The other night I took a stroll
and came across a little hole
that looked as if it might be deep
enough to hold the hearty heap
of sharp unease which weighed me down
and caused my freckled face to frown.
I tried to shove it down that chink
and for a flash my woe did shrink,
but in the end, that mouth could not
receive the cumbrous, dreadful rot
which sent my lean and stooping shape
to seek sweet twilight’s soothing drape
and so my heart resigned to keep
these pricking fears which shake my sleep.
Tag Archives: creative writing
The Memory of Silver
The memory of silver is long. It
remembers fat, leathery hands
casting ingots at dawn. And the
screaming crucible that served life
plucked from death.
Sterling arcs of recollection whisper
in morning’s meekness, dangling from
emerald shadows, hanging on for a
cue, regarding us warily with one eye
open and one eye closed.
The memory of silver is long. It
remembers both she who bestowed
and she who received on that distant
Christmas afternoon, before bread
was broken under jaundiced
light.
Violet glass despondently rolls off a
negligent palm, falling upon moist
linoleum, making no sound in daybreak’s
din…shaking off all visions of times
gone by on the way down.
Cinquain/LXIV
“Soon, lunch
for the children,”
Ma squawked with cheerful punch,
while beheading a husky hen
for ten.
In the Swale
A conspiratorial, oily thumb and
forefinger crush yellowed, coarse
paper–page four hundred thirty
seven–fluttering in anticipation,
perceiving imminent movement
within its constricted fibers. Protein
gives tastes differently enough,
collapsing into sapped midnight
mouths, red long gone.
And so it was deciphered as that
hovering and absolute monarch,
harnessed in a gauzy gray doublet,
leered down at us…we, who only
shine half as brightly.
No Thank You
Tart scarlet thunderbolts, anchored to
onion perfumed lace, weigh down a
lonely table, already burdened
by glass shards and dirt.
Two for tea
One for coffee
None for breakfast
PRAYER IN THE DARK
In the time of the butterflies,
before lush grapes turned sour,
aged trees shook in unison,
fearful of what might pass.
Elders with low, ferocious
voices murmured, then shouted
until they howled under a
caliginous canopy, woven from
smoke and anise seed, rising in
anger only to fall upon a traitorous
ground. Needle noses prepare to
pierce trembling flesh that may
still be perspiring in dimples of
wounded earth.
Bare is this weeping land, divested
of its plentitude, beneath our
incompetent hands–hoping and
praying that those pale peach, hazelnut
wraiths will find their way home.
Cinquain/LXII
Oh Love,
do be silent,
for, there, prowling above
this den, is the spy who was sent
from Kent
DOWN
Fall silent and away
a sweeping nightstick on
your slanting back.
Fall silent, voice upon voice, stamped
out near withering cigarettes, in exchange
for second-hand teardrops, cracked yet
functional, and stale baguettes.
In this way, the martyrs of our age
pave peaked avenues, gaunt as sunlight,
with unmoving, garnet throats.
Fresh Bread (Love Poetry Challenge)
Here, lies our love.
Long may love reign!
Clear, lies our love,
within love’s stark stain.
There, lies our love.
Don’t ask love why.
Near, lies our love,
in love’s jaunty way.
Dear, lies our love.
Love, can you stay?
Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.
~Ursula K. LeGuin
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I was challenged to write a “Love in Ten Lines” poem. Each line had to be four words long with the word love appearing in each line. Also, one had to include a favorite quote about love at the end.
This is what I came up with.
For She, Who Sleeps
Imagine yourself a pear tree,
with passionate palms upturned
to receive bashful young fruits
as they plummet from your own aching
branches.
A light drizzle of sweetness
turns into an unforgivable lashing
and your overburdened wrists
snap under the weight of the
deluge.
Broken bones beneath sugared skin.
Faith, scattered around the orchard,
never to be pieced back together.
And then, a pompous sky, naked
in its knowledge, laughs before it
cries. Moistened mud slides
over bulging thighs, making a mark,
biding its time, giving everything
to all that we are.
sundry folly 