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

Losses

She looked at the spot on her arm.

She still referred to them as freckles.

Raised, turning purple,

another little cancer.

Another little thing to have removed

before it could become a large living entity--

attached yet separate from her.

Her life seemed

a series of excised entities,

now remembered as discarded tissues.

So many had come and gone.

She tried to keep emotionless;

had sublimated those resentments, 

those what-ifs.

Once she was without blemish;

but, she loved badly and her parents disapproved.

It was so long ago they took that little bit away,

the one that would have been a boy.

She was given no choice.

Thinking, as she considered the growing puffy freckle,

which one of these removals would destroy her.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved

Destiny

April's perfection

            breathing essence of strawberries
                        the maple showers me

a stream of samaras
            pirouetting on the breeze
                        they dance along the garden walk

then I encounter a crowd
            women knitting, embroidering  ̶  with children playing
                        and men discoursing the day’s events

I struggle to pass by
            the group surrounds me  ̶  squeezing closer
                        no gaps to move through

the chartreuse grass glistens   ̶   dew dressed

           Looking up, I see only trunks of trees
                        tight   forming a stockade

I look skyward to see a leafy canopy
            stretching high above
                        I seem to shrink

streams of light filter through leaves
            lifting me as though I were
                         a mote of dust

suspended in a dizzying rise
            my heart pounds   Feeling the rush
                       I ride a single beam

an eternity passes
            I am floating toward
                        infinite blueness

suddenly I see a vast shawl
            of iridescent lace
                        spread among the branches

exquisite in design
            jewels caught at the cross threads
                        at once I stick

my redness spreads
            I am my beating heart
                        a throbbing ruby

encased
            glittering by sun
                         glowing by moon

endless seasons pass
            I freeze pink
                        I melt cerise

one autumn
            as the foliage echoes
                        my crimson song

a cardinal
            plucks me from the web
                        and we fly free

Originally composed for the article on Beat poetry; however having second doubts about it filling the bill although it is rather surreal.

©  Gay Reiser Cannon * October 9, 2013

           All Rights Reserved

Square Dance

"Allemande left with your left hand",
office couples sign up to learn
Bob got drafted, now an airman,
partners the bookkeeper, Laverne.

"Bow to your partner, do si do,
allemande left with your left hand"
Bob must turn out, his time to go
his friend Jim finds someone for Pam.

"Around the world, take your man's hand"
Laverne's first of the group to sense
"allemande left with your left hand"...
two weeks, Bob died in Tet offense.

Down the years, the ones left still dance--
life in steps; some stay, and some chance
other partners, the callers stand.
"allemande left with your left hand".


© Gay Reiser Cannon * 12/8/2012
      All Rights Reserved
Posted for 12/11/12 OpenLinkNight
@dVersepoets Pub

Quatern - the refrain falls as required, but the rhyme scheme changes somewhat like couples changing places in a square dance. The story of my friend who lost her husband in the VietNam Tet Offensive. The command or "call" of a square dance often begins with bow to your partner, allemande left with your left hand (grabbing the person to your left's hand with your left hand and weaving around the circle back to your original partner) this to the call of "right, left, right and left grand" (for grand promenade). I thought the 4, 4, 4, structure of the quatern was ideal for a square dance which is all about fours/ in 4/4 time.

Transporting Pirates of Penzance for Battle of the Bulge

My own clockwork reset when I arrived;
seems that I'm shaped as man-sized teddy bear.
I had expected 1945,
But arrivals read 1954.

Not Paris' Gare du Nord but London's Paddington
with a ticket in my pocket for Penzance.
Was met by contact Sir Frank Henry Brown.
It is a cover to fit in with pirates; quite a dance

transporting crew and major general
back to the front by small derigible time machine.
Their craft awaits them on the River Rhine.
I left with Brown a robot replica
to act as a children's torch in case I'm seen;
Who'd guess such fun would come from that design.

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * 10/30/2012 * All Rights Reservd

This is my "attempt" at a steampunk poem. Not exactly Victorian; but growing out of the Torchwood, Dr.Who steampunk vocabulary. Also from the gratification I now have that since my first trip to Paddington station, when finding NO Paddington bears there.  

