poetry

Modern Times

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When I was a girl,
most of the butterflies
I saw around here
were small and plain.
Sometimes I would
cup them mid flight
between my two hands
just to feel their wings
tickling my palms.
I pinched a wing once
with my thumb and pointer
and the powder from it
was left on my fingertips.

I used to bottle ants
and fireflies and grasshoppers
in glass jars but somehow
I never thought a butterfly
was for keeps.
I rarely see them these days
in my brick-walled
concrete-and-steel life,
where the shrubbery
is flowerless and trimmed.

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©A. D. Joyce, 2014

Birth and Death Caught on Film

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I.
Did I ask for this,
this cold air, this profane
stark light? “Electricity”
they’ll teach me one day
but what they don’t say I’ll have to
pay with blood to learn when
all I want is to be myself.

II.
Are those my eyes,
fixed on the final twist of
unbecoming, the light they reflect dull
and opaque? Will they ever find
who profaned me? Is that
my blood on the floor? I don’t
remember. Some will say I asked
for this but I didn’t.

©A. D. Joyce, 2014

The known world, part one

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Science is basically an inoculation against charlatans. – Neil Degrasse Tyson

Science
uses what we know
to understand the unseen,
as in blood signifies
the covered wound
and tears imply
the soft core
of a hardened heart.
Breath is the soul’s body.
Silence betrays the secret.
The reality of time
is disproved by sleep,
while dreams inform reality.
Many things masquerade as love
but love is a prime
that has no substitute.

©A. D. Joyce, 2014

counterclockwise

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it’s a dirt road, see,
i’m standing in the middle of,
and if the dirt were water,
it would boil down to this:

i have 11 in one hand, I say,
and only one in the other,
so either i can keep 11
and get rid of one,
or else keep the one
and get rid of the 11.
but I don’t need any of them,
i say, so I put my two hands together
to make sure I have them all
but I don’t need them all.

so i lay them on the ground
and walk 12 paces from the pile
in a easterly direction,
then walk a perfect circle
around the pile
in a counterclockwise direction
until i reach the start of the circle,
then i walk to the middle.

i pick one from the pile,
and say, “I’ll take this one,”
then i put it back down
and pick another up and say,
“i want this one.”
then I put it down.

then i pick it up

then i put it down

then i pick it up

then i pick it up

then i put it down

then i put it down

and I say this will be a poem
and i say I’m just thinking out loud
and i say what am I going to do
and I say I’m doing it

 

Wassily Kandinsky. Several Circles. 1926. Oil on canvas. Via Olga's Gallery

Wassily Kandinsky. Several Circles. 1926. Oil on canvas. Via Olga’s Gallery

©A. D. Joyce, 2014

Butterfly Facts

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At night or during bad weather, butterflies hang from the undersides of leaves or crawl into crevices between rocks.

The typical life expectancy of a butterfly is two to 14 days due to predators or the weather. Some live for as long as a year.

The ancient Greek word for butterfly is psyche.

butterfly (English)
buttorfleoge (Old English)
papillon (French)
ihe n’efe-efe (Igbo)
farasha (Arabic, standard)
mariposa (Spanish)
borboleta (Portuguese)
bebe (Fijian)

Eighty percent of all butterfly species live in the tropics.

Butterflies communicate mostly through chemical signals. A few species can produce noises with their wings.

Some people say that when a butterfly lands on you it means good luck.

In Chinese culture, two butterflies flying together symbolize love.

In Devonshire, UK, people would traditionally rush around to kill the first butterfly of the year that they see or else face a year of bad luck.

In the Philippines, a lingering black butterfly or moth in the house is taken to mean that someone in the family has died or will soon die.

Butterflies breathe through tiny openings on their sides, smell with their antennae, and taste with their feet.

You can feed butterflies with a butterfly feeder and homemade nectar.

(Facts via the Butterfly WebSite and Wikipedia.)

©A. D. Joyce, 2014