Like a blind dog
searching for water
we use our other,
inadequate senses
as best we can.
Can we sniff out love,
or salvation
in this dark, mortal chamber?
Ok, this needs work, like the “can./ Can”, so close together in lines 5 and 6, but right now I can’t take the time to fiddle with it. Another one to come back to.
The hills call siren-like and steep.
Two children share a wooden sled,
new snow is beckoning and deep,
the hills call siren-like and steep.
They landed in a shattered heap,
too fast to suffer, it was said.
The hills called siren-like and steep.
Two children shared a wooden sled.
Well, this started out to be a quadrille (44 words) including the word “steep” to link to dVerse Poets’ Pub, but somehow it turned into a dark triolet. Theat’s an eight line, iambic tetrameter poem with the rhyme scheme: ABaAabAB, where capital letters indicate repeated lines. I haven’t written one of these in ages.
Early morning
stars,
so sharp
they cut through
the blue-black back drop
of icy air,
hang above
staccato yips and cries
of coyotes
so close,
as if I could
nearly
reach them
if I stretched – or
perhaps they could reach me, teach me
the desperate, wild
longing
in their cries
There are
things older than words
dark, feral things
without form
that gather in my mind
and crowd my throat
pushing down
against the back of my tongue
Or, at times, they rest
thick and heavy
in the ends of my fingers
and the tip of my pen
as I try to write
even now.
Once upon a time, a wise man named Galen began writing 55 words on Fridays. And he invited others to joined him. Then one, sad day he left us. But a good witch, Hedgewitch, took up the 55 and carried it for as long as she could.
I think of these people every time I manage to coax 55 words from wherever it is they come from.
I sit with the moon
when everyone else
is tucked away, dreaming
I recite the stars
like a litany
rolling them
around my mouth
touching each tooth
one by one until I have
emptied the sky
I look
to the sky
as I draw the dark
around my shoulders
With a shiver
I contemplate
the cold, impossible light
of stars
so fair
so far
away
Here we go…
Photo from Public Domain Images
Searching for pockets of kindness
we huddle in doorways
fingering the scraps of our dreams
we are
halfway out of the dark
but the sun
is pitiless
