Tag Archives: poems

Being Held Under: the dream (pantoum)

Sleep and the torment of undifferentiated events occurring and reoccurring

Crying out to the nursemaid that appears, an invented character –not an ally

Furiously I dig into depths of sediment made (up) of eons before and still to come

Anonymous things cascade as their very formation, epic some, insidious others

Crying out to the nursemaid that appears an invented character, not –an ally

Sure that help must come, as sure as previous layers settled Once Upon a Time

Anonymous, things cascade as their very formation –epic, some insidious, others

Remaining unresolved, thus acting as antigen, both antagonist and protagonist

Sure that help must come, as sure as previous layers once settled upon, a time

Repeating itself once again, yet the faces and objects take on different colors, shapes

Remaining unresolved thus acting as, antigen both antagonist/protagonist

Clambering to the ungraspable source, the surface –life support, of which there is none

Repeating itself once again yet the faces… and objects take on different colors, shapes

What mystery this puzzle that takes itself so resolutely magnificent in its diffuse distillations

Clambering to the ungraspable, source the surface, life support of which there is –none

Better than waking (up) dreaming –only to recognize the once hidden throngs effervesced

 

Thank you to the Richmond (CA) Poet Laureates Daniel Ari, Rob Lipton, and Ciera Jevae-Gordon for the writing prompts this past month during National Poetry Month. 🙂

[This poem is a pantoum, “a Malay repeating form, written in quatrains, in which the second and fourth lines of each stanza become the first and third lines of the next one.” –from p. 195, The Poetry Dictionary by John Drury, ©1995 Story Press; Cincinnati, OH.]

Sacred Seed Sacred Song

Sacred Seed Sacred Song clear:drawings

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Sacred Seed with this poem, SACRED SEED SACRED SONG, which the title of my first poetry book came from. This poem was written 21 years ago and first self-published 20 years ago by Wild Fig Tree Press.

 

flesh and bones chill and rejoice

chill and rejoice

duet of northwesterly lapping waves

skins of ancient water and stone

meeting along the chorus line of ocean shore

 

a deep quartet rises in tones

of amber, heather, ruby, and ice

folding into a quintet of pounding heart chambers

opening, releasing to the verses

of the whole heart womb

 

alive

 

lay down in the circle of visions yet told

the mapping emerges in traces

of salt, ash, sand, and root hairs

veins of crimson and cobalt,

silver and gold

 

a calling, leading raptor release on high

as ruby-throated friends hover and feed

hover and feed

on honey blood nectar

 

the coiling, spiraling, glistening core

double strands of earth and sky

earth and sky

moonlight, sunlight, starlight, home

 

earthly seeds sing sweetly of winter rains

tentacled threads tying fast

fluid colors richly layering ebb and flood

ebb and flood

 

tide lines becoming score lines

faceted voices touch and hold

touch and hold

 

Marshall, California ~ 6 November 1996

SACRED SEED ~ originally self-published in December 1997 ~ Wild Fig Tree Press

It is the 20th Anniversary of my first book of poetry, Sacred Seed. Here is an image of the original cover art for this limited edition, hand published poetry book or chapbook. I include the table of contents below, as well. I will share some of the poems from this book in following blogposts. Feel free to request a poem via a comment to this post after reading the titles on the contents page below.

Blessings and thank you for helping me celebrate this 20 year marker for Sacred Seed and the sharing of my poetry more widely, starting back in 1997 while I lived in Marshall, California on Tomales Bay. 🙂

Sacred Seed original artwork 1997

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Sacred Seed ~ poems from 21 October 1996 to 1 May 1997 ~ poetry and original artwork by Janice Sandeen; Wild Fig Tree Press

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Recipe for Reclamation

This recipe is as old as the ages are old
More ancient than the most ancient of beings, trees, creatures, or even fossils that still reside on this earth plane we take our physical nourishment from
Only, it is a new recipe now for what we are now, every evolutionary iteration that we have in our midst, at this time
We each might need to scour the threads, some very bare, some still shining sovereign, to discern those ancient traces
• 
That return each and every one of us to the most pristine truth of what we are
One recipe stirs within my dreamtime, a sacred housing of the rich multiplicity reaching b e y o n d  whatever amnesias once wracked my living essence down to the bone
I woke to this hunger, letting it crack me open, showing me the journey way to the most hidden of truths
• 
And yet something was needed to nourish me along this way
What recipe to draw from hard ground, the driest of remnants, grit and obscurity; what song?
The very least of these came in order to speak a new language, familiar, yet otherworldly from the deepest chasms that, somehow, I chose to look away from out of fear of not ever finding myself (out of fear of not ever finding  m y s e l f  )

 

9 – 25 November 2016 ~ Arroyo Seco, NM

5 HAIKU poems

 

Twilight bestows light

Amongst the branches touching

Caterpillar crawls

 

Winter dark ocean

Another realm submerged there

Breathing nothing drowns

 •

 

Sit-upon stone cold

Newness of life awake, dancing

The dog returns home

 

Light in the wood cast

Falling and also rising

I am that I am

 

Cherishing like earth

I soak in the springtime rains

Instantaneously

 

25, 26 May 2015