beautiful writing | Myths of the Mirror

I used to post a Sunday Blog Share where I’d reblog a post from our community that I loved. It was a chance to rave about bloggers, writers, books, poems, and stories. When my parents’ health started failing about five years ago, I couldn’t keep up and stopped.

Now I’m starting the feature again. I’m wowed by the talent in our blogging village and grateful for the friendships I find here. Through these shares, I hope to bring my favorite peeps together. And that includes you!

Please welcome my first victim guest: Mike Utley of Silent Pariah.

He’s a poet and writer and photographer, and his work is exquisite. I can’t help gushing. He’s probably glad that I live far away or I’d be his stalker.

Usually, I’d just reblog his post with a little intro, but the poem I want to share with you, Odysseus, was published on Masticadores, India. I’m sending you there so you can read it in one fell swoop: Odysseus.

But the point of this post is to connect you with Mike. So, I’d be thrilled if you visited his blog, a place where beautiful words are born. He’s worth reading and following. And if you’re like me, you’ll start pestering him for a book.

His most recent post features a photograph that he proceeds to describe with stunning emotion and beauty. You’ll see what I mean about this multifaceted artist. Flip back a post and you’ll find some mesmerizing haiku.

Mike’s blog: Silent Pariah.

Comments are closed here. Enjoy.

If you’re like me, there are times when you come across a quality of writing that exists only in your dreams. This piece is a seamless collaboration between Jimmi Campkin & Basilike Pappa. It swept me away. I hope you enjoy it.

Lines in the Sand (part 1)

by Jimmi Campkin & Basilike Pappa

To call you love would twist my tongue.

I never sing love songs with eyes shut; and neither would I share junk food behind the Hilton with you – exhaust fumes, saucy lips, a light breeze through our hair– before we kiss and go to bed as animals turned pets, our biggest sin forgetting to floss.

But from the moment you said my name, sanity performed a pagan dance, silver jewels gleaming naked.

So why not conspire against the national demand for ironed sheets, and go riding drunk under the moon? Sneaking into each other, we will exchange bass lines, starry eyes, blinding treasures and the secrets to a perfect kill. And if we turn each other into poems in the flesh, we can always blame the weather or a collapsing bridge.

From the moment you said my name, my senses did a pagan dance, spitting out neon, perfumes, smearing lipstick on it all.

So why not kiss all the way down a perfect fall?

But I’d never call you love – I’d rather bite my tongue.

My earliest memory of you; on a trampoline, your hair backlit by a radioactive green sun, and one hand reaching for the pale blue above.

Another early memory; a crowd of no-one, pointless under-formed bodies and ill-fitting clothes, and a pair of eyes that parted them like the red sea, like a blowtorch through ice. Your eyes weren’t shimmering, or beautiful like those described by the shit poets you detested so much. You carried harpoons with hooked blades …

Continue Reading: Lines in the Sand (part 1): Jimmi Campkin & Basilike Pappa