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Corpus Omphalos Where Image Abides
Stories of Smiling Creek Farm
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Corpus Omphalos Where Image Abides
Stories of Smiling Creek Farm
Where Image Abides
MARY ELIZABETH KIBLER
THE POETRY
THE POETRY
Proem: May We Dream
May we dream the fit refinery of fire and spirit
Standing adequate in suggestion
To convey the loves
Apparent at every turn
Be they cadences of
Creation’s coffins laid open
Or slammed of pure modernity
Shaping mysteries of these beasts
Bellowing below the ocean tides
To metal struck molded of eccentricities
Inspiring impression where image abides
Desiring sanctity enveloped by charms
Remembering to whom belongs the
Name of mind
Knowing
How
Immersion
In private devotions
Tempers our slumber
For the keenest of notions.
PARAGUAY SONG LYRICS
© 2014 Mary Elizabeth Kibler
Paraguay
Bus broke down and I decided to stay
With these endless skies
where the river runs away
And sorrow is a fairytale,
so the ghost birds say;
Strawberry limousines, sandals in the rain,
Time wanders by with little or no change;
Living life a resolute castaway
Sitting at the bar of the Rio Café
Having my maté
In Paraguay;
Crowded nights of passionate display,
Lovers after-hours until the break of day,
Champagne and poetry with
Morning toast and egg;
A hammock afternoon sleeping in the shade,
A green veranda away from the fray;
Living life a libertine stowaway
Sitting at the bar of the Rio Café
Having my maté
In Paraguay;
Cigar smoke and open market day
Soldiers from the hills have a
thing or two to say;
Sometimes I just can’t recall before the delay;
Old brick and plaster charms,
young boys from the farms,
Warehouse waterways in those southern arms;
Living life a resident runaway
Sitting at the bar of the Rio Café
Having my maté
In Paraguay;
Yellow skirts and barbeque bouquet
Fountains full of crows and
Hot peacock pepper groves;
Some say it’s all a big mistake;
No one really knows
Why from the stream of tears
Butterflies still cry;
Playing guitar for canton coke and lye;
Living life a vagabond gone astray;
Sitting at the bar of the Rio Café
Having my maté
In Paraguay.
At the end of the road
At the end of the day
No complaints
Where the pampas sway;
Lingering still, just a permanent stray
Living life a cavalier throw away
Sitting at the bar of the Rio Café
Having my maté
In Paraguay.
© 2014 Mary Elizabeth Kibler
When
When we speak, we animate
Ancient languages,
Feeling, knowing them by name;
Speak the ancient languages
As felt and known, for
When we are compelled to words,
When we feel and know such awe
Resonating, then
We speak ancient languages.
Bamboo
Take away
footholds
do not
hesitate
prevail not
there is no denial
absolute in affirmation
the bamboo is but a
stick of demonstration
assisting grasping
will do you
no good.
Outside My Room
Outside my room
A hummingbird
Alights on a branch
At the same time every day;
Dark round eyes fix on mine
And the moment I look away,
He flits out of sight;
Can’t say this little creature
Doesn’t visit
Out of sheer curiosity of this other
Who sits outside a room
At the same time every day.
Just Like the Blues
Somewhere, the future
is inventing a way to the past
to shake everyone to their senses;
Some things are better than others,
sometimes, to have, we must lose,
wrong-side-down might be a
consensus and happiness
sound just like the blues.
Pavilion
Four doves fell from purled skies
Staging circles of yellow orchid dressed crescents
Spreading ribbon hands
above the falls
Unfurling canvased clouds
Bolted of cats prowling
Startling birds from their quiet trees.
Bones
Bones crunch and splinter
Beneath rubble of fallen earth;
My head explodes into a million pieces
Settling to rest on silent shores;
Yesterday, they
Drug my body from the river;
Today, I wept beside my grave;
Decay bloats my gut,
Winds scatter my ashes …
I am dust of dying forests
Hiding in the fields.
