She walks to the end
of dark uncurling days
at the edge of the earth,
witnesses the new day
split open–
petals soft,
beautiful.
She’d give it to herself
could it be contained,
arranged within some vase,
held within her hands,
that cannot hold
such flowering strength.
She breathes in hope,
taking it deep into her lungs
where oxygen mingles
with blood and becomes one—
a seed took root in the moment
as all things familiar to her die.
With ramshackle shards Of heart, soul, self Falling away like the browned petals Of a long-wilted bouquet, We create a riotous noise In ramshackle attempts To find some connection. Lumbering, awkward attempts At reaching out to touch once again, To replace, to freshen The brown wilted and missing parts With new bouquets of spring Whose stems sit in eternally Fresh, clean waters. We dream of a life lived No longer ramshackle, With no long-wilted bouquets Of a past to haunt with falling petals, But a life returning whole, To move without noise Through the world once again.
Like some ancient voodoo priestess,
Fears sits and smiles from her rocking chair.
Tilting her gray head to her work at hand,
Fear embroiders in red thread
The narratives of my old scars.
She stitches in orange and green thread
The flowers of my poorly made cobwebbed choices.
She stitches in black thread
The vanquished vines of all my loss and pain.
She stitches in yellow thread
Her flowers of caution at the edges,
All the while chanting an ancient spell,
Giving her stitched yellow flowers
Magic to steal any power in the air,
Paralyzing– daring the pulse.
Fear stitches away in red thread
On the last cloth of daring I’ve left,
And I, I am paralyzed by the stitching made.
A phoenix rises in flames
From out the left side of my chest
With feathers of flame yet,
Set free to fly where it wills.
One day, it will return,
Nuzzling deep inside my chest again,
All the ashes gone,
All flame having died away,
Its fiery colored feathers
Whispering, singing to my blood
Of beauty seen,
Of tantalizing things touched,
Of all the air breathed, smelled, felt,
Of the sounds soft and harsh heard
All along the way around the earth.
Through the whispered tales
Of those fiery feathers
My blood will tell me
Where I am to go.
I hesitate in remembrance
as if the fates would choose
a day of gray and leave me there,
as if a blossoming could be had upon
a second visitation to any day.
The creamer clouds disperse and swirl
in my extra strong coffee
like memories of things I wanted–
never had, never attained
all those years ago.
Stirring the coffee still,
I stare out the kitchen window.
Decide against a bird feeder
filled with black oil sunflower seeds.
I do not want cardinals here.
People say cardinals are spirits
of those you’ve lost come to visit you—
No. I want no cardinals here.
No spirits of the lost to visit or say hello.
No twittering or chittering away.
No vibrancy of color outside this window.
No. Not here. Not in this place.
I’d rather this be a spiritless place,
A virgin place, void of spirits, void of touch—
At least for a time
Sleeplessness always told the story
Between the here and the now
The between and
What she thought a game
The tracks that led to nowhere
The last section of a living
Something not well lived
A swirl of memory
Piercing through knots
could not be undone
She had lived with no plan
With only a heart that failed
More than once
A heart she could not ever trust
A heart that spoke in religious tongues
She’d yet to understand
Its rhyme or reason for speaking
In lies and whispers,
For leading her astray,
For leading her to abandon her dreams and plans,
She would never know.
This was her last act, in her last years,
To strip herself of harlequin clothes.
Ripples of a soul
Touching mine
To find, to feel such joy–
There is nothing
Of eloquence in luck.
Only brutality
To be had
In coincidence.
Nothing of sustenance
In fate or destiny.
So, show me not the good side.
No best foot forward
Do I want to see.
We are damned and damaged all
From the emptiness
Of first impressions.
I care not to taste the beauty
Within your soul.
But I thirst for the darkness
Of all the monsters
You have hidden away.
Display for me
The ugliness of all your demons
Dazzle me with blackest diamonds shining
Within the soul of your devil’s self.
Then let me decide
Not by beauty dazed,
But by darkest of demon devils unfazed
To know and love you
Anyway.
summer hot, humid
kills desire of sweetness
flowers forgiveness
falls decaying death
forgiveness dead leaves lifeless
blacken a gift heart
winter freezing ice
a cold weapon forgiveness
to cut the giver
spring new life begins
forgiveness lifeless, no seed
to plant, grow—never
The bird of flame rises
From the ashes in my chest—
Ash of forgiveness
Never given.
https://amanpan.com/2020/08/17/eugis-weekly-prompt-night-meets-day-august-17-2020/
What a sight the years have been!
