Falling Angel

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36

You plaster your dreads with the skin of serpents
enmeshing a Medusa, compelling society
to look the other way. A seditious struggle
pierces flesh with iron and ink,
rendering the sacred lost
beneath its pledge.
A stigma.
A falling away.

Wingless limbs falter while
sporadic sparks of truth
flint off your soul’s tufted feathers
and fall like tread from your feet
through this nether world
appled in sin’s black veil.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Process Notes:
“Dreads” are dreadlocks. When I was in Ohio we dreaded my daughter Julie’s hair. People treated her differently. One woman actually pulled her children closer to her in a protective effort as we passed. It was disconcerting. Now I think Jules is an amazing young woman, not a falling angel, but obviously this poem contains a bit of her dreadlocked experience.

Visit The Sunday Whirl for more poems constructed around the wordle words below. I used all of the words except hinder. I had it in there as “hindering the sacred lost” – rendering made more sense.

listening underwater

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14

Our voices disappear, behind
turned heads, within
darkened rooms, under
running water, and among
the hum of crowds, until
your world becomes
a scratchy out of tune radio station
where you fill in the blanks
and pretend to sing along
smiling a nod.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At We Write Poems this week, a prompt of mine set the stage. Poets watched documentaries and wrote a poem from their viewing. Visit We Write Poems for a closer look at the prompt and other takes on it.

Process Notes:
My daughter TL is deaf. On Netflix TL and I watched the movie, See What I’m Saying: The Deaf Entertainers Documentary. Wow. TL performs with a group called EOS, Expressions of Silence. A group of hard of hearing and deaf children with a brilliant reputation, they perform songs in sign language at many venues throughout the school year. TL’s performances bring people to tears, she becomes the music, the words…she gives them life. My daughter is a star! 🙂

The movie follows four deaf adults through pieces of their lives as both deaf people, and as deaf entertainers. For us, it was a highly engaging movie. One of the four adults is TL Forsberg, a rock star from Toronto. She has beautiful speech, like my TL. Their beautiful speech and engaging personalities cause many people to think that they hear far more than they do. This piece came from the descriptions both TLs provide about communication.

I like the piece, but it makes me feel sad. “Our voices” and “your world” sets up tension. I almost pulled the “our” out of the piece, but there really are “two worlds” so I left it in the poem. How about all of those prepositions at the end of lines? To me, it makes the list prominent.

burnt confession

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15

The prophet in my heart bleeds rusty sermons
while flowers push through cracked cement
tickling my soul’s long walk, softening it,
until sun’s filtered light exposes
scores of melted scars
feeding on my tender flesh.

Before morning, I exist as I am.
Torment crawls under darkness,
my life swept aside. Sometimes
when the moon is new, I hum.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Process Notes:
In burnt confession, I took on the persona of someone with visible burn scars. For inspiration, I imagined the main character of the young adult book, Firegirl, grown-up. For further inspiration, I used the wordle words from The Sunday Whirl. Visit the whirl for more pieces using the word’s in the wordle below:

surreal lie

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23


Chickens eat more than that hoop girl
twirling her life through yellow.
She best watch her back—
that savior right ‘round the corner
herding sheep like people,
piling them up for a trip in his windowless
wagon where thinking is stuck in the middle of believe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A shout out to a rather new site dVerse.  This is my first post for their Saturday Poetics.  Today we were provided information about a painter, Giorgio de Chorico who “fell under the spell of Nietszche.”  I wrote the poem as a surrealist response to the painting Mystery and Melancholy of a Street (above), through a somewhat Nietszchean lens.  Visit dVerse for more takes on Giorgio de Chorico and his work.

woman you

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11

Journeys shift imperceptibly,
dispensing time-released changes
noticed as they build into
an empty nest around me.

Journeys shift drastically,
creating chasms of before and after.
The serpent on your belly
uncoils longing and release.

You wax into a woman,
open and unafraid.
Come sit beside me.
Tell me of a time when you were young.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a poem in 55 words, written for my daughter TL as she grows up too quickly. Thank you to G-Man for the inspiration to write a poem in 55 words. Check out other 55 word pieces of flash fiction and poetry at Mr. Knowitall’s Friday Flash 55.

Miriam and Adolfo

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8


8o years defined them
birth through today,
Miriam and Adolfo,
the act that stole the stage.
From the time that they could toddle,
from the time that they could crawl,
Miriam and Adolfo
impressed the crowds one and all.

Through their intertwining eyes,
there was no need for other.
Miriam and Adolfo
pantomimed each other.
From the time that they could twirl,
from the time that they could tap,
Miriam and Adolfo
lived their lives enwrapped.

This picture marks the morning,
this picture marks the day,
Miriam and Adolfo
knew their life would change.
From the time that they shared pleasure,
from last month’s pas de dues
Miriam and Adolfo
knew a miracle baby grew.

