Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Dancer (with poems by Marilyn Duncan, Martha Ward, Sarah Webb and Beverly Voss)


Pulse 

The pulsing sounds of color
reverberate 
in kaleidoscopic bits 
that scatter in 
pieces of beat, 
strands of band, 
shards of bard, 
high vibes, 
low tones, 
that burst onto 
the scene in shouting 
shades of boom, 
a syncopated wheel 
of reeling shapes, 
radiant madcap whirls— 
a world unto itself, 
a sounding board 
for a vibrant 
dervish 
that dances 
and dreams
in living color. 

—Marilyn Duncan 
ODD Monday Prompt Poem 
9-7-20

+++++

I kicked up a storm of leaves
indigo, black, orange—green.
The wind whirled and swirled
clothing me in their disarray, until
I was literally swept away on
a gust and a Go! that gustled me
here in to this rather cramped
glass globe.

It can’t be a snowball, the colors
aren’t right. I pray no more shake
ups—until I can get my head on
tight. How will I appease the god
of leaves, gain freedom, or is this
just a real wacky dream? Images
of me lined on black flying squares.
Jeez, I’m neither here nor all there.

I am down in the dumps these Covid
nights, I toss and turn, as REMs
flicker faster, and give me a fright.
Perhaps it’s that egg salad I ate or was
it potato, tossing my tummy at my mind’s
gate? What’s to become of all these pieces
of me? O, sweet Morning, break open
this dream! Release me to whatever
the “real world” seems. 

—Martha Ward
Kim’s ODD Prompt 9.7.20

+++++

Dancer

At the center a figure 
dances. Around him the 
bubble of the world spins.

Fragments float and fall,
reflections and objects:
gate, lightbulb, plant and bird.

A foot raises, a mouth gapes.
Cornets and lines of crops
moon launches and petroglyphs.

Dancing the world into being, dancing 
the end.  Continuous beginning 
out of continuous decay.

Exhausting, exhilarating, 
exhausting, creating order
out of a chaos of sticks and gravel.

Juggler, the man keeps the world 
in the air, will not let it crash
will not let it sling into chaos.

The mind tires, the body falters.
Who can keep a world alive,
keep a world from breaking?

What man can do it?
Dancers stumble and lose hold.
Their mouths go slack.

Turn then to the one inside the man 
who speaks from the dancer
through a hidden ordering

who shapes his dance

—Sarah Webb, 9/7/20

+++++

The boy faces west. Or south.

Or left. Kicking about in his

unconscious orb. His friends

cavort around him while

leaf fragments of September

source sun prisms, jewel

pigments for a bluegreenred

home. Music is in him. Dance

surrounds him. Sound escapes

into the ether. Now the boy

gallops through his egg-shaped

world. Do his friends run with

him? Are they imaginary mates

or figments of his own story, his

own magical mind? Here…a

toast, Skole, Cin-Cin, Bottoms

Up….to all the dancing boys.

May they never grow into the

men who lose their song, their

dance and their vibrant, 

secret sphere.

—Beverly Voss
09-07-20
Moth poems

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Who's in the world?

Xiushan said, "What can you do about the world?" Dizang said, "What do you call the world?"