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Skyes Poetry - Blog Posts
Artist: Elizaveta Repko (Lizave) Source Malefica67
High Contrast
I want you in high contrast In sharp lines
Don’t Blur or blend Don’t complicate this Afternoon
I want you
Later you can Be obtuse With messy mascara And vague regrets
Later when you return To him.
-Skye
Image: Radioactive by heavenriver Source: psychedelic-psychiatrist
Into a Spiral
I saw you In the café so well Put together Sipping tea
But as you walked Away I noted Your trajectory
Seemed to Set you Spinning
Just when did you start spiraling out of control and Where Do You End Now?
-Skye
I rarely write about my poems....
I believe the persons reading them have a right to interpret poems in individual ways. I certainly know what my poems mean to me but that does not mean that you should try to see it my way. Everything I write is meant to be “seen” by the reader through their lens. It’s not really about what I meant. It’s about what it means to you. I think it is quite wonderful to throw my words out into the world. I love that once they free of me, you might read them and perceive them in ways I cannot even fathom. So, thank you for reading a few of my poems and interpreting them as you see fit.
If you find yourself with questions, have feedback about a poem, or wish to offer a suggestion for a future poem this is my invitation please don’t be afraid to reach out.
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 Source: Kurrusu
HAIKU- Bite Me
Crash into me hard Pull my soft lip with your teeth Taste my blood on you.
-Skye
Image credit: Pat Lillich Source:thenightwhisperer.
Two-Faced
Assemblage of bone and sinew Careful crafting Of hide
I see you Looking out of the eye holes
And know death.
-Skye
Image Source: Mykukla
Defining Cleopatra
Glory of her father Princess Goddess who loves her father Pharaoh Mistress of Caesar Whore Eternal love of Marc Antony Beloved Enemy of Octavian Foe
Framed by the men in your life You are seen most clearly in the Cobra you pressed to Your breast To escape them.
-Skye
Image source: Personal work inspired by the Vastra-Haran housed in the National Museum New Delhi
River Bathing
Bathing women are both vulnerable and dangerous Clothes undefended on the shore Bodies unfurling among the reeds.
Image:The New Bedford Orpheum Theater, Massachusetts Photographer:Frank Grace Source:Ruinationstation
Elegy for the New Bedford Orpheum Theater
The Titanic sank The day you opened
Your gilt was fresh and tableaus bright
It was April 15, 1912 World war had not come Flu had not come World war had not come again
Merry patrons settled into indigo velvet
900 miles east northeast The cold water swallowed thousands While a different band played
Your opulence faded fast Dust caked, peeling, Stripped mostly Bare
You were sold and sold again
The rain came in leaving Plaster puckers, mildew stains, Mushy boards
For-sale sign clouded by rust You are eternally empty
Swallowed whole I tread gently on your aching abandoned bones Lighting candles And singing For the dead.
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
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
Image information: Noonday Rest, 1877 by Rosa Bonheur
Midday
The midday sun breaks over the oak four cows and one black horse doze lightly in dappled hides
The crickets are quiet the breeze is drowsy leaving each cloud in its place
Everything waiting for the slipping sun to fall
A little
For the breeze to freshen
A little
Then farmer will emerge sleepy eyed from the cool root cellar and call his cows (and the one black horse) home for dinner.
-Skye
Source: Davetname
Drowning
Do not mind the tide pushing in and pulling out
Or the waves falling and rising
In perfect scales
In lovely cadence
One and two One and two and three One and two
Hold your breath And play This music
Until the sea In its admiration Smothers your Last
Note.
-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
Source: Miles Johnson
The Lover’s Lament
At first I did not understand The roots you planted
Grew Through Me
Leaving me Pinned to The ground.
-Skye
Source: Winter tree and three crows, by Takeuchi Seiho (1890).
Haiku- In Winter Trees
Crows weigh on branches All wearing winter twilight Chattering with me.
-Skye
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
HAIKU Anatomy and Physiology
Each adrenal cell Under my microscope’s eye Holds a universe
-Skye
Image Source: Charito
Lotus Bringer
Insistent grey eyes Come from the twilight bearing gifts Bearing flowers
I cannot look away
The lotus bringer In twilight’s silky aubergine Proffers the abyss in dewdrops On periwinkle petals
Her placid porcelain face Softened not by innocence But apathy
I am already dissolving into darkness Thinned out Unfurling
-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
Brassaï • Notre Dame Gargoyle-Paris, 1932
Source: afrouif
Brassai and His Conversation with a Gargoyle, 1932
Tucked into Paris between the two world wars
You came to me with the bright lights twinkling on softly rising city noises
And caught me in my common pose rain worn contemplative knowing nothing and everything
Yes, the photographer cried-
I saw this immediately the flash illuminated everything and nothing of you
How can that be old roof top friend that I only think of you in the rain
When in my grainy photo you are always here
-Skye
Bioluminescence by janey-jane on DeviantArt
Source: deviantart.com
Milky Way
Hera
There is an old story of you Concerning one of the many slights Heaped upon you By that husband of yours
Cavorting with the mortals Sowing seeds in the dirt
Proudly he loved those mud children To your face
Once he even pressed one of his Bastards to your breast To feast upon you
You pulled away Your goddess milk spraying across the heavens New rivers of stars tangling in your hair
-Skye
Pysanky - Ukrainian Easter eggs - photographed in 1981.
Preparing for Easter
I wonder who thought of this to take an egg and blow its guts out
To pass the yolk and white into a bowl discards for morning scramble or cheese omelet
Then with wax and fine brushes decorate with exquisite patience an empty shell
On Loving a Poet
A poet speaks Imprecisely
Leaves room between words
Your voice so exacting in your desire terrifies her
As if you would pin her meanings to the pages
Turning wonder Into dead butterflies
You love her but cannot fathom her language
You drown in it Reaching for her
Placid on the far shore She throws pages and pages
Written for you Into the wind
-Skye
Fisherman's Catch
Hapless Mermaid who walked upon the land and grew to miss the sea with its deep dark places
Absent of air
I watched her one evening slip below the surface so beautiful so broken covered by sea
When I pulled her up out of it into my arms I realized she was only a common girl
After all
Shallow pale and choking on ocean.
-Skye
Sally Gall
Caitlin, 1996
Seaside Graveyard, Orkney Isle
Long after the flowers died I wait here overlooking the sea
This grave of mine grown over with mosses and salt air I wait here overlooking the sea
The place beside me empty and unbroken No stone no whisper of you just me overlooking the sea waiting here
Waiting for my Sailor To return to me.
Moody seaside graveyard, Orkney Isle, Scotland
April 2024
Mrs. Robinson
Mrs. Robinson
I noticed her reclining in the shadows at the back of room gazing at me
Beware they said she is older than you think
Concerned
She might quiet her gnarled desires with my flesh
I gazed at her in repose
The white flesh heavy in its powder The tinge of desperation Pooled in the corner of her eye
Curious
I wanted her anyway
-Skye
René Gruau
In Deep
One night in a bath of stars Skin slick dripping starlight
I let myself down below the water
The burn to breathe casting star shards Beyond closed eyes
Then there is just me on the edge of the universe heaving breath into the void -Skye
artwork | Ishii Nobuo
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”