MAGPIE...Prompt #204

                                  THE MILL, 1964/ Andrew Wyeth


THANK YOU, Tess at Magpie Tales



WINTER'S REVENGE

What stayed when you left?
Winter's revenge,
Loki's sting, an imp
doing handstands
on a frozen heart.

I'm tricked out
in saint's day regalia,
spinning snow angels
in the courtyard.

I find an improbable note
in a dead sparrow's mouth,

that spring,
beyond doubt,
lies beneath drab endings.

Pandora's box
sits on my hip,
emptied and icy,
lid up, without content.

I'm dreaming 
that a bit of sin
is hiding in the corner,
stirring up a pinch of heat
for your return.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #203

                                       MUSICIAN in the RAIN/ Robert Doisneau


THANK YOU, Tess...for Magpie Tales


NOTES

Easy to find blue notes today,
when the sky spreads
an electric ambiguity,
and chiaroscuro
sketches the clouds.

No shelter
can shield me
from a pounding
ancient god
singing bass.

The air hums
a Broadway melody,
tells the reason why
heaven chose us
to keep the beat,
to fancy a dance
in the storm.

I put my tongue out,
catch a drop,
drink the answer,
the music of rain,
the rain of music.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #202

                                                     LA JUMENT/ photo/ Jean Guichard


THANK YOU, Tess...for Magpie Tales....


FRENZY

Right into the roiling pot,
into the mouth of the whirlpool,
pasta will meet its destiny.

The water parts
like a biblical sea.

A salty reception
whips onto a frenzy,

as strands of lean beauties,
straight as straw,

fold into a fated
al dente perfection.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #201

             
                                                NEW YORK at NIGHT/ Vivienne Gucwa



THANK YOU, Tess..at Magpie Tales


FIREFLY

In a silver drizzle
we seem the same.
Some mistake me 
for a Mayfly.
Here today, cliche' tomorrow.

Well, no,
my wings are not yet
curled in prayer,
in a plea
for one more dawn,
half my life in supplication,
the rest in fancy.

I'm a Firefly, after all,
invisible at sunrise,
but a delight
in the nightfall garden.

I'm here in the dew,
there in the rose,
and suddenly
setting fire 
to that distant heart.

Caught in a jar,
set out on the grass,
I will light the way,

become part of the parade
to a galaxy unknown.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #200

                                                      SELF PORTRAIT/ Francis Bacon     

THANK YOU , Tess...for all the Mags...at Magpie Tales



BEFORE THE MURDER

This is me in front of the door,
the one where ghosts hesitate to glide,
and you said that was my portal of passage.

Little did I know.

Remember the day i plunged down the stairs,
and you said what more?
As if you had been hurt, not I?

Don't wish me bad I said,
but you laughed and whispered,
kill you most likely.

What more can befall me,
paintings building up in the corner,
stains bleeding onto the canvas,
sited where pain was lodged.

You want to know 
how much will they pay
for the further torture of your eyes.

I didn't mean for my art to please,
I didn't mean for my life to please.
I should have embraced, "smile please,"
instead of painting hell stinging the canvas,
the snake of Eden slithering out of the tube.

Now you see me with my soul intact,
before you struck your blow,
and couldn't tell that I was smiling.


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Let's have a Happy New Year!!

MAGPIE...Prompt #199

                                      MADONNA WITH the MILK SOUP/ 1510/ Gerard David


THANK YOU, Tess...at Magpie Tales...


FOR ME

Virgin, make me your child,
feed me from your cup
so that Spirit's light
pours over me.

Fold my hands
into a plea for harmony.
Pray that the constant storm
hums like a zephyr.

Virgin, stay near
all the children
in the garden.

Teach sinner or not,
your healing poetry.

When time slips
into darkness, Mother,
never search for me
with the voice of mourning.

Seek for me only in joy.

                                     MERRY CHRISTMAS / HAPPY HOLIDAYS


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MAGPIE...Prompt #198

                                         THE ICE CUTTERS/ 1911/ Natalia Goncharova


THANK YOU, Tess....for Magpie Tales...


COLD

I'm so cold without you.
My heart,
no longer a red fist
directing our traffic,
is lying in state.

My quiver is full of shards
that will kill,
if I release them.

Yet I pester to shake loose
from the ice house.

Once again,
waiting for your touch
to thaw my wintry blood.

