"what are you?"

you asked me to walk with you to the river
you carried a brown bottle and a message
tri-folded between the pages of a magazine
tucked securely inside your plaid fannel shirt - i followed

close behind you stepping into each step
you left in the grass and dirt

at the rivers edge we sipped from that brown bottle, laughed
out loud at the disgusting photos,  you kissed me
once, only once - then stared quietly straight out
to the river  - "what are you.. you asked
a stone or a twig?

what do you mean a stone or a twig

"you know a stone falls into the river and settles where it lies, a
twig is carried with the flow of the river never knowing where it
will wind up in the end -
so what are you, a stone or a twig?"

well then i guess i am a twig, i said

you kissed me again - then  watched helplessly
as i floated away -
you still carry that message
after all these years

tri-folded and
securely tucked

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

Painting is call "Spirit of the Rum River"  by Mary Ann Cleary - I grew up sitting by this rivers edge in Minnesota....

its all symbolic

its symbolic
the air, the rain

you can toss it (symbol) or
be in communion with
it

as it

symbolic the slant in which i sign my name
symbolic the falling
of stars from
a sun, an omens run long past phases or a cosmic constellations pull

it is (i believe) symbolic --- too...
that crazed silent
stare consorted into symbolic
words - characters bled on stone palette
into beaten hide - that so slowly yielded life selfless
to a Holy, Holy kill (willed killing)

while
you who read - a-loud, loud, long
for what appears a super symbolic soul
to your right, your left hand
straining to
hear -  dancing in symbol, a rosed tattoo
between wrist and wrath -  you
with medal, squared, across
your chest

but if;  if
ALL symbols were placed
in a book or sacred verse,  placed within pages without referenced
numerology acting as angelic host
or guardian - would
a
lost humanity we be? - and who then
would see the wind in a face
that will not look
straight
into another -  an eye to eye

symbolically checked, cheeked flush.   what of?  revealed

thought
incapable of a lips voice - is that too,  all symbolic?

life?, creation? - death?

diamonded
or green - or a distance etched black hole in drawn out
white
symbolic?
-  all this scratching and
rant

all symbolism?  is it (at hand)

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

the heat of august

 

buttercream clouds
melt into a raspberry sky
as the dew of morning
holds fast 
confirming a humid afternoon mow

thoughts go
the heat of august will soon be lost
in the felling
of clover sweeten, sickled low

but it is a sighing,
mine
that stirs the memory
of your smile
against the graining of wood laid straight
that met up with the shutting
of a morning's door

I let mix
my mind with the movement
of the suns shadow
pushing past to close
all shutters draping the westend
walls, knowing
there is still much a defining, a pruning, a setting
of things right prior
to the dusking
of a summers day

yet, the I in me drifts,
floats towards the pulling of hours fast
and I find myself pacing
the vintage faced keeper, find my hands
pondering the powdering
of my breasts, one than two
a cubed cooling - cleansing of my throat

as I lift my hair higher
from the backside of my warm neck, then
in slowed release, it falls
only
to cascade
the sky's haze stretched long in silhouette -
a screenplay longer
cast now in the dusted denim
that carries you back
across the wooden floor of our morning
straight back -

into the fielding
of my soft, my fertile
need - to cool the heat of august
with the scent of sweat, sweeten
by the
felling of clover

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

tap-rooting

there are roots
everywhere - clinging to life
i too have a few
deep within, buried
far from light
still - believing it is there
(light)
above
the surface

my skin appears here
too cold
to allow tap-rooting - the formation
of green, ice
holds it back
as it claws to pull itself however slow - up
believing

in divine
sun soaking in acceptance to
bath me
to promise soul
of a bud, budding life
far from a moist darken middled earth
born
of  a personal surrender


bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011


Posted for One Shot Wednesday

ascension

i have chosen
my own ascension - prior to the a pouring
of wholeness - central
motifs are the newest in religious wear

i have focused
before on cause and affect
on existential thought
timed thin, threaded - practice never being
perfected in
my minds eye, holding straight
my worldly downfall

baptismally i drowned
dead in my own rebirthing - last rites
administered as crawl never
quickened

reconciled i reincarnated
self, solidified
to a matter of course
holding a separate sanctity of knowing
a collective parting of Ways
illuminated; leveraged in wider a spectrum
side stepped the
personalized purgatory, scripted as
elevating

