metaphor

Petals of Words

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 3 Comments
Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev on Pexels.com

 

 

I swore never to give my words away like blossoms in the spring.

Yet, I marvel at all the words I’d gather,

arrange for you in artful, elegant bouquets.

I’ve keloid locks where my words are stored.

I possess not the oils to soften those locks,

Trapping my words deep in their vault,

My words may never know freedom.

 

Yet, I find myself streaming petals of words for you

In hazy, lazy patterns,

Knowing you have the wisdom, the soul

To read my words much like braille—

A code of sorts–

So you can hear and know,

Though unspoken,

All my words bestow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buried

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 4 Comments
Image courtesy of The Guardian

https://amanpan.com/2021/07/08/eugis-weekly-prompt-network-july-8-2021/

 

Can’t really say how it happened.

But it did.  All those years ago.

Some may say it’s a pity or a sin.

All I say is I survived.

 

It was the lava, really.

That’s at fault.  Yeah, maybe

me, since I did let it in.

Into my network of arteries and veins,

letting it flow until it coated

everything inside.

It cooled.

I turned to stone.

I walked in skin and could yet bleed.

But, sure enough, inside—

I was stone.

I felt nothing.

And that felt good—

To be cold as stone.

No longer part of the network of humanity

Though I walked in it—

How perfect it felt

to feel inhuman,

to feel nothing at all–

At least, for a little while.

 

 

When

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 2 Comments
Image courtesy of Kanascitymag.com

https://godoggocafe.com/2021/07/06/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-july-6-2021/

Today’s prompt— Write a poem using evanescence, trill, and longevity.

When

           dreams held up the sky

           the edge of sea could cleanse a soul

           magic chimed in the songs of birds

           the universe trilled with vibrancy contained in starlight

           the evanescence of our lives unquestioned

 

then hope, golden and shining, possessed eternal longevity.

Tethered

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 2 Comments
Image is my own

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2021/07/03/weekend-writing-prompt-216-tether/

Lightning cracked the sky today

Very nearly tethering Desire and Want,

Who entwined, rolling from edge

To edge of the horizon—

 

And I walked,

Thinking I’d make it home

Before pelting rain could chill

My heated sweating skin.

 

But I did not.

Clothes soaking,

Wet through—

I made it home,

Trailing water drops

Down the hall.

 

Finally, dry and warmed,

Dressed in fresh clothes,

I looked outside

To find a pink sky,

With clouds tethered

To the earth like me.

 

Fractured Twilight

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 11 Comments
Image is my own

https://amanpan.com/2021/07/01/eugis-weekly-prompt-twilight-july-1-2021/

Walking in fractured twilight

Is the smoothest time of light and mind–

A wish made–

To braid reality, this curve of light, with sweetest memory

Thus, so entwined

One begins to hope,

Believing in miracles once again

To spite all fractures made of years.

Nymph

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 7 Comments
Image courtesy of Darkartist (joeypadrino) Pinterest.com

I completed this some months age for a challenge and did not get around to posting it. Now, I can’t remember which challenge or when it was made.

Nestled in the leaves

She awaits me.

Some nymph or maiden fair

I know not which she may be.

Time and touch shall reveal

the truth of her nature to me,

Yet I dream her sleeping,

Dreaming of me.

 

In the Long Ago So It Goes

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
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.

 

 

My Silent House

~ Annette Kalandros ~ 8 Comments 
 

My house is a quiet house,

Always various shades of silent—

Though Etta blows silky smoke throughout the rooms,

Though Nina tells me that I know how she feels,

Though Storm Large with Pink Martini might ask me to come sway with her,

And, at times, Freddy proclaims we are, indeed, champions,

While the evening news drones mundane atrocities of the world each day

And the dogs may bark, trying scare the workers across the street away—

My house is silent through it all, echoing noise in its quiet way,

An orderly, meandering contented existence does it hold.

The Embroideress

~ Annette Kalandros ~ Leave a comment
Image courtesy of picClick
 
 

 

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.