Laocoön

“Malediction”

[ for #horrorpoker ]

savage grass

confronts you

and whispers secrets

of a family

tree

and its sins,

twisting

blood-roots

in knots,

choking

then soaking

the earth

in the long,

unforgiving shadow

of curse

                     —- Photo and Poem by Lynn Langmade Copyright 2012

“Prism”

wanting comfort

I peered through wings of glass

to see the future.

But instead of the future,

color began breaking

into a bouquet of time.

Seconds

Minutes

Hours

fracturing

until it was clear

that I was inside

every moment

and was no longer

afraid.

                     —-Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade Copyright 2012

“Menagerie”

the girl did not cry.

she

collected her

tears,

stringing them

like glass beads

on needles of grass,

and waited.

she would not release them

until he returned,

and time began again.

                 ——Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade Copyright 2012 

“Tinder”

a wish floated into the air

carrying a boy’s

life.

where would it land?

when the fire caught it,

fragments of a dream

drifted down

sparkling softly

as they brushed ground.

            — Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade. Copyright 2012.

“Ruin”

Dawn has its way

of resting

in that place where you left

your memory

of your friend

still unburied

in shallow

waves of fire.

where the world is nothing

but a Ruin

that goes curiously on

as if something wasn’t missing

— had not left.

But this is how the world sings.

it sings to you about what it cannot remember,

throbbing and blistering  

from its molten requiem

of immaculate wreckage.

          —-Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade

“Damage”

no way to explain this

absence

it drives her back into her dreams

makes her remember

someone she once knew

whom she found

keening in the moonlight

as the rain washed softly

overhead

—Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade 

“Lunacy”

more fog.

less rain.

we lose sight

of little things

except trees wandering

in place

colliding with everything

that matters:

my eyes

the sky

and the abandoned

madness

of the earth

without its moon.

—Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade © 2012 All Rights Reserved

“Historian of Infancy”

From “To a Butterfly” by William Wordsworth

STAY near me—do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father’s family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:—with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.

“Dreamscape”

The electric sky

howling like a neon sign    

touches and turns on

the city skyline.

In a city where the heavy-lidded

stumble toward sleep,

                    I picture

a place

without concrete

and other hard things

that lay in wait,

hurting and absorbing.

a place

where you and I are

finally safe.

—Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade © 2012 All Rights Reserved

“Poise”

But once, through a pleat-work of waves,

I watched as a cormorant caught and released

a single fish. Eight times. Trapped and released.

Diving into an absence, the fish

re-entered my vision in segments, arcing

through the pivot of the bird’s beak. Magnificent,

I thought, each singular visit, each

chattering half-step from the sea.

From “The Fish” by Linda Bierds

“Whisper”

But there was nothing,

except the whisper

of this kind of small water

and the frost

weightless

cold

and clinging

to the wholeness

of shape.

—Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade © 2012 All Rights Reserved

“Wind Farm”

there is no word for it.

for the way the world looks

when hundreds of windmills

sit on the horizon

tilling the air.

when burnt bushes

stretch

to an inferno of color

ever-burning across the brush.

just moments

moments where you stand

outside of yourself

contemplating how the world

might have looked

to a vengeful god.

—Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade © 2012 All Rights Reserved

“Exile”

wandering into the orchard,

I cast my glance

down the narrow hall of trees

where time cinched

round me.

but as I walked under the scent

of citrus sticks

longing for lost fruit

and all things that grow

and give

I did not perceive

that there would be no

return

from where I was going.

—Photo and poem by Lynn Langmade © 2012 All Rights Reserved

“Parachute”

Bouquets of jellyfish fell: parachutes abloom,
gray toy soldiers drifting together, drifting apart— 


---from "The War after the War" by Debora Greger