171. The Opportunist

American Robin at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park

San Dimas, Southern California

Image Source: Two Birders To Go

Noble:
red head
raised high,

the robin
bounces
steadily, beady
eyes glimmering
with the
spring rain

in such splendour,
lone on the
beaming emerald
do I notice:

Stringy worms
dangling from
its resurfaced
beak;
munching, it is
a mortal like any other;
the rain,
fortuitous

Cantopop sails
in from the adjacent
living room;
eyelids painted and
eyes scrunched in
synchronous exertion:
dolled-up girls
and girly
boys

Things
seem not so
cheap
anymore…

150. Com’è bello!

Unassuming,
silently presuming –
Two arachnids
tranquilly enslumbered:

Victim huntress,
paused the murderesses;
gentle yearning,
mute the Mother doting:

Golden doubles,
resting, still as marble:
Eight-fold digits
still and softly sun-gilt.

Se il destassi?

In the noontime daybeams
Venetian spun,
Gemini lay, Roman.

142. Temporality

Like the morning dew,
here
and gone tomorrow:

3 flies lay,
spent
on the
plastic
desktop.

Having seen
them live and
breathe and munch on
dead skin cells;
buzzing now and again
on my face,

strange to see them
immobile,
almost sleeping or in
a trance-like state

It is bizarre,
sweeping them into the
garbage bin,
nestled among the
used tissues:

thinking,
this is what things
come to?

We try to live with a little
dignity, die
with a little
dignity.

Artistic visions,
dreams, and
loves:
sometimes it seems so
meaningless;

yet we carry on,
filling our lives with
things,
as if this will
somehow fill the
hollow restlessness,
or at least cover it,
like a soggy
glow-in-the-dark
bandaid

140. Visiting the Fly

In the midst of the
height of spring
robins bob their
crimson heads across
the earth again:

In a moment of
inspiration,
I am perched myself
at the hot metallic
school desk,
placed so wondrous
in the centre of such
impossible
artistry;

Flies rest calmly
on the spots beside me;
it is not mine, but
theirs:
having no place in our
domain -
here, we are reunited,
all at peace with our
own
ephemerality –

I wonder on our
hypocrisy,
the strangeness of our
condition, our
species,
our cruelty in the midst of such
serene hospitality?

"Dual School Bench" (2002)

Verne Harrison

Donald Forster Sculpture Park,

Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Photo by the very talented Hanneorla

137. Icarus

 

Curious,
the brown and grey
fruit fly
slips quickly
into view;

perched briefly
on the
tumbler’s
edge –

Plip!
Hops, indiscreetly
upon the
untouched
water:

Terror at being
trapped;
or to human
eyes
trying to remember
the breastroke,
quasi-comically:
limbs flailing as
wings begin to
sink;
milliseconds
before the struggle

ends.

An imperceptible
hush
and there is
Ophelia,
laid calmly to rest
in the still
liquid

Thomas did not need
write a mad
scene;
Shakespeare, a
play,
nor Berlioz, an
art song
or
Delaroche,
a painting;

In grim
fascination
have I surveyed
this picturesque
suicide,
having the power to
inform, yet
powerless
to save;
a strange sadism and an
equal
guilt:

133. Skins of our fathers

After the rain,
the frightened insects
emerge,
surveying the damage,
knowing this battered land
is what remains
and what must be
lived through.

How many tears have irrigated
this unruly soil in
vain?

Suns will one day emerge,
but how, but
when?

In such darkness and
uncertainty, how
strong must one be,
to trust,
to hope!

104. Alcina’s picnic

Crows are eating in the backyard,
congregating under the shady
trees:

Dark and plotting, hunched over in the
shadows,
whispering…

Reflecting on a former mortal
existence,
bemoaning the trappings of
enchantment.

Chatter subsides to feeding,
mechanic bobs
puncture the sheltered
earth:

Noontime ends, and all the
inmates part,
save the stragglers, digging
past the noon.

Even these few gluttonous
ones depart,
and there are only worms
and yellow butterflies,
and all the other innumerable
insects, left climbing on
the windswept
grass.