I'll melt,
flow
into a wave of celebration.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #197

                                            "SEAGULLS" / The Guardian/ Eyewitness

THANK YOU, Tess...still aloft...Magpie Tales


PLUCK OFF

Part of me knows what's real,
pain lets me know.

If this plucking happens
when I'm awake,
my feathers pulled,
I will say stop.

Cry maybe bloody murder.

But in my comfort,
when a feather
is yanked from my wing,
in the midst of it,
I will fly.

Pain is a concept as yet
unborn in my dreams.

A hand reaches
like a shadow,

made of less than matter,
making mischief,
ruffling my feathers.

I'm bleeding
in a Hitchcock chiller,
no pain.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #196

                              
THANK YOU, Tess...Magpie Tales


COINCIDENCE

Either odd or expected, coming face to face with this week's Magpie photo.

I love ravens.  My daughter loves ravens.  We dont know why.  This week's Magpie pic seems to be of my daughter.  The image of her.  Cannot be.  But that raven wing...she might just say yes to that.

So she loved my poem last week.  She always loves my stuff.  We do that for each other.  And she comments.  Thanks, Dori.  She writes a blog for Huff Post.  Doesn't accept comments.  What class!

Last week I ended my Mag #195 with a raven eruption.  My daughter reminded me of the raven that flew down our chimney, years ago, at the ski house.  Once we were posh.

I do that a lot, get ahead of myself, project, predict.  Seems last week's poem, "Privilege", stood at attention, sort of waiting for this weeks picture to arrive.  Nice trick, Tess.  But I wrote that last week.  This is how the poem ended..

                " I'm hoping that my wings
                  will be a Raven's."

I do play a psychic game, coming up with the slightest glimpse of tomorrow.  Still, after all these years.  It's natural.  it just is.  I did it for years.  For fame and fortune.  Shhh.  Short on the fortune part.  Come to think of it, what fame?

Still like it when odd "coincidences" occur.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #195

                          AUTUMN on the RIVER/ 1889/ John Singer Sargent


THANK YOU, Tess...Magpie Tales


PRIVILEGE

Veiled within my swaddling,
I exhale a wish,
seekng a promise
that I become an icon.

I develop my heartbeat,
imagine what rapture I'll feel
when swathed in spendid regalia.

In the offing,
a chrysalis will peel,
thrust me out,
hang me by a thread
as my blood pumps.

I'm hoping that my wings
will be a raven's.


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As you can see by my header, my heart belongs to JSS.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #194

THANK YOU, Tess, for Magpie Tales..


DEAR JOHN,

I can't imagine that you will actually receive this.  Perhaps you have longevity in you as we do in our family.

By rights, we both could have passed on to our eternal rest by now.  This old woman, reading your letter, little resembles the scarlet tressed girl you just proposed to.

Did anyone know your mind?  I didn't.  We spoke rarely before you left the hospital, poor wounded soul, and yet our tiny flirtation seemed to stir within you a dream of permanence only now uncovered.

Life is so odd, don't you think?  I have sadly survived my sister Anne, who introduced us.  And she the beauty I was sure you fancied.  Yet here am I holding your letter, found neatly folded at the bottom of a faded bundle.

Who unsealed it and then put it aside, for me to never see, until a moment ago, sixty years later?

I led a good life, lost much I loved.  Perhaps similar to yours.  At the end we are all so much alike.  Looking for clues as memory fades.  Was this really me?

I wonder now if you survived the war.  Or gone perhaps these many years.  Maybe my words will just shake up your ghost.

Eyesight faded, I sit daily at the window of my daughter's home, wishing for life to be a dream.  Today it became one.  If you are still willing, I think I will say yes for you to come to call.

Fondly,
        Maggie


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MAGPIE...Prompt#193

                                      Danseus ajustant sa bretelle, Edgar Degas, 1895/96


THANK YOU...Tess...at Magpie Tales


THE POSE

In the wings,
away from the corps,
Degas
whispers to me,
the way,
and the answer.

An invitation
to pose after the dance,
a gossamer tutu,
a promise for fame,
as I step into a grand-plie',

take on an arabesque,
spin a pirouette.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #192

                           RESURRECTION REUNION 2 / 1945/ Sir Stanley Spencer


THANK YOU, Tess...Magpie Tales


ENTER RISING

They say we look alike,
it's the pallor of our cheeks,
the breath we gasp,
when we enter
rising,
wondering
what is this place?

Is it meditation, sleep,
death, exit,
entrance?

