MASQUERADE

  Photo: © Carnival by Giles Heather

Hot as Aztec orange and gold Passion turned to rust Your love once pure as sunlight Reduced to simple lust. Passion found the dark and brooding night, Covered with lies and self-fulfillment. Alienated from your talent and delight, You cried out for enrichment. You stole the gems from Earth’s great store To emulate the light. That brilliance within your halls Now lost to other people's sight. In citrine crested walls with diamond ceiling stars You dance alone on polished amber floors. Enchanted by your rubied-chambered heart, You fool yourself that love lies right outside your doors! You dwell there beyond the city lights, Beguiled beyond illusion. Thinking brilliant days and splendid nights Are not just mere delusion.

©  Gay Reiser Cannon  All Rights Reserved

On The Island

 © Gay Reiser Cannon shot at Port Aransas, TX

The sea called

we met it with love

edge walking with

rhythm, roars

we kept mostly to ourselves

splashed with sea music.

 

Always blue

but never felt sad

freshly brought

power washed, the sea   

cleared the webs of our minds

sparkling in the light.

 

Playing house there with

castles in the sand

your small doves dodged

my blackbirds who

circled by the talking gulls

making music in the skies. 

Seasons fly

lines cross sky and sea

we can feel, but

we can't see

the myths share our time, our air,

those sand blown memories.

 

Heartfelt time

it's never enough

all we have

all we give

through the spray and the sea tears

all evaporates.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved

Shannon Among the Trees

Photo © Lukasz Smigiel *2021*Trees    

  

Above her head, skies—not Ruben’s skies,
populated with pink cherubs--
No, the skies she knows – Florida’s low steamy skies,
Texas’ aqua autumn skies, Kansas’ endless great plains skies,
or arching overhead her primal sky,
the Northwest Olympian skies.

Beneath her feet- ice
Not the ice of rivers, lakes or even ponds;
but framed, measured out in meters or feet.
But she never needed guidelines to hit her mark!
She felt the right place instinctively.

Surrounding her, born of earth and shaped by wind—
the sentinels that protect her, comfort her, and
accompany her—her tribe, the trees.
Composed of all species and colors—
deciduous, conifers even succulents
rising from the desert floor lifting to
the greatest mountain heights.

They surround her and she feels
their might and power within her.

            © Gay Reiser Cannon *8/3/2021* All Rights Reserved 

 

FALLING IN LOVE

Embossed - original artwork © Gay Reiser Cannon

Your glance sets my heart aflutter

Your heart, my heart's glove.

My body, even my soul, halts

My heart fills, four vessels of love.

Memories dissolve, fear flees

My blood's the nectar of love.

A second lasts a lifetime

More exquisite than a dove.

Before and after disappear

I stumble through a fog.

A pool lies somewhere behind your eyes

Filled with your quiet love.

Your nod urges me to take the plunge,

Submerge myself in love.

Your smile provides the shove,

In gay abandon,  I swim in love.

© Gay Reiser Cannon -  May 2019

A ghazal 

Tempo Rubato

Piano or forte, how does it matter? Or how does it feel?
Soft or loud?  Press down and the keys push back.
Resistance.
   God in the machine
   Good in the person
Press on.

The work gets harder.
The noise is harsh.
The keys hold the power.
In the center lies the music, that sweet spot - freedom.
Press on!

© Gay Reiser Cannon - 3-8-18
All Rights Reserved

When Time Stops and Nothing Breathes

                                        Today's drizzle
                                        projected my sadness
                                        onto the garden.
                                        Rose petals shed
                                        shamelessly in the breeze.
                                        Seasons stopped in
                                        gray solemnity;
                                        music ceased.

                                        Grisly clouds crouched

                                        near the fence, as the
                                        cats cowered and
                                        forgot to breathe.

                                        I turned back
                                        counting my steps
                                        and shuddered.

                                        (c) Gay Reiser Cannon - 4.10.17
                                        posted @dversepoets for 44 word
                                        Quadrille

                                        

When I Was Ten

Black as the night that ruled my day,
a habitually mean scare-crow nun
tortured my tenth year by terrorizing
my fifth grade nights and days
heart-stopping in the recurring nightmares.

The single ray of light that year
occurred when I was released
to take piano lessons. Her retribution
took form in winds of hate that
directed manic strikes with a hickory stick.
It shred my hands and arms, at any
time almost always for imagined
infractions of some unspecified law.

No recourse, no mercy, and no understanding
and now I feel the same for that institution
that preaches love and practices hate.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * 4.1.16 * All Rights Reserved

3 IMagy Poems

 I

Pigeons thunder roof to 

ground no way to get unwound 

more all the time 

out of reason 

full of sound -- 

sleeping, waking,

coming 'round every day

II

Sailing the night on silver moonglades

slipping in silence 

then slower.
Later on 

the wind blows soft then quicker. 

Then you & I,

the water 

& the stars swirl 

while

waltzing waves abound.

III

In the hallway, turn inward to the branch 

then forward to the dark space 

by the stair, later on, the clock sounds

take three steps back 

try not to fall
before you find the round table lace
I'll be waiting for you

there.

 

© Gay Reiser Cannon * 1.28.2016 * All Rights Reserved

One Part Invention

 
The earth leans,
the waves rise up,
the raindrops fall,
the snow piles.

We feel nature's complexity
and reassurance in
steady Bach measures;
the perfect interweaving
of chordal harmonies
fortify our spirit.

Patterns ever changing,
while repeating,
calm and comfort us
with the same warmth
and reassurance
as the kitchen table,
a baking apple strudel.

Our spirits lift.
We forge ahead.

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved * 2.28.15

By Design

I am an architect of poetry.

Each idea designed as a garden house

conceived from spaces freed from dreams.

I draw the empty benches of my soul.

sketch rooms full of chrysanthemums.

Each petal, a shaded nuance, as forms unfold.

I measure words in sets of columns, stanzas rise from written lines,

give background to emotions. I plan heavy with passion,

then deliver delicate blueprints where hidden closets may be found.

The poem becomes a landscape filled with vagaries, memories

float through skies, drip rain, and shine through sunny days.

Tinted in pastels, my mind imagines a lake flowing with fantasies.

This scheme is filled with trees whose winter lines seem like

those traced upon my palms elevated to a metaphor for life

executed in relief upon the soft clouds of a winter sky.

Nouns; house, painting, closets, chrysanthemums, park, cloud, trees, bench, fountains

Verbs:  create, discover, conceive, fill, research, design, measure, draw, elevate, execute

for Connect the Dots @dVersepoets pub - today hosted by Claudia

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * 2.6.15 * All Rights Reserved