Fall In The Forest

On the Platform

I saw you in the train window

I saw her too

You saw nothing your eyes were closed her fingers tangled in your hair

The train pulled free

The sway and screech receding down the line

I stood stolid on the platform forgotten coffee in my hand

Looking at the hole that had been your train

Wondering how long you have been gone.

Dark Matter

I am in the parking lot Breathing hard My breath traced by floodlight

The night is hooded I have lost the stars I have lost my car keys

I sit on the tar Lost in space

-Skye

Parking Lot, 2018

Kuutar

Shimmering moth dusted moon maiden

Her skirts spun from the last of setting sun at the nether of day

Dripping dew tossing up a wake of mist obscuring stars

Night soft and certain bows beneath her slippered feet

I sleep her light upon my cheek knowing nothing of her innocence.

"Moth Queen" by anniestegg.

Photographer: Tartarchuk Nikolay Source: elinka

The Dead Sea

Quicksilver Crystalline Cut with milky sun Salt grows Out of barren Water.

-Skye

Image information: Noonday Rest, 1877 by Rosa Bonheur

Midday

The midday sun breaks over the oak four cows and one black horse doze lightly in dappled hides

The crickets are quiet the breeze is drowsy leaving each cloud in its place

Everything waiting for the slipping sun to fall

A little

For the breeze to freshen

A little

Then farmer will emerge sleepy eyed from the cool root cellar and call his cows (and the one black horse) home for dinner.

-Skye

Image source: Personal work inspired by the Vastra-Haran housed in the National Museum New Delhi

River Bathing

Bathing women are both vulnerable and dangerous Clothes undefended on the shore Bodies unfurling among the reeds.

Image credit: Stephen Shames, Asleep in Car, from series Outside the Dream Child Poverty in America, c.1985 Source: letaobloquista

American Dreamer

The mist on windows hides the grubby face Lit softly in some dream

Big dreams Among the brown bags And beer cans

The rusty sagging car A leaky vessel For anyone’s dreams Big or small

I turn my head Going by.

-Skye

Painting: Anguish, 1878 Artist: Friedrich Schenek

Feast of the Ravens

Too early late winter lamb Still and cold in the snow

The ewe bleating Pleading for her child To come away

The ravens’ assemblage Eyes bright and mystery deep

Unperturbed by anguish Fluffing iridescent midnight feathers Against the murderous cold

The forever hungry host Presses in Speaking harsh hard beaked Threats

The defeated ewe Abandons

Her lamb

A feast for Jostling jovial birds Scattering gore In the snow With bacchanalian Abandon At the end of Winter.

-Skye

Title: “Craving for Power” Author: Ilo Kunst Medium: Pen and ink on paper. Source:Beautifulbizarre.

Mad Kings with Blood on Their Hands

Psychotic Charles IV slew his own knights

Paranoid Ivan T. tortured subjects on Saturday afternoons

Oh, and don’t forget George III ranting incoherently as

America broke away Swearing off kings forever…

-Skye

Source: Frank "Silvers" Oakley, photograph from 1904

Frank “Silvers” Oakley, 1904

Frank the camera caught you slightly crumpled

the makeup peeling away in places so, one could almost see you

It must have been after the game all the indians had certainly left the field

Your eyes tired no cheerful play upon the cherry paint of your mouth

When the photographer smiled and ducked under the dark cloth

Did you notice the flash powder flare smoke and POP

Or were you wishing you could just play ball.

-Skye