Friday, August 31, 2012

Double shot - two poems on the eve of the blue moon!



Moon Gathering

And they will gather by the well,
its dark water a mirror to catch whatever
stars slide by in the slow precession of
the skies, the tilting dome of time,
over all, a light mist like a scrim,
and here and there some clouds
that will open at the last and let
the moon shine through; it will be
at the wheel's turning, when
three zeros stand like paw-prints
in the snow; it will be a crescent
moon, and it will shine up from
the dark water like a silver hook
without a fish--until, as we lean closer,
swimming up from the well, something
dark but glowing, animate, like live coals--
it is our own eyes staring up at us,
as the moon sets its hook;
and they, whose dim shapes are no more
than what we will become, take up
their long-handled dippers
of brass, and one by one, they catch
the moon in the cup-shaped bowls,
and they raise its floating light
to their lips, and with it, they drink back
our eyes, burning with desire to see
into the gullet of night: each one
dips and drinks, and dips, and drinks,
until there is only dark water,
until there is only the dark.

Eleanor Wilner

***********************************
Tides

A man on 26th Street sets moon flowers to start
in egg cartons on a table beside his bed.
Soon they will loop around the gray windows louvers
twining sweetness through his dreams.

Close your eyes, give way
and the sheets, yes, your skin,
are her skin and take the voice,
take your own hand with her voice guiding
and here are the flowers opening like time-lapse
photography--tendrils finding the small
pocks in the concrete, close now,
the moon of her face lifts between your thighs.

What is real? The man slapping potting soil
from his hands? A prediction of tides
from the lunar chart of water rings
the carton leaves on the table's wood finish?
And where is she? Whisper her name
and static answers, open the windows
and the silent trumpets of the flowers
dip and rise casually in the air.

Lisa Rhoades

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Pesto In August

How many times does this ritual repeat
itself, preparation that begins with sweetness


unlocked by the parting of leaves? How many
women have unpetaled garlic cloves, dripped oil


cold-pressed from olives down a bowl’s curve,
ground the edible seeds of pine with mortar


and pestle until the clay was sweet with resin?
Though the legend speaks of love, in Italy


when a woman let basil’s scent seep from
her clay-potted balcony, she was being modest


when she said the smell would tell a certain man
to be ready only for her flowers and her smile.


Tonight I steam pasta until my wallpaper curls
from the walls, slice heavy globes of tomatoes


that separate in sighs of juice and seed,
then toss them with hot spaghetti and the green


my garden has produced with sun, wind, earth,
moon, rain; I remember another legend,


that a sprig of basil given
in love seals love forever.


A clink of plates, of silverware, an overflow
of wine. Say, Love, I am ready. Come. Take. Eat.


Katrina Vandenberg

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Y, Y


You love ‘Y’, not because it’s the first letter
In your family name, but because it’s like
A horn, which the water buffalo in your
Native village uses to fight against injustice
Or, because it’s like a twig, where a crow
Can come down to perch, a cicada can sing
Towards the setting sun as loud as it wants to
More important, in Egyptian hieroglyphics
It stands for a real reed, something you can
Bend into a whistle or flute; in pronouncing it
You can get all the answers you need, besides
You can make it into a heart-felt catapult
And shoot at a snakehead or sparrow, as long
As it is within the range of your boyhood

Changming Yuan

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Dust


Your skin cells are still floating next to mine.
I see them moving in and out of the morning light.
Our scales are so small we forget
at times we are dragons,
Evolved from fish. From water.
We are water.

I cannot vacuum all the dust…
I cannot soap and water all the finger prints.
I cannot not know you.

We were both scales on the crown of a lizard,
Scratched off, we allowed the dirt to swallow us.  

We are made from neighboring molt and lava.
We are made from criss-crossing prisms of light.
We are two windows, open, painting sand
paintings between us with our fingers,
our fingers of wind.

Your voice is enough, just the sound of it.
Tin cans one in Tucson, one in Phoenix
Connected by twine shaking our shake.
The cords of our throats rubbing together.

I’m sending paper airplanes 90 miles into the sun,
Into the pit of haters, heat baked, concrete crusted haters.
No one will eat you, or steal you, unless you let them.

I let you, you let me. It is not stealing, if it’s given.
It is not eating unless it is shared.

How wonderful is it, to discover home
Exists more then once.
More then once.
More then once.
We can love infinite. We can love
As we see fit.
We create the rules.

Hibernating from hope

No damsel in distress, no knight in armor.
Only skin, only scales.  
No villain or venus fly trap.
Only vagabonds, only evocation.
                                                                           
Yes, dragons.
Yes, dancing as dust.
Yes, crooning.
Laying eggs, covering the shells with sand,
watching what we create crack open.

I am not scared of journeys
without hand rails.
I am not scared of you
Or of us.

I cannot vacuum all the dust…
I cannot soap and water all the finger prints.
I cannot not know you,
love you.

Maya Asher

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Enjoy the August Full moon in Aquarius & a Blue Moon Month!!


A Cave of Angelfish Huddle Against the Moon

Put an ear to the light at fall
of dark and you will hear
nothing. This pale luminescence
that drifts in upon them
makes a blue bole of their caves,
a scare of their scything
tails. They tell
in the bubbling dark of images
that come in upon them
when light spreads like an oil slick
and sea fans
that once were their refuge
turn away.
Now there is no dark
dark enough for their silver tails,
scatter of color
(like coins massively
piling in the lap of a miser)
that was, in the day, their pride.
How hugely here we belong.
This is their song
in the silting
drift of the reef.
They have never seen the moon
nor the black scut of night, stars
spread like plankton
in their beastly infinities.

Ron De Maris