(The Complaint Department)

(1994-2011)

On silent feet, the furry folk arrive,
Leave paw prints all across my days,
Scatter catnaps in my sunshine places.
Oh, how their presence graces me.
Quicker than a winking eye, as agile as a smile,
they stalk the pathways of my heart
And what great emptiness they leave behind
When it is time for them to go.

For Maeve

We Cannot Seem to Comprehend

Words ©2015, The Owl Underground, Image © 2015, Sun Pours Down Like Honey

Building Bridges

Building Bridges

A bridge requires two things
As you should know,
A place to come from
And a place to go.
But as to which is which,
with fickle imprecision
The bridge can never
Come to a decision.

Solitude á Deux

Solitude á Deux

Now that would be a nice marriage.

A solar system of two planets,

Both orbiting the same star,                             

Yet each a world unto itself.

It would, of course,

Necessitate development

Of interplanetary travel,

But, oh, how nice

For each to know

There was another world nearby

Full of untold wonders,

That traveling there

Was easy and convenient,

And that the natives were friendly.

Poem ©2014 The Owl Underground
Artwork ©2013 Michal Karcz

Love and War

Love and War

White

Cabbage

Butterflies

Swirl, loop and twine.

Two males dogfighting

Over honeysuckles

And blood red climbing roses

Chase each other in the sunlight

Like tiny wood and canvas biplanes

Skirmish over irises and jasmine.

Who would have ever thought that butterflies

Built of milk glass, gossamer and cobwebs,

Could fight with such ferocity? 

Two kite-like adversaries

Endlessly pursuing

Their affaires d'honneur

Through Roses and

 Lavender

Til one

Wins.

The Waning Moon on Samhain

The Waning Moon on Samhain

The wheel turns and the year rolls

The moon is waning like the world

In majesty the Goddess passes

The crone’s crown with its silver horns

Above her pale and unseen face

Her night black star spangled hair

Veiled in the wispy smoke of Autumn

Flows unbound and trails across the world

She has left the Sky King’s oaken bed

Where they lay together in the golden light of summer

She has risen up and robed herself in darkness

Now She passes through the Samhain fire

Trailing darkness like a train behind her

Bound now for the Sky King’s bed of holly

To lay with him at the brink of the year

As She makes her stately passage through the land

Her pale white belly is already swelling

With the green child growing in her womb

As the year rolls and the wheel turns 

Poem © 2013 The Owl Underground

The Night Called

The Night Called

And he obeyed.
The silken night
Subsumed him into shadows,
Blotted hue and shade into greyness,
Smudging outlines
Into nothing more
Than eyes and darkness
On paws
As soundless as the fog.

The night exhaled
A sweet, soft sigh
And watched him
With a single pearly eye.
He was
A moment's silhouette
Atop a fence,
An eye-blink's worth
Of chiaroscuro,
Not quite glimpsed
Then gone.

He insinuates himself
Through charcoal dusted grass,
Freezes motionless in midstep
Whiskers quivering,
Subsides into a crouch.
And in a heartbeat,
One less mouse.

poem © 2013 The Owl Underground

They Call the Bees Melissa

They Call The Bees Melissa

The thing about
The busy bees
Is all the bees
That are busy
Are she’s.
There’s only he’s
When they’re
Moving house.
But other than that,
There ain’t no he’s
Among the bees
To put up with
and please,
Just lots and lots
Of busy she’s,
Which proves
That bees
Is smarter
Than we’s.

Poem © 2013 The Owl Underground

Aoide Crowned with Roses Sang

AOIDE CROWNED WITH ROSES SANG.

I dreamed that you were Greek

Achaean.

Apollo Citharoedus

In a kylix.

Clean limbed and beardless,

With terra cotta skin,

Dark, sea-seeing eyes,

And dark hair

Falling to your waist

In raven corkscrews.

And would I watch for days

Upon some rocky promontory,

Wind ruffled

In my yellow chiton,

Skrying the line

Between sky and sea,

Waiting

For you to wade ashore,

Sandaled and sun-bronzed,

Onto the white sand beach?

And would your dark eyes

Rifle through the rocks
With longing?

And would your heart

Surge forth like breakers

And your wave wet feet

Take wing

To see a yellow chiton

Scrambling down the rocky path

To the beach below?

Poem © 2012 The Owl Underground

The Hare and The Moon

Poem © 2012 The Owl Underground
Drawing © 2012 Jackie Morris, used by permission of the artist.

Memories Wave-Washed by Time

Photograph © 2011 Jackie Morris
Haiku © 2011 The Owl Underground.

Roots

Photographs and poetry © 2009, 2011 The Owl Underground.

Brown Glaze Branches

Haiku © 2011 The Owl Underground
Photograph © 2010 The Owl Underground

Samhain

Poem For The New Moon

Poem © 2011 The Owl Underground
Photo © Wikipedia Commons

Shadows On A Wall I and II

Shadows on a Wall I

Shadows on a Wall II

Haikus I & II © 2011 The Owl Underground
Both Photos Cropped From Photograph © 2011 Sun Pours Down Like Honey

This Is The Way The World Is

Poem and Photograph © 2009 The Owl Underground

What If, By Some Sudden Shift of Scale

Photograph and Poem © 2009 The Owl Underground
Iris cultivar "Chickasaw Sue" from my front yard.

On the Eve of Cold Dark Winter

Version 1, autograph.

Version 2, typeset.

Poem © 2011 The Owl Underground
Contrast Enhanced Version of Photograph © 2010 Sun Pours Down Like Honey

The Wood is Still Good

Haiku © 2010 The Owl Underground
Photograph © 2010 Sun Pours Down Like Honey