Wild Horses

There are still wild horses

in Nevada and Wyoming

mustangs from Spanish bloodlines

their hoofs strong

never shod

herd following a stallion

who is leader and protector

a spirit 

hard to be broken

easy to break it off

young ones

brought into the pen

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dVerse prompt on spirit.  The wild horses roam on BLM land and the herds are managed by the BLM.  To control the population, every year some are caught and brought to holding areas where they are tamed of their wild spirit and sold at auction.

I want to write like Dali

I want to write like Dali painted

disjointed

everything capable

of fluidity whether a horse

or time

or an elephant and rhino on stilts

elongate the llllllls

create more holes in the OOOOOOs

put a whole world inside just one

put a landscape on the table

a seascape in knees

find paragraphs

that grow trees

 

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dVerse prompt on surrealism

 

 

 

It is late…..

It is late and I am going to bed.  There is a scratching sound then it stops.  Could it be a bug or a mouse trying to get out of this basket?  I shake the basket.  No sound.  The sound comes again.  I look around and there it is.  A gecko is half in and half out of my writing book. It has clawed its way out of the pages of paper.  Bright green with little eyes, tail and hind legs still in the book.  I carry the book outside and free it like a poem into the night air.

Kudzu

a little satire comparing kudzu to racism

 

It’s called the front porch vine

grows over everything

makes for comfort with its shade

 

easy to propagate when you get tools

roots are huge and spreading

deep rotted

 

hard to pull out

just when you think you’re rid of it

here it is again

 

it can bring folks together

like a festival

a klan or a government

 

some use it for their own advantage

cultivate it

profit from its invasiveness

 

stir it in a drink

feels warm and good

when drinking kudzu tea

 

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dVerse prompt on an invasive plant— this was a prose poem which I reformatted into short Plath lines

On Edge

When the earth quakes, it could take half of a day to hear the news that people are buried in rubble of collapsed buildings. Others are more fortunate and come out at 4am trying to escape the 35 seconds of earth plates moving. Expecting more to follow, they wait in the streets of Tirana.

 

Back home we wait for the big one. Engineer stronger buildings, take down viaducts and go underground. The last one swayed trees and road as I drove towards Gazzam Lake. An hour later, the water in a huge tank off the trail was still sloshing.

 

somewhere a rogue wave

or volcanic eruption

thankful not today

 

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a haibun following the Albanian earthquake

Sweet Smell of Africa

Sweet smell of Africa

clings to my nostrils

it is in my bag

open it

my clothes unfold

a memory of singing

and dancing

under the night sky

fabric swirls

keeps the air

in its weave

releases

smells

of Ghana

Cote de Ivoire

 

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dVerse prompt to write a quadrille and use the word keep

Figs

I am sitting here eating sun-dried Greek figs, small, seedy and light skinned fruit. What variety of fig is this one that is so little and sweet? It is an Adriatic fig, pale yellow and sometimes called the white fig when it glows in the bright sunshine. It is brillant red on the inside and extra sweet, considered a dessert fig served with crème fraîche or mascarpone cheese, ice cream, or plain unsweetened yogurt. Or even better a sheep milk yogurt if you can find it.

Remember the fig tree that did not bear fruit? How it withered and died in the ground. “This is the barrenness of harvest or pestilence.”  

Now whenever I see a fig tree I look for the fruit. I want to see that the harvest is coming, or that it is here. Right now.

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dVerse prompt on season and using the quote “This is the barrenness of harvest or pestilence.” from Louise Gluck’s All Hallows.