A Poem a Day (496): Fissure

 
Fissure
 
Fear gets in your bones
like a fissure,
leaves you half the person,
an echo, a shadow.
 
Fear gets in your heart,
lodges in a safer place,
makes it harder to laugh,
harder to be you.
 
Fear makes each day
more precious still,
thinking it might be your last,
that the sun might not rise.
 
Fear is not your friend,
you’d rather it would leave,
but here it is, warning you
about the end.
 
Fear is someone watching you,
waiting for you to fall.
Your life isn’t what it was,
and can’t be now, at all.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 19, 2022
 
 
 

A Poem a Day (495): Snow

I've posted this poem on JD Mader's Unemployed Imagination website. He has a weekly weekend writing exercise called 2minutesgo - just show up and write whatever you like or read everyone's stories. This is the link: 2minutesgo. Cheers :)

 

Snow

White, crisp, nonchalant,
a pale, spreading gracefulness,
so quiet, death wrapped.
 
Feet crunch granuled ground,
sticking green sepia leaves
and twigs upended.
 
Small hands snug inside
red gloves bark a stark contrast.
Drops of blood on pearl.

Salt-sprinkled brown winged,
a robin flits, red-breasted,
making small slick jumps.
 
Snow silences all,
ices over the cold ground,
everything closes.
 
Only birds’ wings sound,
flapping amid falling flakes.
Blue-black magpie croaks.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 19, 2022

A Poem a Day (494): The visitors

This poem was written for JD Mader's Unemployed Imagination website. He has a weekly weekend writing exercise called 2minutesgo - just show up and write whatever you like or read everyone's stories. This is the link: 2minutesgo. Cheers :)

The visitors 

We sleep in other people’s beds,
try on misshapen shoes,
ill-fitting and wretched,
wonder where the walls end
and the outside creeps in.
 
The silent visitor just looks,
touches nothing, does not sit,
leaves no fingerprints or dust.
We’re not the type of intruder
who eats up all the porridge.
 
Our footprints don’t follow us,
our shadows cast no echo.
We are the silent visitors
who neither beg nor borrow,
just travelling through.

Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 13, 2022

A Poem a Day (493): Feline

This poem was written for JD Mader's Unemployed Imagination website. He has a writing group called 2minutesgo - just show up and write whatever you like or read everyone's stories. This is the link: 2minutesgo. Today I thought I'd write about a cat. Cheers :)

Feline
 
He came in and curled around my legs,
his warmth creating a seamless hug,
echoes of fog spiralling out
from his grey fur. Lounging. Left
to his own devices he purred,
oblivious to the human in his space.
 
In the morning his nose would meet mine
seconds before my alarm clock sounded.
It was his unique wake-up call, ensuring I
was up and serving his Highness promptly.
 
He brought me mice in the spring,
arranged in artful poses around his bowl.
In the summer it was delicate birds,
still and beautiful, imitating sleep.
 
The garden was his wild domain
and he guarded it like a dog.
He jumped the fence as deftly
as his arthritic legs allowed
to survey his kingdom, rain or shine,
tail twitching like a snake.
 
Copyright Vickie Johnstone, February 6, 2022