A Weed on The Curb

  For today's WordCrafters prompt: They are the same: the ocean and this housedress. Both spun and soaked and sunned dark as a faded sky.  And underneath? Turquoise yoga pants today, Patterned like a shallow sea, Like this place Years back when dinosaurs bellowed  From cycads near a sandy rim state parks away. I am the ghost of my sea-haunted  childhood library, now  spine-cracked, Which I am, today, dusting.   The photo above is taken several moments before I noticed a palm-sized orb spider nearby and very nearly yelled and passed out in the waterlilies. Orb spiders don't really bother me, except when I see one unexpectedly huge and nearby and am out in the afternoon sun perhaps a little longer than I should have been.  Fortunately, I made it back to the car and home without further incident, to be greeted by Arthur bouncing up and poking his snout in my face to make sure that I hadn't snuck a second lunch while out. And now, back to drafting...which is going to look a goo

  For the Sunday Muse, #166. Deep in the rain, stand and drink. Water that rises carries the need, Remember the trail where it sinks; Deep in the rain, stand and drink. There is a rumble outside as I write. Arthur has come to check on me and has curled up beneath the desk--once James settles down, he'll probably find a more comfortable place to snooze or shiver through the rain. I am, this week, angry. You'd think a wolf would be a goad for finding words for it; not yet. I didn't expect to reemerge and be angry. I expected tears, the occasional panic attack, relief. Instead I am furious and couldn't say why.  -- Chrissa

  Heat is a palm to my cheek, lifting What if the well dries? A dry measurement for height A new well to words? Measure it from letters, From verse, from converse, From the print of a palm The jungle all breath and sun An implication theme park Vines not yet grown thick Skink, like a drop grown legs, --stop, start-- A crumpled wasp lands, small as "and" Hiding in the low weeds, Plumes of the circus unicorns Where hot summer sleeps Curls crisped sundown honey Everything else grey-- Hoodie, basketball shorts, scooter Leaving this convenience store of the soul By the main road So much blank space--pines cut patchy Development with safety shears... Draw the sky with the melted wax, Clouds dark with sooty water Heat always a palm to my cheek, lifting

  Sharing this as part of today's WordCrafter's prompt. The image below was one choice, the other was "Perception." I was distracted by the park itself...so the prompt it is.  She sees where drowned the apple-land When the swans pass on the water I tell her real history and take her hand When the swans pass on the water Beneath the waves the apple trees Call our necks below the water She sees our crowns and our kings Our necks bent under water She sees where drowned the apple-land I see the grass, the swans, and water.   Being at the park is a little overwhelming right now and so that piece might appear tomorrow.  -- Chrissa

  Sharing for The Sunday Muse #165: it's the bad decision offer me a ride; let the wheels spin it's the wrong decision there's a blacktop where we've been We've sent the leaves to vortices, up within our spin Trees still lean above us, tangling shadows in the wind There's no road that holds us, errant in our tin it's the bad decision made with brevity and whim it's the wrong decision on the blacktop where we've been -- Chrissa 

 Sharing with The Sunday Muse for Sunday Muse #164 . Come join the revelry! It isn't the chicken or the egg. It is the egg cup, First among many things lingering in the cabinet That will need bubble-wrap; Because it has a story and we met the potter Who threw it a festival when we were still Adding to the kitchen. The egg-cup is the first of these dishes that I, Standing by the island and crumpling paper, Want to make sure is boxed. -- Chrissa 

  Vampiric spiders infest a high school as part of an interdimensional construction project. When they add yet another former student to their group, they create the kind of neighborhood resistance that derails projects and, possibly, neighborhoods. I've committed to participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this July, although that might be slightly impossible, depending on how June goes. In addition, I've decided to do a 14-day, 5K a day project this month (June 2021) to move forward with a separate project that I'm on the fence about but might feel differently toward if the word count was higher.  In addition, sort of as a complement to some of the non-writing projects from last year, I'd like to fill out the yard notebooks that I've started but not quite kept up. The yard didn't receive the complete reset we were thinking about in 2020 and the freeze at the beginning of this year just pushed it back further. And now I'm thinking I'd like to turn at least one o

  When the freeze came for the homestead rose It stretched every limb and caught ice and snow And the story of how it was found by fence In the wilds of Texas by plant-spotting men Faded away with its sunrise-pink flowers In the sunset and sleep and unexpected hours. We lost one of the roses in the front, although the one in the back has become ever more of a briar thicket and tempts mockingbirds to nest and lizards to run and morning glories to usurp its branches in the summer and tangle like a scaffolding in the late fall. These are the things I'm going to miss when (if?) we move--the stories about the way that these plants came into our lives and grew us into this community. The rose in the back came from a plant sale at Mercer Arboretum, where I joined the library after years of being without a card and then the writer's group and then other poetry groups. The rose in the front was older and came from a little nursery out in Tomball with the story that they didn't know

  Sharing for The Sunday Muse #163 . Hooves thud in her body,  leather snaps in the steel;  Midnight runs through her fingers like horses through the leaves. Call up the wild hunting dark, Call up the deer and the spark; A myth races the heart.  So this week saw both our first in-person writers' meeting (for WordCrafters) since...well, you know. The rain has been heinous in Texas lately (my mother-in-law called a few days ago with a story about how the lightbulb in the kitchen had turned red during a sudden thunderstorm...that is going in a story at some point) and there was a slight break Wednesday afternoon. It's a beautiful morning today, as well, meaning Arthur can go outside rather than hiding under desks and crawling into laps.  Anyway. A story is swirling around my ankles, trying to decide whether to run away or snap at my toes or snooze itself larger in a nearby notebook. And I think that she's playing a myth, above. Trying to find the fingering that will let it bre