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

(neo self-made)

every artistic endeavour
i have set to flame, scorched black
the creative self is hidden
there somewhere beneath a wrap around skirt
pulled and torn or between breasts
nipples stretched coyote ugly, but

i never admired still life
or impressionistic oils heavy
(Renoir's - On the Terrace) i do not care myself
to be abstract as a Picasso Madonna - virgin
territory sits in ash pots near fields ploughed
fertile, want

a first hand creativity, a bit bizarre - Dali like
perceptive has a corner sit
on the porch - a foot long handle bar on the right
an inch on the left unbalanced act
with a crown of thorns around each thumb, a window
side viewed, cocking heads and straining eyeballs rolling
to the sound of centipedes army-ed
marching north

it resides (my neo self-made) i am sure of it
laid flat against the wall, sandwiched
behind the framework of life present
like an insect, building
its vision of infestation multiplied
and attracted to - (nonflammable)

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for Magpie Tales and One Shot Wednesday

parimonious silence

i am in love
with the silence of
writing

without sound
without movement
of eye, of lip

thought that
mimics
a sea, its shores molded
by flow and crest
by ebb and fall
heart beats; separate, same
in rhythmic cadence,
consistently phased, unremarked

i sail
this silence - not sullen or spent
softened
across the bow of wishbone
held, allayed by mast of a dream, gathering incandescent
dust of demi-gods parimonious
of lost treasure
understanding its salten water, the need
of its rhythm,

my need of
silence

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011


Photo by QT Luong

Posted for One Shot Wednesday: One Stop Poetry

Bleak House

there is something lying
dead in the street
not a cat crying
over two bloody feet
there is something gone crazy
there is something amiss - Where? the Great Expectations
gone down as piss?...we have-not a Dickens to tale all the hell
of debtors and meth-ers, souls with only
their scabs left to sell...

flesh eating flesh
no porridge to spare - Oliver's mother long dead
from the drano she wears
her bones non-existent

                the world's gone to hell -
                the addicts are selling
                their flesh at the well...

forgiveness, and savior
both have been missed
in  A Tale of Two Cities
drowning in piss -
Who be OUR author?  this Bleak House
grown cold; the poor growing poorer, cutting roots to the soul...
the crime holds no evidence.  What can we sell?  words have
been eaten, the belly still swells

there is some-thing lying
blood flows in the street
is it a nation that's dying?
face down - with its meek...

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

painting by Joel Isaacson

posted for One Shot Wednesday

i was taken back when i heard that meth addicts actually sell their scabs (that people can get high off of them)...that one addict in the hospital (where my husband was)  had her meth pipe in the bed, and sleeping on it - it burnt a large hole in her thigh...this along with the number of people i see on the streets now...all i could think of was Dickens....bkm

living room

it's a leather couch day
i mean i feel like one - cracked
over time with use; moved from place to place
throughout the anomalous room
called (living) - years beneath a window here, up against
a wall there, jumped on, leaned on - cried on and sought
as comfort on nights without loving

no amount
of conditioning creams and lotions
can reseal these lines
only capable of bringing a momentary shine under good lighting
under the watchful eye
of a family that still believes
there is some life in me; a new set
of throw pillows, a shawl around my shoulders (covers a lot of times sins)

i do admit to
holding a subconscious fear
of reestablishment
into a new corner - new looks
with any living room left usually means excessive entertaining
until apt tedium sets
again well in, but

also i realize
that any life changing repositioning, has
always allowed
(grateful) to be seen sitting on mantel; with photos
that span a lifetime
of memories, continuing to breathe softly beneath
this scuffed up skin, regenerating
a familiar longing - for touch, for comfort, for comforting
of all those i have been able to hold as dear
over the years, and share a room called

(living)

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday...Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet

I Crave to Write...

