Tag: #poem

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?

 

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

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

Tuck It Away

Image is my own

Tell the angels

To tuck away deep inside their chests

Such a cotton candy fire of winter sky raging,

Roiling in clouds there

Undeterred by storms         

Or answers

Or truths

Provide no magic, no elixir

For human loss or longing,

Aching and confined in such beauty.

The Price

Image is my own

Weekend Writing Prompt #194 – Beguile | Sammi Cox (wordpress.com)

Wish I could rest beguiled–

Believing willingly in soft whispered lies

If only for this little while of rest

As if slipping easily between

The waxen petals of lilies

And curling round the sweetened smell

Of wonderous blossoming softness—

Yet the price, the price of choosing

The rest of such beguilement

 

Among the Ruins

Image courtesy of Pinterest.com
Tuesday Writing Prompt Challenge: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 | Go Dog Go Café (godoggocafe.com)

Walk with me among the ruins

I will show you the points of interest–

Notice the weeds grown up

between the cracks of stone,

the chambers filled with mold,

the temple fallen, the altar cracked,

seeming to fold.

Imagine who may have walked here

once so long ago,

wracking havoc with fire

upon those who called this home.

The fires burning to spite

the cold winter rain.

Those who survived left

staring into winter’s

icy back eyes

in the heart of it all.