Written
for JD Mader’s writing blog – check in at 2minutesgo and start writing.
on
out,
slide
inside in.
lightly
aloft,
bumble
soft dance.
light,
revoke
night’s pin-point.
On.
Off.
Light’s
suggestive spark.
A
paw.
A
toe. Impromptu.
rose,
pearl
ears
of snow.
blue
scales,
shaken
jagged pieces.
selves,
empty
cusks,
dishevelled shells.
snakes,
eels,
eats
hexagon hearts.
Endurance
An axe could strike right through it.
Shackles off, here lies exploration’s tomb,
speckles from a purpled moon,
nimble stars set the black seas alight.
a scarlet flare to light this endless verve.
Fireworks in the midst of miles of nothing,
only blue ice in kindest verisimilitude.
Where all the seekers have come to see,
there is now only silence struck.
linger the memories of the escaped crew,
cases etched with their unique histories,
rusted hinges keeping their secrets kept.
We learn nothing from their outside shields,
sanded down in the wide Weddell Sea.
a symbol of the Heroic Age crushed, and we
final-check our gear, deep dive into the wall,
a Narnia beneath the waves. Emptiness engulfs.
We swim as fish through the ribs of the body,
their pristine timbers yawning under pressure.
imagine the intrepid men who manned the ship
drifting past as shadowed dreams, where now
suckered anemones, sea lilies and starfish cling
to their stately home, a-shimmer in technicolour,
hearing the beating heart of a better world.
Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: a hay(na)ku consists of a three-line
stanza, where the first line has one word, the second line has two words and
the third line has three words.
12 hay(na)ku
the
line,
read in
between.
chaotic
reload,
unkempt
arctic smile.
connecting
in,
pure beat
sublime.
so
figured,
redrawing
twisted circles.
clover emeralds,
unbonded,
lucked out.
fulfilling
birth,
wavering
eternal wanderings.
A call.
Empathic
mnemic overload.
High
stakes.
Play
your hope.
Crossed.
Exchanged.
Gathered
in recall.
Shifters.
Shadows
creep in
switchback.
wind catching,
spirals
circling free.
Touch.
Part.
Wonder the
moment.
Wander lust
She cannot find in looking,
dusts down these scarlet echoes unlived,
so out of steam, bereft and sold,
in a cage of ages etched in gold.
Plucked from a single straw,
the broomstick flinches close,
beats against the witching post.
Open the windows wide,
let the present wander in,
flood the walls in faery fire,
seek the things that will never tire.
We ring the leaves & bells tonight,
dare to dance barefoot wild,
this enigmatic moon beguiled.
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 7, 2024
all the sacred lists of never done,
the wished upon, bled, un-won.
a struck filament, who knew?
Seeping fire, sweeping through.
in an instant he’s down on one knee,
emoting for all the world to see.
a pool of friends bleat at the door,
full knowledge of the homeless poor.
you get a full calendar to grieve,
suppress your own joy to still live.
he’s standing in line for another fix,
missing, extinct, exiled from the mix.
they’re all trying to make it leven,
seeing signs full-sail from heaven.
it’s a time to step inside your fate;
only make sure it’s not too late.
he said “I want it all to be mine”
and yet he didn’t want to spend a dime.
she lingered awhile beneath Big Ben,
doused by rain, oblivious to all men.
These poems are inspired by a prompt from NaPoWriMo.net. They are not related and are meant to be read separately.
Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: a hay(na)ku consists of a three-line stanza,
where the first line has one word, the second line has two words and the third
line has three words.
Snapping lines
in echo, doubled.
sparked, this
never-truant Dark.
inked nightmares,
where erasers stick.
Lines
on repeat,
a rivered blackboard.
Youth.
Known. Vanquished.
No time machine.
stained scarlet.
A wedding marked.
Unmasked,
the unsuited;
revenge of distain.
Flits,
deft footed,
starts, darts, skyward.
Cut,
scooped, stolen.
Jet black curls.
Lifted,
endless veil.
Vast pitch unhidden.
Rattle,
without hum.
Breath sneaks out.
This
one bed –
his whole world.
Milk.
Unspilled, capped.
A warning sign.
Bells,
and whistles.
Symphony on pause.
Journeying,
outward, in.
A wild belonging.
fleshed out,
fielding the core.
sacred light,
night’s ultimate shield.
squished rescuers,
directors of travel.
Rust. Dust.
A life interred.
Prompt from NaPoWriMo – Today, I’d like to challenge you to blend these
concepts into your own work, by producing a poem that meditates, from a
position of tranquillity, on an emotion you have felt powerfully. You might try
including a dramatic, declarative statement, like Hass’s “All the new thinking
is about loss,” or O’Hara’s “It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to
appear so.” Or, like, Baudelaire, you might try addressing your feeling
directly, as if it were a person you could talk to. There are as many
approaches to this as there are poets, and poems.
The cabin crew know it’s grown small,
full circle, sinking in shallow water,
these wood, stripped walls closing in,
bended, rounded, echoes of past sound,
they creak away this endless night.
Life on pause sleeps snug and waits.
to hang upon this shroud of cloud.
Fiery sparks of gold dance in formation,
cast kaleidoscopes of fate to scribble down,
simulate fairy lights in a Christmas town.
We only need the fae in filagree to sing.
suck up every strewn casted shadow.
We stand on the edge of endless mist,
our ancestors expectant in our stead.
In the distancing, a wounded bridge lifts,
trembles in its aged, rusted, iron skin.
drawn as full as we are, our emotions
streaming from the Ace of Cups.
A glance back is all it takes sometimes.
In earth, we hibernate below the tumult,
bow down into our wordless dreaming.
Prompt from NaPoWriMo.net: I’d like you to try your hand at a minimalist poem. What’s
that? Well, a poem that is quite short and doesn’t really try to tell a story,
but to quickly and simply capture an image or emotion. There’s even an extreme
style of minimalism in the form of one-word and other “highly
compressed” poems. You don’t have to go that far, but you might think of your
own poem for the day as a form of gesture drawing. Perhaps you might start from
a concrete noun with a lot of sensory connotations, like “Butter” or “Sandpaper,”
or “Raindrop” and – quickly, lightly – go from
there.
Never written, only felt.
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, May 19, 2024
