Introducting Scarlet Clover

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Kieran York

Introducing Scarlet Clover Publishers!

On Monday authors of Blue Feather Books, Ltd., received an email. The nearly decade-old publishing company is to be dissolved.

For me it was very sad news. A book company would be lost. On a personal note, I grieve for what made Blue Feather Books special – Emily Reed, and the staff of Blue Feather Books, cared. Em cared about the authors and about the readers.

Emily took a chance on my book about a sixty-year old woman finding romance in Appointment with a Smile. She took another chance on a book that was uncomfortable – it talked about two war. There were Hippies and a Concentration Camp – good and evil of life. Careful Flowers might have gone unpublished if not for Em. She is a hero to me, and I thank her and wish her the best.

I wish Em, and all the authors of BFB a happy future. Speaking of authors, and the world of publishing – there are so many magnificent women providing today’s Sapphic literature. I’m so very proud to be part of this ‘golden era’ of words.

Ann Bannon wrote a few books that changed many of our lives. Emily Reed reconstructed a publishing company – and gave so many of us an opportunity. Beth Mitchum created not only her own brilliant work, but she’s promoted women’s poetry and fiction with her amazing publishing company, Ultra Violet Love, and Sappho’s Corner Series.

Blazing the way in the enormity of Sapphic literature, these leaders have forced the best in us. As writers and as readers. Each book written makes a commitment to the future. So I thank all those who read and who write. I also thank the Reader – they support our cause.

For me there is no competition. I truly admire each of the publishing houses, and the authors. We all make one another better, and stronger. So let’s keep constructing words, and our love of the scrambled alphabet. I wish you all good fortune.

Monday, after reading the email that took a little part of my heart, I became determined to contribute in some way to Sapphic writing. I put a dream together in my mind. I’m a technologically imperiled. Uncertain how I could realize this dream, I talked with my mentor and dear friend, Beth Mitchum. She has always encouraged me. And that was when Scarlet Clover was born.

The name, Scarlet Clover – well, yes, it is after my dog, Clover. The scarlet part – well, I know that red clover comes in varieties. Scarlet (the most intensely red), crimson, and pink. My sister loves the Scarlet Clover.

Fields of Scarlet Clover are not bashful.

Lighthearted Yesteryear

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Kieran York

Childhood should be a time of lighthearted days. This is often the case, and sometimes not. But I invite you to take a rhyming journey with me – for a feel-good glance back.

LIGHTHEARTED YESTERYEAR

All aboard for yesteryear land.
If you wish to go, please take my hand.
We’ll wander along to distant treasure.
We’ll journey back to homespun pleasure.
Close your eyes, dream of skies
blue and clear, have no fear.
You’re the captain of your ship.
And off we’ll go on our little trip.
Hang on tight with all your might.
We’re going right to see the sight.
Huge balloons and candy canes,
sugar dolls on gumdrop lanes.
Kids on parade drink pink lemonade.
Bright blue bicycles race gleaming red tricycles.
Hop aboard a merry-go-round.
Listen to the hurdy-gurdy sound.
A Jumping Jack has licorice in a sack.
A tiny red fox plays in a sand box.
With candy bars and toy cars,
and a kaleidoscope for color’s design,
and a giggle says that all is fine.
Animal crackers eat jelly beans.
Lollypop signs point to silly scenes.
Inside castles there are kings and queens
celebrating Christmases and Halloweens.
We’ll have great times in this place I know.
We’re all captains and we can row
across the sea of make-believe we’ll go.
With court jesters, and acrobats
we’ll all wear special funny hats.
Hoist away, spread the sails.
We shall wait for husky gales.
They’ll float our ship across the blue.
We’ll travel ever and ever anew.
When we arrive at our own special land
we’ll wiggle our toes in glittering sand.
There will be gifts galore
inside a huge toy store.
We’ll hear music and song
and know we belong.
Here comes the cake
hear the squeals we’ll make.
Now comes the shakes, malts, and soda pop.
If we spill, whoops, here comes the mop.
Candy will sprinkle out from the sky.
Paper airplanes swirl as they fly.
Chocolate, gingersnaps and laughing we are.
We’ll charge up a mountain to touch a star.
After all, it isn’t that high.
Not if we reach and really try.
We’ll run in the meadow, then climb a hill.
We’ll eat Cracker Jacks until we get our fill.
We’ll jump and run; then waltz with the sun.
When night has come and day is done,
we’ll wander on home and hop in our beds.
We’ll pull up the covers and then the spread.
Tucked into bed by kind, gentle hands
we’ll return to our own special lands.
We’ll wake blurry-eyed to wait for our friends.
And off we’ll travel around twisting bends.
Back to our place,
we’ll hasten to race.
Hear the train coming, clickety-clack –
coming down the well-worn track.
It will pick us up to take us shipside.
We’ll ready our departure to take a ride.
There are flowers with colors all aglow.
The hills ahead spread like a huge rainbow.
We’ll pluck new petals each as they bloom
from a magical flower in our playroom.
Childhood is bright as all the sun’s rays.
So let’s recall the best of our sweet days.
A childhood with love and without fear
is the best kind of lighthearted yesteryear.

