orion

TORTILLA TOAST

1 scrambled egg
1 small tortilla
Snowed under
Ground black pepper
Nuke 2 minutes
Cayenne pepper to blush the
Van Gogh yellows
Bowlful of black coffee
What a morning it’ll be
Especially
While communing with Orion
At 5 in the dark
All that’s missing is a cigarette
25 years since we parted
But wild dill showers
In morning dew
Spread scent to rival
Nicotine
And I am content…

(c) 2018 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)
IMAGE: low-cal breakfast at 5 a.m.

AGING WITH ORION

 

Missing Orion, but he will soon return to the Northern Hemisphere skies…

(I) ORION AT TWENTY
After meditating in Neolithic darkness
A tranquil universe is born
While camping at the folk festival
Guitars and violins
Chants and poems echo
With a new moon making visible
Stars and planets joining Orion
In his nightly romp up high
Through the speckled night sky
Venus, Mars, Pleiades
(Those seven sisters smiling upon us)

(II) ORION AT FORTY:
When Orion peels himself off
The black backdrop of the celestial ceiling
And his dog Sirius herds him to my door
I will shake the star-dusted golden glitter
From the halo of hair that I wear free and curly
And as the earthy music soars and sinks
While minor chords weave a robe so warm
I will sharpen the dagger hanging from his waist
And welcome the result of being chased
By the winter Star Man who has come at last…

(III) ORION AT SIXTY
Navy blue Southern sky so reachable
Here he is, once again, tonight
Stretched out, over my head
My legs apart, as wide as his
Dog at my heels
Lift my arms and double high five him
Balance deserts as I stumble into a terracotta pot of ginger
No dignity in old age
But my hands, for a brief blink of time, touched the stars

© 2015 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja), Parallel Universe Café and Other Poems, Wildsound Video read by performer

 

AN ARM AND A LEG

 

**scroll down for YouTube video**

 

Separated only by a belt

Japanese legendary war

Between the Taira family

As red as Betelgeuse

And the Minamoto family

As {blue-tinged} white as Rigel

Stars still battling

Orion’s belt

No-man’s land

A war

A constellation

A leg and an arm

Emblems of a mythos

Red and white

Like the Japanese flag

Symbolizing

Duty, sacrifice and loyalty

The Hunter a mighty sum

Of his parts

In the eternal aethers…

 

© 2016 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: Earth-Sky.com

 

YouTube: Orion by Metallica https://youtu.be/mmNpYwMpeJE