ATTENTION POETS! This looks like a great opportunity. Click the link below to learn more. ❤ “The Black Napkin, an online poetry journal launched in 2016, is now seeking submissions for their upcoming issues. They are looking for poetry penned with urgent strength, poetry that needs to be heard. They like writing that disrupts the […]
via » The Black Napkin: Now Seeking Poetry Submissions — Colleen Chesebro ~ Fairy Whisperer
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“Be careful,” my Workcenter Supervisor cautioned me before removing the cover to the seawater strainer. Training had begun on what was to be a monthly task in maintaining the ship radar’s heat-exchanger. Steve was stepping me through the process for the first time, cautioning me against the possibility of a poisonous sea snake popping out the strainer, biting me, liquifying my heart, making my blood boil, and writing a swastika on my lifeless forehead. (I may have imagined a few sea snake tendencies.) After I undid the last bolt, Steve slowly removed the lid. “Oh cool!” he exclaimed. “A tiny crab! Look, Barry!” On-cue, out popped a four-inch crab, claws brandished aggressively.
Fear is my lifelong companion. I don’t overcome it as much as I learn to live with it. My earliest memories involve being afraid. Of the dark. Of being different. Of being the same. Afraid of being teased for being afraid. Of the inevitable violence married to racism. Of getting my ass whupped over bad report cards. Afraid of dad beating mom. Of mom nearly killing dad. Of dad leaving and never coming back. Of mom nearly killing me. Of nearly being killed in gang-fight crossfire. Of mom nearly killing my brother. Of possibly being killed during nearly every pointless police shakedown for “fitting the description”. Afraid of failing. Of not trying. Of not being strong enough for Navy boot camp. Of drowning. Afraid of possibly becoming an addict like dad. Of possibly being a schizophrenic like mom. Of failing my wife and kids. Afraid of being exposed as a pointless muthaphucka with nothing substantial in my soul worth sharing.
But none of my fears prepared me for squaring off against a four-inch crab angrily defending his new saltwater strainer home.
“Aw HELLLLLLL naw!!!” I wailed, wheeling around, tearing through the hatch, through the junior-officer jungle, my slipstream waking the ensigns, narrowly avoiding turning my division officer into a speedbump, out the exit hatch, trying to control my rapid breathing, hearing my bemused Div-O ask Steve, “What the fuck was that all about?!?” which, after a beat, was followed by uproarious laughter.
The navy trained me to rely on my training when confronting fear, but my hilarious fight-or-flight antics must’ve hit Steve square in his empathy chip. He never even tried to assign me strainer duty again after that. And hell naw, I sure as shit never brought it up.
And crabs are delicious. Except for when they’re alive. And bite-sized.
the sea gently rocks
I breathe in her promises
centered and focused
** *
Written for dVerse Haibun Monday: The only thing we have to fear… hosted by Toni Spencer (kanzensakura, hayesspencer). Drop by and check out everyone’s contributions to this prompt.
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And we’re climbing, growing, in nature
Within her bosom we blossom, crossing, in nature
And we’re climbing, showing, in nature
Portraiture, nomenclature…
I’m just an ivy vine
it doesn’t take much to climb
the backyard evergreen pine
my every scene is fine
feel every sunray is mine
the humans they gripe and whine
they say I’m invasive grime
but I’m just in spatial prime
And they spray controls and herbicides
to fade me back into the margins
because I’m not beholden to their designs
they made me crack without a bargain
They think they have dominion
as if they live far apart from it
They think they have dominion
as if they are not a part of it
And we’re climbing, growing, in nature
Within her bosom we blossom, crossing, in nature
And we’re lilting, wilting, in nature
Portraiture, nomenclature…
It’s probably just in our nature
The blackberry bush leaps
the manmade divisions
in plant’s lightspeed, he creeps,
plans laid, sapping provisions
from the prettier life
causing humanity strife
strangling the wildlife
indifferent to pruning knife
Sometimes I catch him watching me
watching him doing his thang
we share a knowing laugh,
knowing absurdity of our silent hang
They prune him back with difficulty,
but he comes right back with ease
They prune him back with difficulty,
and he returns despite their pleas
And we’re climbing, growing, in nature
Within her bosom we blossom, crossing, in nature
And we’re flowing, showing, in nature
Portraiture, nomenclature…
It’s probably just in our nature
Humanity’s its own disease,
it poisons its dominion
pristine degrees and gentle breeze
fall in dissenting opinions
they deplete the very things they need
to sustain their own species
they delete their many precious seeds
to maintain their racial feces
Our timeline is dynamic,
but while their era is comical,
the punchline is quite tragic
as they can see their coming fall
They think they have dominion
over nature, over all
They prune her back with difficulty,
failing to hear her call
And they’re lilting, wilting, in nature
Within her ruins we lost them, falling, from nature
And they’re lying, dying, in nature
Denatured legislature…
Was probably just in their nature
** *
Written for and shared to the climbing WordPress prompt.
