Running Away, Storybook Style

“Spinning Callouses”

Here nor there,
the music hangs,
notes nailed to
thin air. The road
connects two ends,
I sit at home with
my spinning wheel.

Frayed and spun
like bloodstained
straw, I wĪnd my
wheel and weave
my will…

I weave my will
and wĪnd my mind
around the steeled
walls and climb
the turrets
to the naked wind,
castle high and current fixed.

I leave behind
wild eyes, whispered prayers,
sacred notes of silence. Fire!
Shrieks, the helling of the holy – smoke.

I twill steel and iron words
into a bridge of shallow shadows.
Washed, unraveled, threads of ash and green.

Spin the gown and in it
find the doorway through
the floor, well worn, that
leads to silver, gold, and song

– bring the dance shoes you don’t love;
they’ll be dead by dawn.

Dance the weaver’s age old
thrum, tie the threads together,
write the floor you’re dancing on,
move your ankles faster, feel the floor
grow steam and swell, a bursting of
the underwell. Move through you,
move through me, the motions
not our own but pulled by well-stung
strings of ecstasy.

Purged
in the
morning
I look out
at the club with bouncing walls, take in
the church with chiming bells. There is
nothing new, nothing old, nothing
but sweat and prayer.

Nothing but calloused feet and hands,
and a closet short shoes, one pair.



(This poem is a re-imagining of a different poem from last year. It seemed to fit this collage, a musing on the world and escape, from Splashing the Divide. It's one of the last pages of this collage book. But that's OK. I have a lot of poems, short stories, and artwork to post.

As always, thanks for dropping by, and I hope you enjoyed these little snippets of my mind's wanderings.)

Faults

Forgiveness and Shame



Words don't come easy,
thinking, forgiving.
I don't blame what you said.
I love you.

Pieces of Perfection

Right now, from where I'm sitting, what's my idea of the perfect moment?

You can hardly see the bark or grass for the aging, jewel-crusted leaves. You approach the tree, glance around, sit. Back melding perfectly with the bark, you settle, watch twilight creep up on the world, watch the world whir along. Your hands absorb the warmth of a steaming cuppa Earl Grey, sweet and clouded with milk.

"The night is aging as the sun warms your face," lyrics from Alkaline Trio's "Blue Carolina," wafting through your head.

"And a song in my head that burns so good on my tongue."

I smile.


(more pages from my Splashing the Divide collage journal.)

Smoked to Perfection

("Smoked to Perfection" from my Splashing the Divide collage book)

Welcome to Wonderland! This tribute to my childhood favorites - Alice, the caterpillar, and good ol' Chessie (whose smile I drew on with Sharpie) - comes alongside a whole summer of my returning to Alice. There was American McGee's twisted Alice game, Tim Burton's film version and the TV movie Alice (with my favorite Mad Hatter portrayed by Andrew Lee Potts), AG Howard's Splintered and Unhinged, and the classic itself. For the last year, I've been developing my own reimagined Alice, in a nightmare world of archaeology and world mythology... And, of course, Alice art surrounds me in my home.


(One of my favorite artists, Robert Walker, made this print that's hanging in my hallway)

Alice may surround me, but she is a fitful muse. When she inspires, I tend to like the work, like this one:

“Wrinkled Path to Wonderland”

She wore blue silk
the night the sky bled
red as dawn, she walked
among the stones, the grass. The wind
chimed in her wake.

It was a wrinkled path
to the Unknown, only in darkness
shaped, and the absence of sound.
A thought was sewn
into impressionable
pre-sleep crevices. The moon fell,
a branded tear, unfinished tune,
haunting the edges of slate lake
where she painted rainbows
with her toes
in the salted water.

From there, she chased
crooked kittens, caught blue
caterpillars, grew-shrank/
ate two-sided mushrooms,
and swept delicate tea sets askew.

She woke facing herself,
a rippling mirror
taunting the sinews of
memory, stroking them
to sleep. Settling in,
the darkness black,
the walls thick,
the world a box
again.

The Red Dragon

When the cold bare knuckles of fall beat at the windows, before the dust-warm heaters came on, the bathroom was the warmest place to be. I would slip from my room, grab a few catalogs, and sit with my back against the closed door, half within a loose tent of blanket. There, I gazed at pictures of the worlds of my dreams. Design Toscano was one of my favorites - it had dragons, unicorns, mermaids, fairies - the whole shebang. I dreamed of them, of how big they'd be, what emotions I could attribute to them, how their eyes betrayed their histories. Ever since, I've collected knick-knacks that glimmer with untold stories.

For years as an adult, I eyed the Dragon of Stonebridge Castle wall sculpture. What I saw was not the picture in the catalog (see below):


What I saw in my mind was a red dragon, as proud as the Welsh dragon, as powerful as Smaug, and scaled like a river of fire and blood.

I bought the sculpture, telling myself I would bring out its inner palette...
which I finally did.

Here's the result:


Soon after, my partner added a fun surprise!

100th Post: Splashing the Divide's "Womanhood"

Woo hoo! Perhaps it is a minor marker, but reaching the 100th post feels pretty wonderful. I hope this site strikes something - a chord, a wall, a steel drum; that these words form a conduit, the spark of feeling a pulse again, the vibes beating outward, transforming to conform to the contours of each ear. Thank you for listening... with your eyes, of course.

(reaching for) the truce

Sweet pill:
he takes it straight
and passes on.
His ex-wife will be with us shortly.

Home:
long mirrored walls
he's painstakingly crafted.

All Right has fallen ill.

A white towel drops.