Due warning, my head has been in a bad way lately and some of my poetry is vent poetry, so there may be some dark imagery at times this year.
Easter's Fool
04/01/2018
In the midst of pastel wonder
And dizzy heat,
Too-bright sun
And prayer-garden azaleas,
I wish I could say
“I am listening, speak.”
What I say instead is
“Shut up no please”
Is
“Not that again, not that one”
Is
“It is only a little cup, but let it pass from me.”
My king, he sucked in breath again this morning,
On a slab of stone -
And played the greatest joke the world has known
In the teeth of the Devil’s laughter.
My devil, she’s still laughing.
Is this Sunday, or Gethsemene?
Shake loose my winding-cloths
And let my heart Spring forth for thee.
Visitor
04/02/2018
Would buy more minutes if I could
If there weren’t so many things I should
Be doing otherwise, regardless
I’d pull close and quiet, bless
The string of happenstance that brought you
This way when I half-felt I’d lost you.
strange fruits
04/02/2018
There’s a tree I know keeps dropping bloody fruit down at my feet -
Sadistic windfall apples I can’t easily ignore.
It catches birdflight thoughts and twists them, breaks their longing wings,
And tries to shatter all the far horizon-hopes they had in store.
And I -
I cannot uproot it, its gnarled roots have run too deep,
Trailing down brainstem and throat until it finds the heart of me.
But I -
You know I cannot leave them, all its dazed bone-broken dreams,
The destinies my demon-tree has laid in store.
I will keep on
And pick them up
In my two fragile, clumsy hands,
And take them home and heal them
‘Til they learn to fly again.
There's a vaguery to these, but an artistic one. I hope these darker thoughts will soon fade for you!
Ooh, I like the first two especially! 🙂
Thanks for the comments, friends. 🙂
Ariel - I doubt they will fade on their own, but I am getting help in dealing with the source.
at home
4/4/2018
For now we are four,
For two have scattered.
A strange thought.
A good lot
By many a standard,
But I’m used to the footsteps
And echoes of more.
How is this too few
And yet too many?
I had meant last year to reduce it to two.
Spread my wings and fly
Into a promising rainbow sky;
Make a nest with one friend,
Earn a pretty penny.
But I never meant to be the one left behind.
For now we are four, with two on my mind.
This one is lovely in its simplicity, yet it communicates the complex emotion underneath. It actually made me feel a little sad. Good work!
Thank you, Ariel. <3
...I'm a little behind for now but if I double up for the next couple days I should be good I think. ^_^
I have a couple of newbies but having some copy-pasting difficulties on mobile, so I shall update that once I get home.
college-corner cafe
4/10/2018
I visit a silly, babbly sort of refuge
Full of stranger’s talk and muffled music
With sweet and pungent smells at its centrifuge.
Above the calming clatter there’s a scree
Of some small metal monster’s feeding time.
It munches roasted beans or ice
Then falls asleep again.
The shop’s symbiosis is nice.
The shelves and counterpanes are guarded
By small silent friends of wood and porcelain.
Their patient watchfulness rewarded
By gifts of knitted garb, and patrons’ attention.
not tame
4/10/2018
Greetings and thanks
To a small wanderer,
Cage-hater,
Bright-eyed companion
For one dark moment.
Success and freedom I’d wish for you;
Swiftness for your paws,
Clever-heart.
Star-flame, burn ever bright.
[untitled so far - suggestions?]
4/10/2018
All the ghosts of generations,
Memories of field and fen
Sea and cave and ancient forest,
Deeps of the forgotten glen.
We have all contained our monsters,
In our genes and untame mind.
They still nest there, you remind me,
Past the places we can find.
But amid our krakens, treasures.
Pearl and jewel, golden spark.
Last drop of Pandora’s measures
Hope has always met the dark.
Ooooh, I love "not tame"!
Ummm...I can't really think of a title for the last one at the moment.
Thanks, Hobbit! <3 ...And that's fine, I just figured I'd fish for possibilities. 🙂
---
Sister Devil
4/11/2018
Sister Devil, are you coming out to play?
Meet a shadow on its wicked way
Past the corner of your eye
On the lazy street.
Oh, you may try
But you’ll never meet
The match of the girl with the fire in her hand -
Hellhound padding through the land.
Ready grin - ready as her teeth.
Finds her freedom in what yawns beneath.
courage the color of a mirror
4/11/2018
"Mirror" in the sense used here is roughly an alterego, or story-projection of self.
Some days it’s a long wait alone
And I can’t be sure who’s coming -
Whose feet are running
Toward me,
Friend or enemy;
To save, or force me to atone.
But in the dark behind my eyelids
It’s still brighter than it seems,
For I dance with sunspots and dreams.
Hold fast though I’m meant to shatter.
Wait for the wonder the wind has scattered.
Call leaves and lightning and unicorns -
Conjure as I can to distract from the lies,
Until I find I’m free
Enough to open up my eyes
And see.
Rainyday
4/14/2018
Hullo rainfall -
Soft and soothing
Tin-patter tile-spatter lullabye.
