Another one for the kitty lovers…

by Kerry Vincent (c) 2003

If I had another 9 lives to live….

I’d eat more kitty treats and roll in more catnip;

I’d hide under more beds and shred more lace curtains.

I’d take more naps and bask in more sunbeams;

I’d chase more dust bunnies and eat breakfast twice.

I’d wake my human earlier each day

And look betrayed when we arrive at the vet’s.

I’d glare at more toddlers and swat at more dogs

So everyone would know I rule my home.

 

If I had another 9 lives to live

I would demand more petting,

Enjoy more ear and chin scratches,

Even roll on my back for more belly rubs.

I would shed more hair on the clean laundry

To freshly mark my territory.

I would grace more laps, pillows, and beds.

 

I would never let another day go by

Without a good, long, loud, deep

Puuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

 

The One that Got Away

(inspired by the Pablo Neruda “I write the first faint line…” prompt)

I write the first faint line…

In sand, in water, in dust,

But more often,

In the clouds,

Along the mile markers,

While I am driving along.

It’s then I have my best thoughts –

When I can’t stop and write them down.

 

The ideas sneak up behind me,

Attack metaphors,

That pounce upon me

While I am in the shower,

Again, no pen near by,

No paper on which to write.

 

I used to mourn each lost gem.

Nowadays I tell myself

I am just a good sportswoman

Practicing “catch and release” –

The ideas will come back to me someday,

When I have my waders on,

My line is taut,

My hook is sharp,

My net is ready,

And the thoughts are

Much bigger and better…

 

© Kerry Vincent

Sacred by the Sea

sacred by the sea
stands crisp white sanctuaries
built on memories

of Minoan past
and heavy volcanic ash
layering the land

once believed to be
home to the Atlanteans
of sky and water

oh…

this enchanted shore
where fishing vessels
wait and pray often

and…

the Gods rest quietly
on buildings stacked upon high
cliffs of change and dreams

–genece hamby, contemporary artist & poet (image painted by Genece)
http://sanctuaryofstillness.wordpress.com

Letting Go

 

Shall I continue to top off

My tall water glass of sadness?

Or wave the waiter on,

Saying, “No, thanks, I’m fine.”

 

Shall I hold my bitterness tight,

Clenched like a handful of sand?

Or open my palm and let it go,

Let it become one with the wind?

 

Shall I clutch my memories to me,

Like a sad corsage turning brown?

Or send my thoughts off like scouts,

Looking for new adventures?

 

Shall I take my chances like Icarus,

Flying too close to the sun?

Or maybe I’ll burn like a phoenix on fire,

And rise again from my ashes?

 

Kerry Vincent (c) 2008

The Web

The Web

 

The spider’s eyes at dawn reflect

A web bejeweled with dew,

And fog-like steam rising

As the sun warms the earth.

 

Do they see, those spider eyes,

The insects caught in the lace,

Or the beauty

all around their well placed trap.

Do they reflect, just for a moment,

The suffering….

 

Vi Jones

©May 18, 2008

 

Sadness and Its Durability

Vincent Van Gogh, Wheat Field With Crows, 1890.

I’ve rushed here through the stalks

To ask you to rethink the whole death thing.

No, really, you’re going to be quite famous one day soon.

Don’t you want to see that happen?

Take advantage of the privileges and benefits that come with it?

Look at Picasso.

I know he wasn’t a contemporary of yours, but

He knew how to live well off his talent.

Though his varying wives and mistresses

Would probably beg to differ.

But still: he certainly enjoyed what came to him.

You didn’t see him chopping off bits himself

And giving them to prostitutes for safekeeping.

Or seeing yellow in the bottom of a glass of

Absinthe.

So get out of this field.

Theo won’t take it well, and

I just learned that “Wheat Field with Crows”

Wasn’t your last painting, like people romantically suggest.

Such a lonely scene, it had to foretell something

They think. Don’t hovering crows

And stormy skies signify madness at an end?

A few years back,

I saw this same painting turned into a doormat

In some catalog.

I was livid: this work,

This place the deed of death was started

(Supposedly)

Turned into

A place where people could grind mud

Into the lack of understanding in

What makes people tick.

I vowed never to buy from them again.

Such a sacrifice, eh?

