Magdalena Ball #21 Unfeathered on the Beak responding to Béatrice Machet #19 Always Flying

Unfeathered on the Beak 

                  responding to Béatrice Machet #19 Always Flying

Not when the rain       emptied like a fallen pail

                     crashed to earth 

                       

            isn’t it always the way       not bunting or passerine

                                wingspan and wistful.

            

         Clawed      pulled  flesh is     just another word for skin

                    giving in to gravity    the movement of time

                         
                          unfeathered on the beak                           

                                    you could call it by another name 

                                please        not youth

                          that’s a different bird.

                               Fleeting   a lost blur against the sky 

                                        or how I missed      the good stuff 

due to excess

             sturm and drang           swifts and swallows

                        it all comes back to flight 

             and now         just the path.

                           A structure       any   

                                    shaped like a figure of eight

                    twisting back on itself 

   counting from zero       magnetic map

the musky scent of consolation 

        what can       cannot

be borne     aloft.

                          Migration is as risky as love

                              opening the body 

                        to change      storm

                                  predator     

                                            fallout.

            

                      

            

Béatrice Machet # 19 ALWAYS FLYING

# 19 Always Flying    (after Dominique Hecq's White Raven : https://conversationinpoetry.blogspot.com/2018/09/dominique-hecq-17-responding-to-ravens.html)

always    flying

               born and living in flight

never      landing

               as if never to pass away

         never has to die 

what bird is this 

but a heart

whose heart is this

           but a shadow’s

           in one widower’s memory

                                        always flying

a falcon in some beating sky

                                        unlike the “nevermoreraven” 

                                                   it is an “alwaysraptor”

Dominique Hecq # 17 responding to ravens hopping about on my roof to rekindle the conversation

The white raven

The white raven is not extinct. It's in hiding. It's a homophobic bird that swoops up, not down. It doesn't belong to, or with, any murder despite its blood red eyes. I once spotted one in North America: it fluttered across the highest tree tops in a deep, deep, dark forest. I heard it sing a melody surpassing those of angels. I took my camera out of its case. Saw that the bird had gone. Sadly, it's not odiferous. It's a symbol of wisdom and grace. No wonder I'm so jealous of god.

Dominique Hecq #16--Check

the child clambers on the skittish black

horse, nervous of its staccato breathing

twitches the reins     says I know this

is wrong     expects some sudden buck

ing     rearing    up

                   ending

the notion of dying is

so close the child can't steady his hands

yes, even dismounting could be fatal

(check): I've never played chest before

Magdalena Ball #20 brittle birds responding to Dominique Hecq #15 Small cosmogony

brittle birds 

           responding to Dominique Hecq #15 Small cosmogony

there’s no starting point for this 

it’s unkind and you dancing

so wildly I don’t know what

but this is what matters   the moon

                      unmapped space

somewhere waking birds 

just coming into

themselves 

        knowing its there

glass compacted into 

                      a window 

pretending to be water 

a bowl

casting a wish that looks like 

a skipping stone 

everything is mutable

               can be converted to a new 

substance a new life

even this table which 

formed the heart of our kitchen

seemed as solid as darkness 

as scarred as love

Dominique Hecq #15 Small cosmogony— Responding to Anne Kellas #7 My father’s soul had passed me by

The moon is a glass

bowl full to the brim

dead matter lifeblood

H o w i t s h a t t e r s

H o w i t s m a t t e r s

DARKness

m i d –

w a y   b e t w e e n

 (us)

brittle birds hankering

after  air  light  water

    (our lungs)

 burr burring burning

Anne Kellas #7 My father’s soul had passed me by, responding to Cui Yuwei's poem #13

Written in response to reading Cui Yuwei #13 - Time Is a Bird-responding to Elif Sezen's "Wombtales"

A rush of air –   
and I knew at once
that he had fled –
that I was an orphan,
that he was free.

Dear Conversation readers, In the context of reading the recent, strong poems about birth here, I don't know why a poem about a death should come to me. Perhaps, in the face of their very strength and power, I had felt frozen, and could not carry on the “conversation”; perhaps I felt that more need not be said.  

Then, something in Cui Yuwei's poem-response to those poems broke through and freed me, and out came a draft of this poem. 

Revisiting my draft tonight, I thought well, it carries on the conversation? My father's death was a kind of birth, for him. I hope to use the poem in a series I am writing, For my father who art in heaven. 

The title I have given my poem is very much a provisional title, just added tonight. Thanks for reading! By the way I am very grateful to Kit for organising this conversation space, it has made me write poems I think I might not have uncovered without this blog.

Cui Yuwei #13 - Time Is a Bird -responding to Elif Sezen's "Wombtales"

Cui Yuwei #13 - Time Is a Bird -

Responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1 

Time Is a Bird

Written in English and Self-translated into Chinese by Cui Yuwei

time is a bird

flying back from a tree 

of the future

I watch myself 

being born 

《时间是一只鸟》

时间是一只鸟

从未来的某一棵树上

飞回

我看着自己

刚刚被生出来

Béatrice Machet #18 Tupperware container

# 18

in response to Dominique Hecq’s poem 

(#14 an army of wombs in response to Magdalena Ball #19 Unpossessed responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1 responding to ..... responding to…)

 Just a Tupperware container

white cover

light yellowish edges

on a bed of ice

as if a hole in the winter sky

had opened

she was told stories

count them all

the clouds so you can sleep

count them all the sheep

in this tide of bright wool

she was told lies

her colonized brain

is playing back the birth game

well knowing from clear intuition

that

behind all this scenery no waiting star

nothing to guide her

but a chestnut sized malignant tumor

having given death to her island-like body

just a Tupperware container

in a widower’s hands

  

announcing the cremains to be launched

into the air

somewhere

call it home if you want

call it universal womb

if you still trust any faith

Dominique Hecq #14 an army of wombs in response to Magdalena Ball #19 Unpossessed responding to Elif Sezen #2 - Wombtales 1

An army of wombs

when the cradle  

 is empty

and your breasts

     solid as rocks

wombs that look similar but are hung 

  differently stalk 

       you like an army

of shadows pressing

    and crumbling

you like a pastry

with no yeast

shattering and dissolving in the mouth

of time not of woman 

     born

Kit Kelen #25 - Artemis be my protector

25

Artemis be my protector

after Maggie, after Elif, after Beatrice

in a womb not telling

that's how long it takes

wild animal of the virgin ages

before the first tree fell

that's where dreaming and we were

hunter and hunted are one

this is the land that I come from

forest was the first matter

half past the clock

and home

never meant to stumble in

to see, be seen

be changed, be torn

rain with stars shone

trees weep

because of here I am in it

the garden to begin