twirl of fiery skirts / taste of pomegranate kiss / Hades' gypsy queen

haiku by alotus poetry

rocky summer staircase / burnt edges of foliage / dip in healing falls 

haiku by alotus-poetry

Snow Queen

Snow Queen

Crowned by holy halo
Solitary spruce spilling
sacred shadow over
ridge’s river of snow.
Roots anchored to ancient
stories spoken by rocks.

You drink from this source
taste life force rising,
eros and echo
nourish your thirst.

In devotion to gypsy queens
you raise multiple arms to
adore powerful waxing
and waning,
hunger is satiated.

Regaled by moonlight
snow flowers blossom
on your body.
Naked and revealed
you stand in your center
and make love to night.
In a fervent stillness,
wind kisses
rigid branches
into sighs of release.

Ekphrasis

Blue with Raven

Raucous
Here’s a blue background more hue-raucous
than the one fierce raven standing against it.
So raucous I cover both my ears before shading
my eyes. Even if painted on a canvas flocked
by a dozen ravens, this blue would still shriek
a crack-of-the-dawn warning. Wake up. Time to
scatter away the craven dreams. So would say
such a blue: this Aegean-cleaving peacock

Therese L. Broderick

Ekphrasis is poetry about art, Therese can tell you more about it on her blog Ekphrasis
Therese and I connected through Every Photo Tells a Story, another interesting blog that posts visual prompts for artists of all disciplines. I really love the experience of a poet translating my painting into a poem, it adds another dimension of meaning for myself, for the poet and for the viewer.

Night Muse

She has been up on my studio wall for a while, looking down on me and watching me work. Not sure what to make of her, but here she is, my night muse.

work in progress

This one awaits me on my easel, it is emerging from deep within, there are several figure paintings underneath the rock cliffs which I find interesting. It is as if the figures are informing the rocks. I keep dreaming of rock cliffs and working from the inside of the rock. I don't fully understand but follow the images where they lead.

Check out the posting of my raven painting at Every Photo Tells A Story
cool blog that posts images as creative writing prompts.

Emerging

Two new pieces that seem to suggest emerging from the shadows into the light. Sometimes poetry comes into being as I work the pieces and this is what came today:

Reluctantly I walk up this path,
away from your presence,
and into my own heart
waiting on the other side.

Hamlet of peace,
held by the land.
Haven of love
healed by the beauty.

Seasons evanesce
one into the other,
resting place
within and without.

An apparition of poetry
follows me from the shadows
and leaves snowflakes
dissolving on my tongue.

Unexpected breeze coos
forth a future lullaby
of quivering leaves,
shy and trembling,
only recently emerged from
clenched spring buds.

Inside the Belly of the Beast

So much going on inside my head, heart and studio.  My dreams at night are full of crowds of people.  Yesterday I couldn't paint fast enough to keep up with the flood of

creative energy that threatened to overcome me if I didn't get it on canvas!  I don't question anymore I just respond to the flow of feelings that comes bubbling up, if I start to analyze or think too much I get in the way of this process.  As I learn to trust myself more the paintings appear one after the other and have many things to show me as I humbly learn to paint from this inner place.  These are all works in progress and many I will paint over time and time again.  As you can see, my figure sketches are still on the wall and waiting to be integrated but for now I am back in the landscapes, trying to paint the collective heartbeat of the earth and all living things.  I can feel it so strongly at times.  Being in the city has been good for my work, there is so much vitality and energy that I never noticed before in an urban environment.  Out of fear we create illusory differences to separate us when really the same vibrant life force is pulsating through all of us everywhere. The unifying element is Love.

Beauty

Beauty crowds me till I die,

Beauty, mercy have on me!

But if I expire today,

Let it be in sight of thee!

-Emily Dickinson

Three Paintings completed

The Fire Inside my Heart

Solitude

Presence in Absence

I completed all three of these last week as I cried my way through the days.  So much emotion that at times I couldn't see the painting through the tears and would have to stop.  I have come to think of those tears as essential to releasing and letting go of so much that I cling to.  Life is full of sadness but it is this sadness that helps us to develop kindness and compassion toward ourselves and others.  I was listening to a radio show about the Romantic poet Shelley today and he had a profound vision of Beauty at a very young age that became the love of his life and his guiding compass. He failed miserably in his relationships with women as the women could never live up to his idealized vision of Beauty whom he saw as a  feminine entity.  I suppose Jungians would say this was an encounter with his Anima and she was very demanding of him artistically.  Not sure how is all works but I know those moments of Beauty are what I live for because when they happen my whole soul fills with incredible bliss and nourishment.  I had a dream last night that I was talking with a shaman and I told her that I had finally figured out how to enter inside the rocks. She told me that now I had to learn how to paint from the inside of the rocks and bring it outside onto canvas. It was a visceral dream and left me with a beautiful feeling of fullness inside my being.  I felt much less alone and realized that I am never really alone but deeply connected to the rhythm of the universe.

Rain & Tears

Today is a day of reflection
a watery day of tears and rain
inside and out
why does love slip so easily
in and out of the heart?
Love, like Beauty cannot be held
or contained, for the moment
one does so, it melts away.