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 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 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 - a lawn with lake, hedge-bordered, graced with fountains.

Its foundation is 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 the urge to flee, release and it flies 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

Coloring

I like the color yellow
but to color a banana makes
my stomach ache
I want to leave this space

children stand and wave from
the tops of little wash houses
the houses are made of red brick
the children are black

their smiles become lights in their faces
but they don't make me happy
they might fall off the roofs
onto the grey clothes lines

I find a four leaf clover
growing in the sandpile
It is my grandmother...
she is brightly made of green
she sounds like songs
tunes of green and luck
painted far away

the dollhouse flies off the car
as we leave for somewhere else
the pink dolls blow away
when we stop, the world's
cold, brown and blue

I eat white bananas and
swallow the yellow
along with the ache

© Gay Reiser Cannon * 11.21.14 * All Rights Reserved