El Dorado Hot Springs, Tonapah, AZ
—Today's Photos by Cynthia Linville, Sacramento
THE SEASONS
—Marchell Lyon, Chicago, IL
Her hair is silver like birch leaves
Like confection sugar gray strands
Sparkle like a crown about her head.
She scans her face through goggles of the past.
The skin on her body is less tight than years before
She has more wrinkles around her eyes.
Still she sees the beauty nestled with time.
The valleys of her skin are where
The shadows of her youth hides.
Like you,
She judges herself
Within the contents of the seasons.
She has known her spring.
Newborn feathers have carried her
To the next stage of youth.
She has known her summer.
Her skin tanned with blissed,
Her eyes shining rivaling the sun.
Now that the autumn of all things
Has become her tangled reality
She sees what she sees without denial.
She revels in this season
Before winter’s haze settles in.
Marching cold bullets and bearing arms,
She looks at her refection
Through the windows of her soul.
She is not afraid.
Jerome, AZ
SONGS TO SARAH
—Marchell Lyon
1. Dream Child
Let me cradle you
In the arms of this fable
Let me dream of you
Cuddling you with kisses
My fantastic child of air
To my dream mother
I have yet to round your body
I have yet to see
Your smile as I wait
For you with a heart full of tears
2. Waiting for my Dream Child
From the clouds the image
Of you has descended from heaven
To rock slow each night
In this moonlit cradle that will
One day bear your sweet name
I am a candle
In your heart’s window
The thought of me
Glows underneath your skin
This light makes our souls shine
3. The loss of my Dream Child
A coffin of feathers
I have dreamed
Your ghost has run away from me
To be a shadow rained on
Born to a home without love
I’m not your star in Heaven?
Why do you weep, Mother?
While I wait swaddled by God
It’s just a matter of time
Before we meet face to face
4. Birth of my Dream Child
You curl in my body
My little hope and star
I’m finally someone’s mom
I welcome morning sickness
I welcome you to the world
What are all these colors?
From light I shade my eyes.
I cry. You come.
I snuggle at your breast listening
Our twin heartbeat forever one
Artichoke Blooming, Phoenix Botanical Garden
Phoenix, AZ
WHEN THE LADY SMILES
—Marchell Lyon
(On seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time)
Through a thin grin
She manages liberation.
Forever freed from the bondage of her time.
Through sly smile
A forest fire of speculations huddled through the ages
In me, embers full with questions have found again the wind.
The lady has secrets, shrewd beautiful secrets.
She is a veil of laughter caught in midair.
She is either demure and sensual, an eye sore or an exaltation,
Her face is a maze full of strained expressive edges.
A false turn of conclusion, lost intrudes,
She sends my idle eye back to the beginning of the puzzle.
In her stately starched dress, she is never humble.
She is proud as a queen, cunning as a lioness on the hunt,
She is a mystery, an ecstasy captured in painted oils.
She is better vintage with time.
She will be forever ogled over.
Her name is her title.
______________________
FROM THE CHRYSALIS FALLING
—Marchell Lyon
A woman who in her stumbling found God’s grace.
From the sky she fell long before Icarus did,
Her eyes blinded by sunlight, her wings made of wax.
She is often without a compass to show her the way
Although she has paid her dues to be heaven-bound,
She has evicted herself from among the stars.
She is contented to stretch her wings but never does she soar.
She is a caterpillar still clinging to her tree.
A seed still dreaming, delaying spring,
And from the chrysalis falling.
A woman postmenopausal is a moth
Who arrives at a second life.
She becomes a new kind of silken serpent.
She is still herself, although she wears a new armor.
She is delicate, raising from the ash, a little less melancholy,
Each step she takes is enough to avoid all flames.
She is always on the watch for a green place to land.
When she finds none, she settles for a swanky retirement village,
Near enough, but not quite out to shore.
_______________
NEWLYWEDS AT DAWN
—Marchell Lyon
Ecstasy lingers at dawn.
A shirt spreads its cotton wings and carpets the floor.
The house is nude to all but awaking sounds.
Too many poems in her mind fade and persist.
A shirt spreads its cotton wings and carpets the floor.
A woman wakes, stretches about with energy and with grace.
Too many poems in her mind fade and persist.
In every room, morning muse warms the house.
A woman wakes, stretches about with energy and with grace.
From where he slumbers, morning coffee calls to him.
In every room, morning muse warms the house.
It is as if Mozart calls in flash symphony as sun plays between the blinds.
From where he slumbers, his thoughts dripping with dew.
