DANDY DOUBLE: Featuring Frances Denise & Dane Osborne

Our very first DANDY DOUBLE features two extraordinary poets who make their homes in southeastern Kentucky. Meet Frances Denise & Dane Osborne– walk with them through wild worlds of poetry, and experience the overlap between the personal and the universal, the present and the eternal. Both of these poets have mastered the craft of noticing, of zooming in with the mind’s eye, exploring the smallest details & movements of life, and weaving their words into masterpieces that address our deepest questions as human beings. What are we doing here? How do we cultivate the garden of the soul? What wisdom can we glean from the forces of nature that surround us? What is our true substance, our purpose, our destiny? How do we interact with the truth once we discover it in our hearts?

Read on and journey through the daring and the dazzling, the mysterious and the majestic. Open your heart to the poetic universes of two marvelous artists, and let the medicine of their words nourish your soul! ⚘

FRANCES DENISE

Frances Denise is a poet, story-gatherer, traveler and mother. She was born and raised in the Philippines and lived her 20s in the UK. Though she is currently in transition, she considers southeastern Kentucky as her home. Her writing expresses her reflections and explorations on peace, freedom, healing, connection and unconditional love within and beyond the human experience. She dreams of one day stewarding land and enjoying a quietly wild life with the people she loves the most.

Follow her on instagram @francesdenisepoetry.

Q&A with Frances

1. Who are your favorite writers and poetry inspirations? Presently I am loving Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Jewel, Jason Mraz, Rising Appalachia, Mary Oliver, Whitney Hanson, Christi Steyn, Stefani @this.lillite.of.mine, Cheyanne Leonardo, Dane Osborne and R. Clift.

2. What topics do you gravitate toward in your writing? Love and connection – relationship with self, others, the earth and the wider multiverse; healing, reclamation, freedom, peace, motherhood.

3. What are your favorite past-times and activities that inform/inspire your writing? Being out in nature (particularly in forests and among wildflowers), gardening, cooking, baking and eating, spending time with my favorite people, enjoying rich conversations with friends, reading, daydreaming, visiting other realities, thinking, thinking, thinking...

4. What are your writing goals? My main goal and intention is to help myself and others reconnect with the love that we are at our core. We are all walking each other back home to ourselves, and with this in mind, I intend for my words to reach those who are seeking them. I aim to publish my first book this year.

Poems by Frances Denise

LAVENDER

These lavender ghosts
Usually a quiet presence
Yet sometimes they paint the sky
Just as they did yesterday
I am comforted by their gentleness
I am reminded that the sun sees my sins
So, when I am still choosing to hide,
When I have yet to forgive myself
I am grateful for the knowing 
That I am seen and held in this
I am reassured that the letters I never sent
The stories I never shared
They are read, they are heard
A home is made for them within the unseen
In the in-between
In the vapor that rises from the rivers
Shifting into clouds 
To fall as rain
Upon the living and the dead
Creating and recreating life
And in another time
In another place
The spirits decide to speak again
Returning as tiny purple petals
With an unforgettable scent
Filled with diaries from the water’s edge
A soft invitation to listen closely
To the music of belonging

⚘

JACK

Jack,
The boy who taught me how to be a mother
With those little fingers so tender
How the whole world changed
When he wrapped them around my finger
I knew then that I would forever protect his heart
A quiet promise made by all mothers,
A wild, fierce love like no other
Is birthed from the spirit to the ether
This little boy, with every smile and every tear
He brings me secrets – 
Wisdom from a world I seek to remember
With every sparkle in his eyes
He whispers his own unique expression –
His gift, his contribution
And it is this that I cherish, nurture and keep free

⚘

LIFE IS EDUCATION

There’s no need for force,
Manipulation nor coercion
Children will learn what they need
In good time
With their own motivation 
Life is filled with enough invitation
For the joys and pleasures of exploration 
There’s no such thing as “too late”
There’s enough curiosity to satiate 
Enough opportunity for expansion 
Enough time for imagination 
It’s the same for you and me –
No matter what age 
Everything we need is already within
We are not empty vessels
We are divine
Perfect by design 
There is intelligence in our essence,
Creativity in our story 
And with hope in our hearts, and Love at our core 
We are here to experience more

⚘

THE INVITATION

I used to be afraid of the dark
Of my own reflection 
Always avoiding poison
Taught to seek perfection 
A man-made prison 
Would you like to know what I did? 
How I got brave?
How I got out?
It was the fascination with fire 
It was the desire to know pain
Mine
And yours
I stopped myself from running 
I surrendered to the invitation 
Because
The most important thing about physics
Is that when you look at something 
It changes 
I learned that 
When you love something 
It glows
When you touch something 
It flows
I opened my eyes
For the first time 
And the dark isn’t so scary after all
As for my reflection?
She taught me compassion 
A key… lesson
Your turn now –
Will you unlock the door?
Will you walk yourself out?

