"callisto" poems
could someone please tell me
of the moons intentions
and of their affair
with Jupiter's rings
when lo and behold
Io has a fire in her belly
snowy volcanic fields
burning ice in her spring
Europa stands by
displaying cold shoulders
with oceans below
life she does bring
brother Ganymede
pulls it together
dark are his regions
light his terrain
beaten and battered
Callisto the stepchild
unchanged in its matter
and the song that it sings
is this all true
of Jupiter's moons
and of their intentions
could someone tell me
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 7:15 PM UTC
I am Jupiter storms
Unabounded by time
Raging on
And eons
Can not hope to confine me
To unstable matter
And mass
Rearranging
My molecules morphing
To liquefied jewels
And my surface
A canvas
Of unrefined fuels
Like an abstract mosaic
Of swirling
Unfurling
Tempests of archaic
As constellations
And the ages I've waited
And slumbered and spun
Into memories
Faded
And taken the names of your gods
As my payment
Inflating my ego's
Mesmeric rotations
So quick to claim hearts
Of Europa's amidst
My seductive, enchanting
Illusory bliss
Venture into my centrifuge
Fumy abyss
I have pressed up my lips
Of a frigid, wet steel
And then sealed
With a kiss
What ‘nary
A planetary
Can resist
And as she revolves
Around me
And gives life
Io dances about me,
Callisto my wife
Ganymede my seed
And the rest of my progeny breed
Future needs
What the Earthlings will need
To make up for their greed
All will see
Look to me
In my enormity
As my reservoirs
Fill them
With infinity
Mar 30, 2019
Mar 30, 2019 at 3:44 AM UTC
If we stop learning moon names at Callisto
and Ganymede, where are the other sixty-three
whoop, there goes gravity
If Themisto stubbed his toe, how could we
teach everyone else to cringe?
We are growing,
Elara, we are learning how to reach
higher with the hands we’ve got,
how to be tiny dots full of not-quite fire
in a world so much bigger than desire.
The best advice you gave me,
Elara, was when you silently tied back
your hair and rolled up your sleeves,
cleared your throat and decided
It’s not the fire after all, it’s the light.
And I might have burned out by now
if you hadn’t just rolled up your sleeves
like that, not flaming or fuming or
running or burning but steady,
ready for the rest of forever.
You are fire and water at once,
Elara. You take my hand and we walk
calmly upward, one step
for me and one for you makes two
for womankind.
Stepping over the black hole
of expectations and into the revelations
of well-lit night. You and me,
Elara, now we’re ready.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 1:16 PM UTC
To the man who raised me where my own father couldn’t,
Papa… where do I even begin?
I love you more than words could ever express. I will always cherish our time together- even though I will forever hate that we could not have more- and all the lessons you taught me. You were the most sincere, hard working, admirable and loving person I will ever have the fortune of knowing.
You were my protector, my knight in shining armour, my superhero, my rock, my anchor, my confidante, my defender, and my best friend. There will never be a man in my life who could ever measure up to your strength, love and kindness.
I’m sorry I’m not ready to let you go… nor do I think I ever will be. I guess part of me just thought you would be here with me forever. I really wish that were the case… but if it’s time for you to go, I guess I can settle for you being my guardian angel instead.
I also just want to thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for always being there for me without ever questioning it or wavering.
Thank you for holding my hand and guiding me.
Thank you for wiping my tears, hugging me tightly and always knowing how to comfort and cheer me up.
Thank you for protecting me.
Thank you for always having my back and supporting me.
Thank you for all the times you soothed my anxiety attacks growing up.
Thank you for all the nights you spent up with me when I was afraid.
Thank you for your undying love and support.
I can’t ever thank you enough for everything.
I miss you so much. I wish I could talk to you once more. I wish I could tell you how much I love and miss you. I wish I could thank you and apologize. I wish I could joke around with you.
I wish I could have you sing to me- in that god awful tone-deaf singing voice of yours that always made me laugh. I’d even put up with you singing Chicken Talk.
I wish we could have had more time, but I know that no amount of time would ever have been enough. I got you for almost 25 years and I guess that will have to be enough.
I would give anything just to be able to tell you this and for you to be able to hear me and respond. I know you’d tell me not to cry and not to be sad. I know you would tell me you love me and always will. I know you’d also tell me to take care of Nonna and Callisto, Nova and the kids.
I just wish more than anything I could actually hear you saying those things.
You are my sunshine, papa…
Always, your little girl.
Jun 2, 2021
Jun 2, 2021 at 3:51 PM UTC
Dear World
I'm no Aphrodite
I have not the powers
of Zeus
I might be closer
to Hades
but I'm not so
obtuse
I can't handle separation
just like Persephone
or handle rejection
like Narcissus
I'm not built like that
you see?
I don't dance like Callisto
nor frolic like Nereid
I would like think
I'm not so frivolous
as that
I'm not one to look upon
a perfectly formed vista
and pronounce myself
Queen of all
but in a small voice
in the dark of night
I whisper
I'm not Atlas either
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 3:12 AM UTC
Last night,
I told Jupiter
to sell me one of her
many moons.
Well, you can't have
Callisto.
How about Europa?
No.
Then can Amalthea
become my own?
There was silence
in waiting
for
what
I'd expect.
it's been quite
a while
actually,
a good many months
until I remembered
that small dot of silver
hung up in my room.
just where it
belonged
I found myself too.
I spoke with Jupiter
for an hour tonight
She asked "How is Thea?"
I said,
"She's doing all right."
How good of her
to want to know.
My moon is my anchor
and I love her so.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 2:44 PM UTC
Your presence passes me
like a slow-moving satellite
revolving around
my head, slurred
into mesh—so gravitated.