But I did see “Starry Night” at the Met

Stood in front of it for a long, long time

People passing by me in a rush to get it all in

Before closing time.

I could have fallen in,

My eyes tracing lines of paint.

The poster at home doesn’t do it justice,

But it reminds me

Given a chance to travel time

I’ve hit this field,

Knowing what I do about

Sadness and its durability.

But now that I think about it,

I don’t think fame or money

Would be your cure.

J.

Our Love Story (Neruda-inspired)

XVII (I do not love you…) by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I do not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

 

 

 

 

Our Love Story

 

I do not love you as others love their lovers.

We are like no other lovers. 

None like us ever existed before or ever will exist again.

We brought our pain and dumped it at each other’s feet.

I told you, “You ought to run – I’m damaged goods.”

You said no one else liked you…
when you were a kid, you thought even your dog hated you.

It was the saddest thing I ever heard.

 

Fourteen years have passed and here we are,

Still together, although the couple who introduced us

Has divorced, remarried, moved out of state.

We never had a storybook romance –

(Unless you like “Tales of the Weird”).

I go to work, you manage the house,

We both go to therapy,

We take turns making the “Cook-n-serve” butterscotch pudding
we both enjoy.

You are transgendered and I am an abuse survivor –

We don’t fit anywhere else in the world

But in each others’ arms.

 

But every day we come home to each other,

Kiss each other good-night,

Say “I love you”.

That’s our love story.

It is enough.

We are both happy –

something we never knew before.

 

 

By Kerry, for Leni © 2008

Valkyrie’s Prayer

A web of weird is cast –

Three sisters weave the wick:

Clothos, who spins the thread of human life,

Lachesis, who determines the length,

And Atropos, who cuts the thread of the quick.

Twisting raw fibers,

They form a cocoon,

Over and under, around and through:

They proclaim my fate and raise an alarm:

A mortal soul is born!

Mine is a cloth torn from the loom

As the spirits whirl and dance,

Chortling with glee.

Random misery is my lot –

I cannot escape the gods’ own curse.

I dwell in a cloud of blackness,

My innocence plucked from my youth.

Cancer of sorrow sprouts like a fungus

In the dank undergrowth of my mind.

Tangled, ensnared, choked by the ropes,

I claw at the garrote and pray,

“Great Norns, transform me!

Let me become uroboros,

Declaring, like the Scots queen,

‘In my end is my beginning.’”

 

Kerry Vincent © 1992

A Clean Sweep

Trembling at my threshold,

I dare to discover what lies behind the door,

The tightly-shut, but unlocked door.

Opening it, I see

My psyche in shambles.

I sigh and say,

“Where do I begin?”

 

The floor is littered with

The dust of illusions,

Shattered shards of time,

Remnants of lost dreams,

Tufts of hair pulled out in battles,

The wood stained with tears and blood.

“I must clean up this mess, but how?”

 

I search shy corners

For a soul-sweeping broom,

Finding only a small whisk broom.

I use it to form a tiny dust pile,

Creating a bit of order out of chaos,

Already perspiring, though my work has just begun.

 

Soon I feel weak, worn, and weary,

Unable to fathom how I will dump

All the dirt I have gathered so far.

“I don’t need all the answers at once!”

I remind myself.

My job, for now, for today,

Is merely to sweep,

Evenly, carefully,

One short stroke at a time.

One small square at a time.

 

Eventually I make a clean sweep,

The floor looks great!

I smile, straighten my sore back,

Put my hand on my hip proudly, and boast,

“Look at what I accomplished!”

I step and glide and perform on my polished floor,

Then sit, and rest, a sip some tea, satisfied at last.

 

Until, naturally,

More dust and dirt appear.

I get my broom and begin again,

Sweeping, sweeping,

An ancient ritual against

An eternal enemy.

 

By Kerry Vincent

© 1993

Kaleidoscope

The cylinder spins;

The pattern changes.

Myriad bits of broken glass,

Fragile shattered dreams,

Colors bright and dark,

Opaque and clear,

Ever-shifting pieces,

Ever-changing connections.

Lovely, like rose windows,

Or surreal, like Man Ray’s nightmares.

But then, when you least expect it,

Some unseen hand twists the cap,

And the cylinder spins again.

