The maiden and the moon

The lunar eclipse
the coming of which
Marian had languished for
for months
went by with such
momentary velocity

– Niebla ( © 2009 )

Written using Eclipse, Languish and Velocity from 3WW.

When it’s dry …

it doesn’t pour. (Opposite of “When it rains it pours”.)

Some of you (whoever you are) may have noticed that I haven’t been posting much for the last several months.

That’s because I didn’t have time – most of my life has been external, spent with work, projects and friends. It’s good to have friends!

However, occasionally I also deplore the lack of creativity. Creativity requires some degree of collection and time to oneself. I ain’t (quite) Frank O’Hara, who seemed to be able to do it all … party, work, jot down poetry on the run, listen to music, read, expand his horizon.

As I said, I’m not quite like that.

I’ll be off to France in a few days and will return – whenever that may be.

The end of a flight

The air was filled with the smoke and stench of the burning craft. It felt like a sanctity – the sanctity of this previously untouched space in yellow rock and sparse forest – had been desecrated. Death had trespassed, and its surly presence lingered. I, the eagle above, noticed.

– Niebla ( © 2009 )

Written using seven words from Café Writing: air, burning, craft, eagle,sanctity, space, surly, trespass.

As expected

She spoke
not a word

But an entire
world,

an entire
history

rose from
her face,

the slow
lowering of eyelid –

the covering up
of the sores

these eyes
keep seeing –

yet another
slight blow –

more of
the same

come
in the seemingly

endless
dread of life

– Niebla ( © 2009 )

A look at one of many faces one might see in India, Africa or other places.

For One Single Impression’s Word prompt.

One word

Posted for One Single Impression and One Word.

This is a photograph of a partially destroyed fresco from the cathedral of Ostuni in southern Italy. I’m not sure how old it is – but it is likely to be one of the older components of this originally Romanesque/Gothic church later “embellished” with Baroque kitsch.

To me it is a perfect illustration of the blur imposed by time – evanescence, transience, eradication.

At forty

I’m overweight, creaky,
have brownish bags under my eyes,
just read five minutes of Carlos Williams

This is a world I’ve left
I haven’t much good to say about it
(might I perhaps be denying the good times the good
to perversely justify the bad of these times?)

The Carlos Williams I have in my mind
is not really the doctor, it’s rather
the good looking man on one of his
New Directions paperbacks,
a guy with a scout hat,
sort of like a Mountie of poetry

Really, not a poet
There’s something to say for somebody who
delivered 2000 babies

And about me they (if they will ever bother)
might say: deliverer of thousands of lines
of infertile industrial prose

– Johannes Beilharz ( © 1999 )

Published with the author’s permission for Sunday Scribblings’ and Aging.

On the road

Yesterday it was a knife in the road.
That was easy – I went straight ahead,
following the lead of the blade.

Today I found a fork in the road.
Three-pronged. Now I’m at a loss
which prong to take.

Tomorrow I’ll find a spoon in the road,
which will make me go round and round –
in that oval spoon way.

– Niebla ( © 2009 )

Written for One Single Impression’s Fork in the Road.

The moon is a harsh mistress

Here I am glancing at her –
big pale cratered ball
in immense cold dark blue –
and, just like coyote howling,
elicit no response.

– Niebla

For “Moon” at Inspire Me Thursday.

Author’s note
For some inexplicable reason, I’d thought that “The moon is a harsh mistress” was the title of or a line from a poem by somebody like Thomas Carew or Andrew Marvell. Well, this is definitely not so – it is the title of a science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein.

A bridge

Bridge across Lake Constance in the heart of Europe – not on Sumatra as one might think.

Instigated by Photo Hunt’s search for bridges.

Open our wings

Something opens our wings.
Something makes boredom and hurt disappear.
Someone fills the cup in front of us:
We taste only sacredness.

– Rumi (1207-1273)

These words were sent to me by a friend as part of her birthday wishes, and they touched me so much that I had to post them here.

About Rumi