And so, November Begins

Monday Morning Musings:

Vulture flying by the morning moon.

Ineffable the moon and light,
the rainbow sky, the morning delight,
the shadows where the deer skitter,
and ghostly shapes drift and flitter,
the world around me an emitter

for hope and fear, desire and cheer
emotions swirl in collected glow, and we’re
receivers—if only we know

A sunrise rainbow before the rain.

when and how to feel the dead around us,
in the susurrus , and the prickling air—are they there?
We celebrate their lives
by remembering a laugh, a phrase, the favorite food on holidays—

Two skeletons hanging out in the neighborhood

her hands and eyes, his hair and songs,
things we hold inside, that belong
a part of us, carried in traditions and blood,
generations on

might never know, but somehow recognize—
like those grey or green eyes
or ability to paint, or sing, or write–
to gaze up as stars ignite

Geese Flying from the Morning Moon

and feel the colors twirl and spin. To see without and within
the cycle of all beginnings and all ends—to think of ifs
and remember when.

A fiery morning sky.

This has been a strange week. Nothing terrible, just things that didn’t work out as expected, and some mornings in the twilight I felt like this really was a time when the veil between worlds was thinning . . . In between storms and wind, the sky has been so beautiful, and the morning light has a special quality.

We got our Covid boosters on Saturday night. We voted that day, too. Who says we don’t know how to have fun on a weekend? My arm was a little sore, and so was my husband’s, but no other reactions. I had long phone calls yesterday (Halloween) with my sister, sister-in-law, and older child. It was great to catch up! As I walked around the house while on the phone, I got over 25,000 steps in yesterday!


Merril’s Movies, Shows, and Books:
We watched a cool show on Netflix called Tabula Rasa. It’s Belgian. It’s a mystery with some supernatural overtones. It’s about a woman with amnesia, and a missing man. It’s best not to know too much–we were very surprised by the twists and things we didn’t see coming. We’re watching a Japanese show called Midnight Diner, also on Netflix. We watch an episode every once in a while, because I feel like I want to savor them. They’re only half hour episodes about a restaurant in Japan that is open midnight to 7 AM, and the people who come there. My husband was saying he doesn’t know why he loves the show so much. It’s a simple idea, but somehow, it’s just very gentle and satisfying. (Don’t watch it while you’re hungry.) We watched two horror movies over the weekend: The Omen (1976) and The Hole in the Ground (2019). We saw The Omen way back when in a theater with friends, and it was terrifying. Now watching it on TV, it seems a bit dated, not to mention the questions I have now about a husband who would just decide to substitute a baby and not tell his wife? Wifey is too fragile to know the truth. UGH! But it still has some very scary scenes. The Hole in the Ground is an Irish-Finnish production about a woman whose son seems to have been replaced by something else. It had some great and scary moments, and overall was very well done.

I read The Rose Code by Kate Quinn. It’s a novel about three very different women who meet and bond during the time they all work at Bletchey Park during WWII. It seems to be very well-researched. I really had a hard time putting this one down. I highly recommend it, if you like historical novels.

Midnight, Halloween Night, #SonnetSunday on Experiments in Fiction

Happy Halloween, Everyone! Ingrid Wilson at Experiments in Fiction is hosting a special Halloween Sonnet Sunday. Here is the link to my sonnet, but be sure to check out all the rest for a spooky poetic treat!

I discovered Fairport Convention and first heard “Tam Lin” when I was in high school. That’s where the Fairy Queen in my poem comes from. My favorite Halloween song sung by the late Sandy Denny:

Here and Hereafter

James Shaw, The Admella wrecked, Cape Banks, 6th August, 1859

From misted dreams, the clouds blow back black
as sky-ships spray incandescent shimmer,
and with whispered wonder
sing, bring, ring-in the pink-rosed day.
This after disaster, hereafter and if–
the moon comes blue, and hums
for the sad sea, and those you see, in-between drifts
of shadow and shine, the haunted souls
of those who played with diamond cool, embracing now
the darkest deep, finding that water breaks, and aches
without why and whenever, with roars, ripples, waves, and swell
from here into hereafter,

and if, and if, and if. . .

My message today from the Magnetic Poetry Oracle. She knows it’s Halloween and that there will be a blue moon tonight.

Shadows in the Dark

George Lambert, Moorland Landscape with Rainstorm, Wikepedia Commons

I am dreaming. I traipse across the moors in Brontë country. It’s almost Halloween, and soon, back home, I’ll be carving jagged smiles on pumpkin faces. As I walk, the sun sinks lower and lower in the sky, deepening the grass’s golden glow. Shadows walk with me, till they’re obscured by the darkness. Night lays a black shroud over the naked trees and heathered knolls, covering them completely. A fine mist obscures my vision even more. It kisses me all over, lightly like a playful lover, until I am weakened and drenched. Lost. At the sound of a ghostly screech, I jump, then laugh a bit at my fright. It’s just a barn owl. There’s nothing here to frighten you, I tell myself–until cold fingers wrap themselves around my wrist. I try to call out, but no sound emerges from my throat. I try to wake, but I cannot. I am dreaming I tell myself as the bony fingers pull me down to the cold, damp ground.

