Category: Poetry

Colleen Whose Name Means Girl

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Maybe I should be out
Loud about it. Maybe I
Should talk. I know it
Sure would have helped me
A lot if the woman they
Kept in a box under the
Bed for seven years had
Been a little more chatty.

“These things do happen. They
Do.” We would commiserate
With each other through the
Knothole in her box and the
Keyhole in the door I was
Locked and chained behind

Also for seven years.

Lucky lucky.

“Colleen,” I would whisper so
The bad men wouldn’t hear.

Colleen whose name means
Girl

“Colleen,” I would whisper
“I get you Sister.
I do.”

-M. Ashley

If you are a survivor of sex trafficking, I cannot recommend the organization Journey Out enough. They have helped me tremendously and I am grateful every day that I found them.

What I Will Miss When I Die

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

I might miss caring when I’m dead
doing back flips with my horny god
in the ether I may stop
my glory gathering around me like
fireflies circling the mother fire
for a blink I might miss
wondering how my loved
ones are getting along without me
I might miss the cozy straightjacket limitations
of the short view on death
I might miss the exhilaration of
dread not knowing what
freedom lies in the Great Beyond

But then
I’ll get over it.

-M.

Hibiscus Kissed

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

This January hibiscus bud
Kissed by absence of color
My albino fingers exploring the
Hard petals the shy face of
A goddess willing to be
Searched blindly by the blind
Whose blindness comes from
Looking too much into the light.

-M.

Photo Poetry: God Flower

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Shadow at the tips and
Shadow at the center like
A god who is honest about
What it means to be a god.

Absence
Presence

Glory
Absence

-M.

I am legally blind so I know—photography is a weird sport for me. What I am finding so lovely about it though is that I am often capturing with the camera things I would have never seen with my naked eye. To me, in the bright day, this gazania looked like a simple white blur on a field of messy green. It wasn’t until I got home and started working with the picture that I saw all it’s beautiful purple and that soft explosion of orange at the center. I look forward to many more visual surprises the camera is bound to catch for m.

Photo Poetry: I Must Burn

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Arrogance reaching
back a hollow throat

tells Her the gifts
you gave me

aren’t
good enough.

The path you
laid too

clear.
The dark you

made to lathe
my wounds in

much
too soft.

Give me
the sun.

I must blister.
I must burn.

-M.
Photo Prompt: Your Dark Side

I had fun with this one. I used a fish eye lens—my first successful experience with that. I played with the color a little in processing, but most of that is the natural light that comes in my office through the dark pink drapes.

I did a lot of selfies first, (the one below I like a lot), and I seemed to get a good bead on “depression” which is certainly a darker side of me, but I think the sad arrogance I got in the first photo is far more on point when it comes to personal darkness.

Sort of weird to start the year on the dark side, but I can say the bright side it exposes is knowing that even though I am low vision, I can find fun and creative expression in photography that is meaningful to me. May your 2021 be marvelous and full of opportunities to let your creative light shine.

Artless Grief

~ M. Ashley ~ 3 Comments
Photography Playbook Prompt: Something you covet

I’ve had personal disasters
gluing a doily to the back of
a dollar store glass plate
Jesus quote sandwiched
In between. I cried

in front of my mother’s
church ladies, all
wrinkled and off center
the doily I mean. My

mother quilts dreams
and sews inspiration for
the whole of the female
church body. I unspool

thread everywhere and
haven’t the gift to finish the
thread things I start. I
couldn’t running backstitch
my way out of a wet
paper bag. What sort of a

Woman am I? My hands make
words not things. By the Word
the world was formed says He
who IS the church body. He
can’t understand my artless grief

who died for our sins yet still
found the time to craft the
mountains and thread the stars.

-M.
(Photography Playbook Prompt: Something you covet.)