FOUR FEATHERS PRESS ONLINE EDITION: SKY KEY Send up to three poems on the subject of or at least mentioning the words sky and/or key, totaling up to 150 lines in length, in the body of an email message or attached in a Word file to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by 11:59 PM PST on March 14th. No PDF's please. Color artwork is also desired. Please send in JPG form. No late submissions accepted. Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Sky Key will be published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, March 15th between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Antoinette Vella Payne


Stardust 


Winter’s darkness falls asunder

Spring brings in the light

Ishtar’s ancient name resides in me

Without ignorance or ego


I am determined to see

Obeying no laws save nature and change

My eyes do not see

The Light


I am not a body

But what am I?

Love and light essentially joined

In spirit housed in flesh


Everything trimmed in light

Glitters away the dark

Shows what’s hidden

Yet always there


Compassion and strength’s subtle shimmer

Radiates in my voice

My stance and stride

Curiosity brings worldly gifts


Melons and grapes

Sweet sizzling summers

Rites of spring

When the wind breaks


Sky opens wide open wide

Where nothing stops

The Light

You and I as co conspirators


Hold this dream

To billow out under our flaming

Fortuitous fraction of time

Detonated at birth we are exploding stars





Easter in November


Celebrating life

A vase of lilies in the window

Ornate like Christmas trees

Lit in white for neighbors to see


Falling in love with life really hard

Reflections in my rings

Given by one who stayed a while

Invited into my chosen home,


My body adorned with his gifts,  

Offers separation placed on an altar

Using no eyes to see

No food no fonts just


Intuition, my best hope

Behind the words.

To know what presence brings

How it unfolds,

 

Poems can take you there.

Thoughts like clouds,

Large or small

Or not at all


Only wide spaciousness

Just under heaven

Close enough to earth

An ah ha moment


In some languages

Sky & heaven are

The same word

Unlimited like us





Jeering Jaws


His baby teeth

Bite my arm

In love he eats me first

Lessons earned through survival


T-rex with claws and jaws razor sharp

Sends archaic shrieks to four corners alerts

Twilight’s end for indigenous giants

In the land of big feet 


Language spurts through gnashing teeth

In rough currents & strong winds

A treacherous burst of night sky opens 

Over mountains 


Where Atlantic & Pacific waters meet in this Cape Horn sky

Dreaded williwaw gusts ring in huge waves

Sudden &d unpredictable

We embrace rooted etymology


Sprung from these savage lands 

And like the female tarantula 

He eats my arm then wipes the

Spit away with a touch of his fang 


Holy Crap uttered in admiration

Falls from his mouth 

A gentle inconsistency

A divine provocation 


One by one

Chewing fireflies captured in a jar

Burnt embers fill his belly

Lighting the path least taken 


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