Garden Angel

Eight legged garden angel  

True in your center and certain of your filament faith

Spinning an end for a nature crawling daily missions on stone wall base  

All the design of your Jacob’s Ladder dream

As you ascend and descend in prayers that toil not be wasted

Winds blow and your nature bows and gives

You release and coast to the splintered knot base

Mending flaws with swift hands precise in technique

Pausing to gauge corner safe for youth encased pearl to be pinned

E.A. O'Connell

Morning Sleeps In

I’m rather fond of a morning that rouses in her own time
Letting man fend for himself in the trust of the charging alarm
She needs to hide beneath the blanket of gray
Just a little longer
Curled into herself
Lingering on dreams of the man in her moon
The spike of cold rain the driving force to rouse and complete her task

If only for a few small hours

E.A. O'Connell

Chaos in Polarity

She casually stood in the light and shadow of her presentation
The very same song and dance with each new semester
They say the Earth’s magnetic field will reverse
All that we know as animals following the true north flow
Will be chaos in polarity we can’t accept as nature
Compasses will have a new define
And wings will flock in confusion
Eyes wide with questions, fear that cuts deep to the bone
Held silent in comprehension’s palm
From a dark corner
Came a voice soft like April’s green
Breaking the static shock silence
With a question that grew in number 
The professor’s crater set eyes
Lines like earth cracked crust in summer drought
Ever deeper in thought that only births more questions unanswerable
As she was hit
Blow after blow
What will this mean for 
Humanity?
Morality?
Hate?
Love?


E.A. O'Connell

Dream Sight

I fall through pounding atmospheric depth

White and gray mobius strip

Like bright mouse on ever turning cold wheel

No end, no beginning

A plummet with no true merit

Except for the few times my body hits the ground

Rushing kettle whistle steam to jarring death thrumming heart

And the break of body inches deep in red clay earth

It’s not the fall that wakes me

It’s the sound of my body burying itself

That jolts me from sleep

Upright cold sweat

Gasping and clinging to a body that hadn’t been broken in porcelain doll fashion

I can’t get back to sleep

I just stare into the dark

Past cyclic ceiling fan spinning hypnotic breeze over my body

Thinking that I haven’t flown in my dreams in ages

And I haven’t let my life fall through the downward spiral in decades

The trade off makes me smile

And eases my sea sick stomach

No longer fearful of the edge of the bed

Better I bury myself in dreams than in life

E.A. O'Connell

Old Man Winter

Old man winter

Stop rattling your bones at my door

Your craggy knuckles tap, tap, tapping

Fine filed tips scratch, scratch, scratching

Rotted teeth chat, chat, chatting

Autumn still has time her Own

The geese have not all up and flown

Bury yourself down the musty hollow

‘Til Solstice your bride calls, “Darling, Follow”

E.A. O'Connell

My Artist's Hands

We are all the creation of our own artist…who or whatever that may be to the individual…we all exist in this one that exists within each…how can you not think on that and be humbled

Blue-eyed portholes in the gray hull sky

Winking wise in the erratic current’s breathing

Spying pattern shapes transfix our opposing motion 

Our hurries halt as each force’s regarding begins

A shared question on both our tongues

Your reality exists in my artist’s hands?

E.A. O'Connell

I dreamt of a moth, large wings speckled like a hen's brown egg, each inked with an eye, the iris tobacco stain

It hovered above me, above the bed I lay within, swift wings brushing against my flesh, leaving a fine rich powder, henna patterns that mapped an unknown route upon my hands

Sepia shadows swayed in the warm breeze, directing the moth to the window that opened to my garden, sun drained hydrangea still bold in the globes of parchment petals, deep coffee grounds rubbed into their veins

The moth followed this breeze into the bronze halo of midday, pulling with it a thread, tugging at my slumber, stirring my eyes in a flutter, the ceiling above me adorned with an imprint of your hand, around mine the impression of a tie that binds

E.A. O'Connell 

The Winged

Butterfly

Her colors cosmic in motion

Sweeping to the sun

Hovering

Nectar laced tongue

Her cocoon a dose of midnight

She must break clean

Moth

Muted design in camouflage

Under cover of night

Waiting

Clinging to silent trees

Her cocoon a window to morning

She breaks not on the seam

E.A. O'Connell

Autumn Morn

Soft sod applaud
Geranium bold in face
Heated pink petals
Sugared with frost
Standing knee high
Blooms with pride
No fear born
In early winter’s desire
Frozen fate

E.A. O'Connell

Morning: Part II

Color has a taste and a morning song as well
Pink Himalayan sea salt
In hot bath water
Lotus blossom body
In frangipani oil
Fingers mingling with silken petal boats
Soft papaya lush on the edge of the tub

Sakura symphony of Lemongrass sinks within

E.A. O'Connell

Morning: Part I

Soft sueded pink hums a low glow
Sweetpea petals and seashell tunnels come to mind
Color has a taste and a morning song as well
Nesting on my windowsill

In topaz clarity and dusty earth clouds

E.A. O'Connell

I Knew A Poet

I knew a poet once

We were teenagers sharing corridors

He wrote with trench deep truth

Effortless and shaming

He was poet and poem

And painfully beaten by a society that broke men of this beauty

A handful knew of his damning talent

And any speculation that surfaced was eradicated promptly

Some secrets need to be buried he’d say

He was hardened and built for other uses

The anvil that could suffer for another’s trade

Bearing the searing flame and pounding hammer

But never acknowledged as it’s own art in sheer design and purpose

I knew this very poet once

And the pounding he accepted as the fuel for greatness
Still beats rhythm in my head 

E.A. O'Connell

November Fire

November vixen
Whistle in the sultry wind
Raining soft cleanse
Free falling, building steam
Tickling exposed neck 
With distant whispers
Trickling down my back
Fires were lit overnight
In toxic ripe berries hanging
And in maple plum 
The flames have begun the stretch
Soon to engulf
Ignited in the passion of time limited

E.A. O'Connell