Magic Hours

Magic Hour (c) Judith Clay

Magical Jeff,
the musical Giraffe
plays the circus
on a high treble cleff
where silver flutes
and golden stars
with brass french horns
wail songs bizarre.
The ringmaster's hat
yields a magic wand
while a diva dove
sings opera songs.
Crowds attend
the strange event
and watch in awe
as a coo-coo bird
begins to caw.
The girl on the swing
does a somersault
and an elephant
dances without a fault.
And when the acts
take a final bow
They skate away
to another show.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved * 8.31.13

Henry and Adele

Henry and Adele (c) Judith Clay

Adele sings the blues to the moon all night,

as she winks at the man-in-the-moon's pale light

and watches Henry play his flute.

Adele fills her basket with her song of night

And whispers the lying ways of a hot day's light

she wraps Henry in the songs of fruit.

Adele sings the lonely in an autumn night

how the river wronged her when she was right

she teaches Henry the shades of truth.

So Henry shines in the lunar light;     and

Adele soars as her blues take flight.

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved * 8.31.13

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-forte, does it matter?
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 Cannnon - 3-8-18
All Rights Reserved

When Time Stops and Nothing Breathes

Today's drizzle
projected my sadness
onto my 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

slipping silent then slow later on 

feel the wind blow then quicker 

as only you & the water 

& the stars hear the sound

III

hall and inward to the branch 

forward then to the dark space 

by the stair later on you'll hear 

a clock take three steps back 

try not to fall

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 pie.

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 house
conceived from spaces living within me.

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 discovered.

The poem becomes a landscape filled with dreams; memories
float through skies,  drip rain, and shine through sunny days,
tinted in pastels - a lawn with lake, hedge-bordered, graced with fountains.

Its foundation are the 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

Iconoclast

ICONOCLAST
For Brian

set the falcon on its wing,
let it soar, let it swing,
let it roll, trace the scroll
through lightning bolts
scrape the skies, soar, turn, dive;
teary-eyed, crush the mold
fill anew, stretch, fold
watch it leave dark skies, arrive,
surprise, implode the status quo
devise, change course, rub smooth
eschew the groove, rise, raise, lift from stress
digress, unseat the goddess Poetry
reject the prize, incline toward the stars
regard, release, fly free......

free form sonnet, internal  and end rhyme, no set meter, no set rhyme scheme
for Brian's latest break the form mold prompt at d'Verse poets.

Gay Reiser Cannon * 01.22.15 * All Rights Reserved