Rainforest Poem

Costa Rican Rainforest

Does the one-eyed moon hear our cries?
Coral snakes startle with a faint hiss.
All things die, all things rise.

The daylight brings parrot’s reprise.
The green poison dart frog insists
that the one-eyed moon hear her cries.

The drizzle drips on ferns disguised
in faint fog shifting in the leafy mist.
All things die, all things rise.

Volcanoes erupt to fire-orange skies.
Clouds hover above and coexist
with the one-eyed moon that hears our cries.

Ocelots swim, spiders improvise,
wrap their bodies, spin webs, persist-
all things die, all things rise.

Haze obscures the Quetzal’s sighs,
spirits linger while monkeys tryst.
Oh, one-eyed moon that hears our cries:
all things will die, all things will rise.

Mary Westcott

Thanks for the great meeting!

Dear Group,
I really enjoyed meeting everyone and will keep you posted on my poetry progress!
Tom, I hope you can link me up to email so I can get official notices of meetings.

All best,
Mary Westcott

Attempt to recreate the story of Lot's wife

I Am Salt

The men of Sodom gather like storm clouds
outside my house, rumbling and loud
and my husband and I inside, cowed.
The angels are pleading: go now,
the city will perish and burn.
I’m torn and I shout no, and I run
out the door, leaving my gold rings
and tapestry, the smells of garlic
and roasted lamb, the fruit of the fig
and honeyed wine.

I am slow as a sow
as moisture drips down my body.
I flee in the desert and fear
for my husband running ahead.
Sand sticks to my feet
through my sandals, and sweat
trickles down my brow.
I am running, running
per the angels’ decree,
running from my city close
to the sea.

My fears crystallize into thoughts,
and I long for my couches and carpets,
the sweet aromas of cinnamon and myrrh.
Salty tears sting my face,
and I yearn to look back. God said,
Look ahead to your destination,
Do not return to home and bed.
I can hear my anklets chinking,
already grieve my silver and purple
garments left inside my house below,
which is sinking to ash and rubble.

I say salt, and begin to feel
bereft. I taste salt
on my lips. A voice says halt
and the angels touch my shoulder,
and God wants my feet to move,
my head to remain forward, but
I am curious and stubborn,
I don’t believe the angel’s decree,
and I want to be free. So I turn
my head and my sweat dries to salt.

Mary Westcott

Names for Najwa's picture

Desert Sunset
Palm Oceans
City of Palms


Mary Westcott

PS Nice meeting you

Couldn't upload picture

Adele Bloch-Bauer Ekphrastic Poem

Adele Bloch-Bauer Speaks to Museum Goers
(Portrait by Gustav Klimt)


Held tight by coins and the eyes
of quilted squares, I gaze beyond
the Van Gogh down the hall,
if only to ignore your pink
shirt and the apple browning
in your knapsack as you brush
past Whistler and Picasso. I’m
on the wall next to a better version
of myself enmeshed in fabric.
I still have beauty and red lips--
my black hair and stark white face
are faultless. My dress of golden spirals
and silver even now lures lovers.
Yet I weary of entrapment
in brocade, long for the glory light.
If I could choose life—
such incandescence!






Mary L. Westcott

Otis Poem

This poem is dedicated to Otis.

Otis was my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel that just died. It was so sad. The picture is from when we first got him as a puppy.


Otis

I lost my Otis wag and calm,
My puppy dog eyes of clear conscience.
Otis had tricks of roll over, stay, and bang-bang play dead,
Tactics of bacon and animal cracker trance to be fed.

Dogs are Officers of Family Public Relations and Ambassadors fit.
They work the crowd, but really weave people tight knit.
Otis avoided mean dogs and biter.
He was the canine Michael Jackson, lover not fighter.

Feline and Squirrel what a waste of a tail, simply to land to safety.
Dogs wag them without fail, saying “Look at me, I’m friendly.”
Otis was a beacon to all that this yard was safe harbor,
Especially to animal cracker and briber.

