Poetry Series elysabeth faslund - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive elysabeth faslund(11/23/49) Something here for everyone. Mythology, humor, love, Katrina poems, ancient times, history, loss, etc. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 1 ................................Caligula Caligula, like Nero, was not born neurotic (by today's standards) . They progressed to that stage through power, and money.... ----------... Ah Caligula, with puff pouty lips, I hear your trumpet call out away across barren sands. Have you enough soft silks, satins? Have you enough silk, satin skins? Cast away your wine...cast away your mind? Or will you drown scorpions in grapemares? Only scorpions mark passage to your palace lair... sand arid scurry prints tick, tick. Tick-tock. Timed den of mania proclaimed, maintained... trumpet your sour lungs. Ah Caligula, with pasty face, youth floats to the surface... a bloated, gnawed fish, reflecting waters of madding years vined, knotted, with temple whores' boy-women, pawing acquiescence for your poisoned touch. Trampling each the other to hear nonchalant insanity slithering oldness across your reddened eyes. Have your temple whores an arched tail? Have your temple whores attended desert schools of privation truths...sought redemption in a dewdrop? They sanctify your demoned darkness, as you, theirs. Your call summons. I arch only in the desert of Truth. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 ............................Celtic Mother What comments on 'Celtic Mother, Winter's Crone' poem? In the time of dead leaves, when wide-eyed things frowned at sound, and snow fell through fog, a red berry circlet crowned her hair. When hunger stilled infants and frost shrouded ancients, wrinkled laughter dappled forests, glades, fens. Her talons clawed life through death, veil through veil. Mother. Hag. Virgin whore. Giver, taker, wise before gods' birth. In the time of black robes, when men killed for one mouth of meat, she walked naked on frozen fields, and the earth shuddered its young upwards. Mother. Midwife. Woman. She was breathtaking. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 3 ...........................All Around The Roseys June gloom storm night... 'here we go round the roseys...' sliding windows' rivulets... 'pockets full of poseys'... river down, plink down... 'upstairs, downstairs'... comfort bundling dry eyes... 'one, two, three'... deep twilight sighs dreams. 'I wish I may, I wish I might'... Sleep the dream I breathe tonight. 'have the wish I wish tonight'... elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 4 ...........................The Beast Sing soft. Sing loud. It remains so. If the Lady lifts her hand, does the Beast speak petals... With hand by her side, does the Beast speak dust... For we all hear dust. Do we ever hear petals? Oh priest, what have you done by corrugating belief... What have you done with the Garden? The Lady spreads her robes, anointing the Beast With female rust, Soothing men and gods alike With Floods of torchlit groves... Fruit annihilates flowers that gave them life. The pomegranate survived to destroy. Oh priest, what have you done by castrating belief... Why did you destroy the Garden With scaled angels? Listen softly. Hear loudly. The Beast speaks petals For the winds... Of Truth. It remains so. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 5 ...........................Was This Poem Written Yet? The poem was visualized on the front, screen porch, in silence, in wonder, through eyes... It swarmed the Autumn-purpled flowers by the door, leafed through reds, golds of the Chinaberry Tree... dripping words down Sunday wet tin, onto the wooden steps. The poem never stalked like Lady McBeth, through darkness to her ending hall, last line spoken... Never flew too close to the Sun, as Pegasus, gathering no Phoenix rebirth... The poem did not herald a magical Sunday. For the poem stayed on the front porch, and was never written. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 6 ..........................Dunces In A Confederacy After reading 'The Confederacy of Dunces' (Pulitzer Novel of 1983? set in New Orleans.) , these words ring true. I lived in New Orleans for 10 years..... ----------... Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Who dat? Who dat? Who dat clown wid da big, flat feet? You know. You know. Sometimes be yo neighbor, Sometimes be yo frien... Nevah yo enemy... But, when dem shutters close at night, Don be a'walkin dem sidewalks. Nevah dat alley bee-tween houses. Don be a'lookin out yo window, ether. The knife will always stab yo back... Never yo front... Why is dat? Why is dat? elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 7 ..........................The Yellow Rose The Veil is translucent. Owls eye complacently. Do not fly. Not this day, night. They blink gold discs. Ruffle feathers. Talon branches tight, anchoring legends. Mists under Sun, Moon. Owls of lace, blood, warmth...waiting. My father twined the Linden and Ash, though He never knew...while Earth held him. Blooded fighting hands, balancing the butterfly. Teaching me. Softness, quiet, gentility. Voice to shake mountains. Move them Out of his weariness. Yellow roses. His favorite. Did he take one with him... Or leave them all with me... Owls call my name, today. Did you hear them? Again, and again. I cannot answer the legend. I want... I need... Tethers loosen. Drifting. Floating away from The Shore. Freedom. Lightness. My father's hand reaches through the Mist. Pulls me back. His other hand holds a yellow rose. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 8 .........................Dawn Song May this dawn dry all your tears, that were cried just yesterday. May this dawn be joyous bright, chasing all your cares away... The Night has gone, bearing all to the realm of stillness... Now come here, come here... I will wait for you. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 9 .........................Eternitys Beaches I stood on sunsets beach, gulls circling, skimming wavelets, hovering fish husks...long gone. One, lone feather, spiraling ocean incense of lost continents at rest...out there.... Below dolphins' arced grey backs...horizon storms... Tucked in my hair....leaving footprints to sand crabs, I walked far, as stars quietly haloed, crowning universes, folding glitter into the night. I walked to sunrise stillness, breathlessness. Mirroring creation...one handful of water. Down the dunes came a little child running a kite. 'What do you see? ' Piping tiny. 'Nothing...no, nothing.' And walked through the child, into Eternity. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 10 .........................Fairy Tale Sillyosophy Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The Brahma jumped over the moon... Got into Stephen's territory and was Classified a comet, an extraterrestrial... So much for cows. But, the moon jumped over the Brahma, And was classified as a reincarnated Butterfly...careful who jumps over who, here... Fairy tale, fairy tale, what have you to say? Wishing on a falling star...what has that to do With rings and strings and ceiling wax... Ceiling wax? Uh, what is ceiling wax, anyway... Integral portions of molecular structure... Little Red Riding Hood went to the shore, Little Red Riding Hood met Eliot's mermaids, But they sang each to each, ignoring her... Too bad. She trudged on down to Emerald City And met a much better wizard, horse of a Different color, and married the Cowardly Lion. Fairy tale, fairy tale, what have you got to say... Simple Simon met a pie man heading to the fair... Said Simple Simon, 'May I have your wares...' Pie said, '...no, but you can pay and pay and pay.' Pie was in a recession...Pie was a democrat. Enough of morning chat. Got milk? Got a job? Louisiana is overloaded with jobs, so Come on over to my state of affairs...uh, how Is the UN these days? Swine flu...thought that Was the term for Al Quida, or however you Spellllllllllll that...okay, Afganistan, Bin Laden, And North Korea...got nuclear? www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 11 Good Morning! Good Morning! Ya'llses! elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 12 .........................One Simple Question When we reach for clouds...do we use two hands? Or the one... Careful, careful, with the answer, now. Just a simple question...or is it? Use two hands, we leave behind our fellow man. Use one, we hang one hand useless... Should it be? Strength enough to grab the collar Of our neighbor, who only looks to the clouds, does not reach... Grab the neighbor, grab the clouds... Use two hands, And bring three together. elysabeth faslund www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 13 .........................Stars In Her Eyes Watchers of the skies, tonight, as always. 'Yes. Yes, pet, waters are troubled with lilies. No wind...no sun. Lavender blooms. Always these days in August. Quiet beauty. She knew watchers, as herself. 'We will sit on the rocker. Cooler, on the porch. This perch a treat. Come, eat. Was easily caught. Twilight curls fingers through air. Nothing but the sky, moves tonight.' Lifting ages' wrinkles, she peered up, past cypress tops, to black beyond. 'They will come, pet. Wait with me.' The cat pawed silver streaks on wood. 'No, pet, not those. Those. In the sky. The Seven Sisters dance seven nights. First of stars on cave walls. First stars in all history, captured. Before the moon. What magic spells their August dance? ' The cat pawed her dangling hand. The cat curled on her lap. The old woman's eyes, unblinking. Shadow-watching the dance above. As dawn crept, the cat looked back.