When petals pale
and flutter to the floor
in musky pelt
Peel away the layers,
pretend it was never Spring
with blossoms’ blooming
yet to be discovered.
Even at curtain’s close
a stage remains to play:
Use rhythm wisely, tread
carefully; savour this,
Breathe in.
her hair hung askew,
clinging
to the curve of cheeks
risen to the hue
of blossoms burnished
by a blush of gold en
-crusted dew.
No sooner than the mill begins
a stalk appears to quiver —
No quitting when the mill begets
a stalker for the spinner.
Beneath red lines,
the tapered edge, your
catacomb, a cold cocoon.
Spring blossoms bloomed
and grew to seize you,
shearing through the hedge
So you held the blade
to pace it’s prick, hiding
from the heft of it
But light caught up
with ash to find us
sifting for the threads.
Our lonesome sheet of paper ails
tonight. She longs to fold herself
into creases of aligned symmetry,
devour a drop
of liquid ecstasy
and succumb
to the experience
of being torn
in two.
Day descends. Before the break
you will attempt to charge the distance
between hand, mouth and a second
cup of tea. On the countertop
letters lie, begging to be read, but I cannot
string sentences to satisfy or justify this state
when time is toast and a bite
left over is all there is to taste.
(April PAD Challenge – Day 23)
Before the precipice
of belonging,
some vision of falling
and an ache
which is the antithesis
of longing.
Here in this book the corners lie
with shadows for a soul to hide.
What leaves were shed now cast aside
to ferment by the riverside.
And there I lay you down to rest,
recalling every manifest,
and beg the breeze to soothe the breast
that broke before it could invest
in treasures that the world once sold
and doled out to the manifold
who know now not to fear the cold
that comes before the pages fold.
And so, be gone but not aggrieved,
what will was left must not be seized.
For all that we choose to believe,
no stirring yields once efforts ease.
(April PAD Challenge - Day 6)
There are no cats here,
just the hum of electrified
heat and our quiet breathing.
The air tingles— ‘Silence
is not so golden,’ you say.
I find myself
searching
for a spoon.
Devon says:
‘There’s no such thing as poetry.
They’re merely word jumbles -
Incomplete sentences
trying, unsuccessfully, to tell a story.’
Devon thinks of poetry
only in terms of Hallmark verse;
The Helen ‘Rice messages printed pink
within a potpurri of roses
that he sends, but never feels
And he can’t identify.
He thinks they’re only written
by the trite and dully smitten
who take their emotions and adorn the toilet door.
And I’ll bet he doesn’t think
that he, himself, might be a poem -
A human jumble of incomplete sentences
Telling a story to those who read
and listen
with their hearts.
