In The Right Light

 —Poetry by Sam Barbee, Winston-Salem, NC
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain

HOLDING TO ABSENCE
 
In the right light, anything
will disappear. Return to it
expecting wonderment,
but discover a random tongue
has severed intimacy—
a hard-fought trust
no longer persists.
 
Inanimate specter, grandeur
limped away.  For so long,
confident against all comers,
I strive to recapture a heartbeat,
the flutter we lived for,
sweeter by the breath.
Death too good for it.
 
Your ether lost in static,
now irreverent absence,
mist in a mirror.  I cling
to remaining fragrance,
even nondescript pleasures.
In the right light, learn to balance
the coming with the gone.

 

 

 

 
 
FLASH POINT
 
You spritz lavender on your pillow,
like a flavored ether.  I propose
a highball of dark-fired bourbon,
stouter than any apparition of love.
You request no elixir, no candle—
 
will answer queries in moonlight.
Point a pale finger, direct me
into poetry’s temple: granite steps,
Ionic columns spiked with twin torches.
Into a realm where it always rains.
 
Here our ghost ship moors.  Hulls
resolved to harbor, cargo of gold
and a chest of molten flaws. 
My questing stilled, velocity
squelched. Content
 
where you cremate vanities. 
Your palm offers a flaming pearl—
then clenches—reclaiming each trove
is afterglow. I must dream
what smolders there.

 

 

 

 

MEA CULPA
 
I want to dance a dance I was born to dance.
With you, my love.  No waltz, but Volta or galliard …
crawl over myself: up spine, pass privates, into curtsy.
Shimmy and shake, without lust. Pucker up
until the correct time for incantations and tonic.
Mondo, Rondo; mundane roundelay.
 
Born on the seventh day of the six month.
Seven come eleven, baby needs a new set of views.
Six destinies … one short of the pleiad.
Count-off eight days a week.  Escapade and sex tapes:
I resist being alone with remnants.  Portions:
Demigod, demitasse; seduce Demi More, bucket-
list-less.
 
Blossoms strewn, bled-out, still beautiful. 
Feng-shui blush, unique like white snow flake.
Ouija with a plastic snowman.  Mimic whichever
explains me best.  The bell serenades our nest. 
Across bitumen, under lumen; true north, due south. 
Erratum and revision; erection and myths.
 
Singing in the shower.  Comfortable furniture. 
Our uttered armistice sutured with anecdotes
as the tawny silver gleans remedies to queries
the fine china fails to answer.  Forestalled,
commonplace; next seconds lovely, but blunt.
Kowtow, cow-Tao; know-how, noels.
 
Anguish sweats against our cast-iron skewer.
Loaded shish-kabob spit, we broil scant silences.
Feign and swerve, shed the thin coat.
Cheap wine and tinsel clue us how to celebrate.
Scars toughen, scatter, obscured in gristle. 
Raindrop to flood; weep a dry tear born to weep. 

 

 

 

BY DESIGN
 
She was a blossoming architect.
Admired doors: in love with their options. 
Hung a poster displaying
Doors of America on our wall—
Manhattan to Miami Beach, Boston to Frisco.
All painted different colors.

She was sweet to me through winter.
A stiff March, with late frost . . .
branches and early jonquils struck down.
She plucked icy stalks anyway—
with devotion's throb—slid one-after-
another into a cut-rate vase.

Blonde braids, crystal blue eyes.
Could have finished the last wine, or borrowed
money.
Our last morning, she folded her soft gowns.
Her blunt kiss a surviving blossom to inhale.
After a tidy lunch, out our red door
she went, bearing her colorless bouquets.

 

 

 

 

 
NIGHT WATCH
 
Five planets in view tonight.  My universe
is insomnia's cradle where I mediate indecision
until the ceiling turns away.  Tonight, I doze
naked.  My vigil of dreams strips a horizon
of my lover's vistas, breasts, pelvis, eyes.
 
Salacious charade of light torments, a Vu
the only proof of hope, the key to align
us with our parodies that never reveal twilight. 
Your apparition translates all hints of boredom,
yearns for Venus and Mars to collide. 
 
Dawn will still host Jupiter and Saturn, but
sun gods will flick them from mighty shoulders
along with all others who revised heavens just for us.
I look forward to morning's shave and shower
to cleanse resilience of earthly immortals.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Perhaps when distant people on other planets pick up some wavelength of ours all they hear is a continuous scream.  

—Iris Murdoch

_____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that there will be

a reading from VOICES 2024 

in Camino today, 2pm. 

For info about this and other
 future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

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.

Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
under today; or there's an "Older Posts" button
at the bottom of this column; or find previous poets
by typing the name of the poet or poem
 into the little beige box at the top
left-hand side of today’s post; or go to
Medusa’s Rapsheet at the bottom of
the blue column at the right
 to find the date you want.

Would you like to be a SnakePal?
Guidelines are at the top of this page
at the Placating the Gorgon link;
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!