| What is this picture? Half-man, half-horse, half-dead – a rodeo centaur as played out as an Oklahoma oil field flat on its back, nap-time on the prairies of Mythos singing Home on the Range in Ancient Greek: Οἶκος, οἶκος ἐν τῇ χώρᾳ. | |
| I only see geese by the river, standing in water up to their knobby black knees. | |
| And this – A flower whose red has exploded like a grenade blindsiding us with color. The war of the roses now in full swing. Quick, don a gas-mask of thorns or be paralyzed with beauty. | |
| I avoid stepping on a nightcrawler. It shuffles across the sidewalk, basking in rainwater. Did you know, they are not drowning? | |
| Surely I must understand that a body cast in clear resin will leave its last breath as solidified bubbles. And that if we are lucky, we will watch the sun’s final nova refracted through trees and snow. Our last grace the instant before immolation. | |
| “Can you say ‘Wickaboxet?’” The dogs, out early with me, do not respond or even look at me with curiosity. | |
| That we must come to terms with the tragedy of our faces, mechanized from staring too long at clocks. Or how our louche desire was spiked by a lover we will never see again, black and white all the color we will ever need for that story. | |
| You are sleeping late this morning. Light in our apartment slowly recovers from drizzle. Words recede, my eyes follow barges heading towards the landfill. |
For Desperate Poets OLN and The Sunday Muse
qbit 
Your mind, ability to spill / spew forth the most amazing abstracts, stories, works of art, love stories, trips, ad finitum dazzle this lady each and every time.
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Thank you so much. Going to miss the Muse.
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Now I know what “louche: means and that is my favorite part, here. We do come out of such things changed.
–Shay
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LOL! Louche R Us.
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I am always amazed at your free flowing words that cascade down the page. The rose portion done exceptionally well. ‘The War of the Roses’. Turner and Douglas caught in a dark comedy. Poetry is about perspective and you have an intriguing eye.
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Thank you so much!
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I always enjoy your work, qbit. I will miss The Muse too.
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I especially love the “Wickaboxet” one. 🙂
“paralyzed with beauty” … That preposition seems pertinent. I was pondering my deep love for paralysis by beauty, as in the sky, a storm, et cetera. But “with” suggests togetherness, side-by-side comas or frozenness. Romeo and Juliet. Have you read All the Bright Places? I think you should. Your library will have it. I will read it again soon too, if you’d like to as well.
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I will!
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I love the wild, mythic and magic world, rubbing against the leg of the beautifully mundane. It feels like waking the sleeping rodeo centaur and riding him down the sidewalk on your street, nodding to the geese and earthworms. Talking to the dogs. Stepping into dream spaces, then out again. Why does this feel like it could be “a day in the life”of? Also, I really like the format you used. Awesome poem.
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I like your comment more than my poem!! Thank you so much!!
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This was a fun read, Q. My granddaughter rode the Oklahoma oil well range except her company had a pickup truck for her to drive. She’s here now and doesn’t need a company pickup.
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The spine became more evident when I saw that left side poems followed the first five photos in the Sunday Muse challenge — and those weave with a walker’s observations on the right side of the layout, the walk’s. Both sides of the poem depend on the weave of sides, the interplay of light and thought, participation in a common stream with poesis and play.
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Yeah, hey. Apologies that there was so tight a coupling with the prompt images. I decided to throw it out and see what happened, but I guess was pretty inscrutable. (Not that I don’t love inscrutability in a poem! Just that sometimes it works better or less so, and this was less. BTW, what is a “scrut” anyway? And why are we in them, and not out them? Seems Latin for “examine, ransack.” Maybe ransack was a better prompt for me.)
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I thought it worked really well as a poem, weaving levels of observation and reflections … “Scut” as in “scutiny,” to observe closely, minutely? “Inscrutable” as in walled from observation by magick, rhetoric or carrot stick?
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I love how your poem captures the images beautifully and effortlessly ❤️ and yes we did have a similar idea about the rose 🙌🌹
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I belong to a writing group at our library called the Word Crafters….you could be our leader Qbit! You have a way with words all your own, and I think I have said that before but it is worth saying again! Your gifts of poetry at the Muse have been a delight my friend…..thank you!
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And thank YOU!
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Absolutely delightful! I love where the pictures took you.
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