⚘

TREASURES

Will you take my hand?
Let’s go for a walk 
Into that forest there
And pretend that it’s ok
If we are never heard from again
I want to catch up with you
Hear all about 
Where you’ve been all this time
What you heard, what you saw 
All the things you found sad and funny
Blissful moments and ones that made you angry 
Tell me all the things you love
And the things that you detest
Tell me about all the clouds in your sky
All the bizarre things that make you ask why
How you feel when you see the mountains 
What you did when you couldn’t win  
And how you celebrated when you did 
I want to know 
Your personal take on this world 
This reality we can call ours
…if we learn to embrace it 
Hesitantly, maybe 
And perhaps after all the lovemaking
And exploring 
We would re-emerge 
And show them something they haven’t seen in a while 
That wicked smile
That comes with knowing 
All the treasures that are worth holding 

⚘

JOURNALS

I saw myself in a dream once
Writing, writing, writing
In so many journals
Speedily
Trying to run faster than time
Desperately trying to capture
All the moments I never wish to forget
The moments I felt love
Love that was true, unfiltered, real
The moments I fell in love with little things
And big things
Like the brilliant humans and eccentric beings 
Or how cool grass feels on the bottom of my feet
With tenderly hot sunshine warming the top of them
The unique smell of the earth and all that it stirs within me
The magic I experience when I come upon mysterious carpets of moss in the forest
Or belly-aching laughter from an outrageous joke only you and I understand 
The smell of a new book when you flick through the pages 
An unexpected kind gesture from a dear friend 
What it feels like to have chilled butter on freshly baked bread 
Or how I feel whenever I visit that memory etched in my mind 
Of the first time I ever saw you smile 
And the stories, 
Oh the hundreds of stories!
How can I contain it all?
The wonder, the beauty, the pain?
How can I contain it all?
In these limited notebooks 
Filled with pages of lines 
That wish to organize expression, feeling
In ways that perhaps others can comprehend?

It’s impossible. 

So I calm my stirring 
I slow down
I pause and look up
It’s okay that I cannot contain it all
In these journals. 
Instead I could invite you 
To experience this life with me
Maybe in time you’ll see what I see
And I’ll see what you see
And maybe we can peacefully watch the sunset 
Without being moved to tears 
Maybe I’ll be okay not writing about it all
When I have your hand in mine
Knowing that you hold my heart 

𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘

DANE OSBORNE

Dane Osborne was born in London, Kentucky in 1985. He is a mostly self-educated man who has always been fascinated by the combination of words and people along with the rather bizarre and chaotic results of that combination. This is his 12th publication.

Follow him on instagram @daneosborne.85.

Q&A with Dane

1. Who are your favorite writers and poetry inspirations? John Keats, Arthur Rimbaud, Dylan Thomas, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Alfred Lord Tennyson, John Milton, Hart Crane, Antonin Artaud, and T.S. Eliot.

2. What topics do you gravitate toward in your writing? My poetry is mostly about things that only I can see and other people can't see but should see.

3. What are your favorite past-times and activities that inform/inspire your writing? Don't think I can legally say and I have no choice but to plead the fifth … ☺

4. What are your writing goals? To break on through to the other side. Anything less is beyond pointless.

Poems by Dane Osborne

INFORMATION AND INFINITY

Do you exist?
Or do you just believe a false delusion
About how you exist
Begat by false gospels
Taught by false idols
Who say
You go nowhere when you die
And never lived or breathed anywhere 
Before you were born.

I don't know at all myself.
I only see things in energy
And frequency
And patterns
And what I conceive 
I conceive 
Is information which birthed from nothing
And can never die
Which convinces me
We Are All Floating Alive
Within the scope of an infinity 
Which thinks and reasons for itself 
For all eternity.

I refrain,
I do refrain
From any expression of LostBorn Dreams
For the movement and Astral creation
Known forever by organic cyborgs
Who may receive gifts of sincere love
And use them for the destruction of planets.

(Time Revealed Under Technical Hallucination)

⚘

ANIMALS TALK TO THEMSELVES....

Animals talk to themselves 
And then agree with each other about
What they talked to themselves about.
We found out about Life and Time
And it's not been right ever since....
A broke heart spawns birth to violence.

Would I dare imagine free endless morning
Consumed by the whiteness of sunlight
And the mind touched by illusion becoming reality.
What the mind craves most.
Kind eyes get misunderstood before
The annihilation of emotion 
And thus creation of the Impossibility 
Of fireflies which don't die
And memory that mutates into grief.
That grief is a side effect of something 
Which was destroyed and rebuilt 
And starcrushed eyes do not adapt to the vision.

