I need to update my blog. Pardon. I plan to go try to publish a bit this Spring, so I am keeping some cookie dough in the freezer, so to speak, which I learned from Liz Powell. Until then, enjoy the archives.

Skull Full Moon


Sea shells.
Blood in the ears,
whatever shall be
appears.

Dragon fly slayer, say what you want;
a thousand stars unraveling to surround the skull full moon.
A howl furnace bed
Doe see doe.
Forget the death tribe.

Sleet belly footsteps
Bed time
Away a time waits. Time.
Fluid, cylindrical.
Time does not wait.

~ by Melody A. Montgomery

HIC NON SED ETIAM (This Not Only But Also)

It’s as if I painted you.
but these knowings were clipped
from growing. 
Like fresh daffodils,
cut to bloom on the mantle.  
You were not then even a shadow of a whisper.
Only the image you cast yourself 
as a goat on top a glittering garbage heap. 
Mysterious, like the ficus.
The shadows cast shifting shapes
like unconscious weavings ―The possible harm to my person...  

Dreary days with a pirate can render you quiet,
ill at ease. 
He with repose 
and you with reprieve.
Time now grows more quickly to Spring.
I imagine a stage and kissing an actor’s earlobes in such a manner 
that it leaves the audience silent, speechless.
It’s not that I know the difficulty in kissing fire, but what mostly I consider…   
I guess I have forgotten.
I guess I was only kidding. 
And somewhere lost there are words for these primordial assertions,
a stream of glistening words.
But why wonder. 
We have everything we need,silly, 
a mandolin harmonium. 
The universe harkins the future in dreams.
It seems like we’ve been here before and should try harder to understand 
the I Ching.The future ― vast and hazy. 
Jupiter will never tell you where you are going.

And what does any of this have to do with you?
Quite a lot in some ways, and then nothing at all.
Mandala drawings map the Universe.
Poems written on the bottom of the ocean floor.

“Circles are extremely powerful,” he said.  “The center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere,”and then he skipped away.   

by Melody Montgomery

ANIMALS OF THE SAFARI

are migrating
under water.  
Starfish. Sea stars.
Sea of horses. Sea of stars.

Moving up,
under water.
Herds of oxen,
caribou, giraffes
migrate through a blue, manmade channel.
No riverbed.
A concrete, square canal.

Tigers swim upstream,   
underwater, in a jaguar dance.
They become tiger people,
one white, one striped,
and crest up into sky,
toss a tiny mouse,
dangling it
by a thin tail
over a fanged mouth.

Tigers fly above tree-springing ocelots.  
Egrets tip-toe, treading over tree-blue,
blur flying macaws. 
A cave-dark blanket of hyper-shifting bats.
Zebras shift,
an illusion in the pack.

People fly over,
dodging tigers,
in an open arboretum.
A contained biome,
a tiled vestibule,
arched open to skylights.

The water should not be so clear.
The walls are much too clean.
Rubber trees are flourishing quite nicely. 

At the end of the jungle canal
a ladder leads out
to the boundless carnival ―

The driveway full of people
covered in beads and candy-coated jewels.

In the kitchen, someone has put
vegetables
in the dishwasher. 

In the yard,
someone has parked   
a pickup truck

on the roof. 

Isobel

I.

To try to follow the Om and Sage -

My violin knows the language

And is teaching me.

She is nameless.

I’ve been feeding a grey stray cat

Because its bones protrude.

I’ve named it Gazpacho.

I do not yet know my violin’s name.

She may not know my name

But we trust each other.

II.

The naming of a violin is a difficult matter.

Today, she will be Isobel

Not a lover, but mother or daughter.

We’ve always had a platonic affair

It’s been suggested I try sleeping with her –

They don’t know

She has a rattle snake rattle inside.

Better that she watch from the wall

echoes and reverberates.

I hold her by my hand.

She holds a pleasant conversation.

But unexpected screeches at times –

She’s very sensitive.

