if long-longed-for time suddenly bubbled
over the lip of the clock, as if each day doubled
due to a lost job or loved one slaughtered, leaving hours
to fill—how would you do it? Could you whittle
the Founding Fathers faces out of wood, or fold little
origami models of the same famous building?
With time, couldn't you master the craft of anything?
Maybe write precious verse or, worse, illuminate
the best of Aesop in needlepoint—someone ought to,
or maybe someone really oughtn't, so why, or why not you?
If time's a parking spot, life's what you do while you wait
for Mr. Whoever to get back in the car—a good hobby
to make this minute count like a droplet in the sea.

Craig Morgan Teicher

To Keep Love Blurry