Life Through Blue Eyes

I’ve mentioned here and there over the last month that I’d saved three birds from dangers in the garden this summer. One had its leg caught in the leaf of a gladiola stem, another was trapped between a tomato plant and the tomato cage, and the last had its head caught in an opening of the bird feeder, while attempting to get the last few seeds left in it. Each experience left me with the feeling of having been placed in that precise instance for a reason.

The little one in the photograph above is alive as I’m writing this, but I don’t expect he will last very long. He’s been in the back yard for a month now. Initially he could fly a bit, even though his wings were torn. The other birds have been tormenting him, so I’d taken to leaving bread and seeds in places where I knew he was hiding. This morning I found him lying in the grass unable to fly. He won’t eat or take water.

Now I know, this is silly. Birds die all the time. Nature does what it must. But I simply could not let him just die alone and in the dirt. So today, we will sit beside each other and share companionship. I’ll stroke his feathers and tell him that everything will be okay. And wish that someone would tell me the same.

If I hadn’t gone out into the garden, if I hadn’t knelt down at a precise moment or looked to the left or right, I might have missed the struggles of each one of these birds. Slow down and pay attention friends. There are more battles being waged than you know.

standing still
through winters frost
our roots entwined
beneath the snow
our love rising as mist

©2015 June O’Reilly
@LunaJune
Facebook Link

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grey-scale matinee

she walks
for hours

beneath
the barren trees
of the Allegheny

bare feet
brush the rough
wet edges
of a sacred
pull and sway

where nothing
is ordinary

she lets
her tears
slip softly
into
the river

as the
monochrome
carries
the colour
away

©2015 cs moon
@christi_moon
Facebook Link
Letters To The Moon

______________________________

Winters come and leaves die..
I can mourn and blame the lifeless sky..
I can hate the barren land and cry..

But something inside me never dies..
It waits for the morning sky..
It looks for the fruitful land ahead, which may lie..

That something is hope..which never dies..
For it promises me the life, beautiful and high.

©2015 Aditya Sachan
About.Me Page
Facebook Link

polaroid moments
soft hues of summer…
olive green
raw sienna
steel teal…
my crayon box overflows
with vivid memories

©2015 Sharon Greco
@sharonjayne55
Facebook Link

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old friends
once upon a time
every wave
seemed to whisper
…forever…ever

©2015 Sandi Pray
@bigmax722
Facebook Link
ravencliffs

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nothing coming past,
sailing away

©2015 June O’Reilly
@LunaJune
Facebook Link

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across the water
to the other side
poor helpless seaweed
on a foreign tide
our harbour yearns
and draws us in
faint and flotsam
we can but begin

©2015 Dominic Moriarty
Facebook Link
Dominic Moriarty Photography
Flickr

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salt on my lips, baptized and dripping
cold, aroused and flowing freely
crawl back with me to the marches, progressions and permanence.
does it ever end?
did it even begin?

©2015 Tom Killeen

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In the huts
bamboo clattered
under our love

we wove mats
of grasses tighter
with each tug

our clamshells
could not
be prised apart

the things we twined
with our hands
mattered

waves and sky
put out
for the natives

grew florid
spread deeper
reds on the palette

we clambered
into dugouts
paddled off
the earth

forgave
the thatched
roofs of the huts

and the gray
oppression
of endless

©2015 Reka Jellema
@RekaJellema
Facebook Link
Creaturely

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Along the Boardwalk
Places of mysterious healing
Come escape with me

©2015 Joan Barrett Roberts
@jrobertswi
Facebook Link
Shadowleaves on Lake Ann

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Crestfallen tides
and a sombre sky
and an old awaiting pier
getting older with me
longs for a seafarer
who never came back.

©2015 Rafat Chowdhary
Facebook Link

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At the edge of the sea
Pounded by spring tides
A sleeping shack
Large enough for two

Higher on the beach
A drying shed for the fish
We haven’t caught
Too much time sleeping
Too near the edge of the sea

©2015 Gary Blankenship
@garydawg
Facebook Link

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The Blue Waters and the Sky…
Always reminds of you..don’t know why..

The distant dream of our home..
Is empty..is broken..and somewhere gone.

