Timing

Source: Darren Almond Refractive Index I, 2018 aquatint 18 ¾ x 16 inches edition 25

Refractive Index

Waking in a rumple of bedclothes With you And the morning sun

The suncatcher Spins slowly on radiator updrafts

Bending light Into broken kaleidoscopes That travel across our Mingled skin.

-Skye

Image Source: leben-bleibt-wirr

Seeping Through

Parts of me The form and shape Of things

Once lost emerge

The soft belly exposed One arm coming free

Fleshy plaster Flakes and crumbles

You my dear, Are disgusted

The plaster on the floor The dust on my mouth The damp spreading stain Coating your fingers.

-Skye

Saturday Afternoon

I would peel you apples just to see fall’s crisp juice color your lips.

You are so far from me

though

that I wield the knife mutilating the fruit

and bury Eve’s sin deep beneath pastry.

Perhaps the smell of it cooling on the window sill will bring you here

and I will yet taste your mouth

and know everything.                  -Skye

The girl cutting apple, 1938, Andre Derain

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

Sacrament of the Sick

Somewhere north of midnight the priest’s prayers flicker through the hall a verse for each bead on the rosary twisted in your fingers a forgiveness for each sin real and imagined 

I have morphine and lorazepam I have a few precious minutes to wait with you

Yet It’s the priest with tired old prayers and absolutions in pleasing baritone that stills your thrashing that quiets your moans 

I don’t understand this young man in the cassock who will never wear a wedding ring bathing you in ancient words perfect in their cadence never straying from the book held absently

When you join him your weak voice dragged up from ether

I mouth quietly The relic of childhood Effortlessly bubbling up to join you

Yea though I walk through the valley of death…  -Skye

Artist: Even Liu. Source: Peepchic

Lovers on a Rainy Night

I would tether a cloud for you Because you love the rain at night

With a smile soft and wise you Pull me close and whisper I do not wish for a captive cloud

A lone cloud bound by rope Would weep cruel tears endlessly That would be a torture love

Let the rain drip From the eaves of its own accord Like tonight

You are here The rain is here I am happy.

-Skye

On the American Gun

Bullets Chambered Rolling down barrels

Mowed down At desks covered in Transformer and Hello Kitty pencils Mowed down Behind the counter of a corner store Mowed down In the living room TV a flicker   Mowed down At a traffic stop bathed in blue lights

Everyone packing violence and old glory Red on White and blue

Our thoughts and prayers Raised up Respects paid in full

On the altar of the American gun

Broken dead Are everywhere Tangling on the On the wind Like flags at half mast Splashed in bright paint on grimy bricks Piled among wilted flowers and teddy bears Wet with rain

Unalienable rights Ravenous appetites Arms raised to the sky

Sacrifice Thoughts and prayers Sacrifice Thoughts and prayers Sacrifice

Bullets Chambered Rolling down barrels

-Skye

Title: The yellow kitchen Artist: Mary Sauer Source: unsubconscious

Our First Place

Just before we left the rental On Howard St

I looked back The clean Swept tiles Lifting a little Here And there

The sink with its hidden leak The stove in its random corner

One wonky cupboard door Chipped Formica

But the extravagant yellow I fell in love

It wasn’t grand It was haphazard and spare But we were happy Here.

-Skye

Artist: Laura Berger Source: Virtual Art Curator

Stout Women

Hold each other up A collective of acrobats

Balancing upon each other So, no one will

Fall.

-Skye

Eden

Eden is down the road from here just beyond the last row house one step into the cow pasture through the hedge

No one plucks these fruit the red hidden in the messy wild branches the skin with rough brown spots

People pick apples waxed shiny smooth from well lit shelves

Mesmerized by their reflection staring out of rosy skin

I am reclined under branches colored in the sun   that flows through scraggly leaves

Sour imperfect fruits tempting me into sins

Long forgotten

-Skye

Wild Apples…

‘The Fruits of the Earth’ (1911) watercolor by Edward J. Detmold Published in ‘The International Studio’ magazine vol. XLII From the Article “A Note on Mr. Edward J. Detmold’s Drawings and Etchings of Animal Life”