This is my attempt at the cento.

Riddle

Whatever it is, it must have

 the listening secrets
 of falling rain.

Two strings, one pierced cry,
here and there in the searing beam
that is like the twilight sound
coming over the hills, America singing
beneath its canopy of poisoned air.

The tongue even lies to itself

like a saint dying upside down,
in a land of shadow,
spread eagled on the soaking earth
that weeps light and rain.

The surfs of the body

are mating in the unopened crown of a Shasta daisy
rolling away in the wind,
with the damn wonder of it.

Poems Used

Louis Simpson “American Poetry”
Gwendolyn Brooks “To Black Women
Robert Creely “The Rain
Rita Dove “Variation on Pain
James Dickey “Deer Among Cattle”
Donald Justice “Men at Forty”
Galway Kinnell “Vapor trail Reflected in the Frog Pond”
Carolyn Kizer “The Gulf War”
Yusef Komunyaka “The tongue is”
Li-Young Lee “My Indigo”
Denise Levertov “Stele (I –IIc b.c.)”
John Logan “Spring of the Thief”
Maureen Seaton “Swan Lake”
Robert Bly “Looking into space”
Robert Hass “from Drgaonflies Mating”
David Ignatow “The Bagel”
Lucille Clifton “There is a girl inside”

 © 2013 Stella Moreaux

Musing over Music

Careless Whispers

“Time can never mend,

the careless whispers of a good friend.”

They are still my friends,
my lovers, these whispers,
though they invite my destruction.
Each is a kind dagger
seductively cutting my soul,
trying to fool me into damnation,
a thousand tongues,
a million teeth and fangs,
pinching and biting
teasing my ears with sultry kisses.

“To the heart and mind,

Ignorance is kind.”

Ignorance is not so kind.

It is a tribunal of blackened saints
hanging upside down.
They disarm and confuse me.
I don’t know where they are,
Who they are,
the man on the corner
across the street
watching me,
or the one walking on the highway before me.
Who are they?
I’m blind
and ignorant within shadows,
a shadow with an outline of dimming light.

“There’s no comfort in the truth.

Pain is all you’ll find.”

They tell my truth,

proclaiming to know it.
They have my truth
and snatch it away,
that iridescent pearl that is/was my wisdom.
My Devils in angel masks,
beautiful demons
languor in their painful pursuits.
They want me there.
That will make them happy.

Can I please them?

My whispers lap my ear, my mind, my soul,

sylphs of time,

shifts of light,

visions of mystical insight,
who are noises of everything and nothing. 
They are my truth,
my prison keepers,
my torturers,
lovers in my deconstruction.

Song lyrics taken from “Careless Whisper” performed by George Michael

 © 2013 Stella Moreaux