Circle of Life

Mad wings beat― 

hover, peep, tumble

from fairy tale, Easter basket.

It knows it should fly.

How did it stray from the line?

I chase, bent down.

Hands stretched.

Come to mama.

Life flashes before my eyes;

friendly persuasion.

Can I keep it?

O! gosling mine― 

dark precision drops from the sky

pulling silent pink ribbons

gripped with no emotion.

tk/May 2014


 R.A.D. Stainforth's best rendering...emotion beautifully captured... 

Join Magpie Tales creative writing group.

image: Chair With the Wings of a Vulture, 1960, Salvador Dali 

Bee

Windows open,

flags unfurl merry

for the drone parachutist,

fever on wings.

Global-scented lines buzz

unsucked and sweet;

constant as carrier pigeons

in the Great War.

Pollen is everywhere;

impeccable flocked spring,

piled high and yellow

for the taking.

Accord awaits, honeyed,

barely breathed,

motionless with yearning―
little sins madden the sting.

tk/April 2014




R.A.D. Stainforth adds a little stingy-zing... 

*photo by Francesca Woodman 

Magi

Natives, Slavs, dark Irish, moan

for elsewhere, sigh like an accordion―

they hover with snake eyes,

offer melancholy and vodka.

Smoke rises from their pipes,

twists the many places before

with all the next stations―

part boxcar, part gypsy wagon.

They swaddle in babushka, braid bone

in my hair, rock me in peat and hay,

croon lullabies of painted roses.

I am colicky―sleep takes a long time.

I dream of conjurers, hypnotists

whispering  a distant star―

a scent of madness and resin candles,
the raven-smooth face of the Black Madonna. 

tk/March 2014



R.A.D. Stainforth melts my words like candle wax... 

Join Magpie Tales creative writing group.

*The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897, by Henri Rousseau

Mad in January...

Lots of people go mad in January. Not as many as in May, of course. Nor June. But January is your third most common month for madness. 

― Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Canary 

January Barn 
Dublin, Ohio