Flightfeathers

The Bayonets

2010-01-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Three bayonets lie quiet in the chest,
brought from the second final War by my father.
German bayonets, dark and solid and precise.
Their steel is hard with pride and assurance.
It is dark blue with age and quality.
I once asked my father how he obtained them.

He said he took them off some German soldiers.
I assumed the men were dead. Perhaps it was not so
and my father never said. His field, intelligence,
rendered him silent. But I think that if I had been a son
we might have had a beer, late
in some American place
and he could have spoken more.

It is hard to tell a daughter about danger,
the stench and the catch in the throat
when the planes fly low overhead,
and rubble and bones trip your wet boots.
It would have been hard for my father
to speak of the young men, as well-trained
and proud as himself, as sure of their Furhur
as he of his Freedom.

Did they lie motionless, their blond hair stained with their blood?
Did they hand over their weapons to the trembling American officer?
Some part of me, as German as they, hopes he took them prisoner,
an exciting and honorable moment.

Some other part, knowing his more vital role
imagines that he lifted the bayonets thoughtfully from a table,
from the table full of documents, hard won.

Or perhaps he took them from the fallen in the fields
and a pale young face and darkened hair, lying peaceful in the grasses
reminded him of the sleeping newborn girl he'd left behind.

The bayonets, ready to defend or attack, lie mindless and proud
in the chest.

Self-Portrait

2010-01-10T11:17:00.000-08:00

She is strangely beautiful
this woman in the mirror,
a bit more than sad, just at the eyes
the mouth too easily laughing
as if nervous you won't.
She drifts as you speak to her
catching only half what you say
but most of what you don't.
She will remember your pet's name
but not yours.

She is strange and sometimes beautiful
this girl in woman's muscles
driving the mature bones as if newly licensed.
She is skeptical of her own heart's guidance
but has learned, at least,
to listen to her cat's.

She is strange and sad, beautifully
graceful under pressure
rising to an occasion like a dryad from an oak
performing acts of sacrifice
to appease a host of gods
turning in silent sadness about her solitude
wondering like an old woman
where all her friends have gone.

Paris Morning

2009-12-31T09:20:00.001-08:00

Somewhere past the cafe
whispering airs
above the coffee machines
floating on the scents of lemons
waiting without sight
on the fragrance
of rain washed cobblestones
clear light smiles
moving through artists.

Places

2009-12-31T09:17:00.000-08:00

Birds do not sing into silence:
the grasses sing into the winds,
as Mistletoe rustles on the leaf-rattling
brown Oak, whose leaves whirl and click
swirling down beside the long lane,
where birds find seeds and small things.

Wheels turn circling great wheels.
So no bird sings into silence.

Openings

2009-12-31T09:15:00.000-08:00

Love needs no introduction to begin,
as seeds lie silent waiting for the sun.
A light that lingers in the eye is all
for flowering unfolds each petal slow.

Passage

2009-12-10T18:06:00.000-08:00

Slip silver sadness glistens like frost
gathered crystal by crystal point
delicate as lace and as old.

Quick metal hardness shims into place
garnering the leverage for the tilt
gradual as the sliding shadows on the moon.

Night withered blossoms wait on curved stems
weighted with blooming done past
patient as stones in a cave waiting for sunrise.

One is Not Enough

2009-06-19T17:29:00.000-07:00

I want my flowers curving,
their petals embracing space
in all its magnetism, quantum fluxes
and multiple dimensions.
I want lascivious sensual magnetic
lines and lemniscate sepals.

I desire splendor.

Let petal edges fractal,
curving to infinitesimal details.
Let the electromagnetic spectrum stand aside
in awe, muted before the frequencies
radiating as my colors.
Flowers are the creative universe recreating
joy in infinite non-repeating variation -
(relatively speaking) -
so give me flowers where I can nestle
deep between stamen and stigma
asleep on the labellum
until I slip light shifted,
asymptotically
diminishing...

What Pain

2009-06-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

What pain lies falling on the edge of knives
fades into orange-red aching at the wrist

why do silver mirrored edges glide so easily
through unprotesting skin that weeps in red

but where is the ache located
and can it be surgically removed.

Reply to John Payne, a kyrielle

2009-06-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

They do not end that cease to be.
Petals fall slow and purposely.
Bees leave at dusk for tomorrow's morn.
All things that end must soon transform.

The Earth turns round, a cycling sphere.
Seasons bring salmon over weirs.
The dying fish leave hatchlings born.
All things that end must soon transform.

Tide and Moon join the surging sea.
All things are bound, like flower and bee.
We each shape each and change our form.
All things that end must soon transform.

