Two Ways of Looking at Bone

1

Bone is a most interesting thing.

It encrypts brick and feather

it's shaped 

with shades of blue

like ice midwinter

that Maine winter of cerulean snows

when a small boy's 

sledding yells rappelled 

down the hill.

2

But now 

spring is a carousel

that spins a kindred melody

(Are daffodils ciphers 

bloomed to mock death?)

brings a bone wish 

to walk again 

the garden 

to feel earth's curve 

under spine.

Inspired by Hannah Gosselin's blog, Metaphors and Smiles, back in March where she gave intriguing instructions for a Guided Poem. I liked it and have been playing with it since. Today's post by Grace over at Real Toads about Wallace Stevens pulled it together though. It's another in my Bone Poem series.

Bone's Memory

When I picture myself alive I'm in lavender 

fields near home back when muscles

powered me anywhere I pleased. They brought me

one morning to purple flower bustles

stretched out

far as eyes see, lavender cowls

gathered free,

held close against my decline,
becoming only bone, having to surrender

home's fields and time's spine.

Posted for Kerry's Flash 55 at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads with an additional feature of a form she devised with a word count each line and a rhyme scheme. The original inspiration was from Hannah's prompt, also from Real Toads, of Lavender Fields under Transforming Thursday/ Friday Nature's Wonders. Also posted for Open Link Night, hosted by Claudia, over at dVerse Poets Pub. Another in my bone poem series.

All that Remains

We're left with

this: the hardness of 

bone, the space where organs 

used to be, life's music itself stopped,

silence reigns.

Tonny Maude has us writing cinquains expanded (5 lines with 3-5-7-9-3 syllables) over at dVerse Poets Pub. This is another in my bone poems series.

Bone Quiet

It's strange

to be without

boundaries

marking inside

and out, defense 

made impossible. 

Din arrives 

not just by ear
but surrounds
each bone. 

I thought 

quiet would reign,

the death silence,

but wind's

fierce incursion 

blunts bones 

with no skin 

to hold it out. 

Intrusions
blur any sense 

of safe containment;

after gone 

comes noise.

A Flash 55 in my bone poems series for Kerry at http://www.withrealtoads.blogspot.com.

Clean Your Bones and Catch Some R & R

Bones are surprisigly 

difficult to keep clean,

turns out white wasn't 

the best choice for beings

without skin. A search

brought me years ago 

to a distant island spa 

for bones- a pink lake

surrounded by a rim

of sand for scraping feet

and a dense woodland

of paperbark trees 

against which to rub.

Salt crusts cover

the shoreline and whiten 

stained bones. 

The flattering pink color

might come from 

organisms 

(that don't harm) 

or might arise from a dye,

but we choose not to use 

that word, what with it being 

a spa. Pink draws 

the ladies though. They carry

home clear pink water

in necklace amulets

that catch the interest

of friends and spread

the word. Bones

worldwide come. 

The bright pink
lends an appropriate

other- worldly air, the pratical

aspects of bone care

are tended to while

peer to peer contact

is facilitated. A whole 

package solution.

For Hannah at Real Toads who has us writing about Lake Hillier, a bubble gum pink lake that sparked  this (much) lighter tone in my bone poems series.

Bone Whisperer

Winter solstice, 

short nights 

and cold in our bones,

we gather in the dell 

among the alders

to greet our newest member.

Fear wreaths her head 

as she feints left to run,

so I am called 

to calm her and explain 

the bone scrum we form. 

She doesn't know 

our ways,

the comfort 

we derive

from bone on bone,

but she brings 

the latest news,

other nights

so recently hers,

perhaps she brushed 

a loved one 

lost to us

and carries 

their faint scent.

We have orchards

of hunger

for all she has.

Posted for Mama Zen at the Garden who asked to use homophones in our poem. I used feint and faint. I also found words in another prompt and used dell, alders, wreaths, and orchards but didn't write down the source and now can't find it again. If anyone can tell me I'd be grateful. This is another in my bone poems series. 

Bone's End

By the end

all I sought

was peace,

pain dove so deep

that suffering 

fused to bone.

Bone's meant to

hold up and not be

source of the final fall.

Can bones be haunted?

I was at this failure

so fundamental.

Death came
as sweet escape,

a swift descent 

to the ground of all being.

From the bone poems' series, a Flash 55 for Marian at the Garden. I took the photo of a dolmen (portal tomb) in County Clare, Ireland.

Fair Bones

The good thing about bones

is there can be no comparisons,

who's thinner, who's better looking or better dressed.

We can tell males from females, of course,

the angles of bones and width of spaces,

but expectations don't hinge on that

or judgements formed.

The problem with bones

is the lack  

of skin to hold us in, 

the vulnerability to breaks,

the hunger

that can never be stilled 

and the question we debate endlessly

of contact with the living.

We know things 

and want to pass them on,

especially to those 

who share our marrow

but the how 

eludes us.

That's what bones seek:
to be wrapped in skin again, to talk, to be heard.


Gay Reiser Cannon has us writing about "fair" over at the dVerse Pots Pub, Meeting the Bar. She gave various definitions but since I'm on a bone kick, I chose fair as "having a disposition free of favoritism or bias" for this and found bones to meet that standard in an exceptional way.

Bone Dreams

I dreamt last night.

It answered my question

about whether the dead dream.

Must mean dreams come from bones

not brains, bones as scaffolding 

for psych and soul with the DNA of generations 

carried deep within 

bones' marrow.

But about that dream,

some ancestral reverberation 

straight from the marrow,

grandfathers galloping through,

priests stealing things from children,

a girl rising up to accuse the priest,

she took things back too, wanted to reclaim

her grandfather's treasures, 

hand-carved.

That's what you can do with bones:

stand, yell, take, hold, dream.

Inspired by Grace at dVerse Poets Pub who wrote about The Book of the Dead Man by Marvin Bell and asked us for a poem written by one dead. The link has expired but here it is posted for Mama Zen with Words Count in the Garden who wrote of the circus and requested 90 words or less about which performer you are. This is skeleton man, or dead man walking.