When searching for your truth, remember

Designer @eliedwardart
Painter @skyloverpoetry
Copyright is Reserved

When searching for your truth, remember

you are an ocean.
An ocean is deeper than anyone knows.
Light penetrates the surface
then things get darker.
Your skin is holding back the tide.
Your smile barricades
a gulf of unseen currents.
Only your eyes
reveal the true colours of your sea.
You are a creature.
One of mind and matter,
head, heart and limbs
all intertwining.
This creature lives in your ocean
and makes love to life.
You hold truth in your hands.
Your choice is to rise or drown.



I have written this Ekphrasis poem as accompaniment to the art collaboration between Eli Edward Evangelidis and me, entitled Entanglement.

Prayer to the All-Father

In Mid-Winter

Odin ~ Quincy Washington
@albanusdesign
Used With Permission

God of my shadow self, you see
the implacable nature
of my intransigence:
My raven-beaked memory
pecking at old scars
and black thoughts on the wing
through the thunderstorms
of my own self-conception,
my wolf-panting anger
and teeth that tear flesh
from bone of my own demons.
Your gaze is a reckoning:
Knowledge demands sacrifice,
an eye, a befriending
of the severed head,
the subconscious voice
confirming my worst fears
that shadows have more substance
and weigh heavier than the light.


A poem for the last solstice of the decade, in honour of the Old Gods and Yuletide, inspired by the art of Quincy Washington.

Haven

Pharos ~ Kerry O'Connor

When all the lights went out,
I looked for you
but you had already left me,
taking yourself away in the confused
aftermath of your own self-doubt.
And the nights seem endless now,
the starred sky, a bed of nails
and every stabbing wound,
the pain of sabotage.

Wherever you are, out across
the grey wasteland of sea and stone,
you are not asleep either.
I hear my name on the salty wind
and it is your voice calling.
I have fuel enough to ignite the lantern
one last time, to set the beam
and guide you home.

But I do not know when to strike the match.


Art FLASH! in December
The symbolism of the lighthouse which I used: It is feminine, reminiscent of an enclosed area, a walled sanctuary, and a safe haven.

Graphite on Paper

@jasonlimberg
Autumn Breath
Used With Permission

What does it mean that we move through seasons
untouched by everything that changes?
You are implacable, a mirror of self in my eyes.
Your voice is the fragrance of woodsmoke.
When the fabric of love was made to crumble
how do we find our way in the dark of each other?
The trees surrounding us on all sides may be bare
but the touch of mist, your touch, is indelible upon my soul.
Why is it that in the sky-brain of our existence,
we follow the path of the moon like graphite on paper?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
But yours is the mind I reach for,
mine the breast where you keep your heart.


Art FLASH! in The Imaginary Garden features the work of Jason Limberg.

Fortress of Dreams

Untitled Original Ink
@mc__monster
Used with Permission

Imprisoned in this Fortress of Dreams
I am the embodiment of smoke
on an inky skyline –
I am the thoughts the owl
speaks to itself –
I am a wolf’s cold stare
reflecting the glimmer of stars
a billion light-years away
a glint upon a frozen lake
a fractal heartbeat of midnight’s prey –
Wake me up!


Art FLASH! in October  introduces the work of McMonster, a wizard of ink illustration.
An Ekphrasis poem in 55 words.

The Substance

All day I’ve built
a lifetime and now
the sun sinks to
undo it.
Anne Sexton

Source

The house is empty
falling to ruin quietly
shutters parting from their hinges
paint unpeeling and tiny jaws
chewing the basement wood.
A silent cat seeks shelter
from the cold wind
and curls in a dank corner.
This is the decay
of a lifetime founded
on the substance of dreams.
Threadbare as the bedsheets
pegged out on the washline,
I wonder if the night will bring rain.


Day 28 ~ SUBSTANCE

Margaret is our host in The Imaginary Garden today, inviting us to reimagine photographic images.

The Illustration

To a Steamroller ~ Marianne Moore
The illustration
is nothing to you without the application.

The Behemoth and The Leviathon
William Blake

The Almighty lords it over Job, pointing –
in Blake’s illustration – to his creatures.

Bear-like, ponderously cowed, the behemoth
slavers piteously, musculature carved in stone
or maybe ice.
There is an immobility to god’s demon
which strikes you as less a threat of war
and more an image of a beaten dog –

and writhing beneath in symbolic fury

the leviathan, spitting lava and seething
impotently from his watery wave, has a fiery eye
but limbless,
seems doomed to roiling magnificently –
You do not doubt the immediate effect
but rather the literal application

for land and sea, one nothing without the other,
both plundered beyond even an aged god’s redemption.


Day 10 ~ CREATURES

Anmol is our host in The Imaginary Garden today, with his prompt idea: Open a Book. The sentence I found from an anthology of modern poets, specifically my muse poet of the week, is the one quoted above by Marianne Moore.
I am also revisiting Blake's works this week, so my second source of inspiration is his Illustrations of the Book of Job.

The Harper

I wouldn’t call it employment –
rather a mad ploy
to avoid retrenchment
(I’ve been to the trenches…)
The electro-harp wasn’t my first choice
but I’ve my set pieces
(nocturnes preferred)
and we’re all fish under water
in this fog of the euthanasia wing
but the clientele are big tippers
and seemed soothed
in their passing.



A dirge in 55 words for Friday Flash, an ekphrastic poem based on the image supplied by Visual Verse for September.

Anyone wishing to share their 55-worder, please leave a link in comments below.. and let's have a Kick-Ass weekend.