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Moving: A YaduWe keep a home
Of unknown hums
And lonely cats.
The sky cracks but
He lacks a raincoat.

Fueled by smoke and
Words he lands on
A branded street,
Knows the sweet rage
Of meeting too soon and late.

This town belongs
To a song man
And wrongful ghost.
He is most sure
The coast will fade their remnants.
preludesi.
blue rose into the city backdrop
like balloons, a million for the
morning sun prelude.

ii.
i've not slept a dream
but i have cried a salty face
and letters spilled like beans
into my moleskine,
almost as virgin as i once was
with few stories between my covers.

iii.
the kettle's belly boils
like my head upon a pillow.

iv.
i am guilty for rarely finishing my tea
even when i use the small mugs;
pour, rinse, repeat.

v.
perhaps today i will play dead.

vi.
perched behind my blinds
it dawns on me that i am surrounded
by walled neighbours, strangers,
they're just preludes to lovers
the way i am always
prelude to the one.
relearning          i. stardust scatters with the
direction of my pupils –
maybe secretly i am an
astrology teacher, waiting
for a sign to wink
happily at me.

         ii. excuse the rambling
nature of forgotten question
marks, but tell me:
would you like to be the
object of handwritten clichés
would you like to whisper
secrets in my palm
and would you
like to be the possibility

         iii. air brushes against my
skin like the torn petals
of a flower still standing.
[ hold your head up high, honey,
and tell tomorrow to wait just
a while,

         iv. so you can figure out
the difference between
patience and having all the
cosmic background radiationThey say that the big bang was not an actual "bang". It was really just static. Static, like the interference of radio waves. Of course, the universe did not happen instantaneously. The big bang took 760,000 years to happen. 760,000 years of static, and bang, the universe happened.

I get myself together and actually go out. I go to see the New York Philharmonic perform the works of John Cage at Lincoln Center. I walk out during the second movement of 4'33". There's a very small difference between life and death. I walk home, my chin pulled down against my neck. I hum a constant note, providing myself with my own tinnitus.

I focus on this no
SolsticeOnce upon a time, when you were still sunlighthouses and shimmering existence wherever you were needed most, you found him. He was November, shaky on his first last legs, and you saw through the mind-twistings he feigned to the mind-twistings that were really there, knotted up in his dreams.

You were still birdsong then, and thunderstorms, and your bodyheat melted the frost claws that held him tight. You held onto him as his November deepened. When he howled, you howled with him, and the wind played with your voices and pressed the softness of your lungs against your cageribs—and then against each other's.

November became solstice, and
despondenti.

"are you sleepy today?"
"yes."
"but you were sleepy yesterday."
"i know."

ii.

she stirs her pomegranate green-tea until it turns from clear to purple
setting it on her bedside table and climbing back into bed again.
her fingers follow the bluer-than-usual constellation veins on her wrists and down
to the freckle on her forearm and then the scar on the inside of her elbow
crossing the tendon as if it were crux.
and then she remembered that God hasn't been with her lately.

iii.

today is long and sunny but when she steps outside the humidity creaks her bones
and her skin starts to inflame.
she assumes that if getting the mail
crystallophonethere is a punchcard sin
like a queen of spades smoldering in an alley.

Engine,
you hear how the gears churn,
singing faster than we did before
back when black magic dropped like a
pair of socks from the sky with supplies
taped to a note that said
(oh, look at you now)
'U.S.A.,
freedom.'

such a beautiful brain:
what
what girl
runs on gasoline?

have a gallon
or we can call it a balloon,
and a new pair of glasses
for your tapered eyes
(you peel the bark back on the logs,
darling,
but you're not sure what you see),
and life says,
either nail jello to a tree,
successfully,

or keep your
icicles hanging from the eaves,
ca
the hungry look...the hungry look,

the wolves
weaving through
and around
  the gully of your throat like wraiths,

we can feel you rusting, lost one;

i know that drainpipes and fenders
begin to crackle after winter wet

and that there’s a touch of snow
in all of us,

but no one,
no one could hold you as tightly as you do,
your whole body, bloodless in this arrest,

and if you will not let your fetters show
i will show you
there’s a place for going, and you haven’t gone there yet;

where quantum particles, once in contact, can retain a connection
even when separated

where you
wander up to a stranger
with your shirt inside-out
and say &lsq
on watching the night close its eyes on you1. I will not tell you
you are pretty.

How can the halls and angles of such honest humanity
be so pinched between sounds as elementary as these?

