Rearranging the Sky

    

Nolcha's Grandparents and Aunt

—Poetry by Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY 

—Public Domain Photos

Courtesy of Nolcha Fox

 

MISSING

for my grandparents

Their smiles
are bleached
from the photo
baked brown.
They escaped
from the homelands
that wanted
them gone,
erased, dead,
forgotten.
A soundless escape,
taking only
the disruption
that clung
to their skin.
Their absence
displaced the air,
replaced it with
ocean wind

 

(prev. pub. on Open Arts Forum)

 

 

 

 

 

Your eyes

are meteors,
a trail
of sparkle,
lighting up
the night.
Your eyelids,
sand descending,
marking time
until it meets
the ocean
of your smile.

 

 

 

 

 

This is not a poem

about you,
even though you
always knew
I was all about you.
This is not a poem
about how
you sucked
the air out
of the sky
when you died.
This is a poem
about how
I stopped breathing,
I stopped writing
when you died.
Poetry is life with you,
and you are dead.
This is a poem
about how
I died.
This poem died, too.

 

 

 

 

 

LONGING MARKS

In the dark room,
that underworld,
where I was
formed and baked,
my mother wished
for me so hard,
I flew into her dreams,
my maiden flight
a longing mark,
a butterfly birthmark
upon my wrist.

And now for you
I pluck my wings
to satisfy your need.
You gift to me
the bruises of your
longing marks,
your teeth small daggers
to the butterfly
upon my wrist.

 

 

 

 

 

ARE YOU SITTING?

“Are you sitting?
You should sit.”
You must be joking,
but I sit.
I listen,
broken phrases,
puzzle pieces
that don’t fit.
I drop the phone,
the carpet shatters,
walls fade into void.

 

 

 

The Massacre of the Innocents
—Painting by Peter Paul Rubens (1609-1611)

 

INNOCENTS

We kill what we
cannot control.
We rage against
the ones who can’t
fight back.
In the massacre
of innocents,
we slaughter
our innocence, too.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

Toss a lit match

in my grave
to chase away
sharp-thistled shadows,
a conscience patched
with remorse.
Don’t block my view
as you speak down.
Let me look up
at the sky
rearranging itself
in color and cloud.

—Nolcha Fox

________________

Our thanks to Nolcha Fox for today’s fine poetry. She writes that her poem, “Are You Sitting?” is about the phone call from her younger brother to let her know that their baby brother had killed himself. Such subjects are always startling and between-the-lines painful, and we appreciate Nolcha sharing this poem with us.

________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

—Photo Courtesy of Public Domain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For upcoming poetry events in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
in the links at the top of this page.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

 LittleSnake says,
“Don’t let the poem die!”