The Sunday Muse – #251

Some days I can’t get the peanut butter

outta my ears.

Some days my mouth feels

full of marbles,

each word bumping up against the others,

all in a rush to get out.

Some days are a forest of words

surrounding me

where I wander, lost.

Some days are a silent desert that

I trudge through alone.

Some days the hardest work

isn’t baling hay, or digging ditches, or chopping wood;

 it’s getting meaning

from one solitary soul

to another

This image, and some other cool writing prompts, are found at The Sunday Muse.  Check it out.

*Note: Photo Manipulation by Photographer Dariusz Klimczak

Communicating with the Dead, in 55

I imagined
communicating with the dead
was shrouded
in mystery

But it’s not

It’s a note
in his handwriting
tucked into a favorite book

it’s the smell of
his closet

it’s the work gloves
still stiff with
the shape of his hands

Communication with the dead
is small, common
everyday

and
pretty much
one way

 

This is a 55 word version of a longer piece I’ve been noodling with for FF 55 hosted by Hedgewitch, with a tip of the hat to Galen.  Click on the link to go to her blog, Verse Escape, and join the fun!

Difficulties of Speaking to the Dead…

Between you and me
is an ellipsis
that spans this life
but can’t quite reach the next

All the things I said
that you didn’t hear
and all the things
I didn’t say
but meant to
and now I never can,
for your ears
are filled with earth
and worms
and bugs
and all manner of bacteria
claiming you,
taking you back

And the space grows
between those three dots
past, present, future
time and worlds
and thoughts
and unsaid
words
fill the space

And yet
it feels so empty

Check out Poets United for more poems in keeping with the season of All Hallows Even and Day of the Dead.

 

NaPoWriMo #24

My lost friends are stacked,
like playing cards,
set on the table
of my immobility,
my inability to reach out
to communicate.

I think so fondly of them
of the times and adventures we shared
tender, or exciting, or comforting
as close as family,
once

In my mind
I take each one,
examine her, remembering
then I take them all – the stack,
the deck
I shuffle them,
deal them out, face up
and begin another game of
solitaire

This is really rough, but I like the idea of it. I have friends that I have lost touch with, for no reason. We never had a falling out or anything like that. We just were no longer had daily or frequent interactions and either business or inertia or something has kept us apart. I got this image while driving and thinking, and tried to write it down (without crashing).
“Friends I have lost, structured like playing cards,” is my note. This makes me think of two things. One is the Virginia Woolf quote, something like, I have lost friends, some to death some to the sheer inability to cross the street.
The other thing it reminds me of is the Pink Floyd song about pictures of faces on newspapers …their folded faces to the floor….

Anyway, some work needed, but it’s a promising start.