Dragonfly Caprice

Green Dragonfly (public domain)

He lifts in a jeweled grazioso
afterwards he hovers above the leaves.
His iridescent wings ostinato
when he flashes an allegro reprise  --
darts lively, then dizzily starts to weave
dazzling con fuoco designed cadenzas
marked next by his rallentando segues
ending in opalescent mazurkas!

Definition - Caprice: a tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive; whimsicality;

Posted for Gemma Wiseman's article on Huitain
8/16/2012 @dVersePoets Pub FormForAll

Paganini Caprice No. 24

Swift Song

Alpine Swift from Whatafly.com



This is my "attempt" at a square poem. It almost makes sense.

THE	SWIFT	BUILDS	NESTS	ON	HIGH
NESTS	WEAVED	WITH	TWINE	TONGUE	LAID
LAID	WITH	STICKS	FILLED	WITH	EGGS
FULL	LEAVES	LATCHED	AMONG	SWEET	DREAMS
OF	ALL	BOUND	THINGS	VOWS	GRANT
SWIFTS	SPRING	STRONG	PURE	FLY	FREE

THE

SWIFT 

BUILDS 

NESTS 

ON 

HIGH

NESTS

WEAVED

WITH

TWINE

TONGUE

LAID

LAID

WITH

STICKS

FILLED 

WITH

EGGS

FULL

LEAVES

LATCHED

AMONG

SWEET

DREAMS

OF 

ALL

BOUND

THINGS

VOWS

GRANT

SWIFTS

SPRING

STRONG

PURE

FLY

FREE

I would probably write it this way:

The swift builds nests on high
Nests weaved with twine - tongue laid;
Laid with sticks, filled with eggs.

Full leaves latched among sweet dreams
Of all bound things, vows grant
Swifts spring, strong, pure--fly free.

Swifts produce large amounts of sticky saliva that glues their nests together - which are sometimes adhered to tall buildings or tall trees so that the nest is glued to it somewhat on its side. They fly at high altitudes and both parents care for the chicks. If the weather is bad and cold, and they can't hunt for them they will allow the eggs to break thus permitting them to lay another couple of eggs a few weeks later.

Posted late for FormForAll 6/28/2012 hosted by the fabulous Sam Peralta for d'VersePoets Pub

Celtic Burial

Ivory innocent too young to die;
forest whispers why. Verdure covers her.
Indigo eyes now sleep, no longer cry;
harsh life's antidote - a killing measure.

Celtic snakes carved on a wooden casket;
flute notes tie and entwine the branchéd wood.
Wrens dart trailing reeds through curving foulards
where eggs lie still in braided baskets.

Women lead processions into the copse
Chant haunting songs for resurrecting breath
Even-fall sifts lattice leaves, linnet calls.

Murmurs of incantations for the corpse;
shoes leave footprints upon the eager earth.

One bell tolls. Beyond the mottled light falls.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved
This is my link for dVerse Poets Open Link Night, week 44.

BEYOND

Dark Matter Universe - NASA

Spiders weave a web their prey can't see
binding them in wound transparencies.
Eyes of creatures are designed for what's
vital to specific needs and wants,
ruled by laws that seem invisible,
tooling lives by laws empirical.
Laws may change; although they're measurable,
follow models mathematical.

Threads unseen may fill the infinite
heading life in paths indefinite;
Though the riddle's solved, there's sensible
notions where a void or time is visible.
Paradise may lie concealed some place --
where dark beauty hides or deep in space.


© Gay Reiser Cannon * 4.19.2012 * All Rights Reserved

Rhymed Couplets composed for FormForAll  article @dVersePoets Pub on 4.19.2012
Form invented by Hector Gutierrez.

New Year's

Bubbling wine initiates the year;

dissolving reigns that end winter's drear.

Bright shoes and gleaming glass invite;

designed to cheer time's arc in flight

Sing Auld Lang Syne both old and new

through romance, nostalgia doth renew.

