Tombs begin to bloom like raw, bloodless wounds.
Tomes are written with truths of her dead moon’s
tones. A keening lunacy keeps the dirges alive, while
bones rise out of repose. A degloved hand on the dial
hones into a night rainbow's radio, she runs on solar,
hopes for the rhythm to wrench free from her toller—
copes with the captivity of being bodiless hands. Twilight
comes to chance escape—open palms toward birthright.
Coves burst into flame; a hungry fire wants holier water.
Coven circles, recovers the skinless limbs of their daughter.
Woven like song, sirens' balm to restore coats of missing arms,
women are spells read correctly, using words as our alarms,
woken to language, resurrecting ancient pairs of sacred charms.
Show me, Milo, your love and wonders
By Michelle Morris
14/09/2024
You turn and look back at me
With your chocolate brown eyes
Asking the silent question
Can we go on this path for a while?
I let you lead the way each time
Because I know that you are sure
Thank you for exploring it with me
This lush and peaceful natural world
Verdant corridors and bubbling brooks
Ancient trees and rocks and roots
Birds that delight us with their song
Bees and butterflies around flowers throng
Show me cow pastures and ploughed fields
Show me the blue skies where fluffy clouds are free
Show me your secret doggy universe
Show me, Milo, your love and wonders
© Michelle Morris, 2024
What do you reckon Venus of Milos was doing when she was fully limbed?
Was she thinking
Deep thoughts
Holding the apple
Measuring the gravity
Of her life?
Was she, like Aphrodite,
Poised with a shield
About to march off
Into a battle
Confidence writ on her face?
Was she a Muse
Putting on her work clothes
Getting ready to go
Inspire some artist
To create works of beauty?
Was she Sappho
The Poetess
reaching out for her pen
to finally complete
one of her poems?
Was she spinning a wheel
To make a tapestry of Dreams
Or to weave time
Winding and unwinding
Moments lost and found?
Was she playing a Lyre
Singing timeless songs
Of loss and triumphs
Great loves and heartbreaks
And exciting adventures?
Or, dear reader,
Was she just a woman
Like you and me
Trying to go about her life
The best she can?
I adopted a cat around Thanksgiving
He was the sweetest thing in the beginning
To my surprise
He’s in disguise
With The Joker kitty I am now living
This balmy yuletide season Milo despised
My silver tinseled Christmas tree he demised
Never expressing gratitude
A clawing catty attitude
Yet a contented kitty I have surmised
Cigarettes and milo
A sweet art work combined
Milky and soft
loving and willing united
Is it lasting like a packet of frizzies
Dancing under the stars in between cards
Laughter echoing
Laughter that was lost
So now i look at frizzies and milo
Hoping laughter echo in the stars forevermore
Their one lone cow has broken down the fence;
we see her trundling down the dusty lane.
Milo's mind remembers 'bout the milking.
Dad's face, a fiery-red, storms from the shed
where feisty kittens spat and sparred o'er cream.
Milo's feet meander back to the scene
as words of fire enflame dad's bulging neck.
"You'll wear the shoes that spooked the cow!" he roars.
So Milo moseys off to dad's bidding.
The cream a'squish-squish-squishes from the seams
of shoes like steam escaping old train wrecks.
Milo mumbles, "Guess I'd best be moving
along that dusty road to bring back Cow,"
with no concern for who will mend the fence.
written March 13, 2018
Oh, you’re a club-tie glad-hand social climber
If e'er there were one, Milo Minderbinder
A meticulous craft, your quest for domination
Your smile so bowed, so proud of your lofty station
Your well-known carnival of carnal knowledge
A cornucopia of knowing carnage
The next home remodel, a newer, younger model
stole into your wine cellar, then uncorked the bottle
The old ball and chain got chained, and bald, and old
From divorce, then cancer, then down the six foot hole.
But none will sue when you’re under your newest Nun
God’s Son knew, nothing new under the sun
Skipping blithely through fortune’s emerald fields
Shh! Do you hear karma at your heels?
5/30/16
© Thomas W. Quigley
Revised 10/1/24
"Modern Sonnet"--couplet rhymes, loose with the metric feet
Set in stone
I might be
As jewel
Her, Aphrodite
Eyes, but who
Inward stare
Upon pure nude
Venus de Milo
Cold cold marbel
Questionable masterpiece
Or warm warm rains
Crying towards Greece
However shall beauty
Reach out to thee
To worlds passed
Time has never pleased
But, by any other name
I am woman; figurine
Upon others pedestals
I am thee
Venus de Milo sought high and low
for her arms akimbo. Long ago
I offered to look too
for those two lost ampu-
tated limbs, but naught said that bimbo.