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Patricia Wellingham-Jones
Out of Words
[after Dry Ink]
She shakes her arm,
scatters the last grain of sand,
dries ink placed with precision
on leaves of mulberry paper.
Page after page
fill with words
scratched by the nib
of her bamboo pen.
Like clues to the universe
she releases them
to the winds riffling
the wild mane of her hair.
The words fly,
roll under clouds,
tickle the cow’s spine,
fall to the ebbing tide.
Unwanted Knowledge
[after Lesa Humanidad]
Her face turns away,
presses itself into sand,
blocks out the glint
of all-seeing eyes
behind.
Head wrapped in a towel
she resists knowing.
Her thoughts tangle
like barbed wire twisted
and thrown on the land,
jumbled as the pebbles
turning to feathers.
Left hand clutching
at right arm,
her desperate fingers feel
the eye of the transposed face
shift under the pads of her skin.
Knowledge forces itself
with the relentless steps
of bare feet marching.
Masks Gilded
[after Histrionic Alpha Wave]
Lips and brows gilded
in their blue and red faces,
the masks look down on the sleeper,
arm flung over her head,
teasing her hair.
Dreams rampage through
her restless mind,
caught in the folds of darkness,
the streaming ribbons
lavender, peach,
an aurora borealis
of slumber.
The strength of her midnight roaming
tilts the balance of daylight comfort,
tears from the mask of tragedy
blend with tears from the laughing mask,
join on the pale-flesh cheek
with the sleeper’s own.
Ceremony
[after Farewell]
The woman wraps her head
in folds of white cloth
twisted and tied
in loops and fluttering tails.
On a mountaintop
near her home
the breeze snatches and whips
the fragile silk.
Through the cloudy sky
drifting
a white crane floats
to her upraised palm.
Eyes fixed
on the paper bird, she ignores
the trail of long thoughts
written in fog.
Poems Spill
[after Sumi]
She can’t help it,
the poems spill
at the most awkward times.
Leap out of her head,
write with the tips of her hairs,
dribble down the nape
of her slender neck.
Poems spatter
the fabric
of her life.
Metacreation
[after Metacreation]
She blows fireballs
from her mystic lips
in a sheltered pool
behind flowered walls.
Water slick as oil rings
radiates from her glowing skin.
Lightning stabs in silent slashes
between curtains of rain.
The arch of window,
intricate carve of wooden rail
enclose her in the watery womb.
She focuses her being, creates
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