High Contrast

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

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

House Hunting

We are looking for a house to keep dreaming really

I like tall grass and wildflowers hardly suitable for some respectable old manor nestled up on the hill of old St. Albans town.

Just a little way down out of town? You say

There is this fine old farmstead over looking Champlain

two Acres of fine grassy knolls but alas We are not people who mow

We would need goats to keep the field neat

I like goats you smile

I smile We can milk them and make soap

We are looking for a house to keep You and I

Victorian with turret? I say dreaming really

I’m so in love with you.

-Skye

Photo Credit: Crowd By Misha Gordin Source: Fallowstore

One of the Crowd

Hauling One rough beam after another Head down Looking neither Right Or Left

Hearing the scrape of worn shoes Hearing the effort in ragged breath

But seeing nothing

Moving together Compliant Silent Complicit

Building a pyre To end the world.

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

Source: hella-compendium

Misty Mornings Next to the Potter’s Field

A dark angel inhabits the margins Coming into the field on misty mornings To dance with the funeral horses Resting there

They come up from their dozing To sway with the angel Unfurling her raven wings They prance solemn and slow As if pulling a hearse In black feathered headdress Through throngs of mourners Tearful and morose

The crowning sun touches the dew She dissolves away with the mist The horses lower their heads Nibbling the clover in morning’s bliss.

-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

Only Words

Come with your dark ink scrawling loose letters

The loops and runs make knots that hold me fast

While you take everything leaving only notes

Slinking off to exploit the spoils

Of my ruined skin.

-Skye

Painting: The James Place, Andrew Wyeth, 1963 Watercolor and pencil on paper 30 X 21 in. Image Source: Sothebys.com

Andrew Wyeth Summering in Maine, 1963

In 1963 the James place sat Yankee straight Holding up the milk-colored sky Clapboards no longer gleaming Rough and ready salt grass Waving

You are there Sketching somewhere Beyond the flank of the house A scraggle of grass nipping at your ankles

You see that house And make it yours.

Image: “Horizons” by Armando Veve   Source: Inland-delta

Viridius

Vigorous with damp And rot Life comes through me

Even yours

Come to the water’s edge And throw in Your virgin

Death and Life Life and Death

Seasons and circles Moon coming and going

Men tremble and fear

Crops fail to come Babies sicken and die Game is spare And the winter long

Men see little

Know less Than I

Come to the water’s edge And throw in Your virgin

Worship how you will It makes no difference to me.

-Skye