Twilight Days

image is my own

days spinning faster

now toward twilight it seems

hours before dawn

 

years ago hours

lived, died, born again screaming

before twilight’s edge

 

watch the dawn hours

spin, dizzy and drunk with years,

into twilight’s grave

https://godoggocafe.com/2022/11/08/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-november-8-2022/

In the Long Ago So It Goes

image courtesy of istock

 

In the long ago

Youth’s armor

Stripping down fates

In acknowledgements

Of ruined selves

Where someplace we lost

The spare threads

To stitch everything back together

And could never touch another

As we once touched the other,

Letting go dreams

Sprinkled with desires

That only served to choke

The future we swallowed

In gulped decades

While watching dreams

Drift and float like the blown off

Heads of dandelions

Until settling into the

Drudgery of what must be done

In the day to day—

No answers exist when

The only answer is

There be no magic here,

No fairytales, no giants,

No forever’s or an eternity

Yet there be no lies,

No castles built on air,

No innocent beings with wings to rip away

In devilish delight,

No trust found broken

In garbage cans.

 

And so it goes.

 

And so it goes,

In essence,

Neither was what

The other really wanted

Resentments the wooden

Puzzle pieces of a child’s game

Tumbled down over us

In crushing weight

Until only the dust

Of us was left

To be swept away.

 

 

Heaven?

Image courtesy of istock

Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge June 15, 2021 | Go Dog Go Café (godoggocafe.com)

 

Have I seen Heaven in her eyes?  You ask.

Can anyone see heaven in the eyes of another

Is what I must ask.

 

I have seen love, the soft one,

Take a seat and

Settle comfortably

In the eyes of others.

 

I have seen hatred, the snake,

Uncoil and dance,

Spitting venom at everything and everyone,

From the eyes of others.

 

Too often, I have seen death, the thief,

Steal all the treasures from the eyes

Of those I loved,

Leaving them hollow and emptied out.

 

I have seen other things

In the eyes of others

Along these long years

But heaven—

I don’t really think so.

 

I may be too old to see such a wonder

Or too young yet to know it

When I see it.

 

So, to answer,

I would have to say, no.

No, I have not seen

Heaven in her eyes.

 

The Great Heron

Image is my own

I greeted the Great Heron

With a hello.

Then asked for some wisdom

Or some secrets of the earth.

 

But the Great Heron

Didn’t bother with a no.

Just a fluff of feathers

Before turning away

Without being troubled

To even look at me.

The red wing black birds

Chittered away in laughter

As the gentle doves

Cooed soothingly.

 

The crows cawed,

Rather obnoxiously,

About time running down.

I said I knew

And was aware of the beauty

In lessons along the way.

Even in the lessons so painful

You thought they might

Break your soul in two

Held a beauty in the end.

 

The crows disliked what I said,

And they couldn’t disagree,

So, screaming out a caw,

Flew away.

 

Turning his eyes to me,

The Great Heron shifted on his log,

Before opening his wings

And flying away,

Letting me know

He had nothing to say.

 

 

	

The Work of Spring

image courtesy of anoregoncottage.com

I clipped away dead branches

From the living shrubs today.

Not an easy thing,

But a thing that must be done.

Strange it is how dead things

Will cling so tightly to the living

As if to squeeze

The last remaining bits of life away

And thus, have company in death and dying.

There is yet more to do

So only the living things are left

To flourish in the spring sun.

Decision on a Birdfeeder

image courtesy of publicdomainpictures.net

 

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

 

 

 

Angels Call

Image courtesy of PixelsTalk.Net
Weekend Writing Prompt #197 – Call | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

 

angels call, singing for a while,

watching us,

aping things they’d heard, saw,

obsessing over things                                            

we tossed away–

time, primarily–

angels lost feathers, attempting to understand

our tossing away time like used tissues, soiled food tins–

when we held little.

 

 

Thirsting

image courtesy of Dreamtime

Emptied vault opens,

casts leavings of shriveled seeds

beyond redemption.

 

Between the edges

nothing could penetrate here,

wind, rain, tears—nothing.

 

Sound had no life here,

dying in small deaths of emptiness,

eternal silence.

 

A life damaged beyond

repair, encased by cold stone,

a life of shriveled seeds,

lived in a stone vault—

lightless, soundless

thirsting.

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/10/24/weekend-writing-prompt-180-vault/#comments

Musings on the Cracked Crystal Ball

Image courtesy of Aliexpress
https://amanpan.com/2020/09/28/eugis-weekly-prompt-crystal-ball-september-28-2020/

When you found the things you could,

A mist of breath showed in the rain,

Twin clouded rain shimmered colors

Of gray stone before you on a path you would go.

If only, if only, you should know the bones of us,

Move knotted stiff with the griefs you’ve piled upon your soul,

We’d glow of phosphorus and neon in velvet darkness.

Walking the dark, shadowed canyon of dreams

Wilted by disappointments and deflated sunshine

Waking to dimmest daylight at noon

Where you cannot bear to look

Upon your own reflection,

A sight of horror in your own eyes now

In that cracked crystal ball where you stand,

In your own self-consecrated field

Of plastic flowers bowing their majestic heads to you,

Your straw haired head is bowed,

Smiling at the ground.

No Disaster

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.com
https://godoggocafe.com/2020/09/08/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-september-8-2020/
 

As if I’d eaten some ancient grain

Meant for those of a long dead warrior hearted strain

I strengthen myself with tears. 

 

Over the bare years

Only you knew innocence

Truth, ruin in seas–

 

Imagined decades

No time for flowers and aches

Realize in drifting

 

Down years– no disaster

Were you in the end,

We were just a moment.