Blacksmith

 

—Poetry by Nolcha Fox, Buffalo, WY

—Public Domain Photos Courtesyof Nolcha Fox

 

 

 

ADRIFT

I write a poem,
I shove it in a bottle.
I drop this vessel
in the lake.
Lake to stream
to ocean,
craft adrift.
Will the wet flask
reach someone,
who’ll quench
his thirst for words,
or will it
be swallowed
by a fish?

 

 

 

 

My unabridged self

is light seeping
between ribs.
She pours honey
into my ears
when I sleep,
and I live the day
dangerously.
She is dancing dust
motes in sunbeams.
She purrs in my lap
until she slips back
into her cage,
and nestles in the space
between heartbeats.

 

 

 

 

ODE TO MIGRAINES

Five elephants clog on my head.
I roll it, lopsided, to recycling,
careful not to let my eyes
fall out. 

 

 

 

 

 

MY GRANDMOTHER’S PERFUME

My grandmother’s perfume
smells of spoiled love letters,
tears and tension,
messy prayers.

My grandmother’s perfume
covers arthritic hands,
drowns her god-awful name.
She passed both on to me.

My grandmother’s perfume
covers the smell
of her death from marriage,
a death she passed on to me.

 

 

 

 

 

YOU WHISPER

Winter trails your tail
as you blow the sun to set.
I stuff my ears with red,
red leaves, let autumn
stay a few more days—
don’t make things worse
before it’s time. 

 

 

 

 

 

The guy in the sky

is a blacksmith
who forges white lightning
with blows of his hammer
to anvil clouds threatening rain. 

 

 

 

 

DROP

I am the first drop of rain
that slithers down your arm.
You don’t believe me,
that more is to come.

I am the last drop of rain
that pools into your open palm.
You don’t believe me,
and you run inside.

You don’t believe me,
that I evaporate with the sun.

You don’t believe me,
you think I’ll never leave you.

 

 

 

 

We tried, we tried

remodeling
each other
and the house.

It’s hard to fix
what’s damaged
to the bones.

A tempest raged
between us, a storm
that wrecked our world.

We are strangers
walking by each other
in the same past.

 

 

 

 

 

CAN

We are nausea,
a can wedged tight
with putrid fish.

We are a disaster movie,
replaying our mistakes,
a film in the can, but on the shelf.

The only can
to contain
the mess we are

is the one
where we toss
our trash.

 

 

 

 

 

RETURN TO EARTH

Three times I come here, three times I knock
my staff against the dying earth.
I cry for storms to scatter stones.
This eye knows oneness in the two.
I thank the sky for gathering clouds,
the ground for death, new life.
Winter is a song of change, rebirth.

 

 

 

 

 

Today’s LittleNip:

I’m drunk

on dusk, the Zinfandel clouds
kiss the lemon-twist sun
that sinks into brandy sea.

—Nolcha Fox

______________________

Many thanks to Nolcha Fox for today’s poetry and the public domain photos she sent to go with them! She writes about thunder and lightning and gathering clouds, and as I write this, the wind howls around my wee cottage in what has become rare California rain. Bless Nolcha’s “blacksmith” for those Zinfandel clouds!

______________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of
Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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