Nyx

Image information: Adam and Eve, 1533 by Lucus Cranach the Elder Medium: Oil, Wood Source: lucus-cranach-the-elder

Paradise Lost

It was told that the serpent Tricked the woman And the woman bewitched The man Into losing paradise

In truth the animals were Satisfied With their innocence

The snake likely wandered into the tree To sun itself in the high branches

The woman was not satisfied She was curious and clever She knew the snake was suspected Of many things

Her favorite mouse was missing The blue birds cried over lost eggs

She stole the fruit And blamed the snake for her Nascent sin

She involved the man Drawing him tighter to her Pressing knowledge into his hand

And it was she who smiled softly as God Released them from the garden And gave them the whole wide World.

-Skye

Subject: Darcy Padilla from Drill Baby Drill, USA, 2013 Photographer: Lisa Kereszi Source: letaobloquista

Washer Woman

It’s dusty Sleepy Dying Here One main street in the middle of nowhere

A liquor store A quick mart A laundromat

One sun wizened woman with a rag Sharpened through the spotless Washer Door

No one washing No one drying No one folding

Just the washer woman Beating back dust.

-Skye

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: Dinovelvet.

The Three Graces

Long ago the handmaidens of Aphrodite

Grew tired of being virgins Of being consummate Women

And lit out for the dessert

I met them at a festival covered in wrinkles and rainbows Swilling beer Cackling at the universe

And I joined in at once Understanding there was so much more to me.

-Skye

Wilhelm Kotarbiński (Polish, 1849-1921)

Crowning the Poet, 1881

Women

Soft fair Roman women weave peonies and roses

Into fragrant crowns in the mild morning

To rest upon the marble brows of venerated poets filling villa courtyards with polite chatter

Receding deep within shadowy villas only when confronted by midday sun

Keeping alters to old gods keeping secrets bearing sons bearing daughters.

Long dead fictions with soft brush marks and heavy gold frames

These are the women who turn up in the Victorian Paintings contemplated in galleries on Sunday Afternoon

-Skye

Image Source: Dee Nickerson, Anticipation

HAIKU- Lady in Waiting

On the red lap robe her cat sits watching starlings while she waits for me.

-Skye

Abandoned Honeymoon Suite

Time Transient Taste of deconstruction

The graffiti coats my tongue

The sky ogles the bare mattress   The broken mirror calls back to her Bare naked light

Somewhere in the rubble We are submerged In frothy fragrant water

Somewhere in the motes of dust.

-Skye

Image Subject: Friedemann Vogel Ballet Dancer Photographer: Not known Source:Peepchic

Defying Gravity

Defying Gravity is possible Consider when you left me I stayed in perfect Balance In defiance Of the inescapable Magnitude Of Your

Receding

Just prior to crashing to the ground.

-Skye

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

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