Image source: Unsplash.com
Midnight with you when the moon becomes blue.
Hindsight rendezvous when the moon becomes blue.
Mixed emotions cascade as owl heart serenades.
Forthright with you when the moon becomes blue.
Pain and regret shades our shadow masquerade.
Moonlight paints you when the moon becomes blue.
Sketching our love made where lines of us fade.
Rewrite what’s due when the moon becomes blue.
Hearts breaking, remade forged in fires betrayed.
Ignite on cue when the moon becomes blue.
Outright loss, dismayed when what’s lost is weighed.
Outright untrue when the moon becomes blue.
Destiny dissuades fate as line-of-sight swayed.
Starlight breaks through when the moon becomes blue.
In light tricks that strayed, Venus can’t retrograde.
Tonight, please be true when the moon becomes blue.
Enchanter’s nightshade bade our touch, unafraid.
Twilight out of view when the moon becomes blue.
Desire unbraids us, pooling very dark, marmalade
I fight to subdue when the moon becomes blue.
Expired, remade, us, fueling Barry’s lark escapade.
Sleep tight, bid adieu when the moon becomes blue.
** *
And just like that, we’re halfway done with NaPoWriMo. I gotta be honest; this is fun, but it is kicking my ass. Sorry I haven’t visited my fellow poets as often as I’d like to. Between writing every day, working my day job, being present for Wifey, and all the other real life stuff, I feel like I barely have time to look up, eat, or bathe. I have no idea how you other poetry bloggers find the time to do all that you do, especially those of you who host prompts. You’re all amazing to me.
I just felt like writing a ghazal today. No prompt, no sharing, no pingbacks. Just a ghazal.
It’s weird. Whenever a new Kendrick Lamar album enters my music rotation, I start thinking in nested rhymes, which is pitch-perfect for the ghazal form.
Kendrick Lamar
Rhymes and bars, well above par
Just clearing his throat to give it proper dapper speech
Power-steering hip-hop beyond popular rapper’s reach
** *
I followed NaPoWriMo’s day 14 clerihew prompt. I’ve been listening to his album all evening, and he’s ruined Hip-Hop for me. Who the hell is talented enough to follow this masterpiece? It’s over. Nobody else make anymore rap songs. K-Dot fucked it up for everybody.
Image source: Wikipedia.org
I cry
because we may
end our own journey long
before its mystery unveils
solace
is just another made-up word
by those on roads too far
losing our way
we weep
punchlines
ring through ruins
rubble, rubbish, hubris
future historians marvel
relics
almost grasping understanding
falling stars, proud ashes
our dust echoes
laughter
***
Image source: Google
I shrug
at religion
you spy me walk away
thinking I’ve walked away from God
you’re wrong
you see
in our Cosmos, vast, infinite
I’m a speck, but you’re less
when you tell me
“God hates”
** *
Written for imaginary garden with real toads Out of Standard – Signs of the time prompt, imagined By Isadora Gruye . Come check out the rest of the toads.
