Miriam’s Well is in hiatus May 16-25.
On our return, we will be looking for new work to publish. Do send your haiku, flash fiction, arts announcements, land arts, poetry, reviews, essays, requests for interviews, and any musing on the blog’s themes to msagan1035@aol.com.
Beyond Winter
In order to write a Haiku about spring
Confine the paradigm to real time,
Plum blossoms, cherries and a humming bird
Nectar feeding intent of a flower,
Will seventeen syllables make enough words
In a brain thinking volumes and books?
Kerouac wrote about girls toting books
In short skirts, on sunlit Spanish steps of spring
Using unpunctuated flowing perfect words
In a manner transcending time,
Blowing memories into a roadside flower,
Flitting from thought in the chest of a bird.
Be careful not to crush a trembling bird,
One in the pocket is better than two on the books.
And to capture a moment, a wild flower,
Blooming, running melody, bubbling spring
Into a dew drop golden web spinning time
Might be too many words.
I question the assumption, stumble on with words,
Drunk with the dance of a caged bird,
Pacing the immeasurable floor, marking time
With colored pins on maps and hidden note books;
For now, I am ready, ready to spring,
To capture the moment, to apprehend the essence of a flower.
So why write poems about a flower?
Why articulate thoughts into words?
Why not lie down in the snow blossom spring,
Live life as a song, learning how from any bird,
Experience now what’s been written in books,
For no one’s a hero but time.
Put away memory, put away time
Hold in your mind my holographic flower
Meditate briefly on these three stacks of books
Feed them to your soul slowly, forgetting the words.
Time is the cage, our self is the bird
Fly away in the fall, return in the spring.
Spring time,
Song bird serenades flower,
Words fill up with books.
***
Ghost Flower
I remember what we were, wonder why
Fragile rain sun tears, beads on the sill
Lingering scents, orchids under night sky
Floating in lost, unable to fly
Quiet and luminous, fragrant and still
I remember what we were, wonder why
Thrashing in lust, pretend not to die
Succulent, voluminous empty to fill
Lingering scents, orchids under night sky
Never is enough, grasping at the sky
Loving like credit, screwing like the bill
I remember what we were, wonder why
Pull then apart, scream not to cry
Stars shrivel, mercurial balls on the sill
Lingering scents, orchids under night sky
Laundered for future, laying tears out to dry
Glide over the moon, fly past it until
I remember what we were, wonder why
Lingering scents, orchids under night sky.
“He stole your lawn?” she said.
may 24 – june 22
Opening Reception Fri May 24 5-8pm
THE LAND/ gallery
419 Granite NW • 505-242-1501
hours by appointment
THE LAND/an art gallery presents a reflection of, and on, unsanctioned Albuquerque Art. 3′crows cast shadows on reinterpreted street maps. A wall of documentary photographs leaves the impression of an image, behind the peculiar story of a lawn on the lam. Through photography, sculpture, collage, painting and the word, a group of Albuquerque-based artists tour us through the local-as small, strange spectacle.
biking burque
KATHY CHILTON, LANCE CHILTON, MARSHALL KOVITZ
how i see it
RAY GRAHAM III: THE ARTISTE
he stole your lawn?
ADAM RUBINSTEIN
a block & 1/2
THOMAS CATES
breathing
MARY LAMBERT
crows
YEI EHEKATL
Tres Chicas Books
Next to veteran publisher John Crawford of West End Press
Marilyn Stablein’s artist books catch the eye
Collaborative writing team Sue Boggio and Mare Pearl
standing upright in the tub
the warm water rising
who could ever love me
with such cold feet?
Crossroads
Mom doesn’t drive at night anymore
She might come to a four way stop
And not see the sign
Or a man might walk in front of
The car dressed in blue
So she stays home at night, thinking
Bathrooms are sad
When they’re painted bright colors
That fade and mildew
Like the remodel done in 1973.
She always worries
There’s something really dumb
Inside of me that’s going to leap
Out of my stomach like an alien
And hurl my car into a ditch
Or make me forget my coat
On the coldest day, ever or
Cause me to choke
On a piece of food
Insufficiently masticated.
Mom doesn’t drive at night anymore
So I’ll pick her up
And take her down to the crossroads
Where the lines between dirt and grass
Aren’t so clear anymore.
She can see for herself
That I’m wearing my coat
Chewing my food,
Keeping my car
between the ditches. And
She won’t be sad
Looking at her pink, yellow and green bathroom
Turning gray,
And the dumb person inside of me
Will stay in his place
Where the lines between dirt and grass
Aren’t so clear anymore.
