A Poem a Day (69): The guest

A flash poem written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... It's every Friday, so if you fancy writing something - whatever you feel like - head over there, or just read the flash fiction and poetry.

The guest

I am the guest,

The unnamed one who trips and trots

Through closed rooms, opening doors,

Seeking ways to understand what’s gone.

I wander with a heart long emptied,

A dying sound is all I emit from dry lips –

Unheard of, these gems of dust fly

From myself to you and back again,

Senseless, these things making no sense.

I dream of finding a penny while you die,

And yet I know you have no care,

And for this reason I will not despair

When you are gone. I will not sink.

I will not dwell on past things long gone

Or think to ask you a yard of questions,

All unfathomable, dried, twisted, cold.

Can I still speak when you fall ever silent?

Will you hear me when I rack and wail?

As the walls close in to embrace me cold,

I know I’ll remember how all this I sold.

I am the guest

Who wanders in and empties out,

Drifting on these small gusts of memory,

For everything else is long gone, stolen,
And we are but the remnants of our selves.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, January 27, 2018

A Poem a Day (28): She sits beside the rose

I've been watching Vikings, so that may have inspired this one! :)

Cheers & happy Sunday to ya!

She sits beside the rose

She sits beside the rose that grows

In the hereafter

A smell so sickly sweet

Red like blood, it mixes courage

In the thorns that cut so deep;

Rested in this decaying place

The burial of the aged,

Blessed in the past they roamed

Once beneath the bowing trees

Where birdsong once laughed,

Clear waters rippling by,

The thorn breaks the skin,

Ejects a drop of blood red here;

Awakening the morning

Darkness slinks and ebbs away,

Striking a path through the light

Where no one treads so still

So slight, she listens to the ages

As the rose petals sink to the ground

Drifting out upon the wind,

It speaks softly through the trees,

Rustling the leaves, twisting,

Like open hands they hover softly

Where she stands

Sightless and watching,

Hearing the wail of the often tide

Dancing in the shadows held aloft

The thorn rents the curtain in two,

So it falls

Slowly, like the dusting of a wave

Brilliant on the back of the butterfly;

It shimmers there

Soundless, crawling in between

The walls of time, so silencing;

It does not pretend to weep

As the petals descend into blood


Copyright Vickie Johnstone

A Poem a Day (19): Plus one

A ten-minute poem based on the prompt 'plus', given on the Readers' Digest poetry page I'm following.

Plus one

It’s meaningless, this plus one

You so wish I would bring.

I am here, though alone,

Accompanied by my thoughts.

I only want to sit in the corner,

Tucked away from the bustle,

Eat a little dinner, something light,

Drink a glass of sweet red wine.

Here I can watch the people,

Listen to their funny stories,

Enter their unique lives,

But remain anonymous.

What does it matter to you?

It is only me, the widow

As my dearest plus one

Passed so, so long ago.

copyright Vickie Johnstone

Sample Sunday: poems from Kaleidoscope

Happy Sunday to you!

For Sample Sunday, here are two poems from my book, Kaleidoscope. Hope you enjoy reading.

Vickie

The sparkling sea

The sea came and sat with me

Laughs in sighing ripples cast away

Lies with me as I sink into its depths

Icy fingers caress my hair, softest flow

Down into the deep where darkness plays

And shadows dance in eerie cacophony

Where silent tears are as silent cries beneath

The loudest crack that rips the heart in two

Is but nothing, only dreamt awhile

My footsteps carry me in their deepest prints

Chasing me down the length of the beach

Softest wet sand tingling between my toes

Dancing momentarily beneath my feet

Never-ending waves stretch before me

Tearing their way into the darkest night

The moon echoes its solitary dance, hovering

As though about to plunge and scoop me up

But the beach lays bare, no shadows stray

No lines mark its purity but my own steps

Straying thoughtlessly away from me

Tracing their own path away into the night

Where the bats chase and dive and flutter free

Into the tops of trees so spectre thin and bare

I’m reminded of the shuddering chill of cold

That wraps me up in its lifeless limbs so old

And in the silence I can trace a solitary song

That passing faint and wild it cries and falls

Out towards the sea’s outstretched blue hands

And cuts down, slices through, down into the deep

Where silence lives and nothing stirs or creates flight

No echoes chide the place in time so bereft

Faint nothingness, its heart stripped cold of sound

Laid bleak and bare in the darkness lit by moonlight

So cursed, so bold, it carries me so far beyond

Everything that stands before me and the deepest sea

And so it comes to sit beside me ebbing forth

To carry me away into its darkest secretive heart

I don’t mind

I don’t mind

If you stare

Or paint the room in blue

While I sleep

I don’t mind

If you walk a while

Or smile in your style

And mimic your expression

I don’t mind

If the urge to be is too much

Or the strength to see is gone

While I dream

@ Vickie Johnstone