HOPE CLINGS LIKE A VELVET MIST

Photography by Stony River/AU

 

 

HOPE CLINGS LIKE A VELVET MIST

Wildflowers grow flawlessly
Surrounded by colored lies
Adults breathe in tradition
Children exhale wordless sighs

The dreamless sleep in poppies
Couched in beds of loneliness
The future shreds like ribbons
Hope clings like a velvet mist

Fierce garnet-colored flames
Turn to soft flickers glowing
Crisp green ages into brown
Burdened with too much knowing

Young flesh will melt away
Like fresh wax melting slowly
Wasted breath filled with regret
As cradle rocks the lowly

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

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

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

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

THE KINDREDS

THE KINDREDS

 

We walk together
at varying times,
 
varying degrees
of sun & shade.

 

We walk in these
places of darkness

 

& mist.

 

We stand together:
the kindreds.

 

 

Alice Parris
For Anna Donovan

 

 

Stony River photograph/AU

NOT ENOUGH

Car ablaze in AU/Stony River

 

 

Slurping , sucking
licking, rubbing
of hands together-
flies void of prayer.

Ticking, tocking
clocking, tooling.

Not enough.

Insatiable appetite
for internet buzz.
Wasps, yellow jackets,
bees- all stand down.

The arachnid has
come to town & taken
over the buzz business.

Not enough.

Faster, faster,
text, text, text.
Spin, spin, spin
tweet, tweet, retweet.

Infamy: wheel of fortune
dragging a hanged man.

Not enough.

Enter into the lion’s den 
with your meager offerings-

to be tangled, mangled
& dangled; but decidedly

Not enough.

 

Alice Parris
 

VISION AT THE TOMB

Grey figures

Move like

Zombies,

Lost souls

Shuffling

As though

On Thorazine.

There is no need

For the

Sound

Of chains

To know

That these

Are prisoners.

 

Alice Parris