A-Z Challenge, G is for Galloping Godiva

This is an UNfinished painting. Brand new. I cannot finish a real painting in less than a day, especially when I'm sick in bed a good part of the day!

And for national Poetry month:

Geraldine’s Word Collection

The new English teacher gives Geraldine a pass and tells her, “look for words.”

Geraldine finds the word “memory” on the library door and copies it

into her word book. “Memory,” the librarian reminds her, pointing

to her own head, “is what you remember inside, what happened before.

Yesterday, earlier today.” Geraldine sits down at a library table and looks

inside her memory. She finds Ricky there, and Aldy. She looks at Ricky

and writes down the word “handsome” and the word “love.” The librarian

helps her spell the words. When she remembers Ricky’s kisses, they

writes the word “warm.” She remembers him naked, but she doesn’t tell

the librarian. Instead, they write the word “lonely.” Loneliness

happened earlier today. Closeness happened yesterday, or some time

earlier. Aldy happened, the most beautiful baby in the world. Love

isn’t a big enough word. They took Aldy away, put Geraldine in a new school,

where she couldn’t see Ricky. A stupid school. A school where Geraldine stuffs

envelopes and puts tiny measures of spices in little bags and bottles.

And gets paid. Fold it this way, not that way. Fill the measure to the top,

but not overflowing. All the girls in one room, all the boys in another.

No Ricky, no Aldy anywhere. Work days and education days. More work

days than school days. Long days, no sunshine. Big pink lights that hum.

No cafetorium, no school dances. She writes down the word “hug.”

She thinks about the word breast, Ricky kissing her, Aldy nursing.

But she says the word, “family” and thinks of her parents, her sister.

“Memory,” Geraldine repeats. The librarian reminds her about the dictionary,

and they look up memory. On the way to memory, they encounter

the word “melancholy.” The librarian helps her write down the words:

“sad, depressed, gloomy.” The librarian writes the words and Geraldine

copies them carefully. In art class, her teacher repeats the words

and Geraldine picks a color for each word, paints a picture in sepia,

indigo, burnt sienna with bits of red, yellow and blue. The art teacher sees

a small flock of tropical birds in a dusky jungle. Geraldine sees dark days

and small bright dreams, visitations of memory, Ricky and Aldy.

Mary Stebbins Taitt,

groan (persephone speaks to hades)

you plunge between my legs

and I look up

where spiders stretch their webs

and twirl their moths

and fifty bats hang by their nails

and granite shines

along foreboding cracks

as wisps of fire

reflect. you gasp and groan

and come and I

release a sigh, relieved

that you are done

so I, with less

impediment, can watch

each bat inhale

and spiders gobble flies.

but as you crush my breasts

in sleep, your weight

distresses me, as does

the slime that leaks, now cold,

between my thighs.

A-Z Challenge, F is or fish

F is for "fish." These clownfish are from my book, as yet unpublished, Benny's Favorite Color.

and for National poetry month,

February Tree Dreams

Under the ground, a dark and perpetual night, almost as void

of life as deep space, presses cold teeth against the dreaming trees,

but the trees sink further into their roots and listen all the way up

the long fibers of their empty veins to owls rustling in their nests,

to small movements inside the eggs, to the first cracking

that heralds these winter babies, these messengers of spring.

Lost in their roots, sunk in depths of the frozen earth, trees dream

of sweet sunshine, of snow melting, of the slow unfurling of leaves

and flowers, of fledgling owls stretching their wings and launching

into the great pale blue of treacherous air. The trees remember

summer nights, owls lifting silently from their branches, occluding

the moon and stars, or hooting to one another from high above

the branches where the little diurnal birds rest in their nests.

The trees dream the smell of summer wind and the wet caresses

of rain. As they weave into their dreams the smells

of their own flowers, the tastes of their own nectar,

the touch of the bees’ pollen-laden feet and gentle tongues,

the taste of frozen earth loses its pungent bitterness.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

and

Fir-filtered

What if, instead of dying flowers, perfume

smelled like mountaintops, like granite

and fir-filtered wind? Breezes lift our feet

from the rock and fragrance-scented air

buoys us up over golden rows of mountains.

You laugh like a child taking his first step

out onto the taut surface of water

and instead of sinking, we skate

on that tensile surface that quivers

like my heart when you reach

the long pin feathers of your wings

and wrap them all light and tickle

and remember around me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

I am publishing this on Wednesday night, because I've been sick all week and feel worst in the morning, so this is for Thursday.

A-Z Challenge, C is for Cheshire Cat

This Cheshire Cat is a painting in progress. (Not yet finished!) Click image to view larger.

Also, here is a new prose poem, for National Poetry month, "Cascades of Elder Blossoms:"


Cascades of Elder Blossoms

The man carried a white cardboard box such as one into which a baker might place a small cake. He set it on the table and opened it. Three girls sat up and stretched. They had been folded around each other like triplets in the womb. They were packed in elder blossoms, which cascaded away as the girls stood up and bent to step out of the box. The box must have been larger on the inside than the outside, because the girls, outside the box, were normal sized, slender and somewhat naiad-like. Except for the flowers, they were naked, but not embarrassed. They smiled, cheerful, ready for what came next, which they seemed to expect would be good.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

And, I'd like to mention my causes. (Inspiration thanks to Junebug). I am very interesting in the environment, in education, in reading (yes, this IS a cause!), in poverty, in children's issues, in animal issues, and women's issues. I am working on some books, and I am hoping to donate portions of the proceeds (--big leap here--they have to be published first!!!) to various causes. For example, I may donate 10% of the writer-income of Frog Haven to SAVE THE FROGS. And there will be a donation, assuming I am able to, from each of my upcoming books to some cause, which I will mention later.