Goose Wing I

ellenmn CC License

I nestled my beak in my taupe feathers,
the moon had almost risen; it was night.
The waters of Fish Trap Creek shone their bright
hue in the solstice of crisp blue winter,
the essence of the earth was as ether.
Once under the sun, now the dark's night-light 
shone cream resplendent, oval and lips tight.
Gathering, reeds still in our beaks bitter,
I padded with my webbed feet into grass
that held me like a bassinet holds child,
my maternal breast both heavy and near.
I'd glided silently through water glass,
my wing was thought as proud as I was mild,
my presence was not damp nor fraught with fear.

Emily Isaacson

Swan Song VII: Once Upon A Time

Andreas Manessinger CC License

The drifts snow-white cover my apple hair,

I have been poisoned by a fairy tale,
the skeleton of a handsome tail; 
there were vile warnings not to eat this fare,
on the tapestried green maternal chair.
The fine chocolate was dark and nightly veiled,
as a Persian queen of an empire mailed
her subjects with gossamer notions, chaired 
her conscience by a board of designs
both ornate and established, elegant. 
She kissed the Prince who turned into a frog:
he leapt, he groaned, he then his past resigned,
the worth of his life's brow, malificent . . .
and hopped away to an imperial bog. 

Swan Song VI: A Silver Sunrise

Shorrocksphotography CC License

My feet were strewn with kelp on the seashore.

I watched and waited for you to come home.
The sun red rose and set in silver stone.
The setting was only what brought out more
garnet gem aspects of your secret store.
Somewhat like a girl with a new salt moan;
she has disappeared from view 'neath pine cones,
beneath the piles of bleached-pale apple cores.
Her face was decisive, she was not dew;
perhaps she would be happy elsewhere. 
She was the jewel in the Jeweller's crown; 
you worked long hours for this one ewe.
As lonely ones admit their seaward cares,
some did not admit their fear they would drown. 

Swan Song V: Water the Driftwood Flowers

Alex Pepperhill CC License

Let's begin again: all society 

sound now. Throes of music are upon us;
we must resist, we must desist. We must
do nothing, we do things in piety.
Only now this came about: deity
of a plague, we must hear. You too are us.
We are all the same. We are viral lust.
We will love and mate, or we will kill three.
How now do you propose to indict us
with greater powers over life and death?
If you offer us our own fate, how could 
we refuse? We pull our hooded capes up
over our bowed heads. Now our very breath
condemns us, as partners in crime (beachwood). 

Swan Song IV: Fishing Boats

Bernard Spragg General Domain

There was a silent moon. It had a hue   

around it; over the sea the boats bobbed
in navy waters, and the light house throbbed
its  sonorous pulse, resonant and true.
The ocean was in mist, carded grey-blue—
the yarn of a former time, women sobbed
only behind closed doors, as men went off   
to  sea. All who were sailors, both genders grew 
pale at the task of fighting viral load
in invisible sea monsters everywhere. 
As their sense of their sea legs sore increased, 
they became more curt, sea captains bloated 
with disinfectant, pride in dinnerware— 
long tables presided, lilacs, depressed. 

Swan Song III: Did the Pear Tree Survive?

Garry Knight  

CC Some Rights Reserved

https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/5683324545

This is the nicest dress you have ever 

seen in moss-wind, blowing over the cliffs;
I am standing here, there are the lows, lifts,
and great moments—there is a sound, tremor 
emanating from the mountain's side, lore
of dragons who have swallowed princesses.
The flakes of gold fell in drifts of snow, myths
two feet deep that melted, flood--more
vanquishing than all previous troubles,
crippling our deepest intentions at love,
making communion too intimate, wine
next to a poet, and winery next to bubbles
floating over the freshly mowed green, doves
on the pear tree that was wick back in time.

Swan Song II: Echo

Ken Lund CC License. Some Rights Reserved.

Echo, he said. The voices of flour sacks 

reached higher on the treble clef, rising;
a utopia instead of a scream
erupted like dark on planet's backs.
There was a falling on the table, jacks
tumbled out of a little girl's fist, seams—
even berries, red threads of Levi's jeans.
Her earring collection was in a rack
in her jewelry box of green velvet,
she threaded blue and white marbled
beads on silver, and grew into a swan
from an ugly duckling, when the heat melted.
It was past giving Valentines, garbled
a new society in deep fawn. 

Swan Song: from the Ashes of Plague

Stacy Faulkner CC License

I lingered over the lake as swan song,
I was a mist, the garment that I drew
when I had no boundary to wings, flew
into the wind, and collected loud drawn
out images of clothing or shroud. Throngs
eyed my scarves in lama wool, and life brewed
its own garden vegetables, lamb, for stews.
I stopped. I, life, was stopped. Sweat at the gong
trickled down my alabaster face, dust—
marble dust, blown away by the master.
My Michelangelo and his sculpting 
ceased to unnerve my patriotic cusp,
I was solid; I, the mass of stone cast,
I was iron and clay in one scything.