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Please check out my poetry in the best-selling poetry collections, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Roses Read, Volume 3; and Wet Violets, Volume 2. Edited by the award-winning poet, Beth Mitchum. These books and other wonderful books and music are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, please check out Appointment with a Smile, the 2013 Lambda Finalist in the Romance category, by Kieran York. A new book is scheduled for release in autumn of 2013, titled Careful Flowers. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Book Distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books available through Amazon.

Kansas Dreams

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Kieran York

KANSAS DREAMS

Fireflies swarmed the shrubbery near my grandmother’s doorstep.
Fireflies – lightning bugs – by the time I was seven-years old,
I loved their descriptive names.
They seemed like miraculous events rather than insects.
They knew how to work a crowd.
Their brightly dotted tails sparkled with bursts of light.
As if they were pantomimic dancing – a graceful motion known only to them,
fireflies helped to shut down the day with their antics.
And they knew they could close tightly the evening with their mystery.
One of those Kansas nights forever beams back to my memory.
A storm betrayed tranquility.
The weather forecast included a steamy soaking.
Night’s pewter clouds began to seal away moonlight.
An uneasiness – a restlessness, was setting in.
Farm folks are aware of the fine line of fate.
One gentle rain shower is a healthy dousing.
And the other rain was a storm pounding stalks of green grain buds.
Wheat stalk, hulls – the gold of bread, would be embedded in soggy soil.
Midsummer night storms are often accompanied by destruction.
Once planted, what is to become of wheat fields?
They rely on both earth’s nutrients, and weather.
The kernels invite moisture, but not downpours.
On this night the sky’s face glared with ugliness.
No harvest is a chronicler of its own fortune.
Thankfully, this was a cooperating storm.
It flushed the vast sky of moisture, then waters turned to mist.
Thunder’s shriek drifted away into the night.
Worrying about the few lightning bugs my cousin had captured,
I hoped they had been spared, and found their way home.
Released from a Mason jar prison, they’d flown away quickly.
Their brief time as a faint lantern ended.
Their glow was too dim to usher a path for me to follow.
Perhaps they were beacons for my dreams.
When those dreams brought morning’s sunrise,
I woke with optimism.
The day of sweltering sun
dried remnants of last evening’s drenching.
So quickly through the day the landscape baked.
In the shade, I leaned against the oak tree’s bark.
Imprints were indenting my back with decoration.
Dried grasses crinkled and crumpled under my bare feet.
My mind shifted back and forth
from my library books to dripping Popsicles.
Would my life hold up against the world’s stormy agenda?
I’d never wanted the flash and cash of fame and fortune.
My dreams were not complicated, nor intricate.
I’d dreamed of the whispers of a thousand fireflies.
What would become of me when I grew up?
I vowed never to blink at earth’s loveliness.
I promised never to ignore kindness and love.
My Kansas dreams were never grandiose.
I wanted my own release from a Mason jar.
For I needed to light a moment of night.
I wanted nothing more than to place words together.
I needed only to write my heart’s language.

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Please check out my love poetry in the best-selling poetry collection, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Roses Read, Volume 3; and Wet Violets, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. These books are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, please check out Appointment with a Smile, the 2013 Lambda Finalist in the Romance category, by Kieran York. A new books is scheduled for release in the summer of 2013, title Careful Flowers. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Books Distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon.

Listening In

Posted on June 24, 2013 by Kieran York

LISTENING IN ON EQUALITY

Any moment a ruling will be uttered or muttered, or shouted, or whispered. It will have to do with equality. Am I good enough to have the rights that all Americans should have? You be the judge. Well, actually, there are robed Justices doing the judging. Beyond that there are the American people.

