Saturday Night On The G Train, 1972 (As Told By Old Joe At Valley Vista Rest Home)

In Deep

One night in a bath of stars Skin slick dripping starlight

I let myself down below the water

The burn to breathe casting star shards Beyond closed eyes

Then there is just me on the edge of the universe heaving breath into the void -Skye

artwork | Ishii Nobuo

Photographer: Jamie Cuen Source: angiefalanji

HAIKU-River Children

Children splash and swim, heedless of the dangers found in deeper water.

Photo Credit: Crowd By Misha Gordin Source: Fallowstore

One of the Crowd

Hauling One rough beam after another Head down Looking neither Right Or Left

Hearing the scrape of worn shoes Hearing the effort in ragged breath

But seeing nothing

Moving together Compliant Silent Complicit

Building a pyre To end the world.

Source: calmerra Image Credit: Foxes, circa 1913 by Franz Marc Medium: Oil on canvas 87 x 65 cm

Foxes

The woods behind the house are deep Dark tangles of brush Damp Loam soft under feet

This is where the foxes go in the morning After prowling along my borders Teasing my chickens All through the night

I have a sturdy hen house

The chickens are safe

Besides

The foxes are sleeping now Somewhere in the wild wood.

-Skye

Source: visualstatic101

Tides

Mooring lost Battered upon the sharp reef I could only be counted as flotsam A bottle with no message Driven out into a howling sea Without a cry

Stranded in this bottle I lost the sea Peering out through the wavy glass I saw nothing I felt nothing So fearful was the loss

The bottle has long broken There are bits of sea glass That can’t cut anyone Even me Scattered now Among my bones

You ask me to examine them now These old hurts and betrayals I see only soft light The kind you find both at dawn and sunset

We are all subject to the tide I suppose, It steals our voice and brings it back again.

-Skye

Fisherman's Catch

Hapless Mermaid who walked upon the land and grew to miss the sea with its deep dark places

Absent of air

I watched her one evening slip below the surface so beautiful so broken covered by sea

When I pulled her up out of it into my arms I realized she was only a common girl

After all

Shallow pale and choking on ocean.

-Skye

Sally Gall

Caitlin, 1996

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

Artist: Nester Formetera Source:peepchic

The Last Kiss

We came together in the end Lips pressed close Eyes closed to who we had become Just before parting.

-Skye

Image Credit: Max Scheler, Border of Heringsdorf, Usedom, 1964

On the Heringsdorf Border, 1964

Barbed wire strung along the Oder-Neisse Line carries on right into the sea In ‘64 East Germany to one side and Poland to the other No good choices One side as poor as the other One side as occupied as the other One side as cruel as the other

We stood ankle deep in the Baltic Contemplating the sea and the exchange of tyrants At the Potsdam conference in ’45

As far as borders go The fence was slovenly and careless You could crawl under here and there You could swim out into the sea

Steal around it and cross easily to

The other side

But patrols caught no one crossing here Cause neither side was free.

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