un redacted...

where in the smoothest light
the way is clear to travel

no frightening, blocked staircases
up which I chase myself in terror

no more dreams smashed
before I dream them

the legacy of no expectation
I hang like a coat in a closet

though honestly purchased
it is no longer right for any season of mine

it is instead, a well worn remnant,
like a crumpled leaf from the autumn of my youth

I no longer choose to wear it
to gird me from the sunlight

pouring in from windows
that I have opened myself…

Lucy Meskill

Mistle Thrush...

my small world
expands outward
the more I look in
and there, drawn close,
a bird on a secluded nest
your love amazes me
when I really see it
the way a heart-shaped
cloud, builds upon the wind
becoming on blue
fully formed
just as I look up

Lucy Meskill

Nycteris...

just as a red winged black bird
you ramble the berry crammed
and thorny hedgerows singing
in the half-light your plaintiff tune
recalling the sound of rain and the
persistent warble of distant thunder 
the phantom music of resonant drums
played in battles fought long, long ago
I picture you with crimson wine berries
cupped between your brave hands
those hands that combed the lanolin
coated sheep born in your barn
and milked the sweet goat nectar
that you fed to your babies;
and like the dark raven that you
are, scanning the cloud filled skies
dreaming, eyes half closed, tears
forming at their corners, you
soar over fields of viridian green;
I see you lighting candles whose flames
flicker golden like prayers through darkness
queen of the night, shaman fire tender,
I remember you holding babies to your breast
in confident arms just made for nurture
the wine of your love trickles like the blood
of berries, deep and sweet through your tribe
I love you for ever and for always sister moon…
 lucy meskill

I squirrel, a dream...

there are acorns in the street
I see them clearly
from where I am standing
large and wood grain polished
some whole, caps attached
others broken open
revealing the spilled secrets
of nutmeat liberated
time passes without judgment
soft clockworks clicking
cars drive over and around
as I wait, I wait, I wait and watch
learning by heart their shapes
loving their contents from the curb
until you, you, you driving
stop and say, simply
hands on the wheel at two and ten,
"take all the time you need"
and I do
my red winter coat
billowed out like a basket
I gather slowly without apology
and once again on the curb
my strong arms happily full
I stand there contented
as I watch you make the turn
driving past me slowly
with the smile of a mother who
buttoning up well
the snowsuit of her beloved child
opens joyfully the door
of her home to reveal
snow-day perfection gleaming
un-driven in the street
on a crisp, sunny winter's day...
lucy meskill

Oh leaf...

by what other lamp
would I read thee
in these precious
darkening days
your softly encoded
cipher glimmering, listing
in the burnt orange
autumn cocktail light
Oh incandescent brevity
chromatic symphonic
rarefied in transit
as earthward you slip...

lucy meskill

greenland...

tweezing,
instead of
dumping
the good
out from
the bad
I, reformed,
recycle
the yes I do
from
the no I don't,
thank you,
anymore,
am happy
living
in the,
somewhere
in-between,
in that
invisible
greening,
steady land
of
close your eyes
and
click your heels
that I now
gleefully
call home...

lucy meskill

enkindled...

weaning myself
from the usual darkness
insuperable and unkind
un-practicing sadness
like a tree-chained dog
now able to unwind
the quick-sand, slip-step
into pea-soup party light
is the road which I un-travel
up this path from endless night
the tuck-in, take-nothing picnic
spread upon the lawn
is the party I un-throw
mole eyes blinking in the dawn...

lucy meskill

in the beginning...

and the god that made us
to be the needle with which
it pierced the fabric
of its incredible loneliness
could not help but fashion us
stitch by stitch in its own
incredibly lonely image and likeness 
and when it saw all of creation
mirrored and flowering
in billion-fold isolation
beneath the mantle
of its amazing and infinite love
god became all at once
and for the first time afraid...

lucy meskill

moving day...