Cold, autumn mist,
nightmare shapes in the shadows–
Jack’s crooked mouth laughs

Toby Ord, CC BY-SA 2.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

This is for Frank’s Halloween dVerse prompt. I liked the image he used, so I used it, too. Franks said we could write fictional prose, so I’ve revised one I wrote a few years ago.

All Hallows’ Eve

512px-John_Everett_Millais,_The_Somnambulist

John Everett Millais, “The Somnambulist.”

 

Walls

dissolve

on this night–

All Hallows’ Eve

when the fairies ride,

and ghostly presences

shimmer, translucent figures

beckon from burial plots. “Come,”

they whisper, and you see the ground turned

waiting—waiting for you—one push—you wake.

 

An etheree for Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday using synonyms for dig and grave.

 

 

 

Dreaming Shapes in the Mist: Haibun

I am dreaming. I traipse across the moors in Brontë country. It’s almost Halloween, and back home I’ll soon be carving jagged smiles on pumpkin faces. As I walk, the sun sinks lower in the sky, deepening the grass’s golden glow. Shadows walk with me, till they are obscured by the darkness. Night lays a black shroud over the naked trees and heathered knolls, covering them completely. A fine misty rain obscures my vision even more. It kisses me all over, lightly like a playful lover, until I am weakened and drenched. I stand, uncertain where to go or how to find my way home. At the sound of a ghostly screech, I jump, then laugh a bit at my fright. It’s just a barn owl. There’s nothing here to frighten you, I tell myself–until cold fingers wrap themselves around my wrist. I try to call out, but no sound emerges from my throat. I try to wake, but I cannot. I am dreaming I tell myself as the bony fingers pull me down to the cold, damp ground.

 

Shapes in the darkness

nightmares come in autumn’s mist

Jack’s crooked mouth laughs

 

George_Lambert_-_Moorland_Landscape_with_Rainstorm_(1751)

George Lambert, “Moorland Landscape with Rainstorm,” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

I’ve been told a true Haibun is supposed to be based on a real experience, but I decided to have a bit of seasonal fun with this. I suppose it is flash fiction with a haiku, but I’m calling it a Haibun. This is for Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge. The prompt words were mist and shape.

 

 

The Past, the Future, Ghosts, and Drag in the City of Brotherly Love

Monday Morning Musings:

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

–L.P. Hartley

“This play is so American. . .[it] shows us that transformation can only happen when we break apart our fears, our suspicions and our judgments. Because the America I know is not the one that is portrayed by only a few, isn’t the one that discriminates against its citizens for their differences. NO. The America I know and cherish and honor is one that all these characters are creating.”

— Emmanuelle Delpech, From her Director’s Notes, The Legend of Georgia McBride, Arden Theatre, Philadelphia

 

When was the last time the four of us had spent a day together at a museum?

We all wondered, but couldn’t remember,

somewhere amidst childhood’s ghosts

left behind with dolls and story books,

ghosts of Halloweens past

when little girls dressed in costumes

that they slept in,

a princess and a clown

(not a creepy one at all).

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And so we went,

a family outing,

our girls married women now,

but still crazy sisters, having fun,

interpreting the works of art

 

 

And since the big new exhibit is on Mexican revolutionary art

and it’s close to Halloween

there are Day of the Dead displays

 

We eat Wawa hoagies*

(My daughter misses them in Boston.)

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I score Super Momma points

by making hot fudge sauce,

totally spur of the moment

(in record time)

so we can have it with our coffee ice cream

as we watch Grey’s Anatomy

It’s another ghost from the past.

 

It is Halloween weekend,

my husband and I go to the theater

(which, I guess fits, when you think about it)

In the play,

a man discovers his inner femininity—

becoming a drag queen,

with the help of a real drag queen.

After a slow start,

the play picks up

struts its stuff,

so to speak,

along with the actors,

a feel good show

about finding your passion

and not giving up,

accepting those who are different from you.

A good lesson, don’t you think?

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After the show, we drink coffee

sitting on a bench outside of Christ Church in Philadelphia.

 

a beautiful October day,

we watch the people in the present

learning about the people of the past,

as they walk in and about the beautiful eighteenth-century church

where George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and others attended services.

We walk the streets, some still cobbled,

where founding fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers

once walked,

where free and bound lived and worked.

 

None of them was perfect,

neither are we.

But the past is a foreign country.

people then did not know all we know now

(perhaps we have lost some of their knowledge, too)

Progress and human rights come slowly

as babies crawl tentatively before they walk and then run eagerly

to explore the world.

So are there stages

of nations

that rise and fall.

And of discoveries that humans uncover and embrace with hesitation

or delight.

