Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
Clutching
her words
to my vest;
dropping
her dreams
into cloth bundle,
cinched tightly,
secured;
stuffing
my pockets
with her selfless acts
of kindness;
smuggling
her tenderness
to safety
undetected, strapped
to inner thigh;
like a bandit,
I steal away
with memories
of her.
***
Photo by Vladimir Agafonkin on Unsplash
I don’t want to hear of rebirth
blooming buds make it hard to breathe
and I don’t want the snow to fall
and I won’t fall for you again
I don’t want to stir in the night
bleak echoes ring hollow and dull
I don’t want to dream about you
and I hate sleep that never comes
‘till birdsongs vibrate the morning
and I don’t want the sun to rise
it will shine again without you
that’s fine, for your laugh rankles me
I can’t stand the smile on your face
summer warmth burns more than it soothes
I don’t want to inhale autumn
the fall winds part us from our bough
and all the miracles
phenomenal matters
the air passing through you
perfumed within your pores
enrapturing me then
are now tedious things
I don’t miss you at all
nor our modern wonders
smartphones for guileless fools
I refresh texts daily
remaining unrefreshed
rueful plea unanswered
and I won’t fall for you again
I don’t want to dream about you
I can’t stand the smile on your face
and I’m not waiting for your call
the world keeps turning without you
I’m not fixated on your scent
our paths don’t need to cross again
and I pray that you keep us here
because one more vile smile from you
one more goosebump-inducing laugh
one more text, touch, slip of your tongue
your cruel tenderness undoes me
I’d rather be resentful alone
than bereft among your promises
grant me this mercy of bitterness
for the hope of you is my ruin
***
Photo by Emre Öztürk on Unsplash
I really can’t say,
but I feel it.
You too, right?
I feel it deep
within my truth,
where the luminous soul
attaches itself to
unremarkable marrow.
Can you do it?
Can you speak power to truth?
Or would you rather
claw at the vision until
your eyes bleed the lies
in rivers and streams in which
you flee to for quick comfort?
There’s no poem for it.
Not till now, anyway.
No pill or salve either,
unless you count
the ones that nullify it,
or the weed and brown liquor
that helps you forget
or briefly removes
the weight of remembering.
I want it as I want all things
eternally unobtainable;
end of the rainbow;
golden horizon;
promise of tomorrow;
comfort of being seen
and embraced by more than this.
I’ve mastered hide-n-seek
in ways where few bother
searching anymore,
though I’d still lie
and tell them I’m fine
had they not already
given up on asking.
But never you mind;
this is just another
melodramatic poem,
not an overwrought
cryptic cry for help.
I really am fine.
***
Photo by Ihor Malytskyi on Unsplash
night skitters across silent rooftops
mad starless gales howl “could have beens”
midnight sleet spittles “what-ifs”
shapeless trees shush regret
things go bump in it
as it settles
night mutates
shaping
dreams
***
Originally published at A Cornered Gurl on Medium for the Nonet the Night challenge.
Photo by Timon Klauser on Unsplash
What if I unglossed our painting before it dried?
What if my tears smeared our indigo finish?
What if I painted midnight horizons into pastels?
What if each correction lightened and undefined?
What if each stroke unburdened texture of weight?
What if ink flowed from canvas to brush?
What if I dabbed brush into pigment to clean it?
What if our cleaner lines were gobbled-up by my pen?
What if I sketched our imperfect borders into nothing?
What if I created perfection; a blank slate?
What if I swallowed the wrong words instead?
What if I said the right thing and you stayed?
***
My final poem of the year, written for the final Real Toads prompt ever: PLAY IT AGAIN! with REAL TOADS, hosted by Kerry O’Connor. I chose to write to Kerry’s LET’S FIND OUR POETIC VOICE prompt and then – as a tip of the hat – to erase, clean, or “un-write my voice”, as many of the wonderful prompts here directly contributed to my poetic voice growing and stretching in ways I never imagined possible.
Thank you to everyone at Real Toads – both the hosts and the contributors – for all of your efforts, encouragement, and support. I know this isn’t goodbye, so I’ll see you all out there next year.
“True intimacy is a state in which nothing exists between two people; no space, no inhibitions and no lies.” – Ranata Suzuki
Have you ever had pure intimacy?
Not to be confused with lingering,
humid summer passion,
it is timid, pallid winter sun
kissing ice crystals with fleeting beauty,
arriving at low angles on high latitudes,
vulnerable, rarely intense enough
to accompany morning tea,
breaking fast after breakfast as lovers
franticly throw open south-facing curtains
capturing as much tenuous warmth
as time and nature allows.
Ever leaned into a winter sunset?
It ignites frosty edges of clouds,
embracing with fiery shadows,
but then it is barely there,
gone in a ghostly cirrus whisper,
leaving Mercury in retrograde as lovers
shrouded in twilight wonder
if it ever existed at all.
***
Inspired by Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Sunday Writing Prompt “Intimacy”. Other poets contributed to this prompt here.
Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash
I am a tyrant.
I yielded her harvest so decent.
I play at decent.
I gorge on her harvest like a tyrant.
I am engorged; a tyrannical decency.
I yield to her harvest.
A yielding tyrant who harvests what she gorges –
Her decency.
Harvesting her “play at decent”,
yields her as a tyrant.
Decency of a tyrant!
Do I yield? Does she harvest?
