A Poem a Day (64): Live

Another flash poem written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... kicking my lazy writing butt

Live

She made it sound so easy

A four-letter word

A small sound

Sweet in its escape

But a lie upon my wounds.

I can let it lie

Or I can let it die

I can let it fester in my hand –

These things sound so easy

These things I tell myself.

Secrets carried deep inside

Kept in the darkest places

Written in an unseen hand

Never to be read

Never to be spoken

Never to be heard –

These things taste bitter

Borne hard upon the breath.

So make it stop

He made it sound so easy

Another four-letter word

Harsher than the first

Darker than the void

Starker than the pit

In which he found himself –  

But to live was so heavy

And stop so light

That the sun hid itself.

You live, she said

In the corners of my mind

As she read the words aloud

And they listened

And they wept

And they stared down

Where the light couldn’t find

Any sanctuary to rest in

As they buried him
Deep within the ground.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 21, 2017

A poem a Day (63): The burst

Some flash poetry written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... 

The burst

I count the pages

Line the trees

Trace an outline with a pen

Twist the paper til it hurts

Feel the numbness in my hand.

These fingers do the walking

Back and forth and velvet tripping

The never and the ever

And the brilliance in between.

I can spend

I can feel

I can wave this thing called humane

Like a flag in light of something bright;

I can play the fiddle even, see I can,

Watch me smile, watch me cry

Let me paint it in my own particular way

Play this part

Make a sail

Tell the others I can take this boat away

Let me stray

Or let me stay

It’s an easy way to view this choice of mine.

Catch a plane

Hatch a plan

Escape the very things I seek to have –

Is that a thrill?

Am I a seeker?

Did I spill a clue to what I wish today?

Or did I hide it, conceal it, never to be read?

I turn the pages

Catch the light

Watch the drizzle of the ever-dying day

Like spreading ink it splatters into curls

Adrift upon this tide, so turning falls

Back upon itself and this night

As I count the pages

Tear each one out and cast away
The dreams I have yet to live.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 21, 2017

A poem a Day (62): Silence

Some poetry written for JD Mader's 2minutes go writing exercise... 

Silence

We’ll have nothing left here in the dark,

The cleft between spaces

Shaken in the middle of a sentence,

Left hanging with a hook

Unpicked.

As a fish struggles to unclasp its lip,

Blood splashes;

Words unshapen swim in the air

Unformed, only thought in a momentary

Glance you make,

Often seeing what you want to see,

Yet never noticing the essence

Of things, or me.

While the scales slither silver

And the living twitches its last breath,

I wonder at you,

Here, where we sit in the approaching

Darkness of our lies,

Stripped bare,

Pained upon a grated thing.

I wish to unravel it,

But all I can do is remove the hook

And throw this life back in the water

With a mercy

You used to have.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, July 21, 2017