Moonrise
—Photo by Katy Brown
IN A NET OF HEMLOCK SHADOWS
—Katy Brown, Davis
Arachne, in the time of heroes,
wove a net from hemlock shadows
then cast it in the evening sky.
When the yellow moon rose fully,
it was snared in this device for
famed Arachne, bold and clever.
The moon, hanging in the silken sky,
strained to move above the mountains,
tried to mount the dark blue void.
Artemis, whose moon was captured,
formed a plan to set it free from clever
Arachne, weaving in her dusty corner.
She sliced the moon from full to quarters,
then a sliver, thin as wire, where it slipped
between the netting in the bluing evening sky.
This is why the moon progresses: full,
then half, then none at all— to slip the net
cast by Arache in a time of heroes
to snare the moon in a silken sky.
____________________
SILK SENSATIONS
—Mitz Sackman, Murphys
She misses them sometimes
Not that she didn’t enjoy
The time and space of her retirement
She remembers wearing those lovely scarves
Textile jewelry framing her face
The softness of silk
Sand washed, crepe textured
She loved flaunting those lovely filmy dreams
Blues, greens gold
She had loved them and they loved her
____________________
INDENTURED BY BLUE
—Kathy Kieth, Pollock Pines
Our marriage was Ice Blue,
like our bedroom walls.
Early on, we shopped
for the perfect quilt (Blue,
of course): expensive settling
into that end of the spectrum:
Sapphire all over a house
whose old heater wouldn’t
warm us: Cobalt coverlet
we pulled up around white
faces on dark winter nights…
Mozart, you called it:
let’s stick with Mozart, you
said: perfection, you decided:
what’s the point of the sense-
less intrusions of yellow, brash
audacities of brazen red?
I can still see you
in the half-light: brush full of
Periwinkle and Forget-Me-Nots
poised over a paint can: Mozart,
you whispered, burrowing your
head deep into the Cerulean of
crystalline sound as you spilled
Azure all over me and
our endless walls of
that Iceberg Blue…
____________________
Today's LittleNip:
READ THE LABEL
—Kevin Jones, Fair Oaks
She told me it was
blue silk, said
It was true love.
But what did
I know
Of the fabrics?
Turned out
To be pure
polyester
____________________
—Medusa
P.S. Thanks to today's contributors! Don’t forget the Sacramento Poem deadline coming up on March 1. Scroll down to the SPC section of our skinny blue b-board for details.
While you’re scrolling, keep on going to the very bottom for our new Ticklers section, including David Alpaugh’s Seven Deadly Guidelines, which those of you who submit poetry for publication will appreciate. Got any sites to add?
Sunburst
—Photo by Donald R. Anderson, Stockton