Woman to Man

This is the soil that labors 
beneath our feet, growing damp
with rain, with seeds
In late summer, a red blooming
that catches the sky's opal eyes

This is the leavening our bread 
seeks, the grit our veins inhale
when our ribs twine
petal & spine
imagining light spilling over us

This is the river-sap that seeks
our bodies, every valley & groove 
at rest, or rocking to birthing tides
The bones that shape your thighs strong
The fire that makes me arch my back

In the moonlight
This is our hunt & chase:
That we give & take
Each other's fruits, our tongues
running along this quicksilver blade-

Oh hold me, my fearless love- 




Title & poem inspired by Judith Wright


Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Sunday's Challenge: Judith Wright  
And Poets United ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Summer rain

we made the customary   
days into tangerine sky over the marina  

when we sailed away on your birthday  
I gifted you with  

summer kisses
wet with rain 

you came back
purring with nights bursting of fireflies

there were no roses & chocolates
but pebbles & seashells carefully picked & bottled

what can i give you
of our times together

but chains 
silk velvet, fingered by mistress moon  

but words lashing
your skin restless, swelling with longing  

over the years
our distance stole your memories, ebbing with tides 

but i am cursed with perfect one 
defying time's savage currents 

every summer, 
i recall your kisses when 
                                                      rain 
                                                                        f
                                                                               a  l  l 
                                                                                           s
                                                                                                

                                                                         


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - I chose M's word list:
fresh, burst, defy, chain, struck, forward, exchange, customary, prefer, close

And Poets United ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Promises

Marble sculpture by Bernini

I won't promise you the apple
My love is not always sweet & ripe
But they're yours to keep like petals

plucked, crowning your golden hair
My words can be thistle & inferno
I won't promise you, the apple

Under sky of summer blue
I live in sea of flames, crimson as my hands
But they're yours to return to, like petals

pressed of lily, violets and white trillium 
Bounded with pomegranate seeds 
I won't promise you the apple

Only its seeds that harbors spring
And comes with steady beat, My love
They are yours.  Keep them as petals

perfumed of devouring storm.    Fear no falls
As I will always be here, your safe landing 
I promise you, not only the apple, but fruits
of all my seasons, yours to keep, unpetalled-

Inspired by ending line of Carilda Olivar Labra's poem:
Eve's Discourse:  my love, and I promise you the apple. 

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Promising hosted by Karin

and Poets United - A villanelle form of a sort ~  Thanks for the visit ~

Eve's Discourse

Venus Verticordia by Dante Gabriel Rosetti

Tonight, I'll draw my spear
& pierce your snow-veiled skin
with fire
with fever

Why are you hiding from me
Like moon last night
Blurring, dissolving quick as smoke

Time has a long memory
when the world is a silhouette grey
with ice
with sleet

Come back with your storm
& unpredictable rain
your swagger
your tempest of metal & light

I will gamble
That our kisses will return
like a fresh sword
like a flaring spell of first day of spring

Your words
will salt my bland food
spice & flavor
my music and canvas 
crisp, textured with hundred nuances

Touch my body like a potter's hands
tempting 
every grain & freckle 
to red
I will open as white flower 
with poison seeds
with savage heart

Come back to me, come back, *
penetrate me with lightening,
Bend me to your will.
We'll turn the record player on forever.
Bring me that unfaithful nape of your neck,
the blow of your stone.
Show me I haven't died,
my love, and I promise you the apple.

*Title and Last stanza by Cuban poet, Carilda Olivar Labra

Posted for:   Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - We are writing to the work by Carilda Olivar Labra
Shared with Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~

A list of what the flower owns

Pinch of morning 
rain slicking blades green

Remnant of snake's skin
warm & dangerous

Secrets of bees
As they circle as matadors

Devouring all affections,
Making you hungry for stinging 

Kisses.  Perfume. Cinnamon 
seeds.  Volley of crisp winter air 

that guzzles your lungs
flaring your nostrils red

your skin honey-yellow moist
when I am

opening 
to you-

Photography by Totomai Martinez

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads:   Play it Again - Write a Flowery Poem in a Non-cliched way & Word Count With MamaZen (Hungry in 57 Words) & Poets United

A distance divides us

What the blood moon stirs, contains you  
a pearl oyster against the lilac clouds

What the sky silvers, turns the past
to water of memories and foam

What the maple trees bare, skins the
night to fragments, fragile by time

The cold wind sands, awakening
me, frozen in our memories

I watch dawn unfold, its fingers threading
a spider web, marbled in infinite blue

To the deepest of the wells
I draw you, scent of shadows & pines

Your image smiles in its pure circle*
But what of your face as I reach to touch you?

It wavers, growing old, belonging 
to another*

Title and line inspired by E. Montale's poem, The Well

(Cigola la carrucola del pozzo)

The pulley of the well-shaft creaks,

water rises to the light and dissolves you.

