Astral Boutique's blog

The Eyes of Johnny Doe

 

Fiddle me off to sleep

oh eyes of Johnny Doe

You make these fun house mirrors straight

You make this fun house feel like home.

Alice the right size

Not squished, not too tall

You like

Pale girls

With moonstone eyes

Blood jumping at the sight

Of the spelling bee queen-

Thank you for breathing me in 

like rare earth

Thank you for breathing me in

like the rain

 

Thank you for leaning into the embrace

For remembering the beginning

the time, & the place

The mugwort tea moonrise

The spell that I cast

The spell that worked too well,

that I made my last

Across the galaxy, cross the highway,

cross the night

for your light,

& my light, red as rubies,

& my muse polished bright

 

In my bed in the deep woods

I wonder: half the night

Why do the men who would love me

grow as dumb as the dirt

& the men who would speak

never speak of my worth?

 

I can't be your ventriloquist,

my Johnny Doe

But you know

& I know

& we don't know alone

That if a poem or a song

which you 

set

down

which showed me 

beautiful & soft

penetrating

& kind

A fire ever-kindling

sparking diamonds in your mind

 

If such a thing landed

by carrier pigeon, by pony express

or by hieroglyphed means

I would think about forging a key to your kingdom

I would think about blowing the leaves from your trees

Your lost chord that calls to me

endlessly

please

The angels from my toes

to my headboard

to my brain

Swarming the pearly gates

like frog eggs in the spring

 

But your hand holds no pen

Your fingers fumble the keys

& nothing appears

but this wish, 

& a sneeze.

 

But the night is not lonely.

My own company keeps.

And the eyes of Johnny Doe

Fiddle me off to sleep.

The Haircut

 

Floor-length tresses

Make tremendous nests

for the biggest birds in the whole wide world.

The rooks have nothing on us now

We carry the sun through the Spanish sky

We squeeze siblings through chimneys 

tornadoes through windmills

& the fattest of camels 

through the needle's thin eye.

 

The tears roll off her cheeks-

she's more newsboy than nymph

The fat silver scissors

Coil the snakes at her feet 

      hissing pritt-teee

      hissing spesssshul

She trembles, then leaps:

 

Surprise, you are free

The path to the ocean becomes obvious, she

is running there, lungs wide

one thousand miles an hour

Every electron nestled snugly

In the solar systems of her spine

Not a spark, not a breath

As she passes by

 

And as her feet

shall be baptized first

As she runs straight into the water

So too shall her head

Be purified last

Made whole again

whole again 

By the salt & the air & the sound of the sea.

 

Is it that a weight has lifted

Or that I've been made stronger?

Is it that the load has vanished

Or that my strength appeared?

 

It is both, she leans and whispers 

twinning her reflection

Admiring the new style for what is gone

As much as what is here.

A Good Egg

Gospel morning

All's calm

The winning egg grows glorious on her throne

While the ladies in waiting 

overthink and overdrink

The world made of men

And so many of them 

uncourageous 

It can make a woman feel

God didn't put her parts right together

 

But the Queen is calm

Sailing smoothly

The figurehead razoring through the brine

 

Girls on deck

Winding and unwinding rope

Swabbing and scrubbing

Think about your problems later, calls the Queen

Sit down and have a good, proper think:

but later.

 

Right now the salt air fills our lungs

and there is no earth beneath our feet

Just the sea, defying gravity,

swallowing shorelines

No ruler but the one

who changes- as we change- and I 

am headed 

straight on

to Full

To Mouch

Mouch, aka Mouchie, Mouchander, Mang, Mandables, Moops, Pistachio Panther

2005-2015

Let's start at the very beginning

The only good place to start:

Man gets your mercy and

God gets your mystery

But the bones of that cat got your heart.

 

How soft was his muzzle

How sincere his kiss

His whiskers a wing brush

Remember now this:

 

The thrill of your Dailies

The rush of routine 

The fire in the eyes 

of pistachio green

 

When you sit on that rock

When you sit, and don't talk

He is there, though he cannot be seen

And while regular vision

Lacks a panther's precision-

 

Human girl, he is always in dreams. 

 

 

How

 

How the stone became smooth

In between sea and cloud

How the sky became earth

How silence became sound

 

photo: Yuba River, March 2016, after the first real rain in years

Poem For Wednesday- Tomas Tranströmer

Inside the huge romanesque church the tourists jostled in the
half darkness.
Vault gaped behind vault, no complete view.
A few candle-flames flickered.
An angel with no face embraced me
and whispered through my whole body:
“Don’t be ashamed of being human, be proud!
Inside you vault opens behind vault endlessly.
You will never be complete, that’s how it’s meant to be.”
Blind with tears
I was pushed out on the sun-seething piazza
together with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. Tanaka and Signora Sabatini
and inside them all vault opened behind vault endlessly.

-Tomas Tranströmer (Swedish poet)

 

*********************************************

Thanks to my sweet customer Marie for sharing this wonderful poem with me. 

Poem For Wednesday- Sappho

 

At The End Of The Bough

Sappho

At the end of the bough--its uttermost end,

Missed by the harvesters, ripens the apple,

Nay, not overlooked, but far out of reach,

     So with all best things.

This poem is thanks to a "poem a day" subscription service called "Your Daily Poem" that I recently joined- it's free, the poems are all very accessible, and it is adding a lot to the life of my inbox!

 

Poem For Wednesday- Hafiz

The Subject Tonight is Love

Hafiz

The subject tonight is Love

And for tomorrow night as well,

As a matter of fact

I know of no better topic

For us to discuss

Until we all

Die!

Poem For Wednesday

There was some exciting news in literary circles this week-- after 150 years, the only known photo of Emily Dickinson as an adult was discovered! Donated from a private collection in Massachusetts, the daguerrotype, taken around 1859, features the woman believed to be Emily Dickinson sitting next to her friend, Kate Scott Turner. The only other known picture of Dickinson was taken in 1847, when she was a teenager. 

That's Emily on the left. I think she has very, very kind eyes.

 

III. Nature, XXVIII, Autumn

Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.

 

Poem For Wednesday

["Though Your Sorrows Not]

e.e. cummings

 

though your sorrows not

any tongue may name,

three I'll give you sweet

joys for each of them

But it must be your"

whispers that flower

 

murmurs eager this

"i will give you five

hopes for any fear,

but it Must be your"

perfectly alive

blossom of a bliss

 

"seven heavens for

just one dying,i'll

give you"  silently

cries the(whom we call

rose a)mystery

   "but it must be Your"