Tag: Poetry

Autumn Chill

Photo by Monica McHenney
The dawn light has changed
to a grey gold cousin of the blue brilliance that brightened my summer. 
Max's golden lab fur blends into the tawny tall grass. 
He looks at me. “What do you want? The works? Right.” 
He pees again, strolls to the center of the meadow lawn, and squats to do his business. 

His business is to 
please. It is the thing he does best, most naturally. Despite arthritis, 
his portly, chunky body seems to yield. Face aging white, 
he's older than I am. Seventy-seven. 
At seventy-two, cranky and arthritic, I won't age gratefully or graciously.

Doomsday Clock

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Sun and rain ravage her wind tossed hair,
jet black strands smooth as onyx glass.
Silken threads like kitten's fur, 
new as morning dew on grass. 

A child, yet grown, eyes intent, 
round with wonder, bright with fire. 
Her night brings monsters, malcontents 
wreaking havoc in dreamland's mire.

Ruled by demons dangerous dark,
audacious lies we can do without.
Perdition's putrid stench arises 
ignoring famine, flood and drought.

An omen for tomorrow? 
Resist the slippery slope. 
Stand together against oblivion, 
build barricades of hope.

The future waits. We can save one another.
Honor the Earth for she is our mother.

Labyrinth

Photo by Soulful Pizza on Pexels.com
A locked away monster,
bloody
quiet,
has escaped from the king's central labyrinth.

In the palace drawing room, the cultured crowd,
unaware,
exclaims learnedly regarding a jacket's weave, a jeweled neckline, a nice progression on the piano.

Hoi polloi sneak a peek,
stand in awe, in silence,
until their outside skins harden; turn to pale, plastic cellophane.
They wear tight smiles like lady's spandex girdles.

In voices that strain to be heard
they shriek,
“Let me in; let me be.”

Guards secure
the entrance to the drawing room. Posted on the door: 
Screaming, Crying, Pounding Prohibited.
Inside stand painted silk screens, embroidered room dividers, all crafted at the finest,
most secretive institutions.

Screens to sublimate,
to destroy the mundane and make it sublime,
An industry to craft silk purses from sow's ears.
The sows left bleeding, scatter
pieces of themselves along the path;
find a way away from the maze.

A Snow Globe Shakes

Photo by Mew wy. on Pexels.com

Wind and sun rage,

hair shines black.

A figure dances,

silken smooth as kitten’s fur or slender morning grass.

A child, yet grown, watches.

Eyes intent with wonder,

they mouth questions,

love,

delight,

a searching soul

dreaming dreams in endless night.

A globe: a house, some trees, a forest deep.

A cataclysm shakes the frigid

orb. Though small, it breaks the world apart.

Snow shoots up, explodes as crystal ice on glass.

The simple juxtaposition lays bare the base. Flaking plastic drifts over

earth and rusting heaps of junk. The scene, innocently ambiguous,

innocence itself subject to a melting world.

Afternoon Nap

Photo by Ahmed u30c4 on Pexels.com

Fleeting memories of something standing behind

me on a path. It catches up,

steps a crackling of gravel that grate,

disrupt, scatter the inner rhythm of the narrative flow.

Something omitted, textual. I keep

to the point, a crucial missing piece.

Pen in hand, letters to words.

Sentences slide past closed eyes, the ink dissembling,

thoughts assembling,

meaning transforms a tissue of dreams.

A new idea stands.

Can it survive the waking world?

Piercing

light delivers me from sleep. The ghostly paper vanishes,

the words, a memory.

The poem a floating fragment,

a vision, a fleeing image shrouded by forgetting.