A memory trembles in the refilled pail,

an image smiles in its pure circle.

Touch your face to evanescent lips:

the past wavers, grows old,

belongs to another…

Ah, how the wheel groans

already, returns you to the dark depths,

vision, a distance divides us. 

Frozen in Water

Photography:   Brooke Shaden

Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - We are getting inspiration from by 
E. Montale's work and Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~ 

When your voice is like rain

The sky is a single brushstroke
of aquamarine 
Though many voices speak

Yours is like amber
Yours is like saffron
yellowing my tongue of spice

Even above glass floor 
the wind sweeping the leaves in
tiny islands  

Yours is like violin
Yours is like bow
piercing 
clouds
streak of fire,
veins careening open
pupils dilating in rushing tide

catching me
in autumn's early shroud 
How can I forget your voice?
You ripple all my memories
like whispering birds with nowhere to hide
you
who fly with them

you
who always come back with bluest of plums

Many voices speak.*
Through them all
I hear only yours
falling as a night rain.

     
Inspiration and lines from Karin Boye:   Many Voices Speak

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Sunday's Challenge:  Swedish Poetry hosted by Bjorn Rudberg - We are writing to the poems by Swedish writer Karin Boye

and Poets United

Picture credit:   here

Summer storm

the night bursts
a tinderbox on my hands -
      what was closed, dilated

&

           leaned forward  
defying lines & customary ex-
     change of words

rain seeps
a dark splinter in my bones -
      what was keyed up, flayed

&

struck, firebolt
dripping down my thighs, turning everything
              fresh wound

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Word List from M (grapeling):  fresh, burst, defy, chain, struck, forward, exchange, customary, prefer, close
& Poets United - Keys

Summer sky

is a halved peach,

swelling of sugar, red  

on your tongue, rain 

We keep watch of summer fireflies
Flitting of orange red
Dazzling of lights, a symphony
Cloaking night with silk threads 

       Let's stay

               under the stolen sky

            twining

As two seed pods, marking
Time a bandit, for come sunrise
All too soon, we're parting 


The above poem follows Robert Herrick's stanza form:

x x x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x x x c
x x x x x b
x d
x x x x x d
x c
x x x x x e
x x x x x x x a
x x x x x e 


Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Play It Again
& Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~

Picture credit:   here

Black and white

Noell Oszvald

Is where sky & road
meets

&
collapses

Salt chafes my back
Where

he rides me hardest

The weight of him in my grain
His kisses

land on my hands
like two small birds 

I can barely rise

above burdens that weigh me

down


I write this poem 
to put an end on this curse.


Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - 55 Word Challenge
and Izy's This Poem is a Curse

Shared with Poets United

Sorrowful Songs

Remove the cloak from your eyes

What you see as shadows are bubbles   

What you deem as cracks are stitches 

To you, born into war

A lover's face is a poised gun, ecstatic for more




Blood, but I'm not made of red dust & chipped wood

For you, I would be

seeds, dried & salted for next season's harvest

leaves, bottled in oil & strained for autumn's feast

fruits, sugar-stirred & melted warm, sweet wine

If only you can rein in the beast inside 



You, the one turning your honey tongue to stone

And strikes a fist from dead bone heart

Even in your murderous gaze,

I will not drift away, helpless as small bird  

Here is my offering - a healing, a moving of wings-

a flare reflecting my mother's face.  

  

She is a survivor too.

Sorrowful Songs:  Duet

Artist:    Susie McMahon

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - I am hosting featured artist, Susie McMahon's  arts & dolls ~ Please check out the link for more poems ~

Shared with Poets United

Happy weekend & Happy Mother's Day ~

Resuscitating Ophelia

                                                       Ophelia, by Odilon Redon


I gather her - limped hair & pale bones
Out of the water,  bedraggled as washed-

out page, skirted & flamed
by love's complicated twists & turns -

I brush the wild flowers from her cheeks-
Scrap away dead leaves & tangled roots-

Gently, I press on her lips- sip this brew
Stirred with orange & yellow seeds

Mixed with tea leaves & sea-
weeds,  stained with effervescent salt-  

Hovering pollen dust swells
Into pools of blue sky-  

Open your eyes & hear the murmurings
Of cinnamon trees, of red-song birds

There's a place for your dreams, sacred
& untouched by anyone but

you
Beautifully shaped by love & will

There is the garden
Where you can run freely & be

My hands will guide you, a step at
a time, until your voice grows stronger

Again,  Love is madness
But you are braver than you can imagine-

War & peace, ink & sword 
Your hands can birth & hold them, fiercely as sun-

There's a murmur, I hear -
There's another beat, I see you

Rising once more,
My beautiful daughter


Posted for Imaginary Garden with Real Toads - Play it again
& The Art by Odilon Redon
and Poets United - Thanks for the visit ~

