12 Haiku for Kandinsky’s Colour Theory
by CJ Martin

Blue recedes, turns in,
Ascends to inner heaven
Soaring flute spirit

Blue retreats, darkens,
Inutterable grief follows
An organ thunders

Yellow flings itself
Outward, forward, overspreads -
Mad shrill lunacy

Green rests actively:
Pause between advance/retreat
Soothes with violins

Gray is paralyzed,
No potential for movement
Mute, no grief, no joy

White, beyond out touch,
The nothingness before birth
A pregnant silence

Black, an endless wall
Ashes of a funeral pyre
Profound, final pause

Red glows for itself
Rings inwardly, maturely
Triumph, strong trumpets

Orange is a man
Convinced of his own powers
An old violin

Cool red, self contained
Less active, it waits its turn
A cello’s sad tones

Violet’s cooled soul
Sad, old, ailing or mourning
A deep English horn

Brown, plus… fleck of red?
Indescribable beauty!
Thunders like a drum

The Swing Set
Ellie Hastings © 2011

We sat on the swing set
As if we had never flown
Our legs too long
Left furrows in the sand

We knew we were always dying
And could see it in our eyes
So we let words fall delicately on tomorrow
Though we felt them as heavy weights

We talked about our times
And the minutes that we missed
And the memories we collected
Pulling them out like forgotten jewels

We are only friendly ghosts
From long ago when our feet could float
And higher on the swings
Was our only dream