Skye's Poerty - Blog Posts
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
Subject: Actress Mamie Whittaker, September 15, 1910 Photographer: Bassano Additional info: Whole-plate glass negative. Copyright, National Portrait Gallery, London Source: fawnvelveteen
Mamie Whittaker
I looked for you Everywhere
You had a bit part in Houp La! The almost forgotten circus musical extravaganza
You were the lion tamer of all things I cannot reconcile your angelic Countenance with Whips and roaring ravenous beasts.
And here your trail grows cold
Did a lion eat you? Did you marry and lose yourself? Did you grow hungry as your beauty fell away? Did you end up lifting your skirts in some London Alley?
One hundred and fifteen years on you are simply
Gone
Except for your sweet, copyrighted smile.
-Skye
Title: “Craving for Power” Author: Ilo Kunst Medium: Pen and ink on paper. Source:Beautifulbizarre.
Mad Kings with Blood on Their Hands
Psychotic Charles IV slew his own knights
Paranoid Ivan T. tortured subjects on Saturday afternoons
Oh, and don’t forget George III ranting incoherently as
America broke away Swearing off kings forever…
-Skye
Photographer: Tartarchuk Nikolay Source: elinka
The Dead Sea
Quicksilver Crystalline Cut with milky sun Salt grows Out of barren Water.
-Skye
Artist/Work: Alexander Calder, from the “Circus” portfolio, 1964 Source: museums.msstate.edu
Timing
Catch me like there is no net My dear I am counting on you
I am the first of us to Let go
To believe With outstretched Hands
In the moment One reaches For love
Timing is everything A net will not Stop the fall
Hearts still Break.
-Skye
Image Source: Brassai, circa1946 Source: letaobloquista
Brassai Roaming Paris
After the churning of buildings and bodies After the round ups of 75,000 Jewish citizens After the ovens to the east stopped their burning
The streets were swept The babies boomed And lovely ladies once again wore real silk stockings
You saw them stop for moment
The baby was sleeping
The headlines were posted Every word shouting LARGE FONT BLACK and BOLD
“Francais! Reveillez-vous!” “Aux Hommes d’Ordre et de Bon Sens”
She gave his arm a Contented almost sleepy Squeeze
Politics was politics again Life was life again
The baby woke up and began to cry.
-Skye
Image: Musician Verdan Smailovic, Also known as the cellist of Sarajevo. 1992 during Bosnian war. Source: aconsilio
HAIKU- The Cellist of Sarajevo
We need more Cellists The bombs drop leaving rubble The dead need music
- Skye
Authors Note: I am deeply concerned about my community, country, and the blue ball we are all careening through space on. These are perilous times in the United States and in the world. As in all times of trouble art, music, and writing are places of refuge. Humans are at their best when creating. We tell our stories, share our loves, heal our wounded hearts and seek to understand ourselves and others. We can use our creativity to protest injustices and take on the hard dark parts of ourselves and others.
So, in these uncertain times write, paint, and make music. Use your unique voice to beat back the darkness. We can make this world a better place even when some of us are doing horrible things to each other.
Afterall in this current era marked by destruction, violence and war the answer is simple…
We need more cellists.
Image credit: Stephen Shames, Asleep in Car, from series Outside the Dream Child Poverty in America, c.1985 Source: letaobloquista
American Dreamer
The mist on windows hides the grubby face Lit softly in some dream
Big dreams Among the brown bags And beer cans
The rusty sagging car A leaky vessel For anyone’s dreams Big or small
I turn my head Going by.
-Skye
Image credit: Isolation,23.03.2020, 20:25, Source: flowersinthedustbin
Night Windows
In the daytime people are hidden The building keeping secrets Of things done in the living room Or the boudoir
No one privy to ordinary And extraordinary comings and goings
In the nighttime backlit lives reveal Themselves In bright snippets of window light In hazy shadows playing on lowered shades In the soft outlines of darkness
Ordinary And extraordinary Comings and goings For everyone to see.
-Skye
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.
Image information: Adam and Eve, 1533 by Lucus Cranach the Elder Medium: Oil, Wood Source: lucus-cranach-the-elder
Paradise Lost
It was told that the serpent Tricked the woman And the woman bewitched The man Into losing paradise
In truth the animals were Satisfied With their innocence
The snake likely wandered into the tree To sun itself in the high branches
The woman was not satisfied She was curious and clever She knew the snake was suspected Of many things
Her favorite mouse was missing The blue birds cried over lost eggs
She stole the fruit And blamed the snake for her Nascent sin
She involved the man Drawing him tighter to her Pressing knowledge into his hand
And it was she who smiled softly as God Released them from the garden And gave them the whole wide World.
-Skye
Image Source: Headless-Horse
Early Morning Milking
Miguel Is there Turning on lights Cleaning teats
Full Udders Need to be emptied At 4 and 4 again
The farmer comes With the hay and the grain As his father did when he was The boy who cleaned the teats
At present he feeds the cows And Miguel Empties their udders
The farmer loves the barn The cows And his children Away at school
Miguel loves the barn The cows And his children so young and Far away In Caracas
Two men working together In the well-lit barn.
Image Source: Chromeus
Decaying orbit
Gravity catches the heart And pulls hard
Too close to the event horizon I no longer see your Face
But you are here Tearing me apart.
-Skye
Image Credit: Unknown though often attributed to Arthur Fellig (1889-1968) American Street Photographer.
Circus Comes to Another Small Town
The circus came along with its Tigers and tentpoles Elephants and elegant ponies Rolling right down main street
Excited whooping children followed
Wild free-range boys mostly (Where the girls free-range or otherwise were sadly, we will never know)
When the circus ceased its Creak and clatter Lurching to a stop
Those boys who ran alongside All the way from town Gathered before The fat lady’s trailer
Giggles crinkled their dusty faces Some pointed grubby fingers Some made faces puffing out their cheeks
Of all the wonders to behold When the circus comes to town
Those scruffy, wild, need a bath boys Ignore the acrobats, the orangutang, The clowns in make-up and everyday clothes
All of them Tumbling out of the trucks on the green just outside of town
To goggle and gape At Miss Ellie May Gump The fattest woman in world.
-Skye
Source: Visualtastic101
Modern Man
Bits of plastic Bone buttons Baling wire
We come from the dust Only to remake ourselves In our own Image.
-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: Palimpsest by Dale Dunning
Your Face
It’s difficult (you must know) to deny things so clearly spoken without words
in silence you say everything the curve of your mouth the eyes that do not
quite meet me
and when your mouth is finally open
i can still see the truth in you typeset across your face.
Plague Doctor
So here in the shining city on the hill we watched the broad plain with its shifting grasses always thinking the trouble would arrive at the gate announcing itself.
But no, it crept in in ones and twos broken glass lungs etched in X-rays seeping in under the gate.
We could not fathom the wave of misery that broke us open.
The burbling cry of wet breath that choked the air filling every corner.
We wailed for answers.
The plague doctor came surveying the heaps of dead plying us with platitudes and potions crying “Let them inject bleach!”
Pushing out the dead early in the morning I saw him shambling down the hill.
Empty eyes behind his mask and blood on his hands.
-Skye
Only Words
Come with your dark ink scrawling loose letters
The loops and runs make knots that hold me fast
While you take everything leaving only notes
Slinking off to exploit the spoils
Of my ruined skin.
-Skye