Pleas for absolution

 absorbed with cold, determined resolution.

In village soft or by city light

death and birth in one at midnight.

Through art restore creative ration

Inspiration, love and passion--

Shining smart, exploding into words;

your poems, mind-bursting fireworks.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011 Dec. * All Rights Reserved

FLAMINGO

 © Julie - South Carolina

A phoenix rising not from ash but grass;
blazing hot pink reflected flash on glass.
Burning! Burning! Lone flamingo 
at one with setting sun's last glow.
Waking en pointe, when moon grays to dawn's light,
burning Ra then lifts sickled bill in flight.

A phoenix rising not from ash, but love's
blazing return from aching crash. No doves--
this love! this love! burns luminous;
white hot, melding souls. Our dance turns
this flamingo passion; excites, expounds
this love, a ballet that flies without bounds.

© Gay Reiser * 2011 * All Rights Reserved

Posted for FormForAll - the Stacatto Form
Hosted on 11/17/2011 by Beth Winter at dVersePoets

*NB:
Flamingo - birds in the genus Phoenicopterus (from Greek φοίνικοπτεροςmeaning "Phoenix's wing"), the only genus in the family Phoenicopteridae.
The Egyptians believed Ra sometimes took the form of a flamingo

Flamingo by beachanny

Art in 5.7.5 - Sestina Variation

© Chuck Close, Self Portrait (detail of right eye), 2000


In Haiku Form with Sestina Formula Repetitions

*i

A fold in his mind
where the brain hides lines; faces
retraced, drawn by marks
the work imagines.
As it becomes art itself,
the copying ends.

*ii

Where goals find their ends
in ardors learned by the mind,
eye detects itself
in seas of faces;
colors what he imagines
in shapes that he marks.

*iii

Repression leaves marks
expressed through whatever ends,
Aha! imagined.
Right back of his mind
where filmed masks become faces,
he shapes thought itself.

*iv

Work wrought, by itself,
unlike those others he marked;
 read in their faces.
Beginnings to ends-- 
disconnected from his mind.
Now, they imagine.

*v
What's meant, imagine
how to arrive at itself?
Where's that in one's mind?
The point that he marks
where every achievement ends,
found in their faces!

*vi

In all of their faces,
what lights do they imagine,
when their viewing ends?
Surpassing itself,
moving past color and marks--
to shadows in mind.

*e 

In ends and faces
Art's what the mind imagines--
Done, it marks itself.


© Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011* All Rights Reserved

© Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011* All Rights Reserved

Art in 575 by beachanny

Chuck Close in his studio with self portrait.

Inspired by the conversation about the mind and its inspiration for Art among Chuck Close, Oliver Sacks, Richard Serra, Ann Temkin, Eric Kandel, and Charlie Rose - The Charlie Rose Show, PBS, 9/5/2011

Blue Butterfly

I am led to a pool by a blue butterfly.
The path there runs uphill through struggle and sorrow.
At the pool I seek answers within its deep sky;
I am given a sword which I'll only borrow.

The path next continues through struggle and sorrow.
With a blue butterfly to lead me and guide me,
I carry the sword gift which I'll only borrow;
in its blade lies the truth shining bright here beside me.

With a blue butterfly to lead me, it guides me
to the halls of Tuatha de Danann, magically lit
by the truth of this blade unsheathed here beside me.
In the glade of the moon Dúnedain again sit.

From the halls of Tuatha de Danann, magically lit,
to the woods of warlords dried dark with spilled blood.
By the glade of the moon, Dúnedain again sit
while invoking the spell to cleanse sin with a flood.

In washed woods of warlords dried dark with spilled blood,
rain would flow to blue pools that reflect the deep sky,
peace invoked by a spell that cleansed sin with a flood;
I return with the sword and the blue butterfly.

© Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011* All Rights Reserved
Blue Butterfly by beachanny

Posted for Pantoum at dVersePoets FormForAll on Thursday 9/7/2011

Join us there for a discussion and challenge of a Pantoum

A Winter Sunset

Clouds freeze the winter sky
bare-bones of bark crisscross it,
soul haunting as a woman’s cry.

