Transformation

Something is happening to me—something big.  I cannot divulge what it is yet but I am posting this poem which addresses the notion of change and the power of dreams.  

It was first published in Referential Magazine.

Haunted

by Clare L Martin


I am kept by crows.
They beckon out of sleep,

calling come, come
be transformed.

Crow-by-crow
line up in dreams,

punctuating visions.
Such an omen inspires.

A crow told me:

Let me be a whorl of darkness—
Let me be a fist in the sun.

The crow on the wire
is a keeper of silence.

What a crow gathers
becomes soot and nothing more.

I am in the night. I am in it
as though it cloaks me–

I am winged
and feathered like the crow.

Sheer, yet impenetrable,
rising on wind.

Two Dreams of The White Horse (2005)

May 10, 2005

I dreamed of the White Horse again last night. In this new dream I was its master. On my command it leaped high fences topped with barbwire and lay still without breathing in tall grass to escape detection of the mafioso hunting me. When I’d fled the murderers, I strode into the house of The Don and walked directly to him. He was a thin, old man in loose clothing without a single gray hair. I whispered in his ear. The breathless hitmen falling over themselves to reach me were told: “Leave this woman alone.”

The dream that follows is the one I had February 5, 2005, which was my introduction to the symbol of the White Horse. I think this first dream of the White Horse could have been the awareness I had been chasing illusions and this second dream indicated I’d reached some mastery over my life.

Chasing the White Horse –Dream of 2/5/05

I had a psychotic break and was out of my mind for a year or many years. The years were black pages. I had to be placed in a secluded, secret house and attended by several plain-clothes, patronizing nurses. My husband divorced me and remarried a beautiful blond woman. My daughter simply forgot me. My ex had more children with the woman. I saw him and he was indifferent toward me. He said now, with the new wife, he knew what love really was and that the sex with his new beautiful wife was fantastic and meaningful. The most significant people in my life were unreachable, despite all of my efforts to remind them who I was and what I believed we meant to each other. I was totally lost and alone. The heart of my life dissolved. My loved ones had “moved on” and I was without direction. I had been fighting my demons only with the hope of returning to my family– but they were by choice through with me.

I wrote a book when I’d recovered my mind and gave the manuscript to the suspicious nurses reluctantly, but with desperate need that they would see that it got published. They smirked and took the manuscript. I escaped on a moonless night and ran barefooted through cold mud and unlocked several wooden gates to freedom.  I had no idea where I was. The place was rural and unfamiliar to me.

I attempted to be guided by constellations but my knowledge of the heavens was vague. I followed a river until I found a city. I entered a boutique that sold books, wind chimes and sterling silver picture frames. When a happy customer spoke to me I was surprised to learn I was famous. Many people had read the book and loved me but I didn’t know them and they meant nothing to me. I was helped my on my journey across America with money, shelter, clothes and food.

I arrived at my parent’s home. There was a wild, white stallion tearing up the lawn. My father held it tenuously by a thin string. The White Horse broke free before I could close the gates. I chased the White Horse. It ran into traffic and caused a calamitous accident but was unharmed. The horse bucked and galloped through my hometown and breezed into a weird pastel colored subdivision that looked like rows of storybook castles. I chased the White Horse into a house with an elaborate checker-pattern inlaid wood spiral staircase that rose into infinite space. I caught glimpses of the horse travelling upwards but it was far away. I was tired of running, so I climbed the staircase on my hands and knees. I became dizzy from looking up. Space tightened. I became disoriented. I couldn’t tell anymore which way was up and which way was down. The stairwell shut around me like a coffin. I woke up confused and hopeless.

Sunrise From Blue Thunder

 
I just purchased and received “Sunrise From Blue Thunder,” the new poetry anthology edited and published by Pirene’s Fountain as a response to the Japan earthquake and tsunami.  My poem “What Came After” appears in it. I’m honored to be included in this anthology with so many great poets. Sincere thanks to Katherine Herschler, Ami Kaye and Tracy McQueenJapan Project editors.
 
*Proceeds go to ongoing relief efforts in Japan.*
 
Click here to order. Quick and easy via lulu!

Happy New Year Publication!

The January 2012 issue of Thrush Poetry Journal has just been released and I have a poem in it, “What Winter Told Me”  alongside works by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Lisa Marie Basile, Kat Dixon, Dennis Mahagin, M. G. Martin, Joseph A. W. Quintela, Jacob Rakovan, Richard Schiffman, Theresa Williams and Bill Yarrow.

Jacob Rakovan and I used to be in a writing group together years ago, I know him personally and think of him fondly, so this is a real kick to be in the same publication with him.  He keeps a place on the web here.

Thanks to Editor-In-Chief, Helen Vitoria, for selecting my work and for bringing these beautiful works to the world.

A Gift

THE ROAD BEFORE US

Let us travel the road before us

and enter into the mystery of trees.

Let us find the sleeping doe

attentive and aware

of the ever-wolf.  I will go

and find kindling. I will set

the fire that will engage us

and carry our heaviest thoughts

upward.  Clouds dwindle.  

Smoke trails us like a wraith.

I am caught in it. I rise

to the web of bleak branches,

to the very tops of trees.

Tonight leafless trees

are smothered with blackbirds.  

This night-smoke

becomes the blackbird

rising to its highest—

Drifting embers smite the moon.

©2011 Clare L. Martin

A Blessing

A Good Fire

 ”A Good Fire

Blessings for all who are in need, and gratitude for the comforts we have and the life given to us.

~Clare

Hello. My Name is Clare.

Hello. My name is Clare.  Welcome (again) to my website.

I purchased the domain http://clarelmartin.com/ today and will be writing here with more frequency. I hope I can count you as a reader.

I will muse upon the writing life, real-life happenings, sleep revelations, waking prophecies, earth, wind, fire—things I am passionate about and the few things I hate with passion.  

Certainly, I will try to keep it interesting and valuable.

Stay tuned…

Peace.  

Clare

And there was.

I wrote a poem today. It is the first new poem I have written since May 17th. The summer has been one drama after another. I am pleased with the form this poem has taken. It was inspired by a photograph by Zeralda and might become part of our collaborative project of words and images.

Haiti

My prayers and thoughts for healing the suffering of your people go out to you…I have and will continue to give what I can.

My prayers, too, are for all who are suffering in mind and body.

Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 on behalf of the American Red Cross. — Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 on behalf of The Yele Haiti Foundation.

Close to the truth, but not

I don’t usually post poems on this blog, but this poem was previously published in an online journal that unfortunately doesn’t exist any longer.

 

SCATTERING ASHES INTO THE GULF OF MEXICO

Storm-light cracks the rain-whipped windshield.
We are numbed by the beat of the blades & grief. 

Your childhood was a shattered peace; memories cut on broken hearts.
When your father left, life derailed into a crushing wreck. 

Strangers you called “uncle” streamed after the bars closed.
You soothed yourself with lies.  You showed her mercy, love. 

Your mother wanted to be drunk when she died.  She reeked of urine.
You gave her vodka on ice.  It kissed her like morphine.

Your inheritance is a collection of rings; none made of gold.
She bequeathed mysteries for your mourning.

In slashing rain, you seek a point on the storm-dark horizon to take you
into a sweet memory of her, but she is obscure, inscrutable.

You offer ashes to the thunder & wind.
That death is our singular future gives you peace.

 Assured the moon will still pull these gulf waves
even when no one loved is left living.

(First appeared in Southern Hum, Issue 3, March 2006)