Wisteria

An abandoned house
not much to see
and yet the wisteria
called to me

a window
a room
a story
a host

surely somewhere

there must be a ghost

I see him.

Do you?

Images: Mimi Lenox

Photography credit: Mimi Lenox
I'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure during Easter vacation.  I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.

We Interrupt our regularly scheduled Poetry Week for a Royal Word about The Royal Wedding!

 I set my sleepyhead pencil head alarm clock to rise early this morning in order to watch The Royal Marriage of Prince William and his bride Catherine Middleton. I only hit the snooze button once (which is unheard of in my world!) and scampered to the coffee pot forthwit....with??....oh, I so want to speak the King's English today. Nevermind.

I

They are preparing to leave Westminster Abbey, as I am watching now at 7:04 am, to a throng of people we've been able to hear cheering outside at the moment they were pronounced husband and wife.  He just took her hand to escort her to curtsy to Queen Elizabeth before they leave the church.
 AHHHhhhhhhhh....the walk .....such a beautiful thing to watch. So much joy and happiness, tradition...oh! I think he almost stepped on the edge of her dress! **gotta get ready for work***

I

The lace, the tiara (yes, I know the Lord's Blessing was more important but still) and they are coming into the outside now.....oh and I am remembering the marriage of Prince William's mother, Princess Diana....and her passing. She is watching. Surely she must be there in spirit.

I must say....she looks as though she was borne to be Queen.
Oh! The Groom. He is fine and handsome. And saluting the branches of the Armed Forces as he passes....
**eating bagel**

Must go now! I shall return.
Congratulations to Prince William and his new Princess - The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

She Slid Down The Ceiling

I know it's a small thing

but there's a flower on my ceiling
For the longest time she bloomed
unnoticed
by me

until she draped her long skirt
for a quick midnight flirt

and we waited for morning to
come

Photography credit: Mimi LenoxFootnote: I am on Easter vacation. I'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure.
I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.

I Wonder I Wonder What Manner of Man

How odd to find one of life’s most beautiful treasures in the middle of a smelly store poked with an odious orange sale sticker.  A plastic hanger, a yellowed stain, sad wrinkles. Dreams on sale.
But why did it call to me so? Why on this day?

Perhaps because the day brought news. Perhaps because the day brought more than I could handle. Perhaps because when days bring news I can’t handle, I write. And sometimes before I write I go seeking inspiration.

The dress drew it out.



So I put it on.

She flew doves in her apron and stars in her hair
Butterfly wings took up residence there
And symbols and jigs dancing round in her head
Music and words that nobody said

And what of this lass who shed all of her lace
To hang in a bargain shop filed out of place
And wait for the girl who needed not to try on
A frock 

meant for memories sure to go wrong

The gown needed rescuing, brought back to life
Yellowed and hanging alone without wife
Or husband
Or preacher
Or bouquet of mums
And nothing to scatter its ashes to bones

But try on she did in the small yellow room
And watched as woman turned into a bloom
For a moment of memory locked in her brain
Whistling moonbeans and thunderstorm pain

Passions
oh passions
of love
just
the

same

She smothered the ruffles
Smelled through the torn shell
And wondered what manner of woman
Was veiled

Ran silk in her fingers
And fathomed the make
and the mark
Of the man
Who would feel her skin quake
At the sound of the gown
Falling soft to the floor

Stepping out
Stepping
O
U
T
to reveal him once more

come kiss my eyes
leave a smoldering glance
As your fire brews a liquid laced
Memory dance
I wonder I wonder what manner of man
Would see fit to tickle the heart of my hand
And choose to walk blindly down pencil skirt paths
And whisper to me under lace veils and hats

I see him so clearly I do ‘neath the shield
That my heart just so recently chose to reveal
And I laid it bare open for him to behold
Keeping star gems and comets myself to unfold

So she smiled a great smile 
in the billow of dreams
Then ripped open the back
with its creases and seams

Filled mightily high of lost weddings and such
For to her it froze time into promises
much

More  

than love
On a bed

of unwedded design

For the gown and the girl are not meant to entwine

Lest they falter fortissimo tumbling to be
A separate
You
A separate
Me

Will she marry him
do
Will she marry him
don't
She’ll marry for love
Or marry
She

won't

Photography credit: Mimi LenoxI'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure during Easter vacation.
I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.