Skipped a few heartbeats
walking through the valley,
found nothing new.
I sailed an ocean
didn’t dance as I’d wanted too.
In the desert,
I played a little poker,
winning the game, some money,
but still didn’t know what to do.
Then I thought I’d found a dream,
waking from the nightmare,
I screamed to see
the sight beside me.
Now, I journey onward
to catch the sunlight
as night meets day,
greeting what new sights
I encounter along the way.
My lessons in listening:
To a mother’s final words—
Always remember I loved you and was proud
Tossed off, too rushed to leave work
To get to the hospital, to see her,
Always thinking of more days, time.
Not thinking all I’d see,
Her dead eyes.
To all my dogs– little tells
Of cocked heads, whines, barks,
The ways of wagging tails,
To know what meant what–
Hunger, pain, desire to play,
A need for love or to go outside.
Those I’ve always learned well.
To students, the teens I taught,
A puzzle to figure of pieces and placement
What each meant for each—
The lift of a shoulder, how the eyes met or did not meet mine,
The head upon the desk, the work done or not,
The things said, not said—
To figure needs-
Some basic, some not so,
Requiring other safety nets,
Bruised and broken,
Some I could help repair.
I knew what to listen for,
Almost by instinct,
Since I had not been listened to
When I was one of them.
To my child, a whirlwind of cries,
Hunger, diaper, cold, hot, sick—
Each cry different
A knowing, animal instinct,
Some primal thing beating
Inside knew the way
Of my infant’s need.
When a teen—
A different thing,
A new species of need,
My animal and her animal
Had no common language
Of smells, signals, or cries
In the darkened tunnels
We went through.
To my dying wife, my dying wife—
So hard to listen to, to understand
a language no longer including
My daughter or me.
Never knowing for whom
The last coma spoken words–
I’m sorry, so sorry—
Were spoken.
Now, I learn the final lesson of listening,
A lesson sixty years in the learning,
To myself, my own heart, my own soul.
Sharing words of Support, Motivation and Compassion
~ Communicator, WordSmith, Artist, Guide, Mentor, Muse ~
Where writers gather
Atmospheric Mind Flow
Driveling twaddle by an old flapdoodle.
stories, poems and more
May the Words Flow
Poets lie all the time but there are some truths only poetry can tell.
Now we see through a glass, darkly
The Writer
Just a small town girl who writes about Christian stuff.
Musings on life, love, and healing past trauma
Sharing Poetry and Hugs
Poems, Ramblings and Photography
KL CALEY
Inspiration and Spirituality **Award Free**
Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
A dose of fetish. Good friends. An incomparable muse.
These are my inner thoughts, passions and inspirations.
An insight to a heart mind and soul.
An onion has many layers. So have I!
To participate in the Ragtag Daily Prompt, create a Pingback to your post, or copy and paste the link to your post into the comments. And while you’re there, why not check out some of the other posts too!
Alternative haven for the Daily Post's mourners!
A Public Sphere for Poetry, Politics, and Nature: over 400,000 monthly users
Echoes of Life, Love and Laughter
Poetry
Poems and psychosis.
Showcasing the best of short films and screenplays from the LGBTQ+ community. Screenplay Winner every single month performed by professional actors. Film Festival occurs 21 times a year!
A Discovery of Enlightening Insights, Information, Humor, Writings and Musings
Artist by choice, photographer by default, poet by accident.
Premium Poetry Page Peskily Pondered Pointedly
Doing the best I can to keep it on the bright side
An Old Plumber, An Ex-Carer, An Amateur Poet, Words From The Heart
Celebrating what makes Brittany unique
A storyteller with a poetic heart
...poetry, stories & rants.
Stephen Fuller *** Poetry, Essays
Poetry by Devon Brock
by Lize Bard
Experiments in Creative Writing, and more ....
Author Aspiring
My views; a broad.
Less is not enough.
When Map and Terrain Differ.... Follow the Terrain
The Truth for Kyle
Hearing The Mermaids Sing 