Friday, September 9, 2011
deLuge
Check out the newest issue of deLuge, a literary and arts journal from archetypal dreamwork folks; my poems, essays from Amy Irvine McHarg, and others, at www.northofeden.com/journal
Holy trinity
Crow Mother, her eyes, her eggs — Meinrad Craighead
Birthed in the backseat
With shredded wings
Black beak black sky
White shocked lightning wrapped
To cover the head
Don’t look too close at me
It’s all dark chasm
Behind my broken shell
Snake skin slither, that thin
Shiver; recognition rises
With silver-shake and rattle-hiss
Eyes on every feather
Birth the snake eat the snake
Snake eats you
Lightning underfoot
A static dance
We do in wooing
The world we imagine
Wanting,
Until
The length of it cracks ribs,
Cuts breath:
Old crone’s bony fingers
Maiden’s wings
Mother’s prison
This is the trinity we live
Our existence
Wrapped to the breast
In a python’s gripBirthed in the backseat
With shredded wings
Black beak black sky
White shocked lightning wrapped
To cover the head
Don’t look too close at me
It’s all dark chasm
Behind my broken shell
Snake skin slither, that thin
Shiver; recognition rises
With silver-shake and rattle-hiss
Eyes on every feather
Birth the snake eat the snake
Snake eats you
Lightning underfoot
A static dance
We do in wooing
The world we imagine
Wanting,
Until
The length of it cracks ribs,
Cuts breath:
Old crone’s bony fingers
Maiden’s wings
Mother’s prison
This is the trinity we live
Our existence
Ellen Marie Metrick 8.24.2011
Telluride Mushroom Festival August 2011
Journeys
If friendship is a dark path
Through dense trees on a moonless nightIf friendship is a dark path
And if words are footsteps
One at a time over unseen ground
And if candy cap ice cream
Drowning in chanterelle brandy
Is the magic potion
Then count me in
-EMM 8.18.2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
The sky has come to rest in our swale.
On the first day, little girls stripped
Clothes and squealing, jumped into its cold. Today,
Just below this red house, clouds float
with the mallard pair. Swallows dip
Through blue and grey changes, framed
By fallen thatch where green grows,
Weaving through. When the wind blows,
As it does in May, the sky ripples to white chop
And bright red wings of blackbirds flash
From swaying cattail tops. All winter, it was
A brown hole where we found tracks
Of wandering fox, coyote, bird, deer,
But now, wakes of aimless ducks
Disappear into sky’s wide capture
Where my eyes rest and wings stretch
In answer to frogsong and mysterious cries
In late darkness.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
---------------------------------------
With or without you
This is the fear; sit with him,
Here. Nothing you must do, you say
Again, to yourself. Nothing. Simple,
But here you go, dusting,
Arranging knick-knacks above
This too-narrow bed while he
Stands there, just inside the door
He’s closed behind him, hat in hand.
You suspect he could wait all day,
in fact, will. With a toothbrush you could
Clean this entire house.
There is something he wants you to do.
That‘s what he said last time you met,
When he held your face in his hands
Like a father. You remember that moment.
Your vision blurs, you grip the gathered
Feathers, continue dusting, while your heart
Turns without you.
Ellen Marie Metrick, 4.21.11
-------------------------------------------
One word at a time
~ for Earth
Health is a hue of truth;
its brightest blue, its green,
a gold tooth in the mountain
a trial by fire in the human
race. All who have entered
find running least effective;
standing in place a pace
that makes fast strides
towards deep ties.
Ellen Marie Metrick 4.22.11
----------------------------------------------
Not up to us
“How could I have lived so long / If I had not known that day / Was bound to come in the end?” – Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
We build our castles in the grand style,
Manicured gardens and imagined moats
From inside our dark homes; we tell ourselves
We will find day when we find the way out.
In that imagined light, we see how tall we’ll sit
On our glowing steed, how our armor
Will glint and shine after stooping,
crouching with hardscrabble arachnids,
ears punched with the crunch and stutter
of this web, sound of doubt strangling desire.
The fisherman knows the castles are bait;
caught fish will be head-struck, gutted,
Eaten around the fire at dark.
What if this seaweed forest
Is just where we live, a tunnel in the lava
Flow, and in the end
It is not a dangling salmon egg
But the current itself — even weeds
Bow to its power — the current
that one day pulls us
from under-boulder dark
into sun-glittered stream.
Ellen Marie Metrick 4.23.11
--------------------------------------------
All day rain, snow, clouds
Break. From the corner fencepost,
Clearly, meadowlark.
4.24 Elle M
------------------------------------------------
The boy, the girl, the dogs
It’s choice
Each moment
To be here, all stride
And pant and lifting voice
Saying what it is we want
As if we’ve never known
As if we hadn’t been the ones
To pile the brush and duff
Of story, of i-don’t-know,
Of I am afraid.
The stalks of this earth
Are sprouting, the wombs
Will soon fill, green become
A weight, skies clear.
EMM 4.25.2011
------------------------------------------------------
Feeling
It’s so messy
a tangle viney
windy
a tessera of bailing twine
orange session with wine
here, take an end
make words
one more method
a harness for excuses
not to make them look beautiful
make us look beneath
desire
where
stars still guide us
emm 4.26
--------------------------------------------------------
Stories are just pins
Holding up a dress as big
As this star-strewn sky
(Let's take it off, look
each other in the eye)
emm 4.27
------------------------------------
Almost May
The window above the kitchen sink
Crowded with snowflakes like cold children
Wanting in. Red. A solo mango winks,
Then stares.