 

my mother's house was a beautiful home
warm, enchanting, full of laughter, wisdom
and pain as she bore eight welcome strangers
that she claimed as her daughters
over a bridge twenty years long, Mary to Lucy,
naked and screaming through wide open doors;
she was always tending garden
roses, lilacs and tulips grew around her
as birds sang in the trees that she had planted
and people were ever drawn to her edges
like lost bees to nectar; she was always
feeding someone from the ample larder
of wisdom and understanding in her attic
stored in boxes which never gathered dust;
she had so many stories about Brooklyn
and the cold-water flat where her two
blind parents raised she and her brothers
about her father and his musician friends
piling coats on top of children in their beds
on band-practice nights and of music
warm and beautiful, drifting into their bedrooms;
about trips to Coney Island and picking up shells
about how the sand and surf "spoke" to her;
My mother was always ironing and folding
sewing and mending, cooking and cleaning,
talking and laughing,  so that no one even
noticed that her basement had been flooding
beyond the hope of bailing, and on the day
in her sixty-third year, that the one and only
unwelcome stranger who ever entered her home
moved completely in, and she moved out,
the wind blew unceasingly clouds and sunshine
in furious succession like a movie reeling
dramatically fast forward to the solitary moment
when her house was left empty and it lay there
weeping like a baby where softly white sheets
had gently held her,  just a moment ago...

lucy meskill

dance duckling, dance...

 

the flip side of the slip slide
hot shuffle of the day
bridesmaid of the hit side
only the lonely will play
while dancing in darkness
in our own embrace
we fathom the depth
of this lonely place...

lucy meskill

for giggles...

the very first photons impetuous and bright
still fresh from that awesome Big Bang
flooded the reaches of space and time
vibrating with extreme intensity
that same light that wandered intrepid
through the deep obsidian darkness
bouncing and waking sleepy lazy matter
was really only restlessly seeking
a warm pumpkin pine paneled floor
with a soft woolen red carpet
upon which to tiptoe and mellow
into golden amber honey igniting for giggles
the dust of a dog as he rolls and stretches
and turns in its loving embrace...

lucy meskill

old thinking...

the tyranny of cans
that lurk expired
at the back of cabinets
pushing forward
the scent of fear
like rotting carrots,
liquefied and brown
rising tidal from
the bottom of the bin;
remembrances
that live untouchable
under and behind
forcing joy, like a jumper,
onto a sliver of a ledge
like a jar of golden amber honey
that lurching under pressure,
falls out unexpectedly
and bruises our foot
when we open the door…

lucy meskill

soft transit...

re- is a patient room
into which I do not
walk, but stumble,
a place that contains
the rumpled, crumbling
dissembling of surety
and surmise. Re-thinking
I unwrap emotions that
I have labeled, lifting
layers of preconception
for another, closer look.
Apprehension morphs
to comprehension
while understanding,
a newborn butterfly
descending from chrysalis,
unfurls her moist wings
in sunshine, to dry slowly,
upon a willing flower...

lucy meskill

Flo and Leonard...

Two black-boxes
from two separate flights
landed six feet under,
and fourteen years apart,
in the same exact location,
beneath the weeping willow trees.
He is wearing the dark suit,
that he wore to weddings and funerals.
She wears a blue dress with flowers
that she made with her own hands.
They had always slept together,
my mother never remarried,
she was too busy making
frayed ends meet, and besides,
she was still in love...

lucy meskill

music...

a house of seven notes
built on a tonic key
waves of sound sweep in
and wash all over me...

lucy meskill

grazing...

above the night pasture
a bright constellation
of syllables spin
with bifocal tonality,
ambiguous and baroque,
a tango adagio,
unspooling like leaden silk,
smooth and dense,
propagating the ground
a concentric curriculum,
for my digesting reticulum,
I spit cud, chew,  then
swallow, spit cud, chew,
then swallow, spit cud,
chew, then swallow,
an even-toed ungulate,
digitigrade and curious,
ruminant, I digest...

lucy meskill

lamentation, architectural...

antecedent rooms 
like phantom limbs
dangle in absentia 
just beyond dejected doors
that seal like bandages
the gutted open void
of vanished walls and figment halls
attaining, ramiform, the altered air  
whispers roam like dust 
and gather restlessly where
the memory of corners dwell
replete in silent contemplation
and swift birds fly around 
the mostly discharged hull
and fallow dreaming seeds
that fade like unfeigned laughter
on a summer afternoon...

lucy meskill

vicissitude...

footfalls roam in heavy silence
the dense chocolate loam
and pungent dreaming custard
of fallen leaves and flowers
as the steady hum of bees
becomes a rustling buzz
crisp matter caught in corners
and in the brittle arms of fences
where insects crawl in to die
strong by the billions
the tincture of their last breaths
faintly scents the bone-chilled air
the warm, tenacious soul of Summer
golden amber-brown and weathered
sings in the woodland, leaves, refusing yet to fall
tall pumpkin streaked trees remembering viridian
combine now in chorus as wildly wavering birds
on high, conduct the wind and clouds
Autumn is a loose bouquet, lipstick smeared
and crushed from too much ardent kissing
whose deep-toned rouge perfume
tempts like a wild and twisting tango
the nascent, chilly mind of Winter, handsome
cold and silver, now dressing in the wings...
lucy meskill

knock, knock...

