So it's been a year and a half since I've blogged. No surprise. It was/is kinda boring and weird. I mean, an online diary? Really? I'm on FaceBook daily, and that's about enough. I recently joined Pinterest. I can see how one could easily become addicted to that site. When I was setting up my boards (when I learned - duh - you can have more than one board), I stayed with my head in Pinterest so long I had a throbbing headache for a couple hours afterwards. I joined Twitter a year or so ago, but certainly don't feel like tweeting what I'm doing all day long. Talk about boring to the max. I don't want to make time to follow anyone on Twitter either. Ugh. If I were still writing poetry, I'd post it here, I guess. But my writing's dwindled down to less than a trickle. Maybe someday again...

“Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.” — W.B. Yeats

Exquisistence

Exquisistence

Those pipe dreams
cleared these rooms
years ago,
spiced blue curls,
art forms really,
sweet potpourried hashy plumes,
luxuriant "S"s, "O"s and "L"s,
like the way his fingers curved
and moved,
soft yet firm,
measured, determined,
and again,
splayed
for maximum extrapolation
commanding every cell arise,
wake, like mad science, live.

Those men are long gone
away to their secured plateaus,
protected, nurtured,
not nurturing,
where they can no more consider
fierce, sweet intenseness,
haunted and haunting
today,
to have,
to hold
no more
than smoky swirls,
delectable incense,
that hashy
Exquisistence.

~Ann R Cantu
01/15/2011

Fruits Of Our Labors

In 1947, Mihail Timofeevič Kalašnikov designed the AK-47,
Which, by 1949, was the official Soviet military rifle.
How many balalaikas serenaded his glory, honoring him?
Kalašnikov is on FaceBook - have you seen him?
He's 91 now, so he doesn't really post...

In 1955, the Kremlin ordered Konstantin Lyasnikov to fly his TU-16
toward mushroom clouds in the wake of A-bombs he'd dropped.
He said, "The plane shook so hard the controls kept slipping out of my hands.
The heat was so intense I could hardly breathe," lamenting he wouldn't
Have wished that ordeal on his worst enemy. It didn't happen once.
He ran 178 tests, until 1962, when nuclear testing went underground.

Lyasnikov couldn't tell his wife until 1992 when the SU was no more.
Many comrades, fellow pilots and airmen, were disfigured, several died,
some after years of suffering. At the scene, "The earth was scorched.
I saw sheep and horses without skin and eyes, shredded trees," the pilot
Recounted. Radiation poisoning must be for the loyal.

What wanton disregard for humanity makes a chess game of human lives,
Pitting Soviet power against Western authority? I have my suspicions
Men comfortably enshrouded in heavily tinted, armored Rolls Royces
Don't understand diplomacy. The Ukraine has a parliamentary government
The U.S. Department of State watches with interest.
You know there's oil between the coast and them there hills.

Vines grow in the southern Crimean Peninsula, so thick and verdant
That the highlands barely reflect, from the zenith of Tchatir Dagh
To the lush valley of Soudagh, what travesty and injustice
Razed it barren during a time call the Cold War.
Hops and clematis drape luxuriantly over branches bearing
The most delicious fruits the world has ever tasted.

~Ann R Cantu, 12/20/2010

Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance

Starry's Tale

Starry's a yare nymph
Who lives in wild shadows
Her mother Moonlight casts
Within a restless midnight
Glenn, where shades transmute
From cloudy to translucent,
Where tiny sounds of sadness creep
Into the land of Tir na nOg.

In a place where sunshine is famous
Starry sleeps beneath a golden chanterelle,
Until at last the darkness falls to wake her,
And little sprinkles of her namesake whisper
Freedom verses in her ear, while wee fae
Lift the veil of dreaming from her face.

Starry's a yare nymph
Who longs to travel but knows
Her place is home in Tir na nOg,
Within the darkling valley,
Unseen by most yet not unknown.
For in a cloud, behind a shadow,
Silent slippers scurry to and fro,
Wildly casting what-ifs everywhere she goes.

~ARCantu

All Hail

A persuasive slip of the tongue
Lingers on unpainted lips.
The invitation resounds clearly.
I shudder and scan the perimeter.

Reasons murky, feeling uneasy.
Disassociated with this barren landscape,
It is impossible to comprehend one tiny
Gleaming hope beyond paraphrases of tonight.

Your phrasing is impeccable, as always.
Your crown has not slipped one micron.
Within, halls gleam in palatial splendor.
For this I fear the wonder lying in wait.

What lurks behind these silver doors,
Cool to the touch, a white hot promise
Half spoken, half implied, in a world
Where I am an alien and all is foreign?

Gliding along the corridor, a surrender,
Sliding into a chamber filled with dark,
Hackles raised, a soothing breath evokes
A glorious release, time fades, peace.

~ARCantu, 09/25/10