Blue Suede Moon

by Angela Turner (2001)

 

Blue on Blue and white 

Tonight.

The Indigo

Begins its flow,

A  fingerpaint

Of Twilight over day.

A rainbow dome

Turned monochrome

Glows royal, aqua, navy

While Midnight drains

It's inky shade

From crevaces and star-ways

And mountains form

Battalions 

Of cobalt men and stallions

Awaiting

The changing

Of the guard,

The metamorphasis' regard

Of light to shadow

Clarinets and Cellos

Playing softly

Playing slowly

Of friends and fellow-changers

In this moving 

Cerulean potion,

An amalgamate emotion

Of mellow; sacred; drama

Of stained glass windows

Of turquois flames

Of saphire boroughs

And Shaded remains

The layers

The players

The smoke-filled, neon-lit rooms

Coffee with cream

And a see-you-soon

The coming again

And the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fierce Amber Glow (2013)

(To Skye upon the eve of an argument)

By Angela Turner 

 

I want you to know that

When first you moved,

Unformed, Informant

whispering like the turn of a leaf,

I wrapped you warmly

In the folds of my womb,

Willed myself around you

Felt that combustable fury

That fierce, amber glow 

Of maternal love

And none of that has changed.

 

Not against the force of hours

With your relentless waves of infant wails

Every night on cue

Incessant against the shores of night

Hours 

and days 

and weeks 

and months

Till I was tired to the waking

But never to the loving.

 

Not against the battle

of the two-year fury

Unleashed at

Set-in-stones

Safety zones.

Every moment’s need 

To own.

Tornado disaster 

Smile awry on a ketchup stained chin

Wanting liberty

More or less

 

Not against what are sure to be

The angst flying flag 

Days of becoming

Flapping forrays forcing

School girl rants 

And hair disasters 

That will leave me wondering

Where all the puddle jumping days

Have gone

Not even then

 

Sometimes, 

When we settle in,

Just me and you

Quiet,

Tip-toeing into sleep

And your breathing warms my cheek

In patches

Little fingers tangled up in my hair

The scent of your life,

Part play, part chocolate chip cookie.

I can’t help but think

It will always be this way

You and me,

Pieces that belong tangled up together

 

And though, you will always be in orbit

And though, you must be moving

On your own trajectory of becoming

It will always be 

That mine will follow

Jangling along the bumps

To be that whispering

That reminds you

That somewhere

In this wide world

Even to the wide eyed moon

There is a heart that loves you,

Fiercely,

Deeply,

Till its beating end

It will be rising

To offer its outstretched arms

Wrapping you warmly

In the folds

Of a fierce amber glow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

arrythmiaby angela turner

 

I have heard it

Swaying in the air

since the swaddling songs-

a different note-

And it has grown,

on the belly of years,

a girth of its own

surrounds me like a hula hoop

and i move

to keep it so

for what do I know 

of planets without orbits

but a vague premonition

that stars would drop shrilly

like tears

and what could mend?

who can put back together again

the pieces of a dreamless dreamer

 

so do not ask to see

the manifesto

it is an insubstanial arrythmia

felt only in the rhythms

of a ghost song

that pulses the part of the tides

the mutations of a muse

making melody

like a mother

'till i've found the way home