Love is a shade which
covers me close
to your body, in sync
like the movements of the planets,
pivoting harmonious in the
deep, dark mystery
of your sheltered embrace,
and the universe seems
to settle around me
calm and constellated.
Your eyes, a deep depiction
in the mind, so starry, I
see nothing more
but stars.
Bright as the brilliance
of the fire of my affection
at the core of my soul, lit
with passion, intense
as a thousand suns, a
million moonlit galaxies,
is my love which seems
to have no end.
Your presence passes me,
a slow-moving satellite
revolving around
like a moon to Jupiter,
boy, I feel that pull.
Aug 15, 2015
Aug 15, 2015 at 4:59 PM UTC
*Variegated Summer constellations along
the Eastern gaze , Sagittarius , draw your bow ,
shoot a star Earths way
Big Dipper , extinguish the thirst of Greek heroes ,
Ursa Major hath quelled the passion of Callisto ,
the tail of Haileys Comet filling the night
with wishes and tender innuendo*
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 10:51 PM UTC
A fox sits in the forest at the foot of my house.
Each morning
she intertwines with the sunrise, materialising through graceful leaps
It leaves me breathless;
all I can do is bathe in awe.
One morning I extend my hand
and she engulfs me, gracefully
I become whole again. We dash through trees
and fields and meadows
She dances, and leads me gently to the tips of the earth
Her breath resounds against hillsides, and as I fall
I catch almost a glimmer of
light-dipped roses, and golden daffodils.
Apr 6, 2021
Apr 6, 2021 at 6:21 PM UTC
I wasn't on earth, not anymore
I wend one's way to a tranquil ambience whilst transcending my divine self
to a higher Cosmic Celestial being
at the time of eternal halcyon...
the Lacuna,that's what they called it in this time (Space was highly praised)
Suddenly life was unending
I guess that's why they use
light years here
it's counter intuitive
A cosmic pilgrim,
in a buoyantly state..
I peregrinated my way to the place in space
I seeked to fill my existence or of it to fill its existence the aftermath resulted twins
My burning hanker being doused with every feeling of passing an atom, I began to feel more drawned to my destination
From a distance, a visual perception of my terminus appeared before me
Jupiter
The third realm to the
East of my origin with
the four daemons seated in
an aligned parallel order manifesting themselves before my eyes..
Ganymede the colossal daemon
The ancient of them all
Callisto the Cherry blossom
the most alluring, artistic and gratifying in sight of all daemons.
Io the Sun's sister
The last daemon, Europa
the soft Pearl
The sight juxtaposed one's eyes for God's
I never felt so alive before
this was the cream of the crop
of the peacefull atmosphere in space..
sending an aesthetic tsunami tide to my soul's core
I belonged
Dec 10, 2019
Dec 10, 2019 at 7:21 PM UTC
Arctos: The product of an affair
Callisto, single mom to a Little Bear–
Cronusly confined to the night sky,
never kissing the ocean
May 22, 2015
May 22, 2015 at 11:21 AM UTC
like Jericho of the ancients
my walls have found their matchmate, their shofar,
their holy crumbling disintegration -
have sounded the depth
of my abyssal and penetrable, vaginal soul
I am entered through the desolated and tender crevasse
discovered in the arched vault of my love
which treasures not, nor needs
yet knows ee cummings’ “secret of begin” to the outer
borders of my being, the hidden places of my knowing
the right kind of madness, this
of a rightness and a madness so pure, it stings
the perceptions of ordinariness and
makes of ennui - the sinter of a heated being -
anything but
yet, enter my fornix with dread and awe
lest you vitrify it by atomic waves of sorrow
I am fragile, and tender, gentle, strong and destructive
I am death from Life
and
Life from Death
blow your shofar, Ram, and I shall fall into your gravity
I shall be as Callisto to Jupiter,
an orbit by seduction and a
child wombed in Love
c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Oct 29, 2017
Oct 29, 2017 at 11:53 AM UTC
Dusk is brief in valleys.
but daytime slowly washed, skin, scraped carefully
to eat, covered in
scents delivered by transparent bag
mingling with garden trees and the cattle flies from fields nearby.
Rare, imported light-bulb light
passes through hair,
hands sit dwarfed
and distort in wine glasses,
the split *** mumbles rises on the hob
for Callisto outside, dancing prosaically about a very thin pole.
Conversations become excuses to stare at lips,
and songs suggested without conviction
play unfinished.
The music is softer now, the group diminished.
Getting heavier things.
Extremities in particular, and a few more sophisticated objects.
Corkscrews like ingots and eyelashes masscarad in lead.
There are the last lights and the thin summer sheets
that get in the way; stuck to sweaty –‘tertwined and clumsy--
Ash and tannin obscure the smell of gums
(and sometimes even the folded sent of neck and jaw).
More sweat is generated
Sleep does not come
or so it feels
when
morning is slightly too soon
bright and curtainless
and the beauty is sifted fruity and fuckless soft but moaning.
May 26, 2015
May 26, 2015 at 12:46 PM UTC
It's hard to let go and hold on
Let go for a little while...
Dangling from a star
In ebony space
Invisible,
Dangling
Hanging on to how it feels
Drowned in incandescence
Lost in the void
Lost in the void
Touched your fingertip
Before floating away
Oh no
Where did you go
Oh no
Found yourself,
The tip of where
You can't see
Or ever go
Lost in the void
Lost in the void
Always dangling there
Waiting for a glimpse
Of something far off,
Galactic
Still hanging on,
Dangling,
Crystalline trellis
Covered head to toe
With heavenly glow
Danced in Jupiter's rain
Under Callisto's light
And nothing could compare
Shining with a million colors
The whole time
Dangling
Lost in the void
Lost in the void
Dec 27, 2020
Dec 27, 2020 at 11:39 PM UTC