Which chakra are we jammed at?
I'm heading for the crown,

stop pining away at Plexus.

My lips already flash
a spank of tangerine,
yours, no question
need a lick of color.

How are we alike?


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MAGPIE...PROMPT #191

                                                        le Jardin/ 1962/ Max Ernst


THANK YOU, TESS...for Magpie Tales...


AMULET

My resolve cuts a swathe,
thinks it is the wind,
ceases.

I clutch a handful of detritus,
fools me,
looks like diamonds,
really a shard of glass,
flying,
sculpting an edge within me.

The wind stirs again,
a cloud
blows its cheeks
to comic effect.

Is it yesterday,
today, tomorrow?

Same clutch, release, bleed.
Demeter around my neck,
ancient amulet
caresses my skin.

Promises engorge me,
I'm the mother,
I'm a mother,

afraid that dying will end it all.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #189

                                                             image/ CRILLEB 50


THANK YOU, Tess, at Magpie Tales


ABOUT TIME

Got a minute?
There's one flying by,
looks like a Bird of Paradise,
just sliced itself out
of its speckled haven.

Pure before sin,
living its first minute
as infinity licks it clean.

A free pass,
then life spreads its wings.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #188

                      
                                                       PHOTO/ Mark Haley

THANK YOU, Tess, at Magpie Tales...


LADYBUG

As soon as the daylight
starts to bleed dry,
before red and blue
turn to purple
and die as grey,
I catch the rim of Venus,
reflect a gleam
that isn't mine to give.

Even as we hide
in the multitude of stars
and blades of grass,
we haggle our gifts again,

because memory says
there is a dawn,
and after seizing
the blessed boon,
I can awaken
as a Phoenix.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #187

                                              THE MOTH and the LAMP/ Cesar Santos


THANK YOU, Tess, at Magpie Tales...


CONSUMED

It's the first singe
that wounds,
an illicit touch,

the pretense
that I will endure
past the ecstatic gasp,
beyond nature's bribe.

Obsessed,
spent again.

I keep forgetting
the game,
as if breath
can be heaved in,

exhaled
in rapture forever.

I stay
to be consumed.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #186

THANK YOU, Tess..for Magpie Tales...


ON THE MAP

You put me on the map
so to speak,

so good at sketching other's lives.

Lover, friend,
life partner,
I'm up to date.

Gave me form and figure,
colored me in with Crayolas,
but you went over the line,
let me bleed
into undisclosed territory.

Lucky me,
critics always ready to comment
with a saving grace.

Many salvaged me,
made me fit their hindsight.

I became a double doppelganger,
mirrors reflected an eternity of me,

but every karmic comeback
left room to be desired.
Still a babe
knocking at the door.

Just let me in.


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MAGPIE...Prompt #185

THANK YOU, Tess..at Magpie Tales


"Oh waiter, please, I'll have some meat loaf, and some mashed potatoes.  A lot please...and oh yes, ketchup, please.  Thank you, sir."


1946 MEAT LOAF & MASHED POTATOES

2 lbs. ground beef
1/2 cup plain bread crumbs
1 egg
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup ketchup

Preheat oven to 350 deg. F.   Mix ground beef, bread crumbs, egg and seasonings in a large bowl.

Shape into a loaf on shallow baking pan.  Pour ketchup over top.

Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until cooked through.  Let stand 5 minutes before serving.  Serves 8.


MASHED POTATOES

3 1/2 lbs. Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes.
1/4 lb. sweet butter, cut into small chunks.
1 1/2 cups milk or cream
Salt and pepper to taste.

Cover potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil in a large pot.  Cook until tender, about 40 min., and drain immediately.

Use a potato ricer or electric mixer to mash the potatoes.  Add the butter and half the milk or cream and mix to a smooth puree.  Add more milk or cream if necessary.  Season with salt and pepper.  Serves 10.


You can have this in an hour.  Butter....cream...yes!!  This isn't the Orient Express.

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MAGPIE...Promt #184

 

ARTWORK/ Jeanie Tomanek

 

 

THANK YOU, Tess...at....Magpie Tales

 

 

 

UP A TREE

 

My inner dove

wakes me from a doze.

 

I find myself up a tree,

without an answer,

and what we call thought

 

passes in a flicker,

 

is waiting to be felled

like kindling.

 

This tree will fall

by art and aim.

 

I think to alight from a limb,

and if I land

in the vast

elemental sea,

 

pray I don't materialize

up the creek.

 

 

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