Sometimes animals look at each other and cry
At the melancholy from how our progress let us down
And how we feel cheated by the fascism of beauty.
We animals find peace in the water flowing out
From each other's eyes.

⚘

FACTS OF LIFE

Green Leaves change colors
As the warmth mutates into ice
And all flowers wilt and die.
Then Green Leaves return
After the death of frost.
The birds return
And again their language
Conquers the outside silence 
And becomes the sound of music
At the occurrence of every new Dawn.

(Their Language Is Better Than Our Language)

⚘

AGE OF CATACLYSM BEFORE YELLOW MORNING 

Here in the age of cataclysm 
We are but stoned immaculate in awe of white stars
Under deep purple sky.
I do not become dispassionate at the sight
Of massive explosions displayed on the TV Box
As it gives me leverage for my hopes of what lies above.
I am invisible and that is how I do the impossible.
Can't you see? Oh can't you see?
Those shrill distant screams you always hear
All throughout the night
Are the sounds of you scared as a child in one of your previous lives.
A man who lives under my floor swore that fact to me
And I seen in his eyes he could not lie.

Weep no more.
Oh weep no more.
These days of fire and plague serve as a prelude
For another different fresh age of wine and honey
Which shall occur on a yellow morning
When a new mysticism will come.
You will see.
Yes, you will see.

⚘

REALIZATION

Reward after death
Be just like here only No
Machine guns or jail.

The proud man weeps and laughs at the river.
(A rare child born anew)

⚘

A CHANT

I feel nothing but sincere contrition 
For the burning children of the sun
As they mourn and cry remorseful salt tears
Amid their sad ritual of obsequies
For their lost brothers and sisters
Who could once walk and talk and breathe
Before being destroyed and devoured
By the cold cold heart of the infinite all powerful universe
And my act of deference for their sad broken glass hearts
Is to shatter the indifference of callous time
With patterns of words
To create a spell which shall persuade 
Talking Deities from Outer Space
To offer this Reality Mercy....
Mercy that helps us
Become reborn as eternal youth lost free in the garden.
Once more.
Once more.

𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘

Poems from the Editors

We wish to leave our DANDY DOUBLE with a few surprise words from the editors. A poem from each of us, to both of you… ⚘

• Poems for Frances

  COURAGE

  is a rose quartz carved
  in the shape of a bear,
  clenched so tightly in my fist
  it leaves a blister on my palm.

  what do we have besides stones
  to throw
  to keep
  to heave
  to hold? –

  to ward off enemies
  and protect ourselves
  with eternal
  energy.

  courage is a crown
  a cape
  a golden key –

  a path through the
  illusory.

  –Cheyanne Leonardo
  
  ⚘
  
  A VAN GOGH UNIVERSE

  Swirls of smoky atmosphere
  Currents of seas uncharted
  Highs and lows of sacred soil
  The culmination of ultimate creation
  Surrounded by beauty and art
  In their most perfect state

  Here we are on the same planet
  Fate’s hands surely saw it fit
  To cross our paths along the years
  How lucky am I to speak your name
  So silky upon my lips

  Often I’ve wondered as I gaze up at the stars
  If the same breeze that caressed your skin
  Ever makes its way to mine
  Connecting our souls
  Even when we aren’t side by side

  As time races away I speak aloud
  A plea to our Universe
  To reconnect us in the next plane of existence
  So that we may try this all over again

  –Cari Lynne King
  
  ⚘
  
  GOLDEN HOUR II

  A symphony
  of supernovas
  seems lackluster
  in comparison
  to the radiant
  (and equally
  as blinding)
  aura she emits.

  As the sun kisses
  her cheek through
  stained glass panes,
  he bids goodnight
  knowing that should
  the stars collapse,
  the twinkle in
  her eyes could
  illuminate the
  entire night sky.

  –Amber Sparks

• Poems for Dane

  INHUMANITARIAN

  World War or World Peace
  Division is the way they
  make it all implode

  –Cari Lynne King
  
  ⚘
  
  a tsunami
  before the first
  wave breaks
  a chalk outline
  before the bullet
  has left the chamber
  a forest fire
  before the cigarette
  is ever lit
  a head-on collision
  before the turn
  of the ignition
  i’m a
  carefully contained
  catastrophe

  –Amber Sparks
  
  ⚘
  
  WONDER

  home is the color of smoke – an absurd
  adagio – approaching a pain more alien
  than any music i could have imagined.

  why did i come here?

  to make my masterpiece.
  to haunt the dead.
  to howl her heart.

  to tear through this wasteland of wonder
  and piece together
  a world, amounting

  to joy. to the shimmering demands
  of the unknown. to balance
  the black and the moon.

  –Cheyanne Leonardo

With endless love & gratitude,

the Dandelion Scribes