Horses gallop and dash to minds mark,
But puppies barrel and tumble into your heart, then park.
They instantly set residence there,
With whatever room you’ve available to spare.

Card playing dogs art and clever, yet a poker face never.
Rather they spray unmasked enthusiasm with a dash of desperation differ.
Dogs are those little noses that poke thru with first crack of door.
Only thing you need to be loved, is home wherefore.

Love is patient and is kind. It does not boast, and is not proud.
It always protects and it doth trust.
So many verses to the Corinthians discussed.
Love is a Dog is simply allowed.

No more vacuum cleaner for hard to reach places.
Otis is gone, Kleenex, now only empty spaces.
All the animals piled into the Ark and floods only bobber,
But I bet it was the dog beside Noah and rudder.

Friendship can take a lifetime to grow for people.
A dog takes no more than one look from kennel.
Otis lived as no tomorrow for rent.
Now that he is gone, I get what he meant.

A beating heart is special,
That wants nothing but sitting next to you grateful.
It takes people old age to be on track,
Puppies are born to that cage and knack.

I wish I could take just one more walk.
Otis would fertilize every tree and yard stalk.
But he marked my life for the better.
Goodbye Otis. You were the best dog ever.

I love your poems Mary!

Your train poem is very good at projecting simple emotions. I feel like I am on that train with you. As it turned out, I was actually on a train to NY as I was reading it, so that made it an even better experience.

I love the Bill and Wine poem as well. Take a trip and never leave the farm. That is very good for a wine poem.

And I especially love the ode to the painting. I have been on a kick of paintings with accompanying poems ever since I did some study on Japanese art. I have done it for my recent paintings because it keeps me in the right mood and emotion of the painting, rather than getting swamped with the technical aspects of painting. Just today I was conceptualizing a painting like Cezanne. The thought was 3D for parts of the painting and other parts flat, which this Klimt painting is another example of that. So just as I get a train poem while riding a train, I get a poem about a painting done in a composition that I am currently studying.

Given all the parallel thinking going on, perhaps you send me a poem about winning lottery numbers, because I think it will pay me to play.

Your spurt of creativity also has helped motivate me to do a poem about my dog Otis. I had to put him to sleep about a month ago. I wanted to write a poem about him, but I have been too upset to start. I am going to use your burst of poems to get me over the hump, so thank you for that.

Another Poem #3 today, comments appreciated

Capital Limited Train to Chicago

Slant light falls faintly on frosty panes.
I quiver lightly with the moving train.

Swerving and circling, the train rumbles and strains.
Passengers sway and lean on the moving train.

The clanking of drums as it grumbles, complains.
I listen to shrieking wheels of the moving train.

The train treks through deep quarries and plains.
I’m soothed by rocking on the moving train.

Grey rocks rise up along colorless streams.
Snow geese fly above the moving train.

Black sticks of trees as backdrop to sky,
traces of snow drift on the moving train.

The steeple stands high against billowing clouds.
Winter white stains windows on the moving train.

We march past white caps, hawks disdain.
I arrive in Chicago on the moving train.

Mary Westcott

Bill's Ballad, new poem

Bill's Ballad

There is a bottle of dry white wine
cold and floating in a spring.
It dangles from a hempen vine:
a tug will reel it in.

My life is wispy as a cloud
whose aimless paths I follow.
I might stray from bubbly springs
but now I want a swallow.

Within a grove of cherry trees,
a basket waits for me
It holds fresh bread and soft white cheese
and the wine I drink with thee.

Mary L. Westcott

New Poem--Ekphrastic, August 3rd

Ode to Adele Bloch-Bauer
(Painted by Klimt in 1907)

To have had your radiance,
your swirling symphony of shine,
Oh queen of the golden gown,
incandescent wife of aristocracy.
Uplift your lustrous eyes,
light candles of sparkling silver,
raise your oddly restrained arms
beyond the wall of luminous yellow,
frankincense in your glinting veins,
and nourish the ghosts whirling
around you like a vortex. You
are a meditation on heaven’s
glistening light. Bow down
and be grateful.


Mary Westcott