Tweetspeak Poetry asked about wildest dreams today. I realized, I never looked at dreams that way.... hmmm. 

How about you? What were your dreams and aspirations in childhood? There's room for you to share in the comment boxes over there. CLICK HERE.

I like this wordcandy.... a lot.  I love the image of the window and the shadows.  Today, when I look out that window, there goes the year walking down the road carrying every burden from the past in a big heavy sack. He is going. Away. Never to return again. This year is going and I am letting him.

I imagine a sweet and quiet southern woman with a big soft, easy body who lets me rest my head on her warm, ready shoulder.  I sink right into that shoulder and she lets me stay there. Her voice is deep and steady like the stand up bass that you hardly notice but it holds together the sound of the band.  She speaks to me in rhyme, and this is what she says as she gently pats my hand:


This year is a-goin'.
Child, just let him go.
Let him go off on his way

Open your fingers
and loosen your grip
so that you can grab hold of today.

This year is a-goin'.
He's takin' the past
and walkin' it clean out the door.

This year is a-goin' child.
Just let him go.
He won't come 'round here no more...


And, I believe her.



​
This piece was originally posted on The Brighter Side Blog, December 30, 2012. 

My heart was a pond,
full of koi
beating wildly,
squirmmy and swelling and swarming upstream,
coming to rest in my throat-
hush swoosh swoosh, hush, rush, swoosh.
 
They’d skitter in,
those slippery koi,
no sense of rhythm or proper meter-
poor blameless, legless fish
unable to practice such things. 
 
Skip, skip, skip, skip, and then
like fish falling down a flight of stairs
slipskipskipboom[   ]skipboomslip[   ][   ][   ]boom[   ]skipslipskip, skip,
skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip,
as if there was no fish frenzy just beneath
my ribcage.

Each slippery, skipping koi
carries a sliver
of gold.

Long before my diagnoses of Lyme, Ehrlichia, Babesia, and Bartonella, my heart was trying desperately to tell me something was wrong. I, in turn, tried to tell doctor after doctor but it took 8 years before I knew what it was. Today I journeyed back in my mind, thinking about how hard I tried, how dismissed I felt,, and realizing how angry I feel... still. Today I painted my heart rate and today I imagine (and almost feel) my chest full of skittering koi, swimming wildly. I can still remember how scared I was.

We are, each of us, carrying gold with every heart beat.
Each of us.
Carrying gold.

The images in this little video slideshow are all images of the same painting, taken at different points throughout the process used to create it. The end result, the heart, was the most mysterious surprise!

What is unusual about the final image is that earlier in the day I had been trying to paint a heart using alcohol inks. The ink didn't cooperate and nothing went in the direction I wanted, so I washed off the tile and played with the ink and the alcohol spray. 

Three drops of each color; red, orange, yellow, brown, green, purple, cranberry. I let them blend and dry and then spritzed the painted tile with alcohol spray. I started taking pictures after each spray, hoping to capture a bit of the magic that happens when the colors work together. 

When the heart appeared, my eyes grew wide and I experienced that sense of wonder that I once thought was reserved for the joyful discoveries of childhood. The heart, that it existed at all, was impossible to ignore. I had a lot to wonder about. How did that happen? Maybe I couldn't create a heart earlier because it was already there. Maybe my muse was at work while I played, placing each drop carefully and distributing each spritz of spray. 

Something was happening there and it was trying to say something about the origins of art.

It makes me wonder what else might happen in this life if I would just get out of the way? 

My son created the music, which makes it all the more special to me. 

A poetry dare has been issued to a member of Tweetspeak Poetry's writing community, and the rest of us have been invited to play too. My poem is above. The dare is HERE.

There is a hot coal burning there in your soul,
That can ignite your heart’s desire.
It still burns, deep inside a river of tears,
And it wants to be wildfire!
 
You tried to hide it under a bushel one day.
You even tossed it out to sea.
But, it was born when you were born. It ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Maybe it’s time to let it be!

Go on and fan that glowing ember!
And wear that wildfire like a crown.
It ain’t goin’ nowhere! It’ll always be there!
Let it burn wild, or let it burn you down!

Donna Z. Falcone 2015
All rights reserved

Please read about the birth of this song: Creativity and the Evolution of a Song (or, Nasty Girl Meets Patchouli Babe). 

Penny
for your 
thoughts?

Tweetspeak Poetry asked for something strange on the kitchen table in their "This One Doesn't Belong Photo & Poetry Prompt." I knew if I waited a few days something unexpected would materialize. It always does. :)