The aging house sags against
its ghostly garden in shredded rags
of summer’s last silhouette.

Sullen wind shrieks through shadows
whipping loosened boards leaving
frost to veil the timeworn windows.

An aperture to sky opens and
a single ray of light, delicate as a thread,
reveals a dried and broken chrysalis.

What butterfly has fled?

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved

Revenant

(c) Andrew Wyeth - Self Portrait - 1949

 Low monstrous howls disturb our woods tonight;
the sea breaks ghosts in waves against the rocks.
Their echoes shriek within the house where light
and shadows shift in patterns on old clocks.

   The hours toss on hollow, dark tick-tocks
   The mirror oscillates with movement too
   I'm shocked!  Its silver casts the shape of you.

I jump as closet doors now creak, floors squeak.
The clouds outrace the moon to sheath the stars.
The room is cloaked in gloom and all seems bleak.

     My mind plays tricks, I hear your bass guitar;
     those ostinato beats resound afar.

          In rhythmic drones they fade to solo song;
          a sad oboe's atonement from beyond.

Poem (c) Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011

I broke the two 7 line stanzas (a b a b b c c) two ways to show the "dversity" of the form.  The first a quatrain and a tercet; the second a terza rima and two couplets.  I didn't have to break them but I broke and indented them for effect and to show the structure.

A study for Rime Royal at dVersepoets today 7/28/11 starting at 3 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. UK
Join me there, please!

Dans Le Jardin

My photos from Les Jardins du Luxembourg - Paris - 2009

Nearing twilight
by the balustrade
I behold the gravel path below
carved crystal cylinders sing
carnations and chrysanthemums
crimson hues cry gold-
en leaves from trees.

Fountains spray rain-
bows on violets and jasmine
a cockatiel squeals
trilling a procession of marble queens
royalty attired not so fine as peacocks'
plumage nor so much as sparkling jewels.

I see you in the shadow of the maze
you're not alone and although I can't see
her, your body croons so much
beseeching her with madrigal feats.

Our little girl in a golden swing winds
wide and wider circles with her feet
while she warbles words of a king named
Kubla Khan with silver notes swayed sweet.

In Xanadu did he betray a wife's rhapsody
And fall for the romance of a courtesan's
lay?

(c) Gay Reiser Cannon * 2011 * All Rights Reserved

My photos from Les Jardins du Luxembourg - Paris - 2009

Dans Le Jardin by beachanny

NINE YEARS

Superimposition of Dealey Plaza on Dallas Skyline

NOVEMBER   1972
Freezes
Fades colors gray under a cast iron sky.
Reflects light in dull water washed
And blown cold silence.

This year
Cruel far more
Than sun split April;
Worn, worn and rubbed down.
Lulling outlines into nulled objects.

Dull days
All steel blue
No dusk, no dawn, no ember glow in
Dallas’ lines perpendicular and parallel.
Lifeless lines that intersect a pallid sky.

No season this.
No glassy brilliance revealed.
No reflections on metal cars or lofty towers.

The days turn my mind as the random stone
Blown over and exposed as bland as its other side.
A month spilled like this morning’s milk
Left to dry and overfilm my realm.

NOVEMBER   1963
Felt like this
While autumn’s lights and brilliant colors
Belied the lamentation.

© Gay Reiser Cannon. All Rights Reserved

AMARILLO

Yellow
Or someone’s word for it
Was the name of my early place.
A dirt-blown, wind swept 
Kind of a town
It’s name really should have been 
BROWN.

Seasons of sand, snow, and wind
Shrilled through starry nights alone,
Defied by a few rare elms
Growing green in front of 
Yesterday’s homes.

I remember
Bits of straw,
Sun-dried grass,
And tumbleweeds racing
Always chased by the wind.

Out from the town on those endless plains
The blowing wheat bent down too
While that great sky provided all there was
And all we ever knew.

© Gay Reiser Cannon. All Rights Reserved

This poem was published in 2006 in Bright Star Magazine