I envy the monarch’s, the hummingbird’s arc of return,
infinite, eternal.
My jealousy consumes as I have
no return, no cycle—
Only the damnation of this linear thing,
finite, directionless.
Anger paralyzes,
I search for words—
Pour what I feel
Into them—
But my anger
Melts them,
Turns them molten metal,
Defiant to the forms,
The constraints,
The molds I attempt
To use to shape
This gob of white hot liquid metal
Into meaning
For feelings
Overwhelming me.
Paralysis crushing,
Submission—
It is what they want—
Make us heavy once again
With chains and shackles,
Place and close the Master’s padlock,
A designation of second class,
Something much less than they,
Round our necks once more,
Making of us an example,
So others live in fear
Of what they come for next
And so acquiesce—
Staying silent, eyes lowered,
Hoping to escape notice
By allowing them to feel smug and safe.
My anger burns bright white stripes,
Others will not die bleeding the red.
Remember the stars provide the light
Of what we know is right.
We will not live on our knees
Or on our backs, being beggars
For shredded scraps
Of what is the promise of our nation.
Brevity of years
Right, paid in blood + death, destroyed
Fiction drips history
Brevity in 12 words
Todays prompt: Begin a poem with “endless”
Endless winds rustling
Through leaves baked a thin crisp green
By summer’s noon sun.
Endless wilting flowers
Reaping words of empty dust
Sands away meaning.
Endless hope sprouts blooms
In the dry cracked refuge of earth
A survival scented thing.
Consequences of time
Climb and mount
About the throat,
Following the path
Of arteries and veins,
And as if by magic,
Enter into the blood
To provide a dram bit
Of bitter choking poison
To the will of moving blood
That slows and stills
In the knowing.
Is this what you, indeed, wish?
The feel of some bold mystic chaos
Contained within the fire of kisses
Traveling along the boundaries
Where lived an identity
You lost long ago—
To feel that chaotic fire
Burn away the identity
You wear today—
Feel passionate softness
Twist within and around
Leaving bruises unseen
And you undone
In twisting mystic
Chaos of fire.
In the stillness of days between,
The willows long to reach across the stream,
Breaching distance impossible.
Without the breeze,
Their branches hang in solitude,
Their leaves nearly tears,
Longing drips with want heavy in the air
Until finally—thunder—
Lightning— A breeze teases,
Limbs reaching,
Almost, nearly touching—
And then the wind begins,
Whipping one direction,
Then another, almost swirling,
Limbs, leaves touch
Across the stream
Solitude breached.
Give me a minute.
Let me have another cup of coffee,
Will you?
Before I slosh on after,
Down the trail–
Again– maybe.
You say, a guard now stands there,
Of the newer variety,
Who advises of the locust thorns,
The kind that pierces the shoe
And can go straight into your foot?
Could have used that advice–
Once or twice
Maybe thrice
In life.
But now I’ve rubbed my thumbs
Over the sharp tipped thorns of regret
Until callouses formed.
Then I moved on to other
Fingertips until bloody, raw,
Proving to myself the sharpness of thorns.
So now, you say this stony guardian warns
Of all the thorns
Along the paths and trails?
Might this guardian advise of a thornless trail?
I really wouldn’t care, but the soles of my feet
Are without callous, and I’d like to keep them so.
Send me down a muddy, sloshy trail where
I might just fall and break my neck.
That would be simply fine,
If the soles of my feet
Remain as soft and unmarred
as a baby’s behind.
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.
Harmony never made sense to me
And neither did melody.
Can’t tell the difference, you see.
No talent with any instrument.
A singing voice that’d send me
To some lower level of hell.
Well, I’d never play Orpheus,
That’s for sure.
And no matter what you may think,
You ain’t some worthy Eurydice.
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