Glow
drum the sacred earth with dry feet,
sweep dust into a prism of heat,
whip pure motion into power,
step inside the energy of each,
hearing the rattle of the charmer.
its way in streaks & wavering lines,
red silk twists, lifts, spirals out,
this glow an echo of an old record,
and we are free for a moment,
we are one, and we are life.
Drop
first floating, then thick, heavy,
repetitive, too out of tune.
A repeat that will not fade out.
The tap locked. Windows closed.
No escape from interlocking sound.
In others it’s an uncuttable record.
No pause. No erasure. No lightening
of the load. It just is. Unstoppable.
the end never in sight, but shrouded,
somewhere deep into dark.
A well no one throws a coin in.
if you cannot find your voice.
In the tumult. In the wilderness.
Out there in the nothing it now is.
We scurry forth like ants, directionless,
seek solace, a guide, a measure of the thing.
And the world ticks on, full-forward,
while we sit staring at the clock now locked.
if you choose to stare into it too long.
A walkway can become too narrow,
the memory of a raindrop the weightiest load.
Just a postcard with a benign address,
stamped with a face you never knew.
Solace
shutters clamped,
the blue wrestles in,
motions in
the egg-yolk sun full-stamped
with sweeps
of white, pink streaks of light.
Left to our
solitary reinvented selves
we climb
the walls of our cluttered minds,
think upon
boredom as a quieting sigh,
make plans
only to procrastinate and dream
a while.
starlight flown
across a void of dark voices,
countering
the elements, seldom reined back,
and we
stack our dreams against twilight’s verse.
We will be
lost until we are found.
Above, the
blackbirds sit lulled into silence
as we wander
barefoot through dewy grass,
peek through
jaded leaves to see the dawn
blink in.
and we rise
with the lark, open senses,
welcome the
day in mindful gratitude,
curious to see
in another year’s restart.
Open a
book, pick up a pen, visual on paper,
play a
note, sing a lullaby, greet the early bird.
We hunt
inspiration outside our sheltered selves,
seek conversation
and a connection in time,
become alive.
Prompt: write a poem of at least 10 lines in which each line begins with the same word. This technique of beginning multiple lines with the same word or phrase is called anaphora. www.napowrimo.net
Eco blue
We are as the turn of glass-blown water,
we are motion in the wear of light.
We slide as we sink as we pull to bear,
we reshape, translucent, hesitant to be.
We cup our hands to hold an entire ocean.
we hold firm as the pull becomes our angst.
We cut a line across our open palms, touch,
we feel the cord, this invisible bond between.
We are the breath we share in waves.
The word is as it was, as it always did appear,
as it should, as a filler, as a kind of maybe,
and so we choose how we say it, think it, spend it,
while it screws up its expression at the light, redraws
how it thinks we will read it, imagine it into being.
the way we guess without surety, without a window.
create a compass in the imprints of our own feet,
follow where they carry us as if they made a bargain,
because we cannot always remember the way,
or we cannot always find a way to remember it.
ushered in by the west wind,
neither Jack nor Queen nor King,
and yet they anchor us still.
pursue history and press pause.
to their whispers, marking ground,
but lightning cannot hide its vengeance,
and struck these matchsticks light.
From a dip in the hills comes a streak
come to save nature’s living awe.
Recoil in sheets and pillows,
blankets of driven snow,
a smothering of words.
no bridge can traverse,
just a cookie-filled dip.
with the passage of time,
it becomes impassable.
one sits up and reads a fantasy.
And never the two shall meet.
is the golden dog. And sometimes
even he finds it too cold.
I open my hands to take yours.
You open your hands to take mine.
This lack of space devours.
No time outside of travel,
magic without a single left word.
We could drown like this.
Or we can rise.
The moment is futureless,
It does not even feature beyond this room.
It only is.
Set sail upon a silenced space
of many splintered seas, cast-off
stamped cases, spent places, memories,
all shaken inside snow plastic effigies.
Darkness tends to hide itself away
if it is too tired to search the stars.
Containers can only hold so much.
a thought here, story there, a feeling,
regrets, crayon faces from childhood.
There is no deluge, only a plodding ebb.
A shadow could just be a curtain dusting,
some days haunt more than others.
So the urn may need to crack or splinter
into a million pieces to become whole.
an eagle in
flight, place to place
amid
spaces, finding form in motion,
being just
to be and breathe
simplicity,
outside the spin
of a world
in chaos.
tip up the
shade and hide.
The blue mountain
sits rigid,
the amber sky
continues to stare down
and the dusky
sea is ever in roar.
Anchors in,
and we are still.
with and
without direction,
here,
there, and the wherewithal.
Seeking
the compass, due north,
we stand. Breathe
in the sea air,
taste the
salt. And wait.