The loss of one is but one end.
A pause, and then begin again.
The loss of one, be free to mourn,
but wait. What ends must soon transform.

My Friend

2009-06-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

I used to think that memories
could only shadows be.
That loss and grief, regret uneased
wiped out reality.
No smile remembered counts as "smile."
No grateful tear as "wet"
if only held a little while
in memory, and yet,
the times have etched some days so sharp
that down the long-halled years
they stand still graced with present shape:
at ending, you are near.

Winning Entry!

2009-05-03T11:55:00.001-07:00

This is the poem which won First Place in the Maryland Writer's Association Short Works Contest, category Poetry:

Love

It is a tapestry we weave between us
thread by argued thread,
pulling sometimes and later shuttling together
to lie beside inquietude
waiting for some new spun light
to illuminate our patterns.

Loom warped and roving draft
harnesses swaying attendance,
we take up our shuttles again
leaving our weft behind
in every word and in each stroking
change.

Kindred Spirits, Painted by Karl S.

2009-03-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

The cactus and his man
lean in green
toward each other in a cluttered room of books,
a lifetime spent in busy dust
caressed by sunlight illuminating
a window whose ample sill embraces
pots of prickly green balls.

Cacti are as slow as scholars
and as hairless, convoluted, firm.
Once a decade there is a bloom
a boutonniere for the awards ceremony, perhaps.
Meanwhile the single sunlight and the high open window
are the sole observers of the cactus
and his man.

She

2009-03-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

She steps out of Rome
ragged edge skirt
fluttering handkerchief style
at her calves
baby in a basket on her arm
the day's affairs in her other hand
she steps under the sun of Ra
setting her child in his basket at her feet
attending to the important minutiae
of a thousand forgotten mornings
she walks the dappled forest track
simply taking up leaf or seed
pausing to root up a mushroom
baby in a sling or a swaying nest of basket
she steps into the mall
hair disarrayed in beauty
busy and swinging gently the basket
pausing for the millionth business transaction
carrying on the world in its basket.

On my 59th Birthday

2009-03-08T18:58:00.000-07:00

I am the joy, the leaping hart
heart of my home, praise of my own passion
Here, Here, Here
I stretch like my cat on my own hearth
I reach like my flowers into the sunlight, swaying
I sing softly as the nesting birds in my planted trees
there, and there, and there,
My breath is the high clear wind.
My limbs are the foundations of mountains.
Let me lay me down in joy.

Congratulations!

2009-03-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

Dawn L. C. Miller just had two poems accepted for publication by Pegasus magazine! They were "Kindred Spirits, by Karl S." and "She." (Applause!)

Eve

2009-02-12T17:39:00.000-08:00

A woman's heart lies still as a serpent in the sun,
eyes motionless and dark in the brilliance around.
She waits without hope or fear of dying knowing
the blended potion of her striking gift
is eternal metamorphosis.

Love, Untitled

2009-02-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

You move against me in the dark
and I remember
slow dance floors urging
pulsing beats sliding through the veins
together in the red dim room
crowded by couples each alone as they move
together.

And so, ten thousand nights from then,
I move to you.

Copyright notice.

2009-02-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

All work published here is the copyrighted property of the author.

City

2009-02-09T06:17:00.000-08:00

Baltimore cries at night -
keening cries of steel on steel,
clanking of chains and pulleys,
angry wailing injuries.

Baltimore aches for long pat ships
like a mother moaning for children gone home.
Crab shells in the gutters are fewer now.
Even the crabs gone home.

Breath

2008-01-07T18:59:00.000-08:00

We path ourselves winging small adaptions
feeling air wind itself cold slipstreaming
cleanse. Whispers crying, crying.

Feathers frailing bitter winds.

Last of the Year

2008-01-07T17:57:00.000-08:00

The houses clamped onto the lawns
refuse the dawn, remaining closed
among their paths, neat mail boxes and swept drives,
uncaring of the azure cloud
drifting singing as it turns gold.
The fence is brambled, wired weeds
with leaning splintered posts.
Myth has it that horses once pastured here
under the sky where the brittle brown grass sings.
Their flowing tails would follow, follow
along this streak of ground
along the fence concealing the disapproving houses,
each alike, each alike.
The horses' noses would have found good green
here where the grasses part
and the forest swallows, swallows.

First Flights

2007-12-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

This blog is to be a place of poems and wild notions, of some rantings and a few ravings. Comments are welcome, but may be ignored. Welcome to my viewpoint. I hope to hear yours. SunHawk

The first Poem on the Wind is as follows:

No place on Earth is free to be encircled,
no sea waits to be held in silken gloves,
the wind wanders far above the smokes
and only souls go following the sun.