Canada and the USA

The Peace Arch on the US-Canada Border 
between Washington and British Columbia in 2007

Rush's LakesidePark recalls how youth fades

around historical carnival days

recognizing colonialism

with Victoria Day,  quiet revolt

with National Patriot’s Day, winter’s

end and summer’s start, rest days for the heart:

we “gather on the twenty fourth of May

Sitting in the sand to watch the fireworks ….” 

Across the border this past colony

enjoys royal visits, casts MLK

Junior’s birthday on Robert E. Lee Day,

sings “My country‘tis of thee” to the tune

of "God Save the Queen" and loves irony

served with its holidays, fireworks and all.

Go HERE for more information on the location and history of Lakeside Park.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

Stone throwing

Mount Hood reflected in Mirror Lake, Oregon, USA.

Mirrors
Fresh water pools

Hold our faces roughly

Ripple at pebbles skipped and jibes 
Tossed across reputations shattering 
Pride of conifers, Trust of sky, 
Love of shore and mountain,
Destinations
Mirror

Posted for Grace's Sunday Mini-Challenge: Rictameter at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

To Be a Butterfly

From the 1988 Production of M. Butterfly

Does he know he is staring?

I look down but feel his eyes

sweeping for "radioactivity."

I want to laugh! He thinks I

am a woman, but I am better

than a woman, I am an actor!

Our chemistry will add ease

and pleasure to the assignment--

but he is closeted from himself.

My Comrade can never know

I am gay--only that I am willing

to spy undercover. Laws forbid.

And my target can never know

I am gay--he may prefer his fantasy

to my reality; truth may kill him.

Truth on all sides will surely kill me

unless time grows the seed of love--

I need only one miracle to be free.

Posted for Kelvin's "Poetics: 'Asians are ugly!' " at dVerse Poets Pub.  For the thinking behind this poem see "Stereotypes are Ugly" on my Blog.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

More Time

Artwork by Chelsea Bednar

Clock
w a t c h
ing     loose-
ns  ends of each

class   hour   talk  and 

trees e-                    ven-ly

ring                                         me

and near                            your toes

O
artist
back      up

tick tick tick tick

wear one     ankh on
each an-                 kle and

re-mem-                   ber time

does not                        end nor

wait and          we won't entomb

its secrets   while the trees survive

Conceived  for Artistic Interpretation with Margaret based on  Chelsea's drawing at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.  The Ankh (bottom left) made me think of Egypt and sand and forever.  It also made me think in pyramids and triangular principles of focus.  And so, here we are.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

Will, or Potatoes

Baked Potato with Butter

(1)

Volition sounds stronger than velleity

but that is no reason to prefer it.

Velleity can linger as long as

it pleases—or exist at a level

of potential—like bags of potatoes.

Volition is a ready-set-go full

commitment—like potatoes peeled and hot,

lobster boiled red, corn broiled dark on the grill,

two or more plates set out on the table.

And if the merely present grow stronger,

time will show; and if they refuse to go,

time will know when to bring them to the feast;

and time will show their worth in bringing spuds

seasoned, thriving—or merely surviving.

(2)

Of course, take this with a grain of sea salt

if you have no potatoes bagged or cooked,

if food is scarce in your life, or if you

have not learned to cook—then ask what you will

whether meal, job, home, or way to cope with

dreams when nothing brings nothing and nothing

more—and  I who have little (but enough)

will have phenomenologists explain

the uses of hunger and conflicting

alternatives like refusing to eat

potatoes or nothing but potatoes

or starvation or loss, great grief, real loss—

O!  Let this poem be simile, not more!

Our will—to be free—needs choices galore.

I wrote and posted these two related sonnets for Anna's Meeting the Bar: Volition & Velleity at dVerse Poets Pub.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

Wendy's World

Tinker Bell (2005, bronze)* 
by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor

Tinker Bell’s fairy dust

enabled flying or dreams

not both—pencil or paper,

day or night, youth or age,

male or female—and so

her blessing was a curse

for Wendy and like-minded

females who had tales to tell

males who could not listen,

who wanted and want without

ever reaching satisfaction

but gleefully play on.

Wendy wanted more than

playing house, sewing and

tucking little boys into bed

every night; she sketched

her desires on the thinnest

toilet paper in the moon-

marked room while her

charges snored; and she blew

her creations out the one

moon-cut window to waiting

squirrels who scampered off,

carrying Wendy’s texts.