2. You need not be two stringent boughs of                     syllables
nor weave your viney bones abreast these five petty        letters,
whirling in the fire of the river
Styx.
Do not attempt to peel yourself layer for layer,
leaving all the disgust behind.
Do not tally your body six                                       &
sea featherin the breaking of the morning we tore apart our ivory shells
     our blood-red hearts are saturated in spume & sea spells
with the ache from the brine gathering around you
your ankles slippery, your mouth
moving liquid through
mine
   i had never seen a more beautiful shoreline

gunmetal breaths
on shivering, silver shores

you were ebbing to my flowing
you were coming; i was going

i wrote in the sand that i was yours

on the coast i could feel
salt on my tongue - dew from the
ocean in my lungs
& i was your pearl
latched from the inside to keep everyone out
speaking in rhymes, & cotton tides

         this is when you pull my body fro
The Long WindOverhead, the scratched Perspex of the canopy has been pulled down and latched into place. The pilot, sat in the back seat, gives the thumbs up and the ground crew step back. Off in the distance, the small black speck of the winch puffs exhaust smoke causing the cable hidden in the grass to snake wildly. Drawn taut, the glider jumps then bounces and judders across the field.

Suddenly, there is calm and all that can be seen ahead is the clear blue of a summer's evening sky. Off to the side, the horizon tilts at a crazy angle, slowly levelling out before the cable comes free, falling away.  The glider bows once to the land below befo
Liquid Cityhere, at the bottom - lovers.
there are lovers disassembling
themselveslost in and to the
desperate motion in
of - waves.

- did you think the continents
moved themselves? see them slip,

in an open sleep. less go, come.
come and, and - again. trembling

here, at the bottom - their eyes
are lightless. hollow bodies left
restless,

          the sea does not sleep.
bitter hug of mortalityso you sit there,
your awkward little hands folding awkward little birds,
as if you could inhale your own paper wings.
so you sit there,
and you think
about you watching the people and the people
not watching you.
and i whisper darling,
darling the only thing you're good for
is reading walt whitman out loud
to your used-to-be-white walls
until your throat chips, and your eyes dust over.
and you just shift your weight
and shake your head
like something
buzzed in your ear.
Apologies to LaoEach day is its own microstep--
since I woke from my mother's womb,
I longed to mimic new words, trammel
the sound until it blossomed

like a newborn, and oh how I birthed
stories--told them how I wanted
the author's sacrosanct title
once I've grown. But growing meant

learning the practice of citizens
and their due contribution: beast-slaying
nature of please, thank you,
an apology: sincere

or not. Then there is time--the first
breath of nine, exhalation
of five, the suffocating mandate
of overtime. You grow used to it:

the cyclical disappearance of parents,
pervasive need of sleep, a home-
cooked meal's gradual transmogrific
on commuting with no hurrythere you go
lighting matches in the rain,
walking with two feet
that the gods gave you
because they cannot walk,

heading home as if with news
of some miraculous disaster,

counting the steps between yourself
and the clouds that disappeared
behind the grey veil of October.

thunder and lightning unfold
so close above

and you dream of a destination
somewhere in the south

where birds and stormy weather coexist.

behind you there is nothing,
running water will erase
every footprint you have left
on the dark sand of this metropolis.

before you there is distance,
enough to live your life
in a constant state of travel,

but not n
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More from ~prairiedaisy

Call Off the SearchI keep writing
And writing
And writing
 And writing
           But
Though this
       Heart hollers
           And twists around in
The cavity of my chest
Like a wriggling child or a
Dog impatient for a walk, the
Words
Just aren’t coming to me.

I’ve tried
Everything – running
Blind, a frantic excavation
Of all that I stand for, or even
Not looking at all – sometimes
Mother’s advice does work, but
Not this time. I wish I could find
Just the right words to say to you
In those moments when you hear my
Preoccupations and ask, what are you
Thinking?
To which my invariable answer is,
Nothin
Oceans ApartWhen flowers gaze at you, the ground
Kills those thoughts that still remain
Buried deep somewhere; I would really
Prefer not to know.

But sometimes when your roots grow
Too far, the grasp of the sinuous twines
Cannot be escaped; they are just somehow
So true to yourself

That they are like a song you cannot
Deny.  It sings to you, always, from an
Earthy grave of such an otherworldly grace
That you wonder

Whether you have really become so outlying.
These are words that are better let alone
Because the truth is like two islands, and
No ferries in between

But for those little utterances that do sail
The gulf on the crest of the
The Girl in the PiazzaDoves are like loves
That do fly as soon
As they scare; tread
Softly amongst them.

Changeable as weather –
No words a heart may
Speak are rational. Would
It that I had never spoken at all.