Mimi Picasso?

She still liked blooms
even in the deepest shades

and long ago on a wild day of palettes
and
precarious strokes of unbridled
blankets
she smattered
a bit
on a
canvas

too young
to know
her work wasn't masterful

too young
to care
her work wasn't masterful

but today when she found it

hidden behind an old garage door

she liked it

she liked the unadulterated

curves of a girl

falling into shades of the deepest deepest
blue
oh what a wild mess she was
that girl
she liked the way the words brushed
the petals
and dips that go nowhere
they
should

she liked that the shades were
not shaded at all
and the table
illusive
and tilting
so wrong

and waiting

to
spill
the
vase

on the cusp of her life
at the start
when
blooms
never die

oh she liked the sway of the woman
undone
in the mind of the girl
and the dark in the part
she kept
to her
self

in a place no one saw

the sprout of
wild colors
an imperfect heart

she liked herself spilling









Footnote: My niece found the watercolor at an auction sale a few years ago. But didn't realize until after she'd purchased it and looked at the back, that her Aunt Mimi had painted it in 1970. I'd given it as a gift to a sweet lady in my church way back in the day, painted a set of oils for my boyfriend's mother for Christmas and never painted again. I miss it. However rudimentary my skills, I remember the smell of the paint and the carefree way I splashed it on - just for me. My niece wrapped it up that year and gave it to me for Christmas. It was a most wonderful surprise - for both of us!
I stopped painting after I grew up and moved away. I wonder why.
I think it would feel good to splatter colors on a canvas again.

FOOTNOTE: I'm on Easter vacation. I'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure.
I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.

The Hat Said

Inspired by the hat
the most magic of all
I took it out slowly as if at a Ball
And there I stood gazing in my gardening clothes
And wondered what secrets the old hat would hold

My hands tell a story
They’ve lived and they’ve loved
My eyes even privy to
Angels above

I think what it is I will say to my love
Can ne’er be found in a hand or a glove
But something far deeper than silk and old lace
Ruffles and pinkness and lines on my face


It tells of a life I live backwards you see
Not to find her or flaunt her
But just to be
Me

She bids me walk miles through the fields
of my
Dark
Hair flying softly
On light fields of cotton

And brine

That too
Mixed with sweetness and jade
Oh how solid they flow
Through the life that I made

And true
Should I lay it all out
to be found?
Or should I keep parts of me

Safe and
unwound
In the me
that I love
when I look at the hat

Whoever heard of a girl like that?

Did she lie down in a field of tall grass
And ravish her lover this way and that
Did she hide her true self when the moon called her home

While someone she left
Became silent and stone
How gently she lay on the roughness of him
to sleep in a clover of stars
unaware
Don’t say she lacks wisdom

She no longer cares

And that is the rudeness of life in her bosom
To think that she loved and set free
Of her choosing

It stings at the heart that lies beating
Between
The lace and the reds and the pearls so pristine
On her wall of clocks
Ticking
and laughing at time
she wonders when
roughness again
will be
mine


So she threw back the lace and saw ever so clear
Every line
every mark
every crease
every fear

she touched them
and watered them all
with her tears

together they made a most honorable tale
of places she'd been
and those she'd loved well

the heart knows no difference
no difference
you see
between ashes of prudence
and ashes of me

and ev'n as she traveled the course of her face
in a hat full of wonder
in a room small with grace
she wondered
whose hands would find joy
in the curves
and the lines
of a woman
who smiles like a girl

Will he look at my hats
and my ruffles and such
as a silly 'ole nuisance
or will he love

much



like the man in my head
who is looking to find
a woman like me
with the creases
and
lines

He likes what he sees
you may say that is vain

But not for a woman of ruffles and rain

speak of fire!
speak of fever
surrender to lace
and don't ever forget
to lay claim to my face
for my hair it will cover
the sighs and the heat
but hold me not long
I belong at your feet

So I looked at him boldly
and told him a lie
of shyness and innocence
hid behind eyes
that poured strongly into his
withering glance
The wall crumbled down
as I braced
for the dance

"If you take me now willingly
I will not fall
into piles of sweet ruffles
Not once

not at all"

And he did convince her
to take off her hat
and lie down
in the garden
of this
and of that

The hat said
the hat said
the hat said
"Don't wait!"

