all the things that love likes
Tell me about your hands,
faded scars that look like stars,
from haunting, distant lands,
with broken getaway cars.
You whisper as tears flow,
about haunted dreams and bursting seams
with nowhere left to go,
but back to your decaying regimes.
Even amid your silence,
are tolling bells and muted yells,
a heart that screams of violence
locked inside cast-iron cells.
so I fell in love with you,
your lightning strikes and daunting spikes,
and I know it must be true;
we abandon all the fancy things Love likes.
But holy hell what you admit,
Under the guise of velvet skies.
hopeless tries and sapphire eyes.
god, I’ve never met a storm quite like you.
#poetry #poet #challenge #prose
the easy stillness of an afternoon light
She walks up the stairs slowly, each step creaking softly in the fading daylight.
The house is quiet, and it feels peaceful, and that’s how it would stay in her memory.
Her hand runs past the banister feeling the old wood under the fingers and sensing each crack, sharp edge, or smooth line. Finally, she carefully reaches the third-floor window and opens it, listening to the low creak as she does so. She smiles and slips off the white cotton shirt that gently falls to the ground. She leans over the edge of the window and flexes the muscles, feeling her back start to bleed. She smiles again and inhales.
It’s time.
Deep lines open on her skin and scratch between her shoulder blades, red-stained feathers slipping out and blossoming like small flowers breaking the milk-white flesh as if through melting snow.
Time stops, and then suddenly, everything catches light.
There is nothing more in the soft summer air but an angel’s soft sigh.
Three Minutes
Oodle doodle oh!
Sing it high, sing it low.
Mind bent
arcs and corners
signals sent
curves and squiggles
jelly wiggles
don’t turn left
circle round
no squares
no dares
crooked stairs
pair in two’s
comfy shoes
stamp feet
feel heat
start over
roll in clover
’til it’s over
sing once more
high, then low
oodle doodle oh!
A Sad Time In Our Lifetime
Let's face a fact. Science isn't political. Science is science. Science goes to the heart of facts, based on hard evidence, not hearsay. I hear all this talk about how the vaccine is a plot. Conservative media, certain politicians, downplay the need and there are people who buy into that notion. Shame on them.
The vaccine gives you a chance to live. Metal won't stick to your face. It's not Russia, China or India, our own government, or whatever; what this is, is a failure to trust in what works. For you, your family, your friends.
Over 612,000 died from Covid had no say because there was no vaccine. I am willing to bet if they hadn't died, they would be the first ones at a clinic begging for the vaccine in order to live.
To all the naysayers, I wish you well and hope you don't get ill, especially with Delta on the rise. But dammit ... have trust, have faith, and stop listening to false news that says you will be just fine without it.
Truth is: you won't be. Just ask the parents who have lost a total of 300 kids to the Delta variant. 300 kids that will never have the chance to grow up.
steaming ramen
and the smell of soapy water
even that
i romanticize
until it's lost its flavour
like everything else
a grey life, a bland love
it's all gone stale
but i keep moving, keep swallowing
keep living
and for what?
like eating
because i know i should
and for nothing else
senseless, feelingless
but it keeps me alive
Summer Stream of Consciousness
Sometimes I think summer might be the saddest season
I know you’ll think I’m crazy for saying so
But it’s too good, too perfect, too true
That’s why it’s gone before you realize what you had
Like sand cupped in your hands
It quickly spills through the crevices between your fingers
And when night comes the breeze smells too fine
Of memories, of firsts and lasts
And all the times in between that you thought would go on forever
The cicadas sing too sweetly
Like the soundtrack to your favorite movie
And it makes you think that your life deserves a score too
Because in summer everything feels that much more alive
And important and real
But the trick is that in feeling the hum of your insides
When you drive with the windows down
Or the gentle careess of grass behind your knees
When you lay in the park at sunset
You eventually realize that life ends in a period and not an ellipsis
That one day you will feel nothing at all and that
Time is the cruelest season
When all you want is an Infinite summer night
Life lessons on the way to work
Driving to work, I note the beauty that borders the road - also a good way to avoid collisions with hungry deer (woodchucks, squirrels, chipmunks,...) searching for that next patch of yummy plants on the other side. Amidst the green foliage dappled with yellows, purples and reds, are naked trees, leaning, fallen, crumpled, dead. A silent reminder that even the majestic, long-lived tree returns to the dust from which it once grew.
She didn’t know where to go from here...This was where she was. This was where she stood. She couldn’t turn back; there was no place to return to. She couldn’t go forwards; she still couldn’t swim.
To the left, stood the jagged rocks. To her right came the approaching beasts, their growling and yapping heightening her fear and hitching her breath.
If I could turn back time...I would never have allowed that infernal virus to escape...I would have guarded it until I understood every feature and aspect of it.
But this was it. No do-overs. Just accepting what was coming. Her imminent death. Either being drowned or being torn to shreds by beastly creatures.