Fettered Rise

Image by © Chris Galford.

Darkness

Begets salvation.

Closed eyes embrace

Wide-spaced longing,

Riveted in fire like

Old angels lacquered

With the doubt—

The weight,

They will come to call it,

It lies heavy on the backs

That would toil clouds

To submission.

Naked passions

Circumvent the sense of it,

Armani dreams, Gucci heart

Wing-tipped longing stands

Fleshy and forgotten.

Icarus saw this

Falling.

* My latest work for One Shoot Sunday. Based on the images I provided this week when I graffiti’d One Stop. Yes, that’s right – my travels around Lansing have yielded a great deal of graffiti photos, and this week we decided to plaster this little offering of rebel-art up for all you fellow poets to pour over. So have a look, see what catches your fancy, and enjoy!

Birds in Flight

Picture copyright Fee Easton.

Feathered summer bright

In taloned march sing madness

Death—one season’s end.

A piece for this week’s edition of One Shoot Sunday. There’s no interview by me (had a couple weeks off, you know?), but several lovely prompt choices to select from a generous old friend of One Stop: Fee Easton. You may remember my earlier interview with her back in March. A wonderful woman with some very vivid photography. This was my response to her “option 3” photo.

This Plane’s Going Down…

Little bird let fly

Don’t you dare lie

Beside me in the grave,

I dug this cave

For me and not no other,

Smothered myself and fled my brothers;

Enslaved, if you will,

I know it’s no Seville,

But it’s my soul at the reckon,

And that wreckin’s beckoned,

And try as I might,

I’m dying of fright

Of life and of you,

Engrained on me as a stinging tattoo.

Won’t do us no good to wonder,

Tip our heads to call the thunder;

I’m already killin’ myself slowly,

Me, wholly unholy

And I’ll not see you follow me whereby

Your own bitter end supply.

* My latest contribution to the wonderful One Shot Poetry Wednesdays! Once you’ve had a look, check out some of the other One Shot Poets as well–they’re a skilled bunch of poets, with a strong and supportive community.  Enjoy!

Asylum

 

Claudio Mufarrege's "The Arrow Shot"

You bind me

But your walls, your halls they cannot hold me

Body broken but the spirit

Rise, swimming in the deep

Recesses of the forgotten—

Mind: sole reality of prison

You forget, but this soul knows,

It reaches through your gray decay

And in the darkness spring forth wings

To flight, unknown, and I am nothing and no one

But here I am,

These halls

Are mine.

* Photography by Claudio Mufarrege, from her gorgeous photos and interview I conducted with her, as featured on One Stop Poetry.

Elemental Elation

Bear me up

Rustling cavalcade of coalescing

Music rush, on tempo speed

These breaths across my skin.

The harmony

Of your exultation

Gives me strength

Beneath my wings.

Crystal flow

Caress and coax

The resolution of my being,

Dive down into the deep.

Crash upon

The shores of apathy

And stir upon us yet the storms

That break inequity.

Quick-step

Quivering motions elate

To find the kiss, the touch of motion

In the sensuous sway of your dance.

No hands

Could ever hold thy hips

This beat, thunder of thy solitary

Moment, unbidden.

Bastion

Rampart revelry of life

Shield yet the passions of hope,

A dream of majesty.

Resolute

Mother-being enfold

The world in thy being:

Ground this flighty soul.

* For the latest Monday Poetry Potluck!