The Queen ties her rainbows from the ball

I entered the living room on Sunday in the late afternoon
with a basket of soiled laundry and on the floor lay the Queen,
sprawled out in a melancholy pool,
lyrics from her lips left hanging there aloft.

Drained and slightly dazed, she did not notice she had been singing,
her face was painted with dark minerals. Naturally,
she was shocked to see me, her pupils opened even more,
And her cheeks became velvety.

A little surprised to see her this disheveled way,
I asked if she was expecting rain-
teasing her mud faced tribal marks.
She said her body hurt, seriously, she had been dancing all night.
She did not want to break out.
With her toes pointed in my direction, resemblance spreads
like cold air. I am just stretching, she adds,
reaching out and away even more.

Interrupting us came a gentle tap-rapping at the door.
And after so many months of the same still frugal
air, the door began to swell inside its crust.
With a mustered force, she pried open the door,
as if held against her and boldly before her came an unexpected visitor,
A hint of something she mist, it had started to drizzle
and then it began to waterfall.
Her secret words had been heard, the clouds gathered to listen in.
We watched and welcomed this change of skies and days,
hearts and pace, pools of passing light and piles of cotton,
rectangles without edges, these divine Sundays,
spent simply
content in the castle with rain rolling around.
Another week cycles through and she has grown from Princess to Queen.
After all these loads I have carried, I  dutifully reflect the greys I've gathered,
the sun shifts and she thunders through
her bedroom, the walls tremble.
Busy casting rainbows by skipping stones,
she practices powers with her crystal eyes,
rocks, refracting pain into pleasure
from her chest full of gold

knowing she now controls the weather.








Painting by Xavier Mellery, 'The Artists Daughter' c. 1882 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ellipsis

.

The point was never to be asked

as to why or where

for it was only an aim

as if trying may turn

chance into favor.

..

We looked together

at the same art on the same page,

seeing two very different

images

before us in this self-portrait and

agreed only how much it resembled 

us, individually. 

...

Another reason to dig deeper

and to not avoid the back-breaking 

work or big fear,

is discovering 

that the work worked perfectly

for making castles with dirt

or other temporary shelters for our

homeliness. 

Painting by Colin Campbell Cooper, 1921 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The child contemplating comets

What color do you see?
The child asks her mother,
after reflecting-
The blue eyes take care of the oceans,
the green ones tend to grow everything
the brown, found all around,
those brown eyed bodies built the mountains
by blinking.
The child wonders what exactly
the sky sees.
Her mother mentions the birds in a vee,
points to the bees and
Honey-
The child sees no kindred spirit afloat,
she is grounded and feels pressure.
She scours around the ground
in search of relatives, by proximity,
puts them in a pencil box
after making them shiny,
and then she names them.
The child collects her rocks and hounds her mother
about the origins or babies
of granite and geode
and likes the lineage, the idea
of the clouds trapped in crystals
and how close purple seems to black.
How did the rocks, and
the sand the water get born-
She asks with her eyes squinting out at the night sky.
Were all stars once planets?
She asks that moonless night,
and feels sorry about the answer.
It will be back, her mother explains phases
and patience.
The child misses no more
and wonders what container would be good for keeping
stars. Look around, says her mother,
all that you are
is Here, touching her heart,
let the stars fall where they may...
Is that why my eyes are grey?
She remembers
as though it were as close as yesterday.


Painting by Edward Lear, The Marble Rocks (1882) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Decorating mud cakes

Apathy spreads so easily,

thriving amongst any localized

biodiversity.

Ears sprout in fields from yellow seas

of mono-cropping. The wind grinds down

our meals into muted mush, nourish us,

the sun glows, chicken,

adapting itself in ambiance to the best

propagation of pessimism and

immunology in world-wide webs.

Saturation is more suitable for delusional

desires by dreamers who water down rainbows

as casualty.

There is no wonder

anymore.

Where does the marrow go

when our spines shrivel...

Clouds cure any silly thoughts of happy

or stupid glee, i.e. beauty. Muddy skies slog unmixed 
clods and none bother asking why

Life continues this way.

Over our heads. 
We would never see any reason

for it coming

down

in all shades of brown and grey.
We wont look up. 

Painting By Rogers, Gilbert (MBE) [Public domain], c. 1919 via Wikimedia Commons.

Terra Firma

The mountains spill their dirt downhill

And the hills give up on the valleys

The palette mixed of mud and will

With wanton erosion to appease

Nothing one can keep for good

All things betrothed by buried Earth

In all trees being equal to wood

Why the emeritus mirth?

See the mounds abound the domain

And the offspring shoots rise above

No human souls whole may remain

If which no one should love

And take notice of roots strangled in fear

And the green lights trying to escape

What could grow without a drop of tear

If the soil won't stay in shape?

*Inspired by "Love's Philosophy" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Image By U.S. Forest Service ([Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Elkhorn Mountains, Oregon.