Image Subject: Friedemann Vogel Ballet Dancer Photographer: Not Known Source:Peepchic

Image: “Horizons” by Armando Veve   Source: Inland-delta

Viridius

Vigorous with damp And rot Life comes through me

Even yours

Come to the water’s edge And throw in Your virgin

Death and Life Life and Death

Seasons and circles Moon coming and going

Men tremble and fear

Crops fail to come Babies sicken and die Game is spare And the winter long

Men see little

Know less Than I

Come to the water’s edge And throw in Your virgin

Worship how you will It makes no difference to me.

-Skye

Image: Poland,1932 Photography: Henryk Poddebski, Poland 1932 Source: polishcostumes

Dziado

Came from Slavic wheat Farming Polish fields under the sun Breaking bread with his mother and sister At end of day

Peasants they owned nothing Not the land Not the wheat Not the roof above them On cold winter nights

War washed him from the continent And off to America With his wife and baby girl

And though he is long dead I still see him

Caring for his cows Feeding his pigs Cooking his eggs With his garden onions Under his own roof.

-Skye

Source: thewitchywench

Cat in a Hat

On Brighton beach Where I often went Walking I came upon a Little black cat Sporting a top hat Looking out at sea

I watched this little soul So jauntily dressed For a water side stroll First in wonder Then in distress

Just where was His waistcoat and tie?

-Skye

Source: meryweird77

Hysteria

Straight Narrow Laced Up Tight

Bound by Respectability, domesticity, Mild virtuous Wife, mother, nothing more

Reflect, reflect Only wholesome Womanly airs

Do only proper Womanly things

Calling cards Genteel teas Birthing children Serving your Husband Father Brother

Reflect, reflect Only what is desired By others

But when you look in The mirror You see Your eternity and begin To scream

-Skye

Sacrament of the Sick

Somewhere north of midnight the priest’s prayers flicker through the hall a verse for each bead on the rosary twisted in your fingers a forgiveness for each sin real and imagined 

I have morphine and lorazepam I have a few precious minutes to wait with you

Yet It’s the priest with tired old prayers and absolutions in pleasing baritone that stills your thrashing that quiets your moans 

I don’t understand this young man in the cassock who will never wear a wedding ring bathing you in ancient words perfect in their cadence never straying from the book held absently

When you join him your weak voice dragged up from ether

I mouth quietly The relic of childhood Effortlessly bubbling up to join you

Yea though I walk through the valley of death…  -Skye

Source: Darren Almond Refractive Index I, 2018 aquatint 18 ¾ x 16 inches edition 25

Refractive Index

Waking in a rumple of bedclothes With you And the morning sun

The suncatcher Spins slowly on radiator updrafts

Bending light Into broken kaleidoscopes That travel across our Mingled skin.

-Skye

Source: Dinovelvet.

The Three Graces

Long ago the handmaidens of Aphrodite

Grew tired of being virgins Of being consummate Women

And lit out for the dessert

I met them at a festival covered in wrinkles and rainbows Swilling beer Cackling at the universe

And I joined in at once Understanding there was so much more to me.

-Skye

Title: Despair (1926) Artist: Kazys Simonis (Lithuanian, 1887-1978 ) Source: dreams-of-mutiny

The Mother

It was the fall of everything The moment the war came into focus and the house caved in

Choking in the dust my baby dead my mother dead

Me digging the rubble With raw bloody fingers To be broken under the house would be better

Me holding my dead little one under the rubble

But In my despair I could only weep over the shattered house Digging with bloodied hands.

-Skye

Dark Matter

I am in the parking lot Breathing hard My breath traced by floodlight

The night is hooded I have lost the stars I have lost my car keys

I sit on the tar Lost in space

-Skye

Parking Lot, 2018

Image Credit: Shusaku Takaoka Source: angiefalaji

Saturday Night on the G Train, 1972 (As told by Old Joe at Valley Vista Rest Home)

Swaying with train car Home bound after a long night of drinking I was looking down At the dirty chipped and gummy tiles Feeling a little sick

I heard the door grinding open And she plopped down in a rustle of beaded lace Sitting legs spread wide Like a man with a come-hither body Topped in a rabbit fur coat Right there in the corner seat Almost across from me

I looked up Into Mona Lisa’s Smirking face

I swear it though no one ever believes me Don’t blame them 1972 was a rough one I really was fucked up back then

But there she was in all her glory That smile I will never forget

She asked me for a cigarette Just before the next stop

And when the doors opened Off she went Clomping a little in her righteous rhinestone platform shoes Right off the train, onto the platform And back out of my life.