Small Jars of Jam

image courtesy of https://anitalianinmykitchen.com/apricot-jam/
Your lies hang,

apricots swaying
in the summer air
from the tree
of your despair.
You pick the ripest apricots
to make jam
you ladle into small jars,
gifting them to friends
who smile softly,
touched you think of them
by gifting your small jars of jam
made from the apricots
you pick from the tree
of all your despair
denied.

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.

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.

An Afternoon of Creation

Image courtesy of NIH

Curtains drawn against the sun

Of an autumnal afternoon

Spent in another hotel,

She drowns in what

The bathroom mirror shows

Of emptiness in sapphire eyes

As her empty heartedness grows–

Her wrinkles a road map

Of crosshatched lies

Told and lived even now,

As her fingers grip

The sink edges of porcelain

Cold against her skin.

Her mind swirls,

Dizzy, lost in her creations

Of new golden plated lies.

https://godoggocafe.com/2020/11/17/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-november-17-2020/

A Witch Among the Willows

Image courtesy of fast-growing-trees.com

Sit among the willows,

drifting in ghostly silence,

each wrapped comforted

by misery’s blanket.

Except I am no longer,

listening to words

 

carefully scripted,

tumbling into deceit’s

delicious dishes

 

easily prepared

by your thin lips mouthing words

filled with ghost meaning.

 

Regurgitated regrets

bitter in the soul and heart–

I can tell you that.

 

A thing you would not

ever know, catalyst of misery,

your starring role.

 

Except–

 

tell-tale signs of age

now crackle through songs of your

sweet, deceitful voice,

 

makes harder to catch

victims snared in misery

of life trials made.

 

Stop floating among

the willows, thinking yourself

Calypso casting

 

spells of delicious

deceit, when you’ve aged into

Macbeth’s witch drifting

in the ghostly fog of ego.

https://godoggocafe.com/2020/10/20/tuesday-writing-prompt-challenge-tuesday-october-20-2020/
https://onewomansquest.org/2020/10/19/vjs-weekly-challenge-117-except/
https://amanpan.com/2020/10/19/eugis-weekly-prompt-ghostly-october-19-2020-%f0%9f%91%bb/

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.

Rope

Image courtesy of Etsy

Endless mantra of your obsessive need–

Recited daily, hourly, till a rope twined,

Weaving a noose around me.

https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/08/29/weekend-writing-prompt-172-endless/

Meditations on Forgiveness

Image courtesy of Pinterest

summer hot, humid

kills desire of sweetness

flowers forgiveness

 

falls decaying death

forgiveness dead leaves lifeless

blacken a gift heart

 

winter freezing ice

a cold weapon forgiveness

to cut the giver

 

spring new life begins

forgiveness lifeless, no seed

to plant, grow—never

 

The bird of flame rises

From the ashes in my chest—

Ash of forgiveness

Never given.

 

Should Not Have

Image courtesy of brecks.com
https://sammiscribbles.wordpress.com/2020/06/06/weekend-writing-prompt-160-kaleidoscope/
Write a poem or piece of prose in exactly 23 words–Kaleidoscope

A woman once held a kaleidoscope to my eyes.

I, like a child entranced, fooled by a prism of colors,

Gave my soul away.

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.