I’m sitting in your bathroom with a bottle of your pills. I fished them from your medicine cabinet. I didn’t read the bottle. It’s the only way I know how to get your attention. I am desperate to win you back from him. I don’t care if he’s smarter than me or better looking. I don’t care that he’s on-track to become our high school valedictorian. It doesn’t matter that he can discuss the finer points of Germany’s unification with your mom while I sit silently, thinking about Optimus Prime dunking on Megatron. I don’t even care that he’s your ex-boyfriend and you think your feelings have reawakened. I don’t give a shit about any of that. He can’t possibly love you like I do. No fucking way. That’s why I’m sitting on the windowsill in your bathroom, waiting for you to come in here to witness how much more I love you than he does. I probably won’t take them, but you need to see that my life isn’t worth living if you’re not with me.
soft amber streetlight
wash out most of the starlight
man’s constellations
I’m startled as you throw open the bathroom door. I search your eyes for any sign of warmth, fishing for any semblance of our summer of holding hands and making out; of dreamy I-love-you’s or nothing-can-come-between-us’. I find nothing but midnight frost in them. You demand the pills, and I give them to you, still mining your eyes for the heart that once beat for me. Those eyes I quested were examining the pill bottle like a scientist coldly working a math formula in her head. You deduce out-loud to no one in particular that no more than seven pills should kill an adult male. When you tossed the pills back to me, I barely had time to catch them before hearing the door close behind you. And I’m alone again with the pills.
crisp, windy twilight
litter twirls and loops the night
I watch it falling
I stand, facing the bathroom mirror, trying and failing to fully contemplate my insignificance, not just in your world, but within my own. I had never actually considered taking the pills at first, but the way you coolly dismissed me shook me; had me looking at our universe – and my place in it – differently. I stared at myself, wondering what a fish saw when staring up at its own reflection instead of the planets, stars, and galaxies I saw when I stared up at the night sky. I was a small, pointless fish in an infinite pond with a vial of pills.
Venus outshines man
piercing our light pollution
curved in crescent form
A fish’s perception of reality is bound. Unlike a fish, my view is unbound. But in that bathroom, I was a fish, crippled by my own vision, staring at myself, failing to see our future together when the future valedictorian would dump you for a second time, compelling you to crawl back to me, compelling me to gladly take you back due to my poor self-esteem, leading to our ill-advised marriage and our dysfunctional decade-long dance of codependence that would end with me refusing to heed your pleas to hold our sham together a moment longer, leading me to love, loss, and mending in the arms of others until I would finally meet a woman willing to sit with me and stare up at the night sky together in wonder.
Like a fish, I am limited by my reality and cannot see my future, but I also couldn’t see any future in those pills. I place the pills on the sink and walk out of your bathroom, past your indifferent eyes, out of your door, leaving you to call our future valedictorian. Leaving you to our past. Leaving you to our future.
vapor clouds forming
crystalizing my exhales
chill cuts through my bones
** *
You’re not alone. Confidential help is available for free.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
Call 1-800-273-8255
Image source: dessertsforbreakfast.com
You
my dark chocolate
sweet
earthy
when I nibble
you bite back
smearing tangy goodness
onto my sneering lips
within my mouth
I quest
cresting the center
of your melting point
drizzling down my chin
daring me to lick my fingers.
I crave more.
** *
Written for dVerse Quadrille #30, hosted by Mish (mishunderstood), where the safe word prompt word is drizzle. Drizzle made me think of candy for some reason… that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Don’t forget to visit other poets’ take on this prompt.
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Night comes
again.
I welcome and fear it
for its embrace
protects me not
from unknown specters
and she will
leave me barren
at sunrise
again.
Night, day;
irrelevant.
Terror slinks in gloom
but agony bites blindly,
my heart
seized by dark claws
till I plead for night’s
sweet release.
Yeah but
with a flick of my finger
billions of subatomic particles
will rush to banish the dark
maybe it is the night
who should fear me.
** *
Written for imaginary garden with real toads Twitter Me a Gothic Poem, imagined By Magaly Guerrero. We were challenged to write a poem with three stanzas, each stanza not to exceed 140 characters (a basic tweet, if you will). The first two stanzas, or “tweets” would be in the voice of one of the thirteen selected gothic writers, as if they’re having a twitter conversation. The third stanza was to be my reply or commentary to thr first two. The catch is that the whole thing is supposed to read as one piece.
I chose Edgar Allen Poe (1st stanza) because his work influences me quite a bit, and I chose Sylvia Plath (2nd stanza) because I identify with how she described her lifelong battle with depression.
I gotta say, this was one heck of a prompt! It was more challenging than I anticipated, but I greatly enjoyed this one. Real Toads is quietly becoming the front page of my window to the internet. Thanks for all the wonderful prompts, and keep em coming!
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