Thirteen colonies came together,

representatives walked the streets we now walk,

worked together to fight for independence,

and later, to form a more perfect union,

evolving over centuries

with greatness from the start,

along with evils,

slavery, racism, sexism, xenophobia.

We should not move backwards

to the foreign country of the past,

not regress, but rather progress,

build upon the great to make greater.

 

We travel to another part of Philadelphia,

Fairmount Park,

one of the largest urban parks in the world.

We are there for a Lupus Run/Walk

my younger daughter and her husband run,

my husband and I walk,

some people drag their heels,

some are in drag,

well, costumes.

There is a team of Star Wars characters,

others in purple tutus,

a sea of purple t-shirts.

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We begin at Memorial Hall

(now the Please Touch Children’s Museum)

with its figure of Columbia at the top,

it was an art museum,

constructed for the Centennial Exhibition in 1876,

a huge exhibition with many buildings

and many visitors.

A Women’s Pavilion gave women a chance to display and demonstrate

the new opportunities available to them in professions and business

there were displays of dress reforms, too.

But women were segregated in their own pavilion,

and still denied the vote.

And so we run/walk through

beautiful Fairmount Park

passing statues of Civil War generals

and the Japanese Tea house

I imagine women in suffragist white,

ghosts flitting among the statues

I think they would echo

“When they go low, we go high,”

standing calm amidst storms of hate.

Women have always had to fend off and fight

the gropers and grabbers,

and some of them loved other women

though not out in the open.

I amuse myself by imaging Susan B. Anthony

reading grievances while drag queens in the audience cheer.

(This did not happen.)

 

But the past is a foreign country

we can’t impose our views on it.

Our own pasts, well, perhaps they change

with, in, our memories

which are imperfect.

merging and shifting,

taking on new tones and meanings.

On this Halloween

my memories of Halloween past

merge with the present.

I think about the future,

We are at the crossroads,

there are ghosts all around.

We must push back the hate and fear.

We dream.

A wise man once had a dream

of freedom for all

freedom for those of every color, of any religion.

He was killed by hate.

But still we dream.

I think about the future

with dread

with longing

with hope

with dreams.

 

*Hoagie is the Philadelphia name for a sandwich served on a long, tapered roll. Wawa is a convenience store chain that is much beloved in parts of Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

We saw The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez at the Arden Theatre.

Christ Church, Philadelphia

The Please Touch Museum/Memorial Hall

On suffragists on Independence Day 1876, see this.

Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream speech.

 

Succubus: Magnetic Poetry

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In the night listen–

that soft voice,

a breeze comes with perfume

hot fire lips explore,

the kiss lingers,

this marble ghost like smoke–

remember

when you wake

John_Everett_Millais,_The_Somnambulist.jpg

John Everett Millais [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

This is for Elusive Trope’s Magnetic Poetry Saturday Challenge

the Halloween edition.

 

 

 

 

Isle of the Dead: Microfiction

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Arnold Böcklin, Isle of the Dead (III), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Common

Iona sailed her ship across the sun-dappled sea to save her beloved from the underworld. Iona had to rescue him tonight, for Halloween was the one night when humans could travel there. She traveled for hours, and as twilight descended, the Isle of the Dead appeared in front of her, shrouded in mist. Within that shroud she saw spectral figures, the stuff of nightmares, with misshapen bodies and eager, bloody mouths.

Iona ignored them and sailed into the cove. As she stepped upon the shore, a dragon appeared. Fire and smoke burst out, as it opened its massive jaws to roar.

With trembling legs, Iona approached the beast and sang in a voice that faltered at first, but then rang out, loud and pure:

Beast, stand down

Beast, do my bidding

Beast, reveal now

what is hidden

As she finished her song, the air shimmered. The dragon became a dog, red as flames. It licked her hand, and followed at her heels, as they walked to the cave—its opening now revealed.

They walked down steep stairs carved into stone, farther and farther under the earth. Iona carried an oak wand given to her by a Wise Woman. It glowed and lighted her way. She looked neither left nor right at the spirits around her, but traveled down, down, down. As she reached the bottom, she saw Dermid. He stood rooted, with no expression on his face.

She remembered the Wise Woman’s words, “Your courage and determination will get you to the Isle, but only true love and faith will save Dermid.”

She clasped her arms around his waist and held tightly as he turned into a huge snake, but she held on, and he turned into a lion, but still she held him, and finally he turned back into a man. Her man. With tears streamed from her eyes, she helped him journey up the stairs.

They climbed up and up for hours, it seemed, racing to get back to the surface before dawn. They reached the surface just before the sun, and as they climbed into Iona’s boat, they saw it rise pink and orange above the sea. The Isle disappeared.

Dermid said to her, “Thank you for saving me.”

Iona replied with a smile, “I thought our baby should have a father.” Then looked down, “and a dog.”

 

This is for Jane Dougherty’s microfiction challenge.  The prompt was the painting above.

I’ve stolen, quite shamelessly, from many myths and tales, and once again gone over the word count.