If you stand there and tease him
it might be too late."
lace that fell once
and lace that fell twice
lace that fell hard
on the floor of her life



So I opened my eyes
and brushed back my hair
as I listened to him
and tried not to stare

"Put down that box!"
he said with a grin,

I'm waiting, my love...
I want to come in."

I said not a word
I said not a word
do you know how far lace has to fall
to be
heard?

And slowly he peeled all the layers away

and found all the secrets
she'd wanted to stay
under branches of crinoline
scratches of pain
the girl
the girl
the girl

in the rain

and that Mimi she wasn't she wasn't afraid

to trust
so she offered her all in the stead
of lovers who knew not her fire
nor her heart

and he
wickedly
scorchingly
loved
only
her

in the closet of hats
where nothing was heard

Photography credit: Mimi LenoxI'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure during Easter vacation.
I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.

And Love, Oh Do Not Forget

So I watched my boy string along his boy

With a bounce and a wind and a breeze
And my heart did a skip when he tried not to trip
O’er mountains of memory leaves

But the mesh in my mind
Had been tethered by time
Through the bumps and the gusts and the waves
And the kite it did fly
Painted mournful
Blue sky
In the land of the love they had made

And I saw a new day in the wings
Of the waves and the smell of a summer’s eve
Of little boy pride and daddies who try
To push boys into manly things

Fly, my lovelies
Fly, my heart
Fly into storms unafraid
And settle the brilliance
Of sunsets unfettered
On shores of great strides you have made


Utter your most lofty words
And lay down your arms of regret
In sunsets of
Brilliance
and branches caught singing
A song
On shores of yet

And love
Oh do not forget
And love
Oh do not forget

The strings of the kite tangled up in flight
landed safely wrapped round my feet
I caught them you see in the heart that is me
before either had time to flee

And the waves they did make
A most violent quake
When my heart leapt ahead of the breeze
That flew headlong into
A magnificent moon
No painting more lovely than these

And I watched
In the lens of the love
Of my boy
And my boy

In a place
It remains

Full of grace
Locked away
in my memory house
As he bounced
And he bounced
Cross the fields
And jaunted thru mills
Making splashes and spills
While his dad tried to cushion the falls

And no finer words had I ever heard
Than the mystery of boys on the wind
One lagged behind
The other ran strides
and one kite

That just wanted to fly


Photography credit: Mimi Lenox
I'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure during Easter vacation.
I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.

The night shall bear witness to said and unsaid

If the core of my life stays centered in flame
I'll open what give thee
to burn
just the same
and turn not away
from the pruning of heat
in the place where soft slumber sifts wild through my sleep

hold not the dreamer
to manner or verse
who forgot to ask morning w'ere  blessing or curse

come boldly entangled
in layers
of red
the night shall bear witness
to said and unsaid

oh never grow weary of brilliance and fire
in the thinly veiled strength of a woman's desire

what passion plays opposite long to a fool?
none I, said the girl in a puddle of moon

lit sun and nights of fragile bliss
when puddles play opposite long to a kiss...

She cast forth her petalsin pools of blue stars

awakening Jupiter, Neptune and Mars
unfolding and tumbling her own to possess
I think the most lovely of words must be
yes

*Photography credit Mimi Lenox*
 I'll just be here under my Easter bonnet, embarking on another adventure during Easter vacation.
I will be back Monday May 2, 2011. In the meantime, enjoy Poetry Week on Mimi Writes.