In the heart of throttling crowds
I feel alone; as if voices and smells
Are an invention of my mind
Only; touch them, and they’ll

Vanish like I wish I could.  Touch
Me, for something sings in me an
Inexorable wish for escape – I know
Not where, but to a place where I

Am steel, housing glass – for in such
A home I cannot be broken; so insular
It will be that neither hand nor heart can
Reach me, hurt me,

Leave me.
CloserAn edge of air materialises - so
White - at your wing’s verge; like a
Blade clean slicing through crystal so
Brisk and cold on the cheek.  As the azure
Sky ribbons above, a pang springs
To a throat and a mouth cries for home;

To me!  To me, even as tears salt
My face, even as the ribbon laces and
Dissolves into the ether of blue space that
Stretches forever and ever, till dusk sweeps
Away the tears to a semblance of belonging;
Do not long, for the stars overhead are still
The same.
DryWhen cut daffodils
Dry to a papery husk
That still lets light through,
Still beautiful as the day they
Were born – but geriatric now,
I wish for a love that will not grow
Cold – but my heart of hearts tells me
That this
Is a futile hope.
No IllusionsWe have
Nothing for each other – or
So I wish I could say, because
Whoever said feelings are a two
Way street lied through clenched
Teeth, to ease an implacable sorrow
No tears [or chocolate] could abate.  But
Time is the only balm for these words that
Will never be spoken aloud, because that would
Just be another

Pretty kettle of fish.
There isn’t much I can
Say anymore to explain
How this heart beats, how
These thoughts flow; just that
Voices don’t speak loud enough,
Nor words state well enough what I
Might think to say to you; but I know
Now there was never anything to say at all.

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February 7, 2012
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:iconprairiedaisy:
inspired by

[link]

after reading it i was seized by the idea that one never stops grieving, really. we just learn to cope with it every day, our own little uncomfortable whisper telling us that we won't last forever.

this list gets longer as i grow older; better not to waste any time keeping your feelings to yourself. tell the people you love that you love them now, before you won't be able to. one way or another.

(c) praireidaisy 2012. All rights reserved.

--------------

04/04/2013 - a DD! totally unexpected. thanks guys, all your support and kind words are much appreciated.
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Daily Deviation

Given 2013-03-04
all the deaths i have known by ~prairiedaisy ( Featured by ^Beccalicious )
love 2 2 joy 0 0 wow 0 0 mad 0 0 sad 1 1 fear 0 0 neutral 0 0
:icontrylledrik:
Mood: Tender ~Trylledrik Mar 4, 2013  Hobbyist Traditional Artist
Wow, thank you so much for sharing this with us. It really got me thinking...thank you :dalove:
Congrats on the DD.
Reply
:iconprairiedaisy:
~prairiedaisy Mar 7, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
thanks! if you've got time to read more on the same subject, you might enjoy another one of mine;

[link]
Reply
:iconindigo-serenade:
~Indigo-Serenade Mar 4, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
A solemnly powerful message, and conveyed very well!
Grats on the DD; it's completely well-deserved! :squee: :heart:
Reply
:iconprairiedaisy:
~prairiedaisy Mar 7, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
thanks very much!
Reply
:iconindigo-serenade:
~Indigo-Serenade Mar 8, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
You're very welcome! :heart:
Reply
:iconlaeneris:
~Laeneris Mar 4, 2013  Student Writer
Very powerful and raw... congratulations on your DD. :heart:
Reply
:iconprairiedaisy:
~prairiedaisy Mar 7, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
thanks!
Reply
:iconalter-ipse-amicus:
Mood: Sadness *alter-ipse-amicus Mar 4, 2013
This is a great piece that recognises how ambiguous grief can be, and how it can be complicated and prolonged by the mixed feelings that often accompany the loss. I'm brought sharply to mind of my own losses, those I have cared deeply about and equally, those people I have lost whose passing has barely registered and I rarely even consider after the passage of time. Loss isn't always partnered by grief, and that reminds us how mundane and everyday a thing death can be, with no great exit fanfare to herald our passing.
Reply
:iconprairiedaisy:
~prairiedaisy Mar 7, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
It's interesting that the expected reaction to death is abject grief but a lot of the time it's a lot more nuanced than that - all your prejudices, the best and worst parts of your relationship with the deceased can be highlighted in the way you respond to them being gone. Funny that you point out that this reminds you how mundane death can be - I agree with you there because I see it a lot in my line of work, but that doesn't mean each life doesn't have its own intrinsic value.
Reply
:iconthemorningtrain:
~themorningtrain Mar 4, 2013
Is is incredible!
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