Cloud Keeper from the Tales of Fae Acting Co.
Time Travelers' Bazaar at Great Escape Games
on Howe Avenue, Sacramento
—Photos by Michelle Kunert, Sacramento
—Poems by Allison Grayhurt, Toronto
WHAT DAY?
What day will I be like a stallion,
copper-coloured, brimming with
restlessness and love?
What day will I be looking at the lusting sun
and still remember the small—small
as a mouse's eyes, small like a dew drop
or a sparrow's swift heart?
What day will I know my luck has run out
and be brave with such a secret?
What day will the fear leave me
and when it does will I be warm and will the nightmares
limp out to rot in the backyard,
gaining nothing on eternity?
What day will I lose my shoes,
run my road free of judgements and
the cold ghosts haunting, in pursuit?
What day will my being sleep,
sleep like a sculpture,
unknowing of hunger, unaffected
by its own inadequacies.
What day will I be like a stallion,
copper-coloured, brimming with
restlessness and love?
What day will I be looking at the lusting sun
and still remember the small—small
as a mouse's eyes, small like a dew drop
or a sparrow's swift heart?
What day will I know my luck has run out
and be brave with such a secret?
What day will the fear leave me
and when it does will I be warm and will the nightmares
limp out to rot in the backyard,
gaining nothing on eternity?
What day will I lose my shoes,
run my road free of judgements and
the cold ghosts haunting, in pursuit?
What day will my being sleep,
sleep like a sculpture,
unknowing of hunger, unaffected
by its own inadequacies.
Stone Keeper from Tales of Fae
A DEAL
He spoke in half-measures,
justifying each moral-ill.
He spoke of relativity and of substance
in the greed of the superficial.
He spoke to me under the rooftops
of the rich, caressing me into believing
that there was no absolute truth,
demanding the fingerprints from my body and each drop
of my worldly self-worth.
He came to me with gifts for my children
and wanted my gratitude eternal, my nodding
and smiling and happy-go-lucky awe of each
of his earthly treasures.
He offered me ease without relief and
a Sunday-morning-only duty.
He brought me down, brought me into
his thick shadow for a day. For a day
he confused my heart away
from its steadfast meat, fragmented my mind
at the feet of his brittle god.
________________________
CHOICE
I will sink your boat and struggle
with your scaly arms.
I will not let your hot sea swallow me
or let the light I earned from the birds
be extinguished in the deadness of your embrace.
One time, I was gentle with myself.
I took the remedy and widened my path.
Then you, with your ashen red-soul minions, ripped
the blood from my throat and I have been lying
here ever since, a victim—not the woman
I was made. I am not fragile, but I am of the sun
and of the darkness and I know the pure joy
of home. I cast you from my heart,
you who stole my fire, left me
weak-kneed and dependent upon an outer outcome.
Guide me down the shaft of this axle,
let my strength rise, dependent on only you.
I am not a single voice, ghostly in the darkness. I am
your servant—let me serve you—release me
from this fatalism, this consuming toxic tar.
Stand by my window, I will fight to save myself—
it will be just you and me at the bottom
of this grave and the demons I allowed in
and allowed to conquer.
At the bottom of this grave, I will cling to you.
Raise me up. I promise, my part will be played—
I won’t let go.
White Lady of the Wells
NOTHING
Nothing is wasted—not
time deposited into an illusion that
never was, not love laid out
like a sliced fruit, taken, then
spat back out—so utterly tasted and
so utterly refused.
Nothing is wasted, not women
counting the babies that once graced their arms,
now grown and gone, so rarely showing
tenderness or need—
not men who were babes, who were once able
to weep and were able to treat all with
unquestioned equality.
Nothing is wasted, not years spent in ambiguity
walking hospital halls, years of blood tests
and ultrasounds, offering no cure or
nameable disease.
Nothing is wasted—not poverty, not wealth,
not death, not grief.
Nothing is wasted if held out to God
held out, naked on a bed, under
the cracked ceiling.
Wood Sprite
THE LUMINOUS LIGHT
The settling light
that bends a path through my woods
is placed again into the chamber and
has constructed something miraculous.
It has brought what was needed to the forefront
when the shattered, the held-together-by-a-pinprick world
mastered the decree of reality,
and all around and before was grey
and sheered off wings,
when it was hard to remember childhood trust
that trusts that every engraving on the bark
of every tree is deliberately carved with love,
that the sacred purpose of that love is absolute love, is
the purpose—and yes—there is no other plan but
to return to the moment of sweet creation.
____________________
Today's LittleNip:
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat.
And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
—William Shakespeare
____________________
Our thanks to Canadian poet Allison Grayhurst from Toronto, Ontario for sending us her fine poems, and to Michelle Kunert for photos of the recent Time Travelers' Bazaar in Sacramento. Our Seed of the Week is Voyages, and today we traveled both in time and distance, thanks to these two! Allison was featured in the Kitchen on May 11 of this year—don't be a stanger, girlfriend!
Note also that, thanks to Michelle, we have a new photo album on Medusa's Facebook page: A Hot Night of Hot Poetry, featuring some readers from Sac. Poetry Center's event held in Fremont Park last Monday night. Check it out!
—Medusa
Mermaid Aimee from Sacramento Mermaids
Time Travelers' Bazaar