“Though lovers be lost, love shall not;
and Death shall have no Dominion.”
Dylan Thomas
House of Dreams 1-3 /6
1
The clematis unfolds
bruised purple on the porch.
Jazz piano:
beneath the black
and white hammers
of ivory keys,
old wounds crack open.
A flight of feathered notes:
this dead heart
sacrificed on the lawn.
I wash fresh stains
from my fingers
with the garden hose.
2
The evening stretches out
a shadow hand.
I feel my heart
squeezed like an orange
by long, dark fingers.
Somewhere,
the white throat
trills its guillotine
of vertical notes.
I flap my hands in the air.
They float there,
white butterflies,
amputated
in sunlight’s
net.
3
The light fails fast,
I hold up shorn stumps
flowers for the night
wind to heal.
The pale magnolia
bleeds into summer.
White petals
melt on the lawn:
early snow.
Sparrow sings
an afterlife
built of spring
branches.
I like the bird songs/calls and the way you express them!
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Thanks, Jane. I can’t do the bird calls as well as you do! Each to his or her own!!!!
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That guillotine is lovely!
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I have just read it: a pure knife-edge of song that slices the moment into two separate pieces.
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Beauty and brightness and darkness and death. Such stark contrasts! Is this the stuff of dreams?
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We are indeed the looms upon which dreams are woven. I hope you too can sing about the joy of spring branches!
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Surely! However right now it’s more like steamy air and the hum of cicadas!
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Cloudy here with rain forecast. Clare’s birthday today: I have just painted her a B’day card. Sun just breaking through the clouds as I wrote that and the cat now has a shadow.
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Wonderful! I hope she (and you) have a great day! 🌧☁️🌥⛅️🌤☀️💛
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Thanks, Tanya. I have always enjoyed the poetry sequences from Though Lovers Be Lost. It is a pleasure to share them. My Dylan Thomas moments!
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Roger, you had me at…well, everything: the bruised clematis, the ivory keys, sunlight’s net.
Wonderful!
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