Tag: Poem

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.)

Aura Lit

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

Downtown
by the twilit
abandoned
occult shop

nestled next door
the blue lit
coffee spot

A man paces
the length
a white lit
parking spot

argues with air
bites it off

His aura

the blue lit
coffeehouse
witch kids clack

is black.

-M.

San Bernardino Christmas

~ M. Ashley ~ Leave a comment

We, none of us, have money
for this. We put up the cross, but
the garage door is still broken.

The cross leans back like a goal
post about to be torn
asunder by the underdogs who
have won the game at last.

We may not be winning
the game at last, but we know
how to tear shit down
even and especially if
it’s our own.

The city tree that was already
dead in October from heat and
disease and not Mother Nature’s
glorious turning—we
put three black sparkly
ornaments on it for Halloween.

Child thieves stole two of them
that night—probably the only real
treat in their lifeless bags.

They Left one out of guilt or
respect.

Out of guilt or
respect,

we left that one there
for Jesus.

-M.
66 Day Poetry Habit: Day 1