A Poem a Day (267): Bats

Anyone following my blog will know that my mum passed away on Wednesday, August 26. The worst part now is not being able to pick up the phone and speak to her. I feel this big empty space. My writing has veered between dark places and nothing, up and down. It has probably been a bit heavy and on the bleak side. So, even though it can be more interesting to write fiction about dark subjects and imagine characters in bad or surreal situations (I guess that is why some actors prefer to play bad guys cos you can take your imagination to crazy places), today I wrote about bats instead. Nature is a healing place. Have a cool Wednesday. 

 

Bats

 

Balancing the curve,

dark flits of striking wings

dip low to fan out,

riding the tugging wind.

 

A quiet bunch, so still,

hangs eerily suspended

like plastic on elastic,

but you can’t pull it back.

 

Looping under bridges,

a group swoops and soars

to surf the scooping air

on invisible boards.

 

Their invisible dances

exit on a haphazard line

of chattering, high-

pitched letters to the moon.

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 30, 2020

A Poem a Day (266): Even the moon

 

Even the moon

 

We talk of truth with a few select words,

Ring the promise of change for a bare fortune,

Climb passages of faded out purest light

Where escape is just a seconded paradise.

 

If you play it right you might reap something,

But the day is rich in substance born of scorn,

Of starlit flesh and a creeping, crawling like

You bring upon your back. December’s woes

 

Sigh under embers amid cracking ice floes,

But you’ll walk out upon it, this dead lake.

The deep freeze reflects your sympathies,

Each dark realm echoes your inner turmoil.

 

Invitations of empathy turn your heart black.

It’s an unresolved lesson, never fully heeded,

But I’ve remembered the decades walking back

And see how nothing changes. Even the moon.

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 29, 2020

A Poem a Day (265): Planets

 

Planets

 

The planets are humble tonight,

turning eyes to a blood-red moon

 

and all its superfluous ways.

A looping-out of happenstance,

 

the hills we stride, paths we take,            

silver-stitched in waves, a blanket

 

of multi-hue haphazard squares.

You can decide to strike it dumb,

 

this despair dripping out of you,

wearing you out from the inside.

 

Do you feel fettered in your skin?

We clear cupboards for pictures strewn

 

of kith and kin, and every act of sin

you pour out on your own small stage,  

 

speak of things turned insular and bare.

Kids race marbles that blink in the gutter,

 

peer into colours twisting as they slide.

Fortune will take a turn of the table,

 

separate silent strength from numbness,

under the glare of this struck-silver moon.           

 

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, September 28, 2020