I crave to write something longer
than words upon a page simply noting life's emotions
of dear love or violent rage
I need to take but thought further, thread it
in a needle holding all of memory, stitch it
through millennium's
set past a very long ago
connecting spaces to moments
between a times hidden pause, trace all
letters to language released by an
eternal muse - and comprehend their meaning
as bee divines a lily's breast

I must sum up all fraction or whole
(with or without) manifested worth
binding it with shade or hue of a purest light
as it seeps from a holy prism ...giving all reason for knowing
a precious offering
cried sight

I need
I must write longer
so much further than before
stitch memory into time
space into so much more
without taking breath
not sparing hearts fervant race
and I shall call this place
(My Heaven)
and lock its secret door  -

should you want or choose its entrance
or feel you need step in -- write and leave
me a letter - where I am no more

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011



Posted for One Shot Wednesday - at One Stop Poetry

Krahe - Triolet

What laughter lingers in this pain?
Weathering all their words of sin
I cry for hope and pray for rain
Weathering all their words of sin

Who hears my cry, is all in vain?
I krahe, and krahe on my last bein
What laughter lingers in this pain?
Weathering all their words of sin


bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Painting: Krahe by Rudi Hurlzmeier

German : krahe means:   Verb - crow, squawk, cackle,
                                          utter a loud harsh cry
               bein   means:   Noun - leg

Posted for One Shot Wednesday and One Shot Poetry - Triolet Part II

and she bore honey flaxen hair

born audacious,  a wild, whimsical
child,  a kin to the summer's sultry wind
and she bore sweet flaxen hair

springtime curtsied to her beauty,
as she danced along with summer's sin
and cried out at the dying of the each autumn
a child given to summers without end
and she bore honey flaxen hair

she cursed the cold face of winter
prayed spring "do come again"
and she danced straight into summer
tasting of all its enticing sin, its fruits
of lovers and of liers, of wines
warmth, so too its bitterest blend
and she lit the candles higher
as she bore sweet honey flaxen hair

and many a man would love her
but no man, her heart could they ever win
for she bore sweet flaxen hair
and married the summer's sultry wind

and beauty bowed to her presence
to her wistful,  her wild ways
for she vowed her heart to summer
and to its wind for all her days
and many a man would love her
but no man, her heart could they ever win

for she was born a child of summer
and bore its sweet honey flaxen hair
and she vowed her heart to summer
bearing its honey flaxen hair

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday: Where Poets, Writers and Artists meet

Since it is Woman's Day...I will dedicate this piece to my wild child with Flaxen Hair -

my beautiful summer daughter

vocabulary words...

it takes a lot of reading
repeating before reaching
surrender -
sleepless nights sweating in denial.  denial
not a word we care often to visit, a poignant
reminder we're drowning well
in it...

going down ..
         once...

and ego
now there is an Oscar
winning role, (inflated, elated, self-control)
pride ..p follows e, but not forget
manipulation...rearrangement
if we hurry no one
will see...a quick cover

the real me....going down
          x's two

missed a few
moments, few meetings a
few morning kisses
...missing in action
reaction not good...  forgiveness gets if-y, if-ier
self falls, crawls (not good) -
ego blown...torment that word begins....denial denied,
pride spelt without p - manipulate
- to late and we

going down - for
           .. third time --know
                   that ones the killer

 unless we expand our
                 vocabulary to include (S) word
                            Surrender....

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry: Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet

sychronized sentience (dharma's dance)

When a wooden man breaks into song,

a stone woman gets up to dance.

Since this cannot be understood by

reasoning,

How can it be analyzed? 

Tung-shan Liang-chieh (807-869)

Buddha

S     E     E     D     S

sown

deep    fertile    plow

gaia

c  r  i  e  s

 earth      water

air           fire

r  a  i  n  s

dukkha

swell,swelling

fracture, shift, detach

 dukkha

reap

BUDDHA

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

Sculptor Bronze Abstract 2:  Willem van Beelen

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

In Buddhism there are Four Noble Truths's

Dukkha - The Nature of Suffering

Dukkah Sumdaya - Suffering's Origin

Dukkah Nirodha - Suffering's Cessation

Dukkah Nirodha Gamini Patipada Magga  - Path leading to the
Cessation of Suffering

High Noon

never have been one
for fondling form or the familiar -
finite syllables, as do fences feel restrictive
make me itch (bad), thirst
for a pool of calamine and a box
of benadryl
I like sticking out
like a good set of falsies against a landscape
with an endless horizon,
infinite possibilities
and quests of  promise

me - I wanna be
a Gary Cooper kind of poet
you know with deep dark eyes and a voice
capable of melting a frozen
rump roast faster than Superman on steroids
packing a six shooter
accented with a western string tie (now that is poetry)
but hell I'm not a man
come equipped with a revolver
guess I'll have to seek
out another kinda hero looking good
maybe in buckskin,
full breasted and fast to the draw
a Jane or an Annie
 (a heroine tote'n like minded armor)

Annie, now there
was a woman for you, got the man too
a man that could shoot and
will'n to carry his own gun - plus, Big Plus here - she got
a lifetime sponsorship with Oakley
that my friend is as good as it gets...

but none of this
nattering has a thing do with building fences, form or f..'n anything - for that matter
so lets get
back to form in poetry, well I say it is
what it is, and with
the sun screaming High Noon
I'm gonna call it Good - seal it, stamp it and submit it as
one of them  Italian Sonnets
grab me a beer and wait
on the rural carrier......