©2015 Aditya Sachan
Facebook Link

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littoral

I’m
caught up
in the grandeur
of grey-green
brilliance

soft
windward
knots

stranded
in shafts
of summer
light

and the
magnificence
commanded

by the brackish
mounting swells
of our fluid
composition

©2015 Christi Moon
@christi_moon
Facebook Link
Letters To The Moon

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In a pile
of old postcards
a brand new moon

©2015 Traci Siler
Twitter Link / @demlips
Facebook Link
Traci Siler Art

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While there is time…

The moon has faded in the clouds
precious light has washed away..
I’ll let the windblown leaves
show me the way

©2015 Roger Zowie
(These are lyrics to his song, While There Is Time, which you may listen to here: Soundcloud)
Facebook Link
Twitter Link / @berlymahn

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The dark sorrows of past often break me apart…
But hope still holds deep in my heart…

I have been hurt million times
Yet I dare to move forward..
Just to find the drop of Love
As I wander through the darkness
But follow lights of the moon

©2015 Aditya Sachan
Facebook Link

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The Rising

On these shores,
lovers, loyal only to
each other,
amorously contemplate into
the nebulous swirls
of their stimulated eyes.

The lunar edge
with its cosmic, astral ways
illuminates
the empty bottles
howling on the dunes.

Ashes from torch-lit aisles
spiral away
from the voices
that are gathered here
to celebrate
the rising of the moon.

©2015 Hugo Quizhpi
Facebook Link
Twitter Link / @hugopix

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My gratitude to these wonderful friends and writers, for their contributions. Their participation is a joy to me.

© 2015 Cara Long / Spoken Word and Video Creation @Very_very_red

© 2015 Diana Matisz / Photography

there are reasons you call me to the dark

accountability, pocket smooth stone assurances
things that made me feel comforted
and secure in your not knowing
an answer to a question
I never could get rid of…

here is where the poem begins…

take off my skin
and leave your
divinity alone…

clothing torn hastily cast
present the future
a silhouetted past
muscle and bone…
tell me what are you
shamanic references
songs in hoarfrost
climbing an old pane…

are you what used to be
a boiler to bedroom story
more empty than lore be
what is right now…
we both dream
wide awake
mistaking something
often enough
to know nothing
is really worth
taking stock in…

what is it the rain
as snow wants to be
sticky wickets to fences
and spiny armed trees…
your tongue, my fingers…
my wishes as well as my knees…

perhaps it is
every one of these
trials, tributes
and remembering
if we are
to be human
we must
always do
what we can
to be pleased

©2015 EJR

I posted this photograph on Facebook yesterday to show my sister (who is currently in the south) what she’s been missing at home. Minutes later, Edward sent an email to me with a poem for it. He’s a remarkable writer. If you haven’t read him, please check out the links below to do so.

@blindedbeatpoet
the blind lantern

This is my most recent spoken-word collaboration with Cara Long, @Very_very_red. I had sent Cara a series of photographs I’d taken in an abandoned apartment building that was scheduled for renovation. I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to photograph the rooms before much of the renovation had begun. Cara has captured the “feel” of the house perfectly. Her writing is a sublime mix of dark and light. She also has a book available at Amazon and you will find it here Partly Gone.

For anyone interested, the complete set of photographs can be seen here: 310 10th Street

I recently sent some photographs to Cara Long @Very_very_red for her use with some of her short stories. She surprised me today by creating a spoken word video, with one of her short stories and a few of my photographs.
Such a lovely surprise, on this blustery winter day in Pittsburgh.

“He asks me where my thoughts are, but I can’t say.
I mean, I don’t really know.
What I do know is that the sky has turned grey,
and the roof may be leaking.”

©2015 Cara Long

This is a first-time collaboration with Cara. We met through Twitter and her words and my photographs seem to have taken a liking to each other. More collaborations are planned for the future but in the meantime, please check out the links below to her Twitter page as well as the link to her first published short story collection, Partly Gone, at Amazon.

@Very_very_red

Partly Gone

Walking a tightrope
Between bottle and safety
Addict clown smile smeared.

©2015 Kerry E.B.Black
Kerry’s Facebook Link

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 passing stranger the shiver of a second glance

©2015 Sandi Pray
@bigmax722
ravencliffs
Sandi’s Facebook Link

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Under Glass

Gifts
Bought from a shop
At some out of the way stop
No one remembers where

Bought
But seldom displayed
Always seeming second rate
Not worth dusting

Now under glass
Well a discarded window
First stop to their last stop
The county dump

©2015 Gary Blankenship
@garydawg
Gary’s Facebook Link

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Endless smiles, laughs and fun were always part of me.
Even when I was alone…my toys were always part of me.

My steps were tiny and failing, yet destiny was part of me.
Questions were fun, and curiosity was part of me.

I was a child and I was Happiness, and you were part of me.

©2015 Aditya Sachan
Aditya’s Facebook Link

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nights quiet tightrope
in guillotine grey
not narcissus
no

©2015 Cat Cray
@cat_cat_

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On The Shelf

It doesn’t matter what was
supposed to be, or what came first,
or last, I simply wish
you had something more to say.

