image by Martin Stranka

After gashing her soul through yesterday’s mirror
her blood spilled in fallow fields
nurturing tomorrow’s sacred grove
whose leaves swirled around her rising form.

Her body settled into the low spaces
placing her life on hold.

Thought dissipated
into a kaleidoscope of mourning cloaks
whose collective fluttering murmured
liniment across a darkened sky,
surprised into night by a flight of butterflies.

Brenda Warren 2014

Note: The Mourning Cloak is a butterfly; it is also Montana’s state insect.

Thank you to Tess at The Mag for the ekphrastic inspiration.

Mourning Cloak image from Wikipedia

Ophelia by Odilion Redon

She appears to him everywhere
in frozen snapshots of time.
Freeze frame gestures
capture her stoic form,
thin lips rounded into cherries
ripe enough to pluck.
Her neutral expression
stands unconcerned
her utter disregard for him
hanging beneath the surface
of his mother’s birdbath.
Her black hair, an act at play
against smooth alabaster skin.

He reaches out to touch her cheek
and like the reflection of the fox’s grapes,
she disappears.
He’s left with a handful of water-laden butterfly wings
and an intense desire to encapsulate her.
His perfect other.

Brenda Warren 2012

The photo at The Mag inspired The Sunday Whirl words to form an obsession. I think the narrator is a serial killer, but who knows? Visit The Mag and The Sunday Whirl both for some fabulous Sunday writing. You’ll be glad that you did.

Paul Gauguin The Meal 1891

Sadness washes down Benita’s features
as her brothers’ eyes try to salve her spirit.
On this day of celebration,
she watches Miguel kiss his new girl
and starts to think of all the ways
that he might die.

Emptiness rushes over the life she’ll never have
as she reaches for the knife. Diego grabs her hand
and holds it in his own beneath the white cloth
that skirts abuela’s table laden with lemons and plantains.
Benita shudders, as Diego squeezes her hand.

Brenda Warren 2012

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Visit The Mag for more offerings inspired by Gaugin’s work. Thank you to Tess for the inspiration.

Look at her—
the drama queen.
Every spring,
she falls into the river weeping,
commanding the “Ooos and ahs”
of walking humans,
drawing birds to nest beneath her green shimmering tears—
while I sit here,
barely budding
waiting for sister sun’s warming
to break apart night’s cold rear end
just a little bit earlier
so I can leave already.

Brenda Warren 2012

Visit The Mag for more words that explore the same photograph.

image by Manu Pombrol

jarred man
knocked from his senses
floats in a bell jar
reading the last words she’ll ever write him
before she lets loose the tap
then cans his ass
sealing him up
in her soul’s hollow cellar
fluid and jostling
keeping her words to himself

Brenda Warren 2012

NaPoWriMo 29: 1 more to go….

This piece was written to the prompt at Magpie Tales. It whirled its way out rather quickly.

I didn’t get spoons in coffee when I was human
and I don’t get them now that I’m stuck in this fat little king statue
trying to pull this scepter outta my ass.
Paperweight City had such a good deal on them,
little did I know it would suck me into it
when I fell in my eagerness to grab one.
Not this one, Heaven forbid,
I was going for a statue of Saint Francis
with birds flitting about my head
(my head…good god).
Forever made of heavy resin polymer
I hold down this blowhard’s morning news
while he tink-tink-tinkles the frickin’ spoon
over and over again
against his boring blue cup.

At least this morning I can read the news.

Didn’t Dominick Dunne die?
I wonder if he got the Saint Francis statue?

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A shout out to Tess for the image this week at Magpie Tales. The king would not let me go, he wanted his say.