Opus in C minor
Clanging waves cash in the dark,
Hands claw fast then smooth and stark …
Dedicated attraction
To hearts’ native reaction;
Sight of tower marks the mark,
Clanging waves clash in the dark;
Beckoned by small blinking light
Amidst a Hellespont fight;
Lost in surging
Swells of doubt
Long before the
Flame blew out …
Clanging waves clash in the dark,
Every dream, each passioned spark;
Storm of fate-raged rocky lore,
Lovers dead upon the shore,
Immortals of lyric hark,
Clanging waves clash in the dark.
Autumn Haiku
Those standing rock clocks
Tracking otherworld lights
Still keep us on time.
Rat King
Snarled in lengthy histories
Conjoined generations born
Connected in wasteful excess
Of self-entrapping scorn
Create a monstrosity as
Unwitting mutants unite
Making a King but a
Nest of thieves
With a huge appetite.
DRONES DON'T DIE,
NEITHER DO THEY LIE ....
.... the fan beats a rhythm as it grinds above; glass beads on the light fixture rattle and clink like small bells lashed to a horse pack as dull hooves click steadily along stumbling over rocks
on the edge of a narrow switchback....
232 poems
WHERE IMAGE ABIDES
selections from four
published poetry and art collections,
Universe, Nuclear Rice, Nutshelled, and One God Per Pot, an unpublished
2008 collection, Drones Don't Die,
lyric verse, and select works written between 2009 and the end of the year
2012
Nebular Orbit
Ananda!
Rejoicing!
Scwadishtana scrolls
Bleached trophy cult fields
Read of decomposing skulls
Sepulchers altared
Round of a square
Drenched tradition
Distilling
Rare
Soul
Messages
Ramayana
Vision
Days
Lost to magnificence
Lapping at the shores
Silhouetted palms
Soaked ocean scores
Milked of madness
Reveling in refrain
Fogstammered rushes
Feasting with the sane.
A SESTINA
© 2014 Mary Elizabeth Kibler
Ballade From The Sea
When walking on yon sandy hill
To see where seagulls choose to fly,
When birdsongs flow beyond the rill,
Tis always how and never why;
For who can think what thoughts belie
What lapping hands in gardens bring
And never sink to hearts defy,
For I will be remembering;
Where tender songs stroll we must fill
With more than aimless flutter’s sigh;
When longings pull us close we will,
Tis always mine and ever thy;
And with soft wings can heaven try
To sounds we soar give reasoning
Beside the sea and where sands lie,
For I will be remembering;
From earth some pluck the daffodil
And some minds must philosophy,
Of feather have we writing quill
Beyond love’s rill doth satisfy;
To kiss and taste our tearful eye
When held this flight doth to thee cling
In more than words can thus imply,
For I will be remembering;
Such princely walks will not untie
Our feet on yon hill wandering;
Tis sounds of your that never die,
For I will be remembering.
A SMATTERING OF POEM TITLES
Lost at Sea, Night Trauma, Kung, Xeno, Aquatican Cant, Dago Tea, Sidreal Complaints, Suspending Disbelief, Longways from Nowhere, Singularity, Like A Leaf, Mantra, Ode to Venus, Oasis Axis, Mote, Black Sea Dogs, Voices, Red Eyes, Not a Boat, Dragon in the Library, Is, Frolic 'n Jime, Nostradomas, In a Bottle, Fetish, Sometimes, Shamba La Bay, Emerson, Winter Haiku, Leaf of Paradise, Talisman, From Me, For You, Meeting Don Juan, Downstairs Club, Quit Wasting My Time, Yogi, Cerulean Sea, Icarus, Horses, Abduction, Van Gogh Tattoo, No Vacancy, Busted, Ginger Baths, Procession, Depths of Dearth, Eye of Beauty, Jump Back Baby, Duty, Verbs and Words, Fire, Doggerland, Nebular Orbit, Sisyphus, Rains of Khayyam, Lotus, Mars, Universe, Finite Things ...
Solitude is never rude.
Intersections
We meet on common ground
staring psychological strangers
disengaged for a moment
staged in a still frame
waiting to see
the same
sign.
Lizardry
Hive and
Seraphim have
No claim on me;
Sucking soft slime,
My tongue just beneath the
Soft oozing alkaloid dreams
Like a crazed shaman on a heap
With a jar and wounded thigh
Mumbling for alms and a
Place to lay my head
In exchange for
Lessons in
Futility.