Magpie Tales: Old House

from Magpie Tales

Old House

I'm so sorry we can't be friends,

Your arms reach out to block approach

Your mind flies in thunder to

protect a fragile life that could break.

This old house I used to love,

It gave us shelter, I remember,  
once upon a time.

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Magpie Tales: Snail

From Magpie Tales

It carries on its back the whorls,
the hopes of gamblers tossing dice,
hidden inside an enigma of chance. 

Dainty steps climb the ladder of the universe
moving outward and inward, closing in on itself.
A circle never finding its end. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Mapie Tales: Alight

from Magpie Tales

Alight

Training on man made tracks
I head for the light at the beginning of the tunnel
Hoping I will come out intact, whole,
A strong warrior of my kind.
Striding the land in confidence,
I am assured to prevail.
The dawn tells me so. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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MagpieTales: Afloat Senryu

photo by Toni Frissell

Afloat or dreaming
With arms not touching ground, earth.
Worlds above drift by

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Magpie Tales: Clouds

Clouds

Driven indoors by an unruly wind and a cloud covering the sun,
I wait for breath and stillness
A lack of motion
The sun's rays on my feet again.

- Gerry Young


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Superhero Woman

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Action Figures by Edith Vonnegut

Superhero woman
The angels watch over you
in your flip flops,
dangling a vacuum machine,
tripping over your cat
and toys on the stairs.

You manage through your days
Your sanity intact
and your hair wild in exhaustion
as you cast a lingering look
at the flame of promise
tantalizing in a cherub's hand.


- Gerry at Strummed Words

Magpie Tales: Shabby Blues

Fenced in all around
we hang our clothes away from prying eyes
our shabby blues showing only 
the perimeter of our experience.

-
Gerry at Strummed Words

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I Spy

photo by Elene Usdin

A spy, lying on the ground
She thinks I won't see her
As her eyes are so far down.

But I know who she is
She can't fool me,
Looking up my skirt

Talking in silent words
Of my face, my eyes, and
the hurt she hopes to see


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Magpie Tales: To Flame, Moth Mother

To Flame, Moth Mother

Like a moth to flame you approached;
Too near.  Too close, you were singed and your wings
seared.

Too much, in retreat you bent
back your wings into the dusk of dark trees
and extinguished your own dwindling flame

Another light replaces yours while you flicker
in a darkness plagued by regret,
perhaps one day to venture again
into a new bright light.

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Ghost Ship

Yell Sound, Shetland, 2014, by R.A.D. Stainforth

Ghost Ship

A ghost ship sails the sea
harrowing into the future
with furled clouds for its cover.

Black eyes square and round, thin line of mouth,
its nostrils flare, white foams its stern
as it moves steadily forward,

like a dragon's head with its tail
curled curiously under the sea,
it challenges me...

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Magpie Tales: Summer Dreaming

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Sweet Summer, 1912, John William Waterhouse

SUMMER DREAMING

A fan of creased leaves, the murmur of water, fragrance
of flowers above my head and arms.
Sweet grass my bed, the warm sun my cover.

What strange fantasies wander through my mind
on these summer days free from distraction,
from the question of other eyes.

But I long for a long book, and the soft fur of a cat
on my arm as I drink in the pure air
of what could be a perfect poised day.

© Gerry at Strummed Words

Magpie Tales: Time on a Reel

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TIME ON A REEL

TEACh me how to use this infernal machine.
I know it's old fashioned and from my grandmother's time
But it has her voice and her songs and my childhood
imprinted on its aged plastic tape,
my young years with my grandma magnetized
and put on a reel. So that I might hear her once again
and my own plaintive voice singing along.

How precious is time, present and past.
We hold it in memory and look to it for our future,
It is the key to ourselves.

But this infernal machine has stumped my time, in this present.

© Gerry at Strummed Words

Magpie Tales: Consolations

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Feast in the House of Simon, 1610, El Greco 

Consolations

The consolations

where you sit at table

So far back in time and place,

an emerge 

in consciousness

to dizzy and defy,

this seating

side by side.

© Gerry at Strummed Words

Brown Stone

Universal Studios Lot, Instagram by sessepien 

At cross purposes, my bike walks 
to your apartment, for let, to wake
a free spirit determined to leave
these brown bricks
dappled in sunlight and a promise
of celebrities for view. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Sexy Pout

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from Magpie Tales

"I'm too sexy for my love

Too sexy for my love

Love's going to leave me" *

* "I'm Too Sexy" is track #2 on the album Up. It was written by Fairbrass, Fred/fairbrass, Richard/manzoli, Robert.  Read more: Right Said Fred - I'm Too Sexy Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

That being said

What's the pout

for again

don't wait for 

a response to 

your witching ways,

said the man on the grandstand.
© Gerry at Strummed Words

Piano Feet

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My toes find purchase on your keys
While I swing my arms, open to the breezes
of time that pass by in the sun's arc.

Tiptoeing around your curves,
the cure for a malaise throws itself
casually back to the skies, 

The dance goes on with the music
of an inner being playing with abandon
the notes of this curling time. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

Cobbled Sidewalks

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New York at Night, Vivienne Gucwa

Cobbled Sidewalks 

Walking head down, on cobbled sidewalks,

I remember wintry mountains,

Sparrows feeding in the snow,

a wooden feeder filled

with dry brown seeds.

The bright lights of the city call to me

but so do the songs of birds on the wing

fluting in the trees or fluttering

for space on a birdfeeder

standing on a trellis in the snow. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

Not a Selfie

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self-portrait, Francis Bacon 

Not a Selfie

The Pope takes selfies, or allows someone to take one 

with him smiling among the eager young.

Today you don't hide behind a camera but relish your face

among other faces 

for all to see.

You and me, we hide behind our masks

While we grin at our camera faces,

Selfies we show the world,

without really showing

who we pretend to be.

Wasn't it easy then, to snap someone else

while our faces are hidden

and expressions mute

behind an old camera face. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

Pre-Christmas

photo from The Guardian, Eyewitness

Clouds grey and cold

spawn birds in 

waning light on a colorless beach,

 wing flashes of

grey metal,

their wing winds cool on my fingers.

Graceful images
presage the warmer colors of Christmas. 

© Gerry at Strummed Words

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Wings

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from Magpie Tales

Wings unfurl, then fold again,
A blossom opens to sudden sunlight
Its petals fall one by one,
Sundered by the season.

But this angelic dream lives on in
floating mists of memory that flash
intermittent but constant.

Her red lips mirror the images aloft
Her eyes see beyond the pale sky's
shimmering response.

© Gerry at Strummed Words