 

By Kerry Vincent © 1990

When I am an old Cat…

When I am an old cat…

I shall eat only salmon mousse

And cough up hairballs in front of guests.

I shall bathe before the company

And lick between my toes while they watch.

I shall run when they try to pet me

And miss the litter box on purpose

When my human comes home late.

I shall refuse to eat dry kibbles

And hold out for canned fish

So I can whisker-kiss with tuna breath.

I shall look offended when pushed off

Of paperwork or my favorite chair,

And I will ignore being scolded

For leaving tongue grooves in the butter.

 

But for now I must not dig in house plants

And knock down knick-knacks too often.

I must not nip the children too hard

Or growl too much at the vet.

I must be purr-fect and pretty

And always adorable.

 

Still every now and then

I must hiss at the dog

And hide when I am called

And spit out my medicine

And act bored with my kitty toys

So my human will not be too surprised

When I become an old and finicky cat.

 

By Kerry Vincent © 2003

Jazz Glass

this glass, this green glass, this blue glass,

this teal glass, even this pale purple glass,

this glass looks so cool, so calm, so serene,

but that is only because it is jazz glass:

it hides its past oh so well

so all you see is the cool.

 

this glass was not always cool and flat –

once it was burning hot, fluid, streaming,

molten like lava spilling from a volcano,

this glass is sand and ash that has paid its dues.

It has survived the fiery furnace,

But like a phoenix,

It has risen from the ashes to be reborn.

 

This glass is jazz glass –

It has paid the price,

It has counted the cost,

But it chooses to be transformed,

To groove on forevermore:

Behold the birth of cool!

 

By Kerry Vincent © 2008

http://www.kog.com/Hot/Rondel.html

The Ravens’ Muse

by E. A. Poetica (a.k.a. kvwordsmith)

 

Once upon a mid-day boring, while I net-surfed, work ignoring,

Hoping for some inspiration…

While I waited, nearly napping, suddenly the keys were tapping,

My fingers the muse was slapping, slapping at my keyboard.

“Get busy, you, write some more,

You can do it, write some more….”

 

“Like Anita Marie, you could dis-member

Ghosts and their hunters, spilling blood upon the floor,

Crying out in their sorrow, nevermore be a tomorrow,

Load the corpses in a red death wheelbarrow,

Dump them at Anita’s Owl Creek Bridge,

Over there, beyond the dark cyber ridge.

 

“Or like Lori print some screens, mandalas both blue and green,

Goddess and flowers, frolic in the magick bowers,

Colors spinning like morning prayer flags,

Blessing the green earth and the Soul Food hags.”

(Older women, but not witches

A little sassy, not really *itches,

Just e-wenches on a creative ride!

We kiss the Muse, & try to stay on her good side!)

 

Presently my soul grew stronger, hesitating then no longer,

“Oh dear Muse, truly your forgiveness I implore,

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly set the keys to tapping at my keyboard,

I didn’t know it was you – please don’t be sore.”

I listened for her voice – only cyber silence, nothing more.

 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Le Enchanteur?”
This I whispered, but an echo murmured back the words, “I am Le Enchanteur!” –

 

There I sat at computer table, wondering, doubting, that I was able,

Could I create each day, and my creativity explore,

Could I earn my raven wings, and flap some more?

“Yes, you can do it, always learning, learning forevermore,

Create and share and post and comment – creativity galore!”

She encourages her flock of ravens, our Le Enchanteur!

“You can do it, write some more….”

* I would have included more foodies but got interrupted by my day job…Kerry)

a list poem

(inspired by the pure, elegant, simplicity of glass – and other simple pleasures)

10 Simple Pleasures

(by Kerry Vincent – (c) 2008)

A sleeping cat

sunlight through stained glass

a cup of strong tea

wind rippling the water

sweet scent of evening-blooming flowers

moonlight through the trees

a handful of extra ink pens

a glut of good books to read

a friend you can talk to

a kiss goodnight

Lemurian List Poem

In Praise of Blue

by Kerry Vincent (c) 2008

Glorious blues,

those luscious hues:

Sweet cerulean,

sensuous saffire,

wistful wisteria,

delightful delphium,

precious Prussian,

mysterious marine,

calming cobalt,

alluring azure,

inviting indigo,

lovely lapis lazuli,

pale morning sky:

In my best dreams

I always dream in blue.