The bottles on the shelf
are still there, but you and I know
there isn’t enough left
to tame this flooding delirium.

Some matters remain the same–
ashes, insomnia,
and abstract desires in boots
without a place to go.

©2015 Hugo Quizhpi
Hugo’s Facebook Link

I see
you might have
had tea already
light toast
whole grains
perhaps some fruit
has gained
a taste of you too
it is Monday
and another week
is starting
clouds, snow and
talking to the poem
through you

©2015 EJR
@blindedbeatpoet
the blind lantern

how odd
that I thought of you today
you, the lover I took
in Key West
how odd
that I should stand there,
shivering in the polar light
of a northern winter,
and blush
how odd
that this forgotten piece
of summer,
in its glorious and fiery decay,
should remind me
of love

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Confounding humanity/ Through the eyes of a wolf

©2014 Narcisse Navarre

@khajj
narcissenavarre.com
Ebon et Noir: Emporium Antiquaire
Facebook Link

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electric crow aperture

the macrobiotic symbiosis is
a valley tongue sprung
from old mountains
cut by the will
of water over time

seeking our indulgences
rivers, ribbons and slivers
of civilized humanity
form stored trines
storied wax, waded brines
farms and other arms
of domesticated wild

daughters of millers
and fleet footed gods
make deals
for the parts
of themselves
that can never
be changed

sight for a nose
kites for fingers

tide after tide
archetypes and
the shiny things
stick to stealing
keys and memories
to feed the bleed
and churn of seasons

we reason
we collect our nostalgia
to know the empty
of a now on another day

we undergo throes
on journeys
of a caught captured
in someone’s blink
of an eye

where one understands
a universe can find
you sent a sent along too

©2014 Edward J. Rinaldi

@blindedbeatpoet
the blind lantern
Facebook Link

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In my dreams and deep in my soul…
I miss something…which I called home.

As I get older…and the memories fade,
All I remember is my dear ones…standing in shades.

©2014 Aditya Sachan

About Me / Aditya Sachan
Views On Everything
Facebook Link

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Who knew
this diamond view
could still be seen
after all these years
hard work and tears.

Who knew
this diamond view
could provide so much
through hot summers
blistered hands,
calloused but gentle touch
tending these lands.

Who knew,
this diamond view
could be multi-faceted
life long
loving strong.

I know now
how valuable you are
as I pass forth this diamond
for your heart to see
after all these years
hard work and tears
please remember the love of me.

©2014 April Higney

@PoeticHeart34
Betweenhearts

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silhouettes

sometimes
I wonder

if that old barn
is still standing

I can almost
see it

in a rough-sewn
diamond vignette

another
December day

when he
carried me home
laughing

caught my
long white dress
on the barbed
wire fence

sometimes
I wonder

if our old wounds
and my mother’s
heirloom lace

still lie somewhere

bare woodland
silhouettes

beneath a
crescent roof

and moonless
sky

©2014 csmoon

@christi_moon
Letters To The Moon
Facebook Link

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The Barn

an abandoned barn
abandoned field
overgrown forest

a lovers hideaway
cold bed of bales
blood-dark trough

caught
by her husband
before their lips met

©2014 Gary Blankenship

@garydawg
Facebook Link

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Sometimes I wonder if Cat
sees the same things I do
when he and I emerge from the brush
behind the house.
I see where She keeps family,
hearth and home, where
she sweeps away my cares,
calms my anger, offers her affection
as easily she sweeps
crumbs off its floor. I’m sure
Cat sees that warm place
where someone places crumbs
along the Warm Room floor’s
baseboard as bait on the trail
to the mouse Happy Hunting Ground.
But maybe he, too, sees the place
where she offers the miraculous hands
that soothe, that encourage,
that express love
in their housework roughness and
angel softness.
Maybe I’m wrong
and Cat sees what I see after all.
The Place of Hands where
Woman stokes our ferocity and
strokes us to domesticity.

©2014 Joseph Hesch

@JAHesch
A Thing For Words
Facebook Link

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My deep and abiding gratitude to these poets and to so many others, over the last year, who were kind enough to share their poetry with my photographs. You make my blue eyes, sing.

the knot that was her heart
her once unfettered heart
the knot, woven
of silken endearments
and the fabric of distance
the knot that was her heart
her bound and maddened heart
the knot, no reason
could undo

October wind
lifts the curtains
in the window
turning the bedroom into
a torrid flutter of mayhem
and incarnadine ambush
just as suddenly
I realize,
that I must burn the same,
from a mere spark
in your eyes