LISTENING IN ON EQUALITY

I listen in on equality.
Superficial music blooms with an unrelenting promise.
Across the airways, love happens or it is being gutted.
Long ago forgotten, the subject plagues me.
As if it has become lightning’s jagged tongue, it blares.
I squint to see where decency might be.
I recognize the lyrics, for the song is titled Insta-Bully.
It talks trash.
The lead singer was just released from hatred’s lockdown.
Legislation is bait and switch.
As if words are souvenirs tossed into the barrenness,
musical notes wane.
Theoretical concepts have their own atmosphere.
Artificial emptiness has never impressed me.
Cascading volcanos of spewing intolerance burns.
Brains filled with ego do not entreat my sympathy.
Sludge brags as it paints injustice.
I overhear crud as it splats against clean walls.
Lucidity is sacred, and has flocked to the streets.
Bigotry sound exactly like cringe-worthy shouts.
Once impelled toward hatred, smarmy words fade.
Hearts locked in dark silence begin their histrionics.
Their authorship hides beneath shame.
The font of harm prints only litter.
If love is seeped in culture, I hope to soon hear its roar.
I wander the byways of eternity.
My shoulders sag, folding with age.
Ravaged, I march on.
For my torrent of energy hears the drums of equality.
An answer becomes my destiny – my ballad.
My choir garb is frayed by disappointment.
With rusty shovels, I excavate, and examine fate.
With tight-fisted heart, I search and hope.
Does a human heart have nerves?
Who owns eternity?

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Please check out my poetry in the best-selling poetry collection, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Roses Read, Volume 3; and Web Violets, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. These books are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, please check out the 2013 Lambda Finalist in the Romance category, Appointment with a Smile by Kieran York. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Books Distribution for books or e-books. Books and e-books are also available through Amazon.

A Cautious Lover’s Mumblings

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Kieran York

The following poem was written when I was in my mid-twenties. Although I’ve changed, many of my mumblings have not. It’s always interesting to return to early roads, and past beliefs. Crossroads. This is from an early volume of my published poetry and the copyright is 1974. A very long time ago.

A CAUTIOUS LOVER’S MUMBLINGS

Rushing up and out against reason, and no optimism is worth the slam you are aware is hiding, just waiting to leap out of the dark and tangle itself into your deepest secrets.

Spread out into a layered slip-cover, the moment that beckons you greets the un-understandable.

Ok, say it to life. Say it all. Reach into you and pull out a fistful of truth – your own brand of truth. Touch that finely tune, precision instrument of you, and try not to be impressed.

I’m going to grab a few blades of grass in my hand and pretend that the green represents my soul. No bull about plain old grass for grasses sake. I’ll run my hand over the grass, the uneven, unplanned, stretching grasses.

I feel the shade, a sleeping coolness of shade. How much of life crosses over us, how indifferent we are to the shade. And yet, we weave our meaning together.

When I smile, you know what I mean. We mash our thoughts, tears, and smiles and we watch the leaves drop and become pounded into cement and as we watch the streaming, palpitating stars hanging on and knitting together a universe.

Ok, try to comprehend a comet or a smile. But first, I’m asking you to empty yourself out and show me your underneath fears and doubts. Scrape off crust, exterior, and let me touch the deep you that is so well-hidden.

Collars and yokes are never shrugged off without a struggle. So show me the inside. I’ve seen the rest. Nestled between the pews of church, within the partitions of office talk, trickling sweat between lovers in seedy motel rooms – never deep enough.

I’ve heard the rest. The sounds you make over coffee, against a spray of gin, all designed to tell me what I want to hear, what you want me to hear.

Stop impressing me a minute. Allow me to stop impressing you. Peel away the layer, the skin of the drum and tell me the beat, where it originates – its womb. Allow it to trickle out and into me. Don’t pull back. Let the noise of you spill out and capture me.

Let the touch we share agree with what ingredients we are made up of. Don’t give me the tree’s bark, I want the roots. The veins, sinew, marrow of the very heart. Carve away the part I view and allow me to feel the tickling truth that is you. And don’t be afraid, I’ll also be discarding my armor.

Allow the breathing that once pretended to be a windstorm blowing against my center core. Overcome me with you. Penetrate into me and allow me to penetrate you. Don’t button out your meaning. Please don’t zipper off your mind from me. Don’t reject my pleas as if they were lonely words emerging from tonight. Take them up and work them into a pliable communique. Barter with me, challenge me, threaten me, and finally allow us to submit to one another – both victorious. Seeking not to destroy nor to be destroyed.

Walk into me, allow me to walk into you, grabbing up all of what makes us whole and complete. Holding one another’s beliefs and values in both hands to be closely examined and held with care. And as I pass through and into you, remember how we are all one. How very one we all are.