envy likes to "trick or treat"
dressed as other things
need, desire, self-righteousness
all waiting in the wings
it likes to tell its story
upon the stage alone
a tale of what
we should have been
a tale of where we'd go
if only we could have
just a little something more
it says we could do better
than we've ever done before
standing on my porch
I listen for awhile
I sigh and pat poor envy's head
I close the door and smile...
lucy meskill

kryptonite...

dark and cruciform
forged in the pit
it drew you to the altar
in that chapel
five years to the day
with its own deep gravity
and there you stood
oh superman
with your index finger
extended like a child's
knowing it would burn
you touched it
and at last
the long abated tide
swept the shore in waves...
lucy meskill

LLLLL...

whenever I'm feeling blue
I like to say aloud the letter L
L is for la and loquacious
L is for loafer and lamp
L is for lover and lambent
L is for leaver and latch
I love the shape my tongue takes
tucked behind my teeth,
bowed like a little sail,
billowed by air my lungs make
hey! they also begin with L...

jubilation...

like Lazarus enkindled
I rise awake unbound
to face the willing sunrise
spilling over ground

the mote of doom impended
I pluck from out my eye
moving and uncoiling
beneath a different sky

the cloth of vague disaster
now pooling on the ground
as Icarus un-falling
I reach the speed of sound

traversing skies not punished
for dreaming in my sleep
no fear of fullness follows me
impelling through the deep

this permanent affection
for living in the light
for comfort in the shadows
for reason in my sight...

curbed appeal...

houses that pass me in my car
along the side of the road
peeling in their appeal
too close to the shoulder
to be lived in, to be loved
have me thinking about a day
the day that someone dreamed
and decided to build them
with a long sloping lawn
where now their cobbled path
eaten by the highway used to be
about the day that they were finished
and where that someone stood
hands on hips exclaiming "I love it!,
"I really, really love it"
and how for some houses
that very first "I love you"
needs to last a lifetime
because it is the last one
that they will ever hear...
lucy meskill

inspiration...

I breathe for my grandmother
cotton-dust in her lungs
I breathe for her husband
who lost her too young
I breathe for my father
who never knew a mother's love
I breathe for my grandfather
eyes blinded from the sun
I breathe for his wife
who never saw his face
I breathe for my mother
whom time can't erase
I breathe for five sisters
who left this earth too soon
I breathe for them all
'neath the sun and the moon



Lucy Meskill

just breathe

what ladder do we build
that will bear us up
from the unreasoned pit
of our primitive rage
what caution do we construct
at its margin to prevent us
from tumbling back
into the seething soup

we, each and every one of us,
are branded with the bucket
that fills with anger in a flash
we are martyred to carry it
and yet called to do no harm
to be thirsty for it’s drama
and still not to partake

step one, breathe in rogue emotion,
sense its awesome power; 
step two, feel the sensations
as they settle and move through our body; 
step three, breathe out self-love
repeat and watch the spring uncoil; 

too far from being animal
for animal reason, rules,
and inborn constraint,
we define ourselves as human
and yet so often
we fail to be humane



lucy meskill

phantoms in our opera...

sometimes it takes
a lifetime
to stop running
from the nightmares
that pursue us,
the mostly small contrivances
of our childhood imaginations;
which like bad B movies
are still running on TV’s
that we in our haste
forget to turn off
they are like kites
whose strings
we hold and run with,
their only power is 
the wind that we provide
even the real bogeymen
become larger by degree
the longer we flee from them;
if we were to stop running
and turn to face them,
I think we might find
the paven street littered
with small and broken kites
and tired, aging demons
that we could reason with
and who perhaps
would prefer to retire
to some more useful shore…
lucy meskill

remembering Mary...

When our sister Mary passed away, the men who removed her trash each week wept at her funeral. Everyone from her neighborhood was there, and they all put personal tokens in the box beside her. The Fransciscan Monk who spoke her eulogy through his tears called her his soul mate, she was that kind of gal, our Mary... Missing you beloved sister, missing you...

whoa, man...

