Category: Destruction

Lessons

Dia de los muertos..makeup by June courtesy of Pintrest.com

This is the lesson of you,

Oh, the things you do teach–

Wearing your blue mantle

Lined in blackness

With your crooked fingers

Tipped in painted red do you reach

Ripping out hearts

Adding to a collection

You keep in a box.

 

Until the day of the dead,

When you light your fake fires

And scented candles,

Spread your blanket

For the time to admire

All hearts in the box of your collection,

Chant your incantations and prayers

To La Muerte for protection

From the evil you spread

And La Llorona for aid

Searching for the newest victim

From whom your red tipped claws long to rip a heart.

 

Washing the World

Image falling into the rain by Moonlight-Rainstorm on Deviant Art
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/05/23/weekend-writing-prompt-158-downpour/
Use the word downpour and create a poem or prose piece in exactly 88 words.  

 

It does begin with whispers of wind,

Steady, slow rhythm of fattened rain drops.

The distant rumbles begin.

Then the slight, quick flashing starts.

Soon the wind howls.

The rain beats as if a beast

Against the windows.

The rumbles, the shouting of an angry God

At the petulant child of a world.

The flashing, the cracking whip

Of our forgotten master.

The downpour is here,

The sobbing of the forgotten,

The hated, the poor,

The ones we were to love.

No ark on this horizon is seen.

flowering

image courtesy of Getty images

Walk to the end of dark uncurling days
at the edge of the earth,
witness it split open
flowering,
beautiful.
I’d give it to you
could it be contained
boxed, bottled,
held within my hands,
weak as they are,
that cannot hold
such flowering strength.

Horrid Spring

image from kilduff’s.com

Wind and rain
Of this horrid spring
Whips us to perfection
Of brokenness being
Beaten souls
That we are
In this time of need
And want of touch.
Our loneness sheltered
Bodies, our silence shattered souls,
Contoured colors of minds
Restrained our madness
In this once upon a time.
If only to wake in the warmth
Of human skin upon skin
Once again in some perfumed swirl
Contained in believing a speck of faith
Preserved as a fly in amber.
That fly who found rest
In warm liquid ooze
But was never to escape.
Yes, grateful to escape to
This fitful rest though, yes,
It is, indeed, blessed.
My mind scatters,
Struggles to find a train of thought
To ride in peace from one station
To the next, make a trip to the elegance
Of a dining car, white glove service
And all else– in contrast—
To this vast emptiness—
With which to wrestle like Jacob,
But my soul has long been crippled.
All the trains left the station,
Ran circles around my heart,
Chugging on into the tunnels
To find there isn’t much
In expectation on the other side
Of those darkened tunnels.
No light, no light,
Just a cold grey
Of a horrid spring.

Arrival of Spring

From google images

Spring arrived

Barely seen.

Our eyes turned inward.

Suspicious of air,

We could not take spring

Deeply into our lungs,

Feel the warmth of it on our skin,

Taste the freshness of it on our tongues

For fear.

We counted our first born

And tried prayer.

Had we forgotten the blood of the lamb

Above the lintel?

We sought protection in distance,

longing for human touch.

Hate and fear drained us.

We grew weary hearing–

Wash your hands

Don’t touch your face

Wash your hands

Prayed Mother Mary full of grace

Six to ten feet apart we must stand

We feared to touch

Our mothers

Our fathers

Our sisters

Our brothers

Our sons

Our daughters

And longed–

All the more–

For touch.

Yes, this will make us aware—

Appreciate what now

We could not do.

Yes, we would improve,

We would appreciate all.

Technology would see us through.

Somewhere in our collective soul

We had doubts, questions–

We had to know–

Hadn’t there been signs?

HIV, Ebola, Bird flu, Swine flu,

Zika, West Nile too,

All killers, all unseen—

Hurricanes, droughts,

Famines, earthquakes—

Natural disasters ripping

The world to shreds.

Had we done this to ourselves?

We hadn’t been the good stewards

We were charged to be.

Drowning seas with plastic, killing bees,

Melting ice caps, making greenhouse gases–

Killing the mother God gave us.

We hadn’t loved each other as we were loved,

As we were instructed to do. 

Then our arrogance, a weed within our souls grew.

We killed, pillaged, maimed, raped, started wars–

For the one skin that made us master,

For the name of God, the only one to worship,

For riches, since the strong should prey upon the weak,

For gender, after all women were things to use,

For sexuality, holy books said there’s but one way to love,

For everything was ours to take.

We’d killed each other

For these grotesquely grandiose ideas,

While calling ourselves Godly,

Saying our actions were sanctioned

By our God, our religion.

Only we knew the natural order of things.

In pride, we claimed

Where we walked—

Holy Ground.

Then guilt filled our lungs,

We finally questioned—

Was this it–

The fourth seal broken?

Had the pale rider been loosed

Upon the land?

While wanting to believe

It was all simply science.

Tears of Fire

https://deadwood-deacon.obsidianportal.com/characters/senior-gabriel

Originally posted in August of 2017.  However, after driving from Dallas to Houston to take care of some business with having a home built and experiencing nearly deserted roads because of the lock downs and quarantines, I thought I’d touch it up a bit and post it again.  

The seven descend.

Each with wings spread

Enough to fill a house.

Shalom not upon their tongues.

Throughout the compass points

They search to find

All the gnawed bones,

The muscles and sinew,

The heart and entrails

Torn with teeth of hate.

And once the seven

Found all the tiny bits,

With flaming swords

Used as needles,

They did try to stitch

All humanity’s bloody bits

Into one thing well knit.

Neither their swords,

Nor spirit of their breath

Did have the power to seal

The meat and sinew to bone.

And then they knew

Those who showed no mercy

Would be given none.

Their heads hung

Inshallah upon their lips

As they ascend.

Their flaming eyes

Weeping tears of fire

As they saw the pale rider

Striding across the land.

The seven knew humanity’s

Avarice and hate

Had broken the fourth seal.

Maa shaa’Allah a whisper of smoke

Within their throats.

Their flaming eyes

Still weeping tears of fire.

No Winning

No winning in this loosing.

Chunks of soil eroded,
Carried away by this freezing rain.

No artifice found in storm winds,
leaving an icy slush of blood
In the veins,

Or the heated words you
Coated with never melting ice.

The fire you set
Left forever unkindled.

How you must love your
Barren winter landscape,
A frozen revenge,
A frosty meaningless game.

Air

Never could breathe
When in your air.

You, your perfume,
Or something in the scent of you
Clogged my nose,
My sinuses,
My bronchial tubes
With fluid like cement,
Leaving me no air
To live on.

Really, suffocation
Never felt so sweet.

You were warmth personified
Like fire you fed on the oxygen
Whenever you wanted,
Wherever you were.
But God, it felt like heaven
To warm myself near your flames.
Until it felt like hell
And I burned in the flames,
Sucking in nothing but smoke.

Now, from the ashes,
I rise and breathe.


Once again,
I know the air.

Monkey See Not

Truths we’d rather not see

Raked into the compost,

buried deep–

Used to feed vines,

growing twisted,

roping round,

A soul stilled

in one place.

Winter Destruction

The cruelest time is winter.

Green, nesting in the folds of flower petals,

That once basked in summer sun

Withers,

Crackling in dryness.

Then comes the stomping,

Crunching of ice.

Innocence destroyed.