Green lights shimmering and telling us that it’s alright to pass into one another await us. Swim into my current, fly freely into the brightness of my light. Hammer your confidence and your secret you into me. Allow me to shatter the bricks and mortar and gain entry into you.

Don’t polish your exterior, don’t paint your interior. Slot me straight into you. No detours, no bull. Just tell me where you are. Don’t leash me to you, but allow me to pull myself into you. Come not against me, but into me. Allow us to intertwine and become one another.

We touch the grasses together, we become the universe. And when we become ourselves within the universe, and within one another – we make love.
Copyright 1974 Kieran York

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Please check out my poetry in the best-selling poetry collection, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Roses Read, Volume 3; and Wet Violets, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. These books are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, Please check out the 2013 Lambda Finalist in the Romance category, Appointment with a Smile by Kieran York. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order though Bella Book Distribution for Books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon

Poems of Yesteryear

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Kieran York

POEMS OF YESTERYEAR

On this layback Sunday morning, I chat and laugh with those I love. I survey the backyard, and my plans for intermingling herbs with sweet vegetables, and with ingenuity. And I rummage through my papers and books of yesteryear.

This morning I found two poems in a previously published book of my poetry. The year was 1976 – at least that was the report on my copyright. The poetry could have been written anywhere from the invention of earth’s stones – to 1976.

Although most of my poetry is now written on a computer – those poems were either handwritten or they were composed via a typewriter. They are both written from my heart as a youthful writer.

Heart as a writer! Hmmmmmm. Is that the heart that batters its way across a landmine- filled acreage of words? Punctured and mutilated, and sometimes exiled and scorned? Is it the heart that finds joy in a simple phrase? Or is placed upon an altar, or emulated, or loved?

Although at the time I primarily was writing journalistic feats about twenty-story buildings being tossed together, and a lost dog, and maybe a blurb about a fifteen-pound cabbage.

I took breathing time on Sundays to write poetry, stories, and other scribblings. “Mood Typer” and “A Writer” were two of my contributions – they explained the emotion and the longing I had and have for words.

MOOD TYPER

From the keyboard of existence, I sketch moods.
Exaggerated and underplayed, I twist events to manufacture poetry.
Jotting words that translate time.
Feisty and aware, counterpart to the zealot.
Downtrodden, lingering and shirking my duty to execute an exacting appraisal.
Argumentative and callous, when looking at the harshness of past events.
Sensitive, weighing carefully, I observe with compassion and love.
Objective and subjective, and seldom realizing the difference.
Trying to evaluate a never-ending series of emotion.
Slicing away at the words and editing out the milder moods, I am.
Penciling in the sideshows – developing a continuation of thought.
Meaning it, as I attempt to create mood portraits.
With quiet desperation – wanting to understand.
Feeling the vibs generated by a network of today.
A compulsive attempt to paint a social commentary – I pound a keyboard.
Going deeper and deeper into that commitment to capture an illusion.
Secret revelations of the interior have clutched me tightly.
Bypassing punctuation and carving away adjectives – I pour words.
Self is being exposed.
Painful, elevating, exhausting, and mostly meaning it.
Mostly attempting to mean it.

A WRITER

An interior flasher of sorts – a writer is.
Trying for the social commentary,
I’m tapped into the Muse.
Writing and tissue-papering a chronicle of today.
Peeling back and letting you witness my tranquility and my rage.
Me.
So why are you discussing punctuation and spelling –
when we could be taking about my meaning?
Insecurities are always a fun topic.
I can tell you what hurts me.
When I feel the pangs of war, I cringe as I jot them.
When I tell of hate’s terrible chain, my heart shrivels.
And I can pull back the flesh and let you peer in to see a happy beat.
The moment I experience an unfolding columbine.
A smile from a wayward stranger, who wants to see my smile.
Who needs to recognize my human hope.
A writer is an emotional stripper of sorts.
Because of financial gains and fame?
I’m told I must first die.
Why then?
A promissory note.
I know you understand.

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Etiquette and Elegy

Posted on June 4, 2013 by Kieran York

ETIQUETTE OF MORNING

The etiquette of morning exists within tame hearts.
Luminosity’s candor is the fresh smell of daybreak.
We are inspired by the gentle waking of earth.
As each roll of our orb shrugs us to light, we begin.
From synthetic dreams, we languish with contentment.
Trees, grasses, and flowers have a debonair strut as they grow.
Midmorning’s hesitancy bring new exhilaration.
It isn’t over, the graciousness of morning.
Unfiltered sunbeams have time before midday’s arrival.
Rays cultivate, regenerating warmth.
Even clouds give a diaphanous glow.
Mosses and lichens are encrusted upon staunch granite.
We have neared them as we walk.
Sprouting sprigs of blooming twiggy plants brush our legs.
Feathery leaves, with gentle touches, protrude.
Tufted petals open to swallow down sunlight.
They fail to recognize that they are life’s inducements.
Other breathing species crouch, and sprawl.
Mornings make us venturesome.
Propriety allows kindness.
Etiquette requires concern for others.
Romance is our greatest reason.
It is so like the gentleness of daybreak.