I am no rib
from your waistline
but an ocean;
no frail, hollow,
whistling bone
but a nail;
rusting, I open
fiercely into voids
expanding and holding
deeply, elemental;
a fearsome silent howl
in the funnel
of a force five wind;
you may tack around
but never through me
fear and never ford
the river of blood red wine
bubbling, like molten lava
just beneath my mantle; 
knowledge of me
will surely burn you,
so beware… 

tincture and spill...

waves of light across the breach
phantom footfalls play the open floor
the music of intent attenuated
slathers slick across the plane

seeds seceding embryonic
transcend petal, root and stem
piercing the open sound of O
into Ah and comprehension

the shadows of furious furlings
nimbly fluctuate lambent sails
from the recapitulated sheets
tucked between my knees

words fly cherubim, seraphim
from one shaded womb to another
palpitating thoughts, from ear to mouth,
jete the flickering colophon
as ciphers they negotiate the page…

lucy meskill

fructified...

is everything in love,
or is it my imagination;
the way an insect
eats a heart shaped hole
in a leaf covering a flower
that reaching up her petals
gently acknowledges shelter
as the silver cloud lidded setting sun
blinking golden floods the garden
with lucent amber honey,
if I am dreaming
please don't wake me...
lucy meskill

molecular...

broken things in waves
along the shore strewn
align puzzling
sidling cozily
cuddling topographically
interlocking chemicals
littered like flavor on the lip
tongue and palate
glistening and bubbly
of sand and rock and shore…

the sting

when did free

become

(read the small print)

not free

the lure, the balm

the bomb, the catch

the other shoe,

pacing like a lion

growling,

dangling

which smacks you

in the head

as you are looking

for mysteriously

disappearing

expired coupons

illuminated

like a circus clown

at the check out

fumbling to buy

the new, not new

and really quite

unimproved,

improved…
lucy meskill

mountaineering

 

the incomprehensibly fine

undulating ridge formed

by the lap of questing waves

upon generous sand,

this is my Everest,

an unceasing traverse

devastating in its detail

relentless in its mercy, emerging

where my feet crush its peaks,

the continuous summit

of my restless summation

where the blessings of patience,

moderation and self-love,

each second, molecular, renew

lucy meskill

how green was my valley...

a blasted stretch
between two mountains
where only scatterings 
of woody scrub survive
a place where low flying
vengeful scrutiny drags
her sharp, hollow claw
in parched dry runnels
over and over and over again
cultivating dust that howls
this dark acre looking
for someplace to hide...
lucy meskill

withered fruit...

driving by

abandoned houses

wondering about

a moment

the very moment when

someone stopped

locking and unlocking

the doors that joy abandoned

and lost dreams left ajar

stopped washing the porch

and fixing broken lites

in windows which let things in

that should be kept out

where ragged curtains

waving wildly at passersby

gesture of surrender

and plead for assistance

dark tear stained hankies

no one dares to handle, for fear,

that the DNA of sadness

and the flavor of neglect

are things that will rub off...


lucy meskill

Photogen...

at the waters edge you glimmer,

a cape may diamond rocking softly

in the sand, moonstone deep and lucent,

you roll in waves, ever curious for shore;

I keep walking through doors that you

have pried and held open for me,

to me you are like the curious and brave

little Carolina wren outside my window,

a daring little flame darting deeply

into crevices foraging for seeds, while

not succumbing to the ease of the feeder,

like a visionary seer, she strikes a path

following her bliss into the unknown;

your large eyes beacon bright and blue

are as warm to me as summer skies

I love being in the garden together

as the magical low slanting evening light

illuminates the flowers beneath our lenses;

I love the silver volume of our hair

flowing out beneath straw hats, inside,

we are still those two little girls, silently

sifting buttons and shells, dreaming

on the bedspreads of our youth,

for ever and for always will I love you,

my brilliant, iridescent sister sun…
lucy meskill

volcanity...

awakened on the cusp

the very crust of night

the moon and the sun

both present in the sky;

the concave light

of my inward reflexion

awakening the clapper

long silent in the bell;

emerging out into the glow

from my bomb-sheltered mind

a mole basks in sunlight

as the piper plays a tune;

nascent present participles

spring flowers in bloom

a glimmering cacophony

racing to unfold;

this un-retracted symphony

this perfect pitch epiphany

a diaphonic harmony

wrapped in unfettered timpani

as with pyroclastic majesty

the valley of the shadows

floods with light from the peaks

and un-elapsed brilliance

ends a long age of grief…

lucy meskill

metamorphosis...

amid the magnified 

and amber golden dusk

a particulate miscellany  

in ecstatic suspension

swarms the hot summer air;

in slow, agitation bees
creep the echinacea torpid

too besotted to fly home

sunset steeped pollen
has stolen their senses;

winding blindly they anchor,
feet in flowers to slumber
till dawn kisses dew encrusted eyes
and they awaken transformed, 

gleaming, like sugar candied violets…

lucy meskill

food fight at midnight...

