A Poem a Day (749): You on repeat

 
You on repeat
 
You were supposed to turn up on time.
You were meant to end each line with a rhyme.
 
You were fated to turn tomorrow upside down.
You were meant to greet each day without a frown.
 
You shifted the energy when you walked in a room.
You swept up the dark with the back of a broom.
 
You were the one to joke and wear glitter.
You were the one who trained to get fitter.
 
You were the one the other kids looked up to.
You were the only one the older kids knew.
 
You were always telling the tallest stories.
You were the answer to everyone’s worries.
 
You got older, drove too fast, lived a little too wild.
You never wore a sword, never needed a shield.
 
You forgot the names of your fans you met.
You met me, but my face was one you’d forget.
 
You were the artist, the writer, the talker.
You were the beginning, the end, the Faulkner.
 
You acted in this lifetime like you were out of tune.
You’d already lived nine lives before the strike of noon.
 
You enjoyed it all too much to protect your own hide.
You forgot to click your belt for that daring last ride.
 
You held the globe in your hand for an endless time.
You didn’t know the world would make you pay a fine.
 
You held up a mirror for others to discern their flaw.
You noticed not everyone liked what they saw.
 
You were meant to leave quietly, unnoticed.
You weren’t meant to leave a note that grimaced.
 
You were the one everyone wanted to be.
You weren’t meant to be the one that couldn’t see.
 
You lost your way trying to find how everything gels.
You forgot you can’t save yourself and everyone else.
 
Vickie Johnstone, July 14, 2026

NaPoWriMo Day 4: Paws

I’m doing NaPoWriMo on napowrimo.net. The challenge is to write a poem a day in April. Today is actually day 4, but I discovered this late (story of my life), so I’m catching up this weekend!

This is the prompt for the April 4 poem: 

Write a poem based on an image from a dream. We don’t always remember our dreams, but images or ideas from them often stick with us for a very long time. 

 Paws

Her almond eyes meet mine,

Lighting up the dark,

Seeing into me, through me.

Long whiskers twitch,

Picking up strange incantations

Or movements on the wind.

I swear she smiles.

Do animals smile?

She comes to tell me I am blameless,

Her final goodbye was not my fault.

These are the thoughts I read,

Whether said or not. She nods.

Our connection is unbroken.

I miss her already, knowing it’s the last,

Her only visit. And so she turns,

Her message delivered in dreamtime.

And I wake.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, April 4, 2020

A Poem a Day (117): Brush

Here's another one I wrote for JD Mader's 2minutesgo website last week.

Brush

He paints a life in seconds,
An image of use, departed feathers,
Where the grasses stand tall
Sucking nutrition from the sun.

Sparrows squawk, dip and hide,
Finding rest on the highest limbs.
These woods offer silent repose,
An escape from the grey metal grind.

He circles wonder to render order,
Colour trickles through his hands.
The Cumulus sail, gather to roll in,
But supper can wait, time still.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 16, 2019

A Poem a Day (115): Joker

Written for JD Mader's 2minutesgo website – head over there to write, read and comment every weekend... I watched The Joker on Friday. Dark and uncomfortably brilliant. 

Joker

When the deluge breaks he lets it sweep

Over him,

A burning caress he once yearned for

And now despises, invents a name.

These emotions he keeps locked inside,

Beyond him,

Feelings wretched, still wrecking.

In this fiery red glow he will dance,

Papering limbs in this cold numbness

Scourging through him, day in, day out,

Inside him.

It is his tempest, his alone; a jumbled mind

Cast adrift, signing, searching for insight

He can never hope to find.

And he knows he cannot be helped.

The murmurs will never calm, be quiet.

These blurred echoes of long jagged days –

A boy, a lost mother, a yard stripped dark,

Doors locked, pain, pitch black pain

Upon him.

This rain whips, cleansing scars etched so

Deep, reminding him of what was once,

Who he was once, the man he failed to

Become. Becoming a little less each day.

When the deluge calls, he dances a little,

Edging away from the fire serenading him

To come outside.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, November 9, 2019

A Poem a Day (114): Cobwebs

Written for JD Mader's 2minutesgo website – head over there to write, read and comment every weekend...

Cobwebs

Dust and sound,

And sound disintegrating

Into dust,

Buried, hidden;

Only a silent scream,

Extinguished,

Voices starved of

Oxygen. Dumb,

Silenced, suffocated,

The words stolen,

Reiterated anew to

Spiral out of context,

Trodden and stamped

Upon. All these forbidden

Days watered down,

Streaming, where

Sound exhumed dust.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, October 18, 2019

A Poem a Day (111): Red spectre

Red spectre

She dances in the red chapter,

Colours of heat, movement, pain,

Yellow-green slanted cat eyes wide,

Jagged limbs such untamed sticks.

She’s a judder in the wind,

An elfin spark leaping in a blue flame,

And it will never blow out

While these faces invite her in.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, August 27, 2019