The shades of my name

Paul Gauguin:  Two Tahitian Women (1899)

I learn my name in a dream-wheel

       Two women walk, unconscious of eyes
       that follow their hips & breasts swaying

Beneath my skin & layers of failures, a meaning 

       One woman carries a tray of berries 
       red & flowering, undisguised
       she is unstoppable, the fruit of the season                        

Stirring guts-deep, a faint primitive impulse  

       The other woman is tender, draped of blooms
       blue & evasive, a penumbra under a tree 
       she is on threshold of tasting a seed

Part-sun, part-shadow,  I know her-  

                                                                 Eve                        

                                    

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Word Challenge by Hedgewitch - Mind & Symbol
"'We are to use at least five of the words from this list drawn from Chapter One of Carl Jung's Man & His Symbols, in your choice of either a poem utilizing a form, in a prose-poem,  or in free verse. " 

Thanks for the visit ~

Tanka: January Sky

is oyster, pearl sheen

cold blown from stiff blue tongue

on my eyelids, granite

ice sculptured from silt & rain

faint clouds hover endlessly

~0~0~0~

your lips are teal, soft

as snowflakes dusting the air

where grey wind hardens

your hands mellow to amber

the sun thrums above spruce trees

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - OpenLinkNight - My turn to welcome you at the pub.
& Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Tanka form - Thanks to Kerry 
Please note that I am having technical issues with my cable but will return your visits shortly. Thanks ~

Picture credit:   Snow Queen by Madebyvadi

When dawn spills & trees murmur

The morning sky cracks an eggshell, 

    & dawn spills, fusion of indigo & fuchsia 

Frost recedes in slow rain   

    & ice melts into an orchestra of puddles  

The sun comes out for the briefest of time

    Warming skin with scent of summers past 

Your eyes holding the river & hawk

    Spiking the taste for feverish run & motion   

Crunching & murmuring of trees under siege 

    That smell of the feral & unfamiliar

The kiss, that stirs your blood red & gaping

    Gorgeous moonlight tracing your lover's torso

Ribs & eyes ache like a lost drum  

    Take back every cell & petal bloom

Burn the wick, break the brittle bones

    The mourning is over like the night 

Day beckons, a yellow oil seed 

     Stir from winter's pyre & fog, thaw

Thaw by Elisabetta Trevisan

Posted for OpenLinkNight of D'verse Poets Pub & - Shared with Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Sunday Feature on work of Elisabetta Trevisan ~ Thanks for the visit ~ 

The Night

The Night by Elisabetta Trivesan

Night resides in your body

translucent as blue star

descending in winter night

The seed 

pearls your skin

mysterious as midnight bloom

Shadows bleak
two contrasting realities:   
what our dreams speak
& what our self accepts 

But in your embrace
Night diffuses the mystery
Radiant as moon
when I become
more fearful of seeing dawn

    fisted hard of yellow yolk 

    wrapped tight as bloodless sky

As night grows into you,
I crawl into your
comforting body      

fearless in its 
endlessness 

Night knows you so well

It turns 
   your tongue

   from stone

   to water

   your hands 
   from wounds

   to words 

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Sunday's Challenge where I am hosting - Featuring the work of Elisabetta Trivesan 
Shared with Poets United

Living with fire

hot volcanic spring 
caresses my back in soothing strokes

sky is smooth as milky water 
peeling my skin like a newly born  

closing eyes, i drift like a leaf
rootless, lost in primordial pool

my foot touches black lava rock 
it reminds me where i am 

small lake, cradled in tempest mountain,
birthed from thirsty fire & vicious gas  

moment's lull is fleeting
sleepless, roaring beast


how foolish of me  
to believe i can tame you


Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Isadora Gruye's Challenge -  I am referring to Iceland's famous hot springs which are nestled in lakes of volcanoes.

and Poets United - Newness - Hosted by Susan Chast - in 75 words or less ~

Picture credit:  here

Sonnet: See my love dawning

Aragorn & Arwen from Lord of the Rings Trilogy

Do you recall how we first met, a dream

You thought as you saw me wrapped in silver

blue robe,  radiant crystal by misty stream

Of true love, You made me a believer                          

Do you remember our first kiss under stars

Filled with trees laden of gold leaves & heady blooms

After a long parting, each touch a fever

We sought for peace & love to reign, not doom

Bleak is the land gripped by wicked shadows

Festering darkness, trees & sea birds die

Hammering blows, meadows turn to gallows   

Fight for your crown, your blade is birthed by fire

Open your eyes & see my love dawning   

Eternal as sky, bright as your promised ring

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.” J.R.R. Tolkien

Posted for Imaginary Garden for Real Toads - Sunday's Challenge - Write a Fantasy Poem
Poetry form:   Sonnet 
Shared with Poets United
Picture credit:   Lord of the Rings Trilogy