Ally of a gloomy evening,
Send my mind on holiday.
Rockabye the tree-branch cradle,
Siren-song the robin’s treat;
Fill the lane with silver rivers,
Sail tires down the splashing street.
In the Sun
4/15/2018
Sun fills up the air around you,
Shines fiery in your young silver hairs,
Glows white on your neck and cheek,
But leaves your thoughtful face in shadow.
Quiet, now. As you were ever quiet,
Slow to speak and slow to answer,
Often brooding lost in dream.
Semitropic green glows at your back,
Waxy shine on garden leaves.
When you left, you bloomed.
Learned to laugh more, sing aloud;
Be proud of your voice.
Be yourself in no one’s shadow,
Drench your garden in the light.
Quiet
4/17/2018
My head a-buzz with stinging bees;
Gold-and-shadow striped living and dying…
So quiet I miss them when they are gone,
So silent and hollow,
Still.
I want the silence.
I want the buzz and glare to die,
Leave room enough to hear
Leaf-rattle, wind-swell,
A distant bird.
Just find me a place of rest, my dear,
And you will have my gratitude.
-and, Silence
4/17/2018
“Silence, once so bright and golden,
Now when it has us all beholden
May entrap us in its darkness -
Bitter silence, Winter’s starkness”,
I wrote once, naively.
But Winter may be the world’s retreat,
Past the thirst of summer’s heat.
And if the quiet’s so bitter, it’s only
A sign that in the loud I was lonely.
[edit]
Five poems behind, then. Not insurmountable, but I'd need to stay on top of it and remember to double up from here out if I want to come out golden.
Ooh, these are all wonderful! My favorites are "courage the color of a mirror" and "Quiet". 🙂
Thank you, Hobbity-friend! ^_^
Setting bait
4/18/2018
Roughly, on temptation and the ways we can be lured and teased into doing what we know is unwise, when the right heartstring gets pulled - two analogies from fiction, one metaphor for a personal experience.
"Don't you want it", the pretender said
To the future king,
"Don't you want to be my son and thrall?
Sweet as lies and kisses is
My sugar offering -
Don't you want it? Don't you want it all?"
"Don't you want it?" asked the vampire
Of the warrior girl,
"Don't you want to dance with death with me?
All your life, the thrill of battle
Sends your head a-whirl.
Baby, I'm your final answer.
I'll assuage your curiosity."
"I know you want it",
Said the demon to the cub in her den,
"You want to sleep inside my cage.
You deserve it what's more -
As do all free beasts -
Just so we're on the same page.
It's in your heart, your love to rue.
I'll clip your claws and punish you."
[edited 4/28/18: typo-correction on stanza 2]
self-fulfilling prophecy
4/19/2018
They called us a storm.
Crushed into this desert dust,
I will bring the rain.
“Like seeds, like soil, like stars”
4/20/2018
Stardust and ashes,
Empress and beggar,
Daughter of Eve.
Bow to stand,
Confess to proclaim.
Be alive, Child.
Between two trees
You find your soul
A foreign land.
old calluses
4/20/2014
Echo me back the questions we’ve known –
I hadn’t known you’d known them too.
The years I spent wrestling before I’d half-grown,
When I was alone, I was alone with you.
Help me then to finally see
That in our wonder there is a key.
against the siren
4/20/2018
Not my words
Pounding in me
Not my words
Call the dance -
You can refuse to meet the fiddler
But you’ve always had the chance.
Not my words
Cloud the sunshine
Not my words
Wash the street -
Mark them up to daily grind,
They’ll tell me what I shouldn’t eat.
They’ll tell me when I shouldn’t speak,
When to move or to lie still.
They’ll tell me that it’s dark out there
As the very sun comes up the hill.
Not my words
May not own me
Not my master
I am no one’s toy.
I own my heart and fingers,
I will sing the stars with baretooth joy.
"Teach us to pray."
4/22/2018
Loving first-family and Maker of me,
As high and far as the sun you seem.
Too strange and sacred, great and grand
For me to ever touch your hand
But here,
You rule, protect and guide.
Here, in this ball of water and clay,
Plants and beasts and secret fires
Beneath the stone,
And the heart of me.
And you were still here (so far away)
In the teen's despairing unseen dark,
And you were still here (and ready to stay)
In the child's quiet begging, locked closet door.
And when the night passes with its restless sleep,
Wild wonderings,
Night-mare riding me into flame -
I wake to the warmth of the near-distant sun,
And rise and eat my daily bread.
Wow. I'm really glad you told me you were posting these here. I really appreciate your poetry, Lily. Your words are very potent. Easter's Fool is very strong, and I liked the apple gathering image in Strange Fruit. Is it young Caspian and Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Setting Bait? The untitled of the 10th I quite like. I would maybe call it "Spark". I'm not sure. “Like seeds, like soil, like stars” is another one I especially like. Your words matter. You craft them well and sincerely.
I don't know what it is about "old calluses" but I really like that one!