Tyrannical decency! I gorge.
I gorge upon her.
I yielded, gorging her harvest so decent.
Do I play at tyrant?
***
Inspired by Real Toads Weekend Mini Challenge: The Uncertainty of the Poet, hosted by Kim M. Russell. As depicted, I opted to go with a familiar tension of sorts.
I’m kind of bummed that Real Toads is so close to ending their amazing run, so I’m trying to contribute more to their remaining prompts. It’s bittersweet, but as with most finite things within our cosmos, nothing lasts forever.
Also shared at Pantry of Poetry and Prose #7 hosted by Magaly Guerrero.
Photo by Neven Krcmarek on Unsplash
There is just nothing
remarkable about a
Hallow’s witching hour,
where absence of light and sound
pile upon one another
until the deprived
senses conjure demons, ghosts,
and apparitions of distress
manifested in the failures
of our memories, or
their perfectly successful manner
of projecting memories
of our failures back upon us
like a house of haunted mirrors.
That ghoul is not a ghoul;
it is an eye-floater
casting a shadow upon
your retina
that became entangled
with a stray set of neurons
where an unresolved
disagreement with
your long-dead beloved
continues to take up
residence; our evolved
pattern-recognition
makes us see their sunken cheeks
and disapproving glare, and
nothing more than that.
At the very least,
that is what I tell myself
to keep my heart from racing
and my unspoken words
from spilling into this dense,
uncaring,
unremarkable space
at this ungodly hour,
where no one replies
to my wailing demands for reason,
and for good reason,
as no one is here
to hear them.
But in the extremely
unlikely event
that I’m wrong about this,
all of these reasonable
observations,
which I’m mostly certain
is extremely improbable,
if they truly exist
between our realms,
my first thought would be
probably
that demons, ghosts, ghouls,
and all the like,
in addition to being
needlessly frightening,
in all these years of
ignoring my queries
they’re also extremely rude.
***
Inspired by All Hallow’s Eve and Poets United: Midweek Motif ~ A Million Years Howl When Voices Whisper Among The Trees, hosted by Sanaa Rizvi.
Also shared at dVerse OLN: Casting a Spell, hosted by Linda Lee Lyberg.
Photo by Jesse Bowser on Unsplash
It requires a deft feel of
space, atmosphere,
my place within it.
Shrinking is the easy part;
few notice my contortions
to accommodate.
Conversations flow in torrents;
my awkward trickle dries,
I silently observe.
By the time anyone pauses
to notice my absence,
I’m long gone.
Disappearing one’s self
from physical social functions
call for skill and patience.
Social media ghosting only requires
resolve to never logon again;
no one looks for you there.
Voiding verbal social contracts
with friends and loved ones
can be a bit trickier.
But total mastery of this art
necessitates majestic dexterity
and stately self-loathing.
It is mastered only when
you never leave your bed
no longer seeking connection,
and no one ever again seeks
comfort within your touch.
Ghosting is easy with practice,
but living with the aftermath,
not so much.
It’s doubtful you even noticed
that I left this poem.
***
Inspired by dVerse Poetics: Your Majesty, hosted by Gospel Isosceles. Other poets contributed to the prompt here.
We were supposed to implement some type of majestic vibe into this prompt, but as you can see, I predictably went the other way with it.
By SpaceX – Falcon Heavy Demo Mission, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66235869
Floating behind me,
a sea of blue, an immense sphere
comprising all that I know,
adore and despise,
breathe and asphyxiate,
drink and drown.
Ahead, you glisten, in quiet peril
reflecting light, juxtaposed in endless black,
after reporting a problem, drifting away,
brave smile in your voice
unintelligible
at this growing distance.
“You’re too late,” you said,
while still in range,
the warmth in your voice
transcending the void,
inexplicably soothing
my chilly fingers
and frosty extremities.
“Oh shit,” I said,
profanely breaking protocol
as the aspect of you
slowly shrank to a point of light.
“I’m sorry,” I offered to the magnets
within the transmitter mic,
a vain effort to overrule
our physical plane.
“It’s ok,” you said tenderly,
reassuring neither of us,
us both ignoring the
depleting oxygen alarms.
“I’m on to my next waypoint.
We’ll have to rendezvous
at the next target window,”
you declare as if our time were not
fleeting, finite,
our fates fixed.
You disappeared beyond the thin blue line,
leaving me to contend with the enormity
of the pale blue light and
an hour of radio silence,
floating above our northern hemisphere,
tilting away, towards winter.
“You free?” your voice vibrated
into my anxious receiver
after a maddeningly long silence
as your glimmer emerged
from the far-side,
rising to rival Venus-glow
and moondust.
“Yes,” I replied quickly,
maneuvering towards a
rendezvous altitude.
“I’m listening. I’m here.”
Then everything went null,
no heat, no cold,
not even light or shadow or grey,
leaving us clasping onto nothing.
***
Shared at Poetry Pantry #496
Paranormal Women's Fiction, Urban Fantasy, and Fairy Tale Retellings with a Modern Twist
True tales over 50
exercising heart and mind, lest I waste away
Insight and inspiration for writers and readers
Some verses, some hues
Poems and psychosis.
"If you talk to God you're religious. If God talks to you, you're psychotic."
Gallery of Photography
Writing and Stuff by Chris Hall - Storyteller and Accidental Blogger
Hephaestus’ Waste & Cosmic Rubble 