Category: metaphor

Lingering

 

 

The silk of waking

To dreams yet dreamed

Linger in the sky

Adrift in gray clouds

Carrying visions of possibilities

That yet may be

All Things New

Image courtesy of Dreamtime

Storm clouds rode in

Upon a sky soaked in sunset red.

Wildflowers bowed their heads

Down on either side

As I drove by

Smiling, thinking of all things new.

Once home, I stood in the yard,

Arms akimbo, welcoming the new—

What the storm, the wind, the rains

Would bring—

As gently as their nature could—

All things new, clean, green

With spring.

Scars of Hope

Image is my own

I gather hardened scars of loss and damage
Braided into keloid beauty
That are not blossoms of bitterness,
But fragrant beauties
That make me who I am.
Even the bars of your barren garden
Called love could not steal away
The essence of my hope.
Instead, the black, barrenness
within sugar syrup words
Of one never able to love
Contain no acid
To eat away
My skin of hope.

Beauty of His Work

Image is my own

High in the air,

Buffeted by the strong winds,

Yet navigating the narrow beam

With a grace and strength of Baryshnikov 

Or the great Nureyev

As I, his audience awed by his performance,

Stood and watched,

Wondering if everyone who looked

Could see this man’s artful grace

As he seemed to defy all laws of gravity,

Bending to hammer,

Leaping to rise,

Prancing to walk.

 

Then bending once again,

Hammering, rising, walking.

Never thrown off balance

By the winds or heavy hammer

Or the weighty leather tool belt,

Carrying the long nails off to the side.

 

Who else saw the grace and strength

In the rhythm of the dance

This man did perform

In the building of that house—

A dance that held something,

Some paternal element of David

As he danced entering Jerusalem—

 

How many would see the beauty in the performance of his work?

How many would only see a Hispanic male and question his legal status?

 

First Day of May

Image courtesy of Givingcompass.org

 

Winds and rains came today.

I tried to follow the trail

They made.

But on this first day of May,

I was not strong enough–

To let the wind take me,

To allow pelting rain to abrade away

All my accumulated grime.

No freedom could I find

Within this day of winds and rains.

The Struggle

Image courtesy of Flickr

Weekend Writing Prompt #206 – Restless | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

Restless roses

climb skyward

toward the eternal

their grace defeated

as winds thrust

them downward

toward dirt

they escape.

Whispered Tales

Image courtesy of Pinterest.com

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.

 

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

 

 

 

The Trophy #writephoto

Accidently linked to Sundaymuse Please go to https://aikalandros.com/2021/08/02/the-vines-of-a-tiny-truth/

Image from Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt
Thursday photo prompt: Deeper #writephoto | Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo (scvincent.com)

Staring deeper into the center of the pool,

The wisdom of a street wise Athena

Forgotten, ignored, stripped away,

She stood readied for the flow of molten metal

To form customized links of chain, binding forever

Spirit and soul into a trophy of destruction.

Thus, she stared even deeper,

Praying for escape,

As molten metal seared her wrists,

Her ankles, her soul,

Chaining her forever to the stone,

Making of her a possession, a trophy of destruction,

Displayed for an ego never sated.