Source: Miles Johnson

Image Source: Brassai, circa1946 Source: letaobloquista

Brassai Roaming Paris

After the churning of buildings and bodies After the round ups of 75,000 Jewish citizens After the ovens to the east stopped their burning

The streets were swept The babies boomed And lovely ladies once again wore real silk stockings

You saw them stop for moment

The baby was sleeping

The headlines were posted Every word shouting LARGE FONT BLACK and BOLD

“Francais! Reveillez-vous!” “Aux Hommes d’Ordre et de Bon Sens”

She gave his arm a Contented almost sleepy Squeeze

Politics was politics again Life was life again

The baby woke up and began to cry.

-Skye

Source: magnificent-winged-beast

Nyx

Look at you carrying around night in jar Daughter of Chaos

Empty your vessel as the sun retreats And let me sleep under the liquid deep

Endless Ocean Of universe Sprinkled With stars.

-Skye

Source: Palimpsest by Dale Dunning

Your Face

It’s difficult (you must know) to deny things so clearly spoken without words

in silence you say everything the curve of your mouth the eyes that do not

quite meet me

and when your mouth is finally open

i can still see the truth in you typeset across your face.

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.

Source: elzamine

Life’s Detritus

Mundane bits of life’s detritus Collected and pressed In a leather-bound book

Bits of butterfly wings Flowers of spring Flowers of high summer A seed or two for good measure

Carefully preserved To revisit later In the twilight When one pulls the bits of one’s Life together Into one last story.

-Skye

Fall in the Forest

Trees hurl brittle fire

dry raspy whispers tumble heads and heels

flying along the path

hold my hand sip the air

slipping in from the north

and walk this path with me.

-Skye

Path of colors and light by Dominique Guillaume 

Artist/Work: Alexander Calder, from the “Circus” portfolio, 1964 Source: museums.msstate.edu

Timing

Catch me like there is no net My dear I am counting on you

I am the first of us to Let go

To believe With outstretched Hands

In the moment One reaches For love

Timing is everything A net will not Stop the fall

Hearts still Break.

-Skye

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

Image: Poland,1932 Photography: Henryk Poddebski, Poland 1932 Source: polishcostumes

Dziado

Came from Slavic wheat Farming Polish fields under the sun Breaking bread with his mother and sister At end of day

Peasants they owned nothing Not the land Not the wheat Not the roof above them On cold winter nights

War washed him from the continent And off to America With his wife and baby girl

And though he is long dead I still see him

Caring for his cows Feeding his pigs Cooking his eggs With his garden onions Under his own roof.

-Skye