ELEGY OF A DAY

What is our private elegy of a day?
Are we here to take the pulse of meteors and magic?
We are humanity, and believe ourselves life’s linchpin.
Existence idles its way to become Homo sapiens adrift.
Our minds empower us with capability.
Wisdom is our resource.
Nudged by kindred concern, we attempt to please one another.
Yet we require stop-signs and fences.
Trapped by earth’s gravity, be banish one another.
But also, we covet the humanness we share.
Our mission – could it be learning the world?
Understanding our bounty, as well as our hazards?
Or living with the vicious nature of an earth searching mischief?
Our planet’s divine and disheveled moments are everywhere.
There are magnificent plundering experiments – yet we remain.
Our inscription is a riddle of antique messages.
Time has welded many clues within earth’s crusty quarry.
Nature has been compressed by carved ditches, and sprawling waters.
Outside our periphery are whirling gigantic marbles.
Within our own is a strident exchange of arctic blasts and blistering lava.
There is a mystical research of nature long ago sealed away.
Life’s residue reminds us of our value.
Nudged from rock and soil, we migrate.
We learn our world and ourselves – if we are fortunate.
We come to know another heart – if we are blessed.
Our elegy is the day we spend here together.

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If you are interested in romantic fiction, please check out the 2013 Lambda Finalist in the Romance category, Appointment with a Smile by Kieran York. Books are available through www.bluefeatherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Books Distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon.

My latest book, Careful Flowers is scheduled for release mid-Summer.

Lace and Denim

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Kieran York

LACE AND DENIM

Lace and denim – I wear them both.
As I’ve aged with the splendor of lace and the durability of denim,
I’ve inserted both inside my poetry and prose.
My youth has faded into after-hours times.
Tarnish may have built up, but patina is well-layered.
Yet my heart is never far from being center.
I’m in the middle of a tranquil and wondrous life.
I chuckle when admitting that my emotion
compares to a well-ridden horse.
Much of my life I’ve been a stray mustang.
I’ve galloped lighted paths enamored with all.
My mainstay has been interior peace.
I belong to a once-hidden sisterhood.
We are now in clear sight, and proudly so.
Our love is mostly a generous guardianship.
Shakespeare had written about black vesper’s pageants.
Okay, over the years I’ve had wounds,
but they became my heart’s foster care.
Sappho mentions her heart has been shaken by love.
My winter song is unshaken.
I wrap my skin with lace, and then slip into denim.
Perhaps we women exist within our own revolution.
We share healing psalms, and the embrace of reverence.
Sonnets are written when exuberance throws off sorrow.
Romance is an ego massage kneading another’s heartbeat.
Indoctrinated by homespun philosophy,
my epigram is nearly always visible.
Genet speaks of love’s worst traps;
Whitman asks if self can be given.
I know very little about the fabric of humanity,
other than the moments I love.
Youth recognizes odes to ovaries.
Age knows the edit by heart.
And I’ve learned the kiss of a sunrise is magnificent.
Just as the embrace of moonlight warms me.
So many patches cover my ancient soul.
I believe in words spoken by wisdom through letters.
Compositions speak to all ages, all through the ages.
My existence has been a song only time can best sing.
Romance and friendship are the handrails of living.
Lace and denim are my armor – I wear them both.

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Please check out my poetry in the best-selling poetry collection, Sappho’s Corner Poetry Series: Roses Read, Volume 3; and Wet Violets, Volume 2. Edited by Beth Mitchum. The books are available through http://ultravioletlove.com and Amazon.

If you’re interested in romantic fiction, please check out the 2013 Lambda Finalist in the romance category, Appointment with a Smile by Kieran York. Books are available through www.bluefetherbooks.com. Or order through Bella Books Distribution for books or e-books. Books and Kindle e-books are also available through Amazon.

Kieran York

Embellish Your Smile

Tag Archives: Kieran York poetry

Introducting Scarlet Clover

Lighthearted Yesteryear

Kansas Dreams

Listening In

A Cautious Lover’s Mumblings

Poems of Yesteryear

Etiquette and Elegy

Lace and Denim