flowers by the chapel by the sea

Thanks to Rock Rose - this image was taken by her, and captures what I imagine the landscape of my poem looks like. Check out her blog and her "Small Plants for the Sunken Garden" post.


My mind is a chapel
carved from rock meeting
tongue of the sea, licking
away the centuries.

The beach is sonorous dips
of prayers sung without words,
gut-uttered, offered to the wind,
the waves, the simple tides of
time. There are worlds within worlds.

From the belltower, I can see
three flowers. Each sings. Each
shines with the seams of Fate’s fickle
threads woven to Transpire.

Emerge the first flower. See?
Hugging the cliff, there to the left,
just beyond the sea spray, the wire fence
to fend off sheep. Look through the lace of
the reeds, there. Yes, focus on the purple head,
poking from beyond the fence, the single flower
in the mist of weeds. She is lovely, is she not?
She is the sharpest, melodramatic saccharine,
as such, she stings. Her name is If
Only. Pluck her, and bleed.

Back to our safe stone, hewn from the cliff, the peace
full place of worship crafted for the sake of sanctity,
sanity. From here, look to the sand path, worn, its border:
skeletal shells, wily bracken, and the pale white flower,
petals like pointed rays of moonlit beams, whispering their
secrets like stars to the far corners of the universe.
Whispers because they haven’t found their voice.
The blossom must look deep, but it is proud and frightened.
Try to pluck, it will recede. Oh, and mind the bees.
Guardians of all that Is.

But there is one other flower this old chapel
sees, one other flower that calls to me. This one is
yellow and big as a bowl, follows the sun, swallows me
whole. She is so bright that she almost blinds, hers is the
flower that captures my dreams. She holds in her petals
the paint of delight, the plan for the future, the Want
to Be, the seductive howl of a new-moon night.

Together, they set my chapel
humming, fan my skin aquiver,
a breeze skimming the smoothest
pool of my neck, my flesh
set aflame even as it freezes,
the pleasure and the pain, weathered
in the crumbling call of the chapel bell.

The world I know
I will only know
the way a child knows a beach:
bucket by bucket, she builds a sandcastle,
then mourns when the wave clears the slate clean.
Propelled by unknown forces, she plucks and leaves
a flower in her wake.



Inspired by and written for Real Toads' Play It Again, Toads #18. I glimpsed at Writing the Inside, Out, but mostly used the pictures of the three flowers for this one. Thanks for the fun prompt!

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.)

Where the Words Went

Inspiring Artwork: The Storybook by Catrin Welz-Stein

(Catrin has a great Website that provides endless, fantastic surreal browsing experience.)

I scour one after the other
each page
looking for a fingerprint,
a word, a tear,
a sigh(n).

The script
screams
in sudden
emptiness.
Where have all the words gone?

They seemed so important
yet when I had them,
they died on the tip
of my tongue or took
dust moats as sails
brandishing swords
targeting onwards,
drawn to the hum-thrum
of my eardrum.

I swat them away,
keep looking
in the old places,
brittled pages.

Around me, the lost
words break loose,
a deluge –

I am caught in the storm
of invisible droves,
flashing letters,
falling words,
ghost whispers
twisted in a gale.

They strike like rain,
but
my eyes blind and
the fevered search
continues.

A Doll in Bute Park

In Chicago, this April is still almost-spring: snow piles still cling to building crevices, crocuses uncoil just to have epic winds and low-30s temps bombard them. Winter has come, and it is not yet ready to go. For whatever reason, this in-between atmosphere is taking me back to one drizzly fall morning in Cardiff, now many years past.

I am walking in Bute Park over damp orange leaves and green, green grass. An early-morning mix of mist and fog jumbles the corners of my sight; only a lonely jogger joins me here. The planted, tamed trees rebel, their roots jutting up through orange and emerald foliage to kiss the wet, lichened stones. It is a gray day, of the almost-white sort, the type of day when restlessness broils up through my veins, itchy.

In a book in my bag, I have a little woman.

Home printed vintage pictures are my bookmarks du jour.

Today, I think, she belongs here, in this park, out of the closed-in world of unread pages: the hooded doll venturing into the drizzle.

Searching for...

“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.” – Margaret Shepard

This must be the passage of fabled lands.
Every artifact is evidence of
haunted landscapes we touch to capture,
but there’s nothing we take
that will forget time.

We are places of remembrance, keepers of the myth.