4.28.11. EMM
------------------------------------------------------------
Lunch in spring storm
More complaints than snowflakes today
As green spears poke through heavy wet while
Golden currant flowers shine small flames
To the north and the west, a wall
Of storm churns dark, horizon gone
To seed
In my red bowl, last fall’s
Hawkswing mushrooms (Hidenum imbricatum)
Gathered with whistling kids
Nudge beet greens I plucked yesterday
In the hailstorm from my garden
Store-bought yellow squash
And miso for stock; nothing ever
Tasted so good.
4.29 (from 4.26 lunch) EMM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is that what woke me?
This bud of a moon rising,
frost at 5 a.m.
emm 4.30
With or without you
This is the fear; sit with him,
Here. Nothing you must do, you say
Again, to yourself. Nothing. Simple,
But here you go, dusting,
Arranging knick-knacks above
This too-narrow bed while he
Stands there, just inside the door
He’s closed behind him, hat in hand.
You suspect he could wait all day,
in fact, will. With a toothbrush you could
Clean this entire house.
There is something he wants you to do.
That‘s what he said last time you met,
When he held your face in his hands
Like a father. You remember that moment.
Your vision blurs, you grip the gathered
Feathers, continue dusting, while your heart
Turns without you.
Ellen Marie Metrick, 4.21.11
-------------------------------------------
One word at a time
~ for Earth
Health is a hue of truth;
its brightest blue, its green,
a gold tooth in the mountain
a trial by fire in the human
race. All who have entered
find running least effective;
standing in place a pace
that makes fast strides
towards deep ties.
Ellen Marie Metrick 4.22.11
----------------------------------------------
Not up to us
“How could I have lived so long / If I had not known that day / Was bound to come in the end?” – Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
We build our castles in the grand style,
Manicured gardens and imagined moats
From inside our dark homes; we tell ourselves
We will find day when we find the way out.
In that imagined light, we see how tall we’ll sit
On our glowing steed, how our armor
Will glint and shine after stooping,
crouching with hardscrabble arachnids,
ears punched with the crunch and stutter
of this web, sound of doubt strangling desire.
The fisherman knows the castles are bait;
caught fish will be head-struck, gutted,
Eaten around the fire at dark.
What if this seaweed forest
Is just where we live, a tunnel in the lava
Flow, and in the end
It is not a dangling salmon egg
But the current itself — even weeds
Bow to its power — the current
that one day pulls us
from under-boulder dark
into sun-glittered stream.
Ellen Marie Metrick 4.23.11
--------------------------------------------
All day rain, snow, clouds
Break. From the corner fencepost,
Clearly, meadowlark.
4.24 Elle M
------------------------------------------------
The boy, the girl, the dogs
It’s choice
Each moment
To be here, all stride
And pant and lifting voice
Saying what it is we want
As if we’ve never known
As if we hadn’t been the ones
To pile the brush and duff
Of story, of i-don’t-know,
Of I am afraid.
The stalks of this earth
Are sprouting, the wombs
Will soon fill, green become
A weight, skies clear.
EMM 4.25.2011
------------------------------------------------------
Feeling
It’s so messy
a tangle viney
windy
a tessera of bailing twine
orange session with wine
here, take an end
make words
one more method
a harness for excuses
not to make them look beautiful
make us look beneath
desire
where
stars still guide us
emm 4.26
--------------------------------------------------------
Stories are just pins
Holding up a dress as big
As this star-strewn sky
(Let's take it off, look
each other in the eye)
emm 4.27
------------------------------------
Almost May
The window above the kitchen sink
Crowded with snowflakes like cold children
Wanting in. Red. A solo mango winks,
Then stares.
4.28.11. EMM
------------------------------------------------------------
Lunch in spring storm
More complaints than snowflakes today
As green spears poke through heavy wet while
Golden currant flowers shine small flames
To the north and the west, a wall
Of storm churns dark, horizon gone
To seed
In my red bowl, last fall’s
Hawkswing mushrooms (Hidenum imbricatum)
Gathered with whistling kids
Nudge beet greens I plucked yesterday
In the hailstorm from my garden
Store-bought yellow squash
And miso for stock; nothing ever
Tasted so good.
4.29 (from 4.26 lunch) EMM
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is that what woke me?
This bud of a moon rising,
frost at 5 a.m.
emm 4.30
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Two for today
(untitled)
Is this my needle, my north
this sorrow by birth, the worth
of my howl, my how? Only now
as the trail peaks mountain
do I find mind giving way
to sky, hawks hooking way
from why; oh, high stones;
oh, cairn of my woe, this
burrow, this hoed row rolls
me under tow. Only a bat
could find me now. I am
naught but sound, waving
this exquisite existence,
this pittance, a glitter
in sky’s blue skirt.
emm 4.19.11
Visible
I see you. Yes. You are
the impossible route
up granite, seen only
one move at a time,
found more by fingertip
than eye.
I see you. Yes. You are
the line through trees
in deep powder, seen
then lost, visible
to the knees, a sense
of give and take.
I see you. Yes. You are
the smooth tongue,
the reflection of sky
leading the way through
white churn water
where the line is fine,
a single oar-dip
between slide
and flip.
Ellen Marie Metrick
4.20.11
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Today
Meadowlarks at midnight
They call out at midnight; lovers,
Rivals, dreamers, a clear liquid light
In deep dark, they circle your sleep
Wingbeats of lost kin. Mornings
Find them carrying sunlight
To each fencepost, breastbones
Resonating memory.
All day they translate
A forgotten journey as if
Pinfeathers could sprout
From your eyelids
As if your fingers were
Small flames, lit wicks pricking
Deep-cave dark.
Ellen Marie Metrick
4.14.11
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