For last Thursday’s Twitter poetry party, 10 of us virtually assembled to participate in responding to prompts by @tspoetry. All of the prompts were taken from Mahmoud Darwish’s “The Butterfly”s Burden.” And the result was — rather surprising, at least for the editor. This group of poems required the least amount of editing of any of our jams to date. The first five poems are below.
On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing 1
By @llbarkat, @mdgoodyear, @mxings, @SandraHeskaKing, @PoemsPrayers, @lorrie58, @LoveLifeLitGod, @gyoung9751, @memoriaarts, and @thegypsymama; edited by @gyoung9751.
On the Butterfly’s Blue Wing
Time to walk, time to look
off the side of a blue bridge.
Time to ride memories
on the butterfly’s blue wing,
feminine soles to kiss
the toes of necessary
moments.
Loneliness is an aching breaking
parting of the ways
and the days drift into the dark
of American night
after night.
I hear the dog’s bark/beyond your arms,
I close my eyes,
forget the space between us.
So I sigh
and miss the deep, blue, black African sky.
Let there be no end
to the deep/to the blue
to Africa and starless skies.
The Southern cross calls
a haunting refrain
that draws me home
time and night and night again.
On the Bird’s Wing
Cut impossible down to imp,
cut the river trip short,
load the tubes back in the car,
call the kids out of the water.
On the birds wing I find myself
lost in the chores, far down
the river of dreams.
Fry me some eggs, don’t
change the hash or I’ll be lost.
Cut the wings/birds and chores,
cut the river from the
child, afflict the afternoon by
riding the mower along the shore,
bouncing over stones and
and nettles and nests hidden
in the tall reeds where the dry
ground cracks.
Until the water sings us clean,
treat our wounds with wet and cold.
My night is short like my breath
when I land in nettles,
slip into cracks and cannot
find the shore.
Unbind my wings,
throw me into the sky;
I know the way home.
Like every night, like
every train, like every
handful of change I find in
my pocket, like every penny,
I can be your good luck,
just pick me up, bend down to
where I am and pick me up.
Lincoln has wings too, until the
briny river washes him green, calcified
Silken Waves of Memory
Silken waves crash,
pockets of lost time
tracking away from memory.
Tired of memories early and late,
lessons that appear from nowhere.
Lessons precede tests,
tests precede jobs, jobs
precede life and war and time.
Can time hold in memory
the poetry of our days,
our cracked slips and musical
shreds? No, no. No lessons and
practicums, fewer sums, more
drums, little hums and flee behind
the fountain.
Tear petals from the memories.
Saxophone Sing Me Clean
Sing me clean
with your breath
with your voice deep
like the jazz moan
of a tarnished saxophone.
Write your music on a
shred of paper, bind it
on my foot.
Walk in my thoughts,
brassy saxophone;
briny song that longs to open
my secrets to the night.
Harps play in the distance,
polished souls whose voices
call deep unto deep and still
I am tarnished.
I know this tune.
The whole street knows it.
The sleepers roll and breath a
sigh that hums in harmony.
If I write a poem, will you let it
relieve you of your shirt, will
you let it undress your cares,
your unpolished soul?
The Confessional
A New Jersey Turnpike sunset
makes us fugitives; just as well
close the book, close the door,
grab a stool. Let’s play
confessional via!
You run and I run and we use
petals for mortar via, a
fugitive confessional caught in
the wall of thoughts swirling
apple red.
Grab a confession, bite a cry,
pluck an apple, put it on the
stool; this should be
enough for the priest.
Flee the confession; it is not real.
It is a show you have made for
the priest to pretend you do not
deserve exile. If I twirl the green-tailed
bird, will it give me an apple?
will it play the priest and listen to
my confession of love for you?
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Maureen Doallas says
Sorry I had to miss this one. I was at a Vietnam event and didn’t get home in time.
Darwish (trans. Joudah) is one of my favorite poets.
Kathleen says
I missed it truck rescuing……not rustling.
Whoever wrote this is my favorite – “feminine soles to kiss
the toes of necessary moments”
I have a foot thangy. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Nice work, prompter, editor, and poets!
n. says
high five for the first five !
Sandra Heska King says
Amazing! I even see a couple of my lines. Wow!