exodus...

what stoked the silence
that ruptured the lock
whispering, incendiary,

feelings that sliding through

fused the pack of flat-levers

rendering the hapless door wide?

sere emotion that in quick time
let loose the wild, the furred,
the feathered and the scaled
to enjoin their flight, as the door
free in all but one latitude

sings on its hinges to the open air...

lucy meskill

photo credit: judith meskill

salver...

The world with its trembling oceans of salt
was formed at the beginning of time
by a goddess crying over a broken cobalt dish,
and that my dears is why the planet is blue--a blue plate special--
spinning in the void like an invincible dish
in a table-setting that we call the Milky Way. 

Believe you me, that all of the dish-shaped planets
full of mysterious and miraculous fare placed with care
like diamonds, in the ever expanding mystery 

defined as the universe, is indisputable proof that God,
is indeed, a vitreous-loving, kiln-carrying, plate-spinning woman...

lucy meskill

universion...

the greedy grape doth eat the vine
the apple eats the tree
shoes devour wooden floors
and locks devour keys

my thoughts like rampant wily weeds
encompass all the ground
broadcasting their fertile seeds
o'er every hill and mound

and silence is a wilder thing
that grazes in my soul
taking naught yet leaving more
it eats until I'm whole...

lucy meskill

curbed appeal...

houses that pass me,
along the side of the road
peeling in their appeal
too close to the highway
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 once their cobbled path
eaten by blacktop, 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 most houses
peeling in their appeal
that very first “I love you”
needs to last a lifetime
because it will be the last one
that they will ever hear…


lucy meskill

wait...

translucent cellophane silences swell
outward from feelings not yet felt
fish-backs breaking water gently
displace in contoured undulation,
surface, like the blunt edges of a baby
yet unborn roaming clockwork, the limits
of the yielding and elastic womb

here breath mostly breathes itself
in slick, moist pink-lined nostrils
with bantam might recirculating,
abiding, contemplating airy exposure
where dust hangs on every breath, upon every
ounce of spittle imparting fleeting promise,
an emblem upon air, before it cleaves away...

lucy meskill

mantodea...

as moist heavy    
late summer clouds drift by
their deceptive cadence    
turning hot high noon
into cool blue dusk    
and back again
the ripened garden  
in its baroque decline
magnifies from scarlet    
through raw umber
it is here
that in autumn
you reign supreme
Oh magnificent    
and barely audible queen
of the lavish
and curling underbrush...

lucy meskill

just peachy...

wink, wink, all blink
no fur, all pink
no skin, no pound
of flesh, is found
this warmth, to take
none dead, will make
this coat, this hat
all fake, no quake
no beaver, no chinchilla
no rabbit, no fox
no cat, no dog
no raccoon, no mink
no seal, no bear
no nutria, no fitch
no sable, no ermine
no muskrat, no lynx
no trap, no bludgeon
no scream, no cry
no torture, no suffer
no blood, ask why?
no guilt, no slaughter
no waste, no blame,
all fake, all comfort
all thrill, all sane
all dream, all fashion
all passion, no stink
all conscience, all reason
all good, just think...
lucy meskill

photo credit: judith meskill