I had an argument with all my words today.
For they would not stay
in their delightfully organized spots.
Seems, if you will,
they wanted to jump around and play,
ignoring the sense of my color coded dots.
I must admit I lost my patience, yelling,
“We will never accomplish
anything useful if you play
In this most rambunctious way.”
To this, they in unison whined,
“Why must we be serious all the damn time?”
And to that, I could not provide argument.
Thus, we decided to play
And took a vacation today.
The Rabbit
https://amanpan.com/2021/06/10/eugis-weekly-prompt-nature-june-10-2021
When trying to respond to Eugenia’s prompt this week, this poem, which I posted a couple of years ago kept coming into my head, and no matter how I tried, it would not go away. In this reposting, it is my hope that it serves some purpose. Perhaps, someone will gather something from it.
A rabbit stilled,
Motionless, as if frozen
In the summer grass
Only her nose twitched, flared
The scent of wrongness–
A touch upon the air,
And she knew
Only flight carried safety
Flight, the right choice to make—
If she could only still move.
But she could stand only statue still
And standing so, the trap sprung
Steel teeth clamping down,
Slicing through skin,
Chewing through chunks of muscle
As she struggled,
Daring not to scream
As screams would bring the predators.
This she knew too well.
The trap now biting into bone,
Her struggles stopped.
Her panting calmed.
Her head rested upon the grass.
One eye looked to a cloudless sky.
She prayed for strength to chew
Through bone.
Change Bringer
Sing softly to me
Among the verdant trees
Of youthful revelry,
Where memory learns
With fire’s touches,
Lightning to a soul’s dark soil,
Giving life to fire within
As your song soothes
Such a sweet resounding ache.
The Itch
https://godoggocafe.com/2021/06/08/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-june-8-2021/
Today’s prompt: Write a poem that uses the words “weary”, “nails”, and “mind control”
I weary.
Weary of the white noise
Spitting out layers
Striated stone
Of itching mind control,
Of mica and gypsum
Rough, itchy flakes
Others carved out for me
To keep me in what they
Saw as my place.
My nails worn down, bloody raw
To relieve the itch from time to time
The itch that speaks the words
I know are not true
But still have the power
Of stone to crush the ribs
Of my soul with the weight
Of their damnable tonnage
That I am not enough of anything
Not smart enough
Not pretty enough
Not thin enough
Not good enough
For anything or anyone
Yes, I know—
None of it is true—
The stone skin
I’ve worn down
Over all these years,
The itch rarely there.
But sometimes—
Sometimes—
The itch returns—
Vicious, relentless
Until my nails,
Bloody and raw,
Leave me weary.
Yet still,
Still, I now create
My own place.
Morning
No words in the moment.
Just touch,
Feeling.
No adequate metaphors
To be found.
No fancy turns of phrases
To be made.
A breath.
Watch the sun rise.
No dance of words
To map the moment.
Simple really,
A heartbeat close.
A breath.
A touch.
A feeling.
A moment.
Captured.
Crescendo
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/category/weekend-writing-prompt/
Crescendo, sun rise,
Swells an upsurge of color,
Fades too fast for me.
Ever loudening,
The business of the day trades
Scenes of memories.
Diminuendo comes,
An end, a small death of colors
As day slowly fades.
Meadows of Distance
https://amanpan.com/2021/06/03/eugis-weekly-prompt-meadows-june-3-2021/
The meadows between here and there,
an impediment now,
like the roads, sky, cities.
I’ve no time, no time
to appreciate the colorful heads of wildflowers
or any verdant greens of tall roadside grasses,
or swaying graceful golds of fields.
All these measuring meadows of distance—
Sky, road, cities, fields–
meadows of separation,
meadows of longing,
meadows of want—
should know a burnless flame
Washed
https://new2writing.wordpress.com/2021/06/03/writephoto-beach/#like-5743
( An older poem written in 2015 while in Provincetown, MA. Revised for this week’s writephoto challenge.)
At sunrise over water,
Remembering as if in a dream
The child and you and me
As we stood by a sea
Half a world away.
Both of you now baptized differently by my tears.
And for and from you,
I am left with things neither given
Nor felt in years,
Linked by all the fears
To form over a decade of a life
Lived like a stranger
In my own shrinking skin.
I have stood
Since the dawn
At this ocean’s edge
Waiting, waiting.
And now at noon
The rain begins.
Fierce pelting blows
Washing me clean
Of all I know
Or dare to dream.
For living continues
Within my own skin
Dawn
Clouds drift in night’s sky,
Stretching,
As if yearning,
To touch the horizon,
Dawn yet hours away–
She neither “walks in beauty
Like the night” as Byron wrote
Nor does she stand upon a scallop shell
Riding the sea foam to shore
As Botticelli painted—
No, nothing so over done
Simply, she rises, flaming
Over the desert mountains.
The Willow Trees
https://onewomansquest.org/2021/05g/24/vjs-weekly-challene-trees/
In the stillness of days between,
The willows long to reach across the stream,
Breaching distance impossible.
Without the breeze,
Their branches hang in solitude,
Their leaves nearly tears,
Longing drips with want heavy in the air
Until finally—thunder—
Lightning— A breeze teases,
Limbs reaching,
Almost, nearly touching—
And then the wind begins,
Whipping one direction,
Then another, almost swirling,
Limbs, leaves touch
Across the stream
Solitude breached.