His kiss, a dawn elixir on her blush face and soapy fingers.
It is as if Mozart calls in flash symphony as sun plays between the blinds.
The spell of love plays off the curtains—is it only a breeze? She is not sure.
His kiss, a dawn elixir on her blush face and soapy fingers.
Ecstasy lingers at dawn.
The spell of love plays off the curtains—is it only a breeze? She is not sure.
The house is nude to all but awaking sounds.
Giraffe, Jerome, AZ
A VERSION OF HAND WASHING
—David Wright
Here is a game we might call:
"Welcome to Hell".
Place a Bible beside your bed, ready for God.
Who cares if your reason screams "traitor!"?
Pascal said it so well:
"The heart has reasons reason will not know."
Ten minutes later, disgusted at your weakness,
Stash (quickly) that Bible and place
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" on the precise spot.
God is now dead, you are a
Free-thinker in a new, limitless world.
There is a "herd", and a despicable "they".
We're not one of them, we are awake.
Awake!
Then, self loathe the absurd elitism,
Stash (quickly) that "Thus Spoke...", and place your
Bible on the precise spot.
Repeat this endlessly.
Repeat this for thirty years, and
Get back to me so we can compare notes.
_________________
LA MIRADA HIGH, '74
—David Wright
an oppresive
tyranny of mediocrity.
a double-wrapped Twinkle.
molester teachers.
an opposition to free thought.
with big flat pasty feet, the moniker:
"Matadors".
_________________
ANITA DISAPPEARED
—David Wright
So I wrote my thesis for my
Biology Degree about the relationship
Between semi-permeable cell walls and
Nightmares. They would not accept it.
So I found employment with the taxi company, and when
With a fare, that
Old meter went "click”,
About then I started writing poems which
Easily found homes in the
Small presses, nothing more but
Nothing less.
And my friend Jim, from high school, became an oceanographer.
And my friend, Mike, from high school, became
Vice President of marketing for Microsoft.
Barry joined the Navy.
And Anita, my first kiss, disappeared,
Nobody can find her.
I strongly felt if we could just bolster those cell walls we might
Block nightmares and other unpleasantness.
And what else is modern life about than
Making everything pleasant?
Ruben at Harlow's, Sacramento, CA
RATTLESNAKE HIDE
—David Wright
He jumped on the wildest of the horses and in
Minutes he rode off on it
Heading true West, his inclination and destination.
The diamond ring he wore shined and caught the eyes of
Two bounty hunters, Dennis and Frank White.
Before they caught up it became night, and
He made no fires. There would be no
Pay day for Dennis and Frank, not that day, not at
His expense.
Though he had charmed the wild horse he had worse luck with a wild
Rattlesnake that saw right through his pretense, and
Bit him on the ass, which left a
Scar he would wear all his days.
Yet he survived.
Those are the facts.
For motive or meaning
Consult the wise.
El Dorado Hot Springs, Tonapah, AZ
MY RAIN TO BEAR
—David Wright
My rain.
They've had enough fun
at my expense.
They've exhausted all their
fuels, blasted out the coal and
fouled the seas.
Back to my rain, stumbling
out of the blue-movies movie house,
Drunk, on fire, with a hard-on,
Ready for some kind of kill.
Enraged. Debauched.
Beaten down again.
Rocking, standing before my
balcony window, hearing the party below.
A window smashed, cops come, flashing lights,
back seat of the cop car like so many nights.
My rain, a
squatter's rain, a
gypsy's rain, a
rain to uncover hidden crimes and
wash away the gods.
MY RAIN, a girl's tongue in my ear,
her Beetle's purring, her old man
watching from the stadium seats.
MY RAIN, a brutal farewell to happy endings and
hopeful starts.
MY RAIN, broken toys scattered and reeking of
Daddy's beer, daddy's whiskey, daddy's cigarettes.
MY RAIN, standing by my lovely backyard roses,
my mother's ashes and my father's ashes
inches beneath the damp soil.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
TAKING FLIGHT THE SUMMER OF '72
—David Wright
I tried wishing on a star but my
Hopes were dashed when it was
Really just a distant car on a hill, and
The pill I took an hour ago began
To fade. We had it made back in '72
When a more gallant star blew right across our eyes
And our skies were malleable to our
Own point of view.
They will forget us.
They will
Never catch
Us.
_________________________
—Medusa, with many thanks to today’s fine contributors for a hearty breakfast here in the Kitchen!
—Anonymous Photo
Celebrate Poetry!
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