Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for May, 2012

the mastery of the thing tanka

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 19, 2012| 6 Comments »

blue heron
so still in the sky
my heart beats
faster than
its wings

Read Full Post »

The Teaching Says to Run Toward the Lion Swiftly

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 19, 2012| 5 Comments »

It takes immense faith to take one step toward the Lion in the presence of the Lion.
—Rumi

When you arrived
I did not see the lion
crouched behind you,
did not feel the warmth
riding on its breath,
did not see the teeth,
the nostrils flared,
the glorious golden mane.
I only saw your smile.
And would I have run
toward you the way I did
knowing what I now know,
that its jaw could open wide
enough to consume the world
whole. And now you’re gone—
just disappeared—
sweet bait that led me
to the lair. And I’m
down to flimsy things
I pile between me
and his yellow stare.
Is the storyline inevitable?
Did all paths lead to here?
So few steps between us.
I pretend to hide all the same.
The hollow wish to know
what happens next.
Devoured by a lion?
Have I gone insane?
Rosemerry, it was
a metaphor.
I listen as his long tongue
slowly grooms
his paws, his wild
oh, it’s beautiful, mane.

Read Full Post »

What Endures

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 18, 2012| 3 Comments »


Perhaps it will seem to you that the sunshine is brighter and that everything has a new charm. At least, I believe this is always the result of a deep love, and it is a beautiful thing.
— Vincent Van Gogh

The Egyptians left
their pyramids,
the Romans their
public works,
the Greeks left
temples for
their deities,
the Persians
left palaces.
I am no
stoneworker,
will leave
no standing legacy,
just a heap
of heart rocks
beside the river
and all that enormous
space around them.

Read Full Post »

And Still Some Part of Me Reaches for a Legend, a Ruler, a Fact

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 17, 2012| 6 Comments »

You can’t solve being human. We will have this affliction till the day we die.
—Jeannie Zandi

I tried to know it,
catch it, show it,
to splay its wings
and pin them—
to chart it, graph it,
plot it, map it,
quantify and reckon,
I tried to stuff it,
box it, pack it,
leash it to a pole,
I wanted answers,
wanted keys,
I wanted oracles,
and in came tamarisk,
rodents, dust,
whole rooms
of I don’t know,
a screaming child,
my milk dried up,
my fear devoured me whole.
Splintered, rumpled,
rankled, crumpled,
my all collapsed,
unplastered.
Undone, released,
exposed, relieved,
I flowered
utterly mastered.

Read Full Post »

I’d Love Your Input on Which Poems to Put in My Next Book

Posted in Uncategorized on May 16, 2012| 5 Comments »

Dear Readers of A Hundred Falling Veils,

I am collecting poems for my next book, Nest in the Unknown, and it occurs to me that I have you as a valuable resource … if you have a poem or two (or more) that you like more than the others will you please let me know which ones spoke to you and I will consider adding those to the manuscript … a kind of interactive collating process!

Thanks for your feedback …

Rosemerry

Read Full Post »

After the Slam

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 16, 2012| 5 Comments »

It hurts worst
in the first few hours,
when the purple
leaps up in the moon
of the nail,
and it pulses, throbs,
how the thumb’s pulp
strains against
the skin’s chapel,
and the wrinkles
erase themselves
as the knuckle swells.
Tell yourself
at least it was
only your thumb.
Tell yourself
it was no one’s fault.
Tell yourself
it is not at all
like the heart.
It will heal.
The hurt
will be gone.

Read Full Post »

Snippet

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 15, 2012| 3 Comments »


Sing a new song. —Psalm 144:9

That song I sang
so long, so long,
so brimming with
sincerity,
I hardly can
recall the tune …
though it was something
like duh dum,
duh dum, duh duh dum …
or was it duh dah dum
duh dah dum …
I almost forget
I knew the song
at all, except
today a strand
of tune wound round
my thoughts just like
a scarlet ribbon
tied around
the pinkie finger
reminding me
I should remember
something, something
once so vital,
so important
now a blurry
memory.
And then the errant
strand of tune
was gone. Gone?
How could it end?
I sang it everywhere
I went. I lost
myself in its glissando,
fermata, sforzando
and painississimo.
I sang it ferocious,
I sang it tender.
The song, it was
my everything,
That’s all I can
remember.

Read Full Post »

Planting the Garden Haiku

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 14, 2012| 3 Comments »

in the tiny seed
the scent
of marigold

Read Full Post »

Looking Back

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 13, 2012| 2 Comments »

When I think
of all that had to happen
to constellate this moment

in which I stand
beside the road
with my whole face

buried in the lilac bush
I almost weep
overcome by the pure

purple sweet of it all,
how perfect, how
unlikely it all is—

from the star exploding
to the first simple creature
pulling itself out of the sea

to the seed being planted
before my parents met
to the woman who is me

finding her way
to the shoulder of highway 145
where the sun has just set

and the bushes are heavy
with good perfume
and the air is still warm

and the stars are just
beginning to show
their old light.

Read Full Post »

Well Adapted to Nearly Wherever You Are

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 12, 2012| 2 Comments »

It was here first,
the bindweed.
Before you even

paved the drive
it had sent roots
down sixteen feet—

not a defense mechanism,
just survival.
It had put out

those delicate
pink flowers, too,
trumpeting each morning,

long before you,
blooming not to be beautiful,
but just because

blooming is what bindweed do.
So when you
wake one morning

and see how its leaves
have pushed up
green arrowheads

through the asphalt,
bumping up what is flat,
the asphalt now cracked,

you could choose
to curse it and
you could choose to say

what barriers
will I push through
today?

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »