A.M. Holmes

Ivan Petrovich Argunov

Portrait of Kalmyk Girl Annushka

Russia (1767)

This week’s prompt is:

a quarrelsome wind

Use this tag: #poetryriotprompt

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the fan whirrs against the lingering heat of yesterday

but in the cold red of morning the bed is only half-full and the sheets wander in search of more than these few limbs

oceaned and untidy, i rise like blue in the foreboding of a peacock morn water cut and wind sewn, i stretch and billow my way out of silence a multitude of white horses ride the path before me, i am tidal strewn

AIVAZOVSKY, Ivan (1817-1900)

Anonymous, School of Lucas Cranach I

Pfirtscher Altar, Left Wing: Saint Maurice

Germany (1524)

Oil on Wood, left wing, 93 x 41 cm.

München, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen.

under the weight of hands

there is a minute

—a second—and the clock

strikes, not unlike

the sound of a passing

bell         —one thin peal

—leave the window open—

the haunted flees the hour

                      —a soul as prey

slipped from her

Mouth, like ribbon

from a waist.

I caught it amongst

Other things and

places.

I didn’t mind it.

But felt it

You fiends!

.

I shall flee thee to the rough feel of leviathan trees,

Where the broken cataphract of my animal heart can rest once more,

Away from your sinful insistence that you lead me arm in arm.

.

And to where?

.

These leaning branches cleanse the nightmare of humanity,

The birds above bring their songs of the oneiric divine,

And the soil beneath me pulls away the decay of your labyrinthine cities,

Your poisonous currency,

And my memory of your dubious black profiles.

.

___