Splashing the Divide: New Collage Book

For show
For tell -
these are for naught.

The flow of thought
if pure and clear
reveals the soulspring
in all its gears,
the inner spark
and all its dark
that leads the way
through years.



Welcome to my newest completed collage book, Splashing the Divide. Collages, found poems, and general reflections - page by page- are on their way. Delightful project from the moment I sewed the cardboard covers and inner pages (hand-dyed with coffee, tea, herbs, and spices) together to when I completed the last collage, completely out of order.

Today's Poem: An Older Me to a Younger You

I met you when I
owned the grass,
the bricks, the paths
we walked. I, me, and mine,
all. When I saw your
eyebrow raise, I frowned and
thought, “What a drag.”

Years spun nets,
suns and moons fled upon the backs of
the seasons: yellow, green, golden, white.

The world taught me
that It is all of us, that
we, together, are the world. A path
is simply tread by all;
a brick, a common pool.
The grass is God’s and God’s alone,
as is the sky, and time.

The young blaze brands:
I, me, my, mine. I see the world labeled,
shake my head and
feel - wiser, old, a brimming crone,
but new and wet and young, too,
moreso now than then.

I see your eyebrow wiggle now,
it is my tongue, I
mirror it
with an added twist
of wistful lips,
a heart filled
with the need to
be filled,
to claim nothing.

Somewhere in that
heartbeat, we
cross paths
again.

Sweeper of Days

This hour is a scraggly broom
sweeping away the dust
scraps and broken songs
of the day.

The hearth is warm,
glowing, and inviting like a home
should be- the place
to start from - to return to:
the dry Welcome mat
at the end of damp grass,
the brink of wildflowers and fireflies.

Red rusted gate
shuts out the clock;
here, it’s always early
afternoon in orange-tinted autumn,
brazenly blazing, "I am here!"
illuminated by
stars strung like cobwebs.

It is the witching
hour,
bristles scrape against the wall,
sweeping another day
another place
another memory.
Another beginning, now.





(This is an old poem, from 2008 or 2009 tinkered with, resurrected... but the broom never quite left my mind. Soon, I will post images - collages, craft projects, colorful visuals that are so intermingled with my words. I have a few short stories, too, to post. And, of course, an endless supply of poems. This summer is a cool, dark well of words - I perch on the stones, lean in, and listen.)

Summer Nights

Wine tinkered nights
fall prey to
the swayings of the moon.

There is a hiccup
and teacup giggling
as a foot darts
in a compulsive path,
a circle dance
in a sort-of square,
amidst other
wanton whims.

I see what you see -

I sense
the divine
in a salted tide
churning at dawn –

I sense
us whirling
into the wide
whispers, celestial
pawns spinning
in beautiful,
inevitable
deadlock,
partners
in a waltz of
wine
and wind
and wants.

Once upon a time,
a new moon
obscures.

We howl,
and it’s
ours.

Fluttering Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald was
a wild-hearted man
with tame eyebrows. His
shadowed eyes eclipsed
by sharp lines of his nose,
the bloated thump-thump from his
smooth chest ticked the moments
in his lovers’ ears.

A wild-hearted man
seeks a wilder-hearted mate.

He is
destined to be scorned by
glass-box hearts
and mothball ears
and gloves made of
still-furred skins.

He is destined to be scorned
by me.

I was
too bad to be good
and too good to be true

made-up girl
with talons and fangs
with the surest smile
you ever did see -
A Cathy, specter of spirit upon the moor
and Alice perched on the fluff of mush
room where Stella can still scream, flushed.

(if I had been real,
I would have had ears
I would have had eyes
I would have been wise.
I would have loved unabashed,
dismantled our masks
tattooed your heart
on my skin o’er my ribs,
my talisman,
a war medal
promising
peace.

And then
I would have started
all over again.)

The Man in the Moon

Sometimes, just like in Diane Duane’s So You Want to be a Wizard, a book jumps from the shelf and snags you. What recently snagged me, like a nibble on my finger: The Man in the Moon by William Joyce.

With magically dazzling and opulent illustrations, the story is engaging (satisfying even for grown-ups). It begins in a sort of Space Exploration Golden Age, when all was right with the world and grand ships traversed the galaxy. Not to give too much away, the Man in the Moon cares deeply for earth’s children and works to make the world better for them, even in the face of great darkness.

The Man in the Moon marked the first of an entire Guardians series Joyce had been working on for 25 years. The stories he told his children sparked into flame, becoming an intricate, consuming world. And so Joyce wrote and illustrated a combination of picture books and chapter books to tell the stories of the Guardians of Childhood.

I was so excited about the book that I recommended it to my cousins, who looked at each other with squiggly eyebrows and asked, “Doesn’t that sound like the movie we watched? Rise of the Guardians?”

And it did.

So the next day at the library, I checked the “R” section of the Children’s DVDs. Sure enough, the front cover of the DVD case depicted the characters introduced at the end of Joyce’s book, The Man in the Moon. I watched it as soon as I got home.

I was soon a little disoriented, however, because (*Spoiler Alert!*) the nightmare-causing villain, Pitch Black was sort-of vanquished in the book, I thought… so why has he returned? (*End Spoiler.)

I was worried that perhaps the author had been cast aside in favor of the show-biz bureaucracy, but it seems he was an executive producer (along with Guillarmo del Toro) and Joyce’s Guardian books (including Man in the Moon) were given credit.

The movie was even dedicated to Mary Katherine Joyce, his daughter, who died at the brink of adulthood of a brain tumor. The Guardians books are based on the stories he told her throughout her childhood.

Even without the heart-rendering personal narrative behind the books, I was hooked the moment The Man in the Moon touched my finger. I’ve since read the picture book The Sandman: The Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie (which was beautiful but less substantive than The Man in the Moon) and have scribbled the other Guardians of Childhood books on my summer must-read list.

I shall leave you with Jack from the film’s parting wisdom: “So when the moon tells you something, believe it.” Even if the moon is a snagging book. Or a nagging voice in your mind.*




*I suppose if you’re more cynical, you’ll say this is nonsense. But even if that were true, at least nonsense provokes, stimulates, inspires. It’s the Unknown, and it can be filled with adventures.



(Hello, friends, and how the time has flown. The past month brought transformation and transition. In a way, I suppose I was off gathering inspiration, gaining experience, soaking in the world, and settling back into my bones. What a lovely summer it is!)