They named the shecub Melanie
her roar surpassed her father’s
Melanie was the first of the pair’s
humana-ursaline daughters.
From the time that she could toddle
from the time that she could crawl
Melanie the Marvel
wow’d the crowds one and all.

The final five shebears came at once
stars that dot the midnight blue,
Miriam and Adolfo
gave birth to a brand new crew.
From the time that they could toddle,
from the time that they could crawl
Melanie and the Marvels
thrilled the crowds one and all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the picture Miriam looks uncertain, perhaps burdened with something, and Adolfo looks to be comforting her. From that along with the bed as a setting, I decided that they just discovered her pregnancy, her uncertainty is born from wondering about the offspring, and the world’s acceptance of it.

My intent in writing it was to practice the repetition that you hear in oral story telling. In the second stanza I hear “enrapt” when I read it, but used “enwrapped” so I could keep both meanings in the piece for myself.

Thank you to We Write Poems for the picture prompt. Visit to read more words inspired by the picture.

remember to weed

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18

Potential rattles against a holy
fortress stagnant in its sameness.

A substrata of fear
jangles nay saying
voices in your head,
blurring visions of tomorrows,
while potential’s rattle
snakes and shakes
until its sprouts pierce
the illusionary surface of existence
splintering color throughout your world
enticing voices to quietly vanish
into the gloaming of everything that came before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This piece came from a wordle at The Sunday Whirl.  This week’s wordle was built from three Wallace Stevens poems.

seven years in vs. several months without

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14

Jules readies herself for Stevon
as I damn another day’s driving
to pick up Len at Cleveland-Hopkins Airport
where Len will take the wheel, and we’ll
chatter a scattered path to Rochester
discussing house issues,
reprehensible renters,
curtains, paint, and stoves oh my—
Why did we buy this house so far away again?
It whirs hominess, family.
Trees and outbuildings mark its acre,
a summer kitchen,
an Amish shed.
Pears gild that tree, casting spells.
Its price parted clouds.
But mostly,
impulsivity blessed us both.

We will laugh as Pennsylvania blinks by
then land deep into blanketed bliss
at Henrietta’s Red Roof Inn near Rochester,
reality only a stone’s throw away.

*

For Stevon’s arrival in Dayton,
Jules twisted and dyed
vibrancy into a white cotton sundress.
The marvel of newly rendered dreadlocks
that buzz with life, animate her shine.
“Only 12 more hours until he gets on his plane,”
bursts forth from percolating dreams of life
in hippy-strewn Missoula
with her hairy man.
Jules’ smile ripples rings toward
tomorrow and yearning’s completion,
while I sigh and scan the clock
wondering how long her couch will
allow me to sleep before I get up
and drive yet again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


I wrote the poem the day before I left for Rochester, to pick TL up from camp. Julie was picking up her boyfriend, Stevon coincidentally on the same day Len flew in, to spend the rest of vacation with us. It was interesting to see her enthusiasm compared to mine. So I explored it here. Julie is moving back to Montana, after being out here for nearly a year.  Her boyfriend is excited, as they are moving to Missoula together.  It’s a new life for them and it’s fun to witness their blossoming together.  After I wrote the poem, I did the wordle and added all of the words to the piece, I like it better with the wordle words. I’ve never done a wordle poem that way before, it seems backwards, but Pamela Sayers did it once, and I always wanted to try it. It was a worthy pursuit.

Please visit The Sunday Whirl for more poet’s use of the wordle words.  The creativity and caliber of writing is impressive.

Boon Waits

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9

A frenzied storm
beats rain against the stone
sides of our house in Ohio.
Thunder calls out its name
and echoes dance down a scalloped
forest of clouds disrupting exquisite stillness,
weaving sky music under rain.

Crack!
The house shakes and Boon barks.
A sentinel in the window seat,
he waits for Jules and her Jeep
to scream around the corner
down past the silos
back to the village from Ottawa,
and the store that carries his bones.

Watermelon Train Wreck

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23

to my dead friend dave

The emerald seasons, high on themselves,
glisten in shimmering mornings.
Divining life through pantomime
illusions, they rise and fall
greening bones bared during the fallow
void of winter’s faded balcony

where you sit forever locked
in celestial observation
flapping your quirky rhythm
in wind that jostles my car
on highway 87 near Moccasin’s
ominous edges.

~~~~~~~
The first stanza of this poem came, and then it changed into a poem to my friend David Arnott. After being hit by a truck on highway 87 near Moccasin, Montana, last November he lingered in a coma a few weeks before dying.  The title will remain obscure.  Dave and I always joked that our daughters were twins with different parents. They were born a month a part, and look like sisters. My poem, The Dead Woman and The Mad Hatter at Beyond the Bozone is the first piece I wrote for Dave.

Please visit The Sunday Whirl and check out some other poems written with these wordle words.  You’ll be glad you did.