To sleep

For the dverse prompt.

They get you in the end, dreams,

you lie eyes closed, refusing to wake

and see the rain, the bills lying

on the doormat, reminders, final demands,

the sickly light in those eyes that

used to be so bright. They draw you back

into the sticky, sweet sheets of oblivion,

but the faces always morph into monsters,

the next door you open lets in the zombies;

and the dreamworld has no money back clause.

Better perhaps to wake and face the strange,

the twisted and the hard to take, perhaps

the bills won’t be so big and she’ll phone

and say she’s a little better today.

If not, there are always the pills that help,

to sleep, perchance to dream.

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Dreaming blue

Day six of OctPoWriMo and the theme is blue. Predictably, there will be blue horses.

 

Planet earth,

the endless summer sky,

a sun-spread chicory flower,

a secret blackbird’s egg,

a southern sea seen from white clifftop,

my mother’s eyes,

the pearly haze early morning when the sun comes up,

bright jay feathers,

the colour that enrobes the calmest dreams

and gallops them across green fields.

All this blue,

and like blue water it trickles through our careless fingers,

because there is nothing we will do to keep it

from seeping into desert sand.

Horizons

A puente inspired by Merril making me think about blue horses, and by watching a peregrine falcon hunting.

Some days there is no horizon,

no sharp edge to cling to with bitten nails.

Some days time slips into obscurity

like insouciant pigeons,

lapped up by the waving trees.

Some days there is no light, no laughter,

and I see no masts of tall ships,

white sails billowing,

 

~rising on the rolling blue~

 

of some skies a silver speck hangs

in feathered stillness until the stoop,

and the world tilts over the horizon’s edge,

comet streak.

I make a bird-wish that fills the sails

and rides a herd of blue horses eastward,

over the rolling fields of dreams,

to eat red apples from my hand.

Never

Another Jilly poem. A rhymer this time, inspired by the line:

“Such fragile wings”

~ Jim Harrison from Songs of Unreason

The firmness of your grip I thought was love,

The light in your deep eyes, a burning fire,

Together we would race the clouds above,

I never dreamed we’d flounder in the mire.

 

The songs I made could never reach my tongue,

Bright moonlit castles, daydreams fell apart,

I gathered roses, in the mud you flung

Their sweetness, nothing I made touched your heart.

 

You held me down when I reached for the sky,

I never touched the place where blackbird sings,

Against the blue, a slender perch on high—

You never thought I had such fragile wings.

My dreams for you

The subject of the Redon pastel drawing is Pandora, but what she seems to have released is beauty.

I dance among the debris of my dreams,

Scattered in a cloud about your head.

They fall as soft as feathers, shine as bright,

Though you may never see or taste their light.

My arms are full of moonbeams, roses sweet,

And robin’s song fills every heart but yours.

Listen, to the truth his music brings—

There is room for you and all your fears

In these silver arms, where moon-sweet beauty sings.

Night secrets

As was to be expected, the oracle produced a mixed bag this morning.

 

Like a chant,

raw and bitter,

a black wind blows,

ripping through sea mists,

it storms the sun,

putting dreams to sleep

in the shadow of the moon.

 

The promise of light grows,

through the gentle night.

Winged music

and star songs run,

river-like,

into the sun.

 

Listen!

At dusk the breeze grows gentle,

full of summer secrets

and river songs.

I follow the path

through the quiet shade,

where the wild earth breathes

in bright blue peace.

 

Night growls its secrets,

steely fish listen to angel voices.

 

Drink this cool cup

to the dark sky,

embrace the rhythms of the dance,

wake up to joy,

slowly sailing

the wild salt ocean

of my heart.

 

 

 

Spring struggles

Spring struggles on the quickening bough,

The tender blossom’s falling now,

Pushed by uncurling leaves.

And you, my life’s brilliant dreams,

That grew at night when moonlight streams,

What brash new vision breathes,

Supplanting with glossy mirror tricks,

Your luscious rose-scented fabrics?

Whatever; my heart grieves.

Shadows on the sea

The oracle sent this rather beautiful but melancholy message this morning. I’ll try again. She might have more to say.

 

Shadows on the sea,

red moonshine or rust?

Love is cooling,

and beneath black water,

no tiny symphony soars.

A sad day,

this death of dreams.

Breaking ice

Twitter poem sequence.

 

Bound about by freezing fog,

captive in a sea of ice,

I reach out to the sharpest star,

round my fingers wind its hair,

feel its glitter in my blood,

shower you with wishes.

 

Breaking the ice,

fateful stars look down,

shards of glitter

in the dark water.

Cold the earth, the sea,

in winter’s grip,

warm, your hand

in mine.

 

Seas of stars

roll above the winter night,

too far, too bright

to feel the cold,

basking in moonlight,

patiently waiting

for our dreams,

the colour of yearning,

tingling with the taste of summer honey,

to spread their scarlet wings

and take flight.

In the wind

In the wind, dead leaves are flying,

Drifting gold on silver water,

The river running to the sea.

 

Blackbirds chase among the branches,

The fruit that shrivels on the vine,

In the wind, dead leaves are flying.

 

Autumn sun sinks, pale and failing,

Like dreams that gleam just out of reach,

Drifting gold on silver water.

 

Though last beams end their flight in shadow,

Hand in hand, we watch till night falls,

The river running to the sea.