THE THIRD ALICE TRILOGY

 

Photography by poet Duane Locke

MOONDROPS

 

Mother moon cries. Eye-weeper.

Earth’s waters replenish her tears.

Mother moon cries in great travail.

 

THE TWIXT & THE TWIDDLE

Coal-black armor on midnight steed.
Swords clashing in the heavenlies.

We lie between twixt and twiddle;
seeking safety and understanding.

 
THE THIRD ALICE

Asleep, the third Alice has
appeared in the third Heaven.

Her unglorified body flits
easily into celestial spaces;

haunting heaven thru desire.

Awake, she is weighed down;
the temporal demands of life.

The third Alice sees the glorious
flash of white wings encircle her.

Hears  pure knowledge whisper
to her spirit,  “soon, but not yet.”

 

ALICE PARRIS

 

 

 
                

ITCHY EARS

ITCHY EARS

Never enough gossip to whet
the palate. Never enough aperitif
to assauge the dry, cracked tongue.

The wonder of creation not nearly
as exciting as the creation of gossip.

Yet, ennui steals away new titilations,
until the latest conjured up significances.

The over-blown interpretations & cynicisms.

Nevertheless, it is well known that itchy ears
must be scratched into a state of total deafness.

Alice Parris

 

Photography by Stony River/AU

BIRD OF SAPPHIRE-FIRE

Symphony within my heart;
flute-flutters of small, blue wings.

Joy is a bird of sapphire-fire
alight on a winter branch; barren-brown.

Tender warbles pierce the sunless;
yet, the golden-glorious cascades down.

Only the spirit can ever know  
the ecstatic trumpeting when joy blows.

Alice Parris

Photography by Stony River/AU

THIS MORTAL COIL

 

Royal blue &
translucent gold do await my soon return.

I  go to where there are no bones arotting.

Do not cry for me;
I am kept in the bosom of a holy dove.

Lo, these many years, 
my hands have been stretched upwards.

Abundant joy &
immaculent breezes are my preferred portion.

Blue-midnight,
angelic visitations steer my many night-visions.

This mortal coil is
but my chrysalis; gossamar wings wait for me.

The last mile is truly bloody virtue-Via Dolorosa.
 

 Alice Parris

Photography by Stony River/AU

BUTTERFLY & PEACOCK

 

Indigo-Tourmaline sprawling eyes
on a bed of cilantro, olive, sage
and hunter-green iridescent wisps.

A lovely spot for a pumpkin-rust,
black & white, spotted & bordered,
bewitchingly beautiful butterfly.

My senses have been quickened.
My eye-gait is satiated from this;
the mother-lode feast of palettes.

My eyes have been soul satisfied.
My soul is a well-whetted whelp.

Although, we see darkness at every
turn in the world, purity pillars upon
the earth. The earth shall long remain

past the passing of our remains.

Alice Parris

 

Photography by Stony River/AU

 

DANCING HEARTS ARE STILL REMEMBERED

Lavender-turquoise-salmon sea shells
jangling from cherry-red hip scarves.
Yellow, red, orange & brown crisp leaves

blowing on a near-frost morn, circling
around sensible shoes for painful arches.

Dancing feet are still remembered.

Gone are the tinkling sound of anklets
above Aboriginal feet. Pages slowly yellow.
Turkey oven mitts replace youthful hands.

Hippie graveyards are filling quickly this season.
Blood medicated to move through more efficiently,
even though aging bodies move like a sea of slugs.

Mescaline revelations are a vague notion, now.
Desert moons whispered their neon-wisdoms.
Now, the rumble announces a newly deafening ear.

Dancing minds are still remembered.

Love for humanity was poured out like LSD
upon this generation of seekers. Quietly, they
have been taken away; one by one. The world
is the poorer for it; with its fierce anal pincers.

Dancing hearts are still remembered.

Alice Parris

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STONY RIVER/AU

CONCENTRIC CIRCLES

All of life is held

within the motion 
of concentric circles.

There is nothing more.
Circles repeat…

History repeats, life repeats,

death repeats.

It is within this
same circularity

that we gaze into the past

and the future.

We  will all return
to where we first began.

 

Alice Parris

Photography by Stony River/AU

MY FIRST-LIGHT LOVER

And…
I wait for my first-light lover.

He is alive with musical vibrations
& lyrical laughter. He draws me past
the night’s cruel maze of darknesses.

His eyes are the color of Cool Gray
His skin is burnished like fine brass.
His voice is harbinger of a new moon.
His smile melts ice-stars; to shed tears.

And…
I wait for my first-light lover.

Waiting…
my feet grow stong like roots & my
legs are hidden by Birds Of Paradise.
He never understands how long I wait;
his days are my endless months, years.
His job is to sprinkle gold-dust on those
with dead-fish eyes, so they can glisten.

My first-light lover
cleverly stole Cupid’s quiver of arrows.
In stealth, he has become the King of Hearts.

And…
I wait for my first-light lover.

He is there in black-obelisk night.
In inhalation & exhalation at noon.
He is there as day disrobes, donning
musty-dusk. He is there as fire flies
seduce sultry, summer eves.  He is there…

at first-light.

 

Alice Parris

 

 

 
 

HOWLING STORM

Magnolia-crows

dart through mosses.

Their ominous sounds

muffled by foliage.

How long is long

enough?

Is it the will

that holds us to

our paltry portion?

Is it purpose

that makes us swim

upstream?

Is it destiny

that declares us

sole survivor?

Why do we cling

so tightly to

aging shells?

Fiery-mango passion

burned into wispy

pewter-ashes.

Shall we dine

on our memories

of  once-great love?

Shall we feed our

skeletons with fleeting

azure-lavender dawns,

coral-tangerine sunsets?

A weary leaf twists

in the  howling storm.
 

 

Alice Parris

THE NARCISSIST

 THE NARCISSIST

Looking into a
mirror of alchemy,
blunt, boorish features are

transmuted into aquiline gods.

Golden crowns
forever grace the heads
of these Roman Emperors &
magnificent Patrician queens.

Mediocre thoughts
become gem-like; brilliantly
blinding sun from its own glory.

Screeching owls
transformed as nightingales.

What fortune
has blessed us with
such stellar luminousity?

O, see me,
hear me, want to be me.
I am…the true narcissist.

Glory rewinds
throughout the entire template.

O, fortune,
Why have you deceived us?
This ruse of smoke & mirrors

is but a fully-spread-peacock
beckoning…

Alice Parris

Photography by Stony River/AU