I am true red fiddle woman of the high plains

Dancing in conversation

Capitulated.  

Missouri Wind

(A poem in progress)

This city's pressing heavy  - blocking out the sky

The waters from my homeland run by here.

I’m like a bird flown from the nest

lost on the wind.

The waters from my birthplace rush through the states

Picking up and filtering chemicals.

The mountain springs and snow runs off

Runs through me - out through my eyes

Feathering here.

Will the sun to shine kinder on me tomorrow?

Will the rains come to wash it away?

Casting off the cloak of the sun.

I miss the smell of sage in the morning

And the stars like diamonds rolling

Running my fingers through the wind

The smell of the air

Their spirits are on the wind

And I’m down in this city

Surrounded by beveled glass and hard wood floors

 And all the material objects I adore

So this longing could be anywhere

The Missouri binds me here

Words of a Cotton Sock

YOU  COULD  SAY

I AM  NOT  FRILLY,

choice or fine, merely

FUNCTIONAL. SOME-

times  I  wish  I  were

than white cotton smelling of synthetic

sunshine and mildew and I do tire of being

trod on. But I will accept my place in the top

drawer. Folded into me, into myself, thankful

I am not yet          a dish rag or hand puppet.

      

Shower Song

The words strum through me

Bereft of thought

Each given to the antithesis

A harpsichord choir

Humming in limbo while the

Drops of water drip upon

My shaking continent

Awake with mourning

Singing on the trees        

Each thought singing and singeing

Dripping into the humble

Multitudes, plasma and

Green. Delicate spines.

We entrench ourselves in

A tone that is mute

A hum that is silent

A Yew tree. An epoch.

Memory’s epoch explodes!

Dripping

Why didn’t you wake me earlier?

Why did you leave me here to sleep alone?

Without stars?

The verdigris continues to ebb at

The memory of what was lost

What will be returned

Musty pages. And the drills of

The day pursue the meaning

Sweet company, come over.

Join angels. Solitude in our continents

Jupiter (Don’t think!)

Take the web and linger

The Law of Conservation of Energy

In Egypt, the adze cuts open the mouth

For breath. To speak again

For the immortal Ka, a thousand lotus flowers

A tomb holding necessities for a world unknown

Isis did not start this, nor any of the gods

But her tears for Osiris flooded the Nile

In Tibet, the bardo spirit seeks a womb to enter back into this world

As ghosts pace the streets

Eulogies and epitaphs hold a silent mantra

Music and the law of vibration

Energy and the Law of Conservation

Words of power, elemental discussion

Here, the Black Book of the World was not tasked for me to write

I will write the Blue Book of the Waves

And I will drive a flying car to heaven

And I will get him out from under the ice

To cross realms and dimensions

And love the departed in present tense

~ Melody Montgomery

Doves and Sunflowers

I followed my father into the open field, not so interested in learning how to shoot but to spend time together. So many afternoons I had watched him teach my brother how to aim at the still can targets. I would stare at the tall trees surrounding the cinder lakes in northern Arizona somewhat watching but moreso daydreaming about other places while he showed my older brother how to aim. I was six - too small for the kick from the shot gun. I put my fingers in my ears and looked off into the distance.

But today, with a small pellet gun, he would teach me. In the field of wild sunflowers, he began to explain to me.

“This is the safety,” he said. “It is very important to leave it like this when you are not using it.” He demonstrated by sliding it into locked position.

“Yes,” I said, understanding.

“See this at the end of the barrel there? You want to line it up with this triangle.”

It made sense. He handed me the pellet gun. I held it gently and tried to line it up.

Birds feathered overhead. Doves. I thought of the afternoons at the picnic table in the yard of a family friend where we were tasked to prepare them. Gut them. Remove their soft feathers and the black pellets from the breasts. On the wooden, splintered table nothing remained of those white birds except a deep red hand-sized heart shape.

