Bleached Silence
Shots ring out
Bodies fall
Blood runs
As if
It’s the cost of freedom
We get on our knees
Scrub to remove the stain
Ask for relief from the pain
Bleached silence
This poem is my response to Twiglet #282: bleached silence.
Bleached Silence
Shots ring out
Bodies fall
Blood runs
As if
It’s the cost of freedom
We get on our knees
Scrub to remove the stain
Ask for relief from the pain
Bleached silence
This poem is my response to Twiglet #282: bleached silence.
Cracked Stucco
Repentance
Acceptance
Deftly veiled nonconformance
Tiger, stripes
Leopard, spots
Backspin on your camouflage
Reason’s rhyme
Waste of time
Nonconformist paradigm
Counterpose
Predisposed
Undiluted truth exposed
This poem is my response to Twiglet #276: cracked stucco.
Off prompt, but shared with Day 30 at napowrimo.com.
Image source: wallpapersafari.com
Embers to Stars
On a still night, with ambient light
nothing more than flames rising
from ash and maple into thin smoke
that wafts upward in a loose spiral,
coaxed ever higher by glowing embers
that lie in the pockets between
those slowly settling logs,
we sit in a circle, feeling the warmth
seep into us as it pushes against
the chill pressing into our backs.
Talk of the day’s events behind us,
we gaze into the sky in awed silence,
a wordless communion blessed
by a blanket of stars, those flames
now as if nothing. Even as the fire
is reduced to embers, the night’s chill
has no effect, for what could rival
a brilliance that inspires the imagination,
kindling wonder that knows no bounds
as it blazes across the sky?
This poem is my response to Twiglet #273: across the sky.
Off prompt, but also shared with Day 8 at napowrimo.net.
Sweepstakes
There is dignity, even in hauling coal,
when masts stand tall with sails unfurled
as they hold the wind as their own.
But treacherous waters care not
for dignity when the wind howls
and waves rise to meet a bowsprit.
You drew the short straw in that lottery,
your life cut short after eighteen years,
your graceful lines no match
for the rocky shore that met them.
Within the shallows of that narrow bay
where you’ve lain for a century,
you know no wind, yet you have
a view of the sky that holds it,
so blue during days of calm, or darkened
gray when those winds swirl. The water
around you, cool in any season,
steals from you that rippled view
in winter, yet offers a cool blue light,
nearly electric, filtered through its icy ceiling.
And though we may walk above you
in your winter obscurity, we can still imagine
you as we might on ice-free days,
when, though your masts are gone,
you are still known as Sweepstakes, your lines
still graceful before the winds you held so dear.
This poem is my response to Misky’s Twiglet #259: cool blue.
I started scuba diving in 1981, and during the 1980s I made several trips to Tobermory, Ontario, and the Fathom Five National Marine Park. Twenty-two shipwrecks (and likely more) can be found in this underwater preserve where scattered islands create a hazardous passage into the Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The two-masted schooner Sweepstakes, built in 1867, struck Cove Island in 1885 and was towed to Big Tub Harbor at Tobermory, where it sank in twenty feet of water. The shallow dive was always enjoyable, and I even made a trip to Canada to dive on it as a part of my Ice Diving certification.
Image source: screenshot from YouTube (Sweepstakes in the winter) ~~ click for larger view
Map source: Wikimedia Commons
Heartbeat
a simple pleasure,
the pressure within
pressing out
then briefly gone
but always there
within
without
within
your presence
This poem is my response to Twiglet #255: underneath my ribs.
A Busy Window
Blinds closed.
Drapes drawn.
Makes no difference.
Beauty or horror,
the world continues
to turn, be it
the wheels in your mind
or your deepest gut.
Deal with it.
This short poem is my response to Twiglet #247 – a busy window.
Image source: seekpng.com
Madness, I Tell You
Let me go. Mad as I am,
with no two days the same
in a mind aswirl, the world
making no sense. It’s senseless
to seek any solace here.
We’re at a loss. You, to puzzle
through my state, and I, to find
any comfort in my madness.
This poem is my response to Twiglet #245: let me go mad.
Image source: Reader’s Digest
The Only One
A night of one star. Many.
Matters not when I am drawn by
the brilliance of the one beside me.
A composite of essence holding
one element in lines, shades,
yet distinct. Love.
This poem is my response to Twiglet #241 – the only one.
Image
Astronomy Picture of the Day
© Lazlo Bagi
NGC 891 vs Abell 347
(click image for larger view in new tab)
unequaled ecstasy
the reward of true love
left ignored and untended
leads only to heartache
the pain of a burning star
This gogyohka is my response to Twiglet #240 – the stars burn.
Image
Astronomy Picture of the Day
© Robert Gendler, Roberto Colombari, Digitized Sky Survey (POSS II)
Vela Supernova Remnant Mosaic
(click image for larger view in new tab)
The corners of thirst know the absolute want and need I have for you.
This American sentence is my response to Misky’s Twiglet #239 – corners of thirst.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons (author, Mahdi Kalhor)