She wrote anonymously

but in her own blood, a

signature too authentic

to ignore—so discoverers

hoarded her words as if

saint’s relics and created

a book of them on archive-

quality paper which one

day Wendy recognized

on her library’s reference

shelf and borrowed by

sliding it into her overcoat.

Laughter rang out from

never-never land as Wendy

read the precious tome—

twice—in the outhouse where

she had written it in the light

from a tiny crescent moon

window; then she recycled

it page after page as toilet

paper and as new letters to

her faithful readers, thinking

If God ever spoke, she is still— 

laughing—and if not, I will.

An old story I cleaned up to post for Kim's Verse First ~ A Place in The Universe at Poets United and for Mrsupole's Theme Thursday for May 16, 2013 - CREATIVITY.  

*The photograph is of the bronze Tinkerbell by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor, commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital London in 2005.  

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

Home blossoms

Begonia Corallina-Hybrids
Pic by: User:BotBln

Door opens

Color and scent crowds

Affectionately

Hall runner flies me in

Green plants bow me toward

Golden kitchen water jug

Tenderly

I visit each of them

Meows pull me upstairs

To join kitty in bed rest

We inhale each other

Accusations turn to purrs

But the bedroom is blue

And I have more to do

In red and cream

Downstairs

Boot up the computer

Tear open the mail

Send the requisite “I’m Home”

Email and status update

Angel-wing Begonias
Grew pink hearts 

Anticipating 
My return

Posted at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads for 

Open Link Monday.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

On the train

foggy Hudson River and Catskill Mountains from the train

(1) The First Leg

slowly eerie at first

no water in coach-class

but sun shines just the same

after Trenton we speed up

past school-bus orange road graters

arms raised to show their muscles

oddly idle 45 minutes south of the Big Apple

duplicate houses and lumber

yards and electric grids

spindly trees,young and growing

or old and depleted shield

towns from transport

more tools of roads and tracks

unmanned though muscular stand

(train windows as their best audience)

an army ready to advance their lines

wherever and whenever ordered

(2) The Second Leg

scenic Hudson River, water in coach

and in the sea-wide shore-less bed

humble majesty, coast guard defense

lighthouses crouched so long amid

rocks and rising waves of water

that people forget they are military,

window shoppers lift up their eyes

Palisades, Storm King and Hunter

slopes, ski trails and forests hugging

thruways and muffled traffic as swift

as the Hudson's channels, much faster

then tugboats and laden barges

(3) The Body

Full spring and its flood levels

whistle hoo-hoo signaling

Hudson depot where white and

purple lilacs garland and scent

where an elderly man sits small

with pipe, newspaper and baseball

cap on a shaded bench until

he sees conductor lifting down

a familiar suitcase and his daughter

until he takes her bag and hugs

she shushes her brain buzz

until she finds paper and pen

alone after dinner, after smiles,

tales and lots of family loving

she returns season in and out

measuring her changes against

unchanging tracks, repeated

greetings, gestures, arguments

only a little more wear 

only a little more weary 

only a little more silent

 Train station, Hudson, NY, USA. 
Supposedly oldest station in New York in continuous use; photo by Daniel Case.

Posted for OpenLinkNight ~ Week 96 at dVerse Poets Pub where Claudia is hosting.

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast

 

 

 

Getting On With It

Dentzel Carousel at Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia, by Smallbones.

Giddy rider 

abandons hair to wind

fills ears with screams

reaches for rings wanting gold

getting tin once, twice, thrice, always

wooden horse rising and falling

her mouth locked in grins

she lifts, leans out further, too far 

gasping gaping grasping to win

but tin—no bronze, no gold—

anxiety rises until

wearily she drops hand, arm, grin

weakly slides from saddle

to puddle near horse’s hooves

on their turning table

finds knees finds feet wobbles

to a stand up and step down

until grounded

she sees the carousel

and walks away

dropping tin rings 

to lighten her load.

Posted for Kim Nelson's  Verse First ~ Poetry Heals at Poets United.  Kim prompt first inspired a longer poem "Writing as Healing."  Please visit it when you have a minute.  

"Getting On With It" is also influenced by Buffy Sainte-Marie singing "Carousel":

Copyright © 2013 S.L.Chast