In the field, my father continued on, explaining physics to me, how to account for the birds in the air, the speed of the bullet and the speed of the birds. But we were surrounded by thousands of wild sunflowers. How could I look to the sky with all of those bright yellow flowers distracting me? I saw a thousand targets, so much simpler than the birds. They swayed slightly with the dry breeze but were relatively still.

My father continued talking. The physics of flight made as little sense to me as the fractions he explained while lying on the ground under his truck as he had me hand him a quarter this or a quarter that wrench. While he stood in front of me in the field, pointing at the sky and going on and on, I saw a perfect opportunity. Line the tip with the triangle. I held the gun to the brown center of the flower before me. I can do this! Placing pressure on the trigger, I squeezed it firm. My moment, my victory, was cut short. Suddenly my father was yelling. Did I hit him? Why was he yelling?

“What are you doing?!” he hollered. “You could have hit me, Melody! You do not shoot a gun when someone’s is in front of you!”

This did not make sense. My brilliant moment of hitting my bright target vanished. My father did not see the merit in how much simpler it was to aim at the flowers than the birds.

XV Of The Qualities of Princes by Melody Montgomery

XV         Of The Qualities of Princes

kin to the connotations of the sun.

Marxist muffles to my halcyon

Something of the Armenian

wonderfully pinned belaying chagrin

halos of you and I

and a dialect of stratums sigh

high buzzing pure words

A star made diamond  conferred;

the stem left hemming

and a hymn humming

Removing the silver blue gossamer

A Loquacious Sunrise endures 

by Melody Montgomery

The People of the Lost Sea - by Melody Montgomery

“The People of the Lost Sea”
By Melody Montgomery

Laughing
with the tides she calls to
come slowly
as the moon has many secrets
and her memory
is hidden from our eyes
and a storm of retorts.

We are the people of the lost sea.
We are the mind wanderers of the wind.
We are wisps of snow and effluvium.

Another Poem - Darkness Blown Out By Wind by Melody Montgomery

Darkness Blown Out by Wind

Much rang true, like something...
in the cadence of sounds droning sorrow
that illuminated
as the light illuminates what could be

as in any reality, what can be
a display of the white blossoms on the trees
the birds' steady song, to which I listen
under a blanket frayed relics and sweet memories
like the quilt's fabric my grandmother helped me weave

where the stars and moon shine past the shearing whistle
of galvanized creaking until the roar of its engine
becomes a gentler sound, carrying beveled glass
and honey to all the homes in the world

fading like my squeek and the sounds of night
with the changing lights, a low hum like...
an entirely other source of energy - point zero
with the beginning of spring growing nearer and closer

a fresher morning.

Second Blog - A Creation Story - The Raven and Seagull

So today, I am going to try to explain the link I chose for my blog "ravenandseagull"... please pardon any type-os. It is just a story.

I was recently traveling around the Southwest and kept seeing Coyotes and Ravens. I thought that these were good omens, especially the coyote that I crossed my path on the Hopi Reservation. I brought this up to a man that I met in Navajo Land. So, depending on who you ask, coyotes and ravens could be either good or bad omens.

According to this man, Ravens and Coyotes are tricksters and steal your food. This news was a bit unsettling since I was essentially travelling on my own through unfamiliar territory and then, on top of it, the room I stayed at in Sedonna was decorated solely in art with ravens and coyotes. I couldn't sleep very well...

I did as anyone would, I brought this up to a wise woman studying Shamanism. This was of tremendous help and put things back into perspective. As always, at least in my belief system, when beliefs become too black and white, such as "if you see a coyote always walk the other way and recite a prayer," for example, it can lead to fearful thinking, which was where my mind was heading... what she helped me understand is that a trickster is not a bad omen at all; they can be very helpful in elevating our minds to think about things differently.

Upon returning from my journey, I began to do a bit more research and found a creation story from the Pacific Northwest related to the Raven and Seagull, which I will recreate through embellishing for my current 0 followers :)...

