Stitched Verse

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Healing

I’m not myself

wisps of me

vent off my body

trail into plumes

of transition

Energy fizzles before

it gathers enough steam

to get me off the ground.

I am dense tule fog

tense

transfiguring

patches of my

former self.

I look down my empty wellspring

wonder if the bucket

will crank up at least one more time

before I kick it.

Birds in the oaks cackle

at my hyperbole.

This ungrounded place

of life without pulse

a walk between worlds

a hell without fire

a place I want to pass through

as fast as possible

and visit seldom.

Finally I funnel the wisps

with my hands

in time with my heartbeat.

Let there be light!

~.~.~

Photo Credit: Chakra Fire © Elena Ray – Fotolia.com

Friday, February 22, 2013

Gone

Sometimes I lose you

in the middle of a sentence:

soul vacates body

your whole being goes blank.

Staring at a Stepford Wife

I ask:

Are you there? OK?

You only speak when spoken to,

a Stepford Rule.

Where does my warm friend go

in these out-of-body experiences?

I don’t know, but it doesn’t feel

friendly or warm

or of this earth

I suspect you’re kidnapped by aliens

their painful probes touching

places you do not want exposed

Invisibility

the hardest force

to fight, fathom or befriend:

You

Them.

~.~.~

Photo Credit: Haunted Forest © Heartland - Fotolia.com

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

April: Astrological Poetry Month on The Radical Virgo


Preview this book in progress in April 2013!

Dear Friends of Stitched Verse,

After not posting for two years due to other commitments, I’m excited to announce a new wellspring of poetry I'll be sharing in April 2013 on my astrology blog, The Radical Virgo. You don’t have to be an astrologer—or even much interested in the subject—to appreciate these poems, prayers, blessings and meditations about everyday life and the relationship between Earth and the Cosmos.

I’m on the cusp of some down time, taking care of some medical issues and claiming some much needed R&R. By Spring Equinox, I expect I’ll be back here now and then, penning poems. I worked ahead for April's Astro-Poetry Month, and it has been very surprising to rediscover another poetry vein. I'm having the next California Gold Rush!

Hope you’ll “cross over” to The Radical Virgo in April, and I look forward to being back on Stitched Verse in the future, as some major commitments wind down at the end of winter.

Yours in verse,
Joyce

Saturday, February 26, 2011

For Ben Hiatt

By Guest Poet A.D. Winans

Like a hummingbird feasting on

the pollen of life

You walked the streets like a Samurai

With words sharp as a sword

You lived your life like a chess master

Found peace in the mountains

But never forgot the life blood

Of the city

Ravaged by illness, you cut through

The pain with the precision

Of a surgeon’s scalpel

Your spirit left behind

In the grass in the leaves

In the sky

Your words soft as feathers

Rode life to the end of the line

With metaphors that serenaded

The mind

Your memory dances with the wind

Becomes one with the stars

In a new place a new terrain

In the Buddha temple of life

All things die

But only the flesh expires

The spirit cannot be killed

Lives on in the heartbeat of the sun

In the words and friends who wait

To become one

About Ben Hiatt (1943-2007)

Ben was a well-known Northern California poet, a larger-than-life character and one of the many people whose talent and passion for poetry provided a model for me in my early days as a poet. Learn more about him on Rattlesnake Press and on this tribute on Sacramento Poetry Center's blog.

Thanks to A.D. Winans, for permission to print this poem about his long-time fellow poet in honor of the upcoming publication of Ben's last manuscript in Primal Urge, including testimonials. Watch for it.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Great-Auntie Earth

You look so hunched and frail,

yet you have the strength

to push a hundred.

You thought I was lost—

never met me

beyond my mother’s belly—

but when I found all of you so many years later,

Your eyes danced love and sparkled recognition.

You were the link to all my good.

When they wouldn’t have understood,

you took us in.

Your kindness imprinted me for the rest of my life.

Your influence was stronger

than the word illegitimate.

“You’re the most generous woman I know,”

my husband tells me.

No wonder.

Look at where I come from

how you welcomed me

and taught me

in utero

when I was still forming

to have an open heart.

Now we sit vigil while you make up your mind

to stay or to go—to cross worlds.

You’re an elf, but also an old Hungarian plough woman

muttering rosary prayers as she cuts through

the thickness of earth with all her might.

You are most God-fearing, but also the most God-loving,

woman I have ever known.

You blend fragile spirit with stubborn strength:

the kind it takes to push earth in its many forms,

and to keep on keeping on,

as we will keep on loving you,

pushing earth like you taught us well

with total generosity of spirit.