River Bathing

Subject: Darcy Padilla from Drill Baby Drill, USA, 2013 Photographer: Lisa Kereszi Source: letaobloquista

Washer Woman

It’s dusty Sleepy Dying Here One main street in the middle of nowhere

A liquor store A quick mart A laundromat

One sun wizened woman with a rag Sharpened through the spotless Washer Door

No one washing No one drying No one folding

Just the washer woman Beating back dust.

-Skye

Image credit: Isolation,23.03.2020, 20:25, Source: flowersinthedustbin

Night Windows

In the daytime people are hidden The building keeping secrets Of things done in the living room Or the boudoir

No one privy to ordinary And extraordinary comings and goings

In the nighttime backlit lives reveal Themselves In bright snippets of window light In hazy shadows playing on lowered shades In the soft outlines of darkness

Ordinary And extraordinary Comings and goings For everyone to see.

-Skye

Seaside Graveyard, Orkney Isle

Long after the flowers died I wait here overlooking the sea

This grave of mine grown over with mosses and salt air I wait here overlooking the sea

The place beside me empty and unbroken No stone no whisper of you just me overlooking the sea waiting here

Waiting for my Sailor To return to me.

Moody seaside graveyard, Orkney Isle, Scotland

April 2024

Source: calmerra Image Credit: Foxes, circa 1913 by Franz Marc Medium: Oil on canvas 87 x 65 cm

Foxes

The woods behind the house are deep Dark tangles of brush Damp Loam soft under feet

This is where the foxes go in the morning After prowling along my borders Teasing my chickens All through the night

I have a sturdy hen house

The chickens are safe

Besides

The foxes are sleeping now Somewhere in the wild wood.

-Skye

Brassaï • Notre Dame Gargoyle-Paris, 1932

Source: afrouif

Brassai and His Conversation with a Gargoyle, 1932

Tucked into Paris between the two world wars

You came to me with the bright lights twinkling on softly rising city noises

And caught me in my common pose rain worn contemplative knowing nothing and everything

Yes, the photographer cried-

I saw this immediately the flash illuminated everything and nothing of you

How can that be old roof top friend that I only think of you in the rain

When in my grainy photo you are always here

-Skye

Image: Poland,1932 Photography: Henryk Poddebski, Poland 1932 Source: polishcostumes

Dziado

Came from Slavic wheat Farming Polish fields under the sun Breaking bread with his mother and sister At end of day

Peasants they owned nothing Not the land Not the wheat Not the roof above them On cold winter nights

War washed him from the continent And off to America With his wife and baby girl

And though he is long dead I still see him

Caring for his cows Feeding his pigs Cooking his eggs With his garden onions Under his own roof.

-Skye

Artist: Elizaveta Repko (Lizave) Source Malefica67

High Contrast

I want you in high contrast In sharp lines

Don’t Blur or blend Don’t complicate this Afternoon

I want you

Later you can Be obtuse With messy mascara And vague regrets

Later when you return To him.

-Skye

Image information: Adam and Eve, 1533 by Lucus Cranach the Elder Medium: Oil, Wood Source: lucus-cranach-the-elder

Paradise Lost

It was told that the serpent Tricked the woman And the woman bewitched The man Into losing paradise

In truth the animals were Satisfied With their innocence

The snake likely wandered into the tree To sun itself in the high branches

The woman was not satisfied She was curious and clever She knew the snake was suspected Of many things

Her favorite mouse was missing The blue birds cried over lost eggs

She stole the fruit And blamed the snake for her Nascent sin

She involved the man Drawing him tighter to her Pressing knowledge into his hand

And it was she who smiled softly as God Released them from the garden And gave them the whole wide World.

-Skye

Image: Fish inside a jellyfish Source: Sixpenceee

HAIKU- Ocean Predicament

A fish’s worst dream To be dissolving away In a jellyfish.

-Skye

Photographer: Jamie Cuen Source: angiefalanji

HAIKU-River Children

Children splash and swim, heedless of the dangers found in deeper water.