The Raven and Seagull- Written by Melody Montgomery, inspired by Pacific Northwest Creation Myth
At the beginning of time, when the Great Creator created earth, each animal was given a special gift that was placed securely in a box of hardened, cedar wood. These boxes contained all of the bounty of the world, such as apple and fig seeds, wheat grass, sounds of music, ocean waves, wind, summer rain, orchids, mountain springs, carrots, joy, bliss, cacti, roses, indian paintbrushes, lavendar, rosemary...

In celebration of the creation of the earth, the Great Creator asked all of the animals to open their special gifts so that they could be shared with the world. But one animal, the seagull, refused to open this gift, which contained the light of the world. The Seagull so loved its beautiful, bright light that it wanted to keep it all to itself and not share it with the others. This was unsettling to all animals, as their own gifts could not flourish without this Great Light; it was particularly unsettling to the Raven, whose special gift was darkness and an ability to see in obscurity. The Raven's gift of darkness was a heavy burden to carry; it could see all of the other animals suffering in darkness and mourned their sadness over their gifts lying in waste.

The Raven followed the Seagull across the sky and beaches over mountains and under rivers and tried to persuade it to open its gift for the world to view. The Seagull selfishly refused. The Raven, who had asked very politely at first, began to get angry after perpetual pleas to the Seagull, as all of the animals were living in darkness and their gifts were useless without the Great Light.

So the Raven continued to follow the Seagull in the darkness, since as stated the Raven's special gift, and tried to steal the this box from the Seagull. The Seagull was very strong though and kept this box containing the Great Light securely under its giant white wing. The Raven then asked the Seagull to dance, hoping that this would cause the Seagull to lift its giant wing and drop the box so that its contents would be spread throughout the world. The Seagull refused this offer as well and continued to flee from the Raven with its box of light.

The Raven, who had many friends, spoke to the Sparrow and asked that it give it a rose, which was the gift that the Great Creator gave the Sparrow. The kind Sparrow, generous with its gift that had already been opened for the world, as were all of the other animals, gave the Raven a rose from which the Raven plucked a single thorn.

The Raven waited in darkness, until the opportune moment when the Seagull was preoccupied gazing at the Great Light in the box under its wing. The Raven took the thorn from the rose and planted it hard and securely into the Seagull's foot, very close to its ankle. This caused the Seagull to jump in extreme pain and drop the box containing the Great Light, which broke open and spread accross the earth, thus allowing all gifts to flourish in view.

The Seagull's pain was quickly eased by this stunning great light, which superceded the biting sensation near its ankle. The Seagull gazed in wonder and awe of all the gifts of the world, which had until this point only been visible to the Raven, which saw through the darkenss, and to each animal with its special gift, but not to all.

The Raven removed the thorn from the Seagull's foot with its mighty beak and the two remain friends to this day, balancing in light and darkness and dancing among the joys of creation.


Authors Note: This story is highly embellished but that's why I started this blog. XOXOX

First Blog - A Poem by Melody Montgomery - Notes from Wonderland

I am figuring this out so I will start with a poem I wrote a while back....

Notes From Wonderland (Author’s Proof – American Poets - Melody Montgomery)

Whispered talk of she who hid under the wind
when Time stood still beneath lightning nights

nowhere in that windy city did she let them be
as children again, silently spinning

a screaming delight on this teeter totter
Bee’s knees, creak to the breeze on a high

wooden swing in all that simmering
With fervently gold-winged dragonflies

They could sleep
And never recall any flicker of sky

Or why or never or forever or however
There in all hues of cadmium sunsets

Ashes and trill. Sad sky she asked
Why is it here to have as has always

To be as now and then with never a forever
But with the wind and moon too busy as they tie the tide

With gossamer twine it is left for the breeze to reply
In this atmosphere of vapor

above time. I carry no cumbers
of inclemency as memories

are effaced as stones from the sea
the wind and gravity

written by melody montgomery