A Poem a Day (119): Off!

Well, it's been a while. Hello everyone in 2020! It's a strange year, to say the least, a difficult one, a tragic one, something we could never have imagined happening. One where I dread to read the news, but need to know what is going on in the world, while feeling powerless to help. Keep safe, everyone. I hope you and your loved ones are well and keeping safe. 

This is a poem I just wrote for JD Mader's 2minutesgo writing exercise on his blog, Unemployed Imagination. If you'd like to write something, or read and comment on other people's writing, head over there. He's open every weekend, or at least his website is! 

Off!

The world stopped, but I didn’t want to get off.

It stopped turning. But I still had things to say.

“Don’t loiter in the throughway.”

My fingers caught the rail tighter lest it disintegrate

To nought, like the globe around me and below

Where the cities stood silent, emitting solitude

While the cherry tree blossoms wilt to grey.

This window contracts, ever-decreasing my view

Of the things I used to do, the faces I used to

Know. Where are you? I spoke to you yesterday,

Yet I can’t see you in my memory of the crowd.

Are you down there, sitting mute behind your view,

Keeping your fortress closed, breathing stale air?

I remember moments sewn in a patterned quilt,

And you, you providing the voiceover to each

Scene. I recall some, but I know some are gone now.

“Don’t loiter in the throughway!”

It’s my turn. Someone is urging me, pressing soft,

Steadily insistent. I know I have to take the step,

This leap into the unknown, the gap between

Here and the below, embrace the nothingness.

I wonder where you all are, every one of you.

It’s been two weeks, but it seems so much more.

I feel time ticking, even though it stopped dead.

The conductor nods his head and I know now:

I have to get off.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, March 27, 2020

Flash fiction (24): The tailor

Written for JD Mader's 2minutesgo.

Travellers

It’s comical and tragic how she floats between walls, the silent watcher becoming the studied, the scarlet magician defeated. These lines were painted long before her arrival, their essence already etched into the red soil made solid. Dust is all they know, and dust keeps smothering the spaces in between thought, the gaps of knowledge covered anew, as paper evens cracks. The tailor arrived yesterday, carrying his dispirit trapped in a glass jar, empty except for a listening ear. A stub of gristle marked the removal, but I did not flinch. He eyed me curiously, seeking evidence of my fear, my repugnance, yet I gave him nothing. I watched him go, the hours of travel drawn on his back, blank on his face. I did not think of him again until I heard the cry. The night split in two.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 6, 2019

A Poem a Day (94): Paper people

Paper people

Pieces of a life,

Of a person,

Walking in parts,

A cut-out kind of thing;

Words, pictures, phrases

Spun as in a dance,

And so we begin

To wander in,

Trying on the sounds,

Fumbling with expressions,

Colours ripped and bodied,

Rainbows cut adrift,

Parting, so revealing

A life in parts,

Dismembered, remembered.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, January 28, 2019

A Poem a Day (93): The tigress

If you fancy writing some flash fiction or poetry, and getting/giving feedback, or just reading other people's creations, head over to JD Mader's 2minutesgo website. It’s a great place to go and write whatever is in your head. Cheers.

The tigress

She loves the light,

This silent torn play;

A dance with leopards

Skinned and unmasked.

It grins with a grim cadence,

This sensation of despair.

The curtain splits deep red

And my feet are dripping wet.

I cannot breathe this in,

I cannot breathe it out.

This legendary staged adieu

Is caught and I am split in two,

But she loves the light so,

And the dark knows its lovers.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, January 28, 2019

A Poem a Day (89): Self

Here’s a poem I wrote for JD Mader's 2minutesgo website. It’s a great place to go and write whatever is in your head, and read what others are writing in the group, and give/get feedback. It happens every weekend. Cheers.

Self

This part of the self is the one that breathes too easy,

Green as the grass inviting the reminiscence of rain,

Softening the dirt enough for the sparrow to find its worm.

And so it begins, this ring, this O, forever circling us.

Waking birds will jest and dive, and mate and sing,

While the things we count will never be numbers.

The arch is but a monument to our fond travails

And only the lark will rise early enough to sound it.

But I digress, and along this path walk with me.

These days are long, collected in puddles, mud-splattered

Pages blowing across an ever-misted lake drawn,

Offering you an emptied canvas, a fresh beginning.

But know the distancing will turn around only too soon,

For the tides grow impatient and darkness has its eyes.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, January 12, 2019