Home Planet News

a journal of literature & art

The Literary Review

Issue 10           Page 22

Rose-like Tattoo

(For Dad)

I am Golgotha’s shadow, alive inside his shadow.

I am rose like, full bloom, resting inside skull’s vase.

 

His favorite: Four Roses, not water turned into wine.

I am sword’s flushed water and blood.

I am ruby’s bloom. His tattooed arms.

His purest essence suffering itself alive.

I am scarlet petals drinking fallen sunlight, bathed in milky moonlight.

I cannot clip away the thorns from his martyred crown.

Thorns pierce all minds.

I cannot untwist, twisted fate.

I am tired of absorbing all this vinegar-face-shame.

Everyone feels staked hands, staked feet.

I am Wilderness.

I am Venus, daughter of flames.

We are a climbing vine, entwined.

Although

Although the pair of cardinals have returned this late February day

Although the songs in hollow breasts have lifted us into another

approaching spring

Although the living room’s numerous white Valentine mums

            generously offer praises of fragrances

Although we cannot hear stems slowly drinking in stilled waters

Although each clustered showy snowy bloom has a purple pocket

            heart worn in the center

Although bundled in a glass vase their subtle presence

            ultimately lovely in their aging of days

Although the nested years in my magnolia hair have silvered

Although the arm rests of your favorite blue chair are worn

© Jadina Lilien: Wild With Spirit-3

Downy  Woodpecker

During winter’s quiet sermon

of undressed trees,

he arrives like a prophet

with red flamed yarmulke—

this totem bird, who trusts

guidance of primordial spirits,

drums out naturalistic rhythms

drums out sacred earth’s

forgotten songs.

Northern winds lifting him.

Blues

For Lucy, my Yorkie (4/27/2008 – 3/31/2022)

I cannot unthink you.

Memories sharpen the knife of pain.

I feel insane inside the walls of sadness.

Inside the belly of the whale,

I’m swallowed down

drowning in this grief.

Wish you could revisit me in dreams.

Wish I could wake to the patter of your nails

tapping along wooden floorboards.

Wish your spirit could have climbed out

of the basket of your body’s deep sleep.

How I wished I could have awakened you.

Absence echoes.

I am a wave crashing onto a jetty,

caught in mist.

I am a lost kite sailing nowhere,

in and out

of this unwelcomed atmosphere.

Cricket

It’s early August

& there’s this soloist,

who has never stopped

playing his body’s blues,

tireless as Muddy Waters

on guitar. Remarkable

stamina: vocalized

persistence, as if

running an all-night

singing marathon

a calling song

into night’s open mic:

I Just Want to Make

Love to You,

Love to You.

Forget-me-not

is dead. 

Without a trace.

It is late August

& in May & early June

they bloomed

miniature blossoms

of blues, prayers &

pagan chants.

Though not visible,

I whisper

their name & have

not forgotten.

Home Planet News