I’m pitching food

at parts of me

listening too intently

to the news in TV bars;

mostly mashed potatoes

chucked into their hair

and onto their faces,

dripping fluffy white

buttered chunks fall

into their tightly held

elegant drinks

and they, looking up

from conversations

more like nightmares,

begin to see me

as I shake uncontrollably

with real unaffected laughter

and finally recognizing me

they deposit

their overly cool,

expensive drinks

and opinions

upon the bar and

we exit joyfully

this dream

together…

words and image by lucy meskill

the summer wind...

deafening heat so loudly muffled
boiling hot kettle fullness screams in my ears
paralyzing fevers chill scorched paper-dolls
that ford on slotted feet, back-forth back-forth
across the evanescing asphalt

clockwork cicadas winding down wildly
shake their crazy tambourines on high
no painted kites fly on these kinds of nights
as July rocks her baby, singing, "ashes, ashes,
we all fall down"


words and image by lucy meskill

waste...

joy, too long delayed,
too long suspended
will sometimes topple
and fall in a direction
we were not intending,
totally away from the plate
we are tentatively grasping,
and onto the floor…
lucy meskill

in a moment...

sugar ants creep the formica, trailing turmeric,
no less than men who creep the face of the moon,
which looks like formica. skulking the windowsill,
an assassin bug; muscular and intense but
missing one leg, he has haunted the bathroom
all winter long, courting lady bugs hiding
in the folds of curtains, which airlifted, now grace
the milk-splotched pulmonaria by the side of the door
that opens onto bluebirds and swallows diving
the newly-plowed soil, hunting for slow bugs
wading out of watery rills that flow into
the mud-filled gully in which a fallen doe lies,
her body, opened by vultures that linger like darkness,
blessing her disarray with the shelter of their wings,
shading her beautiful, quiet face as the flesh,
that her mother bore just for her, feeds the open sky...
lucy meskill

framing...

the octopus, the eye in the water
the lovers, the girl erect in a wooden chair
the crunch the grind, the sand the beach
the g-spot drifting out to sea
cherubim, seraphim
the rush of wings and waves
the grace, deliberate and untied
the slap of the sail, the clap of the wind
the trying, the knowing, and the wanton doing
the undoing, the floating and watching
the pictures the pictures
the delicate the curled and the willing
the bird, the hand, the place where it rests
the book the book
the flipping of the pages
the fingers ageless, unyielding
the full bowl in her hand
riding slipstream momentum
Alice, falling into wonderland…
lucy meskill

resurrection

it’s never too late
to rock your own cradle
to pace the floor singing
with you in your arms
to rub and pat the lonely back
that lingers at the back of you
and witness as you rack
with deep and un-cried tears
your displaced mother napping
has awakened from her couch
and stretching she has risen
to sing awake the lonely house
to serve for you the dinner
at the table long awaited
to tuck in your own napkin
and calm your raging fear
to run a mother's fingers
through your long and graying hair
and listen to the nightmares
for so long gone untold
to see you and to see you
to love you and to hold you
to clean your house with laughter
and welcome your heart home


poem and photo by lucy meskill

love...

like rust,
you liberate my oxygen
and fill my lungs with breath
you soften my metallic skin
and color me of sunset
no longer gleaming, I am deep
a place where things fall in
as hilled and valleyed I become
of soil and seeds and wind…
lucy meskill

speak...

we are all vocal chords
in a mighty throat
stirred by the rush of air,
like petals that speak
undulating in floral tones,
we are whistles for the wind...
lucy meskill

unexpected grace...

deepest sorrow, I sow you,
onto a rising wind
where you float heavily
dirigible slow, a lead balloon
suspended by belief alone
to be split and hammered open
upon anvil winds, shattering,
into a million blessed shards
which refracting in sunlight
wander transformed
light, luminous and full
of unexpected grace...
lucy meskill

echo...

the echo of your light
precedes you, broadcast
like the scented peony
steeped in amber sunset
your spirit fills the air...
lucy meskill