102. Caenochrysis

Image source:

http://bugguide.net/node/view/329223/bgimage

Dust settles mutely,
silent snow on gilded spines;
sunlight dyes the untouched leaves
more acrid shades of sand:

Turquoise glistens in the naïve lights;
photons dance upon the lacquered orb.
It is a scarab, it is some ancient
relic:

Pausing in the untold centuries,
a single timeless beauty rests,
beckoning amidst the desert of
celibate academia;

There is the long-faded scent of
crushed cigars, the strange perfume
of crystallized ink.
There are forgotten letters left
half-written on the desk:

How do we reconcile –
colours?
A catch of azul light,
ephemeral on the patio
furniture
reflects in the flower-stamped dress
of a young girl next door:

Some unknown beetle specimen
hovers soundlessly, brief on the false
lilies of the polyester fabric:
it’s like a factory, there is this
lovely hue everywhere –
but there is only one shade like this,
glistening everywhere,
landing noiselessly in the
obscurely dappled shrubs;

all others steal the eyes
for just as long,
but it is this precise,
indescribable swatch
we struggle the rest of our lives
studying, searching,
never truly describing,
recreating.

82. Crows and the Dandelions

Two crows amongst the yellow flames;
the sun of May ignites their black:
I am mystified.

Oft I have seen such beauty,
as the dandelions peek their ready heads
above the warming
Earth:

as the dandelions grow, and live, and die,
and when at last their heads
grow old, bequeath their silken seeds
to summer days
to air, to chubby hands of
wobbling tots

and as the crows pick worms beside the
dying weeds,
so I grow older, suns continue in their
traversal ‘cross the
skies:

yet -
I am part of these
eternal rhythms,
a part of this lovely and
ephemeral world,
beginning on uncertain paths
as a fluff of dandelion seed,
having brief moments to
fly, and land, and live, and die;
but long enough to feel the air
& see the open sky.

60. Arachnophobia

Tipping the napkin
swish!
Pizzeria logo,
spider and all
fall,
headlong into
obscurity.

Shivers roll in my skin;
there are spiders all over the ceiling
waiting to avenge their fallen
one.

I have problems killing
spiders:
creepy critters
with their eight legs,
scuttling all around, defying every
law of physics
                      sometimes hairy,
                      sometimes long,
they exert a strange sort of power –

Killing myself:
this is what I imagine each time.
Little me, crouched in a corner,
scuttling up walls,
down the bathroom
moulding –
evading the
inevitable.
Vulnerable, defenseless –
While we,
our empty lives,
carry on each day,
joyous in our dominance –
if probability had its way
I would be a spider too –

I would let you live too
as I would want to, scrambling
up these eggshell walls,
but I am afraid, I am
afraid;

You hide in my cups,
dance in my dreams,
thousand eyes
threatening;
they say killing spiders is bad
luck.

57. Vernal yearning

There is copious sunshine –
like a toddler waking from an
afternoon nap, I blink: blearily.

Oh!
Each year, as if for nature’s
Christmas, we wait all night, for
day, for sunshine!

Why, tell me: tell me!
Tell me –

Naked!
Baring my long-since covered arms,
like some indecent bear,
lumbering out of hibernation
into this simple child’s world,
where a lithe flower or a
buzzing bee elicit
simple giggles.

There is nowhere to
hide:
indoors, we regard the children playing
sadly:
I wish there was really such a thing as spring –
I have not yet had time to recover:

Evan Penny: Mask (1989)
Donald Forster Sculpture Park
Guelph, Ontario, Canada

Photographed by Hanneorla: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hanneorla/

17. Tiger Lillies

Orange Tiger Lilies by Marilyn

You are the most resilient flower,

Rising before the others and
Retiring late,
Model employee of the
Emerald fields.

Nearly as tall as the fence,
Slicing the wind with astringent orange -
Parodies of Renaissance virgins
With hoods of modest luridness.

Lascivious yet benign,
Sailing the low-lying zephyrs,
I do not know the
Suitors you attract.

What lucky gentlebee shall
Peek between these coy petticoats,
Painting brighter vermilion
On your sun-baked
Cheeks?

9. Squished Caterpillars

Upon the red-brown cobblestones,
All sprayed across the ground –
The crushed intestines roast away
Beneath a heartless sun.

In almost lovely yellow seas
The ants are interspliced –
The spotted skin resilient,
A boat beneath the waves.

Unwary of the earth they tread,
Yet mindful of the way –
The time flits far too fast to note
The banquets underneath.

In torrid minutes, crisp and brown –
The bowel-juices fry;
The blood is soaked into the stone
as recognition – fades.