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Cold toes
Slip them under me I’ll warm them like they’re endangered species
But rest from words percolating as you thaw It’s far from spring
Sinking into the rhythms of our warming blood
chanting pheromones lost to icy blue snow
we morph like changeling far north foxes as the hairs rise on our skin
Our winter eyes dilating wide opening into internal circuitry
we go humming and sliding off the depths of winter’s edge
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~
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We’ve grown tired of being pinched by small rusted tacks
holding tight meant to toughen our skin
plastered like pictures cut from a magazine pinned to
our bellies our faces our sins
~
Listen you old schemers
we’re not looking for saviors
nor suckling blind messengers peddling your news
~
We seek grounding instead
in the wild fecund darkness
deeply cocooned in a memory unbound
Listening to choirs of winged ones spinning
from the silk of our own lightened stories now loosened
and taking flight from the sound
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Photo credit: felixinclusis.tumblr.com
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In the stunned summer sun
rows upon rows of
silent corn stand
their postures attentive
but ineffective
except in the order of things.
I hover somewhere overwhelmed
between grief and loss
Imagining
three sisters rambling in freshened fields
corn, beans and squash
a symbiotic sweet milk of the earth
~
The abduction of the corn
entered altered chastened
bound now to precision
replication
A singular armada of swollen ears
no longer listening
~
A survivor
I depend on the humblest herbs
too common to become a sport
Drinking teas steeped in wildness
we mingle in the blood
By moving together though
we gain momentum
Instead of rubbing salt
like two sticks to start a fire
lamenting these golden
hollow walls
~
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artist: Michal Lukasiewicz
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In a clearing
the ice covered pond
reflects the cool sun’s glare
~
sleeping dreaming waking
The green light at the bottom of the pond is kept on
~
The writings in books
are like skates on the pond
Cutting figures in the ice
while staying
on the surface of dreams
~
Mermaids come as night falls
cutting holes
from the bottom of the ice
singing their siren songs
to awaken the sleeping minutes
of hearts and minds
keeping time
~
While hurrying clouds congregate
rebellious against the moon
and I sit here alone
in dark wonder
watching the glow
from the warming fire
~
The bright moon
My breath in the air
All I hear is stillness
~
A living journal, my poems are weaving and circling around themselves…puzzles unwinding in a clearing…a dialogue now in waves more than starts and fits, editing me….
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
~
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/gomattolson/3238276252/”>gomattolson</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
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Along with 1000’s of other wildlings, Coyopa’s poem “Sometime a Wild God” stirs well the male embers. Mark Lewis’s reading is howling good.
As some of you may have noticed, December saw a flurry of attention for the poem ‘Sometimes a Wild God.’ I’m really not sure quite what happened, but I know that facebook was heavily involved. The site went from getting about 250 views each week to almost 20,000 just before Christmas. Yes, 20,000. Thankfully, we’re back down to about 100 a day now. Phew.
Perhaps it was the solstice, perhaps it was some fortuitous conjunction of the outer stars. Perhaps it’s just a mystery and that’s that, but I’m glad – there’s nothing that feeds a writer’s self-belief more than having lots of people from all over the world saying how much they like the writer’s work. And – in the wake of four years’ studying and a distinct lack of soul-nourishing-deep-water-poetry-inspiring time, for all that I’ve managed to drag up the occasional word-nugget from the poetry-veins deep…
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Dark glasses in the sun hiding blindness
I’ve been running ahead while looking back
until
collecting silent clues
I’m becoming a butterfly amongst the bees
winging it
as I find my way
down the dark passage
of singing shells
~
Finding a winter rhythm this year is a bit like being in a jerky elevator…..best laid plans, just get to the floor and open the door. The words coming slow in a weathered suspension, collecting clues from poems becoming puzzles….meaning pivoting on just one word … the rhythm finding me in a slow molasses changing well- engrained routines, unsettling boundaries used to the intimacies of osmosis.
Words embracing form
Even substance cannot slow to definition
the holiness of momentum
~
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
~
~
I step lightly between the landing of the animus
The muse who comes lifting honey
from the hives
~
Pollinating words penetrating
through veils
Boundaries permeable by light
still feeling the sinew and bones of intention
smiling around dark corners
unabashed
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Pregnant with Animus…keep it steady there © J.H. White
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We’ve never been a good fit
as I’ve skimmed across your surface
scratching at dust
looking for entry
The humus of my life is enough
to sustain each season.
Never enough it seems
to grow roots.
~
They counseled me,
” Don’t forget to breathe
when the trees
lose their leaves”
~
I watched those last brazen greens
that were stunned to new growth
by the sun warmth and rain of falling days,
their wildness ignoring immoral reason.
I harvested their leaves for winter teas.
Good medicine for this winter of my life.
~
The pulse now lies below
retreating
recollected
tucked in for reflection
networks of roots resting,
arms around each other.
~
When I too was brazen
I would empty myself with nights of hard drinking,
or when resolve quickened for release,
with bouts of high fever
Unaware of the pulse below
and startled by the clacking of human engagement
that other seasons hid from view with warm promises.
~
Now I have covered that distance between my mind
my heart
and have become a nomad in this civilized wasteland
as I follow the shifts in my perceptions.
~
My skin is a porous coat
I wear
in all weather
Trees
pray
in all seasons.
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
When I went to re-post this poem I discovered that it had originally been published exactly a year ago on the same date. It’s good to listen again, poetry being such an amazing dialogue with self, with Other …
~
I’m pedaling
slowly
It’s a down time
face up floating
a sea of heart’s desire
directed,
as night caresses
and dreams open like books
dissolving their meaning
no longer rigid
rising to the surface
for light and air
~
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Now deep in the hum of an extended writing project, I miss the relationship with my WordPress community. I wondered if I could keep up both directions in expression….the immediacy of day by day reflections and the task of organizing a larger body of work into a cohesive whole.
Still opening to deeper insight in the stillness of the night, nowadays after hours of the chaos of creative effort, I’ve decided to re-post some of the earlier poems, unedited. For me they are like talking with an old friend….calming, encouraging. Where am I today with these thoughts? Do they surface now with new meaning? I treasure the comments made and the friendships that have been nurtured with these seeds that were sown in this fertile ground.
The Poetics of Light 