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday...

where I walk...

in our town there is a park
I walk it every day
in one corner are two flat stones
two small graves, one boy
one girl
in the park, in our town
I walk every day

girl gone at birth - 1901
boy three years of age, a son
died - 1907
in two small graves, this be their final heaven? 
in the park, in the town
that I walk everyday

children come stare at the stones
elders wonder - Who?
could be sleeping there
in the rain and in the sun, and
Where their mother? she rests not here
in the park, in the town
that I walk everyday

other's walk there too
mother's smiling as their children play
in the park, in our town
none offer
nor ask these two children to play
or beg rise up sweet little ones, from
where you so quietly lay, in the corner
in the park, in the town
that I walk every day

some will pass smile, some
look once maybe again, not
asking Who?  their mother might have been
frightened
what these stones might actually have to say
in the park, about the town, where
I walk everyday

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011


there are actually two little graves in the park not far my house...
this is dedicated to them...bkm

Posted for One Shot Wednesday....

Jane Austen dwells..

Jane Austen dwells
within these walls; toned once
impassive halls of dread - lost of heart
feared all love shed.   She
lit a lantern near
the stair - where I had kept her
hidden there, and with kindest word of discipline, she begged my heart
to let her in, to take

the jacket from the book, its
offering of leather grey, and 
read the pages
filled with a time - warmer, gentler than I
here could find, much kinder than I now
could find ,and as

the binding spoke to me, soft engraved with grace so rare
then to my heart with each word
read -  she took her step from room
to room to place her rest
nearest my bed - and with lantern lit
throughout the night
she held true to promise with break of day...

reciting love throughout
these halls... as, Jane Austen now dwells
within these walls

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry: Where Poets, Writers and Artists meet....

Eclipse

a year secures its legacy
as the moon veils her phase
with light facing inward, reflecting
the passing of life's days,
and an aura
surrounding morning
its all to fated hand
that I often think about, but can seldom
understand  -   the love 

you imparted with the waxing
of a tear -  faithfully
a promise, the gift of but one year..
of days and nights as
lovers
an all to fatal vow... now
ending as you take your leave
along with goddess
and her throne, shrouding me
in memory - and standing
all alone....

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2010

Posted for One Shot Wednesday: Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet

My Other Soul

my other soul
fell off the wagon
hemorrhaged in plain site
virtual reality thought otherwise
disregarded - it lay torn
three fingers clinging to tracks
a railroad of thoughts ripped it apart,
wings crushed, frayed
beneath a warning of sound
and a survey that went wrong -
but the Tennessee River still flows
declaring the south will rise again
and so my other soul - baptized
in a lone faith - of a Penn, a Faulkner
an Appalachian trail uncut, unfed -
now bled by the sins of my other soul....

bkmackenze
copyrighted 2010


Posted for One Shot Wednesday: Where Poets, Writers and Artists Meet

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.....bkm

...of Avalon

A feather landed in hand to sing the once silenced song, it notes
drifting between the bay of hound, to road ahead lifting the mists,
revealing the ancient gates, the mystical place
the face...of Avalon

The stag stepped forth in grace to view - woodland
dark and long, followed by his mated doe and his unborn fawn,
I watched as gently they bowed both crown and head in awe,
in awe .....of Avalon

Came rise the sun and crystal rain fulfilling wisdom, filling
blessed ponds, that fed the meadow where stood a maid
robed royal in sage and earthern bronze, favored fairest of them all
in all.....of Avalon

The moon did crest and found her phase, her sweet light
I came to rest upon; til' winds grew strong felt everywhere,
from my blood to highest ground, yet remained unknown within the arms,
the arms.....of Avalon

The feathers quest is what I felt - this holy grail would soon
move on, so with sweet communion I gave my heart and its trust
laying it down to be carried off and live forever within the mystery,
the mysteries ......held in the mists
of Avalon

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2010

Posted for One Shot Wednesday...