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/
Rope
#Regret
Of Need and Desire
https://scvincent.com/2020/08/06/thursday-photo-prompt-fantasy-writephoto/
So very willingly,
I placed my head into danger’s toothy mouth
When I climbed the Pilgrim’s stairs–
Until dizzy from the height,
And the steepness of the effort–
All done to look upon
A pure crystalline blue sky
Caressing a sapphire sea—
A fantasy of need.
Charms
Serrated edges of your secrets
Sliced open my chest long ago.
Yet, I carried those secrets
Across the borders of decades.
I guarded those secrets like gemstones.
I wore them as talismans,
Good luck charms, rubbing each
Like burnished bronze of ages old.
Why have I kept them so?
I do not know.
Lessons
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.
Wired
In this day and age
We ought to be able to be wired
Wired for anything, everything–
For hope—
–dreams
–love
–desire
Wired for it all and more
Wired for an add on room
In the heart when we’ve run out–
For expansion of sound inside
When we’ve come to love the buzz of silence.
For blood that doesn’t run dry,
Doesn’t clot to clog the works up.
Wired so we always have just one more try
Inside souls always filled
With the romantic dreams of youth.
Wired so there are stairs always to climb.
Wired so no wounds ever cut so deep
Blood runs out, runs dry.
Wired so we can learn
Yet pain be erased.
Wired, just wired,
Plugged in with a soul of shiny copper wire.
The Garden
I gave you all my roses,
The many colors I had.
Cut them all from the bushes.
I knew there would be no more,
And I cut them for you.
The last few dozen blooms
I cut them down for you.
The bushes are dead now.
They will bud no more.
I double, triple checked.
The limbs snap crisply in dryness,
Easily between my weakened hands.
No supple green within.
A single snap finishes each limb.
And so finishes each bush.
I am done, a gardener
With nothing left to tend.
The Words
I
Words scattered across the page.
Words littering the soul.
All these words
Piled upon the table,
A hoarder’s table of words.
Words left unsaid,
Unwritten,
A bouquet of words
Wilting in the heart and mind.
Words twisted in contortionist meaning
Of manipulations,
Weaponized for destruction,
Yet leaving victims living.
II
Words of things that can’t be said.
Words of things that should have been.
Words of things we could not speak out of fears too deep.
Words of things we could not begin to understand
Of ourselves, of each other.
Words of things we wanted so to believe
Of others, of the world.
Words of hope
Of love
Of charity
Of peace.
Words of what we have lost.
Words of what we may never again find.
III
Words, words, words
Slipping through the fingers
Like water in a desert,
Dripping away, evaporating
Before they can be used.
Words, words, words
Twisting round the wrists,
Writhing up the arms,
Biting the face and neck,
Killing before they can be used.
Words, words, words
Left unread by faded ink,
Left unwritten by a tired mind,
Left unsaid by a fear filled mouth.
Old Year
Images of the year
Drift in my mind
Like so many
Snowflakes melting
In a cold rain.
My blood turns icy
With so much frozen regret.
My dog stops.
We’ve reached a crosswalk.
Unlike me, she’s learned
Her lessons well.
But she reminds me
The years of regret are done,
So we walk on since no traffic comes.
The sun peeks out,
Deciding it’s safe,
She comes out all the way
To warm and cheer us.
My dog looks up at me
And seems to smile.
This year will be done.
Yes, soon, this year will be done.
